Crisis
of ideology or war for fear from freedom
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
‘You mother f….r, how dare you
write about implementing ceiling laws in the Tarai region of Uttarakhand.
We will take enough care if you dare to come here’, came a response to
my article on my blog written after the completion of the padyatra
related to land issues in Uttarakhand.
Such responses are not new to
me as they keep coming. ‘ I have not read an idiotic article like this’,
was a response to my review article on Telengana in
mynews.in yesterday. Another one wrote, ‘ how much money are you
getting in to divide Hindu society’.. you are fortunate enough that you
are not born in China and Pakistan, he wrote, otherwise you would have
seen what could have done to you..
Just a few years back during
the anti Mandal agitation initiated by the caste Hindus in the AIIMS,
Delhi, I got a number of hate mail at the CNN-IBN blogs as perhaps I was
among very few to question their ‘meritocracy’. ‘You beggar quotawallah,
go beg at Connaught place first, then seek a reserve job’, wrote some
one. Times of India mentioned it as ‘apartheid’ against ‘poor’ upper
caste. It is a discrimination against the upper caste, it intended to
say.
Is there a problem in our
thinking process ? Are we not ready to accept diversent view point ? And
whose divergent view point as at the end of the day, there are
ideologies and perceptions which force us to act violently against those
we disagree. Hence, a Taslima is unwelcome as she is threat to Islam,
M.F. Hussein, at the age of 90, has become a ‘threat’ to our
omnipotent-omnipresent gods. Children are killed when they dare to marry
against their parental desires. Dalits are killed if their raise their
head and claim to be equal national of the country.
Therefore it is important to
understand as what is the attitudinal or ideological problem with
Indians? Are they afraid of ideologies? Do they take shelter in fake
ideological constructs and live in their own world. The biggest problem
with them is that they live in double standard. They speak two
languages, one for their children and different for outsider. So a
majority of the high profile ‘ideologues’ could not sale Marxism and
Maoism to their children, then why they are selling the same to the
tribal, I debated. ‘Oh no, our children are separate. We can not decide
about them. They have their freedom, why do you want them to be
controlled’, they say. ‘But then why you want to control others’. ‘You
give everything to your children’s growth’, look for Its, finding space
for them in US and UK, why, I said. ‘Oh, that is not to be debated. How
can we do that? Mulayam Singh, the great disciple of Lohia wanted
English to be boycotted so he sent his son Akhilesh to Doon school and
then to Australia. Late Charan Singh condemned computer education and
modern sciences as threat to agriculture, hence Ajit Singh went to
United States to study computer sciences when computer was unheard thing
in India. Clear enough, in this double standard, we sale Marxism,
socialism, Hinduism, Christianity and Maoism to tribal and capitalism to
our children. You see most of the Hindutva ideologues actually came from
the best college of Delhi called St Stephens College.
Who were two biggest
dissenters in Indian social system. The first was Buddha and thousands
of years later it was Ambedkar. And since accepting dissent is not a
part of any of these traditions which claims to revolutionary or uniting
Hindus or political ideology of the day, we find attack against them in
each and every form. Buddha Viharas were attacked and Buddhists were
annihilated. Ambedkar was scorned at for ‘dividing’ Hindus and termed as
a very ‘ordinary’ scholar.
‘ No, neither Buddha, nor
Ambedkar can help the Dalits, only Marx can help them, wrote Rang
Nayakamma, an old upper caste romantic of communism in Andhra Pradesh in
her book ‘For the solution of caste question’. How many of these
revolutionaries staged a battle against social evils in India. If that
is not important for them, then why they expect the Dalits to join them.
Rang Nayakamma wrote passionately like Arun Shourie, against Ambedkar.
She blamed Ambedkar as why it
took him so long for converting to Buddhism. Why Ambedkar attacks Marx
and glorify Buddha. In the entire book, Rangnaykamma’s brahmanical past
is visible even when she can claim to be a Marxist and that has been the
problem with most of the upper caste Marxists who remain arrogant to
their brahmanical roots. For them, a shudra does not have the intellect.
Even when the Hindutva’s saffron brigade is busy in social engineering,
the brahmanical Marxist have not been able to provide Dalits a space in
their scheme of things. Writes Nayakamma in her chapter ‘ Caste
Question : Ambedkar has changed religion ( page 407), ‘ The moment he
start writing, there began a baseless confidence in Ambedkar that is a
great intellectual. There emerged a kind of false logic namely,
‘whatever, I wrote is logic’. This is the true story of brahmanical
Marxists whose problem with Ambedkar is that he gave Dalits an
understanding to assert themselves. Who knows Nayakammas and all those
who have great appreciation for her ‘radical’ views can understand that
her writings are pure brahmanical frustration because of growing Dalit
assertion. That assertion is not really visible among the tribal and
that is the reason the brahmanical revolutionaries are leading them. She
goes on to condemn those who admire ambedkar saying that ‘ Biographers
of Ambedkar glorified every aspect of his research, however inconsistent
and haphazard it may have been. There is not a single instance where
they raised the question namely, ; what is this argument’? what kind of
research is this?
She further writes in Vartha,
a Telugu daily (quoted in her book): Since Ambedkar was favorable to the
exploitation of labour, all his Dalit disciples too took the same path
and ‘turned their faces away’ from Marxism. It is such a stupid path
that makes them incapable of knowing whether they are doing good or harm
to themselves’.( page 421)
Many of us know how veteran
Sharad Patil has been writing for long the theory of Buddha, Phule,
Ambedkar Marx philosophy as a remedy to current situation in India. How
do you do it with the current short of Marxists in India who do not want
to share, who remain ‘consistent’ in their condemnation of Ambedkar. Why
Arun Shourie and Rangnayakmma hate Ambedkar. Is it because, Ambedkar’s
Dalits have charted their path on their own and not through the farcical
brahmanical revolution? And yes, it does not mean condemning Marx but
they will simply not make a God of Marx like the Marxists have done.
Ofcourse, Ambedkarite Dalits can not accept Gandhism and its so-called
virtues as way to their salvation. Actually right from left, right,
centre, Hindutva or missionary variety, in their action they did not
have time to speak up against the exploitation of labour in the villages
and caste dimension of it. Instead, Hindutva ideologue people like
Shourie calls him a British supporter while so called Marxist like
Rangnakamma blame him for supporting the exploiter. Can there be any
truth in such vicious campaign and propaganda? Yes Ambedkar condemned
three classes which he says British, Brahmin and Bania and the real
meanings of these should be understood. By British he meant imperialist
forces, Brahmin symbolizing brahmanical Hinduism and Bania, he meant
capitalism. How can any one suggest that Ambedkar did not speak against
capitalism. Those who have read him know that he wanted to nationalized
land. Now was that a capitalist agenda? He formed Indian Labour party,
Depressed Classes, Republic party of India.. where did he put caste
identity in focus in these. Did he deny any class or caste entry in his
movement ?
Marx has been a great
revolutionary and his vision still stand for an equitable society. But
why Marxist hate Buddha and then Ambedkar is beyond understanding. If
Buddha waged relentless war against superstition and caste system, why
should not Indian follow him? After all, Buddha was born much before
Marx. How did the caste Hindus kill both Buddha and Marx together in
their pursuit for power? One has to understand the tribal question
deeply as why the tribal leadership is unable to emerge and in the name
of tribal liberation it is the brahmanical forces which are dominant in
the region. ‘They can not fight their own battle, said a friend, so
these revolutionaries are there. Why can not tribal fight their own
battle when they had a Birsa Munda who revolted against the British.
The other day, an ideologue
from Andhra said on Times Now,’ the Maoists are like Bhagat Singh,
fighting against state repression’. It is tragic to do such a comparison
that easily. Bhagat singh had never justified violence and in fact wrote
about the issue of untouchability as the biggest challenge to our
society. Secondly, Bhagat Singh never lived in double standard. At the
age of 23, he went to gallows and scolded his parents who wanted to get
pardon from the British. Who had the courage to openly claim himself as
an atheist and demolish all the religious symbolism from his body? In
fact, that is the problem with our modern day Gandhian historians that
they never considered anybody else for contributing to our freedom
struggle, other than Gandhi and his followers. Bhagat Singh was just
branded as gun trotting revolutionary and not an ideologue who defended
freedom and secular values. They do not feel that Bhagat Singh while
fighting against British imperialism concentrated on our own weaknesses
of caste system, untouchability and communalism.
The other day, some human
rights activists claimed that state is killings hundreds of people and
we must speak against them. But who stops human rights activists to not
to speak against those who are killing the innocent. ‘No, in the war
these things are justified, they say. Fine, in the war, the state will
also use its might and that too is justified despite human rights
activists like us asking the police and military to follow norms, but
practically where have these norms followed in war? Redcross, Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, all know it well that human rights
are violated heavily in arms conflict. Their pressure makes a lot of
things during no war period but during war, only the gun speaks.
Problem is that brahminism in
India has various roots to survive. It is monster and has different
forms. Some where it survives through pure Manuwaad, we all know, the
gangs of Hindutva and their cousins elsewhere. It comes through
socialism, it come through communism, it come through all shorts of ism
including the Dalits themselves. How is that every perception in India
failed because of this. Reason is that India needed social revolution
and we opted for political one. I do not say that only caste matter (Ofcourse
it is the most important aspect) and class too matters. Why can not our
friend take both as Ambedkar visualized in his famous work ‘ thought on
Pakistan’ when he said that ‘Hindu Rastra would be a calamity’.
Problem is that in the human
rights discourse, we are conveniently using ideological slants for our
purposes. Hence those who are not with left leanings become a right
wing. If you are not with RSS then you are seculars, communists and what
not. I am proud to be a secular whether they want to use it in negative
term or something else. The problem is that none of them appreciate
freedom. Some keep conspicuous silence when Taslima speaks, while others
want to raise the issue of MF Hussein and his paintings. The issue of
Satanic verses would be raised by one set of freedom fighters while
others would demand a ban on riddles of Hinduism written by Ambedkar.
So, whenever the opportunity comes closed mind will not allow this
freedom. That is why, Ambedkar is a problem for all the closed mind.
Ambedkar was essentially a modern man, a liberal democrat who could not
close his eyes to global changes. He was a free thinker who challenged
the supremacy of the religious text books. He knew that Indian society
has no respect for individual and he believed in it and perhaps these
are things which were not liked by those people who lionize a particular
ideology, do not believe in individual freedom and have nothing to offer
to demolish the age old prejudices and our very indigenous capitalist
order entirely based on your identities.
This article is not against a
particular short of ideology. It is basically on issues that in the name
of ideologies, we are justifying everything, human pain and agony. How
can it be in a modern democracy where each life should be considered
precious? For those in authorities, it is prudent that the ideology need
a counter ideology. If development fail to reach to the people, if
social justice is not there in our villages, if India still remain caged
to feudal mindset, if our village resources, our rivers, our mountains
are on sale on throw away prices then Mr Chidambaram and his team will
have to do a lot of soul searching.
Step out side Raipur and you
will see the big companies lining up in Chhatishgarh. Jindal tops the
list with thousands of hectares of land being granted to them for
mining. Hundreds others are there to ‘develop’ Chhatishgarh. Tribals
remain sandwiched between the two. They have lost their land.
Chhatishgarh is being colonized now by the non Chhatishgarhis, big
companies and Babas and sadhus. And where are the poor? Mr Chidambaram
would do well to take a round in the city of Raipur’s famous Rajkumar
college in the morning hours and watch the irony of large cue of people
waiting to defecate in open even when there is a Sulabh Shauchalaya. It
means that people can buy rice at one rupee kilogram but no money to
defecate as the charges in the public toilet are higher then the price
of rice in the state.
Where ever the political set
up failed non democratic forces took up. The tribal who have been
exploited for years gets new hope in those who give them ‘instant’
justice. There is a Vth schedule of constitution where you need
permission of the village panchayat for starting any new private
ventures? But how many times have the government cared to speak to them.
So, the result is growing disenchantment among them. They have lost
their habitat and without addressing the basic issue of land, forest and
water, the government would not be able to tackle whole issue. Those who
have isolated the tribal population must be made answerable to them. In
the meanwhile, each one of the revolutionaries from Hindutva’s saffron
gangs to Christian Missionaries to Naxals, will sandwich tribal except
from the tribal themselves. Each one of them consider themselves as
‘protecting’ tribal from ‘outside’ influence but at the end of day none
of them actually belong to tribal themselves. It is time when we address
the issues of the people’s exploitation without being indulged in the
‘greatness’ of ideologies. Greatness of ideologies lies in the
emancipation of human being and not on controlling their minds. Let us
defend the human rights of all but let not human rights become
instrument for those who spread hatred and violence.
On the other side which is
equally darker, let not the ‘threat’ of terrorism become an instruments
to violate human rights of the people. Let not every padyatra, slogan,
publication which question the motives of the government become a target
of security agencies in the name of ‘fight against terror’. It is a very
delicate battle and the responsibility on the state is higher as on the
human rights activists too. The more you oppress the common man, the
bigger will be the fascination for ‘revolution’.
It is time we speak against
oppression and for human rights. Let us condemn violence in unequivocal
term. It is time we rise up against social injustice. The seeds of
social democracy should reach each part of the civilization. Let
ideologies not become bigger than the human liberty. Let human right
discourse does not become good or bad because of a personal perception
based on basic political principals and conditioning of our mind, after
all, the movement for social justice, the principals of human rights too
came from hard core struggles of the masses. It is time we accept
criticism with open heart. Speak against the perception and not on
individual. Those who believe that only ideology can counter ideology
must come up with ideological arguments to spread their ideology. With a
gun in hand to promote their ‘democratic’ ideas would not work and will
definitely not do justice to millions of those whose name this entire
battle is being fought.
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
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