Date post: | 06-Jul-2018 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | ravichandran-bathran |
View: | 215 times |
Download: | 0 times |
of 7
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
1/7
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
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toEconomic and Political Weekly
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
2/7
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
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
3/7
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
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
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
Economc and Political Wekly June 25 1994 1591
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
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
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
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,
Economc and Political Wekly June 25 1994 1593
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8/17/2019 Rise of the Dalits and the Renewed Debate on Caste
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
This content downloaded from 14.139.58.194 on Tue, 10 May 2016 04:50:01 UTC