By Praful Sakya
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hat Underclass are expected to do
in order to capture the temples of power? The fear is lurking in the minds of
the underclass intellectual that the kind of politics the BSP is being engaged
in moving in the direction of the appeasement of upper/feudal class. What does
unity mean and its importance in realising the dream of becoming the ruler? The
great goal of unity. As the power loads lots of responsibility, is the BSP
fulfilling its role aptly or wavering from its principal canons. And what are
the responsibilities of the Underclass towards party this has all been
discussed in this article.
There
have been number of concerns raised by intellectuals who are strongly and
affectionately affiliated with the welfare of Underclass. Their main fear is:
the kind of politics that BSP is being engaged in, according to them, if not
entirely but sort of an appeasement of upper/feudal class’, and the problem
does not stop here, their real worry: is the party over steeping or getting too
far?
Well,
respected all, let me first appreciate your benign concerns towards the fellow
underclass, because these genuine concerns in people like you are really
helping to make a divine difference in the lives of millions of underclass.
These concerns are devising and sharpening the tone of underclass fight for
survival and even help flourishing them in the most hostile societal set-up.
With due respect to the sprit of your concerns, I further this writing. Here my
only genuine effort is to put lights on the other side of the affair.
First
of all we need to understand the importance of ‘the Power of being in the
power’ and second most important thing that I would like to bring your
attention to the fact that the kind of socio-religious and political leadership
that has been emerging since the Death of Dr B R Ambedkar and its impact on the
overall development of the Underclass.
To
start with let me underline some of the bitter truth in our society that we are
all familiar with.
1.
Discrimination prevails no matter how hard you try to demolish, as it manifests
itself in new form as an inherent character of the Hindu-society. It is the
societal so called divine religious set-up forces the large population in to
believing and thinking that the caste-discrimination is the highest order
set-up by the divine forces. There is the general apathy of the large mass of
the populations towards the pain of the discriminated-fellows make the scene
extremely direr. The Brahminwadi moral apparels that the so called Uppercaste
have been beguiled to wear by the Vedic Hocus-Pocus, devised by the Brahmins
does not allow penetrating the cry of intense and acute pains of underclass in
the once sensitive minds of the Uppercaste. So to make them understand your
point of views about their discriminatory attitude does not help yield
considerable gains. Though not entire picture is in a bad artistic-shape, there
is lot happing, this is the transition phase and as they say the transition is
more painful in some events.
2.
The one man (Dr. B R Ambedkar) could make such a epoch-making change in the
lives of the millions of the underclass why was then, after his death, no one
could even able to keep that momentum of the underclass’s societal growth
intact or for that matter kept the pace of the growth at half of what Dr. B R
Ambedkar managed to do. We have always been a very disorganized, and
economically non-powerful segment of the society and perhaps one of the worst
divided amongst ourselves. No matter we are the persecuted ones but our feeling
for the others does not come out easily, it is reserved only for self-groups.
We might call ourselves Dalits, a unit to denote the persecuted ones but Bihari
Dalit has little feeling for the UP Dalit, or for that matter to the
Maharashtra Dalits some of them got converted to Buddhism. Our Dalit identity
makes us weaker; you are Dalit means you are bound to get persecuted or
crushed. So to establish one identity that generates sympathy towards fellow
brothers, invokes emotional pull to fight for the cause and bind all of tighter
all across the country, amongst the Underclass is a must, today.
And
this can be achieved by two means that is forming unity under 1.Religion and 2.
Politics
Why
these two things would yield expected result is mainly because if one sees the
History or Mythology of India subcontinent- it is fully dominated by either
politics or religion OR in subtle way the politicization of religion or the
religionization of politics Or religionization and politicization of societal
order have governed or affected or formed the societal character or behaviour
than any other factors put together.
The
first part is grouping together for forming unity under religion which was long
ago foreseen and classically adopted by Dr B R Ambedkar. That’s the reason why
during the last phase of his movement of societal reforms he decided to
dedicate it for uniting the underclass under Buddhist Religion. Had he had got
five to eight years of extra life; he could have definitely succeeded in
stringing together the large portion of the underclass in the divine fold of
Buddhism. Unfortunately it did not happen. It was quite possible for him because
the divine force of considerable magnitude that he possessed could have helped
him achieving his objective. What made him more inclined towards the idea of
religious conversion and why had he chosen Buddhism over other religion is an
open secret. His idea was to make the identity of the underclass as Buddhist
people, which he argued well in his book ‘who were the Sudras?’ He had wished
to reaffirm the identity so as to create religious force of considerable
magnitude that would empathies with the feeling of larger group. And this
identity should be utilized as a part of combating cultural pollution and
religious misuse against the Hindutva forces was the vision of Dr B R Ambedkar.
And to a great degree it was thinking of a great mind, well ahead of his time
because in his mind he had visualized everything that could arise and hence got
ready to counter.
The second part of the same solution is unity under Politics. I am not quite sure
about what was then in the mind of Kanshiramji when he formed his political
party for protecting the rights of the Underclass. As I am not fortunate enough
to be a close associate of the higher echelon of the organisation it is very
difficult for me to tell the exact account of what is there in their mind, but
as a political observer I bet my views are not, particularly on the agenda of
the party, way off if compared with the ideas of party ideologues. And this is
to make a political mass of great unity that would shape the destiny of
Underclass. And thus the BSP organized and created and marshaled its resources
for one and only thing to bring the Underclass under magical fold of unity to
capture temples of power.
Now
let’s settle the concern that you all have about the appeasement of the
upper/feudal class. First of all look at the kind of leadership that has been
evolved or evolving since the death of Dr B R Ambedkar. To characterized them
in one word: ‘Bootlickers’. Here’s the BSP stands differently altogether. It did compromise on numbers of issue, as a
game plan of party’s growth but never did it falter or fail to voice the
aspirations of the Underclass. And it achieved incredible success by sticking
tighter to the principal canon of the party, which no one amongst current lot
of underclass leadership could have even dreamt of.
Now
talking about the persecutions or the atrocities committed on the Underclass is
on the rise, in the rule of BSP. Well your concerns are legitimate by the fact
that under our own rule the atrocities should not take place. Well can the
The
Indian underclass has been persecuted by Uppercaste since time immemorial.
There method of persecution is so inhumane that to disturb the fabric of our
growth and establish their supremacy they parade publicly our women naked,
rapes are common and forcing eating faeces, drinking urine and like that which
a cruel inhuman mind can think of it. These are in fact old methods of
persecution but who says it stopped all together. Earlier we were persecuted at
the slightest instance or at their desire as we all were dumb people, now the
good news is that we learn to raise our voice and ready to fight for our
rights, which they are not accustomed to, that’s promoted them to persecute us
more violently. As we have learned to raise our voice against their persecution
the day will soon arrive we will succeed in stopping their crudity and
cruelties altogether. Just have hopes. And to stop it all together it needs
powerful force of unity resistance and enough monitory might. In that direction
the BSP is marching on as a political entity.
It understands very well what it takes to be in the power and the power
of being in the power. It understands very well that it is the power that has
been abolishing the interests of the underclass and that’s the reason why it
made ‘capturing the institution of the power its number one priority. It is the Mayawatiji’s CM post sending the
message all across the administrative echelons that the atrocities on the
Underclass will not be tolerated. She is quite a hard task master and it is the
fear of losing ones job or the transfer, forces administration to take the
effective action against atrocities, which would have not been possibly had
there been any other CM. That’s in way good news but it also makes her more
responsible and prone to criticism if some event surfaces. But she too has
limitations and not the ultimate point where you can expect the end of
persecution.
If
you take a glance over the history of the
We
need to fight them democratically and the potent weapon in democracy is
Political power and to have that you need to build a political entity potent
enough to make you the indispensable part of the governing council. And to
achieve it you need to have the all inclusive party agenda. It may sound like
the appeasement of the upper/feudal class but they are no lesser forces. They
are engaging in the persecutions of the underclass the most is no denying the
fact, it is mainly because of the empowerment of the underclass, once their
servants, might be promoting them to crush the underclass in a more violent way
so as to nip us in bud. But for every stand there is a prize tagged to it and
we have since time immemorial been paying heavy prices for taking stand against
everything that is evil and inhumane, so why worry now, oppose it tooth and
nail it as we know one day these Uppercaste bound to realise that we are their
brothers and they are equally victims of Manuwadi societal order. And to make
it happen keep the fights going on in whatever manner is possible for an
individual but history is witness to the fact that it is Unity that crates
magic. So underclass needed to be united under Religion or Politics. But a day
is bound to dawn that all underclass will realise that the door of religious
unity will only open the door of political empowerment or gains, as it would
not make them the victims of break-ups.
Sukh ka Kya Hai Paray?
Namo Buddhay, Namo Dhamay, Namo
Sanghay
Praful Sakya