Dilemma and Challenges

ICCO Partner Conference in Thailand

BY

M C Raj
Rural Education for Development Society
Shanthinagaar
Tumkur 572102
Karnataka, India

Democratization

1. There is no doubt that India has much more democratic space than many
other countries when one looks at India as one country. What is
problematic however, is the big question whether India can ever be
termed as one country with its multiplicity of cultures, languages, history
and religions. One may take many strenuous efforts to accept with great
difficulty that our country after all, is one. The question that arises then is
at whose cost is this oneness achieved in India.

2. From the time of independence from the British rule in 1947 India has
been hailed as a great democracy. It has followed the Majoritarian
Electoral System till now. This Electoral System is fit for a political system
which has two or three major political parties and for one party rule. But
India has transpired into coalition politics in the last more than one decade
of political governance. Therefore, according to me there is a dire need to
re-examine the validity of the present electoral system in India to make it
more democratic. The present electoral system of India does not allow
proportional representation of the Dalits in the Instruments and
Mechanisms of governance. A political party that gains only about 29 % of
votes has the possibility of governing this country under the majoritarian
systems of elections. This will mean that the government does not
necessarily enjoy the support of 71% of electorate and is not
representative of a majority of citizens. Therefore, there is a need to look
at other electoral systems, say for example, the German Electoral System
of which I have made a recent research.

3. Such a necessity is realized out of our struggle for proportional

representation of our people in the Parliament and State Legislature of
India and Indian States. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who is the Constitution
maker of India actually demanded separate electorate for the Dalit people.
This was granted to the Dalits along with the Muslims by the British rulers.
 However, the Hindus protested vehemently against giving separate
representation for the Dalit people though they did not object to giving the
same to the Muslims. Their reason was that Dalits are Hindus. They
accused the British of trying to divide the Hindus. The Hindus were
basically afraid that if the Dalits and Muslims of India joined hands they
would be nowhere in the Instruments and Mechanisms of governance of
India.

4. Ambedkar stood firm in his demand. The Round Table Conferences failed
because of the irreconcilable and diametrically opposing positions Gandhi
and Ambedkar took over the issue. Finally Gandhi used his ultimate
weapon of Fast unto Death violently against the Dalits and Ambedkar had
no option but to withdraw his demand. This was a great betrayal of the
Dalit people by Gandhi as he also was a strong Hindu. He camouflaged
his violent opposition to the question of equal political rights of the Dalit
people under his very highly appreciated non-violence. As a compromise
formula Gandhi and Ambedkar made the Poona Pact which brought about
the present provision of ‘reservation’ to the Dalits.

5. The caste forces of India croak about the provision of reservation as their
generous gesture to the Dalit people and today take to streets to abolish it.
Political reservation actually does not give proportional representation to
the Dalit people. In the present form, 17.5% of seats to the Parliament and
to State Assemblies are reserved to the Dalits. However, Dalit candidates
can win only if they join one or other political party. All political parties in
India, including the communists are dominated by Brahmins or by
Brahminic forces. Dalit candidates who contest elections as members of
such parties ultimately are supported financially and electorally by the
caste forces. Such winning candidates have to tread the official line of the
party which is generally on caste lines except for raising slogans for the
sake of vote bank politics. It is a painful thing to know that the question of
untouchability and atrocity on the Dalits are not raised in the Indian
Parliament even by the Dalit members. This is precisely because they are
sitting in the Parliament not as representatives of Dalit people but as
representatives of their respective parties. They are adding strength to the
parties in the name of Dalits and are not adding strength to the Dalits.
That explains why the Dalit people are still in the ghetto even at the
threshold of the 60th year of India’s Independence.

6. The political system in India is designed perfectly in line with the double
standards practiced largely by Brahminism whose cultural manifestation is
Hinduism. On the one hand it presents to the world that Dalit people have
been given 17.5% of reservation which is in proportion to their population
(though this is highly questionable) and on the other hand it also sees to it
that the Dalit people will not be able to have genuine democratic rights. As
long as dominant caste people can use their money, muscle and voting
 power to field and elect Dalit candidates in elections the proportional
representation of the Dalit people will only remain a mirage and that is
what is happening in our country. Hence the dire need to bring about an
electoral reform in India in the line of German Electoral System which has
double voting rights as well as provision for genuine proportional
representation.

National Integration

1. When the Dalit people demand proportional representation in the

Instruments and Mechanisms of National governance the dominant caste
forces have the strategy of immediately branding our efforts as separatist
and disruptive. Our efforts are actually aimed at greater integration of not
only the Dalit people but of all people in India in the governance of this
country. The dominant caste forces and economically powerful in India do
not want integration of all people in governance, as that would jeopardize
their economic and political stakes. In order to keep the poor and Dalits
out of the governing systems of the country they have evolved their own
paradigm of national integration. Their paradigm is problematic. What they
aim at is a subjugated integration of our people. They expect our people
just to accept the normative that they evolve, as good for the country, as if
the country belongs only to them. All possible forms of assertion for
equality are immediately branded as disruptive.

2. What they do not realize is that a subjugated form of integration brings

about the weakness of a nation and it is in no way a manifestation of the
strength of the nation. We, the Dalit people want our country to be a
strong nation. In order to become a strong nation it is imperative that Dalit
people, especially our women should become essential part of the
governance of our country. The integration of our people into the systems
and structures of governance should be realized through their innate and
developed strength and not through their ignorance and subjugation. This
country has a very bad history of banning education for our people for
more than three millennia. Such is the type of national integration that the
caste forces visualize for our country. That is why even today our country
is stinking all over. It is because the caste forces enforce a law that it is
our caste duty to clean their dirt. They themselves do not feel any
responsibility to clean their dirt. One can go on enumerating such
consequences that may look small. But when they are accumulated then
the whole country becomes chaotic as our traffic is.

3. This is very much in keeping with the double standards that are
established religiously in our country. On the one hand they speak of
national integration. They want to establish an integration that will be
founded on our slavery and bondedness. When we demand to be
 integrated as equals with dignity they brand our efforts as disintegration
thus shifting the blame on the victims themselves. Thus our efforts for
dialogue and negotiation which can ultimately lead to peaceful
coexistence is nipped in the bud. We already have acquired an oppressed
psyche and with such antagonism from the dominant caste society not
abating at all the possibility for conflict keeps increasing.

4. It is only the resilience of our people, which is our characteristic mark that
keeps this country going in the path of peace. The Dalit people have not
taken up to violence as have done all other caste forces in India. Be it the
Leftists, the rightists, the Gandhians, the Hindus, the Muslims, the
Christians, all have taken to violent path. But we Dalits have not indulged
in violence to put down other people. We have served them despite their
heaping indignity on us. We do not have high sounding mysticism in our
kitty. But we have goodness in our community. If only this can become a
national resource for building up integration and equality for all people of
India!

Internal Governance

1. Our land has been taken away. Today 90% of Dalit people in India are
landless laborers. Our education was taken away. The Hindu Scriptures
and their religious laws have banned education for us. All religions teach
their dogma to people. Hinduism is perhaps the only religion in human
history that has completely banned any sort of education to a section of
people. The ban is not only on learning their Scriptures. It is a wholesome
ban and holistic education. Our dignity was taken away from us violently.
Our Ancestors were butchered and killed and the killing of our ancestors is
celebrated as Hindu Festivals, as a transition from darkness to light, from
evil to good. It is ironical that after pushing us into the darkness of
authorized ignorance it is celebrated as the journey of light by those who
impose darkness on innocent people. After killing our ancestors that evil
deed is celebrated as the establishment of goodness on the face of the
earth.

2. We may go on expanding such evil deeds of the dominant caste people.

But it does not serve any purpose of peace building. Therefore, we are
ready to give up eternally blaming the ‘other’ for everything that happens
to us. It is high time that we build ourselves as a community of people on
our strength. This will call for an assertion of our specificity. The
cumulative consequence of the perennial denial of our rights is manifested
in the Dalit people not being allowed to have any system or structure of
internal governance. One of the most unfortunate things that has
happened to our people is the loss of an internally governing mechanism.
3. Everyday in our life we are governed by the norms that are imposed on us
by the dominant caste forces. Such norms do not come under the purview
of the Constitution of India. In fact the Constitution of India is often brought
under the caste norms in actual practice. The Constitution is subverted to
the extent of forcing our people eat human shit and the guardians of the
rule of law turning the other way, often blaming our people for daring to
demand their rights. Shifting the blame on the victims!

4. It is in the line of a positive assertion of our people that I have written the
books Dalitology, Cosmosity and DALITHINK. These are aimed at
integrating our people into the national stream so that a dialectics may be
set in motion. Our assertion of what we are need not be a judgment on
what they are not, though unfortunately this is how dominant psyche tends
to look at human dynamics. Our assertions can be looked at for what they
are worth and people can be very critical of our assertions. But they must
be ready for a dialogue and make the dialectic movement possible.
Dialectics in India in which Dalit people can take a ‘subject’ space is
problematic for the mainstream society. The dominant caste mindset
easily dismisses Dalit intellectualism wholesomely. When Dalits make an
intellectual assertion another the emergence of another world, most often
in contrast to their world is seen. Dalit worldview is different from
Brahminic worldview. There is no dispute about this. But the holders of
different worldviews can live together in peace and harmony all the same.
This is an essential ingredient of Dalit worldview that differences need not
become the foundations of discrimination, of Superiority and Inferiority, of
purity and impurity discourses. How can 24% of people of a nation be kept
bonded and yet one speak of progress? Our assertion of having a history,
a culture, a religion, political right etc. needs to be respected as the
legitimate right of a people.

5. In order to strengthen ourselves as a community of people we have

evolved the Dalit Panchayat, which is the formal platform of internal
governance. This is neither an innovation nor a discovery. This is taken
from the model of the dominant caste people who have used the
traditional village Pachayat to govern the village community. The
significant difference however is this. In the Dalit Panchayat we do not
allow any form of dominance over another people, including the Brahmins.
The Dalit Panchayat will accept them as our brothers and sisters as long
as they do not attempt to impose their dominance over us in any formal
way such as the caste system. We shall govern ourselves as a community
of people and follow the constitutional path of the country. This way we
shall be integrated into the Constitutional governance of the country as a
strong and vibrant people with equal rights and dignity.

6. Treating a people as untouchables cannot be a legitimate ground for

lasting peace. This should stop in the interest of peace. Our struggle for
 the removal of untouchability is for the establishment of lasting peace in
our land. The dominant caste forces conveniently escape from this
responsibility by spreading the falsehood that this is a thing of the past
and that we have a Constitution which has removed untouchability. This is
a heady mix of falsehood and truth. The truth is that the constitution of
India has banned untouchability. The falsehood is that it is not a thing of
the past. Untouchability is still practiced in India with a religious
vehemence.

Conflict Transformation

1. The type of conflict that we see in our country is among the Hindus and
Muslims. However, since it will require a treatise to write about communal
conflicts in our country I shall avoid it as it will be mostly an intellectual
exercise on my part. What I shall deal with is how I deal with conflicts in
our villages. I have to focus my attention on the village conflicts as there
are hardly any national conflict between the dominant caste forces and the
Dalit people. Since the Dalit people are an oppressed people and since
they are a peace loving people there is not a national level conflict.

2. However, there are conflicts in the villages whenever the Dalit people
begin to assert their constitutional rights. One of the things the dominant
caste people cannot tolerate is the Dalit people taking recourse to legal
solutions. They never tolerate the Dalit people either going to the police
stations or to the courts. Whenever a Dalit dares to do that there is
immediate repercussion. The character of this repercussion needs to be
understood. When a Dalit individual commits a mistake the punishment is
for the entire Dalit community in the form of social boycott or reparatory
services by the entire community. But, when the dominant caste
community perpetrates violence on the Dalit people and it comes for
public discourses the punishment is for an individual among them and it
will be only a nominal punishment.

3. Therefore, often our people are left with no option but to take help from the
police or the courts. Though most of the bureaucrats happen to be
dominant castes there is at least some hope of applying pressure through
legal mechanisms. That is where the conflict becomes an underlying
reality dictating each and every action and reaction in the village
thereafter. When there is an atrocity on the Dalit people the police usually
does not register a case immediately and they come on behalf of the caste
people to persuade the Dalits for a compromise under the garb of
safeguarding peace in the village. It is imperative for us that the dominant
caste paradigm that all are equal before law should become the truth in
their case. Also if we do not allow the law take precedence over the caste
norms we are doomed. Therefore, we educate the Dalit people not to
 agree for compromise immediately. Instead they should demand the case
be booked as per law. It is only after the case is booked that our people
should go to the negotiating table. Till then the question of atrocity on our
people and subsequently booking a case remains non-negotiable. In
serious cases where the atrocity is on our women, our people demand
that the culprits be arrested. Once this is done it is more or less a victory
for the Dalits and a shame for the caste people. Only when this happens
the caste forces realize that the course of law is very different from the
course of their caste norms.

4. At this point both my wife and myself make it a point to enter the scene
and motivate our people to go and sit with the caste people and the
bureaucrats as equals and bargain for their rights. We insist that once
their rights are respected and assured they should not stand on false
prestige but instead learn to respect even the dominant caste people as
human beings. After this much is done we motivate the people to withdraw
the case in the interest of the village and peace. Such cases are not
isolated. In village after village we make our people to make peace with
their enemies but only after they assure that they will respect the law of
the land.

5. Thus a very important paradigm gets established in the course of seeking

legal justice for the oppressed. The paradigm is this: If the Brahmins or
others want Brahminism or caste system let them have it. We have no
problem with them as long as they make it their internal governing system.
But let them not impose their dominance over us. In the same way they
should also respect our right to have our governing systems in the
community and we shall not impose the same on anybody else. What will
be common to all of us is the Constitution of India. I have found the
establishment of such a paradigm as the hardest of my experience. But
we cannot give up the struggle.

Violence

The question of justice can often be relative. When a Mother gives more attention
to a disabled child it is possible that one of her other children fees that she is not
giving enough attention to him. One may resent it. What is seen as just by the
mother may not be seen as just by all her children. This is a normal human
dynamics. Human societies are constructed out of human dynamics. What can
objectively be opposed and dismissed is violence. In our worldview there cannot
be two opinions on violence. All forms of violence are denial of rights. However, a
society that has a reputation all over the world for its non-violence perpetrates
unmitigated violence on the Dalit people and does not let the world know of it. All
religions have this streak of violence in their Scriptures. Societies are owe
allegiance to such religions have also indulged in extreme forms of violence in
history. But some religions also have a liberation stream built in their essential
dogma. That is a saving factor in some religious Scriptures. However, from
whatever I understand of the Hindu Scriptures they profess the essentiality of
violence as a religious dogma to the detriment of a liberation stream. Liberation is
of the individual soul after many rebirths. The strategy of shifting the
responsibility for one’s action to the victim himself/herself was wrought thousands
of years ago in Bhagavad Gita. When Arjuna questions Krishna, the incarnated
deity of the consequences of his shooting an arrow at his brothers and teachers,
Krishna says that his ‘karma’ (duty) is only to kill in war. The death itself is a
consequence of the ‘karma’ either of his brothers of his teachers. Queer it
sounds. But then that is the way religious dogmas are. How can one expect such
a society to be non-violent. India’s non-violence is one of the most intriguing
dramas enacted in the world theatre of politics.

For me one of the highly disturbing questions about the governance of India is
the production of nuclear bombs. One should never even think of a legitimate
reason for violence of any type. The creation of the ‘threatening other’, which
means the Muslims is a convenient myth to legitimize the production of nuclear
bombs. India should destroy all its nuclear bombs and campaign for a nuclear
bomb free world in line with its professed principles of non-violence. This is not
only in the interest of India but also in the interest of the whole world’s
democratization, peaceful co-existence and establishment of justice.