10th Anniversary Issue
August - September 2003 

Year 10    No.90-91
CASTE


 


‘Fearless voice of the vulnerable and the marginalised’

Vasanthi Devi

‘India’s Shame’ was the cover story of the May 2000 issue of Communalism Combat, which made a powerful presentation of the ‘hidden apartheid’ under which India’s 160 million Dalits exist. The editorial explained the reason for the prominence given to the Dalit issue in a publication devoted to fighting communal hatred. "Our preoccupation… is to combat the politics of hatred and intolerance in all its avatars. If communalism is one manifestation of hate politics… caste is another."

Many of us have watched, with respect and admiration, the contribution of Communalism Combat to build a society free of the virulence of hate and oppression in any form, communal, caste or gender.

In the ten years of its relentless fight for justice and humanity, Communalism Combat has given wide coverage to caste and gender. The ‘thrice-oppressed’, the poor Dalit and Muslim women subject to the triple burden of caste-community, class and gender, and their cry for justice have filled many poignant pages of Communalism Combat issues.

Hindutva and its hatred of minorities is closely intermeshed with its attempts at preserving the hegemony of the upper castes in the Hindu social order. Whatever the strategy Hindutva adopts for the time being, exclusionary or inclusive, the objective is unswervingly the same, the preservation of the Brahmanical hierarchy and cultural hegemony. The present upsurge in Hindutva’s mobilisation was in response to the Mandal doctrine that struck at the age-old monopoly of privileged spaces by the twice-born castes. It is but natural that a journal devoted to fighting communal hatred should take caste head on.

What are the sources and the sanction for the longest surviving system of descent-based discrimination and oppression? The journal has featured writings, including those of masters, to remind us of the ugly face of the Brahmanical order. One of the issues carried Dr. BR Ambedkar’s ‘Hinduism, thy name is inequality.’ Dr. Ambedkar argues that the philosophy of Hinduism "does not answer the test of utility or of justice", because unlike any other philosophy, the religious ideal of Hinduism for divine governance of human society has for its centre "the class of supermen called the Brahmins." Hinduism holds that "to be right and good the act must serve the interests of this class of Supermen, namely, the Brahmins."

Dr. Ambedkar quotes extensively from Manu, "On account of his pre-eminence, on account of the superiority of his origin, on account of his observance of (particular) restrictive rules, and on account of his particular sanctification, the Brahman is the Lord of (all) Varnas."; "…the Brahmana… is by right the Lord of this whole creation." "Whatever exists in the world is the property of the Brahmana."; "…let a Shudra serve Brahmans, either for the sake of heaven or with a view of both this life and the next, for he who is called the servant of a Brahman thereby gains all his ends."

Dr. Ambedkar concludes, "…not a jot did abate from the philosophy of Hinduism as propounded by Manu. They were ineffective and powerless to erase the infamy preached by Manu in the name of religion …one can still say, "Hinduism! Thy name is inequality."

Communalism Combat must be complimented for the reproduction of the article at a time when Hindutva is at its game to invoke Brahmanical India as the golden age that was sullied by mlechha incursions.

The National Public Hearing on Dalit Human Rights held in Chennai in April 2000 figured as a cover story and was given extensive coverage. The Public Hearing brought out the raw reality of everyday life for India’s 160 million Dalits, who, fifty years after Independence, continue to live in semi-slavery, abject poverty and humiliation. Untouchability is still the fate of Manu’s Panchamas.

Constitutional guarantees enabling legislation and welfare measures have brought a minuscule measure of improvement, but they have also been accompanied by a brutal backlash from the dominant castes. The official data of the SC/ST Commission shows that between 1981 and 1991, atrocities against Dalits went up by 23.4%. The cases presented before the Public Hearing covered a wide range of interrelated issues that constitute the condition of Dalits today – untouchability practices, caste violence, social boycott, mass killings, lack of implementation of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, manual scavenging, state violence, atrocities against Dalit women, including the infamy of the Devadasi system, bonded labour, discrimination against Dalit elected representatives, landlessness, the abominable state of Dalit schools and so on. Communalism Combat carried a story on the Public Hearing by Henry Tiphagne, one of the organisers of the Public Hearing and also presented the recommendations of the jury.

Gender oppression has figured prominently in Communalism Combat as a nuanced discourse. It is not ‘gender’ standing alone as a category of discrimination, but gender mediated by caste and class leading to the most despicable forms of discrimination and oppression that has been depicted again and again by Communalism Combat. Dalit women face the triple discrimination of caste, class and gender. They are subjected to the most inhuman forms of exploitation and denied basic survival rights. In addition, sexual violence and other forms of abuse against Dalit women are used by landlords and the police to teach "political lessons" to the Dalit community and crush dissent.

The journal has not hesitated to tackle certain shades of the women’s movement head on for its focus on middle class issues, while the struggles of Dalit and minority women for survival and dignity received secondary importance. One of the issues features an interview with Ruth Manorama. She speaks with agony of her disappointment with the Indian women’s movement when she began "to observe the stark difference between the Dalit and non-Dalit population – the segregated spaces, the dehumanising life."

Within the mainstream women’s movement, it was difficult to raise issues of Dalit women or of slum women. When such issues were raised they were told that "all these were class issues, not women’s issues." "If the denial of water is not a woman’s issue, the absence of toilets is not a woman’s issue, what is?" Ruth, like many others in the thick of struggles, could see a parallel in the Black women’s movement, where the Black women’s experience made them organise separately. The conviction grew that Dalit women needed to be organised separately. However, they did not see their movement "as a counter to the women’s movement, we only felt that Dalit women have to be the heart of the Indian women’s movement."

The Dalit movement in the country, however, is also guilty of failure to provide equal space to women. "For the present male-dominated Dalit political leadership, this critical element of women’s empowerment and participation in the struggle seems unimportant." Such insensitivity has today impelled Dalit women to build their own organisations. They are articulating the sources of patriarchal biases in the men of their own community and are fighting against them. However, Dalit women also stand side by side with Dalit men when it comes to demanding that caste Hindu society recognise caste crimes against Dalits as a crime against humanity.

Is patriarchal oppression among Dalits as fierce as in other castes? There is an opinion that Dalit culture gave greater space to women’s voice and sexuality. Martin Macwan of Navsarjan in Gujarat articulates this view. "As compared to ‘higher’ castes and richer classes, equality between men and women among Dalits is greater. There is much pain to share as also many responsibilities. So, while I accept that there is a significant level of violence against women, women do not necessarily take the abuse in silence. They exercise greater freedom in giving it back."

So, in the words of Dr. Gabrielle Deitrich of Pennurimai Iyakkam in Tamil Nadu, "If the Dalit movement and women’s movement are ever to join hands, the Dalit movement needs to become more pro-women and the women’s movement more pro-Dalit."

As a part of its commitment to the Dalit cause, Communalism Combat gave distinctive coverage to the UN sponsored ‘World Conference Against Racism, Racial Intolerance, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances’ held in Durban, South Africa, in August-September, 2001. Dalit groups used the forum, with telling effect, to draw global attention to the shocking indignities heaped on them 50 years after Independence. The depth and details of the sub-human conditions that a fifth of the population of India is forced to endure, through segregation, exclusion and discrimination, hierarchy and domination were meticulously documented and presented to a shocked global gathering that listened in disbelief.

‘Dalit rights are human rights’ was the slogan on the headbands, T-shirts and placards carried by hundreds of non-Indians. The solidarity that the global community extended to the Dalit cause, very early in the course of the conference, gave hope of an international partnership for the struggle of the Dalits.

The sordid part of the story, of course, was the official position of the Indian government, which marshalled a big diplomatic contingent to oppose its own citizens and their cry for justice. Communalism Combat came down heavily on the machinations of the Indian government to scuttle the efforts of the Dalit groups and their supporters gathered at Durban to expose the continuing horrors of caste and untouchability in India.

In the run-up to the conference, the editorial exposed the hypocrisy of the Indian State; "On apartheid in South Africa we Indians occupied the highest moral ground and were in the forefront of the campaign of sanctions and boycotts." But when Dalits want the global community to acknowledge and thereby condemn, caste-based discrimination, ‘as a distinct form of racism’, the official Indian position would "insist that caste has nothing to do with race, so how can you discuss it at a conference on racism?"

In a powerful piece on the Indian government’s betrayal of the cause of its most wretched, Teesta Setalvad wrote: "The continuance of manual scavenging, untouchability and other obnoxious practices do not seem to bother the Indian establishment, the intelligentsia included. What does disturb them deeply is the campaign of Dalits to have the indignities of caste recognised internationally as a distinct form of racism."

Ultimately, liberation lies in an alliance between the victims of age-old systems of brutalities, of the caste-communal forces. It is a fight against a Brahmanic, Hindutva order that threatens everything precious, our secular Constitution and humane and egalitarian values. One of the CC issues quotes Mahatma Jyotiba Phule propounding the idea of "a completely secular stri, shudra, atishudra alliance." And "this third force will have to take all secular and socialist forces along with it."

Communalism Combat has established itself as the fearless voice of the vulnerable and the marginalised. It is the responsibility of all those who dream of a secular, humane, egalitarian India to support the journal.

I wish Communalism Combat many, many decades of service in the cause of justice and harmony.

(Vasanthi Devi is chairperson, Tamil Nadu State Women’s Commission and formerly vice-chancellor, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu).


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