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Saturday, February 1, 2014

Annihilation of Castes: Past, Present and Future Anand Teltumbde

Annihilation of Castes: Past, Present and Future


Anand Teltumbde


The origins of the caste system are trapped in the interstices of myth and history. The


mythologized history of ancient India does not let us know precisely how this system came into


existence and how it evolved through centuries. Despite huge scholarly interests in its study,


there are no definitive conclusions on these aspects. What is evident is that it continues to be


a potent force that impacts people according to their placement in social hierarchy. While the


classical caste system has undergone change through history, its biggest victims continue to be


Dalits, who number one-sixth of India's total population.


While social stratification was not uncommon across the world in ancient times, what is unique


about the Indian system is that it is supposed to have religious sanction, and divine origination.


It is commonly believed that the varna system evolved into a system of numerous castes. The


more plausible view is that the nomadic tribes in the subcontinent while settling down for


agriculture settled without losing their tribal identities unlike elsewhere. The factor that explains


this exceptional feature is the natural endowment of the subcontinent. With plenty of flat and


fertile land; ample amount of sunshine, and regularity and adequacy of rainfall, it was possible


for the tribal families to survive on small plots of land unlike, for instance, in Europe, where a


small window of sunshine, irregularity of rains, extreme cold weather necessitated an army of


people to work on a large tract of land, giving rise to a system of slavery. Castes were nothing


but these settled tribes with their respective totems, which came into existence prior to the advent


of varnas. They came to be associated with vocations but sans any hierarchy. When the alien


people, wherever they came from (probably they came from Persia), brought in their varna


system initially with three varnas and then four, it was lain over the existing castes imparting


them hierarchy and religious sanction. I tend to take this as a possible hypothesis for the origin of


castes.


Although the varna framework is uncritically taken as the hierarchical structure for the castes,


the truth is that it rarely encountered in any part of the subcontinent in its entirety. What is


encountered is the existence of priestly castes and the preponderance of the laboring (shudra)


castes and the untouchables. The intermediate varnas of kshatriya and vaishyas may not be


found in all parts. For example in Maharashtra, there is no kshatriya as well as vaishya varna.


At the time of coronation, Shivaji had to claim ancestry of Rajputs of Rajputana and during his


reign had to import vaishyas (people who could manage money) from Gujarat. Castes multiplied


within a varna with new vocations emerging or assimilating new people. They imbibed the


notion of hierarchy of the varna system adjudicated by the priestly caste of Brahmans. Naturally,


this multiplication happened within the laboring varna. The existence of the Untouchables has


been enigmatic because they are classed some times as the fifth varna, sometimes as a-varna, i.e.,


non-varna or even non-castes. Babasaheb Ambedkar proposed 'broken men' theory for them,


which however lacks validation by the scholars. The hatred of others that characterize them


possibly is due to their resistance to be subjugated within the varna framework. Whatever their


origin, they constitute the most important part of the caste system.


The castes had become the life-world of the people, which survived through the hegemony


of the anti-Brahmanic ideologies of Buddhism and Jainism for almost a millennium. The first


significant dent the caste system faced was during the Islamic rule, mainly between the eleventh


and seventeenth centuries, when it stabilized in the subcontinent. Apart from religio-cultural


appeal of Islam to the lower castes, the Muslim rule brought its advanced feudal system that


systematized land revenue administration, promoted manufacturing guilds and established cities,


which provided further avenues to the lower castes to escape the bondage of village system. In


addition to the alien civilizational model that did not have any birth based privileges, the very


influx of the lower castes into Islam kept the upper castes away from it. But later, the upper


castes were also lured by the possibility of material gains and became Muslims. They introduced


the notion of hierarchy in Muslim society.


During the same period, one more wave of anti-caste movement emerged in the form of Bhakti


movement, which originated in South between the sixth and tenth centuries. Bhakti movement


was not a unified movement but in relation to caste, it reflected, at least in some of its radical


strands like Kabir panth, individualistic and anti-corporatist rebellion against caste. It had raised


many low caste individuals like Ravidas, Chokhamela to the stature of sainthood and did not


distinguish people by caste. Though these individuals broke caste restrictions imposed upon


the dalit communities to become Bhaktas, they could only preach human equality and criticize


caste practices. Their influence on the society was limited only to spiritualism and prescribed


moksha as the salvation. Later, in the fifteenth century, when Sikhism, assimilating the lofty


ideals of the Bhakti movement and Islam, was born—directly promising the banishment of


caste distinctions—Dalits in the Punjab region rushed in to embrace it. However, other than


being bestowed with such new appellations as Mazhabi Sikhs and Ravidasias, Sikhism made no


substantive difference to their lives.


The most severe jolt to the caste system came during the British colonial rule. It had its impact


mainly in the following three ways: One, in order to consolidate their colonial control, the British


had instituted ethnographic documentation and started caste based census, bringing in rigid


hierarchy in what was a fluid life-world of people. Two, they brought in western institutional


framework of governance with its army, police, rule of law, judiciary, and modern education.


And three, they facilitated capitalist development of infrastructure and industry. While the first


had induced acute caste consciousness in people and had an adverse impact on the lower castes,


the second and third have been directly beneficial to them in rising against their oppression.


Although largely unintended, the colonial rule brought about two changes: One, it catalysed the


anti-caste movements of the lower castes and two, with the advent of capitalism, It caused the


collapse of ritualistic castes among the dwija castes, simplifying the caste continuum into three


hierarchies: dwija, shudra and the Untouchables.


The first of the anti-caste revolts of the lower castes was articulated by Jotiba Phule in


Maharashtra. He exposed the exploitation of the working classes (shudra-ati-shudra) by the


shetjis and bhatjis (moneylenders and priestly class) and traced it to the denial of education to


the former by Brahmanism. He rebelled against the enslaving customs of the latter and inspired


people from the lower castes to rise against their caste exploitation. Gopal Baba Walangkar,


whom Babasaheb Ambedkar called the pioneer of the Dalit movement and Shivram Janba


Kamble of Pune were the disciples of Phule. Even when Ambedkar launched his movement, he


respectfully acknowledged the debt of Phule as one of his gurus.


*


Babasaheb Ambedkar did not practice caste politics in sense of pursuing betterment of a


particular caste. Right from the formation of his first organization, Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha, he


had involved progressive people from other castes and communities, to the extent that this Sabha


was completely constituted by the upper caste/class people, and had Dalits only in its managing


committee, with Ambedkar as chairman, S N Shivtarkar as secretary and NT Jadhav as treasurer.


While he took up the cause of the Untouchables, he always referred to them as 'depressed


classes'. Of course, his conception of class came closer to Weberian than Marxian. It was


reflective of the influence on him of the Fabian ideology and politics while in the Columbia


University and thereafter in London School of Economics, which was founded by the Fabians.


Untouchables, an assemblage of all the castes outside the pale of varna system, were not a caste


but a class of socially excluded people occupying a particular space in social and production


relations. His followers, who were naturally drawn predominantly from his own caste failed to


comprehend the subtlety in his thoughts and took him as their caste 'messiah' and reduced him to


a caste icon. Either way, it was not easy to discern it as the initial moves of Ambedkar could not


be distinguished from the incipient movements of the Untouchables, which were basically aimed


to uplift their respective castes. Whether it was his invoking the huge progress made by Mahars


and lamenting their decline or whether it was his exhortation to the Dalit women to conduct


themselves in a certain manner, whether it was eulogizing the valor of the Mahar Soldiers died


in the Koregaon Battle in 1818, it was indistinguishable from the activities of the predecessors


like Walangkar, Kamble or Bansode. Since his following predominantly came from his own


caste, his addresses to them naturally smacked of caste pride. Indeed, it was and is still difficult


to transcend the caste idiom in the caste ridden environment.


Babasaheb Ambedkar did not have the vision of annihilation of caste at the beginning. In his first


essay, Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, presented in an


anthropological seminar in Columbia University, which surely reflects a veritable leap in the


understanding castes in scholastic realm, he defines castes as enclosed classes; the enclosure


around class being provided by the systems of endogamy and exogamy. While he did not dwelt


upon any solution to the problem, it followed that if one wanted to annihilate castes this


enclosure needed to be torn away by disbanding endogamy and exogamy. This understanding


informed his reformist expectations that if the caste Hindus were sensitized about the wrong in


the caste system, they might push forth reforms to remove the enclosure. The strategy comprised


awakening of the Untouchables as well as the caste Hindus to the evils of castes. It also included


addressing the social and economic backwardness of the Untouchables. While Mooknayak (his


first paper started in 1920) was devoted to this awakening aspects, the aims and objectives of the


Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha, that he founded related with the issues of providing education,


spreading culture, improving economic condition and representing the grievances of


the 'depressed classes'. It was a pure reformist agenda and did not have even the confrontationist


content, not to speak of any revolutionary dimension of annihilation of castes. It is only from


Mahad, that he came in direct confrontation with the caste Hindus. Reflection on the bitter


experiences in Mahad and subsequently with Gandhi, representing the larger Hindu society


propelled him to write Annihilation of Castes, where he came to the conclusion that castes could


not be reformed and had to go lock stock and barrel. It was based on his understanding that


castes were integral part of Hinduism, being ordained by its dharmashstras (scriptures). In


programmatic terms, it therefore meant destroying the foundation of Hinduism, the Hindu


dharmashastras that informed the ideology of castes. As he saw it well neigh impossible,


directionally it reduced to renouncing Hinduism as he had decided for himself. It amounted to


saying that annihilation of castes was not ordinarily possible because the caste Hindus, who had


their vested interests in castes would never be ready to destroy their dharmashastras. The only


option therefore for the victims of castes was to exit Hinduism.


It implied that since the goal of annihilation of castes did not seem feasible, the victims of


the caste system could leave Hinduism to the caste Hindus and get themselves out of its


oppressive yoke. But the question arises, whether by renouncing Hinduism they would escape


caste oppression. The answer to this question may ordinarily be no. If all of them renounced


Hinduism, structurally the Hindu society would be bottomed out threatening the caste system


itself. But it would mean being unavailable physically for the Hindus to be oppressed, which


would not happen merely by quitting Hinduism. While it might mean coming out of mental


slavery, physically they would be still condemned at their old sites to work for living. One did


not have to hypothesize this aftermath. If one looked through history, there have been such


religious exoduses of the lower castes from Hinduism (the population of the non-Hindus in


the subcontinent clearly testifying to it) but they have barely escaped their fate. Castes have


not only survived, they have infested these new religious communities with its venom. Even


physical migration of Dalits to distant lands could not rid them of the caste stigma if there were


caste Hindus around, as the Dalit Diaspora in Europe and Americas would vouch for. The caste


Hindus perhaps could not live without their 'Dalits'. Where they Dalits were not available for


them as in Africa, they created their notional Dalits out of the native Black population!


The inescapable conclusion that follows is that castes could not be understood in terms of any


discrete custom of endogamy/exogamy or any religious dictate. While castes encompassed all


these, they came to be rooted in a particular mode of living. They became the life-world of people


that could not be discretely identified or bounded. It is precisely for this reason that even


wealthy Dalits (and there are examples of rich individuals existing in many parts of the country


even before the Ambedkarite movement) could not rid them of the caste stigma. It is erroneously


argued to claim that economic advancement does not have anything to do with castes. It does


and does not; it does certainly more than any other factor, but not in the entirety. Where Dalits


are not tied up in dependence relationship with the caste Hindus, they are surely less vulnerable


to caste oppression than where they are. Also, whatever changes that occurred in this life-world


can be clearly traced to the changes in political economic factors in history. Therefore it can be


safely said that material (read economic) factors are more impactful in the matters of caste than


any other but still they are not all, contrary to the claims of vulgar materialists. It may be put this


way that if you worked on non-material factors ignoring the material factor, you are bound to


fail. But if you worked only on material factors and ignored the non-material factors, you might


not succeed.


Babasaheb Ambedkar could not programmatically indicate what would bring about the


annihilation of castes. It provides the feed to the vested interests to argue that he did not


prescribe annihilation of castes. The value of his profundity lies not in its programmatic


explication but in its sheer vision. Programmatically, he was misled by locating castes in the


Hindu scriptures and then seeing impossibility of its annihilation. But it would be foolish to


say that he did not envision annihilation of castes. When the partial opportunity came years


later while making the Constitution of India, he again could not exercise his will. Besides tacit


opposition, he faced a certain dilemma, whether to negate castes and give up the basis for special


safeguards for the Untouchables. As a matter of fact, these safeguards had flowed from the


colonial times and its beneficiaries were already frozen. Leaving them as the administrative


category, castes could still be legally abolished. But they would not be and would rather be


preserved as a proverbial goose for the ruling classes with an alibi that they wanted to do the


social justice to other backward castes to be identified by their state as and when it feels so. In


the history of India's political intrigues, it has proved to be a masterstroke by the ruling classes,


and a veritable whip, as far as Dalits were concerned, which remains unnoticed either by their


leaders or intellectuals.


Much is made out of outlawing the Untouchability. This was the voluntary response from every


notable from among the caste Hindus to the awakening among the Untouchables, particularly


after the Lucknow Pact. It was a ploy to assuage the feelings of the Untouchables without


materially disturbing anything. Since untouchability was sourced from castes, abolition of


untouchability would mean nothing if castes lived. This is precisely what happened. Even


after 70 years of its abolition, various surveys conducted in recent years reveal to us that more


than 60-70 percent villages observe untouchability in its various intensities. The constitutional


abolition of untouchability has proved useless.


*


The struggle of the historically discriminated castes tends to take the form of struggle for


recognition, which then essentially slips into identity politics. Identity politics is always favoured


by the mainstream as it does not challenge the real structures of exploitation. Moreover, it


preserves liberal virus to stave off revolutionary ideas from masses. In India, a veritable museum


of identities, it has to rule the roost. Neither Phule nor Ambedkar meant to promote caste


identities. But in the very process of conception of class contradiction they could not avoid the


overriding caste identities of people. Phule explicitly meant to pitch the working classes against


the parasitic classes but he could not avoid the prevalent idiom of castes, viz., the shudras-

ati-shudras although he used more class-like expression for the enemy duo in shetjis and


bhatjis. The same things could be said of Ambedkar. He bettered Phule in conceiving enemy


in terms of ideology and not the people, viz., capitalism and Brahmanism, but in conception of


the protagonist class could not avoid the prevailing caste identities such as the Untouchables,


although he tried to use the alternate class-indicative expression- depressed classes, as much as


possible. The subtle distinction that they made was lost to people who translated them in their


familiar terms: making depressed class to mean the Untouchable castes at best and their own


caste at worst, and the Brahmanism to mean people of Brahman caste, despite Ambedkar's


emphatic elaboration that Brahmanism could well reside even in Dalits. Besides the idiomatic


compulsion, the struggle for emancipation they launched for these people necessarily had to pass


through struggle for recognition of their misrecognized identities, which had to be the castes. For


instance, Ambedkar's struggle for separate electorates for the Untouchables in the Round Table


Conferences as well as his efforts in instituting reservations for them were both inevitable and


necessary parts of the larger struggle for their emancipation.


The innocuous use of the caste idiom also however did the damage. While Phule's shudra had


separated themselves from their ati-shudra brethren, no sooner Jotiba passed away, (it is said


that they did not allow the Untouchables to enter the hall where a condolence meeting for Phule


was organized in Pune), the other Untouchable castes than his own mostly kept away from


Ambedkar. (Ambedkar's following largely came from his own Mahar caste and the Mahar-like


majority caste among the Untouchables in every geographic region.) This natural identity


polarization could be easily exploited by the ruling classes in electoral process. While Ambedkar


had realized on the eve of 1937 elections the need to broad-base his politics on a class line and


adopted the ILP-model of England, transcending his overt focus on the issues of the


Untouchables, the Congress schemed to thwart other Untouchable castes from identifying with


Ambedkar. It is a symbolic lesson of history that Ambedkar's tryst with class politics brings him


significant win (ILP winning 14 out of 17 seats contested that included 11 reserved seats out of


13 contested and 3 general seats out of 4 contested in 1937 provincial elections for Bombay


Presidency) whereas his seemingly caste politics meets him with repeated defeats (Ambedkar


getting defeated by political non-entities in 1952 and 1954 elections). The political imperatives


revealed by the Cripps Mission Report impelled him to decide dissolution of the ILP and float a


seemingly communal party called the Scheduled Caste Federation (SCF). Alongside he was


inducted in the viceroy's executive council as labour member (minister) and significantly


contributed to the labour welfare. Although the SCF was ostensibly formed to further the


interests of the SCs, it did not do it at the cost of its erstwhile class orientation. The most


memorable document it produced was the States and Minorities, written by Ambedkar, as a


memorandum to the Constituent Assembly, suggesting a framework of state socialism to be


adopted for the Constitution of India. Ambedkar is seen thereafter in a statesman's role


shouldering the responsibility of drafting the Constitution and taking cudgels for women in the


Hindu Code Bill as the law minister. Later, he embraced Buddhism as the moral code that stood


for 'liberty, equality, fraternity' and as a strong historical antidote to Brahmanism. He also


envisioned the formation of Republican Party of India (RPI), bringing all non-Congress, non-

Communist elements under one umbrella, which would be the main opposition party in the


parliamentary democracy. His entire life reflects a strong abhorrence for castes and a quest for


the ideology of human emancipation. As a hard core liberal, he had strong reservations about the


revolutionary schema of Marxism although he accepted its goal of human emancipation.


The intricacies of Ambedkar's thoughts were lost to his followers after his death who soon


packaged him as a caste-identity icon shorn of his universal vision of emancipation. Some


would shroud him with Buddhist spirituality and project as a bodhisatva, some as a inveterate


anti-Marxist, some as the greatest protagonist of parliamentary democracy, and some as sans


ideology opportunist pursuing the interests of his community to make it 'a ruling community'.


While they formed the RPI in deference to his wishes on 3 October 1957 in an SCF conference


in Nagpur, there were no attempts to include non-Dalits in the party. It was merely a change


in label of the SCF, with its default content of collection of particular castes. Ambedkar had


revealed his plans for RPI as the non-ideological political party working for "the economic,


social, cultural and moral progress of the Indian people with rational and modernist outlook'.


A decision was accordingly taken on 30 September 1956, just a fortnight before the great


conversion to dissolve the SCF and form the RPI. In absence of any 'ideological' anchor,


Ambedkar-icon itself became the anchor of the RPI, which was inherently constricted as per the


understanding of the leaders. Under the shadow of his towering leadership, the rivalry among the


leaders could not surface, which however resurged soon after his demise.


RPI from the day one, became the house divided. Various leaders began pulling and pushing it


in different directions. The momentous changes in political economy that began befalling the


country passed it by. During the decade, the Nehruvian government had launched the Five Year


Plans giving impression of its socialist orientation, undertook calibrated land reforms, brought in


capitalist agriculture technology of Green Revolution, in order to institute state control over the


economy, and to entrench its political control in vast rural area by creating a class of rich farmers


out of the populous shudra caste band. In the ensuing flood of capitalist relations Dalits were


reduced to be the rural proletariat, devoid of the sense of security of traditional jajmani system.


The new production relations soon began manifesting into wage disputes, which precipitated


into a new genre of caste atrocities, the first being in Kilvenmani in Tamilnadu in December


1968. On the other side, with the rising aspirations of the rural rich, the political equations began


changing between the traditional upper (dwija) castes and the shudra castes; the latter beginning


to wield reins of power from the upper caste Hindus. As in the colonial times, the class of rich


farmers having turned capitalist, using their caste ties hooked up the shudra band wagon to dwija


further simplifying the caste into a class-like divide between the Dalits and non-Dalits.


At the time the Congress had relied on the constituency of Dalits, Adivasis, and religious


minorities. The separatist tendency of the most populous Dalits as Ambedkarites in this


formation was noted as threat and the Congress devised its cooptation strategy, first tried out


by Yashwantrao Chavan, the representative of the newly emerged class of rich farmers who


had become the chief minister of Maharashtra in the den of the Ambedkarite movement. He


succeeded in luring Dadasaheb Gaikwad, the president of the RPI into an electoral coalition


with the Congress. It paved ways for others to variously jump over to the bandwagon of ruling


classes, and splintering RPI into innumerable factions. The Dalit Panthers that came into


being in the general atmosphere of political turbulence world over due to the endemic crisis of


capitalism after experiencing its golden period for the previous two decades, and particularly


responding to the political debacle of the RPI, alarmed the ruling classes but soon fell prey to


their machinations ending up like RPI. Another significant response to the failure of the RPI


came in the form of Bamcef, taking advantage of a sizable class of reservation beneficiaries


from among the SCs and STs, to conceive a broad based organization of the educated employees


belonging to SCs, STs, BCs, and Minority communities against the 15 percent dwija castes.


Kanshiram, himself belonging to this class of government employees conceived and anchored


this initiative, transformed this into an agitprop organization called DS4 (Dalit Shoshit Samaj


Sangharsh Samiti) in 1981 and later again transformed it into a political party, Bahujan Samaj


Party (BSP) in 1984.


Kanshiram succeeded in his political strategy capturing the political power in UP, which with


its peculiar history of Dalit politics and Dalit demography lent fertile ground for his experiment.


With the concrete core of Dalits and the moss of political power, the BSP could easily expand


its tentacles and entrench itself in the contemporary political milieu. The BSP followed naked


identity politics and inevitably became one of the ruling class parties. It enthused middle classes


among Dalits to see one of their caste-woman as the shining star among the political bigwigs


but it did not help Dalit masses in any manner, except for a notional relish of being with power.


Objectively, they find themselves more vulnerable in their settings being pitched against the


entrenched classes which bind them further to BSP to preserve the notional protective political


cover. On the strength of this core constituency the BSP has single-mindedly pursued political


power, annihilating the Ambedkarite agenda of annihilation of Castes and fooling his gullible


followers with his grandiose memorials.


*


The class of rich farmers in villages created by the Congress proved Frankenstein. With its huge


enrichment it grew in its own political ambition and began occupying important positions in the


party structure or floating their own regional parties. These regional parties eroded the monopoly


of the Congress and inaugurated the era of coalition politics, where a small chunk of votes also


fetched good return in the prevailing first-past-the-post type of election system. The electoral


politics thus became increasingly competitive bringing in so much importance to castes and such


other identities. The shielded weapon of the reservations to the backward classes, which had


remained dormant after the Kalelkar Commission in 1953 and Mandal Commission in 1980, was


unleashed by VP Singh by implementing recommendations of the latter in 1989, opening the


real case of caste worms in the society. Reservations came in their true prowess as weapons in


the hands of the political parties who began using them with impunity in their political calculus.


Paradoxically, it was happening in the era of neoliberal globalization that would soon render


them meaningless by fast eroding its base in the public sector. Within a decade of 1997 to 2007,


the public sector employment base was actually eroded from its peak at 187 lakh jobs to 180


lakh jobs signifying the end of reservations in 1997 itself. But the political parties would wink


at this stark reality and keep fooling people by instigating demands for reservations for every


conceivable caste and community, including Mayawati's Brahmans.


With the collapse of Soviet regime and consequently disaffection of class politics, there has been


a resurgence of identity politics all over the world. The uncertainties and insecurities unleashed


by neoliberal globalization also impelled people to seek shelter in their identities. The academics


on their part, characteristically following the power that be, have boosted the idea with their


post-modernist discourse. Indeed, it has become a fashion among them to project identity


politics as great democratizer. It is said for instance that politics of recognition, based variously


on identities of caste, language, and religion, was a crucial feature of democratic struggle in


post-independent India. We had a plethora of them and their net result can be seen only in the


tightening grip of the ruling classes around the necks of people! Identity politics cannot be


emancipatory anywhere because it necessarily crosses the axis of emancipation and remains


essentially fragmentary. It is not to undermine the importance of existential struggles against


identities such as caste, race, ethnicity, gender, sex, etc., but they should in no case override the


class struggle which is universal and hence emnacipatory.


This is about identities in general. But caste, which gets loosely combined with such identities,


has special characteristics that would further invalidate caste-based politics. Castes are inherently


hierarchy seeking, like amoeba that splits ad infinitum and hence they can never be the basis of


any radical struggle. Castes create an illusion of togetherness under pressure but splits when the


pressure is removed. In the heat of Ambedkarite movement, all the Mahar sub-castes remained


together and wore an identity of 'dalit' but as soon as this heat waned, the sub-caste identities


resurged splintering the movement itself. It is said that one of these sub-castes had publicly


displayed a board with its name in Nagpur, the den of the Ambedkarite movement. The caste


identity may serve the vested interests, and indeed it surely does, but it can never be helpful for


any struggle for radical change. Ambedkar's slogan of annihilation of caste is the only apt vision


in relation to them.


*


Today the menace of identity politics has already marginalized the emancipation agenda. The


castes have resurged everywhere with their respective caste icons, publicly displaying their


identity formations in an unprecedented manner. The success of BSP and SP thriving on a


single caste core has given the boost to this phenomenon. Paradoxically, Dalits flaunting their


allegiance to Ambedkar are in forefront to project their identities, not as Dalit but as Moolniwasi,


and worst, as Malas, Madigas, Pasis, and others. Identities are also applied to such modernist


systems as capitalism (Dalit capitalism) to incite caste pride and curry favour from the state. The


caste pride effectively blinds people from objective realities. Mulayam Singhs or Mayawatis


then can attempt any acrobatics under cover of this blind caste support. Identity politics only


intoxicates masses and lends impunity to the leaders.


The single biggest instrument in boosting these identities has been reservations. They are


uncritically acclaimed as the instrument of social justice ignoring the fact that it necessarily


crosses the principle of equality and creates perennial discordance in society. It therefore


warrants judicious application. Reservations in favour of the ex-Untouchables as instituted


during the colonial times were such judicious use of the concept. The Untouchables were


indisputably a class of unique people in the world, who were identifiable on an unambiguous


criterion. There could not be much dispute over the fact that in an open system the deep


entrenched social prejudice against them would never let them get their dues. Therefore such


countervailing force of the state as reserving some share of the general benefit was warranted as


a just measure. But diluting the criteria to backwardness in a backward country was surely wrong


and mischievous.


While the reservations for Dalits were justifiable, the premise with which they were instituted


and the manner in which they were implemented also could be faulted. The reservations were not


primarily meant as a means to overcome the backwardness of Dalits but as an instrument against


inherent injustice in the Indian society. It was not for the disability of Dalits but for the disability


of the society that they were the antidote. The entire construction could have been turned upside


down to do away its ill aspects; such as stigmatizing beneficiaries, inducing interiority complex


in them, promoting ghettoizing tendencies among them, antagonizing the larger society against


them, its seeming perpetuity and oriented everyone to strive for annihilation of castes. If the


larger society had thus realized that it was a bitter pill to swallow, it would have striven to cure


itself at the earliest possible time and even Dalits would have preferred that state to reservations.


More importantly, it would have also eliminated the space for later mischief of extending the


policy to other communities and forced the state to adopt the pro-people development policies to


meet their aspirations.


There has not been any objective evaluation of this controversial policy ever. It is taken for


granted that they are beneficial to the communities they were meant for. Theoretically, as they


are limited to the proportion of the Dalit population, they were rather designed to perpetuate the


prevailing inequalities at their time of inception. The political reservations, which were mutated


in the Poona Pact have been grossly counterproductive as they not only eliminated the possibility


of independent Dalit representation but also promoted brokering of their interests. Ambedkar


himself had sensed it and wanted them to end after ten years. But they get extended before their


expiration without anybody demanding it. The reservations in higher educational institutes have


been surely useful so far as they had acute supply constraint. With its removal, they may turn


irrelevant. More than these reservations the concessions like exemption of fees and scholarships


have rather been beneficial for the students who lack financial resources to pursue their


education. The reservations in public employment have also benefited Dalits. The overall policy


has resulted in creating a tiny middle class among Dalits, which at the most admeasures less than


10 percent of the Dalit population. The policy favours it increasingly monopolizing the benefits


of whatever is left of reservations, creating an increasingly narrower class of beneficiaries.


The increasingly small supply of the SC/ST candidates from this narrowing class to the elite


institutions like IITs, IIMs and others, leaving many reserved seats unfilled stands testimony to


this phenomenon. On the negative side, reservations have created a class division among Dalits,


the upwardly mobilizing class hijacking the agenda of 90 percent of Dalits to further their own


class interests. They have also burdened Dalits with huge psychological costs and political costs,


just to recall a few.


The model of constitutional governance adopted by India is called bourgeois democracy,


which is inherently oriented to serve the interests of bourgeoisie as a device to manage the


masses. In the process, it does benefit them but purely in the mode of a capitalist strategically


paying off his workers better wages than others so as to sustain his long term profitability. He


would simultaneously intrigue to keep them divided so that their bargaining strength is kept


at bay. The bourgeois democracy essentially behaves the same way. The Indian model goes


beyond this 'management' strategy and is not averse to be vicious to the lower classes using


its feudal inheritance. The manner in which it deceptively pursued the policies in favour of the


incipient bourgeoisie (adopting first-past-the-post type of election system instead of proportional


representation system that could ensure better representation to Indian polity; adopting the


Bombay Plan for its Five Year Plans seemingly to further redistributive objective; implementing


calibrated land reforms in the name of reducing inequity in land distribution and adopting the


capitalist strategy of Green revolution so as mitigate hunger of people, just to name a few), the


manner in which it held out a dream before the people through the Constitution, and the manner


in which it crushed their resistance reveals its feudal character. It has surely intrigued to preserve


castes and fanned the identity politics. Of course, the neoliberal policies have greatly accentuated


all the extant evils of the bourgeois democracy.


*


Not only have we failed to fulfill the Ambedkar's dream of annihilation of castes over the last


six decades but also we have gone light years away from it. The so called disciples of Ambedkar


themselves have been in forefront to bury that dream and flaunt their identities. It may be in


the interests of the upper castes to preserve their caste privileges but how could it be in the


interests of the lower ones to willingly wear their stigmatized identities? Ambedkarite vision


of annihilation of castes is not to be construed for the betterment of the lower castes alone;


it is verily meant for the entire Indian people. Caste is not merely a matter of discrimination


or atrocities; it is a veritable virus that incapacitates the entire nation. This virus is the main


factor behind India's every evil and its persisting backwardness. It can only be removed by


cleansing its body, through a revolution. Indeed, no patch work may do away this virus than a


thoroughgoing democratic revolution that will dislodge the entrenched classes and pave way for


India's socialist future. Here, it needs to be squarely internalized by the pro-revolution forces that


unless the masses of Dalits join them, their dream of revolution may never materialize and the


same way anti-caste Dalits to note that unless the people of their class supplement their strength,


the dream of annihilation of castes may never be accomplished. It follows that these two camps


must see a common cause and strategize to remove their historical misgivings.


It is a strategic imperative for Dalits to realize that castes are not mere cultural or religious


matter; they are intermingled with all aspects of life. The majority of Dalits are mired in the


agrarian relations as the farm labour or in urban informal sectors, both living in subsistence


mode. Their dalithood is entangled with their economic status. It can be clearly understood


from the atrocities on them, which are meant to terrorize them into submission. In many an


instant, this submission entails economic and political benefits to the upper caste hegemon. The


hegemon's writ however is carried out by his caste people who belong to the same class as Dalit


victims. The atrocities are thus committed because Dalits are financially weak, economically


dependent, morally hollow and isolated from their class. The antidote therefore would comprise


making them economically self sufficient with their control over means of livelihood, making


them morally solid so as to resist any injustice and forging class unity with the people from the


upper castes. The diagnosis remains practically the same as presented by Babasaheb Ambedkar


in 1936 in his famous exposition Mukti kon pathe? (What path to Liberation) while explaining


the logic behind his declaration of religious conversion to the leaders of his movement. The first


could be achieved through getting them land, making quality education and health care available;


the second through ideological restoration of faith in struggle and the third, through building


the class unity with the other castes. Programmatically, the ideological preparation and the class


solidarity must precede so that the struggle for the means of empowerment is effectively carried


out.


This can be accomplished through reorientation of the anti-caste (dalit) and anti-class (left)


movements. While Dalit movement should orient itself along class line while fighting for


the caste issues the left movement should orient itself to see the reality of castes and need to


forge unity with the struggling Dalits. The initiative however must come from the left with due


ideological conviction, overcoming their self righteous attitude. As I proposed in my 'Anti-

Imperialism and Annihilation of Castes', this process, once set in could result in a virtuous cycle


ending into a much desired Indian revolution. I see no other option.


Search Results

  1. 633 Anand Teltumbde, Identity politics and the annihilation of castes

    Identity politics and the annihilation of castes. ANAND TELTUMBDE ... with its contemporary baggage has gained prominence only in the last twenty years. ... The focus of this essay being annihilation of caste, it deals with politics based on ...
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  2. To the Self-Obsessed Marxists And The Pseudo Ambedkarites By ...

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    Apr 3, 2013 - "Anand Teltumbde, the main proponent of the amalgamation (samanvaya) of ... We neither get any direction for annihilation of castes from even Teltumbde nor do we ... I have been writing on these issues for the last 30 years and my.... for the future constitution of India and giving a plan of 'state socialism'.

  3. Crisis Of Ambedkarites And Future Challenges By Anand Teltumbde

    www.countercurrents.org/teltumbde220411.htm‎
    Apr 22, 2011 - But even this experiment could not last long and the RPI split. ..... If Ambedkarite ideology is annihilation of castes, there are number of Ambedkarites ...Had it been rooted in present, it would have noted the structural changes ...
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    The Khairlanji Murders & India's Hidden Apartheid ANAND ...

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  5. Imperialism and Annihilation of Caste written by Anand Teltumbde

    May 2, 2006 - There is a scathing criticism on the past practice and present of the 'Left' (broadly ... Positive Attempt to Seek Annihilation of Castes. Despite .... The question is linked to the strategy and tactics of revolution and future practice.

  6. Full text of "Anand Teltumbde Articles" - Internet Archive

    archive.org/.../AnandTeltumbdeArticles/AnandTeltumbdeArticles_djvu.t...‎
    Crisis Of Ambedkarites And Future Challenges 22 April, 2011 Ambedkar Memorial Lecture at .... The entire thrust is to reclaim the past cultural glory of the bahujans, which they .... If Ambedkarite ideology is annihilation of castes, there are number of ...Had it been rooted in present, it would have noted the structural changes ...

  7. Anand Teltumbde | kracktivist

    kractivist.wordpress.com/tag/anand-teltumbde/‎
    Posts about Anand Teltumbde written by kracktivist. ... organise" so as to realise his goals of annihilation of castes and achievement of socialism. .... There is nothing wrong in the former while the latter is no doubt a most pernicious thing. ... as an infallible god and made him unavailable for future generations to learn from.

  8. Challenges before the anti caste movement in India | Goldy George ...

    There is no state where some forms of caste atrocity, untouchablity practices, ... tip of the iceberg; yet it narrates volumes on its functional mechanism in the present phase.... The past two decades have witnessed an explosive growth in international ....Teltumbde, Anand (1997), "Ambedkar in and for the PostAmbedkar Dalit ...

  9. Dr BR Ambedkar Books - WordPress.com

    Annihilation Of Caste ... The Present Problem in Indian Currency 2 ... make all these books available in electronic format goes to Dr. Anand Teltumbde and credit ..... Atlast but not least "Hamare blood ma aur mind ma Babasaheb,Buddha ka ... like Dr.Ambedkar, future historian or generations will think him as a mythical man.

  10. proXsa: 'Ambedkar' in and for the Post-Ambedkar Dalit Movement

    Dr. Anand Teltumbde has already made a name for himself as a brilliant, keen and ...The dalits too, therefore will have to wage now and in future a revolutionary ...Annihilation of caste, class and gender injustices and inequalities demand an ...... it would be erroneous to judge the events of the past by present standards.
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