My Dalitality

Issue #12 - Feb 2021

Dear friends:

A lot has been going on. News of vaccine roll out brings somewhat feel good vibes even though we still have a good year or so to claim victory over pathogens. 

GQ recently included me in their prestigious list of “Most Influential Young Indians”. This is the first time that a Dalit was selected by the celebrity and fashion magazine in the influential Indian list. Last time something similar happened was when TV news channel IBN-CNN created a poll of Most Influential Indian After Gandhi. Ambedkar surpassed all other leaders.

This list features only one scholar and it is indeed a proud moment to be recognized for my scholarship and intellectual pursuits.

The citation in GQ reads:

Caste Matters (2019), his remarkable memoir, is described by Pratap Bhanu Mehta as “exactly the kind of mirror India needs to look into”. In his stirring foreword to Yengde’s “instant classic”, that most eminent of firebrands, Cornel West writes “it flows from the pen of an emerging and exemplary public intellectual profoundly shaped in Ambedkar’s image and deeply influenced by the US Black movement.” This is a rich cultural context that has flowed both ways over many decades: think Bayard Rustin and the Harlem Ashram in the 1940s, and Martin Luther King’s “pilgrimage” to India on the cusp of the 1960s, as well as Namdeo Dhasal’s Dalit Panthers in the 1970s. The dapper, flamboyantly groomed young scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government is an adept and worthy inheritor of that grand tradition, who’s very swiftly emerged as the foremost intersectional activist of his generation, with serious scholarly chops (see his monumental The Radical Ambedkar: Critical Reflections, edited with Anand Teltumbde) as well as an uncommon style and swagger. The world is already paying close attention.

You can read the full piece here.

Awaaz India TV did a short piece on this news. It can be viewed here.

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Dalitality

This month’s Dalitality takes a look at the oft-repeated “India’s glorious past”. The Hindus claim their superiority and riches in the past, forgetting that it was the Buddha’s history that gave India its true form and shape. 

“One of the best ways to identify how history is twisted and reproduced to serve the purposes of dominant savarna castes is to go to the base of the architectural structures of sacred sites. The most famous temples in India, Pakistan, and Nepal originally used to be Buddhist places of learning and worship.” 

The piece can be read here and an abridged version as seen in The Indian Express can be viewed here.

Dalitality will now be translated in Hindi by Dalit Dastak and Marathi translations will be out soon too. The latest Hindi version can be read here.

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Other features

India Conference at Harvard, 2021

For the past four years I have been involved in the India Conference. Before that there weren’t any particular conversations on caste at this august gathering. My aim to diversify this Brahminical space was to educate the world and Harvard students in particular about caste, but also give an opportunity to the marginalized to participate and air their views.

This year we hosted three conversations highlighting caste. The first was, “Caste in Business”. The second was a conversation with Jharkhand state Chief Minister, Hemant Soren. The third was a fireside chat with Azad Samaj Party leader, Chandrashekhar Azad Raavan.

The hour long conversation with Soren was deeply personal and frank. Soren hit it off by expressing his views on the rights of Tribals and the center-state relations. Soren stated that “Tribals are not Hindus. They never were.” This created a discomfort in the RSS circles who jibed his comment as evangelical. Tribals have been under the ploy of conversation by Christian missionaries and Hindu missionaries. Soren is proposing a Sarna code that will give Tribals the right to choose their own religion. The Chief Minister also said that sedition laws like UAPA are being used by the ruling BJP against civil and human rights activists and scholars. News coverage about this can be found in Times of India through here.

The zoom conference videos should be out soon. Watch this space.

What happens to the children of inter-caste unions? This is a very interesting and important topic to consider in a caste society. Much of the story of inter-caste children do not get featured in the caste debates. Usually, to my experience the marriage is not arranged and takes place in a fairly stable household. The children of this union do not conform to the Dalit or lower identity. They live in relation to one of the parent’s superior identities. However, there is an exception to this. A powerful statement came out in this regard in the form of an autobiography by a leading Indian writer, Sharankumar Limbale who documented his own mixed caste heritage (his mother being Dalit and father a landlord -- who disowned him and his mother).

This story in the Hindu takes a look at the inter caste children and their status in the country.

“The personal responses are as varied as religious texts and the law. To be intercaste, then, is not one thing — it is lived in ambiguities and largely absent from the popular imagination. It calls for serious study, from these angles and others, and needs its own intellectual toolkit. Yengde, for one, is interested. “There must be intergenerational trauma. We don’t have studies,” he says.”

You can read the piece here.

Screengrab of the video uploaded on YouTube

The conversation between Achille Mbembe and I on “Race & Caste” is finally available. It can be viewed here.

The United States Consulate in Mumbai hosted a courageous conversation, “Busting Biases: Evolving Dynamics in India & USA” to honor Black History Month. I was personally impressed that a government asks its missions to engage in the topic that might be too sensitive and considered a matter of internal interest. This made me look at my country  and its refusal to engage with the caste question. Would India host such discussions across the world? Would it ask its missions and consulate to critically examine caste conditions and its prospects in our current time? I laud the US government for opening up to the world scrutiny on this topic. 

The US diplomat Renee Callender was sharp and candid. She started with her experience testimony of being profiled and looked down upon by her colleagues and others because the color of her skin does not demonstrate the quality of a diplomat. Callender then went into talking about how unconscious biases entertain in the workplace and in policies. A career diplomat saying these things openly gave me joy. I am hopeful that black leadership in international affairs might help us develop a robust global human rights program.

Columbia University hosted a conversation on “The Dalit Panthers & Literary Resurgence - Understanding Systemic Racism”. I presented a paper on “Dalit-Black Idea Sphere” drawing from the 1970s onwards writing on Dalit-Black literary tradition. The full talk can be viewed here. 

Here is an interesting piece by the head of Ambedkar King Study Circle presenting on-ground report of the caste discrimination in Silicon Valley. The CISCO caste case is going through the judicial process. On 9 March the case will be up for hearing at the California State court. This case will change the course of caste and its damaging consequences on oppressed caste communities. The Hindu American Foundation has filed a motion to intervene in the case. Their line of argument is:

“to protect the religious freedoms of Hindu Americans … from the unconstitutional efforts of the State of California to decide the scope and nature of Hindu religious teachings and practices. In this case, the DFEH claims that caste-based discrimination is religious discrimination because the caste system is ‘a strict Hindu social and religious hierarchy,’ and therefore an integral part of Hindu teachings and practices.”

The piece can be read here.

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In History

This month was the 645th birth anniversary of Guru Ravidass, the revered saint who inspired an entire generation and religious order. Ravidass’ teachings reached corners of the country in his lifetime and afterwards. The Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib carries his powerful verses as a direction of their faith.

Ravidass gained prominence among the diaspora chamars who carried his legacy on their head fighting against casteism.

This month also saw the birth anniversary of Ramabai fondly known by the Ambedkarite community as Ramai -- mother Rama. Ramabai was the first spouse of Ambedkar. Her devotion to the cause is never underplayed in Ambedkar’s life. Scholar Yashwant Manohar’s book on Ramabai is one of the unique accounts of her life.

It was also the birth anniversary of Gadge Maharaj, a saint from the washerman caste. Gadge Maharaj, or Gadge Baba, is revered for his leadership in the anti-caste movement. Gadge was fond of Ambedkar. He was a humble servant of the cause whose wisdom gripped many in his aura. Gagde Maharaj is celebrated across India but more particularly Maharashtra state, his home and Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab due to the movement of Kanshiram who introduced these pantheons to the rest of India.

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Things to look out for

Equity in Policy Education

Harvard students are back to mentor Dalit, Adivasi, and Backward caste students free of cost to put them through the top policy schools in the world. Please spread the word.

President Biden’s decision to release the report of the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi that pins the blame on Saudi crown prince hit the headlines. Harvard Gazette interviewed a veteran journalist who covered the Middle East for 3 decades, Karen Elliott House argues that since the report is out President Biden will be pressured by his Democrat colleagues to punish Saudi Arabia which is at the helm of a notorious ruler King Salman. Biden has essentially “unleashed a potentially dangerous game” This insightful interview gives an interesting perspective. 

Mukul Sharma’s new article looks at the eco-literary traditions in India and the oversight of Dalit narratives. Dalits have always been firmly rooted in the possibilities of freedom in the manifestation of nature. For them, their self is encompassing through the exterior environment that cares, protects, and nurtures them. Dalits worship nature gods. Sharma reads this through an autobiography of a Bengali Dalit  Adwaita Mallaburman, A River Called Titash.

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Call to action

Many human rights activists continue to be in jail. Nodeep Kaur, the courageous Dalit woman from Punjab who was protesting at the farmer’s rally was picked up by the Haryana Police ruled by BJP and tortured. After a series of campaigns, Kaur is finally released. However, her comrade Shiv Kumar, a 24 year old Dalit labor organizer continued to be mentally and physically toruted by police. Shiv Kumar is visually challenged. His name is not mentioned in the First Information Report of police. However, the medical examination of Shiv Kumar has found that:

Kumar was found to have multiple fractures, torn toe nails and was “mentally and physically abused in the police (sic) remand”, said a four page-report by a medical board of Chandigarh’s Government Medical College & Hospital.

You can read the piece here. Shiv Kumar finally received bail on the 4th of March and has been released. Shiv Kumar’s episode reminds us about the unjust and fragile state of democracy India has come to. 

India is a fine example of fascism right now. Take action and end the state brutality.

#JaiBhim #DalitLove

suraj