rise of the dalits and the renewed debate on caste

8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste

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Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste

Author(s): Rajni Kothari

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Vol. 29, No. 26 (Jun. 25, 1994), pp. 1589-1594Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4401398Accessed: 10-05-2016 04:50 UTC

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SPECIAL ARTICLES

Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed

Debate on Caste

Rajni Kothari

For long consciousness of caste was the preserve of the brahminic upper castes. Today something quite different

is happening: the very sufferers from the system (including the caste system) are invoking caste identity and claims.

Of course, as there is no clear and well-thought-out ideologicalframework that is relevant to undertaking these

new, struggles, co-optation and buying up, divide and rule by the dominant class or party continues.

But it appears from a variety of indications that the process has started and there is need to provide fresh impetus

and intellectual understanding backed by political action based on new models of coalition-making that cut across

the wide array of deprived and oppressed social strata.

WE are in the middle of a new debate on

the age-old issue of caste in a radically

changed historical setting both at home and

globally. It is a setting of growing human

iniquity and widening social chasms within

and across nations. But, more pertinently,

it has been gradually dawning on us that the

various ideological models of dealing with

oppression of the poor and discriminated

sections of society, protecting their freedom

anddignity and their sheersurvival as human

beings and communities, have proved not

just inadequate but by and large irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the new thinking on economic

development is going to exacerbate the

situation.

Acts of brutality and terror continue to

be part of the atrocities perpetuated on the

dalits and other lower classes, the more so

the more they become conscious of their

rights and begin to assert themselves. Entire

communities are found to be in deep turmoil,

face constant humiliation and growing

erosion of their identity and sense of being

part of civil society, the nation and the state.

Ever so often we hear ghastly tales of these

atrocities taking place in one or another part

of the country. The police, the political

parties, the bureaucrats in charge are always

found to arrive late on the sceneof rampage.

Then follow the journalists and the

photographers, the lawyers and the human

rights activists. The ministers and the chief

ministers arrive still later and, so that the

political mileage is not lost, the prime minister

follows suit in a quick helicopter ride. A

commission of inquiry is soon announced,

compensation for the families of the dead

is widely broadcast and in the meanwhile

we are told that it was all the work of some

'anti-social elements' and opposition parties

and groups. This sequence has now become

a routine in the relationship of the mainstream

Indian polity with the poor and the oppressed.

The long-held assumption that as the

project of nation-building gets under way

and democratic rights are extended to the

people, that as the development process also

gets under way and more and more people

and communities benefit from it all and the

sources of poverty, unemployment and

human misery are eliminated, and that as the

productive forces get unfolded and the

dialectic of history gets working, there will

be no need for 'parochial' structures of caste,

community, tribe and various feudal vestiges

and that people will enter into new

relationships of a more secular and political

kind. These assumptions have since been

belied. As we think backwards and examine

our record on the promises that were held

out by the system and the dominant ideology

of 'development' to the poor and the

oppressed peoples, in which incidentally the

people themselves had reposed a lot of faith,

we are struck by our incapacity and our

growing powerlessness before the vested

interests that have acted in concert to take

the system in completely different directions.

It seems to me that there are two main

reasons for this. First, the very agenda of

democratic national building and social

transformation has not been carried through.

A'nd, second, we are' finding that Indian

reality is proving too complex and ridden

with deep divisions and paradoxes which are

proving unamenable to traditional analysis

and ideological interpretations. Over time,

after showing a lot of patienice and

forbearance, the people are losing faith and

are coming to the conclusion that they might

have to fend for themselves. This is not to

be regretted for the essence of the democratic

process is that people come into their own

and not wait endlessly for the state or the

political parti es to make things better for

them

It is against this background that the newly

exploding caste identity and consciousness

needs to be viewed. For long consciousness

of caste was the preserve of the brahminic

uppercastes. Today something quite different

is happening: the very sufferers from the

system (including the caste system) are

invoking caste identity and claims. Precisely

those who should seek obliteration of the

divisions and disparities that characterise

the deeply hierarchical nature of the caste

system are found to use it the most, still

hoping to undermine it by undertaking basic

transformation in the social order, defeating

the forces of communalism and fascism, and

do precisely what the larger secular order

has failed to provide: a society free of

exploitation and oppression and indignities.

No doubt, the more such assertion takes

place, the more the backlash from the upper

castes and the well-to-do who find this rise

of the masses intolerable and something

they have never been used to and the more

the efforts to divide, confuse and co-opt the

forces of change. As there is no clear and

well-thought-out ideological framework that

is relevant to undertaking these new struggles,

the processes of co-optation and buying up,

of divide and rule, by the dominant class or

party continues. We are nowhere near the

end or even the glimpses of an-end to iniquity

and exploitation. But it appears from a variety

of indications that the process has started

and there is need to provide fresh impetus

and intellectual understanding backed by

political action based new on models of

coalition-making that cut across the wide

array of deprived and oppressed social strata.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF NEW

UPSURGE OF CASTE

Given this overall statementof the problem,

let me now turn to a somewhat detailed

consideration of the theoretical and political

issues involved in the whole debate on caste

and its role in social transformation. In the

mindless drift from a pursuit of consensus

out of a highly diverse and plural set of

interests and identities to polarisation that

threatens to undermine it all and from

insistence on national self-reliance and

sovereignty to integration into the world

market the entire social and cultural terrain

Economc and Political Wekly June 25 1994 1589



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have been thrown into turmoil. It has thrown

the balance between the traditional civil

society and the modern state into jeopardy,

moving away from the earlier 'fit' between

social diversity and democratic institutions'

to a-growing lack of fit between the two

arising out of aggressive social and

ideological assertions based on majoritarian

claims of a hypothetical community

(claiming to be a 'religion') and throwing

the political system that was designed to be

multi-centred, multi-ethnic and multi-caste

out of gear. In the process the state itself has

become at once more centralised and more

oppressive, especially vis-a-vis the deprived,

the weak, the marginalised (both traditionally

marginalised and newly marginalised) and

the victimised sections of society.

Yet, during the same period (especially in

the last few years), given their disappointment

with the Indian state on which they had

relied so much for ending their states of

oppression and discrimination-and still

do-the poorer and socially marginalised

sections, including the ethnic and religious

minorities, have started seeking out their

own futures on the basis of their own identities

and numbers. This has led to a mobilisation

based on caste, sub-caste (including withifl

religious minorities), tribe, ethno-regional

and such other identities.

Both mainstream intellectuals and

mainstream political response to such social

churning based on caste and caste-like

identities have been at best ambivalent and

at worst hostile and contemptuous. In India

caste has continued to baffle and bewilder

observers, both Indian and non-Indian. As

a social phenomenon it is considered strange

and intriguing even among inhabitants of

the land for whom caste and the 'caste system'

have had a long pedigree and have been the

source of both identities and animosities,

both horizontal alignments and vertical

exploitation and oppression. This may not

be so for the mass of the people but is

certainly the case with the more educated

middle classes including the ruling elite

whose business it should be to understand

and recognise the social terrain over which

it presides. On the contrary, there is utter

confusion. Semantically and ideologically

'casteism' is considered to be at least at par

with 'communalism' if not worse. (Many

who have been attracted to the communal

overtones of Hindutva are against caste

raising its head to register old or new claims

on the system.2) This growing politicisation

of caste is found to be even mnore

disconcerting with the changed focus of

claims and demands on the part of those who

press their caste identities: from economic

advancement to social status and political

power. The pluralism that has all along been

there and has been accepted as inherent to

the Indian social terrain is now being

expressed in an upsurge of equity and social

justice, not as a result of state policy but as

a matter of right, hence sought to be acquired

through access to state power. The traditional

liberal view of pluralism is now being

countered by a more radical interpretation

of it

CASTE AND STRUGGLE AGAINST OPPRESSION

In this upsurge the struggle for social

justice is found to move beyond the logic

of class or of socialismn and thus also

constitutes a major challenge to both the

politics of the Left and the politics of what

are known as the 'new social movements'

alongside being a challenge to the Nehruvi an

perspective that has guided the post-

independence elite's thinking on social

change, economic development, modernisa-

tion, secularism, modern education and

electoral democracy all of which were

supposed to move the country towards a

progressive, non-hierarchical, non-segmental,

'open society'. It is a challenge that is

beginning to put on the defensive a large

cross-section of individuals and institutions

that were hitherto engaged in the task of

'nation-building' and the building of a

'secular' society. For most of them caste

continues to be an anachronism. That caste

and caste identity can, under certain

circumstances, prove to be secular for the

political process and is able to counter

communal parties and ideologies is

unacceptable to most of them. When I had

argued such a case following the adoption

of the. Mandal Commission Report by the

National Front government, leading

sociologists of thecountry had expressed

strong disagreement with me.3 I continue to

hold that position. For me caste can be

oppressive but it can also provide a basis

for struggle against oppression. It can at

once be a-traditionaliser and a moderniser.

It has the potentiality of being a two-pronged

catalyst: as purveyor of collective identity

and annihilator of the same hierarchical order

from which the collective identity is drawn.

Furthermore, certain types of caste

mobilisation are also pitched against

communalism of the religious sectarian type,

hence my characterisation of it as a 'secular

upsurge against which the eminent

sociologists had expressed their

disagreement.

It all depends on the activisation and

deepening (as against stagnation and flatten-

ing or regression) of the democratic process.

It was argued very early by M N Srinivas

and others that with the coming of democracy

caste got a new lease of life. This is being

said now with much greater vehemence. The

point is that caste does resurface as a result

of the democratic process but in its

resurfacing it gets transformed. Indeed, one

can argue that 'casteism in politics' is an

agenda for the very transformation of the

caste system. I had developed this view at

some length in an earlier work, published

as far back as 1970,4 where I had argued that

casteism in politics is no more and no less

than politicisation of caste which, in turn,

leads to a transformation of the caste system.

This happened both structurally and

ideologically. Within the social structure of

caste a whole variety of new alignments took

place which undermined the rigidity of the

system-both the splitting and the federating

of caste, along secular political lines, enabling

them to bargain with political parties and

adopt organisational forms in keeping with

the demands of the latter.5 Ideologically

there took place a basic shift from hierarchy

to plurality, from ordained status to

negotiated positions of power, from ritual

definitions of roles and positions to civic and

political definitions of the same.

Of course, as already hinted, in the post-

independence period various efforts have

been made to reduce the potency of caste

in the social process and in time eliminate

it from the operation of the same. These

efforts have not succeeded. Part of this effort

is based on the idea that as secularism will

undermine communal and religious identities

it will undermine caste identities as well or,

as held by some others, as class consciousness

grows, caste consciousness will decline. Or

that with 'equality' of access and opportunity

people will be drawn out of their caste and

creed and other traditional identities into the

modern sector, that modern education will

make them part of a single and homogeneous

middle class and that a new conception of

unity based on national identity will emerge.

As this happens both communalism based

on religious assertions and casteism based

on traditional identities of both 'varna' and

'jati' type will simultaneously go under.

This pairing of 'caste' and 'communalism'

has been most misleading and tends to confuse

the persistence of plural identities with

attempted polarisation. The term 'communal

identity' can itself take two wholly opposite

forms-identity giving and identity eroding,

subjugating and eradicating-just as

'community' can have distinct meanings. It

can be used in the macro all-encompassing

form of polarising comniunities or in micro

pluralising form as has all along been the

case on the ground in rural India (the former

meaning has acquired some sway only of

late). With the entry of the democratic

political process the pluralistic micro

perspective took precedence over the

polarising macro attempt that was carried

over by some from pre-partition days and

in the meanwhile the diverse micro processes

added up to a new macro structure of society-

politics interaction-until the old macro view

reverberated with a bang after the challenge

thrown to it by the Mandal phenomenon.'

More recently, the polarising thrust has

received a setback following the state

1590 Economc and Political Weky June 25 1994



4/7

elections in 1993 and there seems to be a

sigh of relief among secular parties and

intellectuals; it seems that the Indian polity

has an inherent capacity to contain extremities

and polar positions when these are

overstretched, a sort of refusal to get into

a dark alley or an abyss of total destruction.

But whether the forces of Hindutva have

been rolled back for good is by no means

clear. Nor is there any clue as to what will

take its place. It should also be remembered

that it was not the parties or the intellectuals

who rolled it back but rather a large upsurge

of both consciousness and political assertion

on the part of the dalit masses on the one

hand and the Muslim middle level leadership

in UP on the other. It is also not clear as

to who will be the net beneficiary. Will it

not be the same old story of others doing

the mobilisation-dissident movements,

grass roots organisations and a section of the

opposition-and the old status quo Congress

Party gettingthe benefit of it all, putting both

the major adversary (in this case the BJP)

and the new social forces (in this case the

dalit and other lower castes) on the margins.

Already, the new government in UP is

dependent on the Congress for its survival

in office.

This process is still under way and has of

late received new social inputs. It is a highly

complex and turbulent process. While there

is no doubt that both commualism and the

caste system pose dangers to the democratic

polity, they are quite distinct from each other

and in the case of caste, can be used in

support of secularising and democratising

movements. The two can of course combine;

the worst of communalism and the worst of

caste oppression can converge, the former

undermining plurality and diversity and the

basic democratic vision of the society while

the latter providing new leases of life to the

brahminic social order the essence of which

is contempt for the labouring classes and for

labour as such, especially for the most

arduous and demeaning kinds, the ultimate

logic of which has been the phenomenon

of untouchability (arising out of the basic

dichotomy between the brahmin, the

dispenser of knowledge, and the sudra, the

bearer of all variety of physical labour).

There are also inherent limits to the

pluralism represented by the caste system.

Pluralism can be as exploitative as other-

regarding and ameliorative. Plurality can be

hierarchised, instilled with animus, brutalised.

When this is combined with economic

deprivation and traditional attitudes of social

pollution it can reinforce the impacts of

corporate capitalism and bureaucratic

hegemonism, and produce a world in which

millions are excluded, and made dispensable.7

In the process the dalits and other seemingly

upward mobile castes can be marginalised.

Alongside.proletarianisation and general

pauperisation can also take place dalitisation

of the entire social terrain below the

privileged upper castes.

Which way the phenomenon of caste will

take Indian society it may be too early to

say. Much will depend on the vitality as

against erosion of the democratic process,

of the ability of the intellectuals to impart

social -eontent to the development process

and the extent to which the growing

convergence between the forces of

privatisation and globalisation and the

theology of a religious monolith represented

by Hindutva can be contained. But whichever

way it goes, there is no gainsaying the

importance of caste in the social process in

the coming decades.

IMPORTANCE OF CASTE IN THE SOCIAL PROCESS

This is important to grasp as on the one

hand almost the entire spectrum of secular

striving, from the liberal to the radical, has

ruled out caste and caste identity as part of

the transformative process while on the other

hand there is emerging a new caste

consciousness (sometimes dubbed as caste-

class) which is finding the traditional secular

approach to social transformation as wanting

and in effect leaving the truly deprived and

destitute social strata, the dalits in particular

but other backward castes too, out of the

purview of state power, and arguing for a

new form of radicalism based on the assertion

and the claims of these castes. The secular

forces have been expressed in three streams:

the liberal democratic state operating through

the institutions of parliamentary democracy

and the legal framework of the Constitution

which laid down people's rights and the

principles of equality and non-discrimination

on grounds of caste or creed but provided

no institutional mechanisms for realising the

same, also no clear social-as opposed to

formally-legal and political-prescriptions;

the social movements (often called the new

social movements) that arose to demand

fulfilment of these rights but also failed

being too fragmented and lacking in real

transformative quality; and the traditional

Left (both parties and intellectuals, of both

Marxist and Leninist-Maoist variety) which

also lacked in a clear social agenda beyond

the traditional highly simplistic bourgeois-

petty bourgeois-kulak-proletariat depiction

of a highly complex indigenous reality and

failed to give to the dalits, the backwards

and other oppressed social strata a position

in their own organisational structures. I have

-said enough on the mainstream liberal

democratic system's failures above and

enough is known about it any way. In what

follows I shall deal with the othertwo secular

efforts-the social movements (often called

new social movements) and the ideological

Left

As I see it nearly all new social

movements' have emerged as correctives to

new maladies-environmental degradation,

violation of the status of women, destruction

of tribal cultures and the undermining of

human rights-none of which are in and by

themselves transformative of the social order.

They are in that way quite different from

revolutionary ideologies of the past. But

their basic weakness lies in their beiiig so

heavily fr-agmented. In this they are not any

different from earlier attempts at social

change or from the nature of party politics

that we have had. Fragmentation that is short

of total disintegration has been the hallmark

of Indian society. That it is partly based on

the very pluralism of Indian society which

allows it to 'hold' may be true but that it

constantly debilitates the entire social process

is equally true. Nations that have split as a

result of'determined polarisation have had

to go through traumas of violence and warfare

but have not at the end come out badly, not

worse anyway than steady erosion which too

entail a lot of violence and a whole series

of micro civil wars and secessionist

movements. Add to this state of

fragmentation a high degree of passivity-

cum-quiescence-cum-confirmity on the part

of large sections of the people, and the result

is a virtual state of sterility and stupor which

is however riven with deep tension, distress

and multiple polarities. A large part of the

space occupied by the new social movements

seems to be suffering from these various

chafacteristics which have prevented them

from being relevant to the truly oppressed

and the poor in the form of a solid unified

movement of the people. They are too

fragmented, reactive, ad hocish, providing

no comprehensive framework of basic social

change. Their being anti this or that (anti-

west, anti-capitalist,' anti-development, etc)

does not make them any more coherent, any

more relevant to oppressed and peripheralised

communities.

NEW 'DALIT' MOVEMENT

It is against this growing irrelevance of

various grass roots movements that the new

'dalit' movement in India is emerging, or

seems like emerging. The dalit consciousness

is by no means limited to the scheduled

castes. It has begun to symbolise a much

broader spectre of the oppressed and hitherto

excluded social strata. It is based on an

attempted though by no means still realised

solidarity of the poor and the discriminated

classes of the people, long held back and

frustrated, its leadership divided and bought

over, distanced from the masses and co-

opted within the mainstream and in

establishment structures and positions. Were

it not for a systematic and continuing

onslaught by the rUral upper castes and the

real and deadly fear of a political kind held

out by the emergent brahminic party (the

BJP) and its arrogant cultural expression in




5/7

the form of the VHP which in turn allowed

a gradual alignment and realignment with

major minorities (the Muslims in particular),

the dalit phenomenon would not have

emerged with the power and confidence that

it did in 1993. Even then it is no more than

a beginning for what has happened is

somewhat unexpected even as it has

happened. It will continue to remain weak

until its main thrust is merely in terms of

demands made on the state for jobs and

positions instead of undertaking transforma-

tion of civil society and thereby transforming

the nature of the state, and until the pressure

put on its own leadership from the grass

roots is not strong enough. Also, there are

continuing divisions both within the dalits

and vis-a-vis the backwards and there is

continuing to be disproportionate depend-

ence on personalities most of whom happen

to be unreliable in the long run. All the same,

in rolling back the threat of fascism combined

with fundamentalism the role of the dalit

movement is likely to prove historic.

The dalit movement is also distinctive in

some other respects compared to the new

social movements or the alternatives

movement' on major issues, especially in

respect of the nature of struggle against

dominant forces. It poses the question as

what to emphasise more, western hegemony

or caste domination within India, reflecting

the issue posed much earlier during the

independence movement as to what was

more important-social emancipation or

political autonomy. What is more important:

autonomy (and agitational politics) of the

community or autonomy of the nation in the

international order? If it is both, how to

reconcile the two? We seem to be back to

the Ambedkar-Gandhi controversy. The

same is the case with the overall critique of

modernity and of the western civilisational

thrust that is to a degree central to the

'alternatives movement' and to many of the

new social movements. The dalits

expectation and strategy seems to be designed

to challenge the dominant castes by means

of education, employment and special rights,

in short a struggle against theq system that

begins with challenging injustices within it,

thinking of the struggle against imperialism

and other such things as of second order

importance. Or, as some of them would say,

re-define the nature of imperialism in

essentially social terms-both globally and

locally.

Similarly, carrying further such a

perspective, the more the social question

acquires primacy, the more the return of a

wholly different set of critics, reformers and

revolutionaries than those propelled by the

Congress movement and overshadowed by

Gandhi-Ambedkar, Phule, the Periyar, a

whole variety of regional heroes and 'sants'

(including many from the Bhakti movement)

revered by various castes and communities,

that were hitherto peripheralised by

mainstream Hinduism, with some recalling

of humanistic and socialist thinkers-M N

Roy, Raja Rammohan Roy, many of the old

liberals who were committed to eradication

of various evils in Hindu society before

Gandhi arrived on the scene and pushed into

the background the whole social dimension

of national liberation.' We have yet to begin

to grasp the larger ramifications of the dalit

movement, once it takes roots. It is likely

to rekindle prevailing ideologies with new

rallying points and in the process indigenise

social theory.

CRITIQUE OF GANDHISM FROM THE OPPRESSED

Foralongtime now Gandhi andGandhism

have provided important ingredients of

indigenous and alternative thinking, both in

India and to an extent globally. Gandhi will

continue to be relevant, given his in many

ways highly original challenge to the vision

and perspective held out by the west. But

we should not be surprised if within India

his appeal suffers a decline and erosion.

There is a fast emerging critique of the

Gandhian approach to,the basic crises facing

India, mainly from the ranks of the oppressed.

There is a curious paradox in this. Gandhi

had the genius of recognising the two issues

that divided Indian society and were likely

to defy its integrity-the oppression of the

dalits on the one hand and the alienation of

the Muslims on the other. And although. he

was forced to devote much, the most of his

time and his unique techniques of resistance

to the power of the mighty to the movement

against the British, he was deeply possessed

of these two sources of division and

debilitation of the Indian nation and

civilisation. And yet, in the end, he failed

on both counts. He could not stop partition

and he failed to humanise Hinduism. He

ended heroically, trying to stem the tide of

communalism through his marathon padyatra

and fast unto death in Noakhali and giving

his life in defence of the Muslims but in

giving his singular attention to the Hindu-

Muslim divide, he gave little time to take

up cudgels on behalf of his 'harijans' against

the caste Hindus. There was also something

wrong with his whole model of reconstructing

of India of the future. Mere stresson reviving

village economy and decentralisation of the

state apparatus was not enough. He failed

to give attention to the social power structure

that pervaded it all. Today his model is

seriously being called into question, and

rightly so. 1, for one, do not find anything

untoward in such questioning. The sooner

the Gandhian model is subjected to new

perceptions of Indian reality-as are the

liberal bourgeois and the Marxist models-

the better we will be able to creatively

respond to that reality. Gandhi died in 1948

and there has been little new thinking in the

Gandhian camp or among his intellectual

disciples since then. If after almost half a

century since his death large sections of

Indian society find him dated or irrelevant

or too patronising for them to feel one with,

so be it. There is no need to immortalise

him. It is not part of Indian tradition to make

heroes out of history except to make gods

and deities out of them and add to the

pluralist pantheon that has imbibed in the

masses attitudes and sentiments that have

made them resist monolithic interpretations

of either culture or politics. But it has at

the same time pluralised deprivation and

suffering as well and, apart from periodic

and fragmentary outbursts of defiance, kept

them disunited in the arena of power. In

return they have been recipients of mercy

('daya') and patronising by the elite.

Knowingly or unknowingly, Gandhi fell

prey to the patronising tradition. The dalit

challenge to the Gandhian legacy is part of

a new stirring of consciousness among the

subjugated which rejects patronising and

insists on their rightful share in the power

structure of society.

And yet, despite this challenge to diverse

ideological models by the new wave of

radicalism represented by the dalit and other

oppressed and victimised social strata, there

is as yet no clear and categorical 'new

alignment of forces', no real phenomenon

of solidarity of the lower castes despite

growing and intensifying conflicts across

the hierarchy of the 'caste system'. In fact

the parallel often drawn with class is

misleading, as is the caste-class idea, perhaps

more so because there has not emerged any

real class solidarity either, which could have

given to the consciousness of caste a new

kind of subaltern identity. Doubtless, there

are recognisable ideological as well as interest

based bonds at all levels-upper, middle,

lower-but equally strong are the cleavages

within each. Cutting across them all is a

'ruling class' which is controlled by the

brahminic upper castes in politics but also,

and more potently, in the bureaucracy and

among the intelligentsia as well as the

surviving-and now reviving-colonial

advisors, capitalist road-rollers and high

professionals who are able to foster and

manipulate the diverse cleavages at all levels,

including the newly emergent level of the

dalits and the OBCs. And yet, it is the latter

that provides the possibility-a new

possibility-of radical change. Not only is

a new generation of leaders on the upswing,

exuding both a new confidence based on

new alignments of voters and a more basic

confidence about carving out a new future

for themselves. There is of course no inherent

reason why caste should have become the

basis of such confidence about radical change.

It is only because other models of social

change (provided by liberal democracy, the

new social movements and, as we shall

1592 Economc and Political Weky June 25 1994



6/7

presently see, the Marxist Left) have failed

to fulfil aspirations of the depressed social

classes and the minorities-who incidentally

had for long placed a lot of faith on one or

ali of these other models-that the relevance

of caste as a basis for mobilisation has

emerged (or re-emerged).

FAILURE OF LEFT MOVEMENT

Which brings me to a consideration of the

third stream of secular politics mentioned

above, namely, the Left movement. As with

the liberal democratic movement and the

new social movements the Left movement

too has failed to produce a basis of real social

change. There are many reasons for this.

First, the Left movement ceased to be a

'movement' long back. The assumption that

the politics of the Left would be based on

a mass movement that would in turn utilise

institutional spaces within the system has

not happened. In fact the reverse has

happened: legislative and electoral spaces

have utilised and manipulated the mass

movements. Second, even as a movement

to the extent rank and file parties and

continuing concern with ideological issues

were still there, it failed to provide the kind

of praxis that socially oppressed populations

needed. It was at once fragmented and

monolithic ('democratic centralist'), riven

by multiple divisions yet providing no real

pluralism, no vibrant democratic process in

its organisational framework. It was for too

long-and still is-dominated by upper

castes, brahminic in both style and intellectual

grasp. It provided no -cal fresh alternative

to the nationalist secular credo to which it

is still wedded. In terms of the development

paradigm too it is a prisoner of western

progressivism-cum-technologism, seeking

credibility not from a mass movement but

by joining the parliamentary democratic and

nationalist-secularframework, wholly failing

to provide an alternative to it. Worse still,

the main parties (CPI and CPI(M) never

really got out of the Congress-Communist

honeymoon (even after the emergency

experience) in the making of which Marxist

intellectuals and academics of the CP variety

played a leading part; for most of them

crumbs of office and influence proved too

seductive. Even later, after full disillusion-

ment with the Congress, whenever they have

been faced by a challenge from the Right,

they have tended to slip into an opportunistic

alliance with the Congress as against building

a viable and-long-term Left alternative

within the system, not to speak of a major

revolutionary alternative- to it.

As for the Naxal groups too, after waging

some heroic struggles in various micro and

regional settings, most of them have shown

signs of exhaustion and have sought entry

into the legi.slative-electoral arena, mostly

fielding upper and middle caste candidates.

Even the niore Maoist groups committed to

'annihilation of class enemy' are riven by

caste bickerings arising from domination by

brahmin and brahminic individuals. Some

of the M-L individuals and groups did join

radical movements of the regional self-

determination and ethnic-federal types (e g,

in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam and the North-

East) leading to a collaboration between two

types of militancy, but failed to address

themselves to the burning social issues. If

anything, they have tended to ignore the

truly oppressed and out-caste social groups,

as for instance in Punjab where the SC and

other 'majhabi' elements have continued to

support the Congress.

Perhaps the only major exception has been

the 'Satyashodhak' ideology of caste-class

but (a) this has remained confined to a few

districts of Maharashtra and even there has

been unable to evolve a common front

between mahars and other SC groups, and

(b) has got bogged down to settling scores

with CPI(M) -which in its vehement

denunciation of such radical dissidence and

its sense of discomfort with anything which

legitimises caste and caste consciousness

(even among lowly and the oppressed castes),

has poured scorn and ridicule on it. In some

areas it has even collaborated with the

governing class, ineluding the police. On the

whole both the Satyashodhak kind of

reformation in the Marxist ideology and the

truly grass rootsy and authentic formations

like the Kashtakari Sangathana have faced

a determined pincer of right reaction and the

establishment Left.

The overall result is that whereas the

emerging political process propelled by an

upsurge of mass consciousness among the

dalits and otheroppressed groups is definitely

moving leftward, the Left movement itself

has been unable to strike roots among these

social strata and, through that, in the wider

political arena. Instead, completely non-Left

and socially upper class forces are on the

upswing-the Tikaits, the Sarad Joshis, the

Nanjundaswamis and so on, with even

sensitive intellectuals and activists in close

sympathy with the dalits (Gail Omvedt being

a prime example) joining in. There seems

to be a continuing hold of economism,

deliberate overlooking of the social

dimension, whereas the reality isthat central

to the political crisis facing India is a social

crisis and an important part though not the

whole of the social crisis is a crisis of the

caste system. Hence the rise of the new

ideological appeal wedded to a name other

than Gandhi and Nehru, Marx or Lenin or

Mao, namely, Ambedkarism.

Unfortunately, the Ambedkarite appeal

too is riven with both confusion and schism,

spurred by the multi-faced Janus of

brahminism. Contrary to common belief,

brahminism is not some fixed dogma but is

highly adaptable and looking for ever new

pastures, engaging both in a backlash against

the newly emerging forces (as found in the

recent epidemic of violence in UP) and co-

optation of the middle and lower castes, the

backwards and, most of all the dalits,

especiallv the highly educated and influential

sections thereof who have been able to mnove

out of the menial and depressing condition

of the toiling masses and who are able to

spearhead a movement against the dominant

forces but have instead been 'Sanskritised'.

The Ambedkarite movement too is beset by

this same virus of endemic co-optation-

from the old days of the Scheduled Caste

Federation and the Republican Party to the

Dalit Panthers to the various anti-reservation

movements to the recent outbreak of the

Ambedkar cult. It is by no means surprising

that the main beneficiary-as well as

propagator-of this cult is a class of IAS

bureaucrats and academics. Hence the

disproportionate, almost exclusive, emphasis

on reservations.9 Meanwhile, scared by the

rise of the dalits and their slow entry into

the middle class professions, the uppercastes

are trying to project, through their hold on

the media and manipulations in the rural

political arena, a picture of a phenomenal

increase in 'casteism' and the outbreak of

caste wars which is how they are

interpreting local incidents of conflicts and

violence.

I)ALIT-BAHUJAN ALLIANCE

Against all this experience of continuing,

let downs and reactions comes the latest

stream of non-Left radicalism, namely, the

dalit-bahujan alliance of SCs and OBCs,

offshoot of the Mandal slogan but couched

in terms not just of achieving social justice

(which is still based on the idea of making

the existing state and its power-holders more

just and accommodative of the lower social

strata) but of the dalits and theOBCs grabbing

political power.. There are problems with

this too. First, the SCs and OBCs have little

in common, socially and organisationally.

While the SCs are, relatively speaking,

structurally homogeneous, the OBCs are

internally highly differentiated and

heterogeneous. Many of the latter are found

to be perpetrating terror on the former in the

rural areas. Second, provoked by the

phenomenon of co-optation over such a long

period, there has emerged a tendency among

the dalits to insist on 'autonomous',

exclusivist identity and membership, striking

a discordant attitude towards movements

and intellectuals and political activists that

are committed to them but belong to other

castes. The recent Mayawati assault against

Gandhian, Lohi aite and leftist efforts to serve

the dalit cause highlights just this.

Paradoxically, all this is precisely what can

be used by the ruling class and particularly

by the Congress Party by (a) inducting dalits,




7/7

backwards and others in the establishment

thus giving them, especially the educated

among them, a sense of triumph but then

(b) working out concessions of various kinds

and co-opting and corrupting them. The BJP

too is in the process of devising a strategy

tihat will cash in on such divisions.

The current permeation of this exclusivist

notion of identity and struggle in grass roots,

struggle-oriented movements on the Left is

undermining their radical socio-economic

striving and making them (including the

Left parties) concede and co-opt. ' All this

is producing a new crisis of idenfity of left

and radical politics. Coming on top of the

larger crisis of identity of the Left movement,

following the collapse of socialism in the

global political arena and acute questioning

of the Marxist ideology and of Marx (and

Lenin) individually, this kind of aggressive

posturing by the dalits will only put the Left

further on the defensive. But nor would it

provide the dalit cause the necessary political

base for it to be a catalyst of history. Unless

the new consciousness aimed at bringing

about radical transformation also sees itself

as part of a larger social and global movement

opposed to both capitalist and imperialist

designs and fundamentalist and fascist social

forces, both of which are on the upswing

(despite the latter being held back as a result

of the dalits and the Muslims defeating the

BJP in UP), they are bound to face the pincer

mentioned above, of backlash on the one

hand and co-optation on the other. The dalit

movement must emerge as a movement for

genuine emancipation, aligning with all social

action groups engaged in a politics of

transformation, mobilising them all for a

fundamental defeat of the brahminic social

order. Where it should seek a change is with

respect to the present economistic definition

of such transformation and ask for a

fundamentally social re-definition of the

same. Even the battles against imperialism

and the 'new world order' should be socially

defined, within and across nations. But there

is no need to be exclusivist either in terms of

caste identity or any other social categorisation.

There shouldbe no compromising in any such

broadbasing but there should be no fear or

sense of insecurity either.

PERSPECwnVE FOR DALIT MOVEMENT

There is no shortage of sensitive and

committed people in castes and classes

occupying the middle spaces in the country.

One has only to watch the deeply moving

plays and films, read the highly unnerving

reportage on social oppression and state

terror, gauge the stirring of the depths of

our consciousness through literary and other

humanistic efforts (the mobilisation of the

nation's creative artists and litterateurs after

December6, 1992by Sahmatbeing only one

example of it), alongside the dalit poetry,

the highly disturbing 'feminist' exposes, the

moving appeals of citizens on the march

protesting against the agonising reports on

atrocities, rampages and rapes, the inspiring

chronicles of,micro-movements of tribals

and other 'indigenous' peoples struggling to

retain and enrich their land and forests, their

ancestral heritage and their holistic

worldviews. What the dalit movement needs

to do is to take all this in and to provide

a new vanguard of social change. In the

process, broad-base and deepen the social

and cultural terrain of the 'dalit movement'.

Such an integral vision is not going to be

easy to put on ground. It is not an abstract

academic exercise one is talking about.

Actually, even as an act of imagination, it

does not exist anywhere. At no point in the

history of ideas has there emerged a truly

integrated vision that could steer humanity

to a coherent future that could be pursued

realistically and could mobilise a comtbina-

tion of hope and determination. At each

juncture in the long travails of the human

enterprise the normative and ideational efforts

failed to generate relevant interventions in

the social terrain that could really reach out.

The Encyclopaedist (who tried to lay an

intellectual foundation for the European

Enlightenment) tried this in vain. We have

tried to show in this paper how the liberal

democratic variatibn of it and, though much

more radically conceived, the Marxist

variation too failed to respond and reach out

to the ideological needs and the praxis that

socially oppressed peoples and communities

called for. From the more spiritual and moral

domains, Gandhi and his disciples have failed

to reach out to them while the philosophical

outpourings of Sri Aurobindo and Ramana

Maharshi reached out even less; by and large

they remained confined to the pulpit. Yet

the mere fact of the inadequacy of prevailing

ideological models should not numb our

senses and detract us from the required efforts

to pick up the threads and provide a new

beginning. For one must continue to hope

and keep struggling so that out of the myriad

churnings of the same human enterprise a

relevant future can take shape. The dalit

movement in India should be considered as

part of that churning.

Notes

[This paper presents a further development of the

Tenth AKG Memorial LIecture delivered on March

22, 1994. Parts of it have been used in my 'Caste,

Communalism and the Democratic Process' to

be published in South Asia Bulletin, Department

of History, Duke University, USA. A much

shorter version appeared as 'Dalits of Today:

Gandhi, Ambedkar Not Relevant', The Times of

India, May 16, 1994].

1 See my 'Why Has India Been Democratic'

published in State against Democracy: In

Search of Hunane Governacice, New Delhi,

Ajanta, 1988.

2 Indeed, one interpretation of the Hindutva

tirade is that it was an almost instant reaction

to Mandal in the form of an upper caste

brahminic backlash against the threat of an

OBC-dalit-Muslim alignment and that in turn

it met its waterloo precisely from that

alignment, in the Assembly elections of 1993

and since. See my An All-Out Brahminic

Offensive against The Masses', The Pioneer,

January 26, 1993.

3 For the controversy, see my article, 'Caste

and Politics: The Great Secular Upsurge', The

Times of India, September 28, 1990 followed

by M N Srinivas, A M Shah and B S Baviskar,

'Kothari's Illusion of Secular Upsurge', The

Times of India, October 17, 1990.

4 Caste in Indian Politics, Orient Longman,

New Delhi, 1970.

5 See Rajni Kothari and Rushikesh Maru, 'Caste

and Secularism in India: Case Study of a

Caste Federation', Journal of Asian Studies,

25(1), November 1965. Also, Lloyd and

Susanne Rudolph, Caste Associations in

India', The Modernity of Tradition, University

of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1967.

6 See my 'Pluralism and Secularism: Lessons

of Ayodhya', Economic and Political Weekly,

December 19-26, 1992.

7 On the Dispensability thesis, see my 'Of

Humane Governance' and 'The Phenomenon

of Two Indias' in State against Democracy,

op cit.

8 Gandhi tried to pursue a simultaneous attack

on the political and socio-economic fronts

(his own conception of his work being one

of transcending the dichotomy between social

reform and political struggle, as also the

opposition between the Liberals and the

Radicals in the Congress) by adopting

a 'constructive work programme' whichcould

take up various issues-from untouchability

and the condition of the tribals to the whole

social arena of education, health and sanitation

to his advocacy of khadi and village and

small-scale industry-and keep the 'armies'

mobilised by various non-cooperation

movements fruitfully engaged. But there

precisely may have been the flaw in the whole

approach. For the priority was always the

anti-British movement, not social transforma-

tion. In that lay Gandhi's strength too: he

could make a success of his model of a nation-

wide yet on the whole non-violent struggle

against imperialism without having to build

a cadre-based party of national liberation. But

in that very success lay his failure as a social

emancipator.

9 I happen to be a strong advocate of reservations

but mainly as a means of augmenting both

the social and the numerical base of the

oppressed groups and their ability to permeate

established or freshly conceived institutions

(e g, only thus can panchayati raj institutions

be made socially representative, otherwise

they will continue to be dominated by the

rural upper castes and their mafia operations).

But this alone cannot fulfil the needs either

of an organic social identity of struggling

groups or the beginnings of a new and relevant

ideology.

10 1 found this recently when I was in Andhra

Pradesh even in such radical and to my mind

highly committed political movements like

the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee

(APCLC) and, at another level, in thie People's

War Group (PWG).

Economic and Political Weekly June 25, 1994

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