Dalits from margin to margin

Author(s): Gopal Guru

Source: India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2, MARGINALISED (SUMMER
2000), pp. 111-116
Published by: India International Centre
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005493
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 Gopal Guru

Dalits from margin to margin

the issues of social exclusion and marginalisation of disadvantaged

In groups.1
contemporary imagination
This discourse on marginalisation oneearlier
has replaced finds repeated discussions on
terms like exploitation, domination and suppression. As a reaction to
exclusion and marginalisation, attempts are made to float counter
terms like entitlement, empowerment and social inclusion.2 In certain
cases, marginalisation has been used interchangeably by some
scholars.3 In view of this varied notion of marginalisation, it becomes
necessary to define the term, particularly in the context of the dalits in
India.

This paper intends to deal primarily with the following issues.

First, what are the different processes of marginalisation that seem to
be operating among the dalits? Second, why does this phenomenon
continue to exist? In other words, why do certain sections inflict and
others accept marginalisation? Finally, is the notion of marginalisation
culturally specific?
The dalits in India seem to be facing different kinds of
marginalisation and the most important among them is political
marginalisation. This operates at all levels of the democratic process.
Dalit issues make only a token appearance in the election manifestos
of leading political parties and when a dalit gets inducted into the
political hierarchy, he is given an unimportant portfolio like the
ministry of social welfare. In the central cabinet and also in the state
cabinet the social welfare ministry is allotted to a dalit person or to a
woman. The dalit is not regarded as being competent enough to handle
other ministries. This marginalisation or the mis-recognition of dalit
abilities has existed from the days of Ambedkar, who was competent
enough to handle the finance ministry, but was given law.

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112/ India International Centre Quarterly

Cultural marginalisation exists even if the state and its appara

tus are active. It takes a subtle form. In educational institutions, dalit
students are normally assigned to dalit guides. In this case, both the
guide and the student get ghettoised through mutual bracketing.
Thus, dalit students are denied access to the larger teaching commu
nity. Similarly, dalit teachers are also denied access to general stu
dents who can benefit from their expertise. This bracketing is done
with the intention of demoralising the dalit student as well as the
dalit teacher.

Within the cultural ambience of India, dalit symbols are restricted

to spaces which are relatively insignificant. Ambedkar's statue is
shunted to a remote corner of the street or hall or public place; his
name is given to a lane or byline in an obscure area. The exclusion of
dalit symbols is also psychological. The dalits are relegated to the
margins in the print, and electronic media and in computer technol
ogy. In the electronic media, dalits make only guest appearances on
certain occasions like the 14th of October, the anniversary day of Bud
dhist conversions. In Hindi movies, dalit issues particularly those
based on caste exploitation, atrocities and discrimination are com
pletely ignored. This cultural exclusion from the Hindi cinema has
existed for the last thirty years. The only rhetorical satisfaction that
one gets is from the film on Dr. Ambedkar directed by Dr. Jabbar Patel.
In the field of information technology and computers, the dalits
find themselves absolutely marginalised. They appear on the websites
of other people as objects of hatred and ridicule" and they do not
have their own websites. A website requires a huge investment and
since the dalits lack resources, they get marginalised.
The area in which dalits are most marginalised is the material
realm. The material marginality of dalits can be understood in terms
of the notion of time and space. Dalits do not enjoy the sense of time
of the privileged. This can be explained by citing certain illustrations.
Indian markets, particularly the weekly bazaars, operate on a hierar
chical notion of time. This hierarchy involves a prime period in which
quality goods are sold naturally at higher rates. At the prime period
we have fresh vegetables, fruits and fish which are more expensive,
and rule out any competitive bidding and bargaining. Prices are stand
ardised, at least at the beginning of the bazaars. Hence, the initial
time becomes a privileged slot. Those consumers who have acquired
purchasing capacity become privileged participants in this time slot.
In class terms it is the moneyed, and in caste terms it is the upper

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 Gopal Guru 1113

castes who go to the market at the beginning which is considered to

be the prime time.
The dalits and other poorer classes have a different, marginalised
notion of time. They go to the market at the closure of the bazaar.
This closure, ironically, becomes an opportune time for the dalits. At
this time, bargaining is possible due to the perishable nature of the
commodities. Since the vendor wants to dispose the perishable items,
he/ she is forced to sell the goods on the terms set by the dalit consumer.
This provides only psychological satisfaction to the dalits, as the goods
hardly bear any nutritional value. It is due to their lack of purchasing
power that the dalits are pushed to buying goods in the evening.
It is the social factor of purity-pollution that makes the upper
caste regulate certain timings for the dalits. The non-dalit upper castes
do not walk into the streets during a particular time, usually morn
ing, in the areas where manual scavenging is still in practice. In social
terms, the upper castes still have the option to withdraw from the
time slot considered to create the chances of pollution. Thus, the no
tion of purity-pollution not only generates a marginalised notion of
time, but it inflicts a stigmatised notion of time.
Dalits cannot aspire for securing respectable jobs. The dalits are
overwhelmingly found in the sanitary section of Indian society. They
are scavengers, sweepers, ragpickers, coolies; they do other kinds of
odd jobs which are not only considered to be unimportant, but a sense
of wretchedness and filth based on the notion of purity-pollution is
attached to them. One of the Bombay-based Safai Kamgar Union lead
ers said, in the context of the Kargil conflict
Our job is never treated as important. It is always treated as des
picable. But our job is as important as the soldiers fighting on the
borders. In both the cases it is a question of protection. In the
first case, it is the protection of the country and in the second
case, it is the protection of the civil society. We fight to maintain
the health of the society by maintaining hygiene in the society.5
This is an important comment on the insensitivity of those who
treat scavenging as a marginalised job. As he said, their job is more
important than the soldiers as they have to fight the war on an every
day basis.

attempts to occupy jobs which are either vacated by the non

The marginalisation oftothe
dalits, or jobs which have ceased attract dalits is evident from the dalit
the upper castes.
For example, in the early 1940s and 1950s, the jobs of teachers and

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114/ India International Centre Quarterly

lawyers were considered attractive by the upper castes. But in the

1960s, these castes shifted their attention from teaching to professional
jobs like banking, medicine and engineering. Then the dalits aspired
for these teaching jobs. When the non-dalits left banking, medicine
and engineering in the late 1980s, and started taking an interest in
information technology, computers, space science, and cell science,
the dalits began aspiring for jobs in medicine and engineering. In a
way, these groupings only indicate their preference for the 'leftovers',
which ironically results in the reproduction of a feudal relationship in
which the dalits always took pride in using the 'cast off' clothes of the
feudal lords. This marginalisation of dalits is going to be complete in
the age of globalisation in which the dalits will not even get the 'cast
offs', as they will be thrown to the margin where the kind of qualifica
tions they seem to be acquiring will be totally useless. This
marginalisation will be total with the subversion of reservations.
In terms of space, the dalits, both from the urban as well as the
rural centres are also physically pushed to the margin. If one looks at
the physical location of the common dalits in the Indian cities, one
finds that the dalit quarters and slums are invariably located near the
drainage, railway tracks, garbage, graveyards, slaughter houses or on
the pavements. Even in the villages, the dalit huts are located near the
open space used for toilets. The very location of the dalits becomes an
object of contempt and condemnation by the urban-based upper caste
elite. These locations are also stigmatised as they are segregated on
the principles of purity-pollution.
Finally, the dalits are facing the worst kind of marginalisation in
the intellectual field. Dalits do not have access to quality education.
The majority of students are found in the social sciences, the arts and
humanities which are being relegated to the background both by the
forces of globalisation, and the Indian State. They cannot afford to go
for the core courses. They continue to lack theoretical training, and
are denied access to abstract theoretical thinking. This theoretical un
derstanding becomes the exclusive domain of the high caste academic.
Thus dalits are condemned not to think in terms of an abstract
conceptualisation.
It would be interesting to point out how the dalits are intimi
dated from thinking in abstract. Let me cite the example of Bhavari
Devi's case. One of the reasons that led the upper castes to gang rape
her was that she was talking about the universal suffering of the
upper castes. She was talking abut the liberation of the upper-caste

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 Gopal Guru/115

girl child from the reactionary tradition of child marriage. And she
was not talking about the problem of dalits. She was punished for
violating the traditional boundaries which she courageously trans
gressed, first by talking in a universal language, and second by talk
ing against the upper castes. Similarly, the dalits are forced to talk
only about their own problems and not about the universal ones. The
question that needs to be answered is, why are the dalits marginalised?

dalits are by and large marginalised, it is also true that a few of

Beforethemthis question
are trying canthe centre.
to be a part of be answered,
They have not suc we note that though the
ceeded. Thus, the Parliament's premises have a life-size statue of
Ambedkar and certain universities have been named after Ambedkar.

We also have a dalit as President; in a totally different context, the

dalits have been offered a space in the spiritual realm where the dalits
were allowed to participate in the 'shilanayas' at Ayodhya by the forces
of Hindutva.
But does this mean that now the dalits have become part of the
mainstream? Who decides what is the mainstream? First of all, the
space created for the dalits at the core is just symbolic, and fraught
with the hidden agenda of the Hindutva parties. They offer certain
rhetorical concessions to dalits like 'shilanayas', but with the inten
tion of making inroads into the dalit constituency, and to deflect the
attention of the dalits from more fundamental problems. However,
some of the more sensitive dalits seem to be realizing this hegemonic
Hindutva agenda. The dalits see the constitutional review as a part of
this Hindutva gameplan.
The theory of relative marginalisation creates an illusion that
the state and the system still have the capacity to offer space within
the system, like becoming the chief minister (Mayawati-Kanshiram
scenario) or becoming an IAS officer. This, in effect, makes the dalit
sociologically blind to the fact that the system does not have the ca
pacity to make every dalit part of the centre. On moral grounds, the
relationship between the margin and the core is always of a hierarchical
nature. It is dichotomous, in which the core exists only at the cost of
the margin. In other words, the existence of a margin becomes the
logical requirement of the core.
Dalits accept their marginalisation, particularly in two situations.
In the first situation they find themselves helpless, frustrated, having
lost faith in their ability to comprehend and then confront the

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116/ India International Centre Quarterly

marginalisation. In fact, they are forced to defend the marginalised

position itself. This is true in negative demands like, 'do not remove
our huts from the slums and pavements, do not stop us from
ragpicking'. On the contrary, give us an identity card to do the job
without problems, and prevent harassment from the police. Do not
remove us from scavenging and tanning. Do not give us new jobs, but
give us reservation within reservation. To mention a few cases the
Mala-Madiga controversy in Andhra, the Mahar-Mang controversy
in Maharashtra, the Madiga-Holar controversy in Karnataka. Why do
they pitch their aspirations at such a low level?
In the realm of dalit literature, the dalit cultural czars have be
come a part of the core or mainstream, thus creating their own margin
by condemning other forms of dalit literature as third rate. Thus dalit
literature can be accused of producing the same hierarchical mecha
nism against which they fought at the first instance. They fought
against mainstream Marathi literature on the ground that it once
marginalised them from the literary field.6 Similarly, in the field of
politics, the dalit leaders have sought to produce the same cultural
hierarchy against the dalit women whose participation in the politi
cal process is never promoted and never liked by the dalit patriarchs.
By and large, the dalits are forced to fight to remain at least on
the margin. They seem reluctant to see the need to invest thought and
action for affecting radical change in their situation. Among the dalits
there seems to be a declining sense of a Utopia. However, the dalits
continue to dream about a better future. They are still capable of cre
ating a vibrant context in which they can fight their cumulative
marginalisation. The dalit protests, though dispersed and incoherent,
are certainly taking place in some parts of the country. Bihar, Tamil
Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra certainly provide a silver lining to the
dark cloud.

References
1. This is found in the NGO discourse in the country.
2. Gerry Redgers, Charles Gore and Jose B. Figuerndo, eds, Social Exclusion: Rheto
ric, reality and response, ILO, Geneva, 1995.
3. Ibid.

4. In the western world the upper castes carried out a hate campaign again
dalit and Mandal case on the internet and websites during the Mandal agit
5. Maharashtra Times (Marathi) 6th Oct, 1999.
6. Gopal Guru, Dalit cultural movement and the dialectics of Dalit poli
Maharashtra, Vikas Adshyayan Kendra, Mumbai, 1977.

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