4th International Traditional Knowledge

Conference

New Zealand’s Maori Center of Research Excellence

Auckland

“Dialectic Engagement in a Multicultural Society”

M C Raj, Tumkur, India

06-09 June 2010

Preamble

Dalit people, known and treated as untouchables in India and in some

countries in Asia are the original indigenous people of India. Untouchability
was imposed on them with the arrival of the Aryans in India 3500 years ago.
Aryans came into India and colonized the country and have made it their own
through multifarious projects of Brahminization. Though there are varying
versions on the arrival of Aryans the virtual slavery of Dalits to them till today
has been described as worse than apartheid.

But beneath this enslaved people lies an ocean of values and culture that
provides unlimited space to all people of the earth. There is a depth of
enormous unrecognized strength, common to all indigenous people across
the world, that has made them not only to face multifarious onslaughts on
their dignity, freedom and humanity but also has lived with gusto and has
claimed its rightful space in the instruments and mechanisms of governance.

Resistance is inevitable and often necessary. However, the euphoria of

resistance has the possibility of plunging the oppressed or wounded psyche
into illusionary ecstasy not allowing them to move into level playing fields and
engage the oppressor society in dialectics, healing, negotiations and
achievements.

Preliminary Remarks

This paper sets out to identify some of the over imposing projects of

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dominance and place the locales of overcoming subjugation, dialectics,
healing and nation building in the postmodern context. Though it is placed
against the context of Dalits in India the discourse is applicable to any
multicultural society with indigenous people.

This paper desists from providing too many statistical data as such data can
be obtained from any googled document. I shall rather dedicate the available
space for spreading out the realities of ancient, modern and postmodern
forms of objugation of the Dalit people in India and the way they have tried to
engage the society. Objugation is a term I coined a decade ago in “From
Periphery to Centre” to signify the compulsive transition of the poor and
indigenous people into objects of history from being the subjects of their own
history. This is seriously problematic in Indian history writing where what is
churned out in history books is actually anti-history vis-à-vis the Dalit and
other indigenous people.

This paper avoids any polemics on any community of people and specifically
approaches the issues of accommodating differences from a Jungian
approach. Having inherited a wounded psyche from the past this paper
discounts Freudian approach in the development of a multi cultural society
such as India. However, identifying and analyzing the locales of objugation
need not be taken as polemics.

For the sake of our understanding I use the term DAT people as an acronym
for Dalits, Adivasi and Tribal People who fall under the indigenous category.

Projects of Objugation and Dialectics

Project I: Land Grabbing

It started in the mythical period of India’s anti-history and continues unabated

till today. 90% of Dalits in India are still landless. Land grabbing from the poor
and from DAT people continues to be a huge phenomenon. Governments are
letting loose the strictures on alienation of land from these people. Through
Special Economic Zones governments have tacitly joined hands with the
caste forces in India and with the corporate across the world in this project of
land grabbing.

Land for the DAT people is primarily a relationship with Earth as Mother and
with the cosmos. Dialectic on this score becomes problematic since the caste
forces see land primarily as property to be owned. The plane of level playing
field in this dialectic is the ownership of land. DAT people are claiming
ownership of only a minimum of five acres of land for each family. This
healthy dialectic is simultaneously political in the realm of governance and
human rights in the realms of International Covenants on ESC rights. When it
results in the entitlement of the indigenous people for minimum requirement of

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land society can be said to be in the path of progress.1

Project II: Imposing alien religion, gods and goddesses.

The rise of Brahminism on Indian soil marked the advent of patriarchy and
absolute male dominance. Every effort has been made, especially in the post
British period to make Hinduism as ‘Indian’ religion and Hindu culture as
‘Indian culture’. Worship of heavenly gods replaced worship of Mother Earth
and Ancestors. Dominance and hegemony demanded that their gods be
accepted as the ‘only’ gods, their truths as ‘only’ truths’. Through these gods
descended dogmatism and a normative order that was derived from above
and not from the community. Non-acceptance led to exclusion and eventually
to untouchability.

Aryan Psyche, originally derived from nomadic culture, needs healing from
basic insecurity. Looks up to heaven. Truth, authority and freedom have to
come from above. There is no security with what one is. There is a need for
succor from above. Seeks to compensate its basic insecurity by its thirst for
dominant power over the poor and needy, on the DAT people. Needs healing.

Dalit Psyche, originally derived from settled culture has allowed itself to be
exploited and oppressed because of a cosmic worldview, simplicity of
relationship with earth and cosmic beings. Consequently it has inherited a
‘broken’ psyche and operates from anger. Seeks to compensate injustice
through anger. Needs healing.

Dialectics on this plane will require a deeper understanding of the two major
trajectories of psyche, developed and entrenched over millennia of existence
as different and distinct entities. India is multicultural and multi-everything.
The beauty of India lies in its multiculturalism. India becomes a complex
country in proportion to its ability/disability to accommodate differences.
Caste, established through dogmas Hinduism destroys the foundations of
such beautiful labyrinth of a society.

Project III: Denial of Access to knowledge and Information.

(The Shudra must not acquire knowledge and it is a sin and a crime to give
him education – Manusmriti, the Hindu Law Code)

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We Indigenous Peoples are sons and daughters of Mother Earth, or “Pachamama” in Quechua.
Mother Earth is a living being in the universe that concentrates energy and life, while giving shelter and
life to all without asking anything in return, she is the past, present and future; this is our relationship
with Mother Earth. We have lived in coexistence with her for thousands of years, with our wisdom and
cosmic spirituality linked to nature. However, the economic models promoted and forced by
industrialized countries that promote exploitation and wealth accumulation have radically transformed
our relationship with Mother Earth. We must assert that climate change is one of the consequences of
this irrational logic of life that we must change. (From the Cochabamba Conference: The ‘Indigenous
Peoples’ Declaration from the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights Of
Mother Earth’.)

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The Hindu normative prescriptions codified as Manusmriti formally banned
education of the Dalits. It was the Biritsh, the lesser of the two colonizers and
the missionaries who opened the doors of education to the DAT people. The
denial of access to education to DAT people even in postmodern times in
blatantly designed subtle forms cuts at the roots of deliberative and dialectic
democracy. Dialectics in a society predominantly camouflaged by caste
organization does not allow synthesis as a consequence of dialectics. It has
also led to ‘conthesis’ and ‘subthesis’. ‘Conthesis’ refers to the evolutions of
irreconcilable contradiction through a period of dialectic movement and the
parties in dialectic decide to part ways in opposite directions. This was
witnessed in India in the creation of Pakistan and later Bangladesh.
‘Subthesis’ refers to the refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of another
community to be part of dialectics. It results in the ultimate subjugation of the
thesis of the oppressed communities. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s thesis for
separate electorate was rattled by the Hindu ‘thesis’ of Gandhi until it was
finally subjugated by his ‘fast unto death’.

In the clamor of India for a global recognition of ‘Indian culture, Indian

psychology, Indian philosophy, Indian spirituality’ etc. lies the dire need for an
internal accommodation of DAT culture, DAT psychology, DAT philosophy,
DAT spirituality etc. What is DAT is not one. It is again multiple and specific.
Only when such specificities are recognized and respected and differences
are accommodated will there be any meaning in the claim to be
‘argumentative Indian’.

Knowledge in the dominant male order is metaphysical. It exists by itself. It

has an objective existence irrespective of matter. Knowledge in the DAT and
female worldview is essentially body centric. It is in the heart embedded in the
cells of the body. Even science acknowledges a brain centric knowledge. The
dichotomy between physical and metaphysical in knowledge sphere is
problematic. Due recognition to emotive intelligence in dialectics will go a long
way in building a society of differences and specificities living in harmony with
one another and in integrity with nature.

Knowledge is cosmic. Emotive and cognitive waves of knowledge are spread

out in the universe in the form of waves. Such waves enter the bodies of
cosmic beings in the way their bodies are disposed to them. Therefore, no
one has the right to claim superiority over others on the basis of knowledge.
When the hegemony of knowledge is reduced inequality and oppression in
society are bound to reduce proportionately.

Modern knowledge is a camouflage of communicative incompetence

(Chomsky). Knowledge is designed, classified, priced, hidden and
appropriated. By its sheer rationality it does not lend itself to a lot of people.
Cosmic knowledge is a manifestation of communicative competence as it is
organic. All beings can have this knowledge in different degrees. One with
more knowledge is a resource to the community and not superior. All have
one or other knowledge and so are worthy of dialectics.

Project IV: Ascription of Identity.

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Among the DAT people in India, Dalits have been ascribed the most
demeaning and derogatory identity with a design to instill inferiority complex in
them. It started with Asura (Non-believers), Rakshas (Demons), Milecha
Vagabonds), Chandala (the condemned), Ati-Shudra (lower than lowest
caste), Panchama (The fifth group), untouchable, unseeable, Devadasis
(Temple prostitutes) etc. and continued till modern times with Harijan (children
of god) as the latest addition in the post British period. In post modern times
such ascription of identity by dominant societies have led to gross violations of
sovereignty of many nations. Bombardment of Dalit people with intermittent
ascription has led to a subconscious internalization of alien identities.

Assertion of Identity on the other hand has led many people of the world to
establish their own parliaments (Samediggi in Norway) and separate
electorate (Maori People in New Zealand). Assertion of Dalit as an identity,
though grossly inadequate, remains the most commonly accepted and
internalized identity in the postmodern period.

Assertion of identity need not necessarily be a clamor for separation as often

ascribed by dominant communities. Dominant community’s assertion of
identity and specificity is camouflaged as ‘national’. There is a need to
understand that assertion of identity from subaltern people is often a clamor
for integration. It can lay the foundation for living a healthy national life
accommodating differences and specificities. In the case of the Dalit
Panchayat Movement of which the author is one of the founders such positive
assertion of identity has brought the caste society in Tumkur District to the
negotiating table and raised the social status of the Dalits. Black and blue
assertions of Dalits have led to political assertion and power bargaining.

Project V: Caste system as Social Organization.

Dr. B R Ambedkar sums up in his own words ten points that are prescribed for
the Hindu society vis-à-vis the untouchables.

1. The Shudra is to take the last place in the social order

2. The Shudra was impure and therefore no sacred act should be done within
his sight and within his hearing.

3. That the Shudra is not to be respected in the same way as the other
classes.

4. That the life of a Shudra is of no value and anybody may kill him without
having to pay compensation and if at all of small value as compared with that
of the Brahmana, Kshatriya and Vaishya.

5. That the Shudra must not acquire knowledge and it is a sin and a crime to
give him education.

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6. That a Shudra must not acquire property. A Brahmin can take away his
property at his pleasure.

7. That a Shudra cannot hold office under the State.

8. That the duty and salvation of the Shudra lies in his serving the higher
classes.

9. That the higher classes must not inter-marry with the Shudra. They can
however keep a Shudra woman as a concubine. But if the Shudra touches a
woman of the highest class he will be liable to dire punishment.

10. That the Shudra is born in servility and must be kept in servility forever.2

Most Hindu intellectuals legitimize organization of society under caste system

as a division of labor. Such legitimization is problematic on three counts. One,
it is not so much a division of labor as it is a division of laborers. If it is a
division of labor caste must change with the change of profession.
Unfortunately it does not. Two, it is a hierarchical organization with the caste
on top having most privileges and the Dalits at the bottom condemned to
slavery as their caste duty. Three, it has integrated the dichotomy of purity
and pollution to different castes. Dalits are untouchables because it is
religiously polluting to touch them, according to the governing principles of
caste system. Governance in such a society can never be democratic. This is
a clear example of how differences have been constructed as solid
foundations of discrimination.

India has a beautiful constitution. It is time that Constitution begins to govern

all people of India.

Project VI: Brahminic Ordering and Re-ordering of the society.

Traditional caste panchayat is still the instrument that keeps Dalits in eternal
bondage to the caste forces. Only the caste landlords can pass judgment on
any matter of village governance. Dalits have to stand, folding their hands and
receive whatever judgment is meted out to them. Honor killing by ‘Khap’
panchayats in India is hot news all over the world in our own times.

Every village in India has a Dalit colony. Dalits have been thinly scattered all
over the country so that they may not live in any one place as a people. This
is one of the most successful shenanigans of the caste order in subjugating
the Dalit people.

Internal governance of the Dalit community as one people through the Dalit
Panchayat becomes imperative to construct a nation that lives in dignity. Dalit
panchayat respects the traditional village panchayat as a forum of internal
caste governance and claims the right to self-govern itself as a community of
people with dignity and equality.
2
. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, vol.7., pp.55-56

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Reordering of postmodern society in India will have to be done on the basis of
the Constitution of India because of the almost unmanageable multiplicity
within the country. The Instruments and Mechanisms that will govern such a
complex country should be based on the underlying principles of Liberty,
Equality and Fraternity.

Project VII: The Project of cultural expropriation and co-option

The phenomenon of appropriation that one witnesses in the era of

globalization was already a well entrenched technology in India from time
immemorial. The phenomenon is marked with certain clear strategy: borrow
the cultural symbols of the indigenous people, empty them of their original
meaning, fill them with dominant meaning, hide the purpose of such refilling,
set in motion a process of recirculation of the same symbols with new
meaning of the dominant order.

Something special about Dalits is the ban on their education. They never
knew the new meaning of their symbols. They only saw their symbols being
used with high respect by the caste groups. In the course of many centuries
they began to believe that the caste people and they were the same. They
began to internalize the dominant religion and its dogmas as the vehicles of
their ultimate liberation.

Those who became conscious by a quirk of luck went after other religions and
generally did not like to go back to their own root as they could not see
beyond the dominant meaning of their symbols. Mass conversions to other
religions took place. The rest accepted the dominant religion itself as an
inevitable path to tread. This has also happened with other indigenous
communities of people in Africa, Latin America, Europe, Australia and New
Zealand.

Dalits have had the likes of Lestadius in the Sami community. There have
been also different other trajectories. One of the latest efforts is to reclaim the
history and culture resources of the Dalit community in India with strong
assertions, “We Dalits are Dalits. We have our history. We have our culture.
We have our religion.” The writing of huge volumes like Dalitology, Cosmsoity,
Dalithink, Dalitocracy and Dyche are the outcome of such assertions. One of
my latest novels, YOIKANA throws up the huge possibility of cultural
convergence of indigenous communities despite geographical, ethnic,
national differences and distance. It is possible to build a world that will be
good for all people ‘to live well’. It is possible when indigenous people of the
world bring together their commonality as their resources and based on their
collective strength engage the dominant world in dialectics.

Time has arrived to build a new world with the specific strengths of indigenous
people drawn from the cosmos, from father sky, from our elder brothers the
forest and tress, from our women who were the earliest guardians of the
universe, from the reindeer, from the buffalo. This will lead to a self actualizing

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existence of the indigenous people of the world gradually reducing the
compulsion of referential actualization.

Project VIII: The Project of Cultural Nationalism.

This is a product of the emergence of modern India, especially from 1906.

This specifically refers to the phenomenon of fascist forces in India trying to
build India as a Hindu nation. Their blatant projection is that India has one
history, one culture, one language and one people and that is Hindu and
Hindi. They have built many stages of success stories in this grandiose
endeavor of theirs. They have used Muslims as the threatening other and
Dalits as easy fodder. 90% of Muslims in India are also Dalits converted.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar stood firm in their dialectics
with the dominant Hindutva forces. They developed a thesis that India should
have political and not cultural nationalism. Their argumentation was for the
establishment of a strong constitution that will respect all cultures, religions
and histories. Fortunately they succeeded in their efforts with also the other
more liberal Indian leaders standing by their side. However, sixty years of
India’s constitution has proved that it is still the handmaid of caste forces in
India.

Dalits still remain in virtual colonization in their own country. The still
prevailing untouchability practices in India are:

Separate glasses for Dalits in restaurants

Separate settlements of Dalits in the villages
Denial of entry in public places and in private homes
Denial of entry into places of worship
Dalits have to announce the death of caste people to relatives free
Dalits have to beat their drums in funeral processions and in festivals free
Dalits have to clean the whole village free
They have to remove the leaves and plates in which the caste people eat
during public functions and marriages
They have to remove dead animals
They have to dig graves for caste people free
In some states of India Dalits have to dedicate their girl children as temple
prostitutes

There is always disproportionate and violent backlash on Dalits whenever

they try to assert their constitutional rights.

The bureaucracy is often hand in glove with the caste forces as they are
mostly from the caste groups.

India has opposed the inclusion of 2009 Draft Principles and Guidelines
for the Effective Elimination of Discrimination based on Work and
Descent in the agenda of the current session of the Human Rights

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Council of the United Nations that ended on 25 March 2010.

Political nationalism of postmodern India will have to seriously move in the

direction of proportionate electoral system that will give the right to DAT
people their legitimate political space in the Instruments and Mechanisms of
national governance. A very concerted Campaign for Electoral Reforms in
India (CERI) has been launched in the recent past and is making headway
into the future. Legitimate political space for all communities of people in the
Instruments and Mechanisms of governance must be ensured in democracy.

A Project Into the Future : World Parliament of

Indigenous People

A cumulative consequence of the struggles of indigenous people across the

world till now has generated the need for convergence on values, knowledge,
culture and politics in order to make a foray into the future of world
governance. Quite a bit of ground has been covered through researches,
contacts, interactions and mutual learning. A lot more has to happen till the
ultimate formation of a World Parliament of Indigenous People. The World
Parliament will focus on the following dimensions:

Self-determination, in other words, internal governance of Indigenous

communities with their entitlements enshrined in the constitutions of
respective nation states.

Capture and expand and consolidate political space in instruments and

mechanisms of national governance through strength gained and
consolidated through the World Parliament.

Official representation of World Parliament in the United Nations in order to

strengthen governance of nations from indigenous perspectives and
worldview.

Dalit Worldview – Locales of Engagement, Healing and Progress

Dalit community will bring the following bricks for the construction of the World
Parliament of Indigenous People as their specific contribution.

1. Essentially non-violent. Based on absolute freedom with no tendency

to dominate.

2. Truths and knowledge are drawn from the values are drawn from the
community and ancestral wisdom. Dalit culture is not based on any
fixed dogma given from above, much less on any compulsion to accept

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 any dogma. It is freedom of a butterfly.

3. Drawn from a straightforward simplicity. Joy of living in community

accommodating differences is a guiding principle. There are only
different poles within the community and no opposite poles.

4. An earth centric life. Earth worshipped as Mother belongs to all.

Indigenous people must have their legitimate access to land.

5. Governance will be done better if it is in the hands of women.

Restoration of the primacy of women in communities and in
instruments and mechanisms of governance will be a major paradigm
shift.

6. Body Centric worldview. Life stops when communication among bodies

stop. Needs of bodily existence must be fulfilled for all people.

7. Deriving strength from Ancestor Centric life. Their aspirations for our
future will be the axis that will guide our integration into the cosmic
movement and change.

8. Community Centrism. Dalit worldview strongly believes in essentiality

of individual in community and vice versa. Dominant world and
governance are replacing the ‘individual’ of the enlightenment era with
‘citizen’ in the modern era and now with ‘taxpayer’ in the postmodern
era. The individual and the community will remain as complimentary
source of drawing life.

Sites of Drawing Strength

1. Resilience
2. Provision of unlimited space to all people of the world
3. Inclusive and Integrative
4. Non-violence to the core
5. Forgiveness
6. Love of Peace
7. Harmony with Nature

Implications for Society

1. General implications: A nuclear weapon free world

A Multi-polar world
A world of differences, diversity
A Non-hegemonic world

2. Social Implications:
No space for untouchability and
racial discrimination

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 Differences - Yes. They should not
become the foundations of
discrimination.
Primacy of indigenous women

3. Cultural Implications:
We indigenous people have our,
religion, our spirituality, our
philosophy, our knowledge systems
and our history. Self-determination is
an inalienable right of indigenous
people.

Respect for multiplicity, differences

and specificities will guide
governance

4. Economic Implications: Need to restore our relationship with

Mother Earth. Ownership of land for
living well.

Land that Indigenous people have

lost must be restored to them in a
possible way without depriving the
needs of other people.

Respect to indigenous human body –

No more free caste labor. Labor of
indigenous people to be declared
national resource.

Budget allocation for internally

governing systems and bodies.

5. Political Implications:
Self-determination and Internal
Governance – an entitlement of
indigenous people

Direct Democracy in smaller

communities in the way of our
Ancestors and representative
democracy in nation-state

Power as Participation – Democracy

and electoral systems to be
restructured to provide legitimate
space for all people in instruments
and mechanisms of National
Governance

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 Integration of World Parliament of
Indigenous people in the United
Nations as a specific entity with its
voice, rights and votes. When this is
achieved the world would have
attained the zenith of
accommodating differences.

6. Implications for Governance

Entitlement of resources for all
citizens

Non-negotiable distribution of basic

needs for all people

Level playing field as a platform of

opportunities and not as cutthroat
competition

Governance vested in the hands of

women, especially indigenous
women of the world.

Conclusion

I like to conclude this presentation with my favorite theme: Let there be

thousands of gardens with millions of flowers in millions of colors. Let
us fill this world with such gardens. A garden however, presupposes
land, manure, water, labor and appropriate climate. All these are not
given free in today’s world. Dialectic engagement becomes imperative.

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