Fragments of a failed society

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The Tribune, September 20, 2018

Sewer deaths exemplify our pyramidal caste system with its oppressive feudal facets


Sanitation workers belong to the lowest of the low rungs in the caste ladder.



Rajesh Ramachandran

We ought to be a failed society to send our neighbours down the septic tanks to certain death or a life of filthy ignominy. Eleven people have died in seven days this last week in septic tanks and sewers, six of them in the national capital. Their corpses, their needless deaths are exemplifiers of our pyramidal, hierarchical caste system with all its oppressive feudal facets. We believe that a certain group of people are born to carry on their head others’ waste and excreta. When the dry toilets gave way to more modern ones with flush tanks, our modernity pushed the same old unfortunate people into newer septic tanks and municipal sewer lines. The IITian Chief Minister who wielded the broom — the symbol of the sanitation workers’ servitude — to seek their votes still has not thought about a mechanised alternative to people diving into pools of excreta. Did the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi or the Centre stop him from getting the Delhi IIT or the Kharagpur IIT to design robots to clean the clogged sewers? According to the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, one sanitation worker has died every five days since January 2017.

Sanitation workers belong to the lowest of the low rungs in the Indian caste ladder, whatever their religion be. Hindu, Sikh, Christian, or Buddhist, the sanitation workers are discriminated against, often by even other Scheduled Castes. The worst aspect of Dalit politics is that it has always been dominated by the agricultural labour or cobbler castes like Jatav, Mahar, Mala, Pulaya or Holaya, to the extent of making the children and grandchildren of sanitation workers invisible in public life. So far, Valmikis or Madigas or Thotis have not really mattered in politics or bureaucracy. The token Dalit representative of the Congress was always from castes other than sanitation workers, so was the anti-Congress Dalit messiah Dr BR Ambedkar, a Mahar. India’s first Dalit President KR Naryanan, the celebrated Congress leader Jagjivan Ram, the BSP founder Kanshi Ram, his heiress Mayawati, the first Dalit Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan, the first Dalit Speaker of the Lok Sabha, GMC Balayogi, Bihar strongman Ram Vilas Paswan… the list of Scheduled Caste leaders from the agricultural labour class is endless. So was the case when the BJP chose a Dalit to be President of India.

Worse is the situation in bureaucracy. Some leaders listed above pushed their children into the civil services, cornering quotas and denying opportunities to the children of manual scavengers. Now, reservation in politics and bureaucracy is just preservation of privilege for the children of empowered people. Their politics, too, is a curious extension of the colonial constructs of the separate nation and separate electorate meant to Balkanise the idea of India. Gandhi’s idea of eradication of untouchability, which he believed was more important than Independence, was to live and work with sanitation workers, impart dignity to their work and confidence in them as fellow beings, while shaming the upper castes and forcing them to clean their own toilets. The British countered this with the idea of a separate electorate and rituals like celebration of the Mahar valour during the battle of Koregaon. The greater instance of Mahar valour was the battle of Srirangapatna, when on May 4, 1799, a grenadier of the Bombay Army, possibly a Mahar soldier, shot Tipu Sultan through the temple, thus silencing the roar of the Tiger of Mysore and helping East India Company take control of the western coast.

So, while creating separate electorates and separate nations for Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians and SCs, Koregaon — and not Srirangapatna — was convenient for the British rulers to create a narrative of fractured identities, mutinying against one another. This colonial narrative cannot create an equal society, but only sharper divisions. Instead of militantly agitating against the state and the Centre for continuing with the inhuman practice of pushing men and boys into sewer lines, the so-called Dalit radicals continue sharpening the edges of the colonial percepts of our fractured identities, celebrating the victory of a British contingent against an imbecile Peshwa some 200 years ago, for what? About a century ago, identity politics of the Hindutva, Islamic and Dalit varieties have all been at the behest of the British. VD Savarkar had sought mercy and was granted freedom by the British, Ambedkar was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council and Jinnah was a British ally and all three were opposed to the Quit India movement. So, it was no surprise that while opposing Gandhi, Ambedkar had, in 1931, praised the Hindutva proponent Savarkar as a true friend of the Dalits, “I however wish to take this opportunity of conveying to you my appreciation of the work you are doing in the field of social reform. If the Untouchables are to be part and parcel of the Hindu society… you must destroy chaturvarnya. I am glad that you are one of the very few who have realised this.” According to Ambedkar’s biographer Dhananjay Keer, in 1937 Ambedkar’s publication Janata wrote that “Savarkar’s service to the cause of the Untouchables was as decisive and great as that of Gautama Buddha himself.”

Savarkar’s followers claim that Ambedkar tried to help him while he was being tried for Gandhi’s murder. Manohar Malgonkar in The Men Who Killed Gandhi quotes the Savarkar Memorial Committee publication to claim that Ambedkar told Savarkar’s counsel in January 1949, “There is no real charge against your client; quite worthless evidence has been concocted… But take it from me there just is no case.” This may not be true at all, but it is sadly true that some Ambedkarites do celebrate East India Company’s victories and worship Mayawati’s statues, instead of forcing her to disassociate forever from Hindutva forces and to rescue manual scavengers from the sewers.

After Sabarimala, women priests

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The Tribune, October 15, 2018

It is for all religions now to embrace the spirit of the SC verdict


No science here: If faith becomes rational, can it be termed faith?



Rajesh Ramachandran

The Sabarimala verdict is being treated as a gender issue and a victory for women’s rights. As a Sabarimala pilgrim since my childhood, I can vouch that this verdict allowing fertile women access to the hill shrine is neither. The petitioners are not devout women devotees who are dying to seek Ayyappa’s blessings, or demanding rights of temple entry for their comrades-in-faith. In fact, they remind one of the BJP’s concern for Muslim women and triple talaq. The ban on menstruating women to the Sabarimala temple is a mix of a pre-modern sense of hygiene, tradition and superstition, which have all come to be packaged as faith. In Kerala, most Hindu households used to light a lamp in the evening, when the elderly and the children used to sit down to chant shlokas, recite spiritual Malayalam poetry or simply sing devotional movie songs (depending on the relative education of the household).

The woman of the house usually lit the lamp. And she didn’t do it during her periods. In an era before sanitary pads, the womenfolk probably thought it better to keep away than soil the puja room with bodily fluids. This applies to boys and men too, who were debarred from anything pious without a bath. Obviously, the logical extension was to keep off temples, too, during menstruation. The Sabarimala trek used to be a long arduous one through dense forests. The difficulty, the longevity and the unpredictability of the trek, and the Buddhist origins and traditions around the temple could also have been a deterrent for women. So, only girls below 10 and menopausal women used to make the trip; though there have been exceptions galore.

Whatever was the reason that kept women out of the temple for so long, the verdict is welcome as a judicial intervention in faith. It is difficult for a society to reform itself without an outside agency. Here the Anglo-Saxon law, the Constitution and rationalism displayed by judges, who probably do not believe, have decided to force open the closed minds of the faithful. Women are doing everything that they should wearing sanitary napkins. Now, why should the menstrual cycle stop them from going to a temple? It is very difficult for a woman devotee to logically shake off centuries of habit and traditions, which have the force of superstition. A belief becomes an oppressive compulsion when it is accompanied by fear. The wrath of God has kept societies in darkness. Unfortunately, rationalism is often the privilege of the entitled class. A weak person, miserably poor, with nothing but blind faith to help her suffer the ignominies of life cannot obviously afford to take the risk of inviting God’s displeasure.

The Supreme Court has now asked the women of Kerala to do exactly that. And that is why this verdict is indeed path-breaking. Otherwise, not going to Sabarimala is not like being thrown out of the marital home without alimony or becoming the fourth wife of a wife-beating, marital rapist or being denied equal property rights or representation in elected bodies or raping a nun. Not going to Sabarimala was part of a ritual for a devotee, just like going to Sabarimala was. There are women who wait for their hysterectomy to make the trip. If faith becomes rational, can it be termed faith? For instance, there is a Devi temple in Kerala where the goddess is believed to menstruate and the idol won’t be available for darshan those four or five days in the temple’s calendar.

Every religion has such quaint practices that seem abhorrent to someone from an alien culture. The verdict is an outsider’s gaze into the temple practices of Kerala. Only an outsider can easily pick out what is outlandish in customs that are the norm for a society. Now, this gaze has to be consistent in two ways. We need to look at all religions from a gender perspective and only then will we see the repressive patriarchy that rules all religious institutions. Menstruating women going to Sabarimala is a very minor issue when compared to the misogynist tyranny of the temples, mutts, deras, churches and mosques. Kerala has been a progressive state for all reasons. The Kerala society, instead of hanging on to moth-eaten traditions of a pre-napkin era, should herald a revolution by appointing women head priests in all temples. The majority community should always take the lead in social reform measures, for only then will the minorities gain confidence in its motives in bringing in a positive change.

Kerala had the first Dalit vedic priest in a traditional temple. Why not women? There ought to be a 50 per cent reservation for women in all big temples of India. Women priests should worship God, just as they fly aircraft, send rockets and run this country. As a next step, the Supreme Court should take note of the anti-women activities that are going on within other religious denominations, particularly the Catholic Church. In the very same state, five nuns had to do a sit-in for a fortnight for a rapist bishop to get arrested. The alacrity shown by the petitioners in the Sabarimala case ought to have been repeated here, but was sadly missing. It took almost three months for the bishop to get jailed and no Marxist leader of Kerala found it amiss.

The Sangh Parivar has all along thrived building a Hinduism-under-siege bogey. This narrative has started playing out in Kerala, highlighting the differentiated approach by the law-enforcing authorities towards Sabarimala and the bishop’s rape case. The Sabarimala petitioners can restore the balance by seeking to intervene in two issues: the treatment of nuns by the ruling clergy, and misuse of confession, a holy sacrament, by some unscrupulous priests to blackmail and rape the faithful women. Here, too, the solution is pretty simple: allow women to become priests in all denominations. Let the petitioners demand women bishops for the Catholic Church in India.

Why bypass due process of law to term Rohith non-Dalit?

Polibelly/Economic Times
February 1, 2016
Rajesh Ramachandran
It doesn’t make any sense for BJP to accuse the family of Rohith Vemula of forging a caste certificate. Rohith is a victim of our academic system, political interference and campus rivalry. His victimhood does not get altered because he was pitted against ABVP. By claiming that Rohith was not a Dalit, the BJP leadership is questioning the victim’s integrity and terming the family frauds.
This political strategy can only further alienate from BJP those who are grieving for Rohith. 

There is a legitimate method to probe whether a caste certificate is genuine or not. The government of Andhra Pradesh can ask the district collector of Guntur to verify the caste certificate issued to Rohith. The district collector after hearing Rohith’s family can present his findings to the government, which at the highest level can decide to set aside Rohith’s caste certificate. There are guidelines for issuing, questioning and cancelling caste certificates, endorsed by the Supreme Court.
BJP is bypassing this due process of law to jump into a conclusion based on some secret police reports, why? It seems BJP believes that if Rohith is proven to be a non-Dalit, the issue will lose its political gravitas. Well, every unlettered Dalit is aware of the threat of an enquiry into his or her caste certificate. It is but natural for a desperate Dalit to hide his caste to escape oppression and then to reveal it to get governmental benefits. 

So, an attack on Rohith’s caste certificate will make ordinary Dalilts bristle because the only identity that Rohith held dear as a student was that of an Ambedkarite. As a meritorious student who did not use his caste certificate to get into the University of Hyderabad, he had the option of calling himself an OBC Vaddera as his estranged father was a Vaddera. But he chose to uphold the Dalit Mala identity of his mother. An offspring of a mixed marriage, Rohith could have got his caste certificate because he was brought up in a Mala neighbourhood as a Mala. 

Whatever be the reason, Rohith chose to be a Dalit and an Ambedkarite. Sure, there are non-Dalit Ambedkarites, but in this caste-ridden society no non-Dalit would want to be called a Dalit. When Rohith calls himself a Dalit, without using or misusing his caste certificate, he has every right to his identity. For someone from the lowest stratum of the society, there is nothing to be proud about being an outcast. Only burning idealism could have turned him into a fullfledged Ambedkarite. 

Forget for a second Rohith was a Dalit. There cannot be any argument over his identity as an Ambedkarite and that is the most potent political label for a Dalit. BJP should understand that it is not reassuring the Dalit masses by questioning the dead student’s caste and by challenging an Ambedkarite’s identity. The BJP leadership, instead of taking on its political rival, Rahul Gandhi, is wasting its time targeting Rohith.

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid=31815&dt=20160201

Rohith as a Dalit Metaphor

Sunday ET
January 24, 2016
Rajesh Ramachandran
Campus politics rarely impacts the larger world outside. Over the years, agitational politics of Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU) and other central universities could not influence mass politics or become electoral determinants. Even the much-lamented murder of JNU students' leader Chandrashekhar Prasad in 1997 could not turn the tide of caste politics in Bihar. But the unfortunate suicide of Rohith Vemula has the potential to change the dynamics of Dalit politics.
Food for Thought
ABVP, sure, is a political outfit. But Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA) is not. It is a congregation of Dalit students who come together to fight discrimination and oppression within campuses. Old-timers of Hyderabad's universities remember how the first amorphous Dalit group fought for its right to be served food along with the upper castes.
In fact, one of their first political acts was to support the Mandal commission recommendations for other backward classes (OBC) reservation, though they did not benefit from them. Now, the ASA is a potent body that pursues radical politics along with Dalit empowerment. But its members do not necessarily have a political affiliation. For instance, Rohith started off as a Marxist and turned a bitter critic of his old party, Communist Party of India (Marxist). Most of his colleagues from ASA have been articulating views critical of all the mainstream parties. They are primarily Ambedkarites and so will never challenge Ambedkar's role in drafting the Constitution or promote a philosophy that demeans the Constitutional institutions of the country.
An Ambedkarite by definition cannot seek to overthrow the Constitution. So, it may be counter-productive for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to dub the Ambedkarites anti-national. Students do take radical positions to be intellectually fashionable in campuses and this need not be held against them by seasoned politicians and members of Parliament. The political leadership should not act prickly about a protest march against death penalty or a beef festival.
Unlike upper caste radicals of JNU and elsewhere who would happily wear the anti-national label on their sleeve as a fashion statement, a Dalit would be scared of losing the prospects of a government job — her only promise to prosperity. This attack on Dalit students could only add to their woes and make them more strident in their opposition to the Sangh Parivar Politically this move by the BJP can only further alienate the Dalit students and their families.
The community is up in arms all across the country. It is as if Rohith has suddenly become a catalyst in radicalising, politicising and energising a community that believes in Ambedkar's dictum that Dalit salvation is through education.
People are flooding the traditional and the new media across the country and across languages with angry articles.
Cause & Effect
No instance of atrocity in the recent past — and there are terrible atrocities committed on Dalits all across the country — has made the community come together like this to express its outrage. This may not get converted into a deluge of votes in favour of one party or the other. Interestingly, every Dalit activist is not even protesting against the Sangh Parivar or the BJP.
In Kerala, a woman Dalit scholar took on the Leftists, exposing their hypocrisy, asking the Marxists why they are supporting Rohith now when they had harassed her earlier in the campus. Another one from Hyderabad used this opportunity to ask why the underground leadership of the Maoists is primarily upper caste. Yet another one quoted Rohith to prove that the CPI(M) has never had a Dalit member in its politburo.
So, Rohith's suicide has triggered a sudden crystalisation of identity politics among Dalits who feel betrayed by the system. This pan-India phenomenon may act out in different ways in various states. It may help Mayawati keep her flock together in Uttar Pradesh or help K Chandrashekhar Rao gain Dalit support in Telangana. But politicians are aware that they need to underscore their support for the Dalit cause. And that explains the visit of Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal to Hyderabad soon after the suicide.
Kejriwal is a serious contender in Punjab, where Dalits comprise over 30% of the population and the Aam Aadmi Party hopes to upset the Akali-BJP combine and the Congress in the next polls in 2017. Beyond electoral politics, Dalits all over the country want this incident to act as a sharp reminder to the community that it is time to protect itself from the final pushback from the portals of progress. They know that if they give in now, they will never be equal citizens ever.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/rohith-vemulas-suicide-has-triggered-a-sudden-crystalisation-of-identity-politics-among-dalits-who-feel-betrayed-by-the-system/articleshow/50698953.cms

Skim the Dalit creamy layer

Mail Today Edit Page, January 17, 2012
A golf- playing mother in Delhi badly wants her bright young kids to grow up preparing for the civil service examinations. Her father was in the service, so is she and she hopes her kids would keep the family flame live. And their entry into the service is almost sure. Not because her kids are endowed with a superior intellect or are extremely hardworking. But they belong to the elite among the Dalits who have apportioned the Dalit quota for just themselves stealing the jobs of the needy poor for perpetuity.
The golfer sure is not alone. Actually she is in illustrious company. The first Dalit President KR Narayanan’s daughter got into the Indian Foreign Service through the quota route. She wrote her exams, probably, when her father was a globetrotting diplomat destined for even higher things in life. What a travesty of affirmative action!
The ruling party, the Congress, has finally woken up to the misuse of quotas by the elite among the Dalits and decided to break the category into Dalits and Mahadalits. But it is more of a political act without any real application of mind. It has come simply because Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati belongs to the Chamar or Jatav caste which is the dominant group within the Dalits in north India. The Congress has merely flattered the Nitish Kumar government by copying even the term he used to split the Dalit quota without any application of mind. In Bihar’s case, the rat- hunting community of Mussahars, or other miserably poor farm labourers might get a slice of the quota cake for their children if the new policy is diligently implemented, but for the rest of the country the new policy really doesn’t make much sense. Interestingly, Chamars are also listed as a Mahadalit community by the Mahadalit commission set up by the Bihar government.
Elite
In India’s mind blowing caste matrix, there have always been elites among every caste group. Only rank outsiders have made the mistake of imagining the caste hierarchy as a strictly pyramidal structure where Brahmins are on top and the Dalits are at the bottom. Sure, it now suits the Brahmin to believe that such a structure existed in the hoary past. But the truth is something else. Just as many Brahmins lived off alms from the wealthy peasant castes, there was a class of leaders among the agricultural labourers.
Something akin to the Subedar Major in the British Army, the highest post a native could aspire for. Subedarsaab, as he was respectfully referred to by the young commissioned officer, was the real veteran who took his men to war, all the while letting the young officer believe that he was in charge.
Similarly, there were headmen among the slaves bonded to feudal lords. For instance, in some parts of Kerala they were referred to as Thalapulayan, literally the Head Pulayan. Like the Subedarsaab, the headman was treated with a modicum of respect, with his children spared of rape and beatings in a terribly oppressive system.
Dr BR Ambedkar had violently reacted to such a comprador class, while seeking a separate electorate for the Dalits during his momentous fight with Gandhi that ended in his defeat and the Poona Pact. He had then argued that if the electorate remains the same, only the loyal Head Pulayan would be chosen by the mainstream parties instead of Dalits choosing their real representatives. Ambedkar was proven right when he was defeated by the Congress candidate in the first ever Lok Sabha elections.
Ambedkar
Ambedkar’s vision of empowerment was of Dalits representing themselves with leaders emerging from within the community owing allegiance to no philosophy other than Dalit emancipation. Now, Ambedkar’s defeat is complete with the golf- playing beneficiaries of his great liberating tool stealing the quotas from the shanties of manual scavengers and keeping the biggest jobs in the country for their children forever.
Ambedkar coined the word Dalit against Gandhi’s ‘ harijan’ in order to establish a new order where the oppressed are no longer tied to the feudal dole- outs of the benevolent master. But feudal lineages of Dalit lords have sprung up instead of creating a brave new casteless society. This is well illustrated from the case of Meira Kumar who contests from a reserved constituency despite being the daughter of the legendary Congress leader and former defence minister Jagjivan Ram.
Is it not time to skim the cream and take it out of the Dalit decanter? The Congress’ move to provide a separate share of quota for Mahadalits, though it appears a step in the right direction, will only create a new creamy layer among certain extremely backward Dalit castes. Targeted quotas in the real sense will happen only if the creamy layer principle is applied, as in the case of other backward classes ( OBCs) and the most backward classes ( MBCs).
Move
The quotas have so far been dominated by the agriculture labour classes among Dalits like the Mahars of Maharashtra, Malas of Andhra Pradesh, Pulayas of Kerala, Pallars and Paryans of Tamil Nadu, Holayas of Karnataka and by Chamars in North India. These self assured castes never inter- marry or mingle with the manual scavenging castes like the Valmikis of north India or Thottis of the south.
It is no coincidence that Ambedkar was a Mahar, the first Dalit chief justice of India a Pulaya or the first Dalit President a Parava. They have been the traditionally empowered castes for various reasons. The Mahars have been warriors since the time of Shivaji and had actually defeated the Peshwa army, fighting for the British in the Anglo- Maratha wars. In fact, Ambedkar’s father and grandfather were Subedar Majors in the British army. Similarly, other agricultural worker castes among Dalits had greater access to information and education compared to the butcher, the leather worker and scavenger castes among Dalits.
But identifying these Mahadalits and giving them a special sub- quota now is a futile exercise because in just a few decades this would give rise to another elite group that would never allow the real Mahadalits, the scavengers and rathunters, to escape from their hell holes.
The need now is to ensure that a bureaucrat’s child or a minister’s daughter does not avail of this facility. Income need not necessarily be the only cut- off factor. But the quotas should definitely end with just one generation in the case of legislators, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and judges. The biggest challenge to our democracy arises from the growing tribe of Gandhis, Scindias, Pawars and Gowdas and now the neo- feudal families of Dalit elites are joining their ranks.

A life lived in the margins

January 11,2009 Mail Today
Book Review: The Weave of My Life

Urmila Pawar’s memoir is an account of rare courage and the desire to succeed that gave purpose to her life

A DALIT feminist manifesto, is how sociologist and noted academician Sharmila Rege in her afterword describes Marathi writer Urmila Pawar’s autobiography, The Weave of My Life . It indeed is one, but is also much more. The sight, sound and smell of a small village tucked in the folds of the Western Ghats beyond two steep hills and two rivers guarded by tigers come alive in the book, which is not an angry Book of the Oppressed. Even the wretched daily trudge of the village women carrying all that they could sell in Ratnagiri is turned into a travelogue of a different kind; a view from the ground and a matter of fact account of village life among the most poor and oppressed, celebrating life’s many vicissitudes.

It is not just a, “ Dalit woman’s memoirs” as the book cover claims it to be. It is also about growing up poor in Ratnagiri, a small town on the Konkan coast, falling in love, doing well in school, hating the English classes and the lighting of the fires of adolescent dreams. Pawar’s description of her village women collecting crabs and shellfish from a creek in her neighbourhood exemplifies the book’s tenor. The detailed account of how Konkan women fish for crabs and oysters, along with a beautiful pen sketch of the locale only adds to the dominant narrative of the woes of everyday life. That is how Pawar strikes a different note.

Even the politics of change from Maharhood to Buddhism, from being meek victims to proud Ambedkarites is drawn in vignettes of marriage ceremonies and their new songs. Ambedkar’s death and the family’s conversion become part of this narrative, which never gets pedantic or overtly political: “ Everyone in the house was weeping. I too began to weep since they all were. After a while, Nathuram said that he would go to Mumbai the next day for the last darshan of Babasaheb and left. Gradually I came to know who Babasaheb was and then the conversion happened quite suddenly.

From the surrounding villages crowds of people marched to the grounds of Gogate College in Ratnagiri… Then came the rever- berating sound of Buddham Saranam Gachchami and we too joined the chanting…” Pawar is the youngest of a family of many siblings. Her father is a teacher and a village priest and her mother incessantly weaves baskets ( the original Marathi title is Aaydan , which means basket). Despite this ‘ creamy layer’ status of the family, her struggle to get educated, to reach out to modernity and to a life liberated from tradition makes the book a breath- taking account of courage and determination.

The home- maker who buys fenugreek, cleans it on her way home and finishes of her chores, presses her often drunk husband’s feet and head, has mandatory sex with him and then sits down to study or write fiction is an oppressed modern woman.

The poverty and the caste oppression of the adolescence when even her tenant and friends had shoed her away because of her caste, is of little consequence here; a Brahmin colleague’s life couldn’t be any different.

Pawar’s account of a lower middle class working woman in Mumbai, crushed by the weight of office, home and aspirations, thus is also a feisty feminist study of the flip side of modernity.

The hesitant writer’s journey to celebrityhood is yet another facet of the author’s evolution, and so is her gradual progression towards Dalit and women’s activism. Her burning desire to succeed as a student, worker, a writer and an activist wipes off the bitterness of a loveless marriage and much else.

But she couldn’t escape the ultimate curse that could visit a mother.

The loss of her son at his prime is a debilitating blow that again universalizes Pawar’s trials. Pawar’s son, an excellent student could not suffer the ridicule of the upper castes in his medical college. Though it is not spelt out, it appears that the son committed suicide, because his college was “ anti- reservation”. It is the story of a life lived fully, that of an unending saga of brave resistance.

Also, as the splendid translator Maya Pandit puts it in her introduction, “ It is a complex narrative of a gendered individual who looks at the world initially from her location within the caste but who also goes on to transcend the caste identity from a feminist perspective.” The translation yet again proves that real literature in India happens in regional languages and if translated well these works could render the agonies and ecstasies of the real India much better than what writers on holiday with their convent school copy books often do.

Dalits Versus State Power

October 26, 2008
Mail Today
Book Review: Khairlanji, A Strange and Bitter Crop by Anand Teltumbde

AN EVENING almost two years ago, I got a frantic call from Raja Sekhar Vundru, a Dalit intellectual, who is also an influential bureaucrat. The usually unflappable friend was desperate.

“ Nagpur police are picking up doctors and teachers, claiming that they are all Maoists. Can you please put this story out? If we dont do something right now many completely innocent Dalit middle- class people would be ruined,” he pleaded.

The shocking request from a bureaucrat ready with a solution for even strangers woes makes sense now with the publication of Anand Teltumbdes Khairlanji, A Strange and Bitter Crop.

Raj Thackeray faces some 50 cases, and was kept in police lockup for just a night, despite getting two Bihari boys killed in the violence of hatred that he spewed.

Paediatrician Milind Mane runs a clinic in Nagpur and is also a public health worker tackling sickle cell disease in the Vidarbha region.

The same Maharashtra police had slapped more or less the same number of cases against Mane in 19 out of the 20 Nagpur police stations.

But unlike Raj, this Dalit doctor was kept in police custody for 14 days not for wanton destruction of public property or parochial hatred. Mane was the convener of the Khairlanji Dalit Hatyakand Samiti formed to seek justice to the Bhotmange family. Two Bhotmange sons were brutally attacked, genitals crushed and murdered and the mother and daughter were raped and beaten to death and a stick stuck into the daughters vagina.

Teltumbdes postscript was written just five days before the Khairlanji verdict, last month. He should have waited a week and analysed the judgment, which is a crucial miss for such a book. That doesnt detract from the books significance at all. Teltumbdes contribution is a graphic account of the equally brutal oppression of the agitators by the state. In fact, paediatrician Mane was even arrested under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers and Drug Offenders and Dangerous Persons Act of 1981, which provides for a detention period of one year.

The police normally protect their own, even if they are criminals like IPS officer R. K. Sharma who remains in service despite his conviction in a murder. But for a Dalit policeman or woman, the primary identity is only caste. During the Khairlanji protests, a woman Dalit constable Vishakha Bhaisane, with eighteen years of service, was severely beaten by an assistant police inspector and dragged to the police station. The police were only checking the caste of randomly picked up persons and arresting all those who said that they were Mahars or Buddhists.

Just for this detailed account of the States institutionalised anti- Dalit bias and its vulgar display in times of a crisis of confidence in the community, this book deserves to be part of the curriculum at the National Police Academy, Hyderabad.

Like Muslim youngsters who get pushed away from the mainstream by the police who randomly pick up terror suspects from ghettoes, the Nagpur Dalits were labelled Maoists for seeking justice.

The polices explanation was that an anonymous pamphlet was circulated in Hindi and not Marathi and that only Maoists circulate anonymous Hindi pamphlets.

It was immaterial for the police that all that the Naxal pamphlet did was to give a call for a democratic, legal mode of protest, that too, just a sit- in on November 6, 2006 at Nagpurs Indira Chowk.

The states deputy chief minister R. R. Patil publicly endorsed the Nagpur polices conspiracy theory.

Branding someone a Naxalite is like terming a Muslim as terrorist.

It makes an individual a non- person, strips him of all fundamental human rights. In the Khairlanji case, a whole communitys agitation against an instance of medieval barbarism was termed extremism. Teltumbdes scrutiny of the Khairlanji police repression is endorsed interestingly in a book written in 1995, of all people, by a police officer. The former chief of UP police, Prakash Singh, in his preface to The Naxalite Movement in India says, “ Naxalism is a much abused term. The authorities playing second fiddle to vested interests in an area use this terminology to brand anyone crying for social or economic justice and justify repressive measures against him.”

The book however has a serious ideological flaw. It inadvertently falls into the Brahminical trap of theorising class conflicts in terms of positing Dalits against the new Shudra oppressors. Kilvenmani, Karamchedu, Chunduru and other examples are repeated at least seven times in the text to argue that new oppressors are Shudras.

If that be, how does Teltumbde explain desperately poor tribals killing and raping Dalits in Kandhamal? The real oppressor is the caste hegemony perpetuated by the core Sangh Parivar constituency of the Brahmin- Bania- Thakur trinity. Is it any surprise that it was Parivars Brahminical commentators who first introduced the Dalit- Shudra contradiction to theorise the “ failure” of Kanshi Rams Bahujan experiment and the split of the unbeatable BSP- Samajwadi Party alliance in UP. Hope the Dalit holocaste series doesnt serve this Hindutva agenda.

Sangh's tribal face threatens more riots

Not over yet says RSS tribal face

By Rajesh Ramachandran in Kandhamal
MAIL TODAY October 10, 2008

TRIBAL leader Lambodar Kanhars house is heavily guarded by the state, which still cannot ensure safe passage to tens of thousands of Dalit Christians who desperately want to return home.

Kanhar is widely alleged to have led the December 2007 riots against Panos, the Dalits and many victims claim he led the mob this time too. But the administration insists that he was not arrested along with the 500 tribal and Sangh Parivar activists because he was somehow not involved in the riots that began on August 24.

Yet, with the police guarding him, Kanhar threatens another round of riots, if his demands are not met. “ We will wait for one more month. If our demands are not met by then, there will be riots again. These riots are spontaneous and are very effective because they are for the tribal cause,” explains Kanhar nonchalantly.

He refutes all accusations of Sangh Parivar involvement, feigns complete ignorance of the presence of RSS leaders like Ajit Mahapatra in the district when Dalits were raped, murdered and their houses systematically torched and he asserts that the riots here were not anti- Christian.

He leans on his chair and effortlessly echoes the “ earth shakes when big trees fall” logic: “ If my father is killed wont my siblings get together to seek revenge? That is what happened here.

Pano Christians among the Maoists have killed our guru, Lakshmanananda Saraswati. Christians had a meeting with the Maoists to plot the murder. Otherwise why should the Maoists kill Swami ji ? He had no enmity with the Maoists, he was only obstructing conversion and preventing cow slaughter.” According to this Kui Samaj coordination committee secretary, his is only an ethnic fight for rights. And Kanhars prescription for peace is a role reversal: “ The Panos served us faithfully, tilled our land, tended to our cattle and gifted men for our human sacrifice. But over the years they grabbed our land, stole our girls and our due in government jobs with fake tribe certificates. Peace can be restored only if our demands for restoration of land, investigation into fake caste certificates and removal of those with such certificates from government jobs are met.” In other words, he wants to resubjugate the Panos.

The contradictions here are largely between an imagined glorious past and an impoverished present. Panos were the underdogs for far too long and like most underdogs were enterprising. They grabbed the first opportunity that conversion to Christianity presented them to shake off the shackles of the past. In a state where untouchability is widely practiced even in tribal areas, Panos were liberated from the Kandha serfdom and also untouchability by the new faith.

Then, competing Christian missionaries brought relative prosperity, some political muscle in the Dalit reserved constituency and also education, health, jobs and a better life.

But Kandhas comprising over 50 per cent of the districts population remained backward. For them, a Pano wearing shirt- pants, buying land, landing jobs and their children zooming in and out of the village in new two- wheelers were all instances of “ exploitation”. No doubt, some Pano politicians by demanding tribe status for Dalits on the grounds that both speak the same Kui language fuelled this strife. They had their eyes set on land and jobs, probably.

But, the ethnic conflict cannot be ignored. After all, the first widely reported riot was in 1982 and the next one in 1994.

Then, the Sangh Parivars dramatic entry into the scene only exacerbated the divide, changing the contours of the conflict. Whether Kanhar likes it or not, many Kandha Christians too have been raped, murdered and left homeless.

Christian refugees flee Orissa

Fear turns Orissa refugees into migrants

By Rajesh Ramachandran in Kandhamal
MAIL TODAY October 9, 2008

HATRED and the misery it begets seem to have travelled the breadth of the country from Gujarat to Orissa.
Riots here have become comparable in their terrible scale of suffering to those of Gujarat because of the sheer number of the homeless and their migration.
Over 27,000 people are refugees in just one district.
Many more are missing in the forests. Worse, despite the governments claims of normalcy, they are not returning home, but are fleeing the district and even the state.
At the peak of the riots that began on August 24, there were 17 relief camps housing 27,000 people. Now there are 10 with around 13,000 refugees.
But the figures fail to tell the tale of migration. Those who are leaving the camps are not going home as the administration insists. Some may have returned, but the overwhelming majority is seeking safety.
There is a steady stream of Dalit Christians reaching the state capital, Bhubaneswar, only to flee further from fear.
Their houses have been looted, flattened and in some cases, the rains have erased all traces of habitation.
Even a conversion to the Sangh Parivar brand of Hinduism, a pre- requisite to step back into the village, is no guarantee for life and land.
According to those who run the relief camps, there are few cases of families returning to their villages. “ They are going to Kerala, Goa, Surat, Bangalore, Pune and elsewhere. It is a lie that they are going home.
Those who have relatives in Bhubaneswar stay there while those who have been working in other states are taking away their families to their workplaces.
There are many from Kandhamal who are working in Kerala, in the textile mills of Surat and elsewhere,” said a relief worker who didnt want to be identified.
In a desperately poor milieu, many Dalit Christians are the educated rural middle class.
Theirs has been a descent from decent living to destitution.
From pucca houses to cramped tents, most of them like Asya Digal at the Vijaya camp in Raikia look distracted.
His glassy gaze hides his proud past and the present pain of loss. Once a farmer who
fed his family and a skilled mason who had a three- bedroom pucca house, Asya now shares his tent with his grownup daughters.
At the G. Udaigiri camp, Jana Naik was ashamed to talk. He retired from the Army, his wife is a government school teacher and they had enough land to have never bought rice.
The murder of two of his cousins by the rioters drove him first into the forests and then into the camp.
“ I will not go anywhere. How can I go? What will happen to my standing crop and my land?” He refused to be photographed.
Unlike Naik, Dilip Pradhan is a tribal Christian whose family got stranded in the crossroads of the ethno- communal strife.
Ethnically, he ought to be with the arsonists but his faith sent him to the relief camp.
He works at Thrissur in Kerala and desperately hopes that the government will help his family go back to the village because he cant afford to shift them.
But nobody, neither the state nor the central government, has instilled any hope of home for Kandhamals refugees.

MEN BEHIND ORISSA RIOTS EXPOSED

Victims point finger at key RSS functionary and local BJP MLA

Rajesh Ramachandran reports from violence- torn Kandhamal
MAIL TODAY October 8, 2008


Masterminds of Orissa riots

RIOTS ARE seldom spontaneous. Here too, they were meticulously planned, organised and executed allegedly by the Sangh Parivar and helped in no small measure by local authorities who refused to raise a finger. On August 24, Parivar activists had a free run, leaving at least 27,000 homeless, 38 dead and forcing hundreds or even thousands to still live in fear in the jungles.

Every such strife needs a mastermind. Many victims here allege that Ajit Mahapatra, RSS joint organising secretary for Orissa, West Bengal and Sikkim, had camped at Kandhamal and apparently had a hand in planning and executing the waves of strikes on Dalit Christians. But unlike in many such attacks — where police quickly arrest the masterminds and name the organisations — here superintendent of police Praveen Kumar says he hasnt a clue to who the conspirators were. He insists he is in no position to name any person or organisation.

This, after one-and-a-half months of rioting and arson. Kumar pleads nobody has told him about the key conspirator. “I cant say who masterminded it. To establish a conspiracy, according to the law, we should know about the meetings that took place. But nobody has come forward to give any such evidence.”

Gauri Prasad Rath, VHPs general secretary, rubbished the allegation against Mahapatra. Speaking on behalf of Mahapatra, he said: “These charges dont hold water. The riots started immediately after Swami Lakshmananand Saraswatis murder. Mahapatra is in charge of such a vast area. How could he be involved,” Rath asked. Police say 500 locals, including the 100 Parivar activists, are in preventive detention. But some of the key conspirators have fled. “Karendra Majhi, the local BJP MLA, and Mahapatra are the real conspirators and the police are mute spectators,” claims a victim who was attacked by Sangh activists and fears reprisal for naming the central actors.

Majhi, though, protested his innocence. “I am a politician. What role can I have in these riots? The people have done all this.” Though most of the key planners have cleared out of the scene of crime, the conspirators have left behind enough footprints for the police — thats if theyre serious about getting to the bottom of the case. MAIL TODAY pieced together the victims accounts of a premeditated attack on the Dalits of Kandhamal.

Preparations for the riots began immediately after Maoistsgunned down senior VHP leader Lakshmananand Saraswati on August 23. The next few weeks saw systematic attempts to cleanse the district of its Dalits who had converted to Christianity. Trees were cut and boulders piled up on roads to block any police interference. Saffron flags were hoisted in many places like G Udaygiri and Raikia to identify Hindu homes and shops so that the mob knew where to strike and where not to.

The procession carrying the slain leaders body is said to have taken a route dotted with churches and Dalit pockets, leaving in its wake death and destruction. As the procession went past a particular point, the activists blocked access and descended on the Dalits with full force, eyewitnesses recall. “Even in Bhubaneswar, on August 25 — the day VHP gave a bandh call — the local Durga Vahini leader came with a list of prominent Christian institutions such as Xaviers Institute of Mangement and Loyola School. Somehow, no major harm was done to them. “I came here only on September 9, but I am told that the Parivar leaders kept the body of Lakshmananand in front of the churches exhorting their activists to destroy the shrine,” claims Tony Raj, a Jesuit priest attending to refugees in the largest relief camp of Raikia. Police were not very keen to stop the rioters. While all this was on, around 40 officials who were made executive magistrates to order police firing at the mobs, were safely ensconced in police stations.

The real kingpins stayed behind, remote controlling the Kandha tribals who indulged in arson, loot, rape, murder and forced re-conversion so that the longstanding ethnic conflict between the Kandha tribes and Pana Dalits subsumed the Sangh Parivars involvement. The traders association, among others, collected money to fund the campaign and feed the families of the arrested Parivar activists.

There couldnt be a better testimony to official apathy than the happenings at Phulbani, the district headquarters. Here, the Orissa Baptist Church was torched at 11 in the morning in the presence of 12 Orissa Special Armed Police personnel, alleges Aroop Jena, a local journalist and the district convener of the All-India Christian Council. “The executive magistrates werescared and didnt want to step out. The police could have stopped big incidents in Udayagiri, Raikia and Tikabali and many other places,” said Jena, whose house too was attacked.

The then SP was suspended and the new one joined some time after the riots. He reminds that there were three incidents of firing. But that wasnt enough to deter the Parivar activists determined to drive the Dalit Christians out of their homes. “Enough force was not available. Handling these riots is a challenging task because of the difficult terrain. The forests severely limit mobility,” Kumar said. But the CRPFs intensive patrolling has brought the situation under control now.

Police have cracked down on the Kandha tribal leadership as well. But the tribals deny a Sangh Parivar purge. For Lambodar Kanhar, the Kui Samaj Coordination Committee secretary, the riot was a simple ethnic conflict between his tribe and the Dalits who have been their exploiters.

rajesh.ramachandran @mailtoday.in

The inverted commas of the new political correctness

Mail Today
March 14, 2008
WE as a nation are scared of our history, mythology, why even our own faces in the mirror; all three have too many warts and are not as fair and lovely as we want them to be. Earlier this week, the saffron party, Bharatiya Janata Party, and its opponent Samajwadi Party, sought the banning of a CD in Uttar Pradesh, and the Dalit chief minister readily agreed. The ban, this time was on the dramatisation of Ram’s murder of Shambhuka, a Dalit, for learning and practising Vedic rituals, an episode in Uttar Ramayan , or the Ramayan after Ram’s coronation.
Political correctness always follows the dominant political ideology of the times. In the Seventies, to be young and still not to be a leftist was like wearing papa’s clothes to college. Most of those who wore ballooning bell bottoms, long hair and jeans then, are now respectable right wing opinion makers. And for them, to be left wing now is like a middle- aged parent going to a teen- aged daughter's party in night dress.
Similarly, political correctness now dictates that 500 years ago a Rajput princess could not have married a Muslim emperor. Rajput associations of Rajasthan began pretty reasonably. One leader apparently had objections because Jodhaa was not Akbar’s wife but daughter- in- law and for those who still could not understand the brouhaha, he explained: “ It is like saying that Aishwarya Rai is Amitabh Bachchan’s wife and not Abhishek’s.” These leaders obviously reflected the state of the bewildered Rajput masses. After all the movie was on a princess from their region and their caste, who spoke their language. How could her father have given her away to a Mughal, just to keep his throne?
Now, the dominant narrative of the life and times of Rajputana states is that of the beautiful Rani Padmini and Rani Karnavati commiting jauhar or ritual mass suicide by jumping into pyres, followed by hundreds of retainers in neat Amar Chitra Katha frames. Maharana Pratap remains as unblemished as he was when he first appeared on the cover of the comic book and all his descendants too claim similar valour. Of course, a claim made loud much after their British masters left the country.
For instance, this is what the anonymous Wikipedia historian has to say about Chittor: “ Chittorgarh is the epitome of Rajput ( Indian warrior caste) pride, romance and spirit, for people of Chittor always chose death before surrendering against anyone.” The many wikipedias of popular historiography coalesce into the mainstream identity of the warrior caste members who would die or commit suicide, but would not submit to anyone, let alone seek matrimonial alliance with the “ other” to perpetuate their power.
Relative prosperity of the recent years has only added to the myth of glorious caste or community lineages. And this by no means is an exclusive upper caste Hindu construct. Most Christians ( Orthodox, Syrian Catholic and even some Anglican denominations) of Kerala claim that they were once Brahmins, depending on which generation they came into money and an English language education.
Like Wikipedia, most of these Christians have their own family histories, which are genealogies that trace their history back to the first century AD, the ( disputed) arrival of St Thomas and his personally converting a Nampoothiri Brahmin family to Christianity. Most Christian children are made to read and listen to this family history, which is often internalised. Ancient Portuguese- built churches in landlocked villages indicating Portuguese persuasion or the proof of lower caste or mass Dalit conversions by British missionaries notwithstanding, every moneyed Christian other than the Latin Catholics close to the shore, believes with great conviction that he or she is of Nampoothiri stock.
Interestingly, the colour of the skin is also applied as an absolute test for Brahminhood in this coastal state, which many light- skinned people have visited since man began sea- faring. In states with a Kshatriya- vaccum like Tamil Nadu, Thevars and Vanniyars, now categorised as other backward castes, take pride in their imagined martial past. Wherever history slips into mythology, we confront the same theme of dominant ideology pushing pluralistic variations beyond the margins, even violently. For instance, the Ram Lila troupes of Ramanand Sagar and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad seem to have copyrighted Ram. Eminent scholar AK Ramanujan’s essay on the many Ramayanas, including a Dalit version, as reading material is enough for a professor of history of Delhi University to get beaten up by VHP’s campus wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
The VHP’s Ramayan has restricted the right to imagine the text in its million regional and linguistic variations. When a consummate politician like M Karunanidhi confidently asks for Ram’s engineering degree, it is primarily because of his understanding of Ram in the Tamil milieu, which surely isn’t that of the Sangh Parivar.
According to Sangh Parivar historians, Ram is supposed to have crossed the Palk Strait from Rameshwaram, building the Adam’s bridge or Rama Sethu to save Sita. But the Parivar could only get the traffic stopped in Delhi, not Tamil Nadu over this issue. Still, the central government is uncomfortable dealing with the dredging of the Palk Strait. The political correctness of Congress, a socalled centrist political formation, is favouring the path of least resistance, instead of standing up against locally irrelevant shibboleths.
The attack on the Delhi University professor brings in a curiously counter parallel from the south. Ram is dwarfed by the magnificent portrayal of Ravan in CN Sreekantan Nair’s great Ramayan trilogy in Malayalam. The three plays span the lives of Dasharath ( Saketham ), a husband blinded by love failing his son; Ram, a cruel husband deserting his wife for the mores of power ( Kanchana Sita ); and Ravan ( Lankalakshmi ) the great king who wanted to make Sita, the jewel of Lanka. These three are not recommended reading but compulsory ones in undergraduate and graduate classes in Kerala.
But for how long? Probably, till the Sangh Parivar wins enough votes to force centrist formations to accept the VHP version of Ramayan . The NDA rule had to a great extent made Jai Shri Ram a slogan where it had no resonance earlier.
One of the best instances of the change in the popular political idiom is the acceptance of the phrase, “ pseudo- secular”. This was coined by LK Advani and his acolytes to abuse all those who opposed their project to demolish the 15th century Mughal mosque in Ayodhya. Many believed and still believe that bringing down an old mosque will and should not right the wrongs of history. Many believe that fresh blood cannot wash away the warts of history and that like our face we should learn to live with our ugly past. Advani called those who held such beliefs pseudo-secularists. Now, this phrase is bandied about even in commentaries on Naxalism.
Incidentally, two of the country’s big newspapers find the concept of secularism so odd that, they put this word within inverted commas in their political copies. This surely is no season for the syncretic faith of Din- i- Ilahi, or a subtle retelling of a great moment in medieval history, when an invader turns native and determinedly seeks to build a composite culture. In the present day political correctness, the idea of a Rajput princess, even a fictional Jodhaa as malika-e-hindustan would only be treated with suspicion or get trapped within the inverted commas of political correctness.

BSP and the theory of wasted votes

Mail Today
January 4, 2008
Numbers by themselves do not necessarily tell a tale. But, often they are twisted out of context into something completely unrecognizable to suit the story-teller. The Bahujan Samaj Party polled over seven per cent in Himachal Pradesh and around three per cent votes in Gujarat, and the Congress is already in mourning. The party officially claims that the surge in BSP votes has resulted in a poor show by the Congress. Did the Congress really expect an emerging political rival to dole out votes?
Now, what the Congress actually laments is the beginning of a pan Indian Dalit consolidation. If the numbers do tell a dramatic story, it is of the beginning of the consolidation of votes in favour of a national Dalit party. Even for argument’s sake if it is accepted that all these were Congress voters who switched allegiance, it still could not be termed a negative act by the Dalit voter. The transition from Congress to the BSP could be a loss for the Congress, but for the Dalit voter, it is a positive move marking the end of a feudal relationship of fruitless loyalty.
The BSP voter in Gujarat and to a large extent in Himachal knew well that he or she was “wasting” their vote, that, despite the vote the BSP candidate would not win the election. There is a strong Bharatiya Janata Party parallel from south India.
The BJP polled 4.75 per cent votes in the 2006 Kerala assembly elections. The party has been in the fray for a long time, since the Jan Sangh days. There always used to be ideologically committed voters, who never worried much about “wasting” their precious votes for a candidate who would at best save his or her deposit.
Election after failed election, upper caste committed voters largely from the Nair community supported their Sangh Parivar candidates, but could never fulfill their dream of a saffron member in the legislative assembly, let alone Parliament.
Ironically it was a Christian candidate PC Thomas, originally from a Catholic-led party, who switched sides in 2004 to give National Democratic Alliance or any Sangh supported political formation its first ever victory in Kerala. And he has already gone back to another Catholic party. The BSP for the first time is drawing similar committed voters, who are voting just to assert their identity, like their upper caste counterparts in states where the BJP is traditionally weak. Also, like the upper castes of Kerala and Tamil Nadu relating to a Vajpayee or Advani, the Dalit voters across the country now find their leadership aspirations being fulfilled by Mayawati. The Dalit consolidation is of greater significance because it is the expression of the strength of the meek, whereas the upper caste assertion was through violent mobilization of co-opted mobs of backward classes, Dalits or even tribals.
In fact, the first Parivar MLA of Tamil Nadu, a backward class Nadar, won after a communal clash in the Padmanabhapuram constituency in south Tamil Nadu. The Rath Yatra made Advani a pan-Indian leader and BJP a national Hindutva party. The communal riots that ensued divided the polity, enlarging the limited tribe of committed voters in south Indian states.
But the emergence of the BSP as a national Dalit party has been a peaceful process, even at the cost of fire-spewing radical local parties. For instance, in Tamil Nadu, the Dravidian umbrella for long was in tatters. The Dravidian parties, particularly the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam became a party of dominant backward classes almost pushing the Dalits in the 1970s into the open arms of MG Ramachandran’s theatrics of favour dispensation. But all this could not stop the gradual radicalisation of the community. In 1980, half of a village in the southern district of Thirunelveli converted to Islam protesting against the oppression of the dominant Thevars. Even today the old Meenakshipuram coexists happily with the 28 year old Rahmatnagar. Dr Krishnaswamy of Puthiya Tamizhagam or New Tamil Nadu, came up in the 1990s in this milieu.
The Dalits of the Pallar subcaste found a leader in him, just as the Paraya subcaste in the north rallied behind Thol Thirumavalavan of the Dalit Panthers of India. Still, the BSP silently and peacefully garnered 0.78 per cent votes in the 2006 assembly polls. That is, over 2.5 lakh voters “wasted” their franchise on candidates who had no hope. Meanwhile, BJP’s committed vote share in Tamil Nadu was 2.02 in the same elections, and in at least one constituency, BSP came ahead of the BJP. It has to be remembered that this “wastage” is historically different from getting a candidate defeated. The best example for that negative act could be found in the first Lok Sabha election of 1951 when anti-Ambedkarite forces threw away their second ballot paper in the double member Bombay City North constituency to ensure Babasaheb’s defeat.
The new phenomenon is to keep voting for an idea in abstraction without expecting any immediate tangible result. This exercise could only be in the grand hope of these “sacrificial” votes attaining a critical mass sometime in the future to upset the status quo. Something metaphorically akin to radicals shedding blood for a latter day victory.
There is yet another state, where over two lakh people voted for the BSP in the same year --- West Bengal. This state, like Kerala and Tamil Nadu had addressed the poverty, social backwardness and oppression of Dalits in its dominant political idiom. The Periyar rhetoric of self respect was no less than the slogans of land to the tiller. Yet, the Dalit question is only accommodated in the political discourse there without any actual leadership role. The Communist parties historically had plenty of Dalit foot soldiers but unlike Congress did not even bother to have token leaders. Some of their voters are surely turning to the BSP.
What is the appeal of this party, which is not even radical enough to get noticed till the elections? Unlike the Delhi municipal elections, where it is common for those who are denied Congress or BJP tickets to switch over to the BSP, no career politician in the south or west has any reason to consider the BSP good enough to desert dominant political formations. Nor do they have the spillover effect of the party’s strength in a neighbouring state.
Worse, these politicians unlike in the north do not even identify with the politics of sub-caste. Most of the Dalits in south India are from agriculture labourer castes and not the leather worker ones. So, the identification with Mayawati is more to the idea that she represents than the person: The idea of Dalit leadership as against that of token share in power. The only difference between the old Congress alliance of castes and the new Sarvajan experiment of Mayawati is in the Dalit leadership of the caste coalition. It is this grand idea and its success in Uttar Pradesh that fulfills the aspirations of people who do not share a sub-caste or even a language with her.
But will this experiment in politics of aspiration succeed or will it remain stunted as it is in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh? First, Mayawati ought to achieve a critical mass of the “wasted” votes that could threaten the dominant caste alliances and their political formulations. Then, it depends on the need of the other castes or combinations to seek out an electoral alliance, surrendering the leadership to the Dalits. The most important aspect of the new experiment is the community’s dream of a leadership role, for which it would keep on voting for the BSP.

Meenakshipuram Revisited

Rajesh Ramachandran
Hindustan Times
March 1999

It is evening. Meenakshipuram alias Rahmat Nagar sparkles clean. The villagers have stopped rearing pigs - most are now Muslims. The congregation is collecting at the mosque, built four years ago, for gruel to break the day's fast. The youngsters, most of them born after February 19, 1981 (when around 300 Dalit families of the Pallan sub-caste converted to Islam), are reticent.

But Mohammed Mustafa (Muniyandi till he was 60), the mosque's odd job man, blurts out before retreating for namaz; "Conversion was the only way to gain respect and equality."

Meenakshipuram did not decide to convert in a day or even a year. It has never been desperately poor, and has always had its own primary school. The villagers are mainly landless sharecroppers. Reservation in education and jobs brought about awareness - and resentment at the way the landlords (mostly Thevars, and 'other backward caste') treated them.

Kandaswamy was a meek 24 in 1970 when he got a job in a high school in a Thevar-dominated area. The next few years he pretended to be a Thevar." Otherwise," he says, "I would not have got a house or water to drink. The students and my colleagues, all Thevars, would have humiliated me." He decidedto convert in 1981, the day he saw a 60-year old Dalit being publicly beaten by a Thevar body, hardly 10; Kandaswamy became Khwaja Moiddeen.

"Acceptance, equal status and self-respect were the reasons for the conversionof 20 families in Paruthiyar Kuruchi', says ISM Hussein, a Muslim leader who helped Meenakshipuram villagers convert. In the village, they cite a newspaper report that the Tirunelveli district collector, while inspecting tea shops in the district, found 13 instances of the two-tumbler system: one set for Dalits, another for the rest.

What precipitated the 1981 events was love: Thankaraj, a Pallan, eloped with a Thevar girl. His helpless community could not go to his aid to fight the pursuing Thevars. He quickly became Yousuf and felt protected by his new faith and its followers. Soon, two Thevars were murdered and Meenakshipuram was blamed. The police inspector in Shengottai was a Thevar and Meenakshipuram began living in terror with men being arrested and women molested.

"Our elders had thought about converting in the fifties, but couldn't muster enough courage," reminisces Muhammad Raja Sharif. "But when atrocities continued for a year in 1980, we decided to go ahead. Japa Mani, the headman, and a few of us took the villagers' consent and approached the South India Ishat-ul Islam Sabha. Thus we got converted."

Born Hindus, Japa Mani (now Jamaat chief Zafarullah Khan) and Raja Sharief first converted to Christianity, only to find the caste system had followed them -- they were Harijan Christians. "When a Harijan Christian priest died, Thevar and Nadar converts kept away. We have to bury him in a Harijan burial ground," says Sharief.

They believe they have found their dignity in Islam. Sharief married into aprominent Muslim family of the neighbourhood. Many point to their marriages into "old" Muslim families as proof of the respect they have gained. Their Hindu relatives agree. Headman Udayar, Hindu, leads the way to theKaliamman temple, and the Muslims troop in as well. "The incessant police raids led to the conversion," he concurs.

Why didn't he convert? Udayar was a bonded labourer, a "slave", and could not survive without Thevar patronage. He laments that he commands no respect. Any Thevar child can call him by name, but the day his son dons the cap and walks out of Meenakashipuram with a new name, he is called Bhai.

Many others remained Hindu because they were share croppers in land owned bythe Thirumala temple, the biggest in the neighbourhood, and Kaliamman. Uppercaste Hindus threatened to keep converts out of the temple fields. This led to some friction because, when some Kaliamman trustees themselves got converted,they claimed the property.

Anantha Rama Seshan, who spearheaded the Hindu organisations' re-conversion movement and got 185 neo-Muslims to re-covert a week later, claimed he helped a villager Shivanu to reclaim the Kaliamman property.

For non-converts, Hinduism was never a cause in itself; it was just that, if not dignity, it afforded other benefits. Says Lavan, a matriculate; "If we converted, we wouldn't get scholarships or reservations. Many elders felt we should get all the benefits, achieve a status and then fight the system."

Raja Sharief's brother Pandaram, who works in the telecom department, remained a Hindu because he feared he would lose his job. Village development officer Thurairaju got the job in reserved quota, and was suspended when he converted. The suspension was revoked only after he re-converted.

Then, why did others who enjoyed the benefits of reservation convert? "I didn't fall for the propaganda that we'll lose our jobs", says Khawaja Moiddeen. "I had some land too. Now my elder son has a diploma in engineering and is in Saudi Arabia. The younger one is running a poultry shop. If he were still a Harijan, no upper caste would have touched his chicken." Local Muslims helped by getting some of the leaders, including Raja Sharief, jobs abroad.

Outside the mosque, the villagers are curious but taciturn. A few years ago, a national daily had written about the role money had played in converting the Pallans. Was this true? Supraich, a cattleman, responds: "I had six daughtersto marry off and Muslims ask for a huge dowry. But conversion was necessary."

But Seshan says it was all for money: "Outsiders came here and got a fewconverted with money and promises." However the "promises" are not very apparent. Just a handful of people, including Hindus, founds jobs in the Gulf." If promises lured us, then we should have re-converted by now because therewere none," says Hussein, who sells lottery tickets in Kerala.

Also, the Hindu organisations' attempts to woo the converts had failed. Seshan admits the school he opened in Meenakshipuram attracts no students. The RSS shakha, opened in the wake of the conversions, too has closed.

"Before 1981, there were just five or six shakhas in Thenkasi taluka," explains Rajendran, a Thevar and former local RSS chief. "After conversions, we had 22, but to no avail. The Harijans somehow feel the RSS is of the upper caste."

"Now it is they who harass us," says Kuttralingam Thevar. The complaints against the Dalits include murder, rape and looting. "Earlier they were meek,but now they feel they can lord over us," adds Rajendran.

The socio-economic changes have affected local politics. Very much part of the Dravidian movement, the Thevars are now drifting away from the DMK towards theBJP. The recent AIADMK victory in Tirunelveli parliamentary constituency is attributed to the BJP's alliance with Jayalalitha: "I voted for BJP, not forJayalalitha," asserts Kuttralingam Thevar, a traditional DMK worker.

With every Muslim having a Dalit relative and vice versa, the Dalits andMuslims of Meenakshipuram live in perfect harmony. They appear the same, dress the same and live together - often there are Hindu and Muslim houses in the same compound. Khwaja Moiddeen's wife, Rabia Banu, sports a bindi, saree, nose-ring and does not cover her head. "I feel much cleaner and no one can now ask me to vacate a bus seat," she says.

Though Seshan thunders that conversion is a grave threat to the country's peace, the people of Meenakshipuram have been living for 18 years in harmony. And, if there is a call from their new leaders, Dr Krishnaswamy of the NewTamizhaga Party, they warn that those who haven't yet will also convert. Theyknow that the threat of Meenakshipuram completely merging into Rahmat Nagar is a potent weapon.

Dalit Battles

31 Mar 2003
The Times of India

Celebrated Hollywood director Roland Joffe's new venture, 'The Invaders', has met with an unlikely critic. The $40-million project, an Indian version of 'Braveheart' with the first Anglo-Maratha war as its plot, would tell the story of the defeat of the English at the hands of the Marathas.

But Raja Sekhar Vundru , editor of 'Dalit Millennium' and the moving force behind the Bhopal Declaration, tells Rajesh Ramachandran that the movie would inadvertently distort another facet of the war — the martial role of Dalits in pre-independent India:

What is your apprehension about the proposed film?

References to the Anglo-Maratha war usually conjure up images of a horde of White men fighting the native Marathas. But the truth is, the British conquered India with an army composed mostly of Indians. The men who fought for the British against the Maratha rulers were Mahars, a community of untouchables from present-day Maharashtra. Ambedkar was a Mahar and the son of a subedar major, the highest rank that Indians could hold those days in the East India Company's army.

The central theme of the proposed film apparently is the lone battle the Marathas won against the British — the battle of Wadagaon. And herein lies the problem. Because it was the Mahars in the British army who defeated the Marathas in the battle of Koregaon in 1818. This last Anglo-Maratha battle conclusively established British rule in western India and completed the Company's territorial conquest of the country.

But how does the Koregaon battle take away the significance of the earlier battle at Wadagaon?

Simply because Wadagaon was just one of a series of battles which involved Indians on both sides, and which was subsumed by the defeat of Koregaon. In that sense, the Anglo-Maratha wars did not end in the victory of aliens over natives. Had it been a real Braveheart-like situation where one ethnic army clashed with another, there would have been no issue at all. Also, the Battle of Wadagaon pales into insignificance if you consider that it was a 50,000 strong Maratha army that defeated 2,600 men of the British army.

Why were the Mahars not part of the Maratha army?

The Mahars were a vital component in Chhatrapati Shivaji's army. He deployed 'low caste' Ramoshis, Mahars and Mangs in his infantry and naval forces. The latter helped him establish his empire. In fact, the British did much the same while establishing their empire. After Shivaji's death in 1680, the Peshwa rulers oppressed the Mahars, making them hang a pot around their neck to spit and tie a broom around their waist to sweep away their 'impure' footsteps. This social oppression and exclusion led the Mahars to serve the British army and even made them reliable soldiers against the Peshwa rule. The British recognised the valour and loyalty of the Mahars and recruited them in such large numbers that they became the biggest caste group in the colonial army and marine forces. During World War I a separate regiment, 111 Mahar, was raised by the British to fight overseas.

How far did this loyalty to the British help the Dalits?

Ambedkar belonged to a family of fighters. Apart from his father Ramji Sakpal, his maternal grandfather and six uncles were all subedar majors in the British army. The military training and contact helped them in terms of acquiring English education and modern outlook and, in turn, the desire to break free from social shackles. But the British ditched the untouchables when the 1858 Peel Commission on army reorganisation refused to recognise them as a martial race. By 1893, the recruitment of untouchables in the army was completely stopped. Even the 111 Mahar regiment, raised in 1918, was disbanded in 1922, despite its exploits in the North West Frontier and Mesopotamia. Due to Ambedkar's insistence and the exigencies of World War II, the British recruited another Mahar regiment in 1940. (Former chief of army staff V K Krishna Rao belonged to this regiment.)

The Bengal army under Robert Clive, which won the battle of Plassey, was largely composed of Dushads. According to Ambedkar it was the Bombay army of Mahars and the Madras army of Pariahs that saved the British during the Mutiny. But the British soon succumbed to the prejudice against lower castes. As a result, when the native sahibs entered the officers' mess for the first time, the descendents of Dalit heroes of Koregaon and Plassey were relegated to the NCO mess.

How come this history of Dalit valour has completely disappeared from public consciousness?

According to one scholar, the British erected a monument in 1821 as a tribute to the valour and loyalty of the Mahars after the battle of Koregaon. This cenotaph had the names of 22 Mahar soldiers who fell in action. In fact, in the Battle of Koregaon, the British force of 774 men, of which at least half were Mahars, fought non-stop without food and water to defeat the Peshwa's army of 25,000 cavalry and 8,000 infantry. There is a great deal of research going on into this lost history of Dalit valour and martial spirit.

The Strength Of The Weak

By Rajesh Ramachandran
27 December 1998
Sunday Hindustan Times

Gudar Basti could just be another slummy locality of the bustling industrial city of Kanpur. It is late afternoon, and pigs scurry about, children play amidst heaps of rubbish and demure women bathe publicly. The elders, who have just returned after disposing of the garbage from posh colonies, are huddled together. Gudar Basti is inhabited by Valmikis, the poorest among the Dalits, and a community that survives on the litter of the rich.

What distinguishes Gudar Basti from other jhuggi-jhonpri clusters in Kanpur is the banner at its entrance. Its message is blunt: “Tired of atrocities, the Valmikis of Gudar Basti have decided to convert to Islam. In the new year, a new religion will begin under the guidance of Anil Brahm.” Excited at our arrival, trying to vent anger in unison, it takes time and persuasion before Anil Brahm is allowed to have his say. Once he starts, there is no stopping him: “The Muslim-dominated Begumganj is also on railway land. But nobody dares touch the residents there. They openly threaten, ‘Any Hindu who touches our houses will be bombed out.’ We, too, want similar protection. If we become Muslims no one will harm us; they have assured us of help if we convert. In any case, we are not Hindus and no Hindu helps us. There is no discrimination among Muslims. They drink from the same glass, eat from the same plate, worship at the same place.”

The story is confusing and it takes time to piece it together. Six months ago, the administration had listed Gudar Basti among the colonies squatting on railway land. It did not serve eviction notices; instead, it imposed fines. The 10,000 (or possibly less) illiterate Dalits of Gudar Basti were considered an easy target — neither could they protest, nor was their protector, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati, any longer Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Enthusiastic officials descended on Gudar Basti and demanded from 18 of its residents amounts ranging from Rs 7,000 to Rs 60,000 for illegal occupation going back 40 years. Their inability to pay invited immediate retribution — they were beaten and jailed, a fact confirmed by Additional District Magistrate of Kanpur Surya Prakash Mishra.

Fifty-year-old Rajkumari, a mother of two teenage daughters, was one of the victims. Her fault: she had pleaded with the officials who had come searching for her husband. She was beaten and kept at the police station for a day. Ultimately, Rajkumari gathered a few thousand rupees. “The wholesaler who buys the rags we collect paid half, the rest I borrowed. Now the measly Rs 20 to 30 I used to earn daily goes in paying the debt. How will I keep the pot boiling? How will I marry off my daughters?” she wails. Kanhaiya Lal’s father was luckier — he was dead. The police had come looking for the old man, and took away Kanhaiya Lal instead. He recalls, “First, they took me to the tehsil office and later to the jail where I spent 14 days. There was no one to stand surety, so they sent me off on their own.”

But Kanhaiya Lal and others are neither scared nor worried. They don’t scamper away on hearing a jeep arrive, and boldly talk to visitors about their travails and the plan to convert to Islam. Their worldview changed on December 7, the day they decided to take this step if the administration did not concede their demand. And what precisely does Gudar Basti want? Simple — the administration must undertake in writing that Gudar Basti will not be effaced, nor the residents evicted from the railway land. Verbal assurances won’t do, for they have been given these in the past. But whose idea it was to use the threat of conversion to blackmail the administration? After much coaxing and cajoling, Anil Brahm admits: “We saw on TV that Valmikis in Bareilly are threatening to become Muslims. The issue was the same — they were being evicted from their colony. On December 7, we held a meeting and served notice on the administration giving it three weeks’ time.”

Poverty can often defang protest — so Gudar Basti had to innovate to make itself heard. Bereft of money, and lacking the backing of mainstream political parties, the residents hung a banner at the entrance making public their intent. Though most are illiterate, their leaders were savvy enough to realise the importance of the media — a local newspaper was approached with their story. And once a Delhi-based daily frontpaged the story, the administration invited the leaders to talk.

This response has not weakened the resolve of Gudar Basti. A written assurance from the administration, no less, is the price on which its residents insist, to stay in the Hindu fold. They know they have cornered the admininistration: either it relents, or the Hindu (BJP) governments at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh suffer the ignominy of watching the Valmikis of Gudar Basti convert to Islam. Proselytisation as a form of protest is not new in Dalit politics. In 1956, BR Ambedkar had led six lakh Mahars in Maharashtra into the Buddhist fold.

Intermittently, Dalits have adopted other faiths in protest against the atrocities of upper castes, the most famous being the Meenakshipuram conversion in the Eighties. But never before, perhaps, has conversion been employed as a strategy to blackmail the administration into submission on a specific dispute.

The question, however, is: How serious is Gudar Basti about its threat? It’s already dark, so we decide to return the following day to comprehend better the unique protest in this squalid corner of Kanpur.

Relent, or we convert

We walk through the congested bylanes of Gudur Basti. Accompanying us is a motley group. Even in the absence of Anil Brahm and another leader, Master Tejram Boudh, the residents articulate their anguish and disenchantment with confidence. The Basti is not uniform in its poverty. In one section live municipal sweepers — the houses are cleaner, some are even pucca. In sharp contrast, are the mud shacks, dark and damp. But, today, the two sections are united in their resolve to convert to Islam.

We stop at Gudar Basti’s temple, located in its less poor section. It is a dingy room; the wallclock dominates the Shivling on the floor. The Navarat festival in the month of Chaith is celebrated here. Middle-aged Prem is almost taunting: “We will pull down this mandir and build a masjid here.” The sacred has lost its meaning. Prem is more interested in paying back the establishment — the BJP governments in Lucknow and Delhi — in its own coin. Down the lane, Kusum Bardel echoes similar sentiments. She is a member of the local Mahila Morcha, and the BJP’s lotus symbol is prominent on the nameplate on her door. But party affiliations don’t matter, such is the mood.

Gudur Basti has its proud, inevitable Ambedkar statue, erected on February 16, 1983. It is a vestige of the era of Congress dominance and its politics of symbolism. “Our problems began in the early Eighties,” reminisces Debidin, referring to an earlier occasion when they were asked to move. “But then state minister Abdul Rahman Nastar helped us. He brought in Arif Mohammed Khan and Yogendra Makwana and the colony was declared a slum in 1988. Even earlier, then Railway Minister Kamlapathi Tripathi suspended all action, and advised us to instal an Ambedkar statue.” Gudur Basti is learning the hard way that symbolic politics has its limitations. It is no guarantee against the authorities swooping down later. Says Debidin, “Because of the 1983 experience, we want an assurance in writing now.”

In 70-year-old Rajarani’s courtyard, we come across a plaque commemorating the inauguration of Republic Day celebrations by a Congressman. Once it stood prominently; today, it has been discarded as scrap. Says Rajarani, “I am willing to convert as long as I can stay where I have lived all my life.” She is willing to wear burqa and offer namaz, but doubts the wisdom of demolishing the temple.

The Basti’s youth do not share her reservations. Dinesh, the unemployed son of a municipal sweeper, appears to relish the agitation. It’s his vengeance against those who have never allowed him near the deity of the upper caste temple nearby. “The priests always shoo us away,” he splutters. But now — activists of the saffron brigade and Hindu religious groups have been abjectly knocking on their doors, aware that Gudur Basti’s threat is a direct challenge to them. But the residents insist: either the administration relents, or they convert.

Embarassed: What can BJP, BSP do?

The agitation in Gudur Basti is about making a political statement, about enhancing clout against the establishment, about increasing bargaining power, about using a prickly, emotive weapon to extract concessions. Conversion to Islam, its residents believe, is what can save them from sinking anonymously in the quicksands of caste politics. Yadavs and Kurmis are political powers in their own right; the BJP will not patronise Dalits because they are closely identified with the BSP; and the BSP right now is not in power. But a threat of this sort now forces the administration to listen. Christian missionaries had attempted to lure them with funds and education, but found no takers. For Gudar Basti is not after enhancing its economic or social status. Its limited goal is to make a political statement.

Indeed, the Valmikis here feel politically orphaned. Babulal Bardel, an erstwhile Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh activist, feels even parties with the avowed ideology of uniting and solidifying the Hindu community don’t treat them as equals. Though Bardel didn’t face any discrimination when he attended the RSS shakha in 1979, he says, “But outside the shakha it’s the same. I am still a BJP worker. But for the last 20 years, no non-Dalit leader has had tea from my place. Why shouldn’t I become a Muslim?” They are not enamoured of the BSP, either. Says Master Tejram Boudh: “It is not only Brahmins and Thakurs that preach discrimination. Even Dalits can become Brahmins in attitude. When I went to meet Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, I was made to sit on the floor. Even Assembly members and other senior leaders have to sit on the floor in their presence. The BSP is a Chamar party.” (Valmikis are way below Chamars in the Dalit heirarchy.)

Even so, touched to the quick, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and BSP have petitioned the district magistrate on Gudur Basti’s behalf. VHP Kanpur unit joint secretary Prem Narain Bhatt feels Gudur Basti will never actually convert because its residents will have to stop rearing pigs and eating pork. But, just to be sure, the ageing organising secretary Krishna Kumar Vajpayee threatens: “If need be, we will stop them physically.” Senior local BSP leader Rama Krishan Diwakar says his party is helpless because it is not in power. “In all of UP, the BJP government is attacking our votebank, and we are helpless. We have petitioned the administration...but independent movements like Gudar Basti’s will not affect our votebanks. After all, it was we who empowered them to agitate.”

But the embarrassment for both BJP and BSP is deep — for the BJP, the Basti’s conversion to Islam militates against its concept of a monolithic Hinduism; for the BSP, it is a severe indictment of its brand of politics. It may encourage Dalits elsewhere to move away from the party. The administration is taking all precautions. It has asked the city Qazi, Maulana Mansoor Ahmed Mujahiri, not to get involved. Officials are also trying to talk the Dalits out of their decision. “It has been happening in Eastern UP too and it shows that Muslim and Dalit voters are moving away from their political masters,” says a senior official. “The day politicians decide to make an issue out of the Gudar Basti agitation, there will be riots.”

District Magistrate BS Bhullar himself is not unsympathetic to Gudar Basti’s grouse. He points out that half of Kanpur comprises encroachments on either Railway or Kanpur Administration land. “How can we throw such a large population out on the streets? Alternate arrangement will be made before anybody is evicted. We are not taking any action now,” he assures. Police chief MA Ganapathy expects no trouble. “I don’t forsee conversions taking place. But it surely is a new mode of protest with an element of blackmail in it.” Other officials would prefer counter blackmail. “It will fizzle out when we tell them that if they convert they’ll be thrown out, and if they don’t, they’ll be allowed to live there.” But that’s exactly what the Basti wants to hear. For the other residents of Kanpur, it is just a storm in the pigsty, which will peter out once the administration throws some crumbs Gudur Basti’s way. But Brahm shakes his head. “We have already been told that we won’t be evicted. But we won’t be fooled. The administration must commit itself in writing.” If Gudur Basti stands firm, it will have opened a new chapter in Dalit politics.

VHP bluster, Qazi’s fluster

The city Qazi is upset, so is the congregation. On a Ramzan evening, the last thing Maulana Mansoor Mujahiri wants to confront is the question of Dalits converting to Islam. He fears a communal backlash. A mass conversion will only result in riots, he can tell. Already the city is full of rumours that they are being forcibly converted.

Sitting in his mosque near Topikhana Bazaar, the Qazi asserts that the Dalits cannot convert only to prove a point. ‘‘I heard they are doing this only because they are going to be evicted from their colony,’’ he says. He does not approve of such blackmail. Anil Kumar Brahm, the Dalit leader, now backtracks. He had claimed to have already talked it over with the Qazi. Yes, he had talked to a Qazi, but not this one. Oh, now that he knows that Mujahiri is the real Qazi, he will deal with him.

Choudhary Zia-ul-Islam, an unsuccessful BSP candidate in the last assembly election, arrives for namaz. The Qazi gets the newspaper report read and translated. He had never offered support, he repeats: ‘‘We don’t need people who want to get converted only because of a specific issue,’’ he repeats. And if it is for protection, he can offer none: ‘‘How far can we protect ourselves nowadays? At the most, we can do what one brother does for another.’’ That’s the opening Brahm has been waiting for. What one brother offers another is all he wants. It is for protection and this sense of brotherhood that his people want to embrace Islam, he says triumphantly. The argument ends there, for the Qazi says he cannot stop a person who chooses Islam for what it stands for.

Choudhary Zia reads in this portents of immense significance for north Indian politics. The Dalit-Muslim formula will be formidable. ‘‘While we lag behind, the Dalits have become politically conscious. Otherwise, how could they find such a unique solution for their problem?’’ asks a member of the congregation. The next day, not too far from Gudar Basti, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s organising secretary for the city, Krishna Kumar Vajpayee, is finishing his lunch in an atmosphere suffused with the chanting of sacred slokas. The meal over, he steps down to feed the cow that waits for him outside.

The former telecom officer declares that he will lay down his life to stop the conversions. But then, he says, the conversions won’t happen. And then again, if they do happen, ‘‘We will physically stop them. We will move the Bajrang Dal, if needed. Riots are possible when mass conversions occur.’’

The Sangh Parivar is almost fully represented when Prem Narain Bhatt, the VHP joint secretary, and Virendra Kumar Awasthi, the local RSS Karyavahak, join Vajpayee. All agree that the Dalits have put the Hindu organisations under tremendous pressure. They admit they learnt of the colony’s problems very late. ‘‘But we have already appointed a contact person (Awasthi) for the residents. We will soon open Bal Sanskar Kendras in the colony, our pandits will go there regularly, we will also conduct a hawan soon,’’ Vajpayee declares busily.

The VHP had been complaining about Christian missionaries luring the Dalits with money. Now the colony’s decision to convert to Islam has left it speechless. Bhatt has told the residents that changing their name will not really make a difference. But the Dalits, shrugs the VHP leader, keep citing the “wrong example” that the administration does not interfere in Muslim areas.
While Bhatt is all for economic and legal aid for the colony, Awasthi wants to convince the Dalits that conversion will not solve their problems. But with more such episodes being reported from Bareilly and elsewhere in UP, Vajpayee is disturbed. ‘‘It is a serious threat,’’ he agrees, conceding that in its 73-year existence, his organisation has not been able to reform Hindu society. “But we are not casteist,” he insists. The residents of Gudar Basti are not so sure.