[Reader-list] Dalit Rage

[Shivam Vij]

On the recent violence by Dalits in Maharashtra, two excellent articles below.
best
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Dalit Rage

Condemn the violence by all means but not before you ask what
escalated it to such a scale. Once the fire was lit, many joined in
for their own grab — Dalit politicians, Naxal fringe groups, sections
of the underworld that have a strong Dalit presence, opportunistic
political parties.

By SMRUTI KOPPIKAR
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20061205&fname=maharashtra&sid=1

Khairlanje, a lost little village on the map of Maharashtra, has
turned into a synonym for old atrocities and new indifferences towards
Dalits. The story of the horrific rape, sexual assault and murder of
Surekha Bhotmange and her teenaged daughter Priyanka, and murder of
her two sons is by now known well enough for Sonia Gandhi to have
commented on it, for a group of protestors to have raised the issue at
the UN headquarters in New York, and for the state government to be on
the defensive like never before. Some 65 days after OBC villagers
perpetrated the alleged rape-murder under the benevolent eye of the
police, who the hapless husband Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange tried to rouse
that September 29 afternoon in vain, there's some action. Finally,
five policemen were summarily sacked under Article 311 of the Indian
Constitution.

Make no mistake. It required a replay of Dalit rage to kickstart the
process the justice on an incident as horrific as this. For weeks
together, FIRs were not registered while the perpetrators roamed free
and fearless in Khairlanje. The police connived with the perpetrators
to behave as if nothing of consequence had happened with the Special
IG (Nagpur) Pankaj Gupta allegedly accepting a bribe to say "there was
no rape", doctors who conducted the post-mortem did not check for
sexual assault or rape, local MLA Madhukar Kukade (BJP) was present at
the post-mortems, it took two months for the chief minister and home
minister to visit the scene of crime, the Director General of Police
did not visit it. These, please note, are not allegations but findings
of a high-level probe conducted by the state government agency YASHADA
(Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration). Damning
indictments in themselves, they prompted an otherwise self-assured
government to summarily sack five policemen.

By this time, Dalit rage had singed several towns and cities across
Maharashtra, and had taken the nation by surprise. The immediate
provocation for the spate of violence end November, almost two months
after the horrific rape-murder was, ostensibly, the desecration of Dr
Babasaheb Ambedkar's statue in Kanpur but within hours of the
stone-pelting in Pune and Nashik, it was clear that this was no mere
mob violence. It was the out-pouring of rage against a totally
ineffective and stunningly insensitive state government over an
atrocity that spelt doom for Dalits. It was their response to the
strongest message ever that they did not matter, whatsoever. That
their trials and tribulations were part of their lot and the state
could, or would, do nothing about atrocities that regularly visit
them. "Khairlanje incident is the end of imagination for us," remarked
a passionate Nagsen Sonare, national president of Mumbai-based
Ambedkar Center For Justice and Peace, on his website. In more ways
than one, for Dalits in so-called progressive Maharashtra where Dalit
advancement was spearheaded by social reformer no less than Jyotiba
Phule in the 19th century, Khairlanje marked a new low in caste
atrocities. The Prevention of Atrocities Act had turned into a joke,
yet again.

For weeks since news of the incident spread word-of-mouth, political
as well as non-political Dalit activists, scattered and disparate
Dalit groups in small towns and cities, discussed little else. They
waited for two independent democratic institutions—the executive and
the press—to join the battle on their behalf. The executive was, in
fact, involved in an elaborate cover-up while the press—even the
Marathi press—ignored it as yet another Dalit story from some
indescribable village. In the end, they themselves joined the
battle—not in some pre-meditated manner led by leaders but outbursts
by mobs, some with political leaders at the helm but most without any
leadership.No wonder then that the state government did not quite know
who to talk to when the prestigious Deccan Queen—symbol of Mumbai-Pune
caste and class superiority—was torched. Lack of leadership did not
matter; rage had overtaken minor hurdles such as this. That the
violence proved a god-send for many Dalit political leaders consigned
to the margins is coincidental; it might even resurrect their dying
careers for a brief while but they cannot claim to have aroused and
inspired the mobs.

Violence that left crores of rupees worth government property damaged,
mainly buses, railway compartments and offices, cannot be condoned
irrespective of the cause behind it. When Prakash Ambedkar, grandson
of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and leader of one of the six factions of the
Republican Party of India, remarked that Dalits are militants and will
always remain so, it was hardly music to anybody's ears. But to
condemn the out-pouring of their rage is not all that easy. Call it a
warped sense of vigilante justice, or an extreme temper tantrum to
seek attention, or whatever else, the fact is that if it weren't for
that rage on full national display, Khairlanje would have remained
that forgotten village on the map even for those men who had taken
oath to protect its inhabitants. Is it easy to condemn rage that
eventually woke up a slumbering government and large, insensitive
sections of the media?

If Priyanka Bhotmange were Priyadrshini Mattoo or Jessica Lal, the
media would have thought it fit to intervene, run campaigns for
justice. For Priyanka, whose dream it was to get a government job,
there would never be candle-light protests at India Gate. Or even
Gateway of India. Citizen activism takes on the textures and shades of
citizens, after all. Upper middle class India lit candles, whether at
India Gate or on news websites; young Dalit India torched trains.
Protests do not come in pre-determined packs that can be picked off
shelves in glittering malls across urban India. The Dalit rage is yet
another reminder that there's an India that remains on the pavements
outside these very malls, an India that stands excluded. As Gaddar,
the well-known Naxal poet, once said: "My anger is rough, my words are
rough because my life is coarse and so is my language". Condemn the
violence by all means but not before you ask what escalated it to such
a scale. Once the fire was lit, many joined in for their own
grab—Dalit politicians, Naxal fringe groups, sections of the
underworld that have a strong Dalit presence, opportunistic political
parties that smell blood on the eve of municipal elections.

The rage was waiting to explode. Yet, in the thousands of atrocities
that happen every year, what made this horrific incident any more
horrific or gut-wrenching than the others? After all, this is the land
where Dalits are made to eat human excreta. Khairlanje should have
been no different, but it was. The rape-murders here were, indeed, the
end of imagination of Dalits. This was not just another rape or murder
of a family. The Bhotmanges, condemned to live the life determined by
the Varna system, attempted to rise above it—and nearly did it. The
40-something Surekha tilled her land till it yielded something,
anything. She put her children through school and college. Her
daughter was reading Political Science and Sociology—no mean feat for
a Dalit girl in a back-of-the-beyond village. OBC men had, on several
occasions, tried to usurp the land and drive the family out of the
village but Surekha—more than her husband Bhaiyyalal—had stood up to
the men and their machinations.The family had received death threats
in the last few months, Surekha's attempts to enlist police on her
side did not yield any results. That was not a surprise but she had
persisted in doing her duty in approaching the police.

Like scores of Dalits in Maharashtra who heeded and still heed Dr
Ambedkar's call, the Bhotmanges believed the education alone would put
them on the path of liberation. It's no social accident or social
engineering that the Dalit literacy rate in the state at 72 per cent
is twice the Indian average for the community. But an educated Dalit
is perceived as a threat by caste Hindus, even the OBCs. Surekha's
valiant efforts to ward of the land sharks—again OBC men of the
village—and her battle to educate her children made her a symbol of
resistance beyond imagination for them. Bhaiyylal is believed to have
told sympathisers that he had even contemplated giving up the land and
going away from Khairlanje but his wife never encouraged such
thoughts. Eventually, he had to cower in fear behind a building and
helplessly watch as she and his daughter were paraded naked, raped and
murdered by a mob that then hunted down his two sons as well.

Yes, it was a mob too; they too perpetrated violence of the most
horrific kind. Was there as strong a condemnation of that violence as
we saw of the Dalit rage? In the rape-murder of the Bhotmange family,
Dalits, mainly the youth, saw the death of a dream given by Babasaheb
Ambedkar. Education and hard work did not bring liberation; these
virtues only brought harassment, public humiliation, rape and death.
The Bhotmanges, indeed Khairlanje, remains an unforgettable symbol of
the defeat. Dalits see a bleak, unchanging, non-inclusive future,
their political strength and voice lies tattered in several factions,
their poetry and literature has lost its sting, even their imagination
seems to end. Now, if only some of us upper middle class urbanites
would tutor them the art of gentle protests, teach them to light
candles.

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A new dawn for Dalit movement

Mandar Phanse, CNN-IBN
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/a-new-dawn-for-the-dalit-movement/27764-3.html

Mumbai: The recent violence in Maharashtra may have taken the state
government by surprise, but students leading the Dalit movement say
given the increasing militant nature of the Dalit movement post the
Ambedkar era, the attacks were just a matter of time.

Khandala: Bhai Vivek Chavan leads a double life, juggling between
being a practicing advocate in the Pune courts and the leader of a
militant Dalit outfit - Bharatiya Dalit Cobra. Currently he is on a
walkathon from Pune to Mumbai - on a mission to convince Dalit and
Muslim youth to act now.

"Please, stand up, awake and fight. This is the basic principle that I
walk on. It was the principle of Babasaheb Ambedkar from whom we get
our energy. This is his advice," says Chavan.

Question him a little more and you find Castro and Mao sharing space
with Ambedkar in his rhetoric. They form the better part of his sales
pitch aimed at a ragtag band of youth who flock around him at every
stop to listen to his fiery speeches.

"The courage shown by the kin of the deceased in Amravati and
Osmanabad has boosted our strength. Take for example Dinesh Wankhede
who died for our cause. His mother said that she will not cremate him.
That is courage," says he to his followers.

Thane: Bhai Vivek is not alone in his endeavour. Other young leaders
like Sunil Khambe have succeeded in splitting the RPI and now lead
their own factions with a reputation for aggression.

Ulhasnagar: Experts say that the torching of the Deccan Queen was not
entirely the fallout of mob frenzy. They allege it was masterminded by
a set of educated leaders who motivated the masses to implement it.

Mumbai: Says Editor, Workshop, Sunil Kadam, "The people who
participated in pelting stones on roads were all Phds and
MPhils.Hundreds of educated youth guided them in torching the Deccan
Queen. The Deccan Queen was intentionally targeted because they knew
it would attract the attention they wanted. That's why they let the
Koyna Express go."

Osmanabad: Dalit leaders add credence to Kadam's views when they claim
credit for the recent incidents which rocked Maharashtra.

Says President of the Bhimshakti Shivshakti Sena, Yashpal Saravade,
"After Khairlanji, the Dalits have their own identity. The Dalit youth
today don't identify with Dalit parties. They have militancy in their
blood."

Osmanabad/Mumbai: But while leaders like Yashpal refer to the militant
heritage of the Dalit Panthers, the group which modelled itself on
America's Black Panther movement has been out of action for almost 20
years now.

The Dalit Panthers became a cult as they would hand out quick justice
to those who committed atrocities against Dalits. Over the years, the
old guard of the movement has now mellowed and those heady militant
days are now just nostalgia.

Says the founder of the Dalit Panther movement Padmashri Namdeo
Dhasal, "At that time, we believed in tit for tat. There had been a
rape in Pune's Bhoogaon village. About 2,000 of us went and attacked
the village. We asked the villagers to produce the boy guilty for the
rape or we would burn the village."

Now Namdeo Dhasal is an internationally acclaimed poet with a
Padamsree and a Sahithya Akademi Award, but scratch a little and some
of the old sparks are still visible.

"The mission was always to abolish the caste system. You cannot
achieve it by organising a single caste," says Dhasal.

The Dalit Panther movement started in a Dalit students' hostel, but
died out when the Dalit movement went mainstream with the Republican
Party of India. But with Republican leaders unable to transfer vote
shares into Parliament seats, Dalit militancy has reared its head
again and this resurgence promises to give the Maharashtra government
much food for thought in the days to come.