By V.B.Rawat

After much consultation and well-planned move, Lal Krishna Advani appeared before the Librahan Commission, inquiring into the demolition of Babri Mosque on December 6th, 1992. Similar changes were witnessed in the heart of Pandit Murli Manohar Joshi and Sadhvi Uma Bharati. Advani informed the Commission that he was genuinely sad on the demolition of the mosque. However, an important point has been missed in this entire episode and that cannot be overlooked, as we have through our analysis time and again mentioned that the entire Ayodhya movement was planned to keep the hegemony the Hindu upper castes, intact over the vast Bahujan masses which was rather under challenge in the post Mandal scenario. Advanis lawyer told the reporters after his appearance that the Rath Yatra was meant to save the Hindu society from disintegration which the Mandal had unleashed. Was it true? Advani and his party cannot oppose the Mandal Commission Report but they nodoubt instigated the upper caste students in Delhi to commit suicide. And in this entire exercise the original brahmanical party of the country backed them: the Congress Party. Congress shamelessly pursuing the same brahmanical card in the north is relegated to dustbin at the moment and no amount of victory in South and elsewhere is going to help it out in the north unless it realise that the dalit backward communities needs representation in power.

Anyway, the recent uttering have clearly indicated that BJP is now worried about the upper castes and their diminishing clout in politics. As a party of Brahmins and Banias, it is really doing every bit to monopolise the Hindu society by using the symbols which needs our attention. While not only Advani had mentioned in the Librahan Commission about the disintegration of Hindu community by the Mandal report, our prime Minister Vajpayee himself introduce Advani in a gathering of Industrialists some two years back that he saved the Hindu society from disintegration. So Advani continue to chant his Hindu Mantra. And Hindus must be thankful to him for saving them from disintegration. Are only brahmin and bania Hindu Mr. Advani ?

Now, carefully see the planning of Murali Manohar Joshi, a pure brahmin who cannot go to his ministry without a long red tilak over his head. It must clearly reflect his identity of being a pure Aryan blood. Mr Joshis attempt to include the Vaidik courses and astrology in the college education is the same bramin mantra which destroyed India, which subjugated the country. If the brahmins are ruling the country, it is because she idiocies still exist in the name of culture and science. Joshi is very much worried about his community and its loosing hold and thats why he wants to introduce the courses, which are not meant for Dalits and backward classes. Even the non brahmin upper castes will find it difficult to get recognition. He is so much proud of Indias cultural heritage that he wants to introduce Sanskrit compulsorily. Mind if India is illiterate today, it is curtsy Sanskrit language which was proscribed for Dalits and other non brahmins. Buddha had to start his preaching in pali, the language of the people, to break the hold of Sanskrit which was entirely for Brahmins. You keep the knowledge out from the purview of the poor. Joshi consider him a super intellectual and cannot tolerate criticism. He can term every criticism as a left oriented criticism but one must remind him that criticism of the Hindu social system, of which Joshi is so much proud of, did not come from left only. In fact the left was rather weak in its criticism of the Hindu social system but the most critical voices were the victims themselves. Thus, Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar tore apart the myth of so-called Hindu tolerance which Joshi Advani never tired of informing the people.

See the irony, far from universalising the education system, now attempt are being made to privatise the bigger institutions like IITs. And who is the expert on education. The Ambanies, The Birlas, who you all know are very worried about the growing clout of the masses in the democratic process. These masses can put the entire experts of exit polls to mat and it is these masses who are hated by the educated Indian middle classes, now represented by the Hindutva policy makers. Their fear is clear after the growth rate among the dalit students is growing. And reservation has helped them a lot. A middle class among the dalits have come up and spreading Ambedars thought and vision, popularising Buddhism and attacking the brahmanical concepts. Yet the brahmanical concept are not going to die down with this upsurge. In fact they become more rigid with such dalit assertion. Whether the uppercaste pretend not knowing atrocities on dalits but the fact is they cannot digest dalit assertion. Dalit for them mean subjugation but those dalits living in cities have understood that challenging the brahmanical hegemony is way to emancipation. The brahmanical forces now know that Dalits cannot be cowed down by this way hence various methodologies are designed to dupe the dalits. An important factor has come up regarding the drop out rates of dalits. General brahmanical prescription is that dalits are not interested in study.. but the fact is that the Hindu uppercaste teachers torture dalit students, segregate them from others, dont allow them to drink water from other students and ask them to sweep and clean the school. When these humiliations dont succeed then the dronacharya methodology is adopted. What is dronacharya methodology.? That the duties are important. Dalits are not supposed to learn knowledge and warfare. When Eklavya, a Dalit became worlds best archer, Guru Dronacharya feared that the brahmanical hegemony is challenged and he asked Eklavya to offer his right thumb to him so that Arjuna remained the best archer of the world. In the most shameful incident happened in the heart of Indias capital city on February 23rd, 2001, a brahmin teacher beat a Dalit girl mercilessly just because she greeted him with a polite Namste. The teacher' slap forced the girl to go back to her father and complain but see when the father questioned the teacher, the typical brahmanical response was : " Main Chude chamaron ke namste nahin leta". When the girls father retored angrily that you cannot do that, the teacher asked him to withdraw his wards from the school. Later four teachers of the school including a woman teacher lynched the father of the girl. The father Satbir Singh, a valmiki by caste, was taken to hospital with two broken ribs on chest and a profusely bleeding nose. He was repeatedly kicked and beaten with iron rods and pipes and had to be admitted to a hospital in Delhi where he stayed for nearly a month. The upper caste teachers did not beat the girl and her father all of sudden. It is the upper caste psychology that whenever they find a self respecting Dalit, coming up and facing them, in their living standard, they get irritated. 'Your work is to clean and sweep, why have you come here to study.. Padhna tumhare bas ka nahi hai," said the teachers. If such incident happen in the national capital territory without any effective government intervention then what other reasons are we looking for the drop out rates of dalits. Our media and intelligentsia is most corrupt on the issue relating the dalits. They will raise it for the news value but would not like to take it to the conclusion. They did it on many cases but here on the issue of rights the media generate general antipathy towards the dalits.

There is tremendous pressure on the government on the Dalit issue. There is a campaign going on to declare caste system as per racism. Those who are campaigning consider the UN approach as the final thing. Unfortunately, for them it is not easy. India has a big constitution and Indian government constitutionally does not support that so any case against it does not have any credibility. Dalit issue has a social religious dimension. It needs social reform. It needs a revolt against the religious laws. But how many of our campaigners can do that? By terming that it exists in every religion they have given the Hindutva government a broom to beat them. Why blame Hindus when it exists everywhere? And thats true. I am not bothered about this. My problem is that Hindus or brahmanical forces of the country are following in their own religion and laws prescribed by their holy book. Advani follows his dharma and so does Joshi.. they believe in varnavyawstha and caste hierarchy so why should we be worried about them as their religion subscribes this theory. Bu t why does the Christians and Muslims following this when their religion not dont subscribe this? Why should the dalits convert to any religion if finally our fellows campaigning for dalit rights saying that it exists everywhere ? I am shocked at this. The traditional dalit movement has an antipathy towards the brahmanical system and anything diluting this will do the greatest damage to the dalit cause. Secondly, dalit issue is political as well. Wherever the dalits are in power structure, the level of atrocities is drastically reduced though the brahmanical cunningness is there, still, they cannot force them to whatever they wish. The example of UP is clearly visible. The question is that we cannot just make dalits pitiable object for our own gains. Any help has to come at the ground level and in India fortunately we can still fight if legal aid is available to us.. if the issue is politicised. Where is Dalit weak? He is weak or pathetic where the antibrahmanical movement was non-existence. Just by plain secular talk will not damage the Hindutva brigade otherwise Gandhian's would have saved the minorities and dalit-tribals in Gujrat. Why cant the Hindutva do the same thing in tamilnadu or UP or Bihar. Their shops are closed now in these states with strong backward dalit force. We must understand how and where the Singhals and Thogadias play their tricks well ? Ofcourse in their dominating belt of Gujrat and Uttaranchal, where they manipulate the caste airthmatics in their favor. IN Gujrat they made it a laboratory of Sangh Parivar and hence Muslims were targeted. Christians were bashed and dalits were being used. Now see, scavenging is prevalent in Gandhis own land, for whom Gandhi fought a lot. But see the thing in UP, these Singhals and Thogadias cannot force the Dalits the same way they did in Gujrat. What happening in Bihar is an eye opener. Dalits now retaliates to the oppression and hence we consider it an anarchist state while Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh are the most peaceful states. Have we ever thought of why these states are peaceful.. Because the powerful Sangh Parivar befooling the dalits in the name of antiMuslim propanda and exploiting them through the Hindu caste system. No strong Dalit leadership is emerged politically in these states curtsy the brahmanical process and their own weakness.

It is important that the dalit issue is here not curtsy BJP. The founder of all the brahmnical system in India is the Congress Party but perhaps those launching the campagin think otherwise. I am sure if political parties are so clear in their support for anti caste movement let them revisit the history. Let us ask this question to everyone in the political parties and intelligentsia whether they support the move to discuss this problem at the World Conference Against Racism or not. Let the Congress Party support this move. Let any political party support this move at the UN ? It is the most unfortunate part. Are we ready to demolish the religious virtues and the religious system which created this racism because constitutionally we have done away with this. How will we finish it when we talk of religious tolerance? Where is the place for dalits in these schemes of religious tolerance? how can dalit tolerate those who just want them to clean and sweep.. What kind of tolerance you want from them. But we continue to propose religious tolerance. I am sure those in the tolerance business will do their work well and find whether they will be able to give space to dissent voices within their religion. I am not targeting one religion but talking about every one. Perhaps the most tolerant people are highly intolerant and thats where our intentions are doubted.

The main issue of Dalit problem in India is implementation of law and that could be done only when dalits have share in power, bureaucracy, media and judiciary. A strong political campaign for this is going on India and we ask the supporter of the campaign to do these needful things in India.. bring more reports of violation and help them directly by filing the public interest litigations and embarrass the government by brining more and more accurate fact finding. I am sure the more we do such work in India the more the government has to do, after all this government has to take the votes of dalits also. Untouchability a gift of Varnashram dharma to the world but can the World Conference on Racism censor this tolerant dharma. And I am sure once they choose Hindu dharma, everyone will be tearing each other apart. So we will be completely exposing each dharma completely naked in front of the world population? Are we ready to do that? Perhaps no. And it is where I doubt any success to this. As constitutionally, India has signed every International treaty and body and we dont accept caste based discrimination and it has no legal validity.

It will be useful for the enlightened community to help aware the people about the great radical movements in the past in various parts of India so that people can link them with. The most important thing is to work for them at the grassroots. Unfortunately, more foreign and less national people make the target of Hindutva and their likes easier and their canards, smearing campaigns with clandestine support of media help them achieve their target. Dalit issue is a political issue and we must help them attain the political goal, I am sure they will give the brahmanical forces everywhere in each party and organisation, a run for their money and crookedness. If India has to remain a civilised country it must demolish the Varnasharam dharma and who would be the best people to takeover this legacy then the dalits themselvs? It is now the dharma of the indigenous people ( dalits and tribals ) to keep their adi dharma alive.. the adidharma of Buddhism and Lokayat darshan, the dharmas of rationality and radicalism. Let the spirit of sanity and civilisation prevail in this great land.