Understanding the importance of Mahad movement

Relevance of Mahad’s historical struggle

Manusmriti need to be burnt not in its physicality alone but also from our hearts and minds

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat


Two sisters from scavenging community were burnt to death by an upper caste mob in Moradabad district of Uttar-Pradesh for an alleged murder committed by their brother who is still at large. The family requested the police to protect them yet nothing happened. Contrary to what the girl’s distraught mother is saying, the Uttar-Pradesh police already suggested that the girls committed suicide because of the regular humiliation by their neighbors regarding their brothers.

Uttar-Pradesh, people say, is the laboratory of the Dalit-Bahujan politics. Unfortunately, Brahmanism still remains as powerful in the state as ever though its functionality and strategies have changed drastically. The Dalit- Bahujan concept has taken a beating here and to the best now the new agendas of different caste identities have emerged in the state. Tragically, this assertion movement has some where drifted from what Baba Saheb Ambedkar charted for all the oppressed of the country, a new vision under Buddha’s liberating path. Uttar-Pradesh has seen empowered Dalit Bahujan politics but unlike Maharastra the efforts for a counter culture here have not worked well. In the absence of a counter culture, the Dalit Bahujan leaderships of different communities are targeting each other and in the end reinforcing brahmanical beliefs of supremacy and purity. As long as caste remains, Brahmanism will work to the benefits of the powerful and maintain hegemonies of a few.

It is therefore necessary to revisit the historic path of Baba Saheb Ambedkar in Mahad where he fought the rights of the people denied human dignity and access the natural resources. Water is a natural resource and none has right to control it and Ambedkar’s fight for water right for the Dalits is an example of how people’s movement can bring social change as he was not just breaking the brahmanical hegemony over water but also pointing that without equality of women and their effective participation no movement would succeed. He, along with thousands of his followers, predominantly women, burnt Manusmriti, the law book of the Hindus. It was not just symbolic but a strong rejection of racist Hindu social order which denied human being equality, liberty and fraternity. It was just not a political issue as he made an important statement in burning Manusmriti, which means that the rejection of old order based on racial prejudices of cultural supremacy must essentially be part of any movement meant for social justice. Hence, December 25th must be celebrated as a human rights day of the oppressed all over the world. We can not leave this symbolic day to the pages of history only but take it further to demolish Machiavellian politics of highest kind where people are marginalized through divine sanctions and subjugated further in the name of Gods and the books supposedly written by them. No book was bigger than human liberty and freedom and therefore they need to be questioned and formulated according to modern concept of rights for all.

For every student of social sciences and human rights in India must read and understand this historical event of December 25th, 1927, as this will give them ideas to learn and understand what Ambedkar stood for and what he revolted. That was the time, when Baba Saheb challenged the religious superiority of Manu Smriti and termed it a law book of injustice and burnt it with his supporters, it was a big event for millions of people were fooled to believe in a book which can not be changed yet which was responsible for their miseries and sorrows. A person like Ambedkar would not believe in tokenism as he countered each of these laws with his thought provoking critical analysis, yet it was important for him to do something symbolic which sends a positive message among the community.

This is Ambedkar’s century and his forthright views are now a challenge for all hegemonies. Today, the movement for social justice can not imagine anything leaving Ambedkar from the centrality of it. Yet, very unfortunately, many new things are coming up projecting Ambedkar as a person from a particular community, who married to a non Dalit woman and most shockingly, they alleged, he embrace Buddhism under pressure of Hindus. This is the outcome of the growing caste identities being used for individual leaders and their fancies to achieve ‘political power’. There is nothing wrong in attaining political power but how will it sustain without a common cause and common rejection of the Varnashram dharma. How can we challenge Brahmanism without a counter-culture, which is more humane, progressive and ideologically stronger and better than an order based on prejudices and stereotypes? As Dalit Bahujan movement further split into the caste and sub-castes identities hitting at each other, the power of Ambedkar’s cultural vision become more than relevant for all of us. Ambedkar as a challenger of hegemony, a free thinker and an iconoclast would answer to all the irrelevant manipulations of his formulations and ideological constructs being constructed by these prophets of religions who find it unacceptable as why he embraced Buddhism. Problem with these thinking is that all of them denigrate Ambedkar’s great moral courage and hence it is essential to understand Ambedkar in true spirit of his philosophy of life and mission.

Yes, those who feel Ambedkar embraced Buddhism out of fear and pressure from Sangh Parivar do not really appreciate his commitment and strength. A man who could walk out of an audience with Pope John Paul just because the latter could not respond to his questions properly must have been having the courage of conviction. One must understand that Baba Saheb Ambedkar clearly mentioned that Hindu Fundamentalists are the biggest threat and Hindu Rashtra would be a colossal tragedy for India. He talked against political Islam and its threat. It would be very difficult to find a man of Ambedkar’s vision and courage who single handedly brought change in the lives of millions of people in India.

Ambedkar is the name of Freedom, liberty and enlightened individual. And he is aspiration and hope of millions of people denied rights and yet by dint of their hard work, they have challenge the brahmanical superstructure. He was a man of great pragmatism yet never ever compromised on his principles. His pragmatism never ever reflected in politics of opportunism which is very much part of today’s politics and politicians. His thrust on individual is a landmark from any standard as even European society and Americans had not discovered that individualism that Ambedkar aspired for. For him individual was supreme and those who denigrate individual can not really build a healthy society? Our societies deny individual the basic liberty and that is why it can not be called a society.

Today, on December 25th, we must have the courage to be as courageous as Baba Saheb Ambedkar was to his thoughts and action, his creations, his thoughts, of his convictions and commitments. His fight for the fundamental right of access to natural resources, added by rejection of the racist brahmanical order should be part of our college curriculum. Those who believe in egalitarian society must understand the meaning of Ambedkar and his fight for social justice. Today, in the world where our governments and societies are hurting the individual liberty the most, when our political parties are compromising with religious fundamentalists, when our Khap panchayats are deciding what we should do and what should we think, Ambedkar’s ideas remains a beacon of hope. Ambedkar is the hope for all the oppressed. The women in India need to understand that Dr Ambedkar’s struggle for them was supreme. This day when we celebrate the Christmas as big day, it is a big day for millions of people all over the world for their dignity and human right. His ideas need to globalised and propagated internationally so that more and more people understand the enormity of his struggle and modernity of his ideas which changed our world. Let president Obama read Dr Ambedkar and his writings and he will understand the cruelty of Indian village system as well as how a giant like Ambedkar could bring hopes in the lives of million without using any violent methods but simply advocating through a counter culture to oppression and subjugation. The politics of identity is great but as Ambedkar himself said about his own ‘ I was born as Hindu which was not in my hand but I will not die as a Hindu’. It clearly indicates that he was out to create new identity and harp on it. The sacrifice of Baba Saheb Ambedkar was for all of us to live in an enlightened society. We can not have our vision by reasserting our identities created under the brahmanical construct. A new dawn need to be created which means a cultural change is prerequisite for making final assault on Brahmanism and Ambedkar has shown us the path. It is time we chose that identity charted by him and get out of this big brahmanical game of hurting each other. We all may have minor contradiction but we need to understand the bigger contradiction of our life is with the order created by Manu. Baba Saheb chose to hit at that bigger contradiction in Mahad and it is time we need to follow that again and again. We may burn Manu Smriti in public but let us throw it away in the rubbish bin of history and pledge to work for a humanist society as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When we shed our internal prejudices then the mother of the scavenging community girls who were brutally burnt Moradabad would not feel isolated with in the Dalit Bahujan politics and we will not raise an issue when there is a good political crop to harvest. That time every individual is important for us as Baba Saheb time and again maintained. It is tragic that like the Hindus we also prejudge things and confine ourselves in the realm of identity politics. Baba Saheb’s message was meant for all of us and we must come in solidarity of all who need us. It is here that Balmikis of Moradabad need our support. Even if, as some people assume that the brothers of these girls who were burnt, were criminals, that does not mean that the girls and their family should have paid the price for the crime they never committed. Blaming people on their birth identity and on the crime of some one else is brahanical and need to be challenged at all level including our personal and ideological discourse. The biggest defeat of Manu Smriti would be the social-cultural unity of victims of that order created by it, but in the absence of a concrete programme of action and because of conspicuous silence on matter such as these killings create further rifts in the people and make them fall in the hands of those who are actually the biggest offenders of our dignity and human rights. Unity will never happen with big jargons and rhetoric but is only possible with expression of solidarity and participating and being part of every struggle for human dignity and human rights. And message from Mahad is that intellectuals who write must ensure at least some time of their life to be participants of a social movement and struggle for change. How did Baba Saheb Ambedkar found time to write so many things and yet be part of all the major struggles. His writings and work had the conviction strongly inbuilt that unless we become part of social movements for change and unless we shed these brahmanical prejudices and values in our personality, we will always be carrying Manu in our heart and mind. Ambedkar did not have the patience to hear Pope that it will take so many centuries for elimination of caste system and walked out of him. Ambedkar has done his work, it is time for us to pledge that we will not sit ideally unless this notorious system is demolished and the best way to do so would be by taking further his path and creating an enlightened and equitable society, if not among all, at least among our own selves.

Insensitivity towards Scavenging community in India : The Hindu must apologise

The insensitivity of a sensitive paper



By Vidya Bhushan Rawat







The Hindu has been termed as one of the most sensitive dailies in India. Despite all provocations, its editors have tried to be non provocative. On many occasions when the Delhi’s dailies went berserk, the Hindu had a wisdom to control things. And such sanity on parts of the Hindu was highly appreciable particularly during the anti Mandal imbroglio in Delhi or the Ayodhya’s shameful demolition of Babari mosque or unearthing the Bofors scandal or reporting on Bombay riots and then the blasts that ripped the city last year.



Ofcourse, during this course, Hindus reporting on many areas was questionable particularly on Nandigram and Singur violence. It was shocking but those who are the students of media understand its compulsions.



A few years back your sister publication ‘Frontline’ brought out a cover story on the horrible and shameful traditions of manual scavenging. That was definitely a praise worthy thing but unfortunately again the clean chit given to West Bengal government on manual scavenging without ever caring to speak to thousands of the people belonging to scavenging community at the Belilius Park who were mercilessly displaced. Today, nothing happened to them. They were neither rehabilitated nor got any other place to live as most of them were the people from various scavenging communities like Balmikis, Helas, Rawats from different north Indian states. Most of them were employed as sweepers at Howarh Municipal Corporation where people were still doing manual scavenging long back.



However, despite all this, it never felt that Hindu is offending the sentiments of the people though your claims that Gandhi fought for untouchable while completely ignoring the heroic struggle of Ambedkar is example how selective you can be. But, November 27th write up by Praveen Swamy on Mumbai’s horrific incidents under headline ‘ where style has trumped substance’ has unnecessarily compared the issue of scavengers with police men.



In his article Swamy shamelessly argues,’ ‘Working upwards of fourteen hours a day — not counting the typically three hours spent commuting — constable Kamble earns a basic pay of Rs. 5,200 a month. Sanitation workers employed by the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation are paid less — Rs. 4,440 a month — but end up taking home similar wages, because of overtime. Indeed, until the Sixth Pay Commission recently upgraded the categorisation of police work as semi-skilled from skilled, sanitation workers actually made more money. Little has been done to upgrade the police’s living standards and training.’



Swamy does not know that those who scavenge or are involved in sanitary work do not have any holidays. Even when they might get relatively better salary in Mumbai, yet there is no holidays for them and why is it that most of them come from one particular community. Swamy has forgotten about the racial nature of the sanitation work in India.It is worst then that as these workers may not get a home in a normal location, they do not drink tea at a common place and might get it in a dhaba when nobody know their identity.



Yes, today, people like Praveen Swamy might feel that the sweepers are getting over time and the policemen are getting it. Will Praveen Swamy ever visit to those untouchable women who clean shit and do not get paid up. Can you send your reporters to find out how many of the people from scavenging communities are getting two meals a day despite involved in this heinous occupation. Despite all claims and works done by not only Gandhi but various governments, manual scavenging is still prevalent and going high. In the villages it is faminised as most of the men go to the urban areas for work and women continue to do it. The reason the lowest salaries for them and mostly they are contract labors who never get their salaries on time. In Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, there are thousands of people from scavenging communities who are working on contract yet have not got their salaries for past six months. And this is a regular features yet our newspapers have no time for the same. Even when government claim that manual scavenging has been eliminated from cities ( it is a false claim and we can still get the same in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai), yet if we see the unfortunate deaths of the people from the same community in sewage pipe lines. Who are the people dying in these sewage pipe lines without any protective gears? Have you ever asked how much money they get for dying for cleaning our wastes?





We have no complain against your supporting the cause of policemen who are lowly paid but to compare their work with that of sanitation workers is utterly disgraceful. It has shown the insensitivity of the author coming from upper caste background and thinking he and his community have sole property right over patriotism. Should we think that Hindu’s editors remain highly insensitive to the issue of untouchables in the country by publishing Praveen Swamy’s article without editing?




Even when policemen are dying for the ‘country’, most of the countrymen will never have sympathy with them as long as they think themselves above the law. We can understand the threat of terrorism but we must not ignore the fact that police system is created by the government where their Jawans are just hated not by the terrorists but Aadivasis and Dalits where they become state’s main torturing agency to extract money and rob them of their resources. On the contrary, whether it was British or Indians, the scavenging work is done by same community and all efforts by politicians and governments have been far below satisfaction. In such situation, if a seasoned writer compares the work of sanitation workers as ‘free lunch’, he must be made to apologize.



Untouchability is a blot on face of India. Despite all claims of our progress, it still remains. It is hidden apartheid. Much bigger then the issue of terrorism which grows out of victim mindset. As long as the caste Hindus refuse to accept this heinous crime done on humanity, they will have to live with the biggest shame of civilization. The biggest untouchability and racial prejudice is manual scavenging and Balmikis face is daily in their work. The indignity heaped on them can not be erased by paying them a few thousand rupees. Praveen Swamy deserve condemnation from civil society. The Hindu must apologize for its publication and desist publishing such insensitive pieces in future. Let it lead a campaign against untouchability and manual scavenging for erase its serious lap in the publication of such a sinister article.

Balmikis face eviction and isolation in Uttarakhand

Has the state of Uttarakhand abdicated its responsibility to social justice ?

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Dogadda Garhwal is a small town and perhaps the smallest Nagar Panchayat in district Paurigarhwal. With a population of less than 5000 inhabitat, this town is encircled by two rivers named as Khoh river. Nearly 15 kilometer from Kotwara, the train link between Uttarakhand and rest of the country, Dogadda is a serene town with enormous beauty of the mountains. The small town had an isolated pocket where the Balmikis live. The municipality provided them one room houses on the river bank in the early sixties. In fact, these houses were granted by social welfare board of Uttar-Pradesh. After the Uttarakhand came into being, Dalits continue to face marginalisation, subjugation and complete isolation in the otherwise upper caste dominated states where the Brahmins and Thakurs fight against each other and other communities become as an added advantage to both these communities.

The story of the Balmikis in the hills is same every where. Every town has Balmikis who immigrated from various rural towns of Uttar-Pradesh nearly 4-5 decade back. They could not be assimilated as the caste identities in culturally sensitive Uttarakhand are very strong. Yet, because of isolation and subjugation, they worked and stayed here. Many of them were born here and started working since the independence. Now with the mechanisation process on, Nagar Palikas are not recruiting the Balmikis. Actually, it is a conspiracy to keep them subjugated so that their labour is easily available. While government might claim that carrying nightsoil is prohibited yet the fact of the matter is who clean the cemented pit of the latrine when it is filled in a year or two ? Ultimately cleaning these pits is simply as inhuman and degrading as cleaning the human excreta daily. The only difference is that one pretend that they have switched to flushed latrines.

Today, many of these Balmikis face eviction threat not only in Dogadda but elsewhere in Uttarakhand under the pretext of a Supreme Court order. I have written the attached letter to many commissions including National Human Rights Commission, National Scheduled Caste Commission and the Lokayukta of Uttarakhand state in Dehradun, in hope that the government would take action on it at the earliest.

You too can write to the authorities to stop exploitation and harrassment of the scavenging community in Uttarakhand. In the 21st century we still continue with this heneious crime against humanity and have failed in rehabilitating the community ? One must ask this question to all those guardians of the government in India as why have they failed to honour their words to world community and to the people of India through its constitution and by signing various international treaties.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr Buta Singh,
Chairman,
National Commission for Scheduled Castes,
Lok Nayak Bhavan,
Khan Market
New Delhi October 23rd, 2007



Re: Urgent appeal to save the five Balmiki families of Dogadda Garhwal (Uttarakhand)
from eviction from Balmiki Busttee by the Nagarpalika.

Sir,

We would like to bring to your notice the fear of displacement lurking over the head of nearly 12 Balmiki families in the town of Dogadda Garhwal (Uttarakhand). Though notices have gone to five of them yet at the moment the entire bustee fear police action as well as manipulation by different political outfits, which term them encroachers. These families had settled many years back (over 50 years) in the state of Uttarakhand and were working in the Nagar-Palika, Dogadda as sweeper. Many of them worked as manual scavengers in the private houses, a practice which is still prevalent in many parts of Uttarakhand despite loud claims of total prohibition.

We, in the social Development Foundation, Delhi have been working on the issue of the rights of the Dalits particularly manual scavengers and would be bringing out a status paper on the condition of Balmiki community in Uttarakhand and Uttar-Pradesh next year.

At the moment, this urgent call comes to you as the Nagar Palika of Dogadda Garhwal has given notices to five families to vacate their houses, which were given to them in the Balmiki Mohalla. Some of them have retired from the municipality but still live in the mohalla. The Balmikis in the Uttarakhand are immigrants and are virtually landless and shelter less community. It virtually has no socio-cultural linkage with the local communities yet it served them unhesitatingly and in total subjugation for the past fifty odd years. Yet after serving the people of the state and towns for past so many years today they are thrown away, unwanted and uncared for. Their condition is pathetic and the state has shown no sympathy towards their welfare. It is clear that their economic condition is not such which can allow them to rent out a house elsewhere. Secondly, it is impossible for them to get a house on rent in the otherwise upper caste dominated Uttarakhand state.



No political party raises their issue for the fear of offending the upper castes. It is tragic that the issues of Dalit’s right have become politicized in a very negative way. While Dalit rights campaign were aggressive everywhere it remain mute in the Himalayan states of Uttarkhand and Himachal Pradesh.


This Nagar Palika orders comes in wake of an instruction from the Directorate of Urban Development, ( Uttarakhand), Dehradun dated September 19th, 2007. This order refer to Supreme Court petition no 4064/2004, S.D.Bandi verses Divisional State Officer ( a copy of the priority of the directorate is being enclosed herewith), asking state to vacate those houses where people are over staying. These include government accommodations, public sector, local government bodies etc. Now to put the sweepers in the same category with that of a bureaucrat or a Babu is not only condemnable but must be questioned. Asking the sweepers that they are overstaying in a one room semi-constructed Balmiki locality shows the mindset that works to put the Dalits on the defensive. Rather than feeling apologetic that the state and the Nagarpalikas have shamelessly not done anything to rehabilitate the Balmikis, the state here is forcing them out to live in the streets. At the time when there will be severe cold waves in the hills, the state’s action amount to violate right to life and right to live with dignity and must be resisted at all cost.

I would also like to add here none of the Dalit landless have been granted land for housing in Dogadda and these Balmikis were living their on the bank of river Khoh in complete isolation. Nobody visit them, their socio-economic profile is of deep misery. They live on the mercy of the upper castes and there is no awareness among them as at the moment their first struggle is of survival.

It is also ironical that at the moment only 9 permanent staff is working in the municipality while several years back their number was 12. They work on sever and cleaning the Nalis. Only one woman has got a job in the municipality. There are 5 persons working on contract with a salary of Rs 2,100/- while the two persons appointed by local Samiti are being paid rupees one thousand five hundred per month. When women do not job at the municipality they simply work in the private houses to clean nightsoil, a practice still active and not visible because of the threat to those who expose it.

Following are the retired sweepers who have got notice to vacate their houses and who have nowhere to go.

1. Shankar,
2. Ramdayal
3. Chandrodevi
4. Gurudeva
5. Sunehari




At the moment, following are the people who are working as ‘regular’ employees in the Nagar Palika


1. Ramnath
2. Chandrapal
3. Gopalram
4. Ratan
5. Rajpal
6. Saroj Devi
7. Shambhu
8. Kumar
9. Vir Singh

Those who are working on contract are following

1. Sanju
2. Subodh
3. Raju
4. Prakash
5. Virendra

Those who are appointed by the local Samiti are following

1. Rakesh
2. Kamal

Ironically, like any other municipality in Uttarkhand and Uttar-Pradesh, the nagar palika here also has not given salaries to its sweeper for the past 7 months. What does it expect them to do? Not even go for strike and ask their fundamental right. While it is claimed that carrying night soil is prohibited, we would like to challenge that. Even in the so-called flush latrines would have to be cleaned annually or biennially, as there is no sever in real sense. For cleaning you only need Balmiki boys. While men can get a job with the municipality the female still do ‘private’ work. Most of those who have retired have not got their dues from municipality. Shankar, Chandrodevi, Gurudeva, Tarawati , Ramdayal and Sumarati. These dues includes pension, gratuity, GPF etc.



Most of the scavenger community people are not in a position to buy land. They claim that the area where they are living at the moment were allotted to them in 1964-65 by the ‘ Samaj Kalyan vibhag’ and that they were given these rooms as a contribution by the department. In fact, this reflect in the letter of Mrs Saroj Rana on July 29th, 2007 to CEO of the Nagarpalika in which she has asked the Nagarpalika to provide her the list of people living in the Balmiki Bastee and who are the allottees.

It seems that the officials and political leaders of the Nagarpalika are manipulating the entire incident to pressurize the sweepers to leave the place and do not ask for their legitimate rights. As Gurudewa, a former sweeper in the Nagarpalika writes in his letter to Chief Executive Officer of the Nagarpalika that his father started working in the municipality since 1947-48 and that he too got involved in the Nagar Palika work since 1958. He has not got anything from pension to gratuity from the Nagarpalika. Their children were born here in this town and now they are being forced to leave this place. One does not know where they will be thrown away. This is the best gift by the bureaucrats and upper castes officers can give to the Dalits in a state where they live in complete subjugation and isolation.

I would be grateful if the Scheduled Caste Commission take note of it and ask the Nagarpalika not to get the houses of the Balmikis vacated without providing them a suitable alternative. Tomorrow is the last date of notice and the Nagarpalika threaten them with police action.

Thank you,

Yours Sincerely,

For Social Development Foundation,


Vidya Bhushan Rawat
Director





Enclosed :

1. G.O. from the Director, Directorate Urban Development,
Letter of Eviction to Mrs Chandro and Shankar,
Letters by Gurudeva and Chandro
Letter from District Samaj Kalyan Adhikari claiming that the houses were allotted to Balmikis by the nagarpalika.