(From Narens Book Dilemmas in agriculture - a Personal Story) - A must read for anyone concerned about villages and village realities, by a person who made the village life and economy and social inequitieshis own for a lifetime. The farming details are also presented in fine detail, as also the other village realities. ... Castes and Untouchability: Between Gandhi and Ambedkar “The ‘untouchable’ to me, is compared to us, really a Harijan—a man of God and we are ‘Durjan’ (men of evil). For whilst the ‘untouchable’ has toiled and moiled and dirtied his hands so that we may live in comfort and cleanliness, we have delighted in suppressing him. We are solely responsible for all the shortcomings and faults that we lay at the door of these ‘untouchables.’ It is still open to us to be Harijan ourselves, but we can only do so by heartily repenting our sins against them.” Mahatma Gandhi. “You must abolish your slavery yourselves. Do not depend for its abolition upon God or a superman. Your salvation lies in political power and not in making pilgrimages and observance of fasts.” B.R. Ambedkar Despite our background in sociology the first shock in the village was the practice of untouchability. I knew that SCs (scheduled castes) were not allowed inside the houses of other caste people. But being part of a household in which you could not take your SC friends /acquaintances inside, gave me a queasy feeling to say the least. It prompted me to build a separate house for my family as quickly as possible. (It was also required for reasons of other conveniences as well). But the extent of the practice was really appalling and I realized this only when I started living in the village. At the tea shops in the central village, SCs are allotted separate glasses which would be hanging by a wire loop or kept aside at a corner visible for all those who should know. An SC wanting tea/coffee has to take the glass and hold it while the tea shop owner would pour the tea from a height. The SC gentleman after drinking the tea has to hold the glass again for the owner to pour some water so that the SC customer can wash the glass and keep it back in its pristine position. This in the 1980s! SCs are not allowed into the eating places. They have to stand or sit outside or on special benches inside especially allotted for them. They would not be served in plates but in leaves which after they finish eating they would have to pick up and throw outside. There are stone slabs outside or in the center of each village or raised platforms under a tree on which people squat and chit chat, read newspapers, or settle disputes. But SCs dare not sit on them… especially at bus stops in the village. These are unwritten rules. If there are temples in the caste village with closed walls, SCs cannot enter them. There are still a few villages where the SCs cannot pass through the caste Hindu streets wearing footwear. If a SC person is riding a cycle and another caste person happens to be walking along the road, in whichever direction, he must get down from the bicycle and wait for the other caste person to walk across, after wishing him and taking his approval to cross him, he may ride again, as a mark of respect. If the cycle rider rings his bell to warn of his coming he is considered haughty. If another caste person, even of a younger age passes through the street of an SC hamlet, all the SCs, irrespective of age, have to stand up, as a mark of respect. (The SC women also do the same for SC men). The village barber or washerman does not serve them as they are below his status and besides the other caste people will no longer use his services. This has resulted in the SCs appointing one of their own caste persons as their washerman and behave towards him and his family exactly as the caste Hindus do to their washerman! They consider the washer family slightly lower and do not intermarry or eat with them. But in most villages these days all the SC boys know to cut their hair and each family usually washes its own clothes, meaning the womenfolk do the job. The younger boys often patronize the washerman at the central village who will iron their clothes, if necessary. But in quite a few villages this is still not possible. The owners of tea shops, barber shops etc. also do not object if the customer is “reasonably dressed” like the students wearing shirt and trousers. There is of course no question of any SC daring to enter the house of another caste Hindu in most villages in our district, and I am sure the situation is not very different in most other parts of the country as well. In quite a few villages, SCs have never voted at all or only voted according to the wishes of the local bigwigs as they are dependent on them for their daily survival. Passage to most SC villages is only through the caste village which can be barred for erring members. Even the houses where the SC live and the burial grounds are often technically owned by people of other castes – it helps to keep them on tender hooks. Much of the tension between SCs and Other Castes (OCs) has occurred on such issues – at eating places, tea shops, sitting on benches, not showing due respect by getting up, demanding their right to vote or inter-caste marriage often involving physical assault and abuse. Most of those who lead such struggles are those who are going to colleges or having some land, jobs (mostly government, railways, military) or some independent source of income. At times factions between the other castes or even within a caste help in assertion of their rights by SCs. Of late, a lot of tension has been generated in struggles to recover land assigned in the name of SCs or tamarind trees which ought to be assigned to the poor. (Uma -Naren did a small satyagraha at home! When we started living in the village, we found that while the non-dalit workers were freely allowed to enter inside the homes and eat in the kitchen, Dalits were invariably served food outside in leaves or in separate plates and glasses. Naren wanted this to be stopped. He wanted them to enter our house freely and eat in the kitchen just as the non-dalit workers did. My father-in-law, a freedom fighter in his younger days, however, chose to be conventional, although in principle he agreed with Naren. Be a Roman in Rome, he used to say. After a few days of discussions, Naren declared that he would not eat at the dining table with father-in-law, that he would eat on the floor in kitchen along with both Dalit and non-Dalit workers. And started doing so. When I was faced with the question of where I should eat, I naturally followed Naren. Father-in-law could not stop him. Nor did he want to give in to Naren. But Naren would still sit with him at the dining table in the dining room and wait till he finished his meal and then eat in the kitchen. This went on for a few years, till father-in-law died, after which of course the Dalits had free entry into our house and ate wherever it was convenient, sometimes in the kitchen, sometimes at the table, and sometimes outside under the pandal in the courtyard if there were too many people and there was not enough room inside.) Despite their intense rivalries when a situation of SC versus OC develops, the upper caste members close ranks. There are several voluntary organizations like the Andhra Pradesh Dalit Mahasabha which had just come into existence, working among Dalits (SCs) in Chittoor district and all of them, including us, rallied together and campaigned against the practice of untouchability. The campaigns reached a peak during the Ambedkar Centenary celebrations in 1991, and we documented systematically the widespread variety of practices of untouchability with the help of co-operative district officials. We managed to control, if not put an end to such practices as separate tea glasses in tea shops and hotels in the main centre villages where we were working. Slowly such practices are being discontinued. Where the SCs have been well organized under some sangam or the other (mostly sponsored by NGOs) they have been able to exercise their vote somewhat freely and also stand up to the other caste people. Such clashes now a days result in filing of cases under SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act under which no bail can be granted to the accused, who in turn has to prove his/her innocence. Moreover, the complainant when the case is registered will be paid some money by the Department of Social Welfare, and more if the case is actually proved. So the other castes (OCs) do not as readily beat or abuse the SCs as they used to earlier. But to counter this Act, the OCs also have a weapon – a case of attempt to rape is foisted on the SC, which is also equally powerful, as the accused has to prove his innocence and no bail is granted when the case is registered! Of course, it all depends upon how strongly or how well the rival parties are organized. A lot of hard bargaining goes on and usually some settlement is reached (an apology and/or some monetary consideration). Change and adaptation We were quite surprised at how quickly people adapt to the change. Even in villages where untouchability is severely practiced, a government official who happens to be a SC is treated with respect, especially if he is a police officer! Not so much the SC school teacher, so power begets respect! One finds the very same people who bitterly opposed or were hesitant to changing the practices of untouchability are nowadays chatting freely with SCs. In our house the cook is a Dalit from the local hamlet. What is surprising is how people (other caste persons) fairly quickly (within two to three years) adjusted to the new situation. They now not only eat in our house, food cooked by her but she also visits some of their houses. But most other SCs do not try and are not invited into the houses of OCs. But there are signs of growing leniency and adjustment though it would need several powerful social, political and economic campaigns before untouchability practices disappear altogether. ... But one thing has become clear to us, through our stay in the village that while untouchability can be put to an end, caste will not go away. Caste is a reality of Indian society. It is the predominant social identity in villages. It gives a sense of security – with relatives, kith and kin, in times of need, for employment, sickness, death, marriage, etc. reinforced each time the community gathers for such occasions and functions. People may adjust to inter-caste marriages (except in case of marriages with SCs and Muslims), with the caste identity of the male predominating. It is now clear to me why caste has survived for over five thousand years and why it still continues to do so. Within the over all hierarchy each community has freedom of action to practice its beliefs and customs; and depending upon its control over resources and numbers, it comes to terms with the other communities regarding social status etc. Caste will not go. It cannot be wished away. It is an identity – a positive identity. The negative connotation comes with the SCs in their interaction with the other castes – trying to hide their caste for fear of distancing and insult. But now with the resurgence of the Madiga (leather worker) community proudly announcing their caste honorific with their names, things have started moving. Unfortunately for the Dalit movement it is no longer the ominous threat it appeared to be with the rise of the Dalit Mahasabha and organization of NGOs at the grass roots in Dalitwadas. A resurgence that appeared possible once again with the rise of Kanshi Ram in U.P. is now a lost dream. The mobilization of Madigas as a separate community wronged at the hands of Malas who are supposed to have cornered most of the benefits in the name of reservations (partly true) and the competing calls of the political parties have badly splintered the Dalits into several groups and the community lies dissipated feeling betrayed by its leadership. The practice of untouchability sustaining down the years into the 21st century, is basically due to its function of reinforcement of relations of dominance and dependence. Unless these relationships are shaken to make people of different castes (who are mutually dependent) interact on a more equitable footing and make them reasonably independent of each other in economic terms, untouchability will not go. Therefore economic reforms are a necessary condition of Dalit liberation but are not sufficient. By themselves economic reforms cannot change the relationships of the traditional caste culture. They have to go hand in hand with social reform campaigns for removal of untouchability – both by Dalit assertion campaigns a la Ambekdar and by caste Hindus campaigning among the farmers of other castes – a la Gandhi. Both are complementary. Both are needed however much the Ambedkarites might revile Gandhi and vice versa. In fact Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism (and not Islam or Christianity) heralds the possible confluence of these two streams of struggle towards a new flowering, submerging untouchability in the annals of history. Today, there are no major social campaigns against untouchability. ... Interestingly, the removal of untouchability, although an important demand, is not at the top of the agenda of any of the Dalit political parties. They are more interested in forming caste alliances with other backward castes to oust the upper and middle castes from power – Bahujan Samaj theory. Capturing political power through the ballot with their numbers seems to be their strategy and once in power they expect social and economic justice to flow. They do not spell out any specific economic agenda for Dalit liberation unlike the communists who emphasize the economic liberation of Dalits as primary. ...
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 01:25:59 +0000
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