(In commemoration of the Dalit History Month, we will be revisiting our archives with articles on the question of Dalit identity, politics and history throughout April. In this piece from January 2007, Sukumar Muralidharan looks at violence and the limits of constitutional liberalism in understanding the oppression of Dalits.)



In January 2006, Bant Singh, a Dalit peasant and community organiser, was assaulted near his home village in Mansa District of Punjab state. Left for dead by his assailants, he was denied attention at the district hospital, except on payment of an inducement that was plainly beyond his means. His condition deteriorated badly and three of his limbs had to be amputated when he was finally placed under competent medical care. Even as news of the shocking crime filtered out, there was little hint that the perpetrators, known to be two former headmen of Bant Singh’s village, would ever be brought to justice. In a zone where the liberties guaranteed by the Indian Constitution are little more than a phantasm, and the hierarchical privileges of caste and class the reality, Bant Singh had been punished for being found guilty of an unforgivable crime. He had shown faith in the rule of law, and sufficient persistence to fight a prolonged legal battle to bring to justice three men guilty of the sexual assault of his young daughter.

In September, as Surekha Bhotmange prepared an evening meal for her family in Kherlanji village of Bhandara District in Maharashtra, a mob of local thugs broke into her house. She was dragged outside, along with her daughter Priyanka and two sons, Roshan and Sudhir, one of whom is visually handicapped. The women were lashed to a bullock cart and brutally gang-raped, before all four were murdered. Witnesses to the grisly carnage were sworn to secrecy. Their assent was easily secured, since they had just witnessed a crime that left few boundaries intact between observation and participation. Surekha’s husband Bhaiyyalal lived to tell the story, but his complaints at the local police station went unrecorded until the four charred bodies of the victims were discovered the following day.

Were this symbolism of Ambedkarite iconography not available, the reaction of caste Hindu orthodoxy to the new Dalit assertion would go far beyond mere aesthetic distaste.

The Bhotmanges belonged to the Mahar caste of B R Ambedkar, and saw themselves as heirs to the great tradition of cultural rebellion that he represented. Their faith in the social mobility that education could bring, and their resistance to all efforts to snatch away part of their property for a water scheme that would bring them no conceivable benefit, was seen as a challenge to the casteist status quo. Like Bant Singh, they too fell victim to the alternative system of conflict resolution that prevails as the final bulwark of an ascriptive, hierarchical social order.

When atrocities against the living remain unrequited, it might occasion some shock that supposed outrages against idols should provoke violence and calls for retribution. On 30 November, when news broke of a statue of B R Ambedkar being vandalised in Kanpur District of Uttar Pradesh, Dalit organisations mobilised for a day of protests. Violence was reported from diverse parts of the country, but the most demonstrative incidents were in Maharashtra, where one of the Indian Railways’ most prestigious commuter trains was set aflame between Bombay and Pune. Nobody was killed in the incident, though sporadic clashes elsewhere in the state did claim two lives.

Symbolism over substance?

The realities of a world where little is achieved without conflict compel the new Dalit movements to make certain tactical choices. The hazards of pursuing their interests with necessary zeal cannot be discounted, since violence lurks just beneath the surface of India’s democratic order. But the pursuit of accommodation is not a sufficient answer, since that entails the risk of yielding on core Dalit interests.

Partly in response, a delicate compromise has been fashioned which places symbolism above substance. A statue of B R Ambedkar, installed at a prominent vantage point in the smallest town or village, is often regarded as a sufficient triumph – one that would sustain the solidarity of the movement, even as substantive gains remain elusive. It is this precise phenomenon that has led to a proliferation of statues of the man revered today as one of the great Indians of the 20th century. These rather hastily fashioned icons have proven offensive to the sensibilities of some, especially those with an ideological predilection towards the Hindutva strain of politics. What they fail to realise is that the iconography of Ambedkarism is a safety valve for the long-accumulated grievances of Dalit politics. Were this symbolism not available, the reaction of caste Hindu orthodoxy to the new Dalit assertion would go far beyond mere aesthetic distaste.

The months just passed witnessed two significant anniversaries connected with the man whose life-story has become a part of the lives and struggles of the Dalits of India. October 2006 saw the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism. This conversion was a climactic act of cultural rebellion, and the fulfilment of a vow made in 1927 after a Satyagraha he led to assert Dalit rights to a water source invited the furious reprisals of upper-caste orthodoxy. A few weeks later, 6 December was the 50th anniversary of Ambedkar’s death.

As journalist Jyoti Punwani wrote in a recent opinion piece, for all the significance of these anniversaries for the Dalits, it was as if they did not exist for the mainstream press. On 5 December, Punwani observes, a prominent newspaper in Bombay “carried on page one, pictures of two residents who live near Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, ready to leave home with bags packed”. They were leaving their homes temporarily because of the compelling need to “avoid the influx of Dalits to Shivaji Park on 6 December, Dr Ambedkar’s death anniversary”. It was not as if the residents of the area were strangers to large and disorderly gatherings. The Shiv Sena had been laying waste to their neighbourhood for at least 40 years during the Dussehra observances, charged by their leader Bal Thackeray’s oratory. In comparison, the annual assembly of Dalits on the occasion of Ambedkar’s death anniversary had invariably been a model of sobriety and civic responsibility.