Stunning Dalit assertion

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

A sudden Dalit assertion which disrupted life in several cities of Maharashtra, including the commercial metropolis of Mumbai, last week stunned the authorities and caste supremacists across the country.

Dalits from far and near had descended on the village of Bhima Koregaon, about 30 kilometres from Pune, on New Year’s Day to celebrate the 200th anniversary of a decisive victory of an East India Company regiment, comprising members of the Mahar community, over a much larger army of the Peshwas who ruled over the Maratha region at the time. 

Peshwas were Brahmin prime ministers who usurped power from the Maratha rulers. Mahars are one the erstwhile “untouchable” communities who now prefer to be known collectively as Dalits, meaning “broken people”.

Dr BR Ambedkar, the chief architect of India’s Constitution, was a Mahar. His father, Ramji Sakpal, and grandfather, Maloji, had both served in the Company’s army. 

According to an early military history, in 1795 the Company maintained three separate armies at Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai). Their total strength was 46,000, of whom 33,000 were Indians. The Mahar regiment was part of the Bombay army. The Calcutta army included Brahmins and Muslims and the Madras army had several non-Brahmin communities. 

The names of the Mahar soldiers killed in the Bhima Koregaon battle are engraved on a war memorial the British erected there. Ambedkar, who visited the memorial on the 109th anniversary of the battle, told his followers how 800 infantrymen, of whom 500 were Mahars, under the command of 12 British officers, had defeated the Peshwa’s army of 28,000. The memory of the battle became a rallying point for Dalit pride. 

Ambedkar had viewed the event in the context of the iniquitous social order imposed by the Brahminical code of Manu. Today Marathas, and not Brahmins, are socially and politically the most influential community of the region. 

Under the Peshwas, the Mahars had suffered much indignity. In 2005 Dalits formed an organisation to pay homage annually to the Mahar soldiers who had redeemed the community’s self-respect at Bhima Koregaon. Since then a few thousand Dalits have been assembling there each New Year’s Day. 

This year the number swelled to a few hundred thousand. Large contingents came from Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat and from the southern state of Karnataka, where that party is making a bid for power in the elections due this year. 

Jignesh Mevani, who had led Dalit protests after some members of the community were flogged at Una in Gujarat and was elected to the State Assembly last month with Congress support, Radhika, mother of Osmania University scholar Rohit Vemula who was driven to suicide by pro-BJP elements in the campus, and Umar Khalid, a leader of the anti-BJP campaign in the Jawaharlal Nehru University, were among those joining this year’s celebrations. 

Dalits, who have been targeted, along with Muslims, by Hindutva goons in several states since the BJP came to power in 2014 viewed the event as an occasion to demonstrate their solidarity. Hindutva groups stoned the Bhima Koregaon-bound Dalits and they retaliated. One person was killed.

As news of the trouble reached Mumbai, Prakash Ambedkar, former MP and grandson BR Ambedkar, called for a strike in Maharashtra the next day. Several Dalit organisations endorsed the call. The huge response the call evoked surprised the aggressive Hindutva forces, including the BJP’s coalition partner, Shiv Sena, which rules the metropolis. The BJP-led state government instructed the police to exercise restraint. 

Dalit power having been demonstrated convincingly, Prakash Ambedkar withdrew the strike in the afternoon. 

There were solidarity demonstrations elsewhere in the country too.

“Dalits are saying we aren’t a polite, manageable community,” Rahul Sonpimple, a student leader of the community, said. 

The week’s developments were laced with irony. The youth killed in the stoning was a Maratha, not a Dalit, and his family said he had not joined the anti-Dalit protest. 

Media reports suggested that extreme left-wing Naxalites had planned the Dalit protests. The reports originated not in the national or state capital but in Nagpur, where the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the fountainhead of Hindutva’s hate politics, has its headquarters. A rare, formal RSS statement attributed the troubles to a Breaking India Brigade which “wants to divide the country on religious and caste lines”. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained studied silence on the incidents. It remains to be seen whether he and the RSS will draw an appropriate lesson from the events and restrain their supporters. --Gulf Today, January 9, 2018

Doublespeak on cow protection

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke up against cow vigilantism last week for the third time in a month. On all three occasions he said too little and failed to carry conviction.

Modi spoke on the subject for the first time in his home state of Gujarat towards the end of June, ten months after pro-government gangs killed at least a score of people, mostly Muslims and Dalits, in different parts of the country alleging cow slaughter or beef eating.

He said, “Killing people in the name of gau bhakti (cow worship) is not acceptable. No person has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country.”

That statement came after the violent phase of cow vigilantism had invited strong criticism from within the country and outside.

He returned to the theme twice subsequently.

In the last speech on the subject, he said, “Some anti-social elements have incited violence in the name of cow protection. Those engaged in disturbing the harmony in the country are trying to take advantage of the situation.”

He went on to point out that lynchings were tarnishing India’s image. He also claimed some people were settling personal scores in the name of cow protection.

This response came immediately after a spate of “Not in My Name” protests across the country against the lynchings.

Interestingly, there was no word of condemnation of violence in the Prime Minister’s statements. He merely distanced himself from the violent incidents by declaring they were “unacceptable”. He sought to distance his party and its affiliates also from them by insinuating that the violence was the work of some people who had scores to settle. To him, the issue was not the killings but the bad name they brought to the country and to his government.

Simultaneously, Modi sought to reinforce the Hindutva position on the cow. In a series of tweets in Hindi, he said, “People see cow as a mother. Their sentiments are attached to it. We have to see that there are laws to protect cows and breaching them is not an option.”

In Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, standing in for Home Minister Rajnath Singh, replied to Opposition criticism of the violence by cow vigilantes along the same lines as the Prime Minister.

In a bid to turn the tables on the Opposition, Jaitley, who is a reputed lawyer, pointed out that cow slaughter ban was not Modi’s idea. It was written into the Constitution by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and BR Ambedkar when the BJP was not in the picture.

He was alluding to the mention of ban on cow slaughter in the Constitution as one of the Directive Principles of State Policy. He glossed over the fact that Nehru and Ambedkar had reluctantly agreed to the inclusion of the relevant article in the legally non-enforceable chapter as a compromise in democratic compliance with the wishes of several Congress members of the Constituent Assembly who wanted cow slaughter to be banned respecting Hindu religious sentiments.

The Constitution gives the states the power to ban slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle, not on religious grounds but in the interests of organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines. Invoking this provision, a majority of the states have already banned cow slaughter without disrupting social harmony.

Thus there is no situation warranting cow vigilantism in the country. The Hindutva elements have deliberately activated the issue with a view to targeting the Muslims and the Dalits. The beef vigilantes claimed to have caught generally turned out to be goat or buffalo meat.

The issue before the nation now is really not cow protection but the life and security of people engaged in occupations like cattle trade and skinning of dead animals. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee put it succinctly when she said gau rakshaks (cow protectors) have turned gau rakshasas (cow demons).

Even as Modi and Jaitley were trying to deflect attention from the core issue with specious arguments, Pravin Togadia, President of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, one of the largest affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, said in speeches in Uttar Pradesh that his organisation would raise, train and equip an army of gau rakshaks. This shows the VHP is preparing for more violent interventions.

The contrary messages emerging from the government and the VHP appear to be part of a well-thought-out strategy. The Indian Express quoted Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, as saying in an interview it was all based on doublespeak. “There is an occasional, pious public message to say the authorities disapprove of certain actions, but then there is the dog-whistle by which people are also being relayed the opposite of what the official message is,” he said. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 25, 2017. 

Modi in tactical mode

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Parliament, which could not transact much business at its sessions earlier this year due to the acute hostility between the government and the opposition, began its winter session last week with both sides coming together to hail the Constitution and pay homage to its chief architect, BR Ambedkar.

The occasion was a two-in-one celebration: the 66th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution, and the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar, who rose from the ranks of the so-called untouchables to be revered by the nation as the Father of the Constitution.

The debate revealed that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the National Democratic Alliance government, is trapped in the inherent contradiction between the core constitutional values, which it is sworn to uphold as the ruling party, and the Hindu Rashtra (nation) concept of its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In an attempt to dispel doubts about his party’s commitment to the constitutional ideals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that the nation would only be run according to the Constitution. India was a diverse nation, and the sanctity of the Constitution which bound together all the citizens had to be maintained, he said.

He alluded to the bitter controversies in which the ruling front and the opposition parties are involved and made a pointed reference to the way the great leaders of an earlier era had worked together to frame the Constitution.

Waving an olive branch to the opposition, which has stalled his reform programmes in Parliament, Modi offered to address its concerns. “The government is ready to debate all issues,” he said.

Modi made no reference to the bitter national debate on the issue of growing intolerance, which assumed ugly proportions when Hindutva hordes began hounding celebrated film star Amir Khan who had spoken of the growing sense of fear, insecurity and despondency in the country and disclosed that his wife, film-maker Kiran Rao, a Hindu, had wondered whether the family should think of re-locating elsewhere.

He said they should focus on how the Constitution could help the Dalits, the marginalised and the poor. This appeared to be an image makeover attempt, prompted by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s refrain that he was anti-Dalit and anti-poor.

Modi, who habitually adopts a highly partisan tone, tried to sound statesmanlike, but there was no condemnation of the scattered acts of violence by Hindutva elements across the country and the public statements by governors, central and state ministers and MPs which run counter to the ideals of the Constitution.

Two quick steps that followed conveyed the impression that the government may be willing to turn a new leaf. One was the decision to accept the opposition demand for a debate in Parliament on the issue of growing intolerance. The other was Modi’s invitation to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for talks to sort out the differences on the Goods and Services Tax Bill, a reform measure which the opposition has held up in the upper house of Parliament in which the NDA is in a minority.

However, it soon became evident that Modi’s new stance is tactical and does not signify any change in the government’s basic approach.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who spoke immediately after him, reiterated the BJP’s traditional positions on several issues.

He said secularism was a much misused word and claimed its misuse was creating problems in ensuring social harmony. Secularism should mean not neutrality towards religions but neutrality towards sects, he added.

This was a throwback to the position articulated by the RSS all along, which equates Hinduism with India and treats other faiths as sects.

Both Modi and Rajnath Singh, in their speeches, recalled that Ambedkar, who, as a Dalit, had suffered much humiliation in his lifetime had harboured no grudge against the country. They both conveniently ignored the fact that shortly before his death he had left the caste-ridden Hindu fold and embraced Buddhism.

The BJP’s new-found love for Ambedkar is suspect. Ambedkar’s legacy was almost forgotten by all but the Dalits, who look upon him as their liberator, until the VP Singh government (1989-1990), organised nationwide celebrations to mark his birth centenary and bestowed on him the nation’s highest honour, Bharat Ratna, posthumously. A few years later, Arun Shourie, who was a minister in the first BJP-led government, wrote a whole book to denigrate him.

In the book, titled “Worshipping False God: Ambedkar and the Facts that have been Erased”, Shourie portrayed him as a self-centred, unpatriotic, power-hungry, anti-national and a stooge of the British. He even sought to belittle Ambedkar’s contribution as the chairman of the committee that drafted the Constitution. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 1, 2015.

Academia’s meek surrender

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Political opposition and civil society have raised their voice against a perceived attempt by the Narendra Modi regime to impose its Hindutva ideology on institutions of higher learning. The real issue is academia’s readiness to surrender meekly to political masters.

The cause of the uproar is the decision of the elite Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Chennai), to derecognise the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle, a year-old campus forum that upholds the principle of social justice.

The action followed a complaint sent to the central government by casteist elements operating surreptitiously.

APSC bears the names of national Dalit icon BR Ambedkar (1891-1956) and Dravidian ideologue Periyar EV Ramaswamy (1879-1973), the foremost advocates of social justice in the last century. Additionally, Ambedkar is revered as the Father of the Indian Constitution.

After APSC marked its first anniversary in April with a lecture by a distinguished speaker on the contemporary relevance of Ambedkar, the Union Human Resources Development Ministry received an anonymous complaint levelling a number of allegations against it, including “trying to create hatred against the Honourable Prime Minister and Hindus”. An Under Secretary forwarded the complaint to the Director of IIT-M and sought his comments.

A week later the Dean of Students informed APSC that it had been derecognised and would not be allowed to use campus facilities for its activities.

Political parties condemned the action as a wanton attack on free debate in the campus. They pinned the blame squarely on the government. Demonstrations were held outside the residence of Human Resources Minister Smriti Irani in Delhi and near the IIT campus in Chennai.

IITs, set up under a scheme initiated by Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s, are supposed to be autonomous institutions. Their governing councils are headed by eminent persons. However, those in charge of the day-to-day administration look upon themselves as minions who must pay heed to the ministry’s wishes.

Customarily the government ignores anonymous communications. The complaint against APSC received attention because its contents were in tune with the thinking of the ruling establishment. Yet there was no directive to act against APSC. All that the government did was to seek the Director’s views on the complaint.

The IIT authorities used the occasion to demonstrate their loyalty to the masters in Delhi. They took punitive action against APSC without even giving it an opportunity to reply to the charges.

The views propagated by APSC are those that were articulated by Ambedkar and Periyar in their lifelong campaigns against casteism in Hindu society.

The move against APSC needs to be viewed against long-standing complaints of caste-based discrimination in the IITs.

IIT Delhi expelled 12 Dalit students in 2008 on grounds of low academic performance. Following the intervention of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, it revoked the expulsion of two students, making some relaxation in grade requirements, and appointed a committee to look into complaints of discrimination. The IIT later claimed the students did not place before the committee any case of discrimination, but the students said the committee did not entertain their complaints.

In a survey conducted among students of IIT Bombay, following the death of a Dalit student in mysterious circumstances last September, more than half of the Adivasi, Dalit and other backward classes respondents said they experienced discreet discrimination and were subjected to higher academic pressure than other students.

Ten years ago, IIT Madras had a faculty of 480 staff members, of whom 462 belonged to the advanced communities, prompting activists to characterise it as a Brahmin enclave. Ten Dalits, one Adivasi and seven OBC members made up the rest. In 2008, the government ordered reservation of 15 per cent of the faculty positions for Dalits, 7.5 per cent for Adivasis and 27 per cent for OBCs. The staff strength has now risen to over 500 but the reservation targets remain a distant goal.

MS Ananth, who became its Director in 2001, quit in 2011 following allegations of caste bias and corruption. Dr E Muraleedharan, an alumnus, said Ananth had denied him a teaching post because of caste bias. Dr WB Vasantha Kandasamy of the Mathematics department, who belongs to a backward caste, vigorously pursued the case of a Dalit candidate, SR Kannan, and foiled the bid to deny him a staff position.

In the process, Vasantha Kandasamy invited the ire of her superiors. She secured overdue promotions as Associate Professor and Professor only after a court battle that lasted 16 years. While deciding the case in her favour, the Madras high court ordered a CBI probe to determine the legality of all appointments made in IIT Madras between 1995 and 2000. The authorities appealed and got a stay on the probe order. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, June 2, 2015.

Restoration of balance

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

For two decades India’s Judiciary has been working as a self-propagating entity, with three to five persons at its top deciding who should be admitted to the club.

The Constitution, promulgated in 1950, envisaged a system of mutual checks and balances by the three limbs of the state – the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. It vested the power to appoint judges of the Supreme Court and the State High Courts in the President.

He was required to hold consultations with the Chief Justice of India and such other judges as he may deem necessary before appointing a judge. In the case of High Court judges, the consultation process was to include the State Governor and the Chief Justice of that court also.

Since the President and the Governor are bound to act upon the advice of the respective Council of Ministers, the scheme assured the Executive a decisive say in appointments. The relevant provisions of the Constitution remain unchanged, but after three decisions handed down by the Supreme Court between 1981 and 1998 the last word on appointments rests with the Judiciary.

When Indira Gandhi’s government initiated a move for transfer of judges from one high court to another, in view of the experience of the 1975-77 Emergency, it was perceived as an attempt to control the judges. Concerned citizens, mostly lawyers, filed petitions in several high courts challenging the move.

The Supreme Court transferred all the petitions to itself for consideration. A constitution bench headed by PN Bhagwati, which heard them, held that the Executive could turn down the Chief Justice’s recommendations with regard to appointments and transfers for cogent reasons.

However, the government did not spell out the reasons when it disagreed with the Chief Justice’s recommendations.

In 1993 the issue was raised in the Supreme Court again by an association of Supreme Court lawyers. A nine-judge bench, by a majority decision, laid down that the Chief Justice’s recommendation will be final. The Executive could ask him to reconsider the recommendation. If, upon reconsideration, he reiterated it the President had to act upon it.

The bench also laid down guidelines and a time schedule for selection of judges even though the petition had not raised these issues and no arguments had been heard on them.

The judgment, written by JS Verma, claimed it was restoring to the Chief Justice the primacy which he originally had. It was a false claim. That the makers of the Constitution did not grant him primacy is evident from the words of its chief architect, Dr BR Ambedkar. He told the Constituent Assembly that to allow the Chief Justice a veto upon the appointment of judges was to transfer to him the authority they were not prepared to vest in the President or the government of the day.

The judgment extracted from the Chief Justice a price for the primacy it granted him. It made it obligatory for him to involve his two seniormost colleagues in the decision-making process. Thus was born the collegium of judges. It is an institution which was not created by the Constitution but was conjured up by Verma and his colleagues to fictionally represent the Judiciary as a body.

In 1998 a bench headed by SP Bharucha, while answering a Presidential reference, enlarged the collegium to include four seniormost judges, instead of just two.

The three decisions, which resulted in the Judiciary acquiring powers which the Constitution or the laws did not bestow on it, came when the Executive and the Legislature were weak and could not resist the encroachments into their spheres. Attempts by the first National Democratic Alliance government and the second United Progressive Alliance government to enact a law to establish a Judicial Commission to deal with the appointment and transfer of judges did not succeed.

The Narendra Modi government recently turned down a collegium decision. Since the person whom the collegium had recommended for appointment withdrew his consent to serve as judge the Chief Justice’s primacy was to no avail.

The establishment of a judicial appointments commission which functions in a transparent manner is necessary to restore the constitutional balance upset by Supreme Court decisions. The government’s decision to hold consultations with political parties and jurists for the purpose is a welcome step. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 30, 2014.