Module 2

I. Dalit movements
- Nomenclature of harijan is derogatory and pejorative
- Dalit term preferered, meaning oppressed
- SC around 16% of world population
Movements
- Comparison to black movement
Types
1. Reformative
- Reform caste to solve the problem of untouchability
2. Alternative
- Create an alternative socio-cultural structure by conversion to another religion OR by
acquiring education, economic status or political power
Reformative
1. Bhakti
- Worshipping God through devotion and personal communication
- All considered equal before god
- Saguna and Nirguna
- Concept of a formless universal God
- RESIST BRAHMANICAL ORDER OF HIERARCHY

2. Neo-vedantik
- Untouchability not an integral part of Hunduism or caste system
- Dayanand Saraswati, arya samaj
- Posed the caste system as fluid in the sense, occupation based, once takes on another
occupation, becomes that occupational caste member de jure
- Satyashodhak Samaj by Jyotirao phule, Self-respect movement by Periyar
- However, backward classes economically well-off than SCs used SCs to gain mobility and
then they tended to distance themselves from the SCs
- Rise of movements like adi-hindu, adi-andhra
- Use of the word adi heightened suggesting separate racial origins
- Rise of notions that caste-system was a result of interaction between aryans and dravidians
- Notions propagated because of 2 reasons – 1. Christian missionaries propagating this and 2.
Because of recently conducted census
- Satnami Panth

3. Sanskritisation movement
- Improve economic condition by abandoning or continuing traditional occupations
- Following Sanskrit norms and rituals
- Struggle for occupying higher status in caste hierarchy
- Invented suitable mythologies to back claim
- Practically still treated as untouchables
- Successful, Shanars and Nadars of TN
 3.1 Iravas and SNDP movement
- Shri Narayana
- Movements against civil disabilities
- Low status due to social and religious practices
- Could be made equals with upper castes via becoming upper castes
- Common worship
- Satyagraha for temple entry in 1920’s
- Self-help ethic, increase in self-respect
- Bargaining with govt

Alternative
1. Conversion
2. Religious, secular
Other classifications

- Movements with cultural consensus RELIGIOUS

- Competing ideology, non-Hindu identity
- Buddhist Dalits
- Counter ideology and Dalit identity CLASS BASED

Mahar movements and Ambedkar

- Independent Labour party
- Open labour of all castes, became mahar oriented
- Thus, attempt to override notions to claim religious rights
- Party became caste based
- Separate electorate demand
- Rift between Gandhi and Ambedkar, he did not think it was a big deal
ALTERNATIVE
3. Religious
- Buddhism
- Conversion
- Indigenous Indian religion of equality
- Anti-caste, anti-brahman
- Became more militant
- Became more aware and spread consciousness, a step ahead in identity
- Conversion did not however change the social position
Dalit Panther Movement
- 1970’s
- Discard dominant culture
- Build alternative identity
- Demonstrations
- Limited to propagating ideas via literature, poems
 - Protest against the Hindu intellectual tradition and ethic
- Political co-option to serve self-interests

1. Rise of CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMENTS

- Paulo Freire – Brazilian leader, conscientisation approach
- Assertion of dalit identity
- Local level collective action against atrocities
- Pan-india imagined community, Ambedkarite Iconography
- Western clothing, sans any caste, regional labels. Dalit of Dalits

ORGANISATION AND LEADERSHIP

- Independent Labour Party
- Scheduled Castes Federation-
- Separatist policy
- Creating a society wherein identities would be unimportant
Participants
- Urban, educated, middle-class Dalits
- Leadership in dalit movements from those jatis who have improved economic conditions
- Mahars of Maharashtra
 II. Dichotomisation of Caste and Class
- Caste movements have been coopted by the ruling class
- Class movements have been left out
Origin
- Nomadic tribes began settling down, leading to establishment of societal structures, no sense
of hierarchy
- Cattle rearing aryan tribes imposed varna system over existing castes
- Rigidified to give societal order and power to brahmans
- Rules of conduct, fortifications THEORY OF KARMA
- Social order provides each caste social security was best suited for production and distribution
Conception of Class (can caste be called a class?)
- According to marx, class included people united because of a common means of production
- Social caste is a group united by common position in legal order of society
- Landlords are a class, nobility are a caste. Noble may be impoverished but he has the social
position given by his caste that is not affected
- For Marxists, class is determined by objective reality (that here is based on relation to
means of production, it is tangible) and not opinion (who is socially more important than
the other?)
- But castes in India are far more encompassing than just position in society. It dictates the
occupational structure, organisation of labour, share of wealth etc.
- Thus Ambedkar described it as an enclosed class
- Class brings people together, caste divides them based on hierarchy
- CLASS FORMATION SHOULD HAVE EMBEDED CASTE FORMATION
- Because even if the revolution wanted to bring classes together, they would inevitably divide
themselves based on caste
- Caste notion needs to be eradicated
Superstructure and Base Argument
- Indian Marxists valorised economic struggles to be the base, the rest was relegated to
superstructure
- Template for everything among them
- Relgated caste to
III. The many omissions of a concept- Discrimination amongst SC
- Government bans the use of demeaning caste names for SCs such as Harijan
- But leaves intact use of caste Hindu names
- Stigmatises the dalit populace and legitimises the oppressor
- Reclamation of the term Dalit connoted self-respect
- Movements such as Dalit Panthers or VCK, which used localised terms
Localisation of the Dalit Identity
- Localised culture
Moving away from dalit
- Movements have moves towards strengthening caste votes and entering the political sphere
- Dalits who have moved to upper echelons
- Fail to represent the interest of their own castes
 - Careerists
- Serving self-interests thus demanding reservation, promotion bill
- Compelled to do so
- Because they are made to confine their demands within the ‘paternal liberalism’
- Negotiate, they are made to realise that they occupy space on a higher platform, they are
expected to limit their desires as per the overarching caste Hindu expectations
- In an order to merge with the caste mainstream, attempt to shed identity
Discrimination among SCs
- Cannot register inter-dalit violence because both protected under prevention of atrocities act
- Not addressed because would break the unity among Dalits
- Rarely get media attention
Copying Caste Hindus
- Dalit Brahmins- reject inter-dalit discrimination among castes
- Sub-caste movements, which talks about the sub-categorisation among Dalits themselves,
which leads to differences and possibly discrimination due to inequality
Neglecting Sanitation
Manual scavengers
- Government’s solution of rehabilitating, modernising, compensating workers does not solve
the problem of M.S
- Wrong in its entirety
- If people move upwards towards other professions they will still be replaced by some other
individuals, thus perpetuating the problem
- Architecture accommodates manual scavenging and practices of untouchability via the design
of outhouses as toilets in households of caste hindus
- Sulabh has also incorporated the same ideals, cleaners of toilets are outcastes
- Scavengers brought from other states as local scavengers gave up the practice because of
conversion to Christianity and resulting anti-caste sentiments
Mainstream perception of the Dalits as homogenous fail to take into account the sub-castes and the
stratification within them, and the inter-discrimination
Dalit Politics in India
Recognition without redistribution
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