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Striving for social justice

By Ram Puniyani

The rise of Hindutva politics is the reassertion of pre-modern hierarchies... the main point being to push back any gains in the process of social transformation.

SEVENTY-FIVE years after B. R. Ambedkar led his Dalit colleagues to Chavdar Talab in Mahad to claim access to drinking water and was greeted with stones while returning, matters do not seem to have changed much in some places of the country. This stark truth dawned upon the Dalits of Chakwada village, Rajasthan, when they planned to take out a "sadbhavana yatra" to expose caste discrimination. The Dalits of Chakwada, to this day barred from bathing at the public pond or entry to Hindu temples, planned a march from Chaksu to Chakwada to challenge the oppression of the Hindu upper castes. As news about the yatra spread, the upper castes started forming illegal assemblies near the pond and blocked access to the venue.

The journey of the Dalits' quest for social equality, which began with the movements initiated by Jyotirao Phule, has traversed a long and painful path. Their strongest articulation came during the lifetime of Ambedkar. His Chavdar Talab agitation, Kalram Mandir entry effort and burning of the Manusmriti are the three major landmarks in this arduous task, which apparently remains incomplete till date. The denial of these "identity related practices" is the surface phenomenon hiding the deeper deprivation of justice to these "children of a lesser god", the failure of land reforms and the persistence of Brahminical values in society. During the freedom struggle, Ambedkar's emphasis on issues related to social justice forced the leaders of the national movement to take these up as part of the agenda associated with the main demand for unshackling the country from the chains of colonialism. It was no coincidence that Gandhi, who had some differences with him on the issue of a separate electorate, suggested Ambedkar's name to head the committee to draft the Constitution.

With Nehru in the lead after Independence, the national policy was geared towards land reforms and heavy industrialisation (public sector). The latter ensured the policy of reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The rapid industrialisation and reservation policies ensured a change and Dalits began entering the industrial, urban arenas and Government services in large numbers. But things were not as simple. Apart from the public sector and Government jobs, most other avenues remained closed for them. Even in the implementation of the reservation policy, many subtle hurdles were placed with the result that the desired results could not be achieved. Land reforms were brought in bits and pieces and the goal of land to the tiller remained a distant dream. The `benami' subterfuge ensured that the land remained in the hands of an elite few and their close relatives. Dadasaheb Giakwad led a massive movement for land rights but the results were far from satisfactory.

The efforts of the naxalites in the late 1970s were, in a way, aimed at bringing the issue of land rights to the fore. But, neither that movement nor other groups could back it up. The result was the failure of the goal of land to the tiller. Even the potential rebellion of Dalit Panthers was co-opted by the highly efficient upper caste formations, which have been guarding their privileges irrespective of the Government in power. It also saw the emergence of groups such as the Ranvir Sena whose sole aim was to suppress the rights of the Dalits, who were becoming more and more aware about them. With the coming of globalisation and the decline of the public sector, the earlier spaces available for Dalits began shrinking. The closure of industrial units played havoc with the employment scenario of the populace as a whole and of the Dalits in particular.

From the 1980s, the Nehru-Ambedkar (industrialisation plus efforts for social justice) policies started caving in and new social phenomena began setting the clock of social development back. The rise of the Hindu Right was the most concentrated expression of opposition to the possibility of social transformation of caste and of gender. The social space, which till the 1980s had some place for the problems related to `this world', started getting sidetracked and the issues of temple and mosque were thrust upon an unsuspecting society. The core political agenda of this change of track was to curtail the development of the deprived sections of society.

The first symptoms of the upper castes' discomfort with the Dalits' rise came in the form of the anti-reservation riots in Gujarat, first in 1980 and then in 1985. It is no coincidence that the Hindutva agenda started its upward journey precisely during this phase and appeals on behalf of Lord Ram started becoming more assertive to begin with and more aggressive in due course. The clever ploy employed was to change the terrain of the battle. Instead of snubbing the Dalits, an enemy was manufactured first among the Muslims and then among the Christians, and sections of Dalits began getting co-opted into the Hindutva stream. Implementation of the Mandal Commission's recommendations demonstrated this clearly. The counter-reaction of the upper castes, which was picking up momentum through various Yatras, transformed itself into a huge avalanche, resulting in the `success' of L. K. Advani's Rath Yatra, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the anti-Muslim pogroms of 1992-93.

With the rising assertion of Hindu Rashtra politics, the transformation towards social equality has become a distant dream. It appears as if the whole flow of the current has been frozen in space and time. The Dalits in the villages suffer not only the pangs of hunger but all social deprivations. Untouchability, the curse of our society, persists in vast masses of villages. In Dalit bastis in the urban centres, unemployment is worse. In such a situation, the identity politics being imposed by the RSS is playing havoc with the issues of bread and butter, housing and clothing, which have been relegated to the background. Atrocities against Dalit women persist and many a time are used as tools to punish those who `dare' raise their voice to get justice in society. The Human Rights watch report points out: "More than one-sixth of India's population, some 160 million people, live a precarious existence, shunned by much of society because of their rank as `untouchables' or Dalits — literally meaning `broken-people' at the bottom of India's caste system. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused at the hands of police and higher-caste groups that enjoy the state's protection. In what has been called India's apartheid, entire villages in many Indian States remain completely segregated by caste. National legislation and the Constitution serve only to mask the social realities of discrimination and violence faced by those living below "pollution line" (From Broken People, Page 2, Human Rights Watch, 1999).

The figures of atrocities against Dalits also point to a rise in the pattern. Murders, grievous hurt, rape and other crimes all show close to a three-fold rise during the last decade and a half. It seems that though Manu's edicts do not rule in an uncompromising way today, the fact is that Manusmriti prevails in a subtle, yet highly concentrated way. The prevalent contradictions at one level are a carry forward from the past; at another, they continue because of the `weakness' of our freedom struggle, which could not sidetrack the powers of the `pre-modern' social forces of zamindari and clergy. In many countries, the end of the `feudal-serf' relationship, a relegation of clergy to the backyards of society did bring in the modern values of liberty, equality and fraternity. The rise of Hindutva politics is the reassertion of pre-modern hierarchies laced in the modern language of glorious tradition and ultra-nationalism, the main point being to push back any gains in the process of social transformation during the decades of the 1950s to the 1980s.

(The writer works for EKTA, Committee for Communal Amity, Mumbai.)

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