Dalit Resistance and the Role of the Left

9th September 2016

 By Brinda Karat

A fundamental and core feature of India’s socio-economic structures is its caste system. Birth and descent determine positions in immutable social hierarchies. When Rohith Vemula penned his tragic yet passionate suicide note he described his Dalit identity as a ‘fatal accident’. And it is true. Had he been born into another caste, he would not as a child has had to witness his mother Radhika facing caste based indignities. Nor would Rohith and his sibling Raja have faced discrimination in their school classrooms. The cancellation of his scholarship, his only means of survival as a student at a top University, would not have led to the drastic action he took, thus making him a victim of an institutional murder.

The institution in question is not just the callous university establishment, but in fact, the institution of caste.

Contrary to the claims made by the apologists of capitalism, the so-called modernizing features of capitalism have not succeeded in eliminating the horror that is the caste system in India. The trajectory of capitalism in India has been in alliance with the feudal and semi-feudal social forces. But this is not the only feature. Capitalism itself has co-opted the caste system to enable an intensified form of the exploitation of the labour of the scheduled castes and extraction of surplus value. It is systemic, part of the very structure of capitalism in India. Neo-liberal policies have accentuated this reality.

In the recent period, three issues have emerged as the focal point for Dalit resistance, all three of them very relevant for the Left:

The issue of livelihood of Dalits, highlighted by the Una movement in Gujarat.

    The issue of education for Dalits, highlighted by the suicide of RohithVemula.
    The issue of violence against Dalits, highlighted by the burning of two Dalit children in the village of Sunaped in Haryana.

But first, let us look at the political and economic context of these issues and movements.

Hindutva and Caste

Today, the fight for the annihilation of the caste system takes place in a qualitatively new political situation where the forces representing Hindutva are in power. The RSS has always taken a dual approach to the issue of caste. On the one hand, it is a votary of Sanatandharam, which not only sanctions but glorifies the caste system. On the other hand, it speaks about the ‘unity of the Hindu family’.

According to the RSS version of history, there was nothing wrong in the original caste system. It was only during the Mughal rule, they say, that caste became an instrument of oppression. Bhaiyya Joshi the RSS second in command, has written in his introduction to a book on Dalits that ‘shudras and Dalits were never discriminated against in the Hindu Shastras.There was no untouchability. It was the Muslim invaders who created such practices’.

What about the Manu Smriti and other Hindu scriptures that sanction and glorify caste centuries earlier? Facts hardly matter to the RSS.

According to another interpretation by none other than NarendraModi, now PM, manual scavenging done by Dalits was a ‘spiritual activity’ and chosen by Dalits themselves to serve the people as a spiritual duty.Modi wrote, in his book Karamyog,I do not believe that they have been doing this job just to sustain their livelihood. Had this been so, they would not have continued with this type of job generation after generation’.This was not sufficient. Modi then wrote,

‘At some point of time, somebody must have got the enlightenment that it is their (Valmikis’) duty to work for the happiness of the entire society and the Gods; that they have to do this job bestowed upon them by Gods; and that this job of cleaning up should continue as an internal spiritual activity for centuries. This should have continued generation after generation. It is impossible to believe that their ancestors did not have the choice of adopting any other work or business’.

It seems Mr.Modi has not learnt any lessons from history. It was precisely this kind of unashamed defence of the caste system rooted in Hindu scriptures that had repulsed Dalit leaders and led the tallest of Dalit rights champions, Dr.BabasahebAmbedkar to convert to Buddhism.

The idea of the great ‘Hindu family’ is a non-starter, full of contradictions and daily hypocrisies in its practice.It is a concept of unity on the basis of the caste status quo, with the Dalits at the bottom of the ladder. This also came to the forefront during the GharWapsi of the Hindutva platform, when it was stated that the Dalit converts would return to their original position as Dalits in the caste hierarchy!

RSS speaks of Dalit rights but supports every reactionary agitation against reservation. The RSS chief openly spoke against reservations, asking for its reconsideration. The RSS uses Dalits in the Hindutva campaign, with a Dalit asked to lay the foundation stone for the planned temple in Ayodhya. But, at the same time, numerous temples deny Dalits entry. The RSS has never ever led a movement to enforce temple entry. It was communists like P.Sundarayya, AKG, and others – alongside BabasahebAmbedkar – who played that role, a legacy taken forward by the Left even today.The RSS talks of sharing food with Dalits, but stands on the side of KhapPanchayats when they issue dictates and incite violence against a love marriage between a Dalit boy and an upper caste girl. In BJP-ruled States there have been no efforts to address the multiple issues of discrimination and low economic and social indicators of Dalits. For the RSS, the main role of Dalits is as a militant force to be used against Muslim communities, such as in the Gujarat genocide.

The self-contradictory Hindutva agenda vis-a-visDalits is being pursued at all levels and with State patronage. It is, therefore, clear that the Dalit resistance movements necessarily come into confrontation with the RSS-BJP political combine.

Neo-Liberal policies worsen Dalit status

At the same time, the economic policies of neoliberalism pursued aggressively by the BJP Government have worsened the situation.

The Socio-Economic Census report indicates the utter failure of capitalism to address historical inequalities of Scheduled Caste communities. The gap remains wide.At the same time, it also shows how capitalism has led to a situation where the numbers of those who are poor and deprived, across castes, form the majority of the population. While the number of poor has increased, Dalits, because of caste oppression, are the poorer among the poor.

Among the 3.31 crore Dalit households, 72.58 percent come in the ‘deprived’ category, 55 percent have no land at all, 67.27 per cent are casual manual workers and only 11.29 percent have pucca houses. Scheduled Castes – based on this data – suffer a twenty percent deprivation when compared to non-SC/ST castes.

A recently published study titled ‘Social Exclusion and Caste Discrimination in Public and Private Sectors in India: A Decomposition Analysis’ (2016) shows that when equally-qualified categories of employees are compared, the pay gap between SCs and other social groups is an average 19.4 per cent in public sector and 31.7 per cent in private sectors. Significantly, it notes that in the private sector, the wage gap between SCs and others has increased in the post-liberalisation period. The public sector gap is less only because of the benefits of reservations, but even then it is quite high at almost 20 per cent.

Earlier, a study conducted by the IIM Ahmedabad of MBA graduates in 2006 found that graduates belonging to the SC/ST category got significantly lower wages ranging from 20 per cent to 35 per cent than those in the general category.

Whereas reservations mandated by the Constitution helped weaken the cast-iron barriers against social mobility of Dalit communities, with the advent of neo-liberal policies, the accelerated process of privatization, as well as a freeze in recruitment in the Government sectors, reserved posts for Dalits, have seen drastic cuts. Opportunities for educated members of the community have reduced in this period.

This, in turn, strengthens gross exploitation in caste-based professions. The so-called unclean professions – cleaning, sweeping, manually lifting human excreta, unblocking filthy sewers, skinning dead animals – are ‘reserved’ almost exclusively for Dalits. There is over-representation of the community in such jobs. Even in Government jobs of cleaning which is now outsourced and contractors, over 90 percent are done by Dalits. With the advent of the era of neo-liberal policies, all new recruitment for these jobs in the Government sector has been de-regularised even though the work is of a permanent nature. Thus it is the capitalist State that has led the exploitation of the labour of Dalits both in economic and social terms.

Gujarat Model

The ‘Gujarat model’, which is so close to the hearts of corporate India,epitomizes the twin images of corporate profits and Dalit distress. This was highlighted by the incidents in Una in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat where four young Dalit men were stripped, beaten and publicly paraded on the charge of cow slaughter.In fact, they were skinning a dead cow at the request of the cow’s owner, a farmer from a neighbouring village.

When I went to Una as part of the CPI(M) delegation we were told that the so-called GauRakshaks had threatened the Dalits to give up their profession of skinning cows. The father of two of the victims, who was also badly beaten when he rushed to the spot to save his sons, complained that in fact there were no other jobs available.

In Gujarat, the Scheduled Castes comprise around 8 per cent of the population. Most are landless. In rural Gujarat, they are employed either as agricultural labourers or are involved in caste-determined occupations. The lack of assets makes them all the most vulnerable to cruel untouchability and segregationist policies, which are commonplace.In the village we visited, the Dalit basti was segregated from the main village, which was much more developed. In the Dalit area, there was no piped water, no sanitation, no school, no built up road. This, we were told, is a feature across villages in the Saurashtra region. The Gujarat model based on the trickle down theory provides further evidence if such were needed, that the model only accentuates inequality, social, economic and political.

Neo-liberal policies have hit Dalits the hardest. Thus, Dalit groups and movements taking up these issues are the natural allies of movements against neo-liberal policies.

Relevance of Left Alternative Model To Fight Untouchability

In this context, it is most significant that in Gujarat the spontaneous upsurge among Dalit communities is focused on issues of Dalit Asmita – Dalit dignity – linked to livelihood and land. Leaders of the movement have called upon Dalits to refuse to do the ‘traditional’ jobs, which they consider demeaning. In a most powerful symbolic action, Dalits took the carcasses of scores of dead cows and threw them before the main offices of Government. One of the most crucial demands of the Dalit resistance that emerged after the Una atrocities is the demand for land reforms. The most popular slogan of the Dalit movement is ‘you keep the cow’s tail, give us our land’. This brings into focus the Left approach to land reform as an essential component of fighting discriminatory and untouchability practices along with social and political mobilisations.

The Left model as worked out in the 1970s in Bengal is most relevant. Out of the approximately 12 lakh acres of land distributed to about 30 lakh rural poor by the Left Front Government, as much as 37 percent of the beneficiaries were Scheduled Castes. This provided the foundation, which was later built up through the participation in leadership positions by the SCs in the panchayat structures. This process of land reform and local self-government broke the back of casteist practices in rural Bengal and provided the environment for the Left political and social intervention against caste. This is not to say that the caste system has been demolished in Bengal, but most certainly it is socially far less detrimental than it is in Gujarat. Thus, the Dalit resistance in Gujarat and the slogans raised by its protagonists once again establish the general relevance of the Left alternative model.

Another important aspect that the Gujarat movement has brought out is the issue of growth without social justice. Gujarat claims to have the highest growth rates among States in the last decade under Modi. But in social terms, it is only the rich and crony corporates like the Adanis and the Ambanis who have benefitted from this pattern of growth. Where are the jobs and who has got them? Highly capital-intensive industries have restricted the creation of jobs and have kept wages low in the Gujarat model. Dalits have been the worst sufferers. This is made clear by the absence of any alternatives for Dalits who challenge traditional caste-based jobs.

In a study done by Navsarjan, a prominent Dalit group in Gujarat, 64,000 vacancies in various state departments meant for scheduled castes have not been filled – this is according to the government’s own data released last year. The Director of Navsarjan, Martin Macwan, sees this as ‘a conspiracy to keep the caste chained to the occupations forced upon them by an exploitative system – manual scavenging or processing of carcasses, for example – to ensure their social status remains unchanged’.

The important point to note is that issues of livelihood, jobs, land, and wages have come to the forefront in the thinking and analysis of various Dalit groups. This is a shift from the earlier understanding which tended to divorce these issues from that of social status. The development is most welcome and provides the ground for sustained joint actions between Dalit groups and left-oriented mass organisations. In particular, trade unions and Kisan organisations can play an important role in building these new alliances.

 Students and Educational Institutions

The second dimension of protest has been highlighted by the RohithVemula case, which is linked to discrimination in educational institutions from the school classroom to higher institutions of learning including technical and professional ones. Prof SukhdeoThorat has done detailed research on the different aspects of discrimination in educational institutions. In his capacity as UGC Chairman, Prof Thorat in his Report of the Committee to Enquire into the Allegation of Differential Treatment of SC/ST Students in AIIMS, Delhi detailed the discrimination faced by Dalit students and made a series of recommendations including the setting up of an Equal Opportunity Office in the institution. All these recommendations are relevant and valid, not only for AIIMS but for other institutions of higher learning and universities. But even though the report was placed in 2007, no action has been taken on it.

The developments in Hyderabad Central University culminating in the tragic death of RohithVemula and the subsequent callous approach of the Modi Government and especially the HRD ministry led to a strong solidarity movement by students in many colleges and universities in different parts of India. The demand for a Rohith Act has emerged as a rallying point for justice for Dalit students. It envisages a legislation that will address many and more of the issues pinpointed by the Thorat report, which is reflective of the situation for Dalits in most educational institutions.

The CPI(M) has supported the struggle for such a legislation. It is a welcome development that Left student organisations have shown through their practice and struggles in many universities such as in HCU, JNU, Jadavpur university, Himachal University and others that they stand with and by the demands against caste discrimination and oppression against Dalits in educational institutions. Here again, the possibility of broad alliances has emerged and is, in some instances, already in operation.

Violence against Dalits

The third dimension of protest which has been a constant feature but further highlighted by the barbarity of recent attacks is the violence against Dalits by non-Dalit castes, not necessarily only the upper castes but also some sections of the OBCs, the middle,castes who have achieved political and social power in the post-Mandal mobilisations. The horrific incident in Sunped(Haryana) when the upper landed castes took ‘revenge’ on a Dalit family for a perceived ‘insult’ by trying to burn them alive, leading to the deaths of two infants,outraged the country. It was further accentuated by the statement of a Minister in the Modi Government who compared the incident to the routine death of a dog – to justify the PMs silence on the issue.

Violence against SCs has grown in the last decade and specifically in the last few years. According to statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), crimes against SCs rose to 47,064 in 2014 from 39,408 in 2013. In 2012 there were 33,655 crimes against Dalits, about the same as in 2011. In fact, the rate of such crimes against SCs surpassed the national average in as many as 10 states in 2013 and 2014.

In 2014, the rate of crime against Dalits was 23.4 and in 2013 it was 19.57. The rate of crime is the number of crimes reported against SCs per one lakh of their population. Every day three Dalit women are victims of rape. In a large number of cases, Dalit women who are sexually abused are unable to register cases for a variety of equally oppressive causes, further compounding the crime against them.

The conviction rates in crimes against Dalits were abysmal. If the conviction rate is to be calculated on the total number of cases undergoing trial in 2014, then the conviction rate was a mere 3.7 per cent.

The lack of political will of bourgeois parties, the deep caste biases in sections of the police and the predominance of vote bank politics, which has led to such flagrant violations of the minimum human rights of Dalits, have ensured vulnerability of Dalits to caste-based violence, The fight to stop violence against Dalits requires the most broad-based mobilisations of all sections of citizens. The left organization, particularly in States like Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, have, in the last several years, been in the forefront of the struggles against untouchability, successfully mobilising broader sections. The formation of the Dalit SoshanMuktiManch, an initiative of the CPI(M) but a broader-based non-party platform, has expanded to many States in India and is fighting on many issues for Dalit rights.

Politics of the Struggles against the Caste System

While resistance and awareness of the need for unity are growing on issues connected with Dalit oppression, it is true that among a section of Dalit organisations and NGOs the political, ideological trend of hostility towards the organised Left and Left oriented mass organisations remain. There are differences between Dalit groups as to what approach should be taken towards the Left. Some of them believe that the Left should be the main target and oppose any joint movements. This is not only rooted in a narrow reading and practice of identity politics but is oblivious to the qualitatively new situation that has arisen since the coming to power of the Modi Government. But the Left and specifically the CPI(M) has to overcome these prejudices against the Left and work with all those willing to build struggles against the hated caste system.

In this struggle, we have to overcome our own weaknesses. As Marxists our understanding that the class struggle in India requires the mobilization of the workers against the caste system needs to be emphasized both in theory and in practice. It is not a ‘social issue’, one concerning the ‘superstructure’, which can wait till after the revolution. The annihilation of caste and the struggle for it is very much a strategic aspect of the CPI(M) programme for revolution and has both the class aspect as well as the social aspect.

In India’s socio-economic realities, Dalits form a substantial section of what we call the classes basic to our strategy for fundamental social change, the urban and rural proletariat, the agricultural and manual worker. The slogan of class unity will have more meaning for a Dalit worker if working class and agrarian class organisations and movements, mobilize all workers against the specific oppression and exploitation that a worker faces as a Dalit.

Weakness stems from the absence of an understanding among some Left sections of the class dimensions of social issues. It is often taken mechanically that the common bonds of class exploitation will lead automatically to the unity of all the workers without necessarily addressing the specific issues of Dalit workers and the poor as Dalit members of the working class. There is a social differentiation among workers created by the caste system. The double burden that Dalit workers face, and in the case of women Dalit workers the triple burden as a result of caste and gender discriminations and class exploitation, has to be recognised and addressed.

It is wrong to posit class unity against the need to take up Dalit worker issues. Unless class organisations specifically take up the issues of Dalits among the sections we are working as part of the broader class struggle, why should Dalit workers and the poor working Dalits be attracted to the Left? It is no use criticising ‘identity politics’ if we do not address specifically the issues faced by the Dalit working poor from our broader platforms. For this, we will have to confront any casteist feelings and approaches which may exist in some sections of mass organisations.

Conclusion

The failure of the capitalist system to successfully address issues linked to caste  discrimination is not fortuitous. On the contrary, capitalism in its various phases has utilized and strengthened casteist practices to maximise profits.The way Indian society has historically developed with the close intertwining of caste and class, it is clear enough that caste has been used as a tool to extract more surplus from the labour of the so-called untouchables and Shudras. Patriarchal cultures have been used to depress the value of female labour more so of Scheduled Caste women.

In the present situation with the Modi Government in power, the Hindutva forces attempt to build a wider ‘Hindu unity’. Communal slogans and mobilisations against minority communities are also used to mobilise Dalits by these forces.

Our fundamental theoretical framework in understanding the caste structures in India should form the basis for our day to day work among Dalits, in our relations with Dalit groups and organisations and in our being able to successfully build broad social alliances to take forward our positive agenda. New opportunities have opened up, we should grasp the moment, today is the time to move forward on a radical social and economic agenda to fight the caste system and all its inequities with a specific focus on the three aspects thrown up in the present struggles of Dalits for justice.

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Brinda Karat is a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). For LeftWord Books, she wrote the introduction to Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution (2016).

Source: leftword

Ambedkar vs Dronacharya: Why Gurugram is just the RSS telling us who's boss

Opinion

Changing the name of Gurgaon is a decision taken after due deliberation.

Apr 20, 2016 · 04:30 pm      Updated Apr 21, 2016 · 10:51 am

Kancha Ilaiah

Changing the name of Gurgaon to Gurugram is clearly a decision taken after due deliberation. It is no coincidence that its announcement was timed with the celebrations of Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary.

We are reminded once again of the Mahabharata story based on mythological Guru Dronacharya, who trained the Pandavas and Kuarvas in archery, but had to remain with Kaurvas as he was duty bound when it came to the crunch.

The contestation between the Kauravas and the Pandavas is generally projected as a battle between Dharma and Adharma, but it could well be read as war between majority (Kauravs ) and minority (Pandavs) basically over land rights and political power.

Historically, the Brahmin gurus always stood by the minority that constituted Brahmins and Kshatriyas (not even Vaisyas) in ancient times. The 6th century BC Buddhist literature shows us enough evidence how the Brahmins were against the majority that constituted of Shudras and Vaisyas. India had a massive tribal population at that time, which did not come into the orbit of the caste system. The Brahmins-Kshatriys were against the tribals, whom the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh refers to as Vanavasis, or the forest-dwellers.

The Brahmin gurus worked out the theories with an upside down ideology of Dharma and Adharma as that suited them very well. At that time they approved whatever the minority did as Dharma and whatever the majority did as Adharma based on Varna division.

Eklavya and Karna

Two stories that tell us about the absolute casteist nature of Dronacharya are those of Eklavya and Karna. That Dronacharya asked for tribal Eklavya’s thumb as guru-dakshina, so as to impair his archery skills is too well-known to need recounting. But let’s not forget that he also refused to teach Karna for not being a Kshatriya, insulting him for being a suta-putra or the son of a charioteer and therefore not fit for learning warfare.

In present day terminology, Dronacharya can thus easily be seen as being against the Dalit-Bahujan classes, also known as other backward classes and scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

If we map the Dronacharya’s cultural ideology on the present social relations it should not allow Narendra Modi to become the prime minister of the country, as he happens to be an OBC. The RSS’s inner ideology is that of Dronacharya but its posture is that it is for all, including Eklavya and Karna.

It should not really be a surprise therefore for Narendra Modi to be saying that he became the prime minister because of BR Ambedkar and the Constitution he gave India. Modi also repeatedly invokes the name of Gautam Buddha, at least in his foreign tours, just as he invokes Ambedkar’s name at home. It should also not be a surprise that no Brahmin or Kshatriya leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party or the RSS takes the names of Buddha and Ambedkar as frequently as Modi does.

Which is what explains the name change. The caste culture works both ways. Just as Modi appealed to the SC/ST/OBCs, Haryana Chief Minister Khattar was brought in to assuage the upper castes, the BJP-RSS’s core constituency. It is meant to be a signal to the old faithful that the core ideology has not changed. In its intent, Khattar’s move in changing the name to Gurugram and invoke Dronacharya is of a piece with the Vande Mataram controversy and Maharashtra’s Brahmin Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ recent pronouncements. “There is still a dispute over saying ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ ,” he was quoted as having said recently. “Those opposed to say it should not have any right to stay in India. Those living here should say ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.

These are not accidental pronouncements. The short point is that as the BJP goes about appropriating Dalit icons such as Ambedkar in search of newer vote-banks, it needs to reassure its old and ideological votaries too.

Casteist soul

The Brahmin and upper caste intellectuals – be they right wing, left wing or of liberal persuasion – have a tacit understanding of such hegemonic cultural agenda. They have common views about opposite icons like Mahisasur and Dronacharya. This is not a recent phenomenon and was no different under the earlier Congress governments either. Let’s not forget that the top most sports award too is named after Dronacharya.

The problem is that there is no strong Shudra intellectual force that could re-read the Brahmin mythology and fight them back with their own cultural symbols. For example, the Jats in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh did not produce qualitative English educated intellectuals. So is the case with Patels of Gujarat and Gujjars of Rajasthan.

There is some amount of re-reading of the Indian Brahmin mythology from the Dalit point of view because of Ambedkar, but there is no serious re-reading from Shudra point of view. So long as there is no strong Shudra intellectual force in the country, the productive people’s history and narratives will not get their due recognition in the cognitive map of the country.

Till then, the RSS roadmap is clear. Its pracharak chief ministers can be called upon to moderate and balance all the praise showered on Ambedkar in search of newer vote banks. The timing of the re-naming of Gurgaon as Gurugram tells the story more effectively than anything else as it was changed in the midst of the Ambedkar Jayanthi celebrations.

The RSS’s inner soul belongs to Dronacharya – not to Eklavya and Karna. It is delusional therefore to expect any real progress towards an egalitarian nation from a government that is controlled by them. Their idea of sab kaa saath, sab kaa Vikas has to be true to its soul – and pay obeisance to their casteist idols.
We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

Source: scrollin

Dear Kanhaiya Kumar, here’s some unsolicited advice. Regards, Kiran Nagarkar

Student Protests

The renowned author feels compelled to write to 'the most admired – as well as the most reviled – PhD student in the world'.

Post Script

This is first time I am starting a letter with a Post Script instead of ending with one.

Dear Kanhaiya Kumar, I finished this letter to you on Monday night and must confess that not even in my worst-case scenario had I ever imagined that any educational institution would attempt to deprive its students of the sacred task of completing their education.

As I have said time and again, the most sacrosanct space and institution in any country in the world is the university. It is “hallowed” ground because it is the crucible for the finest and the most creative talents in society.

This is where the brand new zeroes, the new Paninis, the Platos and Socrates, the Upanishads, the edge-of-the-universe frontier sciences, sub-atomic particles, the Albert Einsteins, the Jayant Naralikars, the Amartya Sens, the future Nobel Laureates, the Thomas Pikettys, the environmental great souls and saviours, the critical inventions and discoveries of tomorrow are being mulled over, attempted, written, and argued about.

And now I open the newspapers on Tuesday to discover that the most retrograde, stifling and deadly virus has taken over the Jawaharlal Nehru University and a high-level committee has proposed that you along with Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and two others be rusticated. That you will not be allowed to study further, complete your PhDs and, like Rohith Vemula, will be asked to vacate the hostels.

Not just you and your colleagues, 35 students of Film and Television Institute of India are also being chargesheeted. Would we now prefer “Zika” brains to young minds bursting with ideas and hopes and adventures of the mind? Has the governing party at the Centre learnt absolutely nothing from what happened at the Central University in Hyderabad and how much it alienated the young and old of every hue?

I want to ask:

Where are you Ravi Shankar Prasad who had the honesty to say that the JNU had a fine tradition of scholarship?

Dear Piyush Goyal, we both come from the same alma mater, Don Bosco High School, and it was wonderful to hear you sing Our Father who art in Heaven at a school function, will you speak for the future of our varsities and our country?

Suresh Prabhu, LK Advaniji, Arun Shourie, how about you three?

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Are there no leaders in the echelons of the Bharatiya Janata Party who will have the courage and the integrity to stand up for intellectual freedom?

Are you going to permit the provenance of vidya, of knowledge, of Saraswati to become the prisoner of politics?

Is there nobody in the Central Cabinet who can tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his “Make in India” will be still-born if the university becomes the site for the persecution of independent ideas? That there is no greater crime than to deprive bright young people of their right to education?

And now, let me append the letter that I had already finished writing.

Dear Kanhaiya Kumar,

My name is Kiran Nagarkar. You don’t know me – and hence my name is irrelevant.

Forgive me for presuming to intrude on your privacy especially since you must be flooded with calls, emails, requests for interviews and so on.

I can offer at least one reason why you should perhaps ignore this letter. I am above the age of 70, closer to 75 actually, and Mr Modi has made it clear to the highly respected elders in his party that they may as well disappear into vanaprastha ashram for they are obsolete and irrelevant.

What I can assure you is that this is not a hate-mail.

On the contrary, I have chosen to write to you because I am deeply concerned about your safety and wish to offer a few perspectives on the peculiar situation you find yourself in.

Needless to say you are more than entitled to ignore my missive.

After this long prelude, let me finally come to the point.

A peculiar situation

What exactly did I mean by your situation being “peculiar”?

Quite simply, you are perhaps the most admired – as well as the most reviled – PhD student in the world. You are the classic example of what appears to be a preconceived plot gone terribly wrong.

For years now, the JNU has been the bête noire of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. And suddenly there seemed to be an opportunity to show it down as the powers that be in the human resource development and home ministries seem to have been informed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad that the villains in this den of inequity had been caught red-handed while making some "anti-national" speeches.

The home minister later made a highly explosive revelation: apparently none other than the Lashkar-e-Taiba Chief Hafiz Saeed had supported the controversial JNU event on February 9. Simultaneously, a few media channels, representing the governing theology, seem to have gone into overdrive and, lo and behold, with the help of what has been shown to be doctored video footage, they managed to show you committing what they called was sedition – on camera.

By the next day, it was clear that Rajnath Singh had failed to pull wool over the eyes of all but die-hard Hindutva fanatics since he had quoted from a fake Twitter account. But by then you were taken into custody without the mandatory first information report and the super-patriotic, conscientious lawyers were good enough not only to beat you up but also to viciously abuse the most respected elders from their own community appointed by the Supreme Court.

All this while former Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sen Bassi claimed to have single-handedly saved the nation from a repeat of the Jalianwala Bagh tragedy. (How can we ever thank him for this great service to the nation?).

But, eventually, the plot began to unravel and the dirty tricks department stood thoroughly exposed.

The only reason I have detailed what is common knowledge is because I wanted to underline the fact that you have on your hands an anaconda that has been humiliated and stung and will not rest till it has swallowed you whole and there’s not a trace of you left.

They’ve already thrown every minister and accusation at you. No less a figure and lawyer than Arun Jaitley, who had earlier described authors returning their Sahitya Akademi awards as “a manufactured crisis” and the prime minister himself have got into the act. Even the honourable judge who gave you six months’ bail had a very problematic view of sedition.

It might be a good idea not to underestimate the fact that the honour and pride of the ruling party are at stake. They are bloodthirsty.

Which is why I feel compelled to highlight the need for you to sit with your highly competent lawyers and formulate a carefully crafted strategy.

The Azadi chronicles

Let me now move to a word that occurred time and again in your most famous speech: azadi or freedom. You spoke nobly of fighting for a variety of freedoms. Freedom from poverty, freedom of speech, freedom from unemployment; freedom to survive droughts, famines, bankruptcy and feed this nation by taking care of the beleaguered farmers; freedom that ensures the empowerment of women and rights of Dalits, tribals and minorities.

And yet you took for granted the one freedom which is the first freedom, the freedom from colonial rule and the winning of independence. This is why I need to offer a historical perspective. Does anyone from your or your parents' generation recall our utterly unique national narrative? That we are the only country in the world to win our independence through a non-violent civil disobedience movement against the mightiest empire in the world? And that we owe our first freedom to Mahatama Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azad and all the great leaders of the Congress, not to mention hundreds of thousands of our countrymen who stood by the doctrine of non-violence in the face of draconian laws and measures taken by the coloniser?

Let’s never forget that the Indian Marxists, RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha or the various incarnations of the BJP were never present or involved in the country’s struggle for independence. Then, as now, the only agenda that the RSS and its various affiliates, including the BJP, have is its rabid fanaticism and pure hatred for the Muslims. One has merely to read the incredibly provocative statements of the BJP leaders like Kundanika Sharma, Yogi Adityanath or Union Minister of State for HRD Ram Shankar Katheria egging their members to dire violence against the Muslims, and even the Christians.

The BJP rank and file have nothing but contempt for Dalits as was underlined once again when Rohith Vemula committed suicide and they vociferously fell back on endless lies to defend their despicable role in his death.

As for the Communists, even as late as 1962, Jyoti Basu and others of the same ideology were justifying the Chinese invasion of the country.

As a PhD student at JNU, I hope you never forget that it was the Congress cadres at all levels which fought for and won our first freedom. And that the first betrayal and the appalling corruption of the Congress ideals came, as is so often the case in world history, from its own ranks.

Uniting the divided

While I don’t want to forget that Lenin, Stalin and Mao amongst the three of them committed genocides amounting to millions of their own people, it is not my intention to keep harping on the so-called Communist past in India.

While the RSS and the BJP are stuck in their deadly, divisive Hindutva agenda and their obsession with unbridled crony-capitalism, the communists hopefully will get down to fighting the good fight once again – that is if they can get their act and élan together – for the poor whether they be Dalits, farmers or labourers, the utterly marginalised tribals, or the millions of jobless in the cities and towns of our country. This is where perhaps your biggest contribution could be.

First of all, it is extremely important that these different groups coalesce and can thus no longer be ignored. Our political parties have learnt their lesson from our colonial masters: Divide and rule. They play one group against the other and wake up only during election time to exploit that feckless institution called the vote bank.

You and your colleagues must put an end to this practice to start off with. But much more important than this is the urgent need to replace old and moribund strategies with new and highly effective ones.

For instance, how long are we going to let successive governments butcher the so-called Naxalites or maltreat the Dalits? While the grievances of the tribals and others are very real, their responses have become hidebound and so is the public reaction to them. Not only is there a need to present their case in a far more engaging way but there is need to think of an effective process by which the depressed and the damned can assert their rights. Needless to say, this should all be strictly and scrupulously within the ambit of the law so that when push comes to shove, the wretched of the earth will never be caught on the wrong side of the law and suffer for it.

Modern technology

If you have the time I would like you to read at least the first act of my play, Bedtime Story which deals with the tribal Prince Eklavya. Never forget that Ekalavya was a self-made man and yet was a better archer than Arjun. But even more to the point, the first act will show you how Eklavya squares matters with the wily Dronacharya.

Education is key but so is information technology and other smart modern technologies. Where would you have been if what you actually said was not caught on camera for the world to see? Likewise, let the roving cameras of young men and women be employed in bringing the truth forward and exposing the falsehoods.

Again, if you are fighting for a good cause you need to know how to use the media to your advantage.

You have to make sure that over a period of time you develop a whole phalanx of superb and dedicated lawyers as part of a dedicated team, so that the best possible legal defence is available in case of any foul play – or even to challenge flawed and unfavourable judicial verdicts in higher courts of appeal.

Don’t burn out

All this in good time. But first focus on the subject not only of your physical safety – but also in terms of your frame of mind. I want to underline how you are at risk from yourself. And to do that I would like you to watch the documentary film called Amy. Perhaps you’ve already seen it. Perhaps jazz leaves you cold. Never mind. Watch it. Amy Winehouse was a brilliant singer. She wrote her own songs. By the time she was 17 or 18, she was a phenomenally successful artist. The camera loved her and so did her millions of fans. She broke many a record, but at what cost? She was gone from this world before she was 28. The phenomenon is called burn-out.

You have been in the glare of publicity. The demands made on you are colossal. The BJP and their RSS colleagues hate you, just as your fans across the country adore you. It’s a bad mix – nay, it’s a deadly mix. Never underestimate the stresses and strains of being in your shoes. There’s absolutely no shame in getting some psychological help to keep your focus on sanity while keeping the burn-out syndrome at bay.

You and all the younger generations of today are crucial to this venture called India. Its success or failure depends on what all of you bring to the table, as long as you keep the flame of integrity and openness alive.

For our own sake, I wish you all the very best.

Warmest regards,
Kiran Nagarkar

We welcome your comments at letters@scroll.in.

Source: scrollin

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A new cosy arrangement

September 13, 2015

Nistula Hebbar

File photo shows RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat, Mr. Gadkari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Vrindavan.

The rise in comfort levels in the relations between the RSS and the Modi government at the Centre is an important change from the previous, slightly fraught relationship between the Sangh and the Vajpayee government.

The three day Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Samanvay Baithak or co-ordination meeting held in Delhi between September 3 and 5 was important in both form and content in informing the country of the structure of organisations which now greatly influence its government. The RSS ended the meet with a ringing endorsement of the government, and government ministers were volubly unapologetic at having presented themselves at the meet for a seeming “performance appraisal.”

It was a performance that, in the words of professor Walter Anderson, co-author of the seminal work on the RSS, The Brotherhood in Saffron, sought to establish not just the commonality of policy goals, but “signalling that the RSS aims to speak out more openly on policy issues of importance, rather than just being a mediator of differences and a supplier of workers, and that the Modi government is comfortable with it doing so.”

This comfort between the RSS and the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre is an important change from the previous, slightly fraught relationship between the Sangh (RSS) and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. It is a sign of increasing confidence in the RSS, with growing numbers of enrolment and mainstream support but also owes a lot to a conscious effort by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to learn from the lessons of the past.

This is NDA 2.0

What are the contours of this new relationship? The first clue that most people got about this new communicative exchange was in September 2014, when Prime Minister Modi was informed, during a meeting at his residence 7 Race Course Road, that the RSS would be replacing Suresh Soni with RSS joint general secretary Krishna Gopal as the office bearer responsible for co-ordinating affairs between the RSS and the BJP. Mr. Gopal, from Mathura, is of a cohort group closer to the age of the current leadership in the party and shares Mr. Bhagwat’s rather pragmatic approach to things. The official announcement of this change was made in October that year, a full month’s grace period given to the party to adjust to it.

Indeed, the machinery of the relationship in its rivets has taken into account the likes and preferences of Prime Minister Modi and BJP president Amit Shah. “As soon as the elections were over, people more in tune with the new dispensation, both in age and inclination, like Ram Madhav, Shiv Prakash and Sunil Bansal (in the Uttar Pradesh unit) were seconded to the party,” said a senior BJP office bearer. When the ‘Ghar Wapsi’ agitation derailed an entire Parliament session, a key RSS office bearer heading the programme was asked to stand down, after Prime Minister Modi and Mr. Bhagwat got talking.



"For the government, it has been 15 months of filial endorsement by the RSS." Photo: AP

In 2008, the RSS had decided to crystallise some of its ideological preoccupations into viable policy documents and work, and had set up a string of think tanks such as the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) and the India Foundation. In 2014, the two think tanks provided a rich hunting ground for appointment of ministers (Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, and Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha are from the India Foundation) and also important officials (National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Nripendra Misra were associated with the VIF). This created seamlessness in policy thinking, which was lacking earlier.

According to professor Pralay Kanungo, author of the well-regarded book, RSS’ Tryst with Politics: From Hedgewar to Sudarshan, the generational change in the BJP and the RSS cannot be over emphasised in explaining the new cosy arrangement. “During the Vajpayee premiership, he and L. K. Advani were like colossus on the Sangh stage, outflanking the sarsanghchalak K. S. Sudarshan. There was, in my opinion, a confidence deficit in the Sangh due to this, which manifested itself in a sharper tussle for control and dominance,” he said. “The new lot who are involved in mediating affairs — Krishna Gopal, Ram Madhav and Union Minister for Roads and Highways Nitin Gadkari are of a different ilk. Mostly there is a realisation that the mandate of 282 seats cannot be frittered away,” he adds.

The new rivets

BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, who handles many sensitive assignments for the party, pooh poohs suggestions that things were really bad between the RSS and the BJP in the Vajpayee era, but concedes that communication is better now.

“It’s not as if there was no ideological proximity then. There were many members of the NDA government then who were very close to the organisation. In 2002, in fact, we had a similar exercise between the RSS and the NDA government and then Prime Minister Vajpayeeji had also attended, albeit not with such a brouhaha being made about it,” he said. He added, however, that “mechanisms for co-ordination are better now, both formally and informally.”

An example of the formal mechanism is the recently held meet between education and culture ministers of BJP-ruled States, where the party’s office bearers and Union Ministers of those departments were present. “We prepared a lot for the meeting and we intend to meet at least twice a year,” said Union Minister for Culture Mahesh Sharma. The informal mechanism was at work on the issue of One Rank One Pension (OROP) where a gentle nudge from RSS second in command Suresh “Bhaiyyaji” Joshi sealed matters and within 48 hours an acceptable draft of the OROP settlement was announced to the country.

A senior BJP member who was part of the Vajpayee government and the current one says that the change is visible. “If you look at what RSS joint general secretary Dattatreya Hosabele said after the baithak on the Ram Temple issue—that they would not hand over a time table to the government on this, despite efforts by VHP leader Praveen Togadia—and contrast it with Dattopant Thengdi of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM) offering dharna against the Vajpayee government on economic reforms, the picture will be clear.”

Individual ministers, he says, are encouraged to meet with Sangh affiliate organisations, on their issues. For example, the SJM met with environment minister Prakash Javadekar on field trials for Genetically Modified (GM) crops. The SJM was successful in getting the trials stopped despite recommendations to the contrary by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), advising the ministry. On issues relating to the economy and agriculture, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari frequently mediates between the Sangh affiliates and the government.

The GM crops victory, in fact, was balanced by the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) pulling out of the nationwide trade unions strike on September 2. “Therefore there is give and take, and the Sangh retains its role as the final arbitrator in any given dispute,” he adds.

Fraying accord

When the government was first sworn in, there was widespread talk of how the RSS has given it a free pass for at least a year to get things into shape. It has been 15 months of filial endorsement by the RSS. And yet, there are issues, analysts feel, the resolution of which will test the mettle of the new Pax Bhagwat.

Many say that clashes within the Parivar could emerge on three issues. The first is on the question of Indianisation of science and research. The RSS is promoting it but the government may be eager to retain the credibility of India abroad. The second is the economy, where the Swadeshi agenda may contradict ‘Make in India’, the Modi government’s manufacturing outreach, and finally, the question of appointments to institutions.

The government will have to assess how far it can go in getting appointments done without affecting institutions. Prof. Kanungo, in fact, says that the question of appointments has the most potential in creating rifts between various wings of the Sangh and the government. The fire over the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the head of the Film and Television Institute of India hasn’t been doused yet.

Heads of various educational institutions including Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University are yet to be appointed.

A senior BJP leader from Gujarat, who has observed Prime Minister Modi since his days as Chief Minister, says that more than anything, the sidelining of people like Mr. Togadia from the mainstream of Sangh affairs to fringe will be a hidden danger. “On the question of the Ram Temple and even on the religious census data, Togadia was asked to pipe down and a more middle path was to be taken. After being reduced to the fringe in Modi’s Gujarat, he is risking that in Modi’s India. The phenomenon of Hardik Patel is a sign of this restlessness of those marginalised to the fringes of the discourse,” he said.

“No government is in a position to tolerate political violence. Sangh affiliates who may have to accommodate government concerns on key issues may revolt. Ultimately that will be the true test of this new found arrangement,” he said.

Source: thehindu

On Sikhs being a part of Hindus

In a country that takes pride in its many religions, cultures and customs, with each being unique and distinct, bunching up many of them under any one umbrella doesn’t seem to be taken too kindly. Earlier this month, it was RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat who received a lesson on the same.

Following his statement on “Sikhs being a part of Hindus”, he got a rather stern letter written by Minority Commission of Delhi member, Harvinder Singh Sarna, who noted: “Sikhs have their own way of worship and separate identity.”

He went on to add: “This is against the spirit of the Constitution and against the spirit of Independent India. In the Constitution those who have written it have recognised minorities – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhist, etc.’’

“I request your good self that this statement should be taken back and no such statement should be issued in the interest of the country,” Mr. Sarna concluded.

Source: The Hindu