The dalit in India - caste and social class

Social Research, Spring, 2003 by Sagarika Ghose

Thus, Ambedkar failed to counter the Gandhian charisma. Instead, his legacy to the dalits was this: "Your salvation," Ambedkar declared, "lies in political power and not in making pilgrimages and in observance of fasts" (Keer, 1990: 168). Aggressive separatist politics and fierce demands for reserved seats in educational institutions were Ambedkar's gift to his community. These demands have been criticized as divisive and fractious by some. Others have seen them as the only means of deepening the democratization process in India. (16) It would not be inaccurate to say that without Ambedkar, the present-day aggressively articulate dalit protest would not have been possible. Without him, dalits might have remained compliant subordinates in the upper-caste-led Congress.

Contemporary Politics: The Political and Literary Struggle

   Affirmative action has now done enough for the Scheduled
   Castes.... [T] hey should now focus on winning
   power through elections, for the capture of political
   power will ultimately transform them (Ram, 1997).

The dalit are linguistically and regionally divided, but dalits do not constitute a mass electoral constituency. Thus dalit radicalism has often been co-opted or it has simply dissolved into splits and factions. However, growing self-awareness and militancy have created a limited autonomous political space.

The Gandhian movement, colonial legislation, and the Ambedkarite movement contributed to the wide-ranging "reservations" (affirmative action or policies) that were written into the Indian constitution. Constitutional reservations of posts and seats for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (17) are seen to have created what is termed the "Harijan elite" (Sacchidanand, 1977: 5) and have become a highly political and controversial issue. (18) This issue was most starkly manifest in the violent public confrontation between upper castes and dalits that took place over the Mandal Commission Report. In 1990, the V. P. Singh government decided to implement the Mandal Commission Report of the Backward Classes Commission (December 1980) The commission's controversial report called for reserving 27 percent of all services and public-sector undertakings under the central government and 27 percent of all admissions to institutions of higher education (except in states that have reserved higher percentages) for backward class members and dalits.

Violent controversy arose. It was argued that affirmative action would be difficult to implement in conditions of mass poverty and unemployment that left even upper castes suffering from massive economic deprivation. The efficacy of reserving government posts as a long-term measure of social justice was also questioned. Which groups were to have a monopoly on governing India and holding government posts was also a concern.

Many upper-caste youth tried to immolate themselves to protest these quotas. There were fears that those who had already gained advantage from reservations would only accumulate greater benefits. In the end, the Supreme Court gave its assent to the government order for implementation of the Mandal report, although it inserted a clause excluding the "creamy layer" of the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) in a statement about "taking off the creamy layer for a healthier glass of milk." This implied excluding the rich intermediate castes (those just above the dalits in the caste hierarchy) from the Mandal recommendations. (This exception has proved difficult to implement.) Still, the Mandal recommendations are generally in place except in some states, where they are stalled in court cases.