Dalits Media Watch News Updates 24.12.14 Dalit panchayat president discriminated by non-dalits - The Times Of India timesofindia.indiatimes/city/chennai/Dalit-panchayat-president-discriminated-by-non-dalits/articleshow/45623932.cms Plight of Dalits - The Daily Star thedailystar.net/plight-of-dalits-56568 Patiala MP to provide funds to end discrimination - The Hindustan Times hindustantimes/punjab/chandigarh/patiala-mp-to-provide-funds-to-end-discrimination/article1-1299508.aspx Dalits’ temple entry campaign launched - The Hindu thehindu/news/national/karnataka/dalits-temple-entry-campaign-launched/article6713006.ece#comments Battles for social justice - Front Line frontline.in/books/battles-for-social-justice/article6718915.ece State of Indian prisons - Front Line frontline.in/other/data-card/state-of-indian-prisons/article6711003.ece?homepage=true Return to which home? - Front Line frontline.in/the-nation/return-to-which-home/article6715553.ece?homepage=true The Times Of India Dalit panchayat president discriminated by non-dalits timesofindia.indiatimes/city/chennai/Dalit-panchayat-president-discriminated-by-non-dalits/articleshow/45623932.cms TNN | Dec 24, 2014, 04.28 AM IST SIVAGANGA: A case was registered against five people for allegedly removing the name of a dalit panchayat president from a temple board because they did not want it to appear alongside theirs. M Chinniah, a member of the dalit community, is the panchayat president of Manelmelpatti panchayat, close to the town of Thirupathur. The villagers had decided to construct an annex building for the Anthara Natchiamman temple, to function as a treasury. Donations were collected and a notice board was printed to engrave the names of the donors who contributed more than Rs 5,000. The board, it was said, would be installed on the wall of the temple to honour their contribution. According to M Kandasamy, district secretary of CPM, Chinniah donated Rs 11,101, almost twice the amount specified to get the donors name engraved on the board. He was an affluent person, and owned earthmovers and a brick kiln, Kandasamy said. Initially, the villagers kept their word and engraved his name on the board, but many non-dalits were reportedly dissatisfied with the move. They approached him on December 4 and told him that they did not want his name displayed along with theirs, and apparently asked him to have it removed. After he refused, they allegedly erased his name from the board using a machine. The space where the name has been scraped off is visible on the granite plate. Chinniah lodged a complaint with the Kannavarayanpatti police, but no FIR was filed. Following this, he approached the Madurai bench of Madras high court and obtained a direction to police to file an FIR. An FIR was filed against five people from the village, identified as Saminathan, Kalaivanan, K Ramasamy, a second Ramasamy and Palanikumar under Sections 157, 427 and 294(b) of IPC and Section 3(1)(c) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Kandasamy demanded that those responsible for the act be arrested, since the person they were trying to humiliate was the president of the panchayat. A Dalit panchayat president in Sivaganga district has been humiliated by his fellow villagers who have forcefully removed his name from granite sign board, because they did not want their names to appear beside a dalit on a coveted sign board in the temple premises. M Chinniah a dalit is the panchayat president of Manelmelpatti panchayat which is very close to the town of Thirupathur in Sivaganga district. The villagers had decided to construct an annex building for the Anthara Natchiamman temple, which was to function as the treasury of the temple. They had collected donations, and a notice printed for this purpose said that those who donated more than Rs 5000 towards the cause would have their names engraved in the granite slab that was to be installed on the wall of the temple, as an honour for their contribution. According to CPM Sivaganga district secretary M Kandasamy, Chinniah who is a quite affluent in the sense that he owns some JCP machines and also a brick kiln had come forward to donate, Rs 11,101, which was almost twice the amount specified for receiving the honour of having your name engraved on the wall. Initially, the villagers kept their word and engraved his name on the name plate, but many non dalits were dissatisfied with it. Many of them had approached him the on Dec 4, this year and told him that they did not want to have his name displayed along with theirs and told him politely that they were going to have it removed. Chinniah had lodged a complaint with the Kannavarayanpatti police, but no FIR was filed. Following which he approached the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court and obtained a direction to the police to file and FIR. An FIR was filed against five persons from the village including Saminathan, Kalaivanan, K Ramasamy, another Ramasamy and Palanikumar under Sections 147, 427 and 294(b) of IPC and Sect 3(1)(C) of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. However, his name has been erased from the name plate using a machine and is conspicuous. Kandasamy says that steps should be taken to arrest those responsible for this act, because the person who they are trying to humiliate is the president of the panchayat. The Daily Star Plight of Dalits thedailystar.net/plight-of-dalits-56568 Discrimination against them needs redressing THE horrific form of oppression carried out against the Dalit community came to light in a public hearing organised by right groups on Sunday. The community scattered across the country has increasingly been falling victim to various forms of injustice and discrimination by the socially privileged. This sheer display of negligence shown to a lower caste is reflective of prejudice that shouldnt have any place in modern day society. It is primarily a social vice to stigmatise a class of people. For this to be overcome the broader communitys mindset will have to change from within. Simultaneous with it the government should spread its wings of security and care for the vulnerable segments of the society. The incidents of torture and repression that have been revealed need to be investigated and legal action taken against the perpetrators. We are heartened by the fact that right groups have promised legal aid to them. Awareness should be built among the community to seek justice for infringement of their rights. We call for governments intervention besides implementing whatever measures are needed for protecting the Dalit community immediately. The community should not be allowed to think they are alone to fight for their rights; human rights should prevail over social inequalities irrespective of ones standing in society. The Hindustan Times Patiala MP to provide funds to end discrimination hindustantimes/punjab/chandigarh/patiala-mp-to-provide-funds-to-end-discrimination/article1-1299508.aspx Navrajdeep Singh, Hindustan Times Patiala, December 23, 2014 The fight against discrimination may help villagers in Patiala get extra funds for the development of their areas. In a social cause initiated by Patiala MP of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Dr Dharamvira Gandhi, financial assistance will be provided under Member Parliament Local Area Development (MPLAD) funds to panchayats that overcome discrimination, for the development of the village. Almost every village across the state has different gurdwaras and cremation grounds for the upper and lower castes. Two days after Gandhi launched a campaign to spread awareness among people regarding social segregation, the panchayat of Dakaunda village has passed a resolution to build a common cremation ground for all villagers. The Dakaunda village earlier had two separate cremation grounds for Jats and Dalits respectively. “The idea cropped up when I received several applications from Dalits seeking funds for development of their cremation ground. Presence of separate places of worship, dharamshalas and cremation grounds for Dalits in villages across the state is a blot on humanity,” Gandhi said. He added, “With a motive to encourage the panchayats, grants will be provided under MPLAD funds for the development of villages which come forward to end such prejudices among communities.” The Hindu Dalits’ temple entry campaign launched thehindu/news/national/karnataka/dalits-temple-entry-campaign-launched/article6713006.ece#comments Vishwa Kundapura Dalits sang tatwapadas at the Dalits’ temple entry campaign at Kadenahalli in Kolar district on Sunday. Former High Court judge H.N. Nagamohandas, Chief Election Officier P.N. Srinivasachary, Deputy Commissioner K.V. Trilokchandra are seen. Photo: Vishwa Kundapura. Kadenahalli in Mulbagal taluk, a remote village 50 km from district headquarter Kolar, on Sunday became witness to a Dalits’ temple entry campaign. Organised by the Dalitara Grihapravesha Rajya Samiti under the slogan ‘Our march toward untouchability-free India’, a large number of people from scheduled caste, including women, entered Sri Chowdeshwari temple under Muzrai and Religious Endowment Department in the presence of a number of officials including Deputy Commissioner, K.V. Trilokchandra. Retired principal secretary, P.N. Srinivasachary and former judge of Karnataka High Court, H.N. Nagamohandas are the dignitaries among others who witnessed the event. 75-year-old Narayanamma, who was among the people who entered the village temple for the first time in her life, expressed happiness about the development. “Earlier we were not being invited into the temple. Now with Deputy Commissioner issuing the order (following efforts of the committee) we are able to get the darshan of the diety”, Ms. Narayanamma told The Hindu. “We now had the feeling that all of us are equal”, she said. Vinoda and Somashekhar, who are in their twenties, shared similar sentiments. Ms. Narayanamma, a bhajana and kolata artist, however, said that the temple-entry alone cannot solve the problem. “We are eking out a meagre livelihood by singing bhajans and performing kolata. The government should come to provide more facilities to poor artists like us”, she said. Change of heart necessary Delivering a special lecture on the occasion, justice Das regretted that despite making great achievements in the field of science and development, the curse of untouchability still persists. Laws alone cannot eradicate social evils such as untouchability and casteism. Change of heart among people is needed to bring social transformation, he said. Education and scientific temperament are the two ingredients necessary to materialise the dreams of great thinkers like Buddha and Basava as well as the ideals of freedom movement of the country, he added. Committee founder, G. Shivappa, District Social Welfare Officer Shivakumar, Mulbagal tahsildar Gangappa, CPI(M) district unit secretary Gandhinagar Narayanaswamy, DSS leader T. Vijaykumar participated among others. Front Line Battles for social justice frontline.in/books/battles-for-social-justice/article6718915.ece The author vividly describes the atrocities committed on Dalits in Tamil Nadu and the Left’s sustained struggle against all forms of discrimination based on birth. By ILANGOVAN RAJASEKARAN WHEN the Communist Party of India (Marxist) decided to increase its intervention in caste-related issues in Tamil Nadu, it was thought that it would only be on a small scale and within the party’s established framework of class struggle. But today such intervention has emerged as one of the major policy planks of the party in the State, which witnessed the self-respect movement for a casteless society led by the social reformer ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy. The party felt the need for an exclusive wing for Dalit activism when a few Dalit leaders and their outfits attempted to appropriate the Left’s legacy of struggles and sacrifices. It had to defend the signatures of its struggles, especially after a Dalit outfit tried to take over the memorial it had built at Keelavenmani (Nagapattinam district) in honour of the Dalit workers who were massacred by landlords in that village in 1968. The party formed the Tamil Nadu Untouchable Eradication Front (TNUEF) in 2007 to give proper attention to caste-related issues in the State. Such a task assumes greater significance today in the sociocultural milieu of the State’s highly fractured society. Despite its status as a land that pioneered the social justice movement, Tamil Nadu is known for social discrimination, caste panchayats and “honour” killings. It is no exception to the practice of discrimination based on birth. For centuries, Dalits have been suppressed and forced to do menial jobs. They are deprived of the benefits of reservation, which the other backward classes (OBCs) enjoy. The first real Dalit consolidation happened after the murder of their leader Immanuel Sekaran in the Muthukulathor riots in Ramanathapuram district in the 1960s. Dalit writers and activists such as I. Ayothithasa Pandithar, Rettamalai Srinivasan and M.C. Raja were at the forefront of the struggle against birth-based discrimination. But it was the murder that galvanised the then fledgling Dalit movement. At the same time, there was a growing realisation among Dalit youths that education and employment alone could lead to their emancipation. Here, the policy of reservation helped them. Dalits have since started asserting their presence in the fields of education and employment, leading to resentment among caste Hindus. It led to conflicts such as the Bodi riots of 1989. The second major Dalit retaliation took place in 1996 following the destruction of the Dalit village Kodiyankulam in Tuticorin district by the State police. The caste clashes that followed claimed nearly 400 lives in the southern districts and destroyed property worth crores of rupees before they were brought under control in 2003-04. But atrocities continued in subtler forms. Dalits were prevented from contesting elections in the reserved village panchayats of Pappapatti, Keeripatti and Nattarmangalam in Madurai district and Kottakatchiyendal in Virudhunagar district. The State government was forced to amend the rotational reservation system through a special notification in order to ensure that Dalits could become panchayat presidents. A Dalit village panchayat president and five others were murdered in a bus in Melavalavu village in Madurai district in 1997. Sivagangai district, which was carved out of Madurai, is no stranger to such atrocities. Caste-Hindu groups, including Maravas, Ambalathars, Nattars, Chettiars and Vellalars, form a major OBC block in this arid district where Dalits own very little and face raw discrimination. Ironically, at the “samathuvapuram” (a housing colony set up by the previous Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) to promote social equality) at Arasanur, a Dalit woman who drew water from a common tap had her ear lobe cut off. At Kollangudi village, the local people boycotted “Kollangudi” Karupayee, a Dalit folk singer who attained fame in Tamil cinema in the 1990s. Alagammal, who refused to submit to an OBC-dominated panchayat at Ulagampatti village, was made to do 150 squats as a punishment. At Sakkarasankottai, a Dalit labourer was beaten up by a few caste Hindus when he questioned the village panchayat’s decision to employ machines instead of manual labour as mandated by the government to desilt tanks. At Kalayarkoil, the only Dalit “landholder” was forced to use the services of his entire family, including a 10-year-old boy, to till a small parcel of land as the village had boycotted them. These and other atrocities that occurred in Sivagangai district before 2005 were exposed in The Hindu when this writer was a reporter in Madurai. M. Kandasamy, the author of Manusangadaa Naanga Manusangadaa! has passionately documented similar incidents, the majority of which occurred after 2010. The title of the Tamil book, loosely translated, means “Human beings, we are humans”. Kandasamy, who is the Sivagangai district secretary of the TNUEF, has chosen 40 cases of atrocities in which the Front had intervened directly. He narrates with a down-to-earth lucidity the various forms of discrimination. His description of the incidents leaves readers perturbed. The chapter on the controversial car festival of Kandadevi village traces it to the murder of five Dalits in Chinna Unjanai village in 1979 when they attempted to establish their right over the festival ritual. He explains how Dalits boycotted the festival for 18 years and tried to regain their rights in 1997. The CPI(M) took the issue to the Madras High Court, which in its June 17, 2005, order ruled that Dalits should be allowed to pull the temple car. The State was evasive in implementing the order, but after a sustained struggle, it allowed a handful of Dalits to touch the rope used to draw the temple car to signify their participation in the festival. Even today, the festival is not held with spontaneous Dalit participation. The book explains how Nattars have a hold over the villages in and around Kandadevi. The author writes that Gandhi, after hearing about the plight of Dalits in Kandadevi, came to Devakottai town to convene a meeting between Dalits and Nattars. “But the Nattars dismissed him and refused to accept his offer,” he says. Kandasamy points out that the intervention of the CPI(M) and the TNUEF has strengthened the party’s base in villages, especially among Dalits. He describes the joy of a village or a Dalit colony when its demands were met and how it recalled the role played by the Left. “Today people throng our party office, to get house pattas and ration cards and for our support for their struggles against discrimination…. The people in distress in Sivagangai see us as saviours,” he notes. He does confine the book to a narration of incidents and devotes the second part to the writings of a few progressive writers to show how the Left has been taking up the issues of the working class since pre-Independence days. “No other country barring India has such a unique caste-based social system. Here, the struggles for class and social justice have to be intertwined to fight against the brutal supremacy of caste Hindus,” says P. Sampath, Central Secretariat member-cum-State convener of the front, in his foreword. G. Ramakrishnan, CPI(M) State secretary, points out in the preface that the forces wishing to sustain economic deprivation and social inequalities attempt to conceal the Left’s fight against atrocities. “Kandasamy has recalled them and meticulously exposed the bureaucratic apathy, discrimination, political parties’ compromises and the Marxists’ perseverance in the fight for social justice,” he notes. Front Line State of Indian prisons frontline.in/other/data-card/state-of-indian-prisons/article6711003.ece?homepage=true Judicial delays are among the main reasons for the overcrowding in Indian prisons, where undertrials constitute more than 60 per cent of the prisoners. By R.K. RADHAKRISHNAN INDIAN prisons are overcrowded and have a disproportionately large number of Muslims and Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe people, and there seems to be no solution in sight for any of the immediate problems. The occupancy rate at the all India level at the end of 2012 was 112.2 per cent, which went up to 118.4 per cent at the end of 2013, according to Prison Statistics India, 2013. The worst overcrowding was reported in district jails (134.7 per cent), followed by central jails (121.2 per cent). There is one silver lining though. The South Asian region has, in comparison, lower incarceration rate (per 100,000 of national population) than the rest of the world. According to Prisonstudies.org, Seychelles accounts for the highest rate of 868 and the United States is second at 707. While Prison Statistics India puts the rate of incarceration in the country at 32, Prisonstudies.org puts the number at 33. In the region, Maldives has the highest incarceration rate (320), followed by Myanmar (113), Sri Lanka (105), Afghanistan (83), Nepal (52), Bangladesh (42) and Pakistan (41). China has a rate of 124. Undertrials Undertrial prisoners are the main reason for overcrowded prisons. –It is a reflection of the unduly long process that an accused goes through before being acquitted or convicted. Apart from the delays at the level of the police, Indian courts are overloaded with cases, which will require more than the filling up of judicial vacancies to dispose of. As of end 2013, 4.4 million cases were pending in various High Courts. Subordinate courts had nearly five times that number of cases in pendency. The percentage of undertrial and convicted prisoners in the total prisoners in various jails was reported as 67.6 and 31.5 respectively in the country during 2013. As many as 3,047 undertrials were detained in jails for five years or more. The highest number of such undertrial prisoners was reported from Uttar Pradesh (914), which accounted for 30 per cent; Bihar (464, 15.2 per cent); and Punjab (294, 9.6 per cent). A total of 9,842 undertrial prisoners were lodged beyond three years and up to five years at the end of the year 2013. There were 2,679 such undertrial prisoners in Uttar Pradesh followed by Bihar (1,243) and Punjab (1,023). As many as 4,820 inmates of the 4,11,992 persons lodged in various jails in the country were reported as mentally ill , accounting for about 1.2 per cent. A total of 2,353 foreigners (2,192 males and 161 females) were lodged in various jails in the country as convicts. Foreigners lodged in various jails of the country as undertrial prisoners numbered 4,353 (3,905 males and 448 females). Front Line Return to which home? frontline.in/the-nation/return-to-which-home/article6715553.ece?homepage=true B.R. Ambedkar’s critique of Hinduism before he embraced Buddhism remains valid even today. By GOPAL GURU ON October 14, 1956, Babasaheb Ambedkar, along with several hundred thousand “untouchables”, embraced Buddhism. The moral and ethical strength of Ambedkar’s embrace of Buddhism lies in its cultural and intellectual capacity to sustain among the ex-untouchables a growing association with it. Conversion as a cultural-intellectual movement that took off in October 1956 from Nagpur continues to gain strength. It would be fair to observe that Ambedkar’s Buddhism has got a pan-Indian following among certain castes formerly deemed untouchable, such as the Jatava/Chamar from Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, the Malas from Andhra Pradesh, the Parayars from Tamil Nadu, the Adi Karnataka from Karnataka, and a tiny section of Pulayas from Kerala and of course the Mahars and a few Matangs from Maharashtra. However, scholars of Buddhism have perceived different meanings in Ambedkar’s conversion. Some of them locate the primacy of nationalism in the act, while others see it as a decision emerging from Ambedkar’s frustration with Hinduism. Still others see the conversion as a personal choice that Ambedkar imposed on millions of untouchables. Arguably, such multiple readings of Ambedkar’s conversion, by default, treat Hinduism as the least important factor in Ambedkar’s act of conversion to Buddhism. By Ambedkar’s own admission, it is Brahmanical Hinduism that provided the major context for the emergence of Buddhist assertion starting from Iyothi Thass and Laxmi Narsu from Tamil Nadu, culminating in Ambedkar’s 1956 conversion. Ambedkar held Brahminical Hinduism largely responsible for producing what could be called the withering down impact, particularly on untouchables. His decision to embrace Buddhism, however, involves two mutually exclusive principles of responsibility, negative and positive. Taking a cue from Aristotle, one could argue that Ambedkar’s conversion was driven by the moral force of positive responsibility, which the protagonists of Hinduism refuse to accept. Ambedkar expected Hindu leaders to take the lead in terms of first critically reflecting on the regressive character of Hinduism and subsequently acknowledging it through a honest conversation with untouchables. He expected the defenders of Hinduism to accept the untouchable’s critique of Hinduism. He also expected them to make honest efforts to take the liberal principle seriously and do it by producing an Indian Voltaire who could then introduce radical alteration into the very structure of Hinduism which is the caste system. But as the social history of anti-caste struggles show, Brahmanism defeated the Buddha and also failed to produce a Voltaire. The lack of liberalism among orthodox Hindu leaders was evident in their refusal to listen to Ambedkar on the question of annihilation of caste at Lahore and in their fierce resistance to Dalits’ right to draw water at the Chawadra tank in Mahad and to Dalits’ right to enter temples in Nashik and Pune. Upper-caste Hindus not only not supported such rights but also violently opposed Ambedkar leading the struggle for Dalits’ human rights. In view of this collapse of his efforts to reason with Hindus, Ambedkar had to fix negative responsibility on them. The principle of negative responsibility holds an individual or a social group or an entire society responsible for the act which is likely to go against the interests of the holders of a particular faith. In this view, Hinduism is held responsible for giving rise to Ambedkar’s neo-Buddhism. Before declaring that he would not die as a Hindu, at Yeola town in Nashik district, Ambedkar invoked the principle of natural justice and invited Hindus to defend their case against the accusations that he was making. His main charge against Hinduism was that its philosophy killed good common sense based on the principles of equality, justice, freedom and compassion. Convinced by the need for natural justice, Ambedkar gave orthodox Hindus a long rope so that they could first modify and then rectify their religious doctrines by seriously questioning their religion. In conclusion, one may say that Ambedkar’s conversion did not sprout from the tabula rasa, or a clean slate. The rigid nature of Hinduism provided the formative context for Ambedkar to justify his decision. Positive responsibility The principle of positive responsibility is internal to the moral and ethical act of offering justification. Justification becomes morally defensible and hence universally valid to the extent that it is based on the stronger claim for a superior cultural alternative that would work out in the interest of the collective good. Neo-Buddhism, through its arya astngangik marg (eight fold ethical path), promises to offer ethical care for both the “touchables” and untouchables in India. Ambedkar saw in Buddhism the best alternative to establish perpetual peace, at least in India. The expression of this normative need was evident in his declarative statement (in Marathi): “Sara Bharat Buddhamay Karin” ( I will expect every Indian to become Buddhist). Ambedkar, thus, argued that neo-Buddhism was a superior alternative to other religions on the following grounds. First, his conversion was aimed at creating independent moral standards by which every human being and not just the untouchables would evaluate their social worth. This moral evaluation would be independent of Brahmins who were traditionally placed at the top of a scale of ritual hierarchy so that they could be imitated by the rest of society. Ambedkar argued that Hinduism sought to convert the real into the ideal, which then is available for imitation by those social layers which have developed the sense of cultural aspiration to catch up with the socially superior. Everybody would like to associate with higher castes through the process of Sanskritisation. It is pathological in the sense that a “lower”-caste person can never become a Brahmin and enjoy the social power that emanates from the ritual status of being a Brahmin. Second, Ambedkar’s decision to convert did not spring from a tabula rasa. Nor was it a hypothetical proposition or a transcendental judgment that was the guiding force of the decision. Neo-Buddhism as envisioned by Ambedkar had a very strong subaltern character. The early followers of Buddhism were the poor masses. Buddhism could flourish with subaltern commitment rather than state patronage. Third, Ambedkar’s conversion was not the result of any empty fascination for an abstract philosophical persuasion, and nor was it the result of any frustration. On the contrary, it has to be understood primarily in terms of its cultural and political force. The theory of “Karma”, which continues to work as a strong basis of Brahmanical Hinduism, was responsible for casting untouchables into a role defined by fate. The concept of “fate” seeks to naturalise the degrading and humiliating social conditions that virtually produce social death for untouchables. The logic of fate seeks to paralyse a person’s faith in his own agency. Ambedkar’s act of conversion was meant to enable untouchables to step out from the mental prison of “fate” and walk into a more dynamic sphere of freedom. An untouchable saint from 13th century Maharashtra adopted the mindset reflected in these words: “Thewile anante taisechi rahawe” (the human being is destined to live life as ordained by god). Ambedkar’s effort to wean untouchables away from this mindset was evident in one of the meetings that was held by the saints in Mumbai during the anti-caste struggle in the 1930s. In this meeting Dalit saints endorsed Ambedka’s decision to leave Hinduism. In this regard, it is also important to keep in mind that some of followers of the saint and the warkari tradition from 19th century Maharashtra showed an undeclared inclination for Buddhism. This is why Krishnaji Arjun Keluskar, a warkari, gifted a copy of the biography of Buddha to Ambedkar, who was a student of Keluskar in his high school days. Fourth, Ambedkar’s conversion shifted focus from everyday forms of maintaining the ritual purity of the body, which continues to be the core of orthodox Hinduism even today, to the creative life of the mind that is internal to neo-Buddhism. Its principle of “atta dippo bahva” promised fulfilment of at least two basic subjective needs—self-definition and intellectual self-determination. As an act of intellectual self-determination, Ambedkar’s conversion sought to demystify the negatively imposed identity of being a part of Hinduism. Ambedkar’s justification also embodied a moral element of the care of the other—the high-caste Hindus caught in the historical cycle of of domination and subordination needed emancipation. Ambedkar could have argued that he did not have to justify his conversion. But he felt the acute need for a justification that would highlight the main teachings of the faith he was embracing—equality, dignity and friendship. “Ghar wapsi” In the context of Ambedkar’s conversion, in the course of which he appealed even to upper-caste Hindus to think of Buddhism as a possible alternative, how does one perceive the stated Hindutva objective of making India Hindu? How does one look at the call for “ghar wapsi”? The “ghar wapsi” programme promises a return to a place that was never “home” in the first place. Untouchables were never considered an organic part of Hinduism, and, as Ambedkar said, they were outside the Hindu fold. The defenders of Hinduism must be asked whether they are talking about accommodating Dalit in a ghar (home) that exists only in abstraction or are they ready to integrate Dalits into the Brahmin ali (which in Marathi means a Brahmin residential neighbourhood) at the concrete level? A few questions What meaning does “ghar wapsi” hold for the Arya Samajists who were seeking Suddhi during the freedom struggle? Or for the different Hindutva outfits working towards the project of making India a Hindu nation? What is its relevance for those broken men and women who were so long kept outside the “ghar”? Secondly, “ghar wapsi” makes sense only in regard to the lower-caste convert. The upper-caste men and women who converted to Sikhism, Islam and Christianity arguably do not constitute an appropriate case for “ghar wapsi”. They enjoy the same power of social domination as the upper-caste Hindus do. This seamlessness eliminates the need for “ghar wapsi”. Ambedkar would expect the contemporary defenders of Hinduism to offer justification as to why Dalits should return to the Hindu fold. Where will the champions of “ghar wapsi” put the untouchables-in the Brahmin ali or agrahara (in Tamil) or tola (in north India)? How can they accommodate the untouchables in the agrahara without a radical reconfiguration of Hinduism on egalitarian lines? Can they achieve this without destroying the painful system of social hierarchy that forms the basis of Hinduism? They do not have any plan to seek this radical inversion of Hinduism. It is for this reason that Ambedkar considered Buddhism the superior option for untouchables. Gopal Guru is a professor at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has authored two books with Oxford University Press, Humiliation: Claims and Context and The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory. News monitored By Girish Pant & AJEET
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:58:04 +0000
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