If I did not have an SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act (a law meant to prevent Dalits from being harassed or victimized by non-Dalits in one form or the other) case filed against me a year and half ago in the nearest police station by my well-meaning Dalit student friends, merely because when in an official position, I attempted to prevent them from being deliberately provocative towards believing Hindus from communities other than the one to which they belonged, perhaps I would’ve been in a state of doubt.
The animosity and the viciousness with which caste-based agendas on either side of the divide are pursued and the basis of it being personal rather than political is what makes it an eye-opener to me. It also makes you wonder if a law should actually exist in its current form where someone is guilty even before he or she is able to prove himself/herself innocent even in a deeply casteist and sexist society like ours. It gives the oppressed a false sense of power without altering their real situation while it enables the more cunning ones to manipulate the law for personal gains.
The SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act must be used with caution and in situations where the occurrence of an “atrocity” could be clearly established. The tendency to use it as a weapon to threaten those who disagree with you is not only frivolous but also leads to questions with regard to the efficacy of the Act itself. Even as I write this piece, untold violence is being perpetrated against poor Dalits either because of their caste or class or usually both—because they do not have the means to fight back. They are the one who need this Act in order to use the state machinery to defend their lives and meager sources of survival. I’m surprised when an Act of this magnitude is used because I belong to a certain community and I need to be put on the defensive for that reason.
I’ve never been reminded so many times in my entire life as in the past three years by so-called “lower” caste students and sometimes “friends” (I say “so-called” because nothing says that they are “lower” than me in any sense of the term) that I belong to the “Reddy” community—a once-upon-a-time powerful landowning caste in Andhra Pradesh, though my parents themselves come from lower middle class backgrounds and were “modernized” to the extent that they saw the way out of a life of dependence and sycophancy through higher education. My parents are generous people who always supported minor opposition parties no matter what. Something of that tendency I’ve inculcated: this is that I always must take a marginal position, at times for its own sake. In fact I’m convinced that, that’s the one position worth defending if anything at all.
I exactly feel like how white liberals feel when confronted by black anger and suspicion with regard to their motives. The government’s agenda is a colonial one. It has to keep the castes divided and prevent them from uniting across class and gender lines which in fact is the only reality that matters. There is no reason to believe that all Dalits who make it to higher positions in the administration or the government are friends of the poor Dalits. Absolutely no basis whatsoever! The rich blacks are no friends of the poor blacks, either. There is no reason why reservations in jobs should be given to rich Dalits or to those who have benefited from it once, while there are millions of poor Dalits who need to be brought into the mainstream. Obviously this is not how the Dalit “haves” think. Like members of any other community they want more for themselves and their kith and kin. Why should they care for the have-not Dalits or any other have-nots for that matter!
The eminent historian Burton Stein in his remarkable A History of India (1998) makes the point taking the larger view of where India has failed as a nation owing to its communal politics; Stein uses the word “communal” in a broad sense to include “religious, linguistic and ethnic affiliations and loyalties.” The reality of casteism, whether among the upper castes or among the Dalits, has only benefited a small section of people while relegating the others to the backwaters. We continue talking about caste without addressing the need to end casteism. Let me quote Stein to make my point:
“The failure to free Indians from bigotry, poverty and oppression, after all the high hopes, ideals and claims, can make a half century of freedom from foreign rule appear ignoble. Community rhetoric, whether in linguistic or subnationalist, caste or Hindu-ness terms, has only increasingly served the classes that were formed by capitalism under colonial subjugation. The reasons for the failure to destroy communalism can be found in the use that was made of the ‘community’ idea by the colonial regime and its nationalist opponents alike. ‘Community’ was divested of its historic political, social, economic and cultural attributes in the course of the twentieth century; it remains a decorticated monstrosity, a husk of meaning, open to manipulation by conflicting groups and classes, most especially the godmen/politicians of the Indian petty bourgeoisie. The Indian nationalist movement chose not to contest class oppression; hence the ideal of ‘community,’ recast as ‘communalism,’ has become merely a rhetorical shell, though a flourishing one.”
Bigotry is not a privilege of the upper castes nor are Dalits in established positions incapable of it. Unfortunately supposedly serious activists in India—Dalit and otherwise—have this horrible tendency to tell the oppressed what they want to hear instead of making an effort to understand them and enter into a dialogue that could bring greater clarity on real issues. This habit of trying to make a constituency at the expense of truth which is the basis for real dialogue is a terrible thing. When Derrida talks about “difference” he means the ability not only to distinguish oneself from another but also the need to challenge preconceptions which is the basis of any ideology. It’s unethical to tell people what they want to hear. The cause of truth is furthered when you tell people what might be missing in their argument.
Gandhi says somewhere that a man who loves the truth has no friends. For all his numerous faults as a politician, if Gandhi is a Mahatma, it is because he stayed in that friendless position to the end of his life. Those who were nearest to him were often tired of his tendency to “autocratically” pursue the truth as he saw it. Therefore, Gandhi’s dissenters could accuse him of a lot of things but never of being untruthful. This is one of the reasons why Gandhi could maintain credibility until the end of his life, though more or less his career as a politician had come to an end at some point in the early 1930s. A real activist must be a friendless person in the Gandhian sense of the term and must adhere to some sense of truthfulness to oneself and to those around one.
It’s unfair to uncritically take the side of those who are in oppressed positions because you make it look like oppression is a static condition. This romanticizing of the downtrodden classes is a horrible thing. They are as human as the rest of us when it comes to using power for larger social goals or abusing power to serve private ends. In what way are Dalit leaders such as Mayawati or A. Raja representative of politicians who could be role models to those who belong to other communities or their own for that matter? Therefore caste cannot be an excuse for individuals to justify acts of omission or commission. We have to see individuals and groups for what they are and not for what claims they make about themselves. Casteism like racism is an evil whether it operates through the exclusivist thinking of the “upper” castes or the reverse casteism of the Dalits.
The oppressed have their elites and their opportunist agendas are clear as daylight. Is it fair that a civil servant or someone in a government position who has already benefited from the policy of reservations should continue to benefit from it through his children and grandchildren? I think it’s an unethical and dangerous thing that divides the nation and causes feelings of bitterness in others. We should work towards ending institutionalized inequalities along those lines as well. As much as I think that social justice is important I’m convinced that reservations that give more power to someone who is already a beneficiary of positive discrimination is doing injustice to the social order and the nation itself. The policy of reservation or affirmative action that I whole-heartedly endorse is that 50% of everything across the board, whether public or private, should be given to the poor and to women. That’s the way we can avoid a potential civil war in the making.
Prakash Kona is a writer, teacher and researcher who lives in Hyderabad, India. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at the Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad.
This is why I think the concept of “A People’s History” should be renamed “The Disenfranchised’s History” – meaning the history of those who find themselves deprived of rights at a particular historical moment and in particular historical circumstances. Such a renaming would lead to a rethinking of the whole concept of “people.” We left-leaning thinkers tend to think of “people” as a monolith. A nice, benevolent, loving monolith, only eager for social justice for everyone. This is, of course, nonsense. People are nothing of the sort. When once a particular group gets the opportunity, its members can transform from disenfranchised to disenfranchisers with astonishing – and instructive – speed. As an Indian woman, I support the rights of all women to full and equal treatment – and I also admit that women are just as human, and therefore just as likely as men to abuse power (not empowerment, but power) when we get it. This seems to be true of most human beings when they have illegitimate, unjust power over their fellows. Dalits, by very virtue of their equal – and fallible – humanity – need be no exception to the rule. Mamata Banerjee’s remark that a woman who complained of rape in West Bengal was not to be believed is another case in point.
There is no getting away, it seems, from the beauties of human nature – be that nature expressed in a Dalit, Brahmin, European, Indian or African self.
“My parents are generous people who always supported minor opposition parties no matter what.” Implication – MY parents aren’t casteist. The same claim made by so many European/Euro-American liberals – MY family isn’t racist, never was – somehow, it’s always the others. By the way, what would your parents’ reaction have been if you had wanted to marry a girl from the lowest caste – say, the caste that traditionally cleans latrines? Would they have welcomed her with open arms? If so, they must be some of the most remarkable – and rare – Indians ever. Or would, perchance, their liberalism have sprung a bit of a leak? Their generosity dried up just a trifle?
The whole, unvarnished truth, please – Gandhi style. I’m sure you would be the first to agree that honest criticism, like charity, must begin at home – else neither is worth very much.
In summary you are saying: Marry the woman who cleans latrines and then neither I nor my parents are casteists.
Seriously speaking: already you are assuming that cleaning latrines is something dirty and degrading. You are also assuming that a woman who cleans latrines is somehow less worthy of the love and respect that any woman would expect in a marriage. I’m sorry, but the pathetic example betrays your own casteist feelings. Just because someone cleans latrines it doesn’t mean he or she cannot be beautiful, intelligent or lovable. Or that they are incapable of nobler emotions.
Merely marrying some poor exploited woman to prove that you’re not a casteist (while that’s exactly what you might be escaping from: the truth about yourself) is not the answer to the horrendous social injustice that women in general and Dalit women experience in this country.
What Dalit women are expecting is not for some “upper” caste family or man to take pity on them by asking for their hand in marriage. They are more intelligent and self-respecting than that. It’s not only I or my parents who should have a choice. Even that woman who cleans latrines is entitled to one. She also deserves to be asked, if I am worthy of being her partner.
Please don’t reduce the seriousness of the argument I’m trying to make by making petty insinuations about people you have never met in your life.
Charity must being in your mind and conscience before it begins at home. Cleaning latrines is not an intrinsically unclean thing. Those who clean latrines are not enjoying it either. It is a social and economic condition that has put them there. That’s what needs to be challenged. We need to realize that this purity – pollution thing is utter nonsense. More importantly, you can be sure that most of those poor women who are condemned to clean latrines, would in a different social setup, be doctors, engineers, scientists or great artists. There is no reason for you to believe otherwise.
“In summary you are saying: Marry the woman who cleans latrines and then neither I nor my parents are casteists.” Ummm… no, I am not.
“Seriously speaking: already you are assuming that cleaning latrines is something dirty and degrading.” Er… seriously speaking, no, I am not. What I asked is what your parents’s reaction would be if you happened to fall in love with a woman from that caste. Mine, if my son did, would to be ask if he loved her and if she was a good person (as it would be if she was royalty, or middle-class, or Swedish, or Ghanaian, or anybody at all.)
Nice deflection though. This is exactly the kind of deflection Euro-American liberals indulge in, here, when called on their hidden racism.
I fear your Dalit “friends” (that kind of reminds me, again, of the Euro-American talking about her black “friends”) do have a point about your attitude towards Dalits and your denial about said attitude. I do not support using the Atrocities Act to silence you, obviously, but if I were a Dalit, yes, I’d be dubious about your motives, as you have yet to show the courage to be honest about the depth and spread of casteist feeling in India, and in your own family, and instead resort to deflectory assumptions and red herrings when asked to come clean. As a non-Dalit, I’m dubious, too.
The only reason you are making personal comments against me and my family is because you have nothing substantial to add or minus to the article I’ve written.
And when I counter you where I am sure you are a casteist and a bit of a sexist you say that I’m a liberal and a racist. If you have nothing to say you can do yourself a favor by keeping quiet. Speak for yourself and your family! Why are you speaking about mine! Frankly I’ve no interest in what caste you belong to or other personal details like whether you are a Dalit or not a Dalit. You don’t have to waste you time telling me that.
i just don’t think you have a right to call me names and attribute motives to me based on your zero knowledge of me as a person. I sincerely hope that you will not insist on doing that because that is not what this space is meant for.
While there is not denying the fact that caste based discourse appears both pervasively as well as decisively in most of issues pertaining to the ‘social’ and ‘political’, and rightly so owing to the vexed history of postcolonial India, one cannot but feel being against a wall while looking to qualify laws like the one in question here.
The point I intend to make emanates from the critical and yet more often than not a passive treatment of ‘history’ that we encounter in the arguments forwarded to reason the perceived injustice meted out, whether to one belonging to the lower caste or otherwise. In an attempt to clarify your position within the social dynamic your argument largely straddles two different poles, i.e. an understanding of history where class is the central category and the other where caste is the defining category of Indian society, and one can also add gender, though seemingly not pivotal in the current discussion.
In other words, what I mean by a passive treatment is an uneven and almost an opportunistic appreciation of history. The history of the colonial India as an ethnographic state did contribute toward essentialising the categories of the Indian populace, nevertheless, the phenomenon of caste as it exists today has acquired its charge from other nodes too.
My objection/submission to few of your arguments would be as such
“I’ve never been reminded so many times in my entire life as in the past three years by so-called “lower” caste students and sometimes “friends” (I say “so-called” because nothing says that they are “lower” than me in any sense of the term)…”
Though it may look resounding to collate the oppression suffered by those on account of race, a bodily inscription and as much historical, with that of caste, which is again both rooted in physiognomy as the colonialists had it and discursive which involves recounting of history by the oppressed, it becomes pertinent to ask how can a class based reasoning as made by you to assert parity, if not superiority, convince someone belonging to lower caste since the terms of identities invoked are situated in diverse worlds? The attempt to overturn the entire discourse on its head and articulate it in terms of class can only widen the antagonism. The difficulty or a possibility of arriving at a mutual understanding again lies on the value placed on history. A lower caste person can deservedly narrate the cumulative history, which can be selective too, to bring out the state of his/her being on the ‘lower’ side and it can also counter your tirade against the benefits accrued by subsequent generations of lower caste families. You seek to further assert the same in the following statements where the idea of describing “what they are” sounds too removed from the actual terms of the caste discourse though this is in no way to suggest your unawareness of the same. The idea of modernisation and its effect of caste is very well clear to us as it has unfolded in the last 65 years in the political sphere.
“The government’s agenda is a colonial one. It has to keep the castes divided and prevent them from uniting across class and gender lines which in fact is the only reality that matters.”
” We have to see individuals and groups for what they are and not for what claims they make about themselves.”
The quest for justice should certainly be based on the grounds of fairness and not on an assumption which begins with a propensity of pronouncing guilt merely on the idea of a certain caste or class. I also get a implied while reading your piece that it suggests a predicament borne out of a lack of a third position or a lack of language where one can express genuine anguish without taking recourse to positions which only end up sounding either anti-caste or self-flagellatory. This also insinuates a perspective on caste based discourse which blights more important issues but I think it is a misplaced opinion that communities in India are today divested of their historical understanding or else it would be difficult to account for the progress various oppressed groups have made through constitutional means of the similar grounds.
Thank you, these are few of my observations as a way of partaking in the discussion.
“The difficulty or a possibility of arriving at a mutual understanding again lies on the value placed on history. A lower caste person can deservedly narrate the cumulative history, which can be selective too, to bring out the state of his/her being on the ‘lower’ side and it can also counter your tirade against the benefits accrued by subsequent generations of lower caste families.”
Don’t worry. I thought about it along these lines as well. The debate is much bigger than what is possible within the space of a short article. But, I couldn’t more agree with what you have to say. Thanks.
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