The Hindu : A Dalit village's struggle to vote

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

National

National - Elections 2004

A Dalit village's struggle to vote

Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

Saratua, Bihar

The polling day in the Arah constituency of Bihar has a special significance for the 400-odd Dalit voters of Saratua village in Bhojpur district. For the first time, the polling process will be overseen by a man belonging to their community, the Dalit "mukhiya" (elected panchayat president) Rajeshwar Ram.

"It is indeed a red letter day for us. Who would have imagined that a day would come when our own man will give suggestions and directions as to how elections should be conducted," says 60-year-old Ram Bhawan, unable to hide his excitement. For Ram Bhawan and hundreds of fellow Dalits in Saratua, the very act of voting symbolises the struggle against an oppressive social order. In a sense, Mr. Bhawan says, voting is the ultimate expression of living with human dignity.

Rajeshwar Ram, the only Dalit "mukhiya" in the 228 panchayats of Bhojpur district, tries to encapsulate this story of winning voting rights in one sentence: "Saalon tak ladna pada, bahut maar peet jhela, kuch logon ko maarna bhi pada, lekin vote ka adhikaar hum ley hi liya." (We had to struggle for several years and go through severe physical assaults, we also had to beat up some people, but we did win the right to vote).

Informal estimates say that Dalit communities, including Rajeshwar Ram's Musahars (the `Dalitest' of Dalits according to some political observers); Paswans and Chamars comprise close to 50 per cent of the village population. Upper caste Thakurs comprise 30 to 35 per cent and other communities such as Yadavs and Muslims add up to about 15 per cent. For decades after the first Lok Sabha election in 1952, this Dalit majority was forcibly barred from exercising its fundamental, constitutional right of franchise.

Fifty-year-old washerman Verma Vishnu `Dhobi' has personal memories of the days of prohibition and how he and his friends struggled to overcome this. "When I first tried to vote some 30 years ago, I was told by them (the upper caste leaders of the village) that I and other members of my community did not have votes. We realised later that they were casting our votes for their candidate. Then we resolved that we would cast our votes. Initially, we used to go to the polling booth only to be beaten up and were forced to run away. But our resolve grew stronger with each election and we started reacting to their physical assaults in their own coin. I have been voting without getting beaten up in the last four elections (which include both Assembly and Lok Sabha polls) since 1996."

Verma and Bhawan are confident that their grandchildren will not go through a similar experience, though their children have shared some of their hardship. "Now, we are organised and know about our rights and want to have a better future," they say. The organisation both Verma and Bhawan bestow faith in is the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) better known as "Maaley" (ML in Hindi) in Bihar.

The struggle of the Dalits in Bhojpur district to obtain voting rights and thus assert their social rights has been on for over 20 years now. According to "mukhiya" Rajeshwar Ram, an activist of the CPI(ML), the violence associated with the struggle reached its peak with the massacre of 15 Dalits in Danver Baitha. It took place on November 24 1989, on the polling day during the Lok Sabha elections that year. The Dalits were massacred even as some of them were trying to vote in defiance of the diktats of some upper and intermediate caste organisations.

The period after the incident was marked by a series of clashes between militant outfits of upper castes and intermediate castes on the one side and Dalits, led mainly by the CPI (ML), on the other. Saratua was no exception. The village witnessed one such pitched battle that went on for three days in 1990. "That was where our journey to success really started," says "mukhiya" Ram. The clashes continued in fits and starts for several years and in 1995, six Dalits were killed by the upper caste Ranvir Sena. But at the end of it all, Saratua has a Dalit Mukhiya who won the 2001 panchayat elections with a majority of 28 votes.

Still, some Dalits cower at the sight of upper caste members who expect them to show fear and reverence. "Such people are a shrinking minority, but there can be no doubt that it is not yet time for us to rest," says Rajeshwar Ram.

And, of course, April 20 should mark one more milestone in Saratua's social expedition.

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