What about Dalits? Where do they belong in the ‘we’ and
‘they’ divide? If Dalits are part of ‘them’, ‘we’ have a very serious
problem. At around 16 per cent of the total population, or around 160
million in total, Dalits are nearly as numerous as all of India’s religious
minorities put together – Muslims, Christians, Parsis and what have you. So,
Dalits had better be part of ‘us’, else the collective weight of ‘they’ in
India’s population would shoot up to a dangerous one-third (33 per cent) of
the total.
But if Dalits are part of ‘us’, why do we treat them as
worse then ‘them’? Why do we continue to oppress, exploit, humiliate,
segregate, discriminate against the most deprived and vulnerable section of
Indian society? Why do we continue to treat 160 million Indians as
untouchables, and worse, long after giving ourselves a Constitution
proclaiming that our Republic shall treat all citizens as equal,
irrespective of caste, community, gender etc.?
Last month we were outraged when the President of India,
KR Narayanan, was greeted on his arrival in Paris during an official visit
to France by a heading in a prominent French daily, Le Figaro, which
read, ‘An Untouchable in the Elysee Palace’. Several national dailies
front-paged this ‘grave insult to India’ until Le Figaro said sorry.
But the same newspapers paid little or no attention to an all-India ‘Public
National Hearing’ organised by Dalits in Chennai (interestingly, on
virtually the same dates in mid-April that the President was in France) to
highlight the fact that 50 years after the UN’s Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and of the Constitution of India, 160 million Indians continue
to be the victim of a ‘hidden apartheid’.
Why is it that what Le Figaro says shocks
us but what we do does not? Why does the plaint of Munna Dom (a
sweeper by caste) from MP that "They (Dalits) are dying of thirst and the
Brahmins and the Ahirs are depriving them of water from the… only source of
water for man and beast in the region" (India Today, May 8) not prick
our conscience at the prevalence of inhuman practices in "tolerant India"?
Is this what Dr. Babasaheb meant when he wrote, ‘Hinduism, thy name is
inequality!’ and argued that the ideological roots of fascism can be traced
back to Manusrmuti? (See page 20). Could this also be the cause of a
Dalit woman activist’s lament against the women’s movement in India? (See
page 18).
In choosing to highlight ‘India’s Shame’ on our cover
this month, we affirm that we fully identify with the Dalit cry for justice,
that the insults and indignities heaped daily on millions of fellow citizens
should shock all Indians far more than a headline in a French newspaper. And
that we see our small effort as part of that much larger struggle for human
dignity and fraternity.
Meanwhile, we are constrained to take note of fresh
skirmishes on the ‘we’ and ‘they’ battlefront, as Hindutva prefers to define
them. Union home minister, LK Advani issues a selective and communal call to
Indian Muslims to prove their loyalty to India, yet again, by declaring a
jehad against Pakistan. Christians are attacked once more in UP and
Haryana. And the Delhi and UP police add shocking communal insult to
grievous injury, targeting two Muslim-run institutions both of which are
proud of having openly challenged the ‘two-nations’ theory.
