Scholars still trying to understand Indian religion

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ANI Wednesday 23rd January, 2008

By Sandeep Datta New Delhi, Jan.23 : Scholars participating in the conference on "Rethinking Religion in India" on Wednesday here were still trying to understand religion as is practiced in the sub-continent. The feeling was that there was a negative picture of India religion elsewhere in the world. According to Dunkin Jalki, a Ph.d student on Cultural Studies from Bangalore,"Only when Asians reflect upon themselves or each other, a positive picture on (social systems) emerges." Prof. J.S.Sadananda of the Kuvempu University in Karnataka, who has been conducting research work on caste in Karnataka's 40 villages, said: "The perception of India appears influenced by Christian theological framework of Europe. They haven't been able to understand the phenomenon they are studying." According to Professor Rajeev Ranjan Sinha, Head of the Department of Sanskrit Vidya and Dean Faculty of Shamana Vidya at Sampoornanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi, the speakers appear to have misunderstood the concept "Jaati" during their research. "The word Jaati is not caste. I am speaking from the studies of Sanskrit texts. 'Jaati' is a technical term in Indian Nyaya philosophy where it means the element which covers the whole race (i.e ness).But nowhere it means as a caste in the Sanskrit texts. You cannot term Jaati as a religion, sect or caste." Prof.Sinha said. Prof. Purushottam Bilimale pointed out that Jati in the Indian context does not mean caste Dravidian. He said: "Entire 27 communities of the Dravidian world don't have a single world equalling to "Jaati". If you accept that as a fact, because it is a Sanskrit world, we have to see the entire Dravidian world in a different way with a question "what else is there?" "When you look at the Dravidian rituals the basic functioning tools are kinship and family," he added.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

A study supported and sponsored by the Centre for Education and Documentation, Bangalore, under its Outreach Scholarship programme.

October 2006

compiled by Dunkin Jalki

Research Scholar
CSCS, Bangalore 11

Abstract

Our contemporary understanding of caste violence is afflicted to a great extent by our faulty and unscientific understanding of the caste system in India. As a consequence, this essay argues, we have not been able to even understand the nature of the violence in our society, leave alone finding solutions for it. The nature of the writings on caste, which this essay ies to analyse, confirms this fact.

The dearth of our understanding of the so called ‘caste violence’ in our society is evident nowhere as clearly as in the reports produced by the NGOs and the committees/commissions appointed by the state governments in India on the atrocities on the Dalits. This research makes a survey of these reports and other popular writings such as articles published in magazines, newsletters, and newspapers, and other documents produced for private circulation by various governmental and non-governmental agencies. This survey tries to show that in the future only if we breakup the explanatory cluster called caste theories we will be able to deal with some of the atrocities and violence in our society, in a better way.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

Introduction

Let me begin this essay on a personal note. My first acquaintance with the activism in the area of caste violence is now seven years old. It began during my first doctoral research in Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL), Hyderabad. I was one of the group of students who came together to start, now an active minority students body in CIEFL, called Dalit Bahujan and Minority Students Association (DBMSA). Some of the issues that we picked up as part of our work in the association were, fighting for the Dalit students’ rights in the students’ mess, and the library; fee concessions for the Dalit students, their admission issues, reservation, and so on. There was one question that kept some of us wondering all through these years of activism. Why are we not able to convince our fellow students about the presence of caste related problems, or some solutions to them? And, to add to this frustration, all that we can glean from the histories written in the 19th and 20th century about the fights against caste issues – in the history of mankind from the days of Buddha1 to Basavanna, from Ambedkar to Kancha Ilaiah – is that despite the centuries of activism we have not been able to eradicate caste related problems in India.

[H]ow are we to destroy this caste system? Several attempts have been made [but they all failed]…Ambedkar…finally [resorted to] … renouncing Hindu religion and embracing the atheistic Buddhism along with thousands of his ‘Mahar’ followers. Several social reformers too tried to attack the caste system but all of them failed including men like Basavanna, Narayana Guru, Vivekananda and Periyar…[and] Gandhi. (Shetty 1978: p. 6)

Today, at the end of my second doctoral research, and the three inactive years of Dalit activism, when I look back on the issues we fought for, and their intransigent nature, logically I see only one way out of it: to reflect upon our very understanding of caste system, and problematise the compatibility of our problems and the related solutions. If it is the case that people from Buddha to Basavanna have failed in eradicating the caste system, then there must be something seriously wrong about their approach to the problem itself. Or, our understanding of the caste system and Buddha and Basavanna’s work is problematic. This reflection on my own activist days, however small, was made possible by some of the recent persuasive work in the area of social sciences.2 It is during this time that CED, thanks to CED, awarded me a scholarship, and opened out a whole archive of writings on the issue of caste, and provided ample time and space to sit and think about them

1 ‘By the end of the Rig Vedic period the Brahmins emerged as the Superior caste.’ (David 1979: p. 10)

2 I refer here to all the published and unpublished works of S.N Balagangadhara and Vivek Dhareshwar. And this essay owes a great deal to the writings of S.N Balagangadhara.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

The Problem of Caste System

I should state two things clearly at the very outset. The material available in the CED archive made two of my convictions clearer: The daily violence in our society is a fact. There is no doubt that people are being exploited. And, probably, some jatis (castes) face more exploitation than some other jatis. And, our understanding of violence is afflicted to a great extent by the faulty theories of the caste system. Such faulty and unscientific theories of caste system are an injustice (that is both epistemological and political injustice at the same time) to the ‘oppressed’ people of our society.

We know that the violent incidents that the reports on the caste system in India refer to do exist. However, it is distressing and strange that we have no clear understanding of the problems, nor the causes of these problems. One way to present this is to point out the circularity in the arguments about the caste system. The arguments about caste violence, whether scholarly or popular, begin by discussing the incidents of violence which they claim to be the manifestations of the caste system. To put it in other words, we are told that

atrocities are committed against Dalits simply because they are considered ‘untouchables’ and therefore, according to the caste rationale, have no rights. (Dalit Human Rights Monitor-2000 2000: pp. 7-8)

However, when they have to explain the caste system, they in turn invoke these incidents as an explanation of the immorality of the caste system. That is, the caste system is explained using the incidents of caste violence, and the incidents of caste violence are in turn explained by the caste system. This is a problem of petitio principi; a logical fallacy where the argument assumes what it has to prove, or is trying to prove.

If so, where to look for an answer to our question about our alleged lack of understanding of the caste problems? The only place we can look for an answer, I insist, is the nature of our understanding of these problems. Though, problems such as murders, or economic exploitation of people is a brute fact, the same cannot be said about all the problems that writings on the caste system discuss. We will have more to say about it later in the article. But, for now, it is enough if I point out that the caste problems such as ‘untouchability’ or ‘caste abuse’ do not share all the properties of a violent incident like murder or rape. Therefore, let us dissociate these problems from their descriptions, to begin with. This will help us to see if these problems exist as their descriptions claim them to be.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

Caste System as a Meta-Entity

To begin with, we can ask the following question: Is it possible to talk about the caste system without referring to, what are called, incidents of ‘caste violence’? To follow the general theorization of the caste system is to necessarily distinguish the ‘caste system’ from ‘casteism’, at the very outset. The caste system is a particular way of ordering a society. Such an order need not be oppressive in itself. This order becomes oppressive only because of the presence of some kind of unethical attitude of certain groups within this order towards other groups. We can call this attitude casteism. But there is a problem with this distinction. This distinction compels us to conclude that casteism can be found among all jatis, irrespective of their social status. Such a hypothesis, however, is not acceptable to most of the writers and activists writing and thinking about caste violence in India.¹ That would mean that there must be something deeply unethical about the very scheme of ordering called the caste system. And it is in this sense then that people generally say that caste system in Indian society is responsible for the caste violence.

[U]ntouchability being a part of the caste system will really disappear only when the caste system goes. Gandhi only opposed untouchability but not the caste system. The constitution abolished untouchability, not the caste system. On the other hand, the constitution has encouraged castes at all levels giving them a legal sanction. (Rajshekar Shetty 1978: p. 5)

…the caste system is the most powerful system of reservations; it decides who will study, rule, trade etc. Hence the biggest drawback is that majority of the society is denied opportunity, where talent has no opportunity for growth. (V. P Singh, the former Prime Minister of India in an interview, “Caste system is the most powerful quota system. It decides who studies, rules etc.” The Indian Express, 2006, 16 April)

If so, the caste system as an overarching unethical system perpetuates casteist violence in the Indian society. That is, the caste system is a meta-entity which requires an explanation independent of its manifestations – i.e., the caste violence.

1 Such disagreements are expressed either by suggesting that the violence committed by the ‘lower caste’ people themselves are negligibly small or that it is in reaction to the violence committed by the ‘upper caste’ people.

[T]he number of times that Dalits strike back are a mere drop in the ocean. (Dalit Human Rights Monitor-2000 2000: p. 9)

Asad (2000) in his opinionated report on caste violence in Bihar explains the causes for the violent incidents committed by Dalit groups thus:

Caste violence [in Bihar] has its roots in the land disputes. … In rural Bihar people from backward communities started calling the shots. This irked the landlords. They found power slipping out of their hands.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

Popular Writings on Caste System

With this hypothesis we can now enter the area of popular writings on the caste system. The popular writings will show whether or not people refer to the higher entity called the caste system, when they talk about the caste violence, in whatever minimal way. By which I mean, the popular writings on the caste problems should be able to fix its references by referring to the overarching structure called the caste system, if not, such writings should be unintelligible to us.¹

One type of writings that I have considered under popular writings is the reports on the caste violence put together by NGOs or the committees appointed by the state governments in India. We will analyze here one such report produced by an internationally known non-government organization based in Secunderabad, called Sakshi: Dalit Human Rights Monitor 1999-2000: Andhra Pradesh (2000). Let us first note the kind of statements that we come across in the randomly chosen two pages of this report.

Page: 7 1. An “untouchable is considered ritually, physically, and spiritually impure.” 2. “Caste system assigns the Dalit all the unclean work such as disposing of carcasses, cleaning latrines, digging graves, sweeping.” 3.Brahmins use untouchability “for the benefit of those dominant castes who have a vested interest in maintaining a permanent servile class who can be exploited and dominated.” 4. “almost every village is segregated into the Dalit colony and the caste Hindu locality.” 5.Dalits “are also denied basic human dignity…” 6. “caste custom dictates that they cannot wear nice clothes or jewelry and that they must take off their sandals in the caste Hindu locality.” 7. “In hotels they have to eat and drink from separate vessels which they then must wash themselves.” 8. “When a Dalit boy breaks caste taboo and falls in love with a dominant caste girl, he is hunted down, beaten and murdered.” 9. “Dominant castes encroach or take outright possession on land that loyally belongs to Dalits. If Dalits try to regain possession of their land, they are brutally attacked by the dominant caste.” 10.“Dalits bear the lion’s share of the country’s low-paid manual and menial labour.” “Dominant castes capture polling booths, rig the votes and engage in bogus voting in order to prevent Dalits from exercising their franchise.” 11. " When they do not vote for the dominant caste candidate, Dalits are attacked and their homes are looted and burned.”

Page 8: 12. “These atrocities are committed against Dalits simply because they are considered ‘untouchables’ and therefore, according to the caste rationale, have no rights.” 13. “Most Dalits are poor” 14. “A Dalit may be economically better off, but…is still looked down upon as an ‘untouchable’…and though a dominant caste person might be poor, he is still looked up to as ‘high’ caste.” 15. “In general the policy makers and civil society…” think that untouchability does not exist”

These statements, at the first glance, seem to be talking about the world in general and caste system in particular. The first sentence, for instance, “untouchable is considered ritually, physically, and spiritually impure” seems to be saying something about the untouchables, and their social condition, if we agree, for the sake of clarity, that by untouchables we refer to certain groups of people and, that by ‘ritually, physically, and spiritually impure’ we refer to their social condition of some kind. But, this sense will dissolve soon upon a closer scrutiny. They fail to say anything about the world or caste system. Why? Because, they lack quantification. That is, as S. N Balagangadhara explains, “it is not clear how to interpret these statements, if they are taken to describe the world: are they about ‘some’ or ‘all’ of the objects under consideration? Unless quantified, no statement can describe the world.”² This is one of the linguistic properties shared by all the statements listed above. They do not specify whether they are talking about all Dalit people or one Dalit person. Further, it is also not clear whether all Dalits are considered impure by everybody in India, including Dalits, or only by all non-Dalit people of India. Such universal quantifications can be proved wrong by producing one instance contrary to the claim. If the quantification in the claim is existential, i.e., if the claim is that at least one Dalit person is considered impure by at least one non-Dalit person, such a claim is trivially true.

The vagueness of the statement that an “untouchable is considered ritually, physically, and spiritually impure” is also due to the use of the term ‘untouchability’ as an explanatory unit in the sentence. It is not clear as to what the word untouchability refers to. By untouchability if we refer to such practices as not-dining together, not-marrying etc., it is still not clear why a practice of not-marrying between two scheduled castes, such as Madigas and Pariayas cannot be called untouchability. Or consider the following instance from the report, Caste Clashes in Southern District of Tamilnadu: An Overview (1997: p. 3).

[T]here also have been instances where in places where the Dalits were the dominant community they had practiced a kind of reverse untouchability against Thevar community. It was alleged by Thevars that in some places in Srivilliputhur taluk [of Tamilnadu] where Thevars passing through Dalit villages were made to carry their footwear on their heads and to get off the bicycles and wheel them along.

If incidents such as not allowing certain community people into a temple, or making them use separate vessels in a hotel are taken as the typical examples of untouchability, by the extension of the same logic, the above instance is also an instance of untouchability. However, not many people will agree with this argument. The report – it is to be noted, does not deny such incidents – names it as an instance of ‘reverse untouchability’. And, despite quoting this and similar instances of ‘reverse untouchability’ a few more times in the discussion, it emphatically concludes that the causes for caste clashes in Tamil Nadu is the casteist ‘attitude of caste Hindus’ (pp. 1-3). The question that we have to ask here is this: Why not consider the instances of ‘reverse untouchability’ as problematic as, what is called, ‘the casteist attitude of caste Hindus’? The report, it should be obvious to us by now, is selectively distributing the weights to the facts that it has observed. However, what is not clear to us is, what is the justification for this selective emphasis?

Untouchability

How should one understand the concept of ‘untouchability’? In the reports and popular writings on caste, this word refers to some specific groups of people in the Indian society. That is, certain practices are called the manifestations of untouchability only when it is practiced by certain specific caste people vis-à-vis some other specific caste people. What needs to be clarified, then, is who and how does one decide what groups can be called untouchable groups. Needless to say that there is no clarity on this issue. Political battles have been fought over which caste should be called an untouchable/lower caste and which should not. The newspaper reports in India are replete with the examples of these political clashes.³

Nevertheless, barring all the controversies, majority of the people have agreed upon a core list of communities who can be called untouchables. One such list is the list prepared or accepted by the Constitution of India as ‘scheduled castes’. And, in the light of the general stance of the Sakshi report, we can understand this statement – (An “untouchable is considered ritually, physically, and spiritually impure”) – as saying this: all ‘scheduled caste’ people are considered impure by all ‘non-scheduled caste’ people. First of all, such a statement is absurd. However, to give a more generous reading, we can agree that this statement is saying something like this: all ‘scheduled castes’ people are treated as untouchables by all ‘non-scheduled castes’ people. If such is the case, we can produce one instance of ‘reverse untouchability’, or one person from ‘non-scheduled castes’ who does not treat anybody as untouchable, and discredit the arguments about untouchability.⁴ The statement therefore cannot assume such a universal qualification, especially when it claims to be an empirical report of the situation in Andhra Pradesh. This statement, thus does not prove anything, instead it assumes a story, a priori.

1 See S.N Balagangadhara’s unpublished writings on stereotypes for more on inability of the stereotypes in fixing their references.

2 See Balagangadhara’s unpublished article on stereotypes.

3 For instance let me draw your attention to the controversy created by the rejection of Venakataswamy Committee or Backward Class Commission by the Government of Karnataka, headed by Ramakrishna Hegde, in 1986. The strange thing is that the Committee was appointed by the same government. Chidanand Rajghatta reporting in the 1986, 24 October issue of The Telegraph observes that the Venakataswamy Committee “recommended that the Vokkaligas, a politically powerful land owning community, be dropped from the backward classes list enlisting them to reservations.” Ramakrishna Hegde, the then chief minister of Karnataka, not only rejected the recommendation of the committee but also increased reservations to 92% population.

4 It is because a theory has to be shunned as soon as an anomaly crops up. A single occurrence that contravenes the common law that a scientific theory proposes is enough to discredit the theory completely.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

The Confusions Caused by Stereotypes

It is these kinds of statements which S. N Balagangadhara calls stereotypes. A property that stereotypes share is that they are unquantified claims. They do not specify whether they are talking about all or some of the objects they are referring to. Some of the examples of the stereotypes are these kinds of statements: Blacks are lazy, Indians are immoral, Germans are industrious etc. Since, these statements do not specify how many Black people/Indians/Germans they are talking about, they fail to make any sense. As such, they are neither true nor false. Here is a list¹ of the dominant stereotypes that I found in the articles and reports referred in this essay.

Dalits suffer all kinds of deprivations (they are attacked, their homes are looted and burned, their land is encroached)

Dalits are prohibited from having education (they are the least educated people in India)

Caste problem is in practice from the ancient times (the status of the Dalits has not changed for ages)

Dalit women are more marginalized

Dalits are poor (they are the low-paid workers)

Caste is a an occupation based problem

Dalits do all sorts of unclean work (scavenging, cleaning toilets, rag picking etc.)

Policy making, and politics operates along caste line

Dalits are denied basic human dignity

Dalits cannot wear nice clothes or jewelry and must take off their sandals

Dalits have to eat and drink from separate vessels in hotels

Dalits are lower in the social hierarchy

Since these statements do not specify the quantity their value as arguments gets reduced considerably. It is not clear whether these statements pick out the impression of the report writer, or refer to the data produced through the survey conducted in some specific places, say, Andhra Pradesh, or a theoretical generalization about whole of India or even Andhra Pradesh. If it is the first one, it cannot be taken seriously. Individual impressions cannot supplement a theory of caste problem in India. If it is the second one, the authors have to specify it, and also show us how it can be used as a theoretical generalization about whole of India or Andhra Pradesh. To do this, one has to primarily shun all the stereotypical statements and get down to building theories of caste system in India.

However, throughout the report such statements get repeated obfuscating the situation that it sets out to analyse. Some of the confusions that are inherent to these reports on caste violence are a result of basing one’s understanding of violence on caste stereotypes.

An unidentified person is an upper-caste person!

The Dalit Human Rights Monitor 1999-2000 (2000) prepared by Sakshi has 226 incidents, and 20 fact finding reports on atrocities committed against Dalits, between April 1999 to March 2000 (p. 13), which are supposed to dispel the following myths (pp. 8-11):

Untouchability does not exist

Caste violence is neutral

The existence of constitutional and legal provisions are successful in protecting Dalits

Civil society is an innocent bystander

Modern development will cast out caste

Education will eradicate untouchability

Contrary to its possibly universally quantified statements all that it shows in actual data is this:

Incidents of Dalit Human Rights violations

Murders: 38

Attempted murders: 01

Rapes: 26

Attempted rapes: 12

Attacks and Assaults: 68

Seizure and Destruction of property: 10

Practices of ‘untouchability’: 35

State violence (Caste discrimination in state agencies):

a. Custodial death and police brutality: 08

b. Murders, rapes, assaults, and arson committed by state agencies: 06

Considering the fact that the ‘scheduled castes’ in India comprise more than 85 per cent of its population, it is difficult to see how a mere 38 murders will account for the existence of the caste discrimination. This does not mean that one should not condemn these murders. But, since our analysis is faulty, we will never be able to even understand, leave alone solve these problems. Consequently, Dalit people will keep suffering atrocities (if they are indeed suffering atrocities), and all that we will be able to do is to repeat the useless slogans about the caste system. To add to this all these reports mention the violence committed by unidentified, and sometimes Dalits themselves against the Dalits as caste violence. Here are some examples:

“Two Dalit women, Kavali Rama Krishnamma (30 [years]) and Kavali Ankamma (35 [years]) were murdered…by unidentified persons.” (p. 22)

“An unidentified person murdered a 13-year old Dalit girl…” (p. 22)

Of 38 incidents of murders, 8 incidents are by unidentified persons.² Since the report claims to be a report on caste violence, on what basis can one include such instances where the accused is an unidentified person? It is a question worth asking, what assumptions have gone into accepting all these incidents as instances of caste violence?

It is strange that, even those incidents where the people of the same (Dalit) community have involved in the incidents of violence also find place in the list of atrocities on the Dalits. And as if to justify such mistake, the author at the end of such an entry writes,

after the investigations it was learnt that all the accused [of rape case] belonged to the Schedule Caste. Thus status of the case is therefore of no relevance for the purpose of this study. (Tekchandani 1995: p. LVIII)

Unclear and inchoate causes

And in those instances of murders of Dalits where the accused is a person belonging to an ‘upper caste’, most of the time the reasons are not clear for the murder. Take for instance the following case.

An article published in the Frontline (2006, 10 February), which claims to be a report on ‘The brutal attack on a Dalit in Mansa district in Punjab’ claims that this attack ‘points to the persistence of caste violence in the State.’ The attack on Bant Singh, a 40-year-old Dalit activist is an unjustifiable act, which needs to be condemned and curbed. However, by calling it caste violence we are not going to achieve anything more, especially when the causes for the attack are either not clear or are rooted somewhere else. The article points out, that Bant Singh “had been helping organise landless labourers for the left-wing Mazdoor Mukti Morcha.” And, further quotes from a

shocked villager, Sukhdev Singh, [who] said, ‘This is the first time we have heard of a Dalit being beaten up this way. When people in Punjab get angry, or are seeking revenge, they sometimes do kill. But this assault was meant to be a warning to everyone else too.’

In such circumstances one would first suspect some political party’s interest or labourer-land owner dispute behind such an attack. However, the author of the article insists that Bant Singh’s Dalit activism is the reason behind the attack: “[T]he brutal attack points to the persistence of caste violence in Punjab, which in turn is the consequence of growing Dalit assertiveness.”

Such hasty decisions on the part of the writers writing on caste violence are commonly found in the journalistic writings. As such, piling up examples is not a very useful task. Let me give a generic example instead. The offences called ‘caste abuse’ are a good example. It is not clear what counts as an offence of ‘caste abuse’.

[M]any [students] face the humiliation every day of merit list students calling them chamar or meenagiri, references to menial tasks that their forefathers, and even fathers did. (“When dalits hear voices.” 2006, 24 September. The Times of India.)³

Thus, all the cases mentioned under this title say somebody is abused by one’s caste name. However, there is no clarity on what counts as abuse in these incidents. Is it the abuse itself, or using one’s caste names? If it is the former, which no doubt should be condemned, why is it a caste issue? If it is the latter, when does use of a caste name become abusive? Obviously, the answer is when the caste names are used specifically to abuse a person it becomes an instance of untouchability. There is a problem in this definition. If we accept this logic, we cannot even use a caste name to identify a problem, as in the following instance:

A Reddy leasing out land to a Dalit will charge him higher rent than he does to a ‘higher’ caste. (Dalit Human Rights Monitor 1999-2000: p. 11).

If a student being called Chamar is a humiliation, on what grounds should we justify the use of the word Reddy? Such a use of the word Reddy to point out a biased practice of charging higher rent is justified only if we assume that all Reddy people (of the past, present and the future) have and will indulge/d in such a biased practice.

Madhava Prasad (2000) rightly points out this confusion in our understanding of caste problems in one of his articles.

[I]n its “India Matters” segment, Star News reported on the continued practice of untouchability in a part of Tamil Nadu…reporter is interviewing a labourer who says...in Tamil: “Oru kappu tee kadikkiradekashtamapochi.” A close translation of this remark would be as follows: “It is/has become difficult to get even a cup of tea.” However, the translation provided by the news programme was embellished with the insinuation of another desire, rendering the cup of tea itself immaterial. It said, “We cannot even have a cup of tea with them.” This is not so much a translation error as an ideological slip. To put it simply, the expression of a need (and the difficulty of its fulfilment) has been converted by the translator into an expression of desire. ... The labourer’s words could be interpreted as a complaint against the tea-stall owners for refusing to serve him tea, but the translator implies that he is actually more concerned about the refusal of the upper caste customers to let him share their company. To the stated object, “cup of tea” the translator adds the implied object: to have tea with “them”. The subject too has changed: the grammatical subject “it” has been replaced by the collective “we”, thereby transforming the speaker into a spokesman.⁴

Thus, the problem is that we have transformed some genuine problems of the people in our society into caste politics. This has not only hampered our ability to find solutions to these problems but also added to the aggravation of the problem, by suggesting wrong solutions.

Two Incidents

In this section let us analyse a few randomly selected case studies to see what happens when our understanding of the violent incidents is preoccupied by unscientific assumptions.

The Dalit Human Rights Violations (2000: pp. 22-25) report enlists several incidents. One of them is, “Thrice Demolition of Dalit Temple Construction”. The incident in brief is as follows:

The injustice is that the whole village receives an income of Rs. 50,000/- per year … a major share [of it] is spent for the festival of the local deity, Pidariyar. Unfortunately, the Dalits have never been allowed to play a role in this festival and neither has the deity entered their residing place. Hence, they decided in 1989 to build a temple of their own [for Mariyamma] … Construction started that year…a Vanniyar group…demolished the structure … in 1990 … [again] another Vanniyar group demolished the temple and set fire to two Dalit huts. On 23 March 1999, around 250 Vanniyars…[again] demolished the foundations of the temple [built by the Dalits].

Reportedly, two offences have been committed against the community of the Dalits here, which fall into the category of caste violence. Dalits have neither been allowed to play a role in the festival of Pidariyar, nor has the deity ever entered their residing place. And, the Dalits’ temple of Mariyamma has been repeatedly destroyed by Vanniyar community people. The latter is an offence by any consideration. But, it is not clear, what makes the former incident an offence. If a community decides that its temple is open only for the people belonging to its community, on what grounds can it be held objectionable? One can always suggest that this is not an enlightened move that a community can take vis-à-vis its temples and people of other communities. Consequently, one can criticize such a move, and suggest a better way of living, as the bhakti traditions in India did. But, how can one consider it a crime? It is a crime, only if it violates a norm. That is, only if we presume that people have some kind of right to enter every temple or offer pooja to any deity, we can consider the petty move of the Vanniyar community as a crime. However, do we have any such norm in the Indian society? Our commonsense is enough to answer this question with an emphatic ‘No’. What happens in the process is that the actual crime committed by the Vanniyar community of destroying the temple of the Dalits, i.e., if to believe the report, has got sidelined in a discussion which we do not even understand: the underlying norm of right to enter all the temples and offer pooja.

This is what has happened to our caste activism. We have focused on wrong problems, and therefore our solutions to those problems have also not worked. The following incident exposes the extent to which we have grown blind to our own situation. An exemplary instance of community relationship of our society has been completely misunderstood. Explaining the cause of a riot in a village amongst people belonging to two different castes, David writes the following:

A strange and peculiar situation was prevalent between Scheduled Caste Hindus and Muslims in settling the Civil and Criminal disputes in Panchayat. The caste Hindus and Muslims sought mediation of Scheduled Caste leaders… In fact many disputes were settled amicably and this had given the Scheduled Caste persons [authority] to be the mediators and leaders to caste-Hindus and Muslims.

Disregarding such a practice held for generations David comes to a simplistic explanation for the occurrence of violent incidents in the village.

This was disliked by the caste-Hindus and Muslims…[they] feared that if the Scheduled Caste persons were allowed to mediate, they would become most powerful force in future and it would be very difficult for them to refuse to accept the leadership of Scheduled Castes persons. (1979: 25)

And, they all attacked and killed them, concludes David.

1 The list mentions the stereotypes in the order of the frequency of their appearance – the first one being the highly repeated claim – in the articles referred in the essay.

2 Dalit Human Rights Monitor 1999-2000 (2000: see case serial no., 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, and 35)

3 Also see the following citation. It is taken from the glossary provided in Dalit Human Rights Violations (2000: p. XXV) “Chamar – derogatory name used for Dalits (North India).”

4 Despite pointing out the deficiency in our understanding of the actual problem that the ‘lower caste’ people are facing, Madhava Prasad, unfortunately, falls into the same trap of re-naming it as a caste problem.

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

Conclusion

The contemporary popular writings on caste violence basically focus on the violence, and treat them as manifestations of the caste system. But the clarity on the overarching system of caste is lacking in these writings. So, it causes several confusions. They fail to deal with the incidents of violence within the Dalit castes or the violence inflicted by the dalits on non-dalits. Opinion raising and lobbying has taken prominence over scientific analysis. As a result, even when some people belonging to Dalit groups are at fault, it has been ignored. Due to this the NGO and Government Commission reports on the caste violence loose not just the status of being scientific analysis but also fail to get the respect of the national and international community on the whole.

The need of the day is to get a scientific understanding of the phenomenon of violence. What we should avoid is this kind of sensational writing.

[Dalit] women are raped, their breast cut off, men and children are shot at random, and, since Dalits live in segregated ghettos, all their houses are attacked simultaneously so that no one gets away. (Soumitro Das in The Statesman “Dalit Challenge – II: A Cultural Revolution in the Making?” 2001, 5 September)

My claim is that ‘caste system’, for whatever reason, has not and by extension cannot serve as an explanation for the violent incidents taking place in our society. This does not in any way deny the existence of some of the phenomena which have been addressed through ‘caste system’ or ‘casteism’, and which definitely require not only explanation but also definite solutions. The purpose of this study was to show this discrepancy in our understanding of the violent incidents in our society and the incidents themselves. If we realise this discrepancy and try to re-theorise these violent incidents, I hope, we will be able to come up with a better understanding of such phenomena and also adequately deal with it. This paper has also not suggested that Buddha or Basavanna’s understanding of the caste system is theoretically wrong. Our untheoretical understanding of caste system has also hampered our understanding of the nature of their work. So re-theorization of caste system will also help us understand our own past and our tradition, that Buddha and Basavanna represent, in a better way, and make use of their knowledge in the present circumstances.

I will conclude this essay by quoting from, the message of the National Conference of Dalit Organisations (NacDor), organised in Rampur (Uttar Pradesh) in 2002:

Stop being obsessed with reservations, and holding up a begging bowl in front of the government. Stop lingering over the details of beastly atrocities on Dalits. Stop abusing rascal politicians, or governments of scoundrels, who we all know have repeatedly let us down. We have very few resources, including time, and we just cannot afford to waste them on tearful, emotional appeals for justice. Let us, instead, begin sensitisation of non-Dalits on a massive scale. ... Let us start work to face the challenges of the future. Let us launch a Self Help Movement. (“A statement of self-confidence” The Hindu 2002, 3 November).

Of course, let me add, sensitisation is required, not just of the non-Dalits but of the entire society. But, we have to take care that such sensitisation will not happen on the lines of our unscientific theories of caste system.

:::: ::::

[* Dunkin Jalki is a Research Scholar at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. This research is part of the doctoral research of the author. Not to be reproduced or published without the permission of the author.]

Understanding Caste System

A Survey of Popular Writings on Caste Violence

by Dunkin Jalki

Reference

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