New on my other blogs

KERALA LETTER
"Gandhi is dead, Who is now Mahatmaji?"
Solar scam reveals decadent polity and sociery
A Dalit poet writing in English, based in Kerala
Foreword to Media Tides on Kerala Coast
Teacher seeks V.S. Achuthanandan's intervention to end harassment by partymen

വായന

16 January, 2018

Stunning Dalit assertion

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A sudden Dalit assertion which disrupted life in several cities of Maharashtra, including the commercial metropolis of Mumbai, last week stunned the authorities and caste supremacists across the country.

Dalits from far and near had descended on the village of Bhima Koregaon, about 30 kilometres from Pune, on New Year’s Day to celebrate the 200th anniversary of a decisive victory of an East India Company regiment, comprising members of the Mahar community, over a much larger army of the Peshwas who ruled over the Maratha region at the time. 

Peshwas were Brahmin prime ministers who usurped power from the Maratha rulers. Mahars are one the erstwhile “untouchable” communities who now prefer to be known collectively as Dalits, meaning “broken people”.

Dr BR Ambedkar, the chief architect of India’s Constitution, was a Mahar. His father, Ramji Sakpal, and grandfather, Maloji, had both served in the Company’s army. 

According to an early military history, in 1795 the Company maintained three separate armies at Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai). Their total strength was 46,000, of whom 33,000 were Indians. The Mahar regiment was part of the Bombay army. The Calcutta army included Brahmins and Muslims and the Madras army had several non-Brahmin communities. 

The names of the Mahar soldiers killed in the Bhima Koregaon battle are engraved on a war memorial the British erected there. Ambedkar, who visited the memorial on the 109th anniversary of the battle, told his followers how 800 infantrymen, of whom 500 were Mahars, under the command of 12 British officers, had defeated the Peshwa’s army of 28,000. The memory of the battle became a rallying point for Dalit pride. 

Ambedkar had viewed the event in the context of the iniquitous social order imposed by the Brahminical code of Manu. Today Marathas, and not Brahmins, are socially and politically the most influential community of the region. 

Under the Peshwas, the Mahars had suffered much indignity. In 2005 Dalits formed an organisation to pay homage annually to the Mahar soldiers who had redeemed the community’s self-respect at Bhima Koregaon. Since then a few thousand Dalits have been assembling there each New Year’s Day. 

This year the number swelled to a few hundred thousand. Large contingents came from Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat and from the southern state of Karnataka, where that party is making a bid for power in the elections due this year. 

Jignesh Mevani, who had led Dalit protests after some members of the community were flogged at Una in Gujarat and was elected to the State Assembly last month with Congress support, Radhika, mother of Osmania University scholar Rohit Vemula who was driven to suicide by pro-BJP elements in the campus, and Umar Khalid, a leader of the anti-BJP campaign in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, were among those joining this year’s celebrations. 

Dalits, who have been targeted, along with Muslims, by Hindutva goons in several states since the BJP came to power in 2014 viewed the event as an occasion to demonstrate their solidarity. Hindutva groups stoned the Bhima Koregaon-bound Dalits and they retaliated. One person was killed.

As news of the trouble reached Mumbai, Prakash Ambedkar, former MP and grandson BR Ambedkar, called for a strike in Maharashtra the next day. Several Dalit organisations endorsed the call. The huge response the call evoked surprised the aggressive Hindutva forces, including the BJP’s coalition partner, Shiv Sena, which rules the metropolis. The BJP-led state government instructed the police to exercise restraint. 

Dalit power having been demonstrated convincingly, Prakash Ambedkar withdrew the strike in the afternoon. 

There were solidarity demonstrations elsewhere in the country too.

“Dalits are saying we aren’t a polite, manageable community,” Rahul Sonpimple, a student leader of the community, said. 

The week’s developments were laced with irony. The youth killed in the stoning was a Maratha, not a Dalit, and his family said he had not joined the anti-Dalit protest. 

Media reports suggested that extreme left-wing Naxalites had planned the Dalit protests. The reports originated not in the national or state capital but in Nagpur, where the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the fountainhead of Hindutva’s hate politics, has its headquarters. A rare, formal RSS statement attributed the troubles to a Breaking India Brigade which “wants to divide the country on religious and caste lines”. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained studied silence on the incidents. It remains to be seen whether he and the RSS will draw an appropriate lesson from the events and restrain their supporters. --Gulf Today, January 9, 2018

1 comment:

Ameer said...

Dalits have so much common with Kashmiri Muslims. Like Dalits Kashmiri Muslims suffered at the hands of pure breed of Brahmans who claim to be the topnotch of all Brahmans wherever they are found. Read about 'similarities between Dalits & Kashmiri Muslims' at http://kashmir-issue.com/viewpoint.html. Dalits & Muslims form a majority in India and pose a serious threat to Hindutva zealots. The die is cast and writing is on the wall.