EDITORIAL
Writing caste
Welcome back. The Editorial Collective apologizes for the inordinate delay in bringing out thisissue as most of the team was away on vacation. Added to this was the difficult nature of thisissue of
Insight.
Over the last few months, we have found that it is extremely difficult to get people, both Dalit and non-Dalit to write about their castes. We found time and againcontributors approaching the issue in the third person, distancing themselves from what theyexperienced.We had a sense of this when we began
Insight
. In fact this is one of the main reasons why we began
Insight
: To get people, both Dalits and non-Dalits to introspect upon their experiences of caste.Despite the difficulties we have been fortunate to get a wide range of people writing about their caste and how it functions in their lives. These narratives are far from complete documentations.But they are a beginning, a drop in the ocean. And some of them are brilliantly insightfulallowing us to question both how we think about caste and the way forward for the Dalitmovement.The even more exciting part of putting this issue together was learning about Ayyankali. His personality, his courage, his far-sightedness and his determination still makes our hair stand onend as we write of it. It is his birth anniversary on August 28 and the Ambedkar Study Circle isvery excited about the possibilities this opportunity presents to popularize the life and thought of Ayyankali. Although
Insight
itself is not an advocate of violent change, knowledge of such ahero steadies our hand and straightens our backs.Over the last few months,
Insight
has been in spirited debates with many young scholars. One of the important issues that were raised was that of the way forward for the movement. It has beensuggested in one of the articles that the Annihilation of Caste should be the driving slogan of themovement. While not disagreeing with this claim at a macro-level,
Insight
believes that such aclaim is utopian at the micro-level.Looking at successful Dalits movements across the country, be it the
jatavas
in UP, the
mahars
in Maharashtra, or the
dewars
in Orissa, we have found that mobilization among Dalits in most parts of the county is occurring on caste lines. This may be a dangerous trend but as is elaboratedin Sudhir Kumar Behera’s article, that after having mobilized on caste lines to protect their livelihood and traditions and sense of self, the
dewars
are now seeking alliances with other Dalitmovements across the country.Starting out with an annihilation of caste agenda also leads to a lack of plurality within themovement. Already established movements on caste lines feel undermined by Unitarianmovements usually lead by the most populous Dalit caste in a region.We must emphasize here that all attempts made to consolidate schedule castes and tribes withwomen, minorities, industrial labour and agricultural labour are commendable and worthy of unstinting support. We would also like to say however, that this should not come at the risk of undermining any Dalit movement in the country.
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