[Reader-list] First Posting - Caste Violence in Urban Maharashtra: A Study of Worli Riots of Mumbai 1974 - A Breaking Point in Dalit Panthers Movement

[Arvind Kumar]

First Posting:
Caste Violence in Urban Maharashtra: A Study of Worli Riots of Mumbai 1974 -
 A Breaking Point in Dalit Panthers Movement


The Dalit Panther manifesto suggests that the Panther leadership
believed the British gave up their rule because of the seamen's
mutiny, emergence of the Azad Hind Fauz, and due to the struggle of
the peasants, workers and Dalits. Because of these they could no
longer remain in power. Giving independence to Gandhi and Gandhians
meant that the British wanted their own interests in the country to be
looked after.

According to the Dalit leadership, this was the sort of borrowed
independence we got. True independence is won, i.e., snatched forcibly
from the hands of the enemy. One, i.e., like bits thrown to a helpless
beggar is no independence. In every house and every mind the flame of
true independence has to be ignited. This did not happen however. That
is why the Dalit, the worker, the landless and poor peasantry did not
become free; the muck at the bottom of the pond remained where it was
and, in fact, the government that retained the status quo kept on
telling bigger and bigger lies to the Dalits.

While blaming the Congress and the Gandhians, as the Dalit Panthers
did, one should not, however, forget that there were other parties
within this struggle who were equally guilty of sweeping the issue of
caste under the carpet. The left parties, having fought five
elections, appeared to have grown ideologically bankrupt. They are
seemed interested in moving from election to election. In 1967, the
left parties united against the Congress. There was such opportunism
in the United Front that the parties like Communists joined hands with
communalist parties like Jan Sangh and Muslim League.

In some states, Left United Front came to power. But the absence of a
clear-cut program made the anti-Congress stand useless. In the task of
putting some alternatives before the people, of solving the problems
of the Dalits, of establishing the rule of the poor in the country,
all left parties proved powerless. As a result, revolutionary people's
group lost faith in electoral democracy. Uprisings like Naxalbari took
place and the spark spread around the country.

The Congress continued its policy and sat like a beast on the heads of
the Dalits; famine struck and the very livelihoods of crores of people
were uprooted, their animals perished. Factories were shut down,
workers faced unemployment, and everyone was harassed by the mounting
price-rise.

The full eclipse that Congress rule represents for the life of the
country has not yet terminated. But Left parties, playing the politics
of parliamentary seats, were still wasting time trying to get
recognition from the Congress. No one dared to turn revolutionary to
take up the problems of the people. All the Left parties who did not
possess political power ignored the question of a social revolution.
They did not combine the class struggle with the struggle against
untouchability, nor did the raise a voice against cultural and social
domination along with economic exploitation.

With the industrial revolution machines came into being. Dalits were
harnessed to the machines. But in the minds of upper castes, feudalism
survived. Because the owners of the machines could make a profit only
by keeping the social structure intact. Only if a social revolution
grips the minds of the Dalits and the landless poor, can there be a
political revolution. If this takes place, the upper castes, the upper
class, will lose the powers they possesses.

The stand taken by the Left parties prevented the spread of
revolutionary ideologies among the people. Because struggles really
and truly meaningful to the Dalits were not conducted, Dalits grew
poorer. They have had to face innumerable atrocities.

With the defeat in the 1952 general elections Dr. Ambedkar realized
that the problems of Dalits, be it social, political, or ethical,
could not be solved within the framework of religion and caste. A
scientific outlook, class consciousness and a completely atheist
approach alone could add an edge to the struggles of the Dalits.
Ambedkar for this purpose therefore wanted to transfer the then
existing Scheduled Caste Federation (SCF) into a broad-based party.
However, this did not happen during his life time.

After his death, his followers simply renamed SCF as the Republican
Party which subsequently started to pursue casteist politics. They
never united all the Dalits and all the oppressed. Above all, they
conducted the politics of a revolutionary community like the Dalits in
a legalistic manner. The Party got enmeshed in the web of courts,
demands, select places for a handful of Dalits. So the Dalit
population scattered all over the country, in many villages, remained
politically disunited. The leadership of the party went to the middle
class within the community.

The Dalit Panthers, therefore, emerged in an atmosphere where there
seemed to be no group or party that seemed to be genuinely involved
with the problems of the Dalits. The country had seen, by the time of
the Dalit Panthers, the rise and demise of several parties professing
to fight for the cause of the Dalits. It was in this atmosphere of
disenchantment with the politics of these parties that the radical,
and sometimes violent, program of the Dalit Panthers emerged.