### Introduction Though there are numerous small and large organisations of the Dalits all over the country such as Dalit Sangharsh Samiti in Karnataka, Indian Dalit Federation in Kerala, Dalit Maha Sabha in Andhra Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj in U.P. and Bihar etc., the dalit movement is far from an organised and well coordinated political movement with an all-India leadership that can challenge the established socio-political order. But the same cannot be said if one looks into the ideological nature of these various groups. There is a growing awareness among the Dalits that they are members of an ancient primeval society who have been disinherited and uprooted by the alien brahminical civilization from their ancestral place in the society. This consciousness inspires in them resentment against the existing social system which is expressed through various forms of agitations and struggles by them and this is bound to acquire the momentum of a national movement in the years to come. Let me first of all deal with some of the basic ideas, values and perceptions of this emerging consciousness which we call dalit ideology. ### They Are an Oppressed Nationality {#oppressed-nationality} The term 'nationality' in the case of the Dalits needs some explanation. 'Nationality' is generally used on the basis of distinct race, language, territory or religion. None of these things really applies in the case of the Dalits. As a subjugated people they have no ethnic or racial purity though in certain regions of South India, Proto-austroloid and Negro traces dominate among them. Territorially they have been scattered all over India and linguistically their tongue has been assimilated by the dominant cultural groups under whom they had come to be a subordinated people, though some of the groups still preserve the rudiments of their own archaic language. In their long history of enslavement either their religion has been hierarchically subordinated and absorbed into brahminical Hinduism, or some of them have embraced other religions in the pursuit of their liberation. In short the indigenous inhabitants became a people without a history of their own and without their own cultural individuality though they did retain a certain amount of cultural distinctiveness. Their history lies buried in their folk songs, stories, myths and in certain extant religious symbols and practices which on the one hand reveal the elements of ancient conflicts,¹ defeat and absorption of caste values and on the other hand manifest a religious ethos completely distinct from brahminical values and caste hierarchy. The reconstruction of this ancient history in the light of available material evidence, brahminical religious literature and the Dalits' own traditions, myths and practices, is the gigantic task facing the Dalits. It is difficult to nurture and strengthen the dalit identity and their struggle for liberation without the aid of their history. At present the masses among them are governed by a mythological consciousness promoted by the brahminical religion. If the Dalits have no historical consciousness, could we talk of the Dalit being 'one nationality'? E. Durkheim, the French social philosopher, while trying to define a society says, 'a society is not simply the mass of individuals that comprise it, nor the territory it occupies, nor the things it uses, but above all it is the idea that it has of itself.'² What then is the central idea that the Dalits have of themselves based on their own everyday experience? It is that they are a people discriminated against socially, religiously and economically by others. Malcolm X, the leader of the Black Panther Movement in America said a society of socially discriminated and economically oppressed people should consider themselves in political terms, as 'an oppressed nationality'. This is what the Dalits claim in their literature and movements that they are Mardhita Desiyata who have the right and historical responsibility to shape their own destiny. This had been the idea of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's ideology namely that 'there should be a political partition between the untouchables and the Hindus'. In the title page of his book, What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables, he quotes the Greek philosopher, Thucydides, who said, 'It may be your interest to be our masters, but how can it be ours to be your slaves?' In other words, 'the dalit Nationality' is based on the Dalits' common experience of social and religious discrimination, of economic oppression and the common challenge to shape their future deliverance. It should be made clear that this dalit nationality is not based on the list of Scheduled Castes drawn up by the government for administrative reasons in the recent past in order to give them token benefits. If one approached the question historically, one might find that many communities in Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Classes list form one nationality with the Dalits, who suffer from the stigma of untouchability. Now the question arises: How the indigenous people became untouchables. They have not been dropped from heaven as untouchables. It should be recognised that certain historical forces of a political, economic and religio-cultural nature reduced them to the present day situation as untouchable. The Dalits recognise this historical force as the brahminical religion and their civilization. The spirit of this religion and civilization is caste, namely the institutionalised graded inequality. The Dalits recognise this religio-cultural factor as the principal contradiction with which all the other contradictions of an economic and political nature affecting them interlock and are maintained. There is an enormous amount of historical evidence establishing the intrinsic connection of caste contradiction with the economic and political life of the country. The situation continues even today, as the kind of Hindu renaissance brought about by great men like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Vivekananda, Gandhi, etc. left untouched both the social and religious roles that the lower ranks perform and their ritual hierarchy. In this short paper it is not possible to go into the details of these empirical facts which can be gathered from a number of contemporary cultural-anthropological studies. In fact the kind of Hindu renaissance we have had over the last 150 years has strengthened and politicised the caste Hindu nationality and their identity vis-a-vis the Dalits. The recent insistence of the dalit organisations on caste as the principle of organisation and before of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who rightly emphasised it both in his writings and in the way he envisaged the dalit politics and dalit religion,³ is based on two types of historical experiences the Dalits have had over the last forty-five years. First comes their experience of the failure of the ideology of Development and of the Gandhian ideas of their integration within the Hindu community which was promoted by successive governments. The second is their experience of the failure of the Communist movement in India which emphasises class war as the principal contradiction in the place of caste war. ### *a. Failure of the Ideology of Development and Gandhian Integration with the Caste Hindus* {#failure-of-ideology} The Government's own Sixth Five-Year Plan document for 1980–85 admits: >Three decades of development have not had the desired impact on these socially, economically and educationally handicapped groups. Their problems cannot be resolved through the percolation of general economic growth. The majority of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who form one-quarter of the population, are below the poverty line ... Continuing to pursue traditional occupations, they are unable to participate fully in the process of modernisation. The practice of untouchability against Scheduled Castes is a special handicap for them, and even the few educated groups amongst them are unable to compete for job opportunities created while Scheduled Tribes still remain outside the mainstream of development mainly because of their relative isolation and their exploitation by outside agencies.⁴ If this is the picture of their economic development, what about their social life? Every year atrocities against Scheduled Castes have been mounting and the Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 1977–78 admits that the Scheduled Castes in many parts of the country are humiliated, insulted, manhandled, assaulted, burnt alive, tortured and their womenfolk molested. Their miseries are aggravated when they are boycotted socially and economically.⁵ The atrocities were acquiring the dimension of organized aggressiveness on the part of the perpetrators and were drifting towards class war.⁶ The situation has only become aggravated in recent years. How does the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1979, which made the practice of discrimination against Scheduled Castes more stringently punishable than the earlier Untouchability Offences Act, 1955, work ? The Report of the Commissioner notes that: >The district authorities, who are charged with the responsibility of enforcement of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1979, have not lived up to the obligations enjoined upon them to protect the civil rights of the weaker sections. No one familiar with the social climate in the rural areas would assert that there has been a decline in real terms.⁷ The evaluation reports of the PCR cases of the Special Component Plan and other benefits for Scheduled Castes traces their ineffectiveness to the indifferent, often hostile caste prejudices of the police, the magistrates and the bureaucrats in the Government departments, coupled with vested economic muscle power of the dominant caste class groups.⁸ These reports, along with an assessment of the functioning of Scheduled Caste MLAs and MPs; the way political parties handle a political leader, the government officer or a police official committed to the cause of the Dalits, the hardening attitudes of the caste people when Dalits assert their rights, the prevention of awareness building among them under communal politics, the caste wars in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bihar, more or less complete the picture of the development of the Dalits. In short, the development and integration of the Dalits with the rest of the community does not take place in spite of all the government's efforts and its huge investment because of the caste contradiction in the society. This internal contradiction was pointed out by writers like V.S.Naipaul who said, 'The freedom that came to Independent India with the institutions it gave itself were alien freedom better suited to another civilization : in India they remained separate from the internal organization of the country, its belief and antique restrictions.'⁹ But instead of taking these scholars seriously, the government reaction to such scholars was to ban their books. ### *b. Failure of the Left Movement in India* {#failure-of-the-left-movement} Here I give the data from Kerala, a state which voted the communists to power as early as 1957. It is a historic fact that the popular force that brought the Communists to power in Kerala in 1957 was made up of the Dalits and the Backward Castes. Why then did not the class contradiction or class struggle on which the Left ideology is based become an instrument of propelling the dalit demands for social equality and their due share in the means of production? Dalits have come to realise, through their experience of the last forty-five years that in the organisational structure and as well as in taking into account the caste factor. For example, Dalits are organized in agriculture labour unions and they are not admitted into other unions, e.g., the Union of the Backward Caste, Toddy Tappers though both are Marxist trade unions. In other words, trade unions are organized on traditional caste lines and even the leadership of this union come from the same caste groups. Prominent dalit party workers never get any role in unions other than that of agricultural labour. The compensation received and the treatment given to the family of those killed in active party struggles vary according to the caste factor. If a Dalit stands as party candidate for election, the Marxists who belong to non-dalit castes do not vote for him.¹⁰ In other words, though the dalit classes were the popular base of the Left movement, the caste leadership of the Party made it go against the interests and claims of the Dalits. This historical experiences of the Dalits in the last forty-five years proves the prediction of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar who asked, 'Let us now examine the argument of the socialists. Is it possible for the socialists to ignore the questions raised by the nature of our society?' he believed that a social revolution against the feudal, brahminic, priestly culture of caste has to precede any kind of democratisation of Indian polity and the resolution of Indian economic contradictions, 'History clears out the proposition that political (revolutions) have always been preceded by social and religious revolutions'.^10a What do all these facts point to? All the contradictions in our society whether it be economic or political are to be logically traced to the cultural contradiction, namely, caste. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar¹¹, Mahatma Phuley and Periar Ramaswamy understood this cultural contradiction in our society and all three had tremendously contributed to the progress and development of the Scheduled Castes and other backward sections of our people, and the struggles of these sections still move on these early ideas. On the other hand, Gandhi did not admit this cultural contradiction, he romanticised Indian cultural heritage and advocated the integration of Dalits within Hinduism. This has totally failed.¹² The Communists did not admit this cultural contradiction as they reduced everything to class contradiction. This also failed. Therefore the logical conclusion is that the problem of dalit liberation has ultimately to be traced to caste contradiction. These historical experiences have led Dalit organisations to give prime importance to socio-cultural change and build their movement on the principal contradiction in our society, namely that of caste. ### The Cultural Expression of this Movement is Anti-Brahminism {#cultural-expression} A Dalit poet from Maharashtra sings :

I reject your culture I reject your Parmeshwar centred traditions I reject your religion-based literature.¹³

Siddhalingiah, the leading Dalit poet of Karnataka, sings :

They rushed and flowed like water when my people began to speak ............... (description of Dalit Revolution and change) ............... Vedas, Puranas, Shastras and godown of guns floated like leaves and garbage and were carried to the sea for the sea like struggle Thousands of Rivers.¹⁴

Siddalingaiah continues in another poem: Dalitaru Barvaru

Dalitaru baruvaru dari bidi Dalitaru kaika rajya kodi Dalits are coming, give way, give power to their hands ................. Brushing aside gods and gurus to dunghill Pushing ministers and legislatures to gutter, Dalits went in procession, on the way they found themselves. ................ holding torch in the hands sparks a revolution in the eyes explodes the burning charcoal They became thorns to the bush of caste and religions They became sky to the seven oceans that swallowed them Dalits killed the Hindu religion did not leave landlords No lenience to any one......¹⁵

Dalit Sangharsh Samiti's slogan in Karnataka is jati bidi, mota bidi, manavatage jiva kodi - reject caste, reject religion, give life to your humanity. The Voice of the Weak — A Tabloid of Toiling People, published from Delhi, reports: 'The All India Federation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Castes and Minorities Employees Welfare Association (SCEWASTAMB) decided to call upon the SCs/STs and BCs to discard Hinduism and boycott Hindu temples. This was decided in the massive gathering of thousands of delegates attending the 15th special conference of the Federation held here (Jaipur) on October 8 and 9, 1988. The All-India Conference resolved that SCs and STs are not Hindus .... that they are having their own religion ... The matter was closely examined from historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives.'¹⁶ Dalit intellectuals and leaders now realise that the consciousness of their masses shaped by vedic and puranic myths is a false consciousness serving the interests of the dominant castes and classes. A consciousness based on true history has to be formed to strengthen their identity and bring about their liberation and a new civilisation for the whole country. This counter cultural awakening among the Dalits against Hindu culture is inspired by the writings of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Phuley and Periar Ramaswamy. But it has a long historical tradition, though weak and folk, going back to the great Buddha who taught:

not by birth does one become an outcaste not by birth does one become a Brahmana, By deeds one becomes an outcaste By deeds one becomes a Brahmana.¹⁷

The Buddhist account of the king as Mahasammate the Great Elect is also by 'contract' in opposition to the Hindu ideas of elements of divinity in the appointment of the king.¹⁸ Jainism, Ajivika faith and the ascetic tradition in Hindu civilisation itself belong to this counter cultural stream which stand in continuity with Indus civilisation as against the dominant vedic brahminic civilisation. Tirukural of Tiruvelluvar, Tiruvassagar of Manikka Vasagar, the long line of Siddhar (Cittar) saints who are all alive and vibrant belong to this anti-brahminical stream, Listen to the emphatic and blunt voice of Pambatti Cittar, a Dalit:

The Four Vedas, six kinds of Shastras, The many Tantras and Puranas, The Agamas which speak of the arts, And various kinds of other books Are of no use: just in vain So dance snake, dance! In a statue of stone changed with a chisel D'ye think there's understanding? D'ye think the idiots of the world Have any understanding? Will a flaw in a pan go away If you rub it with tamarind? Ignorance won't go away from the idiots So dance snake, dance!¹⁹ We'll set fire to divisions of caste, We'll debate philosophical questions in the market place We'll have dealings with despised households, We'll go around in different paths.²⁰

The rejection is the same as in modern Dalit poets. It is this folk tradition, revealed in folk songs, proverbs, myths, innumerable movements from among the Dalits and Tribals,²¹ which has accepted the modern political idea of equality, fraternity and justice. The challenging task is to translate these political ideas to blend with the cultural and economic life of the people. Homo hierarchicus will not become homo democraticus without profound socio-political and religious changes. This is the reason why Ambedkar said that untouchability was a question of power, though he was conscious of the fact that it was an attitude of mind on the part of caste people which could be changed through a conversion of heart, as Gandhi believed.