Dt:  24/6/13

Dalit Uplift

Dr T.H.Chowdary*

Sri M Satyanarayana, speaking  on the occasion of the release of the  Telugu  version of his book, "My Father  Balaiah" is reported to have  said (Indian Express 23/6/13) that "untouchability was not  practiced by Christians".  This is factually not correct. Until 1994, the  9% White, Christian rulers  of South Africa practised  "apartheid" ie. separation of the 90% black, natives into  separate  habitations; gave  them no place  in government .  The  native black  Christians(ised) Bishop Tutu famously, said, " when you (white Christians ) came  here you had the  Book ( Bible) ;  we had  the land. But, now, we have the  Book  ( converted to Christianity ) and you have the land".

2. The white  Christian immigrant settlers in Americas bought  black Africans  as slaves.  They denied them all human rights even  after  converting them to  Christianity.  President  Abraham Lincoln undertook, a civil war to free the  slaves. But "segregation" (apartheid) continued  till as  recently as the  1960s.  President Eisenhower had to send Federal Troops  to enforce de-segregation in the  Southern states of the  USA.  Even today, the Christianised black Afro-Americans have  Churches, separate from those of the white Christians .

3. As regards Muslims treating  Dalits better, one has only to read the  long letter of the  late  Sri  Jogendranath Mondals long letter to the Prime Minister, Liaquat  Ali  Khan of  Pakistan.  Mondal was from East  Bengal(Bangladesh since 1971). He was leader of the Sheduled  castes  there. He  was in alliance with the  Muslim League  and  was a Minister  in H.S.Suhrawardy's Muslim League  cabinet that ruled undivided Bengal in the mid 1940s.  He was in the  Muslim League's team of the Vice-Roy's Executive  Council in the  Interim Cabinet  (Sept  1946 to 14 Aug 1947) in Delhi .

4. After partition, he was  Minister  for Law in Pakistan, under  Liaquat Ali Khan's Prime Ministership.  The scheduled  caste  Hindus in east  Pakistan were subjected  to rape, loot and forced conversion to  Islam.  Mondal  wrote  memo after  memo to Liaquat Ali Khan, describing  the atrocities and requesting a stop to  them. Liaquat's  reply was, "Islam permits  no forced conversions or atrocities. Your

 complaints  are  all therefore false". Shocked  and disillusioned with  Islamic  rule  and Muslims ' treatment  of  Dalits, Mondal  fled from Pakistan,  got refuge in Calcutta and died there  unsung and unnoticed. Most Hindus that are still in Pakistan are Dalits, often  subjected to abduction, rape and  conversion, living  as sweepers, prevented  from migrating  to India ( I have  printed  copies of Sri  Jogindranath  Mondal's letter to his Moslem Prime Minister & colleague.  It will be mailed to  whosoever wants).

5. Prof. Kolakaluri Enoach, observed, at the  book release function that  "only 20 percent of Dalit  in the  country were emancipated like Balaiah".  True.  If only reservations for S.Cs are  restricted to say, two generations  of the  first  beneficiary, then many more  Dalits  would  have  received  higher  education and so would  have been emancipated. I urge upon Dalit   intellectuals  and "left", "progressive"  campaigners  to read the chapters "Caste over-turned"  and "Vote Banking" in Sir Mark Tully' book "NON STOP India" to know  much about the  emancipation of  Dalits in our  country  and in particular, the  study called "Rethinking Inequality" conducted  at the  initiative of  Sri Chandra  Bhan Prasad, the outstanding  Dalit  intellectual and  prolific writer .  The study comprised a field survey by a team of  academics two from the  United  States, one from India  and himself. One of their  findings is  that  India's Dalits  have  gained considerable  social equality as distinct from  economic equality , education and  affirmative  action mandated by our  Constitution, (but unimaginatively implement by governments, of all parties) are the  engines of Dalits'  emancipation.

6. It is   however regrettable that  some  politicians  are re-inventing and promoting  castes in Christianity and Islam - Dalit  Christians  (80% of Indian  converts) and Dalit Muslims (Pasnandas, 85% of Muslims ). That reservations are  advancing only some sub-castes among  S.Cs ( unrecorded conversions) has given rise to the  demand for vargikaran or  classification and apportion of  reservations among the different sub-castes according to their numerical strength.  Politicians engaged in creation of  vote banks are  demanding  that there be reservations  for B.Cs,  that many more  castes be declared as B.Cs, S.Cs and  STs and  that among the reservations  for  B.Cs there should be quotas  for different  castes among  B.Cs.

7. One despairs and wonders  whether our politicians  are  working  for the  realization of a  society and nation in which  social, economic and political inequalities  will be  eliminated as  envisaged by Dr B R Ambedkar or whether  their interest is to  form caste  and religion-based Alliances and Fronts to get ruling power to build up new ruler, feudal dynasties. 

8. It would be  great folly for Dalits to jump  from the frying pan  (of unjust Bharatiya  Dharma) into the fire  of Christianity by conversion. Dr B.R.Ambedkar expressly and decisively  advised  India's Dalits to reject foreign origin religions  and  embrace only a swadeshi  Dharma – Buddhism and  reclaim the great  Swadeshi heritage  minus the  excrescences like untouchability, graded inequality by birth and denial of humanness to some.  The history  of foreign origin religions  reveals far worse inhuman-ness, slavery, exploitation, inequality, superstition, loot and oppression. India's intellectuals  should  strive to sculpt an egalitarian, non-hating, non-intolerant, polity.   (869 words) -END