‘Symbol-less polls’ in people’s interest: Mayawati

July 6, 2010 at 5:16 am (Policy, Politics)

The Times of India

TNN, Jun 28, 2010

 

LUCKNOW: Refuting the objections of opposition parties regarding the rules which have been framed for the first time in the state for elections of local bodies, the BSP president and chief minister, Mayawati, said that the decision had been taken keeping in view the larger interest of the people.

She said that the allegations being levelled by the opposition parties that the BSP wants to fulfil its interests are not only unfortunate but completely baseless and far from the facts.

She said that under the constitutional system of the country, the responsibility for the development of rural areas has been assigned to village, block and district panchayats. Similarly, the responsibility for providing all urban facilities and the development of urban areas has been given to urban local bodies.

She said that the main objective of this system is that institutions related to development should work in the interest of the common man, besides ensuring effective implementation of government schemes in a transparent manner with active participation of the people.

“From the experience of last several decades, it has become clear that owing to party politics, local bodies have not fulfilled the people’s aspirations completely while the institutions responsible for the development in rural areas like village, block and district panchayats never felt more difficulties in the implementation of development works as the election of these institutions always remain away from petty politics,” Mayawati clarified.

She said that the only objective of the proposed ‘party symbol-less’ local bodies elections is to strengthen the panchayati raj system at all levels.

She said that it is the opinion of her party and government that there should not be any politics in the matters of development but unfortunately, previous experiences have made it clear that these institutions due to party politics have not fulfilled the people’s aspirations.

Besides, these institutions, elected on party lines, also face difficulties in discharging their daily duties, she added. She also appealed to the opposition parties to cooperate in the matter of local bodies’ elections.

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… Why did you choose Sanskrit as a subject?

June 21, 2010 at 6:21 am (Testimonial)

 

“This is because of a promise that I made to myself when I was a child. After completing VIth Std, I opted for Sanskrit as one of my subjects. But when I went for the first Sanskrit class the teacher refused to teach me and told me to go pick garbage for a living instead of learning Sanskrit. When I persisted, he slapped me and sent me to sit in the last row. I cried and went back but somewhere I got the determination that day that I would study Sanskrit and reach the top….”

Born and brought up in one of the villages of Haryana, Dr Kaushal Panwar teaches Sanskrit at Delhi University. Her life is one of the most remarkable testimonies of human grit and determination towards achieving one’s goal despite insurmountable odds.

 

Kindly tell us about your family back ground?

I belong to Balmiki community in Rajour village from district Kaithal (Haryana). My father who died in 2001 was a landless labourer. I have two elder brothers. All my family members worked at jat landlord’s fields. I also used to work in the field along with my family and had also worked as manual labourer in road constructions. My elder brother could not clear class Xth and joined Punjab police as a sepoy but due to some reasons he left the job. Today he is unemployed. I am the only one from my district Kaithal, from Balmiki community, who has reached to this level. Otherwise our community is still mostly engaged in scavenging and manual labour.

What has been your educational background?

I studied in my village school and completed my 10+2 from there itself. However for my graduation (B.A.), I had to take admission at college that was 60 Km away from my home. I had to travel daily to be able to attend the classes. Then I joined Kurukshetra University for my Masters and later Rohtak University for M.Phil. However the turning point came when I got an opportunity to join Sanskrit department at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi for my PhD. In 2009, I was awarded doctorate for my thesis on ‘Shudras in Dharam Shashtras’. Now I am an Assistant Professor and teach Sanskrit in of the colleges at Delhi University.

Yours is truly a remarkable journey. What have been your motivations that drove you to excel in studies?

I must say without any hesitation that my father was my biggest motivator. Second most important was my family background. Poverty, drinking habits of family’s male members, helplessness on caste-discrimination – these were things around which I grew up. I always felt great discomfort and after a point I got fed up and tried to focus solely on my education. I had seen my father being abused on caste-lines and suffering and yet not able to counter that. In fact, my father’s helplessness motivated me to look critically at our lives and not to accept that as our ‘fate’. My father played a great role in educating me. Here I would like to share an incident that happened with my father. He had to go somewhere by bus. At bus stand, he was unsure of the bus that was about to ply. He asked someone to confirm if that was the right bus. The person replied very rudely, “Can’t you see what is written on the bus?” My father was an illiterate and felt humiliated. He said very calmly to him, “Why would I have to ask you if I was literate?” But then my father decided that he would educate all his children at whatever cost so that they don’t have to face any such humiliations. My father never allowed me to do household work. My mother was also very cooperative but remained worried about my fate after my marriage (laughs). People would say so many things like why I was not marrying etc. But I never bothered. I never looked back.

Whatever I could do I did for my education. All along my studies I had to work to earn for my studies as well as for our family. You might not believe that during my graduation days I used to work as one of the labourers for constructing road that passed from the college where I was a student (smiles). My father expired while I was doing my Masters and he never allowed anyone to inform me about his sickness. He was not even aware of what is PhD but always told me to achieve the highest possible degree and made me to promise about not leaving education under any circumstances. No one can ever fill the vacuum that I felt after his death.

Why did you choose Sanskrit as a subject?

 This is because of a promise that I made to myself when I was a child. After completing VIth Std, I opted Sanskrit as one of my subject. But when I went for the first Sanskrit class the teacher refused to teach me and told me to go and pick garbage for a living instead of learning Sanskrit. When I persisted, he slapped me and sent me to sit at the last row. I cried and went back but somewhere I got the determination that day that I would study Sanskrit and reach at the top. I sincerely want to thank that teacher now as because his casteism and sexism became my motivation. For most of the Dalit and Adivasi students getting admission in premier educational institutions is a dream.

You did your PhD from JNU. How did you reach here?

After completing my Mphil from Rohtak University I wanted to do PhD from there itself and decided to work on the topic ‘Shudras in Vedas’. However the faculties there forced me to change my topic and make it ‘Shudras in Literature’. I agreed reluctantly but just on the last date of registration, I was refused admission. Later I came to know that my seat was given to a Brahmin woman who also taught in the same department. I felt completely betrayed by my own teachers. I could not do anything and came back home. In my university days I was very active and used to participate in lots of meetings and seminars. In one such meetings that was organised on ‘the socio-economic condition of Dalits’ in Kaithal, I got the opportunity to meet two faculty members from JNU namely Dr Malakar and Dr. Phool Badan who came as speakers there. During the interaction I told them about how I was denied PhD seat at Rohtak University. Both of them advised me to join JNU for my PhD. But I was very unsure. I never thought that I could ever get to JNU. However both of them motivated me and gave confidence. Dr Phool Badan even helped me to fill the admission form. Without them, I could not even have thought of JNU leave alone applying. My example shows how important it is for our students to have Dalit faculties in the campuses.

Now since you are settled how do you want to contribute more towards the empowerment of our community?

I am not able to contribute as much as I should but still I am trying my level best. Right now I am into writing and working on promoting Dalit literature among people so that they get to read it and get inspired to fight against caste exploitation. I am part of the group that organises small meetings, street theatre, seminars and tries to mobilise youth and students on the issue of caste in Haryana. Like on 12th April we celebrated Jotiba Phule’s birthday by enacting a play on Guru Ravidas where we clearly showed that he was not merely a religious person but was a great revolutionary from our community. I am also aware of my responsibility being a teacher and we run a placement cell for our students.

What are your policy recommendations for higher authorities for the welfare of Dalit and Adivasi students?

Some policies are already there. But the problem is their faulty implementation. We can achieve so much if we are able to force the authorities to implement these in spirit. So I feel our students themselves have to reach to political arena where policies are framed and are implemented. There is definitely need of many more policies to promote Dalit and Adivasi girls’ education. Their representation in higher education is almost nil.

Many of our students who come from very humble background are sometimes not able to cope up with the campus environment. One of the major factors is the identity crisis. What you have to say on this?

I must say if there was any identity crisis with me I could never have reached to this level. I never hide my identity and was confident about it right from my school times. I did menial jobs at the homes of many of my class mates like cleaning animal dung etc and then I used to sit with them in the same class. They used to call me chuhri (slang for scavengers) in the school. In fact it was my father who never let me have any identity crisis. Since my childhood my father taught me not to worry on such issues as no work is big or small. The same goes with all our students. They should feel proud that they have come from community of people who are the hardest working and their being in higher education is a great achievement not only for them but for the entire community.

What are your other suggestions for our Dalit and Adivasi students who want to pursue higher education?

What else I can say other than to work doubly hard! As a Dalit and Adivasi students we have to cross so many barriers – class, caste and for women students – gender too. Most of the ‘upper’ caste students have only to work hard for studies. But we have to work much harder to be able to excel in studies and simultaneously fight against social and economic handicaps due to our background. Other students don’t have to prove anything to anyone but we have lot to prove not only for ourselves but also for the sake of our community. I teach Sanskrit and being a Dalit woman I know that people are very judgmental and easily point a finger if I don’t teach properly. I have seen people whispering against me and I always answer them through my work. In a very short time my three books have been published and I am working on the fourth one. We must always move ahead and not let others drag us behind.

What are your suggestions for Dalit students groups like Insight?

I really thank Insight from my heart. This is really a very innovative initiative which will go long way to benefit our students. I know this group from my JNU days. My only suggestion for groups like Insight is to always ensure equal representation in terms of its reach. Most of our students are from very humble background and lack information. They are also not much willing to come out. Insight has the responsibility to reach to such students. Then only we can say that Insight is a real role model for all of us.

 

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What chance for Dalit girls?

June 15, 2010 at 8:10 am (Article/Essay/Speech, Case Studies, Research/Study/Fact Finding/Report)

DRIVEN by thirst, a destitute girl in a remote Nepalese village tentatively pours herself some water. Durga Sob knows she is taking a serious risk. She is strictly forbidden to drink at her school because of widespread fears over pollution. Her throat is so parched that she cannot resist, but someone sees her. Within seconds every pupil has gathered to stare while their teacher shouts: “How dare you do this! You are untouchable!” Lack of clean water is one of many factors behind the deaths of thousands of children in Nepal who do not survive to celebrate their fifth birthdays. Most are due to easily preventable diseases and conditions, like diarrhoea and malnutrition. But the water here is safe, it is Durga who is treated as a contamination risk. As a Dalit, the least ritually pure caste or social group, she is ‘untouchable’, banned from drinking at public water sources. Contact with Dalits and anything they ‘infect’ through touch is believed to ‘pollute’ people from so-called higher castes. In Nepal, children have among the worst chances of survival in the world thanks to geography, poverty, corruption and civil war. The caste system makes Dalits even more likely to die, with girls doubly discriminated against. Yet against all the odds Durga not only survived but grew up to become an internationally recognised human rights activist. She says: “What happened to me at school is still happening today…..Dalit women’s voices are growing but Dalits still have the worst health comparatively. “They have the worst malnutrition problems because of absolute poverty and discrimination. “Government health provision is expensive. Dalit children are dying because Dalits don’t have awareness or access to services.” With laws banning caste-based discrimination rarely enforced despite ongoing violence, Durga’s crusade highlights both what she has achieved and how much still needs to be done. Efforts to stop Nepalese children dying have also brought significant success amidst dire circumstances. When Maoist rebels launched the ‘People’s War’ against the Nepalese army in 1996 to ‘liberate’ Dalits, Dalits arguably suffered most yet again as both sides committed atrocities in the decade-long conflict. But another battle to save the next generation was quietly waged in the background. The Nepalese Government, working with charities and communities, increased Vitamin A handouts and more than doubled immunisation and treatment programmes for diarrhoea and pneumonia. The number of children under five dying almost halved from 117 per 1000 live births in 1991 to 61 per 1000 live births in 2006, putting Nepal on course to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on reducing deaths of under-fives by two thirds by 2015. The goal, one of eight set by world leaders in 2000, is the furthest from being achieved globally. Around nine million children still die each year worldwide from the same preventable diseases and conditions. While vaccinations and vitamins are simple, affordable solutions, there are many barriers to overcome. Remote landscapes make access to city hospitals impossible, and caste discrimination can be as insurmountable as the terrain. Nepal’s success is largely credited to Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHV) , a group of women villagers trained to deliver basic lifesaving treatment from their homes. Manisha Kami, 14, is among thousands of children born as war started who received crucial healthcare from the FCHV. But as a Dalit girl, Manisha recalls sitting alone and being seen last. Now more Dalit women are educated and some are health volunteers whose growing role is improving lives. Dr Neena Khadka, programme director with Save the Children in Nepal, says: “These women are bringing their issues forward and there is general awareness that discrimination is wrong. “The bigger problem is demand for services, which is low because communities still don’t know what is available, or they know but don’t trust them.” The issue of trust is not just about discrimination. More than 90% of births are at home and traditional beliefs unintentionally jeopardise children’s survival. Mothers and babies are considered impure during the period around the birth so women are often sent to a cowshed to deliver their babies alone on a cold, dirty floor. Newborns are bathed, regardless of the weather, because they are deemed unclean. They are not breastfed immediately because mother’s milk is also thought to be impure. In 2002 a Save the Children study found that 60% of all infant deaths were newborns, giving Nepal the third worst neonatal mortality rate in the world. Renewed efforts to drive down deaths were clearly needed. Save the Children helped the Nepalese government create a national newborn strategy and began spreading health messages. Some of the most successful mediums are reading and writing groups where women indirectly learn the benefits of timely breastfeeding and contraception. Malnutrition remains a serious killer. The latest national demographic health survey in 2006 found that nearly 50% of children were stunted. Lack of food is a major problem and Dalits still suffer disproportionately with many denied land for growing crops. Recent figures provided by the Feminist Dalit Organisation, of which Durga is president, highlight the impact of discrimination. Infant mortality rates are 116.5 per 1000 births for Dalits, compared to 75.2 per 1000 births for non Dalits. There is every reason to believe that Nepal can meet its target on reducing child deaths in five years’ time. It is far less certain that enough of those saved will be Dalits. A new constitution currently being drawn up could finally make Dalit rights a reality. Meanwhile campaigners like Durga and now Manisha, who belongs to a Save the Children youth club and child rights committee, are making a difference. Professor Smita Narula, of New York-based Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice, says: “There is something inspiring and hopeful about the way in which Dalit voices are rising up to rightfully demand a seat at the table.” Manisha herself says: “I think the practice of untouchability will disappear and Dalit children will enjoy the right of education and survival.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/what-chance-for-dalit-girls

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Experiences of Struggles Against untouchability in Tamilnadu

June 14, 2010 at 8:16 am (Struggle, Untouchability)

 

For the past ten years, the CPI (M) and other mass organisations in Tamilnadu have been concentrating on movements against caste oppression and for eradication of untouchability. Efforts towards eradication of untouchability have intensified after the formation of the Tamilnadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) in May 2007. District units of the TNUEF are present and active in all the 32 districts of Tamilnadu today.

 

Many class and mass organisations like CITU, AIKS, AIAWU, DYFI, AIDWA, SFI and the Tamilnadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association have been associated with the TNUEF. Industry wise trade unions and employees’ federations functioning in sectors like banking, insurance, telecom, education, railways, power, transport, construction, tailoring and pharmaceuticals have also been associated with the Front. Similarly, 18 Dalit Organisations functioning at the state level and 45 dalit organisations functioning at the district level are active participants in the activities of the TNUEF. As a whole, the TNUEF is functioning as a wide and broad platform for the struggle against the caste oppression and for eradication of untouchability.

 

The struggles and movements carried out by the TNUEF have had a significant impact in Tamilnadu. The State Government has been forced to intervene and restore the rights of dalits in many villages and initiate welfare measures for dalits following direct action by the TNUEF. The Front has been able to make advances and has gained the confidence of wider sections of dalits in the state. Sensing this, many dalit organisations have come forward to work with TNUEF jointly. The unique feature of this Front lies in drawing non-dalits along with the dalits in its activities and direct actions. In contrast to the perception that the oppression of dalits can be fought by dalits alone, the TNUEF has successfully organised the dalits and non-dalits together in the struggle against caste oppression, which has paid rich dividends in getting the needed relief. The activities of the Front have been widely covered by the media and have won the appreciation of broader democratic sections including human rights organisations

Challenge of Caste Oppression

The caste system, which emerged 3000 years ago, has struck deep roots in Indian society. The struggle against caste oppression also has a long history in this country. Noted social scientist Vidya Charan Dube writes:

 

No other system evoked such condemnation, struggles, ideological campaign against it as the caste system did in India. Despite that, the caste system faced everything opposed, adjusted and effected certain changes and could still stand firm.

This assessment is correct. Marxist social scientists have always held that in the Indian context, caste oppression has been intertwined and integrated with class exploitation. D.D. Kosambi had argued that the varna system evolved out of the primitive class processes of Indian society. While the caste system got consolidated in India under the feudal order, it was patronized by the British colonialists too and well protected by the capitalist ruling class after independence. The inequality inherent in the caste system has dovetailed the class interests of the exploiters. Even today, caste oppression and class exploitation remain intertwined and integrated.

 

However, the weakness of the democratic movement in India lies in the fact that struggles against caste oppression have not been carried out integrating the same with the struggles against class exploitation. These struggles have rather been conducted in isolation from each other. Struggles against the caste oppression which have ignored the class outlook have failed to make much dent against the caste system. At the same time, working class struggles conducted without any clear perspective against caste oppression – which erodes the unity of the working class – have failed to make big advances. Is it possible to build the unity of the working class without waging struggles against caste oppression and untouchability? This is a vital question thrown before the working class movement. The need of the hour is to simultaneously organise struggles against caste oppression and class exploitation and build mutual ties and links between those struggles.

 

The organisations which struggle against caste oppression should recognise the prevailing nature of class exploitation and champion class demands including land reforms, land for dalits and fair wages. On the other side, the mass organisations conducting class struggles, should raise their voice against caste oppression and actively work towards eradicating untouchability. With this perspective, the TNUEF has been developed as a platform for the joint working of class/mass organisations and dalit organisations in Tamilnadu. The struggles of the TNUEF based on the perspective of combining the struggles against caste oppression and class exploitation have yielded positive experiences.

 

The prevailing caste system in India has engendered inequality and discrimination against a large section of the people and inflicted repression. Except for those belonging to the upper tiers of caste hierarchy, all others suffer discrimination and repression in one form or other. Casteism as an ideology treats human beings not on the basis of her/his capacities and talents; rather the caste in which one is born into determines her/his social status. The casteist ideology has survived the significant economic and technological changes that have occurred under capitalism. Among the myriad forms of caste oppression and discrimination, untouchability is the worst and the most cruel, under which the dalits are stigmatized as untouchables and denied human rights. Vocations considered to be more wretched and obnoxious are thrust on them.

 

Despite great social reformers like Periyar having lived and worked in Tamilnadu, various forms of untouchability continue to prevail in thousands of villages. The TNUEF along with the associated mass organisations and the CPI (M) carried out a survey on prevailing forms of untouchability in 1849 villages of 22 districts of Tamilnadu. This survey revealed various forms of untouchability and atrocities against dalits which are prevailing today

 

Forms of Untouchability

 

Various forms of untouchability and discriminatory practices prevail in Tamilnadu as revealed by the TNEUF survey. The dalits are prevented from: (a) walking on the public road; (b) wearing chappals; (c) riding bicycles; (d) wearing dhotis folded or polyester dhotis; (e) wearing towels on shoulders; (f) wearing cloth headgear; (g) sporting thin line moustache and (h) getting clothes washed or ironed. In some laundries, there are two almirahs – with one earmarked for the clothes of dalits. Many refuse to cut the hair of dalits and some provide separate chairs for them. In many tea stalls there are separate tumblers for higher and oppressed castes; two tumblers in some for dalits and non-dalits and even four tumblers in some for upper castes, BCs and sub-castes among dalits. Dalits are not allowed to sit on benches in hotels or tea stalls. They are offered tea only in coconut shells in some places which they can drink only by squatting on the ground. Even water is offered, not in cups, but by pouring water in cupped hands. Dalits are either prevented from drawing water from public taps or separate time is allotted for them to draw water. Dalits are prevented from taking bath in public tanks and there are separate bathing ghats for them.

 

The dalits are not allowed to take food along with upper caste persons during marriage ceremonies. When dalits get married, they are often prevented from taking private marriage halls for rent. Even affluent dalit families cannot get houses for rent in urban areas. In villages they are forced to live in separate colonies.

 

During festivals, dalits are not allowed to fire crackers. The temple car is not allowed to pass through the streets inhabited by dalits. They are not allowed entry into many temples and separate places of worship are provided in some temples (some churches too). Dalits do not have the right to receive the deity during festivals. They are also forced to offer goats for free to the dominant castes. During the festive period, the dalits are not supposed to even show their faces to upper caste persons. Their offerings at temples are accepted only after sprinkling water over it. Social functions presided over by dalit officials are often boycotted.

 

The dalits cannot cremate the dead in the common cremation ground. In many places there are separate pathways to the common cremation ground for the dalits. They are forced to remove deadbodies and attend funeral rites. When a person dies, dalits are supposed to convey the message of death to the relatives of the deceased.

The dalits are prevented from sitting under the shelters in village bus stops. They are not allowed to watch TV programmes in village panchayats. There are either separate ration shops for dalits or separate dates to make purchases from the ration shops. They are not allowed to speak or sing at any public platform. The postmen do not deliver letters to dalit households in some villages; they have to obtain it themselves from the post office on getting information. Dalits are also prevented from rearing cattle or keeping male dogs.

 

Dalits from the Arunthathiyar community are forced to carry human excrement. Even the State Government appoints only Arunthathiyars in menial jobs like sanitation workers. These employees, working as daily wage workers, are asked to bring their own plates during lunch time. Even in schools, children from this community are forced to clean lavatories. Dalit students are denied admission in many schools. Children from the dominant castes are taught to call elderly persons from dalit communities by their names in a derisive manner. In private educational institutions, dalits are prevented from occupying any administrative position.

 

Walls are built to prevent the dalits from using public streets which are used by upper castes. Uthapuram in Madurai district had a 600 metre long wall. The land allotted to dalits (panchami lands) have been occupied by persons belonging to dominant castes who refuse to return them. Panchayats led by dalit persons are also discriminated against by the State Government, which refuses to allocate funds. The dominant castes do not allow the elected panchayat representatives from the dalit communities to function. The dalits are also not allowed any share in the common property of the villages.

 

Atrocities against Dalits

 

Tamil Nadu has a long history of brutal violence against dalits, starting from the Kilvenmani massacre of 1969 when 44 landless dalit labourers were burnt alive by upper caste landlord goons because they were demanding better wages. This trend has continued till recent times, with the massacre of the dalit panchayat president and others in Melavalavu in 1997. In September 2002, at Kaundampatti in Dindigul district, a dalit agricultural worker was forced to drink urine for having lodged a complaint of trespass with the police against a person from a dominant caste. In May 2002, two dalits were forced to eat human excreta in Thinniyam village in Tiruchi district. Such atrocities continue even today, with dalits being severely punished and tortured if they violate the caste codes established by the dominant castes.

 

Dalits are not allowed to marry outside their castes. There are instances where dalits have been punished through social boycott for inter-caste marriages and even forced to commit suicide. In Anthiyur, Erode district, there was an instance of dalit households being attacked after they had insisted and used a community centre. Even after the wall blocking the pathway for the dalits was broken in Uthapuram at the initiative of the TNUEF and the CPI (M), the dominant castes have used all means like household material and stones to obstruct the pathway and prevent the dalits from using it.

 

The state administration itself acts in a biased manner against the dalits and is fully complicit in the discriminatory practices. In Tiruchi district there were instances where the police ensure that the dalits are forced to use separate pathways to the common cremation ground. Whenever the dalits demand equal rights, they are brutally repressed by the police. Police firing and atrocities have occurred in Nalumoolaikinaru, Kodiyankulam, Sankaralingapuram, Uthapuram and Manjolai. Temple entry by the dalits was forcibly prohibited by the police in Thiruvallur and Sivagangai districts. The general attitude of the police is to refuse to lodge FIR in cases of atrocities against dalits and rather insist on compromises with the dominant castes. If the dalit victims insist on FIRs, counter cases against them are also lodged on the basis of false charges. Witnesses in such cases are terrorized and forced to retract.

 

Although untouchability is illegal and those who practise it are supposed to be punished for the crime, the fact remains that the practice is still prevalent in many villages. The pattern of untouch-ability, discrimination and atrocities against dalits varies across villages. In some places untouchability is practised in a silent low profile manner. In other villages it often acquires very violent forms. The provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act are violated by the police itself, in league with the dominant caste groups. We are reminded of Dr. Ambedkar’s saying:

 

Untouchability is abolished legally according to the Constitution. But I see, before my own eyes, my people are ill-treated, humiliated, assaulted, their houses are burnt, our women are targeted and sexually harassed. These are happenings of the day in our country. The laws alone can not establish their rights and livelihood. People should unite and struggle for their rights along with democratic minded sections.

 

When the TNUEF or other democratic organisations raise their voice against the practice of untouchability, the stock reply of the dominant castes is that “there is no untouchability in our village. We are living here as members of one family. You are raising these issues to provoke clashes between us.” The state administration also reflects the same sentiments. The dalits continue to remain subjugated to the dominant castes in the villages due to lack of awareness. However, in the recent times there is a new upsurge and militancy against caste oppression visible among the dalits. They are coming forward to fight for their democratic and human rights in many places. Many dalit organisations, democratic organisations like TNUEF and human rights organisations have played a significant role in bringing about this upsurge among the dalits.

 

Following the survey, the TNUEF carried out direct actions for eradication of untouchability in many places. The experiences gained from such direct actions are manifold. The TNUEF had to face the violent attacks of the dominant casteist forces, discriminatory approach of the state administration, brutal repression by the police, foisting of false cases against our activists and the negative role played by a section of the media. Despite such attacks and challenges, the struggles waged by the TNEUF have registered successes

in many places.

 

Struggle against Untouchability Walls

 

About 20 years ago, upper caste Hindus in Uthapuram, Madurai district and Periyar Nagar, Coimbatore district, had built “untouch-ability walls” for prohibiting usage of common passage by dalits in areas inhabited by the upper castes. Similarly, in Vellore city, a big iron gate was constructed between upper caste houses and dalit inhabited dwellings in a crowded main road. The TNEUF, as soon as it was launched, had brought this to the attention of the State Government. Demonstrations with the participation of dalits and other democratic forces were organised. The State Government was told that if it fails to remove the Iron Gate in Vellore, it will be brought down through direct action. Subsequent to this announcement Government intervened and removed the Iron Gate. Similarly, public passage for the dalits was established after breaking a portion of the long wall built in Uthapuram and Periyar Nagar. Through these actions, right to use of a public passage by dalits, which had been restricted for a long period of time by the upper castes, has been retrieved. This has generated enthusiasm and optimism. CPI (M) General Secretary Prakash Karat’s visit to Uthapuram during the breaking of the “untouchability wall” in May 2008 greatly enthused the people of Uthapuram.

 

Breaking of a portion of the wall in Uthapuram angered the dominant caste groups. They misled the people of the upper castes into vacating the village. For several days upper caste residents stayed at an open space nearby, in order to create an impression that people are suffering due to the TNEUF action. Sections of the media exaggerated those sufferings and took a stand against the dalits. While no administrative official had ever cared to notice the existence of the wall for the past twenty years, denying the rights of the dalits, the administration went overboard to placate the upper caste families when they were protesting against the breaking of the wall.

 

Even after the breaking of the wall and securing the public passage, the Uthapuram dalits have not been allowed to use the passage freely by the upper castes. They have obstructed the free movement of dalits by laying their household belongings, stones, sand and rubble on the public passage. When a complaint was lodged against the upper caste groups with the police, it was the dalits who had to face enquiry and harassment. Eventually there was brutal lathi charge on the dalits injuring the women, children and the elderly. There were plans to arrest hundreds of dalits. The TNUEF and the CPI (M) organised powerful protests demanding a judicial enquiry into the incident.

Thereafter, the Madurai unit of AIDWA filed a writ petition in the Madurai bench of Tamilnadu High Court, demanding a judicial enquiry into police atrocities on Uthapuram dalits and sought compensation to the victims and punishment to the culprits under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The High Court appointed a commission consisting of two judges to inquire into the incidents and directed to report its findings to the High Court. The Commission in its report noted indicted the police for excesses against the Uthapuram dalits and recommended Rs 15 lakhs compensation for the victims. While the Tamilnadu government objected to the findings of the report, the High Court has passed an interim order to pay compensation to the victims to the tune of Rs 10 lakhs. This interim order has come as a notable victory in the legal battle.

 

Pappapatti, Keeripatti Panchayat Election

 

Panchayati elections could not be held for 10 years in Pappapatti, Keeripatti, Nattarmangalam in Madurai district and Kottakachiyendal in Virudhunagar district. The reason being that these panchayats had been reserved for dalits. The dominant caste forces did not accept this and preventing the dalit candidates from filing their nominations; they even prompted their own men among the dalits to file nominations and later forced them to withdraw. In an election at Pappapatti, a dalit was elected but those dominant caste forces forced him to resign.

 

Many dalit organisations including Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Party took serious efforts to end this situation and for holding of elections in proper manner and elect Panchayat Presidents in those villages; but the dominant caste forces were putting block to their efforts. The State administration exhibited lack of interest. In such a situation, the CPI (M) and mass organisations entered the fray. The activists of these organisations, in a planned and systematic pattern of work, worked among the dalits and campaigned in deep penetration among them to raise their consciousness and awaken them. They also campaigned in the most democratic way among the people belonging to higher castes. A list of persons of dominant caste forces who prevented from holding elections had been prepared and given to the Collector for taking action.

 

The CPI (M) legislators raised this issue vociferously in the Tamilnadu State Assembly. The State Government had been toying with the idea of getting those village Panchayats in a rotatioan system to put in the general list for election. The CPI (M) protested against this and announced a programme of fasting under the leadership of the State Secretary of the Party. Only after that the Government changed its stance and announced those villages would continue to be under reserved category; steops were taken to hold the elections in a democratic manner. To hold this election, which was not held for 10 years, in the most democratic way, the CPI (M) and other mass organisations did their field work effectively. The CPI (M) fielded its members and supporters for the candidature of President in Pappapatti, Keeripatti and Nattarmangalam Panchayats and also for many of Panchayat ward members. Then only, elections were held fair and dalit leaders were elected as Presidents in those four Panchayats. Till this day, they have been functioning legally. Not only the people of those four villages but very large sections of the people also appreciate the role played by the CPI (M) and other mass organisations on this issue. It should be noted that Keeripatti Panchayat President Palraj Samy is a member of the CPI (M) and many of these three Panchayats’ members are also Party Members and supporters. .

 

Struggles for Temple Entry

 

During this period many successful struggles have been carried out to enable the dalits entry into the temples, a right which had been denied to them for a pretty long time. The CPI (M) and TNUEF led the dalits entry into Agneeswarar temple in Tamarapakkam village, Koothandavar temple in Vedanthawadi village both in Thiruvan-namalai district, Kaliamman temple, Ayakkudi in Dindigul district, Pandhappuli Mariamman temple in Nellai district, Kalkeri Anjaneyar and Kirahammal temple in Krishnagiri district, Droupathi Amman temple, Kangaiyanur in Villupuram district, Sivan temple, Chettipulam in Nagai district, and Mariamman temple, Manachur in Tiruchi district. The DYFI cadres led the dalit people for their entry into Mathur Mariamman temple in Nagai district and Nedi temple in Villupuram and Angaleswari Temple in Kongurayapettai in Namakkal districts. While the CPI (M) and TNUEF leaders led the dalits to enter into the Pavali Kamatchiamman koil in Virudhunagar district, the police refused to permit entry. Later the High Court decreed that dalits should be allowed entry to that temple whenever the temple is kept open.

 

This movement while facilitated the entry of dalits into those temples which denied for several decades had deep and strong impact in the psyche of Tamilnadu and provoked intense debate throughout the State. One section of the media – some newspapers and journals – characterised it that the belief in God by the Communists made them to lead the dalits’ entry into the temples; some provoked a debate that leading dalits to enter the temples would nurture superstition. But these aspects were explained during the struggle. It was not the question of belief in God or not; it was the denial of democratic and human right for the dalits to enter the temple while all other people of different castes were allowed and that was the violation of their rights which could not be accepted.

 

Having not allowed the dalits to enter the temples for a long period of time, the dominant caste forces indulged in activities to counter this movement of temple entry. In Chettipulam of Nagai district those forces instigated caste hatred, forced closure of shops and attacked not only the dalits who tried to enter the temple but the Police force which had come there to protect the dalits with sticks and other weapons. After kindling violence, they forced the authorities to issue prohibitory orders. On the other side, during the dalits’ entry into Kangaiyanur temple, the Police force acted in support of dominant forces and attacked those dalits who tried to enter the temple. Many including G. Latha, M.L.A., were brutally attacked and they sustained injuries. 110 activists including K. Balakrishnan, President, State Unit of AIKS and State Secretariat member of CPI(M), Anandan, District Secretary, CPI(M), Villupuram district committee were arrested and incarcerated in Cuddalore jail. Despite this development, the State administration with the help of the Police force had to take the dalits to all these temples after this struggle. In many other centres, the temple entry of dalits had taken place braving the onslaught and disturbed conditions created by the dominant caste forces.

 

Following that struggle, a statewide campaign was conducted to condemn the police attack and the violence perpetrated by the dominant caste forces. But the Government did not take any action against them. Later G. Latha preferred a private complaint against District Superintendent of Police and other officials. On the basis of that complaint, the Tamilnadu Government has ordered an enquiry by Revenue Divisional Officer, These struggles for temple entry and against the repressive measures and the success recorded in those struggles have impacted ardour and enthusiasm among the dalits and democratic movements.

Reservation for Arunthathiyars – Sub quota

Arunthathiyars are considered to be the most backward and wretched of the dalits live in appalling repressive socio-economic conditions in Tamilnadu. A considerable section of this population work as agricultural labourers in western districts of the State; in other districts they work in menial labour or as cobblers; gathering human excrement, removing obstructions in the underground drainage, removing carcass and dead human bodies, working in cremation grounds are some of the ugly and demeaning tasks forced on them. Because of their work and living conditions, a considerable section of this population can not impart even a reasonable level of education for their children. The population of Arunthathiyar community is more than 30 lakhs; but for them it is quite rare to get the benefits of reservation for education and employment opportunities. Though Arunthathiyar organisations had been through many struggles for more than 25 years demanding sub quota within the reserved quota for dalits, the State administration ignored that demand. In this background, the CPI (M) and TNUEF studied their demands and their living conditions decided to project their demand for sub quota and their other demands and organised struggles. The TNUEF and CPI (M) organised a massive rally of Arunthathiyars with 20000 people on June 12, 2007. Many Arunthathiyar organisations joined this rally. Following this, picketing programme was carried out in 15 districts, participated by more than 10 thousand people; thousands and thousands participated in the district conferences held in this regard in 12 districts; dharna programme was held in 100 blocks in the State. Arunthathiyar organisations participated in all these struggles. Touched by the heat of this movement, the state government appointed a Commission headed by Justice Janardanan to study this issue and submit the report. This Commission recommended 3% reservation for Arunthathiyars as a sub quota within the general quota for reservation for dalits. After having had consultation with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and getting the consent in all parties meet, the Tamilnadu Government announced in the State Assembly, 3% sub quota reservation for Arunthathiyars. This is a deserving victory for Arunthathiyars and their organisations and for CPI (M) and TNEUF for their consistent campaign and struggles. The success of this struggle has created great upsurge and enthusiasm among the Arunthathiyars.

 

For having successfully brought out the sub quota for Arunthathiyars through various struggles and campaigns, many Arunthathiyar Organisations complimented CPI (M) and TNUEF and organised functions to felicitate them at Coimbatore, Virudhunagar and Dindigul. In all these functions, thousands of Arunthathiyars participated.

 

The experience gained during those struggles have to be specified here. Earlier Viduthalai Chiruththaikal Party led by Thol. Thirumavalavan opposed this sub quota; after having seen the resurgence and awakening of Arunthathiyars, that party had to change its decision. This party has gone to the extent of conferring Dr. Ambedkar Award to the Chief Minister for granting 3% sub quota reservation for Arunthathiyars.

 

Even though the ‘Puthia Thamilagam’ Party led by Dr. Krishnasamy and some other dalit organisations oppose the 3% sub quota reservation, the opposition did not register impact in a big way among the dalits.

 

Arunthathiyars have been expressing their faith and confidence with CPI (M) and TNUEF consequent to the success recorded in the sub quota struggle. Many Arunthathiyar organisations work jointly with TNUEF at several centres. Being unable to recognise this success of CPI (M) and TNUEF and in a fit of anger and intolerance, the DMK using their political power and an organisation close to their party organised a felicitation function for Chief Minister in the name of that organisation. In that meeting Karunanidhi averred that none made the demand for sub quota to him and he himself had placed the demand and then implemented it. But this self-publicity of chief minister could not cut ice among the Arunthathiyars and their organisations. Only as a counter reaction to this speech of the chief minister, felicitations to CPI (M) were carried with much verve and vigour.

Struggle for Cremation Rights

In many villages in Tamilnadu, to get the cremation rights remains to a great problem for the dalits. Dalits are denied cremation in public cremation grounds. Where separate cremation grounds are there for the dalits, it is observed that in many places those grounds have been occupied by dominant forces. Routes to their separate cremation grounds are often obstructed and this also remains as a problem. During this period, the TNUEF intervened on these issues.

 

Balasamudram village in the Dindigul district had the cremation ground for dalits at one side of a river; for the last 60 years, dalits used to tie the dead body in a rubber tyre and throw it in the water; some youth who knew swimming would plunge in the river and push the corpse to that side of the river where cremation or burial could be carried out. When an organisation called “Tamil Puligal” (Tamil Tigers) intervened on this issue, the State Government did not give its attention to this issue. That organisation came forward to work jointly with TNUEF. State and district leaders of TNUEF visited that place and then intervened; it was brought to the notice of Tamilnadu Government. Struggles were planned for alternate cremation ground. The Tamilnadu Government intervened immediately and allotted land for a separate cremation ground at the other side of the river. A 60-year old demand was settled at the intervention of TNUEF. People in that area expressed their happiness and greeted the leaders on this achievement. It was brought to the notice of the TNUEF that an issue of similar nature in a village in Puducherry State and the TNUEF brought it to the notice of Puducherry government. The government has announced that steps are taken to provide alternate cremation ground for dalits.

 

As the road to the cremation ground was denied for the dalits at Irulakudumpanpatti in Dindigul district, a picketing programme was carried out under the leadership of K. Balabharathy, MLA on behalf of the TNUEF. The agitation was withdrawn when the State administration assured that they would provide road to the cremation ground.

 

At Sorispuram, Thoothukudi district, the cremation ground of 1 acre (100 cents), used by dalits for the last 70 years, was found to be occupied by certain selfish groups. A dharna programme was organised by TNUEF for retrieval of that ground. Dalits of this village participated in this struggle enmasse. It has been declared there that the State Government should retrieve that cremation ground and if they fail to do so, the people themselves would enter and retrieve the ground.

Other Direct Actions

During this period the TNUEF carried out direct actions in many villages for protection of human rights of dalits through various struggles, namely, for the abolition of the two tumbler system, for the right to use common path, for the right to use common cremation ground, for the right to ride bicycle, to have their hair cut in saloons, to get their due share in the common property of the village, right to have their clothes ironed, right to proffer religious offerings (Pongal) in temples and the right to have their temple car drawn in the dalit streets. All these rights have been restored. At the Kattalaipatti village in Virudhunagar district, dalits were prevented from using public lavatory. The TNUEF mobilised the people and broke the lock put by the dominant caste forces and paved way for the dalits to use the same.

 

In all these struggles, the TNUEF did not restrict mobilising the concerned dalits only but also it mobilised all the toiling people belonging to other communities. This has given a sense of confidence and resurgence among the dalits. One thousand non-dalit toiling people joined in the demonstration organised by CPI (M) and TNUEF for the demolition of wall at Uthapuram along with one thousand Dalit masses.

 

When the untouchability wall was demolished at Periyar Nagar in Coimbatore district, a woman instigated by caste zealots tried to prevent the demolition; but a youth of DYFI who is a close relative to that woman stopped her and took her home. This incident, an act of full and complete integration with dalits and their causes, evoked a sense of happiness and goodwill among the dalits.

 

Even though many dalit and Arunthathiyar organisations acted jointly with TNUEF during those struggles, we have had the experience of some dalit organisations taking a negative stand. They questioned in their writings as to why the Left which was organising class struggles should organise or take part in caste struggles. “Dalits themselves would solve their own problems and there was no need for the support of the Left” – was a refrain adopted by some who mocked the initiatives. We replied to them that untouchability is not a dalit problem alone but a national problem; the problem of democratic movements; to eradicate that was the task of all toiling people. While giving this reply it was affirmed that no force could stop the Left from carrying out struggles for the socio-economic freedom of dalits. All the struggles were carried out with this explanation to the critics. Because of the continued struggles of CPI (M), TNUEF and other mass organisations, dalits are getting mobilised under the leadership of the Left; these short sighted organisations could not stop that. That is our experience. In fact those leaders’ influence and self-interests are getting dissipated. This is also one of the reasons for their opposition to the struggles of CPI (M) AND TNUEF.

Dr. Ambedkar Statue

A statue of Dr. Ambedkar was installed at a common place in the Periapattinam village of Cuddalore district. The dominant caste forces protested at this installation in a place inhabited by them and prevented the inaugural ceremony taking place. The State administration acquiesced with those casteist forces. A dalit organisation which contested parliamentary elections in that constituency, keeping in mind the vote bank, agreed to shift the installation of Dr. Ambedkar statue to an alternate space and gave a letter to that effect. The dalits were mentally agonised at this attitude of that dalit organisation. In that situation, DYFI entered into a struggle demanding that there could be no change of place for installation of the statue and it should be installed in the same place for Dr. Ambedkar statue and inaugural function to be organized early. The state administration was opposed to this. The police stopped and arrested the DYFI cadres who marched to garland Dr. Ambedkar statue. The DYFI took this issue to the High Court. The High Court while condemning the attitude of the State administration, directed that the statue should be there in the same public place as decided earlier and DYFI leaders should be invited to the inaugural ceremony which was later held under the chairmanship of the district collector. The state secretary of the DYFI, Kannan was given the honour of garlanding the statue first on that day. The fact that Dr. Ambedkar statue was not shifted to a different space and the High Court directive to the State to conduct the inaugural ceremony and very conduct of the ceremony itself have given a lot of happiness to the people of that area. They gathered massively at Virudhachalam town and felicitated DYFI for the good work done by them.

Land, Patta for House Site and Cluster Houses

The state government should give priority to dalits in distribution of land; panchami lands should be retrieved and handed over to dalits. Dalits should be given patta for cluster houses allotted to them. Dilapidated houses under this system should be repaired and given to them. Drinking water, roads, education, medical facilities, and toilet facilities – all these should be provided in the living quarters of dalits. On behalf of TNUEF, a survey was undertaken in Madurai city to study the living conditions of dalits in urban area. This study was undertaken in 25 areas inhabited by 50000 dalits. In this study, the demands pertaining to the sources of their living were compiled. A massive rally was held at Madurai in which more than 2000 dalits and Intellectuals participated. At the end of the rally a memorandum was submitted to the district collector. Consequent to that; the state government was forced to settle some of the demands in some dalits’ living quarters. It has been decided to continue this movement further.

Auxiliary Plan for SC/ST, Reservation in Private Sector and Filling up the Backlog

In the auxiliary plan for dalit/tribals in Tamilnadu, 19% of the funds should be allotted on the basis of dalit population; allotted funds should be properly spent. Reservation should be implemented in the private sector. The Tamilnadu Government should fill up the existing vacancies and also the backlog of vacancies. A special conference was held at Chennai focusing those demands. Many dalit leaders and Intellectuals participated in the convention. Thousands of leaflets explaining those demands were issued and campaign was carried on. The CPI (M) legislators took up those issues strongly in the State Assembly. Many dalit organisations, left and democratic organisations also conducted movements on these demands.

 

In this background the Tamilnadu state for the first time allotted 19% of the 2010-11 Plan allocation to the auxiliary plan for dalits. This is a significant achievement. However there are shortcomings and malpractices in the matter of allocating the allotted fund for the welfare of dalits/tribals department-wise and spending the same. It has been decided to organize continued movements to effect a change in this way of administering things. Our experience is that there is no appreciable improvement in socio-economic conditions of the dalits/tribals despite announcement of various plans for their development.

 

In the context of globalization when the private sector is booming, the dalits cannot have opportunities for development and protect themselves if reservation formulae for education and jobs are not applied to the private sector. There is a need to strengthen the nationwide campaign and movement on this issue. It has also been decided to carry on series of movement to force the Tamilnadu Government to fill up the existing and backlog vacancies.

For the Demands of the Tribals

Land rights of the tribals should be protected. The Tamilnadu Government should implement the Forest Rights Act fully without any deviation. The Tamilnadu Tribals Association has waged many struggles on their demands including the need for issuance of community certificates properly without any delay. This Association has decided to hold a special conference joining hands with the TNUEF. After the struggles waged by the Association, community certificates were issued in many districts.

Interventions in Puduchery

A special conference was conducted at Puduchery to focus the demands such as sub quota for Arunthathiyars, reservation for scheduled tribes, inclusion of dalit Christians as scheduled caste and dalit domicile at Puduchery to be recognised as SC and granting them all rights – dharnas, demonstrations were held. Some other dalits and tribal organisations also carried on their movement on those issues. After these struggles the Puduchery government put the tribals in the backward classes list. We are insisting that they should be included in the ST list. It has been planned to take up issues related to eradication of untouchability in Puduchery.

Implementation of Prevention of Atrocities Act

We have been waging series of struggles for firm implementation of Prevention of Atrocities (against dalits) Act. On many incidents of atrocities against dalits, we have intervened and conducted movements condemning the same.

 

On many occasions the attitude and the action of the revenue officials, police officials towards the issues pertaining to the atrocities was neither within the legal frame nor with the perspective of social justice in Tamilnadu. When complaints on atrocities are received, the police officials obtain complaints from the perpetrators of the crime and file cases against the victims of the atrocities. This improper and illegal method of treating the complaints prevails among the police officials. There are occasions in which they try to work out a compromise calling both the complainant and the accused. Beyond this, if the case is filed, the dalits do not get justice due to police officials delaying preliminary investigations, dismantling of witnesses and due to lacunae in conducting the cases. Our experience show only in very few cases convictions have taken place.

 

There had been incidents that cases were foisted under this Act against those who fought against atrocities in Tamilnadu. In a spirit of vengeance, the Police have filed cases against Arjunan, district secretary of the CPI(M), Sivagangai and U. Nirmala Rani, state office bearers of AIDWA under this particular Act. The cases were dropped only after we took steps organizationally and through legal and administrative channels. Many such incidents of abuse of this Act happened in Tamilnadu.

 

A Public Enquiry session was conducted by TNUEF at Aruppukkottai in Virudhunagar district to expose the inability of dalits not getting justice on their complaints of atrocities. A retired Justice, a lawyer and social activists sat in that enquiry commission as judges. This public enquiry exposed all matters related to atrocities committed by dominant forces, apathy and indifferent attitude of the state administration, wrong approach and attitude of the police officials. For example, it was revealed as the dalits of Nathampatty village who were firm and united in fighting for their rights, their living area was detached from the Nathampatti village through a resolution in the panchayat and that decision was implemented; the adjacent Aruppukkottai municipality had declared that that area was not merged with it. So the dalit people of Nathampatty village did not belong to any town or panchayat. No plan or project of the state government is being implemented for them. Many dalit presidents of the panchayats could not sit in the chair meant for the president in the panchayat office. In a village where dalits constructed a community hall against the opposition of dominant caste forces, the land allotted to them was taken back. Many such incidents of atrocities were brought to light in that enquiry. Later it was published in the journals and newspapers. It has been decided to organize movements on these issues.

Meeting with the National SC Commission

When struggles for eradication of untouchability and for the rights of the dalits were going on, the National Commission for SC visited Tamilnadu. The leaders of TNUEF met the Commission, submitted a memorandum and had discussions with the Commission. The Deputy Chairman of the Commission, Sri Kumble, who had come to Tamilnadu leading the Commission raised a strange question – “As untouchability has been abolished legally, what is the need for formation of TNUEF and for its activities?” This question evoked a surprised reaction among those assembled in hundreds there. On behalf of TNUEF, all acts of atrocities against dalits and prevalence of various forms of untouchability in Tamilnadu were explained and our demands noted in the memorandum also were explained. The deputy chairman of the Commission while talking to the press later made critical observations about the state of affairs on the dalit question based on the issues raised by us in the meeting. The National Commission has written to TNUEF stating that they have been enquiring the issues raised in the meeting and they would revert back after getting reply from Tamilnadu Government. Our meeting with the National Commission at the crucial time found space in the media reports.

March to Chennai Fort

The interventions of TNUEF on dalit issues from the beginning, struggles waged and successes gained, integration of various dalit and Arunthathiyar organisations – all these have had good impact in Tamilnadu. It has compelled the state government to intervene and solve many of the issues focussed by us. Many democratic organisations welcomed our efforts. The TNUEF has emerged and grown as an organisation winning the faith and confidence of dalits widely. This organisation has gained goodwill not only among the dalits but among the non-dalits also. In this background, while the TNUEF organised a big rally marching towards Fort St. George, Chennai on 27th October 2009, in which 15,000 people belonging to dalit and other sections coming from other districts participated in that rally. Leaders of various dalit and arunthathiyar organisations also took part in the rally. Adding some more issues with the issues already explained a charter of demands was submitted to the chief minister on the day itself.

 

It was stressed that there should be a SC/ST Commission at state level in Tamilnadu with mandatory provisions and legal status as that of the National Commission. The chief minister agreed with the justification behind this demand and assured to take further steps on this question; he announced immediate implementation of some of the demands raised in the memorandum.

 

After the rally was over, he wrote an article and had it published in all newspapers explaining the talks he had with TNUEF leaders and characterised it as an useful meeting and a meeting that would bring benefits.

State Conference

In the background of the struggles and rich experiences gained, the TNUEF will have its state conference on May 28-29, 2010 at Pudukkottai. 350 delegates drawn from all the districts including delegates of 100 dalit organisations and of class and mass organisations will participate in the conference. The path traversed by TNUEF for the last 3 years, the struggles waged, experiences gained – all these aspects will be debated in the conference. Delineation of future tasks and planning of future struggles will be in the agenda of the conference. A massive rally focusing on anti-caste – eradication of untouchability will be held on May 29, 2010, in which thousands and thousands of people are expected to participate. Prakash Karat, General Secretary, CPI (M) and other state leaders will take part. K. Varadarajan General Secretary of AIKS will inaugurate the Conference.

 

There is no doubt that this conference will draw a clear perspective and programme to make the TNUEF to grow further in to a broader democratic forum in the days to come.

1 Comment

Religion, Religiosity and Secular Concerns

June 9, 2010 at 10:50 am (Book Review)

Book Review

by  Gautam Navlakha

 

The God Market: How Globalisation Is Making India More Hindu

by Meera Nanda; Random House India, 2009

 

Different aspects of social life are increasingly becoming free of religioussanctions and taboos in India. At the same time concerted attempts to arrest the process of secularisation, especially in the domain of expressionand speech, in the name of religious sensibilities, are also gathering ground. The most brazen example of the latter was made by the Sangh parivar during its anti-Babri Masjid campaign when it claimed that “faith was above the law”. This contradiction, between secularisation of social life and making faith the basis of social discourse and public behaviour, is usually explained in a variety of ways. However, the role of the State, in encouraging this, has not been explored and contemporary instances of this are hardly commented upon. For instance, why did the Indian state promote the Amarnath pilgrimage in Jammu and Kashmir as a mark of patriotism and spirituality, in the midst of its brutal military suppression? There are other seamier sides of the nexus which remain unexplored, such as the link between the organisation Abhinav Bharat – accused of the Malegaon terror attack, a self-styled shankaracharya, an ashram, a Kashmir- based religious trust, a military school run by a right wing group, and retired or serving officers of armed forces and civil servants. Why is the role of temple trusts and ashrams as conduits for money laundering not being investigated? Apparently, there is greater political premium attached to chasing crooks across the border than for going after those on our side of the divide.

Accessing Unexplored Terrain

The great merit of the book under review is that it goes where few have bothered to go before and offers a framework to understand the phenomenon of religiosity. In five chapters the author takes us through globalisation in India and links it to how the prospering Hindu middle class is taking to religion, making the “texture of public sphere…distinctively Hindu than ever before” (p 8). It explores the nexus between the State-Temple and Private Sector; how the successes of Indians abroad are perceived as a result of the “Great Hindu Mind”; and finally how the “god market has continued to boom under the peculiarly Indian brand of secularism” (p 9). Each chapter offers sharp insights which can, in themselves, become the subject matter of further research. In the first chapter Nanda reminds us that the “devious genius of neoliberalism” is to combine “unconstrained market forces” with the desire for “freedom from unchecked state power and individual freedoms of thought and speech” (p 20). And that it “simultaneously celebrates individual freedom, and trivialises it by treating individual persons merely as economic agents who are only motivated by the pursuit of material gain” (ibid). She points out that growth in inequality which has accompanied economic liberalisation has belied promises of the “trickle down” theorists. Indeed she goes on to point out that the privatisation of the public sector assets was in part justified as providing resources for education and health. Instead what we have is that “education, especially higher education, has become one more reason which the State is disinvesting from, leaving the field open to private enterprise…” (p 47). In 2000 there were 21 privately-owned deemed universities whose numbers climbed to 70 in 2005 and to 117 in 2007! The number of private colleges shot up from 5,748 in 1990 to 16,865 in 2003 (p 49). She points out that by making education open to the private sector “while relaxing oversight on course content has created conditions for Hinduisation of education” (p 53).

In the next chapter the author points towards “how openly ritualistic, ostentatious and nationalistic” this religiosity is. She contrasts this to the previous generation which combined scientific thinking with “neo-Vedantic preference for a more cerebral, philosophical Hinduism…” (p 62). A “recent” (date and year unspecified) Pew Global Attitude Survey shows that 89% of middle class Indians were pro-free market (p 67). The same survey shows that 92% claimed that religion is important to them. However, she appears tentative when she disputes the findings of the same survey which also show that 92% wanted the State to step in and help the poor and that 90% wanted religion to be kept out of government. Accepting one part while rejecting another part of the survey necessitates more detailed analysis because she also refers to a Centre for the Study in Developing Societies (CSDS) survey in 2007 for CNN-IBN-Hindustan Times, which shows that in the “last five years”, in contrast to 47% Christians, 38% Muslims and 33% Sikhs, only 27% Hindus claim to have become more religious (p 70). And she observes that it is “not despair or alienation, but rather ambivalence over their new found wealth that seems to be a more plausible explanation of the growing religiosity” of Indians (pp 104-05).

However, she draws our attention to the fact that in 2000 India had 2.5 million places of worship but only 1.5 million schools and barely 75,000 hospitals and that 50% of all package tours are accounted for by pilgrimages compared to 28% for leisure. She points to how various rituals such as yagnas, etc, receive patronage of public sector units like the Haridwar based “gayatri mantras” whose clients include Bharat Heavy Electricals, National Thermal Power Corporation, Sales Tax Department, the Labour Department, the Department of Education and a number of nationalised banks (p 82). Even the representatives of the Left Front government in West Bengal participated in the bhoomi puja (ritual before the start of any project) performed by Tata Motors on the land forcibly acquired and leased to them in Singur (p 85). She reminds us that the role of the “living gurus” such as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (whom The Economist, described as sounding “less as a spiritual leader and more like a politician”) in speaking of the appeasement of Muslims (p 100) is important because the “Bhagvad Gita and the Yoga Sutras have been turned into self-help manuals for making money and achieving success” (p 105).

Corporate-State Hinduism

But it is chapter three which is the most significant part of her book for there she shows how the secular Indian government and India’s corporate sector support Hinduism and work together to promote it through education and tourism. She refers to three types of “Hindu Traditionalist” institutions which receive state patronage: those propagating priest craft; colleges run by ashrams and temples; and outright grant to temples. Land is gifted or sold at a highly discounted rate to temples or religious endowments for building schools, universities, hospitals and the corporate sector steps in to give donations. Where higher education is concerned the State gives it “deemed university status” (p 114). Indeed contrary to the charge made by right wing Hindu activists the Indian state shows “great solicitousness and deference…for the orthodoxy of temple priests in matters relating to temple rituals and worship” (p 115). She also shows how the State’s management of temples and religious tourist sites has resulted in helping them collect fortunes not to mention enabling the exponential increase in the number of pilgrims.

She refers to the introduction by the University Grants Commission in 2001 of college level courses in Jyotir Vigyan and Purohitya (astrology and priest craft) and to the fact that corporate czars like Dhirubhai Ambani, Lakshmi Mittal, Anil Agarwal, etc, have been generous benefactors of various gurus and swamis. The book also exposes the link between the Hindu communal outfits such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its various fronts such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, etc, and these gurus and swamis. For instance, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Swami Ramdev, Kanchi Shankaracharya Sri Shankara Vijayendra Saraswati, etc, have participated and blessed the activities of the VHP. Most of these religious figures lacked the courage to condemn the State organised carnage of Muslims in Gujarat. Nor did they find anything wrong in the permission given to the Akshardham temple in Delhi on the banks of river Yamuna, and which flouted all norms, rules and laws and ignored ecological concerns.

Banal Nationalism Nanda says that the actual practice of secularism in India seems to be replicating the pre-modern, pre-Mughal Hindu model of the State-temple relationship. Elected ministers and bureaucrats see themselves in the mould of Hindu kings of yesteryears who considered it their duty to protect dharma. The temple priests and gurus, in turn, think nothing of treating elected officials as VIPs, if not literally as gods. The seamless partnership of faith and politics continues under the thin veneer of secularism (p 139).

But how does this feed into what she calls “banal nationalism”? How do the rituals and dogmas which enable the middle classes to adjust to global capitalism deepen a sense of Hindu chauvinism and breed an everyday kind of Hindu nationalism? This is what she has to say:

Gods are to India what the red-white and blue flag is to America. In India public worship of Hindu gods and the public performance of distinctively Hindu rituals serve the role of ‘flagging’ the national identity of the citizenry as Indians. Whereas the ‘religions of the book’, that is, Islam and Christianity, bind the faithful by demanding obedience to the letter and the spirit of their revealed dogmas, Hinduism deploys familiar rituals, festivals, myths and observances….to knit a many-stranded rope that binds the faithful to the faith with so many little ties, at so many different points that one loses sight of the ideological indoctrination that is going on (pp 140-41).

But, she points out, while this process is going on and makes for wider appeal of Hindu chauvinism and banal nationalism; nevertheless, it is contested (p 158). She cites the CSDS study based on the 2004 elections on the question of majoritarianism which showed that respondents were divided 35% each, in support and opposition, when asked whether in a democracy the opinion of “majority community should prevail”. However, she points out that twice as many of those who participate in religious organisation tended to support majoritarianism.

But is religiosity confined to the middle classes? If not is there a difference between classes insofar as the form that their religiosity takes? She is right in saying that religiosity is not confined to the middle classes and that the “masses too” are taking to gurus, swamis and practising rituals in a big way motivated by the same desire to get rich. However, is the fear of losing the riches acquired or the upward mobility of the middle classes different from the desire of the marginalised to get rich? This raises the issue of the role played by inequality. She may be right in saying that the “elites and the masses are turning to gurus and pujaris who are more than willing to find religious justification for getting rich” (p 190). But do not these preachers, at the same time, also defend inequalities? She addresses the question partially, when she deals with the question of whether religiosity implies the end of the road for secularism.

Hunger for Community?

She argues that secularism is a universal phenomenon and contends that, notwithstanding the differences between different religious doctrines, the globalising spread of capitalism, science and the nation state act as “carriers of secularisation” and therefore, separation of religion from the public sphere is happening in India too. This does not imply that the “demand for belief in supernatural beings will decline”. However, she contends that “religiosity, like other cultural trend, is most likely to wax and wane in intensity” (p 196). Drawing on the work of Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular (2004), she argues that seen in a wider span of time one can discern a decline in religious beliefs. And this bears a co-relation with “existential insecurity” experienced by people. Norris and Inglehart found a correlation between income inequality and religiosity and found that “higher the income level, lower the religiosity as measured by frequency of prayer” (p 198). However, she goes on to argue that, life in post-industrial societies breeds despair and encourages religiosity because workers “are hungry for community which unions have failed to provide, except in purely economic matters like wages”. Also she reminds readers that her book shows that “if poverty makes people pray, so does prosperity”. Therefore, “bringing class and economics into discussion of religiosity is not to reduce religion to a sideshow of economic imperatives… (it is) to challenge all attempts to eternalise religion, to turn it into a primordial impulse which supposedly stays constant and unchanging in a changing world” (p 200).

She concludes by saying that “it is not the decline, but the persistence of religion that sociologists are now trying to explain. The new idea is that demand for religion is never going to go away or decline, while the supply of religion will vary in different societies at different times.” This poses a challenge for us in India where the “triumphalist tone of mainstream Hinduism and the physical violence against Christian and Muslim minorities has created an atmosphere of fear and insecurity among these communities which is hardly conducive to the kind of vigorous growth that Hinduism is expecting” (p 202).

There is much food for thought in this book, which has marshalled evidence to provide a persuasive perspective inviting us to interrogate it further. Nevertheless, I would have liked her to explore the link between religiosity and the welfare state. Especially in Europe, with its century-long working class struggle which brought about a remarkable social transformation and resulted in ending “existential insecurities” which defines life in India and the US. Could this account for the decline of religiosity in Europe, unlike in the US and India? While she has dealt with middle class religiosity I feel there is a need to explore the motivations and impulses which drive the underclass to take to religiosity. Has there been a decline? Can one perceive an inverse relationship between participation in religious organisations and voting behaviour? One is tempted to ask her to develop the argument about “hunger for community” which secular organisations such as trade unions fail to provide. In Europe, particularly north Europe (as against east Europe where the welfare state was dismantled in the rush to “westernise”) the sense of community is not sought in religion but in secular organisations which are a fallout of a century long class struggle? Finally, I wish she had looked into how class and caste hierarchies get represented and play themselves out in temples, ashrams and sanctuaries of the living gurus. How access to “god and god” men/women is easy for the rich, mighty and the privileged and does it or does is not create a disequilibrium, which can undercut religiosity?

Thought Provoking Book

The interesting thing is that these questions come to mind on reading and engaging with her arguments. It is an enriching experience both in terms of evidence and analysis. Barring a few typos and the rather unfortunate cover design, this book is written in an appealing style. It ought to be read by all those who are either deeply concerned, or enamoured by the encroachment of religion and disrespect for diversity that has gripped India’s public domain.

Contact the Gautam Navlakha at gnavlakha@gmail.com

 

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Khap Panchayats, Sex Ratio and Female Agency

June 9, 2010 at 10:01 am (Atrocities, critique)

by Ravinder Kaur

 

EPW: Vol. 45 No.  23

 

While many intelligent reasons have been proffered for the recent resurgence of Khap panchayats in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh and their actions vis-à-vis self-choice marriages, two very important aspects of the phenomenon need to be highlighted. The first is the impact of the abysmal sex ratio, which is a result of rampant female sex selective abortions, neglect of girl children and a minuscule but still present female infanticide. The second is that it is only women in this male-dominated society who have publicly stood up to the might of the Khap panchayats and are challenging their writ.

Khap panchayats are constantly in the news these days for their role in what are being dubbed as “honour crimes”. Most of these “crimes” consist of marriages which are inappropriate ac­cording to local Haryanvi or western Uttar Pradesh (UP) society. Ostensibly “society” takes offence at these marriages, and Khap panchayats as representatives of society proceed to judge and punish couples and their families. The moral pressure exercised by these now extra-constitutional bodies and the fear of challenging their writ pro­pels or emboldens close relatives to elimi­nate the married couple and fellow villag­ers to ostracise their families. Not surpris­ingly, even police protection fails to help the hapless victims as policemen and politicians fully subscribe to and openly endorse the values underlying opposition to such marriages. They therefore allow revenge and condone punishment of the so-called transgressors.

As women from far-off regions and of indeterminate caste pour in as brides for Haryana’s bachelors, the state turns the screws on its own couples. If a couple’s gotra is the same or if they have married in the same or neighbouring village, they are told to cease being husband and wife and live as brother and sister. To the Khap panchayats it does not matter that their parents may have arranged the marriage, a child may already have been born of the marriage and that in the eyes of the law they have done no wrong. Yet, the same law is unable to pro­tect them and it bows to what are claimed to be sacrosanct social norms. Parents, brothers and cousins who avenge such “wrong” marriages instead find legitimacy and support from local law enforcement authorities. The rhetoric of citizenship, of embracing modernity, of development, of gender equality, lies in the Haryana dust.

While many intelligent reasons have been proffered for the recent resurgence of Khap panchayats and their actions vis-à-vis self-choice marriages and mar­riages transgressing societal norms (most cogently by Prem Chowdhry, “Crisis of Masculinity in Haryana”, EPW, 3 December 2005), there are two very important aspects of the phenomenon that have as yet not been highlighted. The first, which I will elaborate in the following paragraphs, is its relationship to that other scourge of Haryana and western UP – the abysmal sex ratio, which is a result of rampant female sex selective abortions, neglect of girl children and a minuscule but still present female infanticide. The second is a unique and unremarked upon feature of the opposition to Khap panchayats – that it is only women who have publicly stood up to their might and are challenging their writ. In a male-dominated society where a woman has no presence or place in the public sphere and certainly not in male-dominated panchayats, it is indeed a wonder that it is they who are taking up the cudgels on behalf of their husbands, children and families.

Inter-Caste vs Intra-Caste Marriages

Before I attempt an explanation as to what really might lie behind modern day Khap activism and resurgence, it is important to understand the nature of marriages/rela­tionships being targeted by the Khap pan­chayats. Contrary to popular perception, these are not always “runaway” marriages; indeed there is a fair amount of variety in the kinds of marriages being objected to by Khap panchayats. One major distinc­tion needs to be made at the very outset –some of the marriages being targeted are inter-caste marriages, in which usually the man is a dalit and the woman belongs to the Jat caste. Contrasted to these are intra-caste marriages which transgress local rules of gotra exogamy, i e, they take place between prohibited gotras. Yet others are intra-village, as Haryana practises what is called “village exogamy”, i e, people must marry outside the village, even if a gotra with which marriage is permissible is present in the groom or bride’s village. Village exogamy is sometimes further ex­tended to what sociologists call “territorial exogamy” by which several villages are in a brotherly (bhaichara) relationship with each other and hence marriageable girls and boys in such villages are considered brothers and sisters. As social anthropolo­gists know, definitions of incest vary cultur­ally and north Indian society spreads the net very deep and wide with its prohibited categories extending over several gotras and villages. The farther removed in kinship terms a bride and groom are, the better and more prestigious such a marriage is in the north. In earlier times, marriage distance – the geographical distance between a groom and bride’s villages – used to be a marker of social rank of families and clans.

Self-choice vs Arranged Marriages

There are other important differences. Inter-caste marriages generally fall into the category of “self-choice” marriages, and also violate the rule of caste endogamy (whereby one should only marry within one’s own caste). This is not necessarily the case with “inappropriate” gotra marriages which besides being intra-caste, may have been duly arranged by the parents of the couple. These marriages thus have the approval of family, village and society and are socially legitimised through public cel­ebration and are also valid in the eyes of Hindu marriage law. It is however curious that many such marriages are targeted a year or more after they were solemnised and when the wife is already pregnant or when the couple has already had a child. Why does the Khap panchayat wake up late to their apparent irregularity?

Different sets of logic are seemingly operating vis-à-vis the targeting of these two broad sets of marriages. In the case of inter-caste marriages, the ire of the Jat community is especially reserved for dalits who dare to fall in love with and attempt to marry or do marry Jat girls. The violence towards such marriages is easily explained by the challenge being offered to the dominant Jat community by untouchable castes, which may have begun to prosper with the help of educational and employ­ment opportunities. A similar backlash is seen in many other parts of the country where dalits have improved their circum­stances and attempt to enter mainstream society and challenge the disabilities imposed upon them by caste society. In the south, dalits wearing shirts or riding motorbikes have been targeted; the dalits of Haryana are in some sense offering a far more fundamental challenge to the Jats – in attempting to marry their daughters, they strike at the very heart of caste exclu­sivity. Marriage, as we know, is the last and strongest bastion for the preservation of caste – caste endogamy ensures the per­petuation of caste exclusivity. Equally, the intimate sphere of family and marriage upholds and perpetuates cultural commu­nity values and hence any perceived or real threat to these values draws a violent response from the community concerned.

It is necessary to note and explain the fact that Khap panchayat diktats against same gotra or inappropriate gotra mar­riages have surfaced in the last 10 odd years, gathering steam in more recent times. The gruesome killings and punish­ments such as expulsion from the village, social ostracism, etc, inflicted on couples and their families have propelled some civil society bodies to take up cudgels on behalf of the beleaguered couples. Support by groups such as the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and a pro­posal by the government to bring a law against honour killings (by adding new clauses to Section 300 of the Indian Penal Code), meant to rein in the Khap panchayats, have strengthened their resolve to protect their turf. With the result that the these bodies are taking a more militant stand and demanding an amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act to make impermissible marriages which violate local gotra-related norms. More recently, Jat leaders such as Om Prakash Chautala and even the younger, supposedly “modern” Navin Jindal, have supported and forwarded to the government the Khap panchayats’ demand to initiate changes in the Hindu marriage law.

Skewed Sex Ratios and Control over Women

To understand both the timing and inten­sification of Khap panchayat activity against various types of marriages and the virulent nature of the response, one has to look beyond surface explanations offered in terms of violation of customary norms and interpreted as violations of the community’s honour. One important ex­planation may lie in the gender imbalance in Haryanvi society signified by the very low sex ratios which are being further ex­acerbated by the fewer number of girls be­ing born in this region. In Haryana and in western UP, the Jat caste which dominates the region is suffering especially from what demographers call a “male marriage squeeze”. With sex ratios in the low 800s, there is an accumulated male marriage squeeze; as smaller female cohorts are born and there are more men left unmarried in preceding and new cohorts, the greater the marriage imbalance. In Haryana, currently, at least one in every four men stands to re­main unmarried and may have to resort to bringing a bride from Assam, West Ben­gal, Kerala and a myriad other states.

It is apparent that given the shortage of marriageable women in Haryana and UP, communities, especially the Jats, wish to maintain a tight control over the women available in their marriage pools. The innumerable customary rules governing marriage only make the problem of avail­ability of brides worse. To recount, mar­riage is forbidden between descendants from seven (or five) generations on the father’s and five (or three) on the mother’s side. Thus, all gotras that would fall into these categories would be eliminated for purposes of marriage. This is followed by the rules of village and territorial exoga­my (as explained earlier), which eliminate yet more possible marriageable partners. Finally, caste endogamy makes unavaila­ble women of other castes which may be present in the village or region. Hence, with fewer women belonging to the Jat caste being available for marriage, a com­petition is ensuing for those who have been allowed to be born and come to maturity. Since each group has its own rule defined pool, when someone from outside the group attempts to what they construe as “poach” from the pool, there is a violent reaction. Thus, by issuing diktats to pun­ish such marriages, Khap panchayats wish to preserve each gotra’s legitimate pool of marriageable girls. The fact that a dalit male attempts to marry from the already depleted pool of Jat women only makes caste revenge more violent and fatal.

That the adverse sex ratio and the shortage of brides are directly connected to gotra rigidity is made further explicit by the fact that many communities in Haryana and Rajasthan have quietly relaxed gotra norms. Such relaxation, not unknown in earlier times, may now be difficult to sus­tain in the face of growing Khap militancy.

Marriage and the Political Economy of Gotras

A part of the answer to the puzzle of the timing and intensity of Khap panchayat activity is also provided by the changing economic and political landscape and how it affects marriage alliances. North Indian marriages also follow the rule of hypergamy whereby women must marry not only into higher status clans but also the grooms must be of a higher status. In a rapidly changing society, education and jobs are becoming more important markers of the worth of grooms than merely land. The new hyper­gamy is not of caste status but of jobs and of urban location. Contacts in cities, busi­nesses, and government are the new social capital that can be deployed to fulfil aspi­rations of social mobility. Further, the tra­ditional ranking of gotras (essentially clans) is being upset by this new economy of edu­cation and jobs and the lucrativeness of government employment is resulting in the devaluation of land as the sole source of power, wealth and domination in society. In the past, the jostling between clans for higher rank, although present, was less in­tense with landownership providing long term stability in social rank. As clans re-configure ranks according to new equations, marriage alliances based on new criteria contribute to their jostling and flux.

At the same time, given the fewer number of local Haryanvi women, women and their parents become choosers. Yet, there are tight controls over marriages of daughters. After all, it is women who continue to carry the burden of preserving family honour. While Haryanvi and UP males are not averse to marrying women from any caste, religion or region in the face of acute bride shortage, the women of their own states and communities remain closely guarded. Their marriages must be “appropriate”  and they must be married to “suitable” boys.

If a groom fulfils the new criteria of desirability but belongs to a kinship-wise “inappropriate” gotra, parents are willing to overlook or violate gotra norms and formalise the marriage; here decisions of individual families pose a challenge to gotra norms and also infringe on the right of another gotra to marry the particular girl. Equally, a well-qualified groom but one from a lower rank gotra than of the girl may later be seen as an “upstart” and his family and gotra targeted. The family of the girl would also be targeted as they would have given away a daughter and deprived other “rightful” eligible bachelors to whom she could have been a bride. Such a marriage would also be seen as challenging gotra solidarity and the system of hierarchy among gotras.

However, a close knowledge of contem­porary Haryanvi society reveals that pow­erful families that violate these norms get away but less powerful families (especial­ly of the groom) are hauled up by the Khap panchayats. Less powerful Khaps are una­ble to defend “errant” grooms or errant parents of brides. The timing of targeting such marriages often depends on when the challenge to clan superiority comes to be perceived or felt hence the delayed reaction in some cases.

Khap panchayats have lost their earlier legitimacy and prestige with the intro­duction of panchayati raj institutions and the recognition of the Hindu Marriage law has undermined their power over marriage issues – these are important reasons for their assertion. No wonder that Khap panchayats are manned by old men who have lost their power and im­portance in controlling the social order. In their efforts to re-establish a hold over local society, they are supported by un­fortunate young men who are mainly semi-educated, unemployed bachelors, desperate to find brides.

Haryanvi society is in denial over its practice of daughter elimination. The acutely low sex ratios point to a deliberate and ruthless elimination of female foetuses. Yet, the discourse about why young men cannot find brides is one of unemploy­ment and not of shortage of women. These unemployed, unmarried males seek to gain status and power by asserting their power and masculinity by controlling “errant” others. Whether it is caste revenge on a dalit or a Khap panchayat asserting itself in the matter of marriage, Haryanvi society points to tensions arising from an anomic state of society, in which other north Indian states are not far behind.

Khap Panchayats and Female Agency

Finally, why is it that it should be a Sonia of Asanda village and a Chandrapati, mother of Manoj, who are the ones to stand up and fight for their or their chil­dren’s rights? Why did Sonia’s husband Rampal not stand up and contest the Khap panchayat’s decision that the couple should live together as brother and sister after they had been married for over a year and when Sonia was already expect­ing a child? Why did no males come to the aid of the widowed Chandrapati? There is perhaps a ray of hope in the gruesome goings-on in Haryana (although not yet in western UP). Female literacy in Haryana is improving rapidly and many women today are more educated than their husbands. There is also vibrant activity on the part of women’s organisations which are taking a lead in addressing gender-related issues and to whom embattled women can turn for support and legal aid. The media too has come to the aid of several women. But why are no young men willing to come forward to protect their marriages or their sisters? Simply because they are outnumbered by a vast majority of unemployed bachelors who are desperate to shore up the last vestiges of a dying social structure which enables them to display their masculinity and gain some respect in society.

One final word for the state and central governments; the complicity of the former in Khap panchayat diktats is reprehensible as is that of politicians if vote banks are all they care about. The central government has to step in and ensure that the power­ful and retrogressive Khap panchayats are dealt with firmly. Both the state and central governments need to strengthen the observance of reformed marriage and in­heritance laws and stem the exercise of archaic customary law. Doing so will ad­dress the twin horrors of female foeticide and honour killings. Equal inheritance will lead to equal value of sons and daughters and help reverse the sex ratio and hence reduce the competition over women. Rec­ognition of the primacy of the law of the land regarding marriage will loosen the hold of extra-constitutional bodies on the right of couples and families to make their own marriage decisions.

 

Ravinder Kaur (ravinder.iitd@gmail.com) is with the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. 

 

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Modi Spews Caste Venom

June 9, 2010 at 9:48 am (Caste and Religion)

by Anand Teltumbade

EPW : VOL 45 No. 23

Caste venom is embedded in the body politic of this country. The BJP occasionally spews it; the Congress successfully conceals it.

 

On 25 April, while releasing his book Samajik Samrasata, Naren­dra Modi is reported to have observed that dalits were like mentally retarded children. The remark created uproar in Congress circles. Praveen Rash­trapal of the Congress sought to raise the issue in the Rajya Sabha, but having been denied permission by the deputy chair­man K Rahman Khan, Congress members trooped into the well of the Rajya Sabha and caused a ruckus, forcing its adjourn­ment. Earlier, Modi had said that the Valmiki community was involved in manual scavenging for a “spiritual experience”. Activist circles were stirred with indigna­tion and began discussing whether Modi could be booked under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Preven­tion of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (the Atrocities Act). Legal luminaries may decide whether this is feasible or not given the fact that he would certainly invoke the spirit in which he said it, which may obviate the applica­tion of the act. Posturing as a great spastic patron, Modi may plead that he said it to ensure special care of dalits as we do of the mentally retarded children.

In some way this Modi speak represents the thinking of most upper caste people. Not many people realise that this display of magnanimity is basically the worst expression of casteism rooted in the ideology of brahmanism and, as such, deserves allround condemnation.

 

Stink of Brahmanism

The basic premise of brahmanism is that people are created unequal by god in accordance with their merit in the previous birth. They should reconcile with this divine order and only practise their dharma to earn merit points in order to get a better birth the next time around. The paternalis­tic attitude of the upper castes towards these fallen people is basically informed by this ideology. It assumes that dalits are lesser beings and they are superior; being noble born, it is their duty to have pity on dalits, help them perform their dharma to ameliorate their destiny. This attitude is displayed so casually in a self congratulatory manner that they do not even have an ink­ling that it is most humiliating to dalits. It is worse than insulting them with their caste names, which may be considered as a cognisable crime as per the Atrocities Act.

It is precisely for this reason that Ambedkar had denounced Gandhi’s harijan and dismissed the Congress attempts at wooing dalits through Harijan Sevak Sangh as the “Congress plan to kill untouchables by kindness”. Not only Gandhi, who was anyway propelled by political considera­tions, Ambedkar did not take kindly even to the bhakti saints’ selfpity or tame criti­cism of the caste system because they did not question the basic ideology behind it. His repeated denouncement of the then Mahar attempts to claim descent and or derive inspiration from the bhakti poet of the 14th century, Chokhamela, under­scores the same logic. He saw the act of the bhakti saints as an act of subservience to the will of god, and as conformist and antirevolutionary. Anything that even faintly smells of this obnoxious ideology becomes thus insulting to dalits. Modi’s statement stinks.

 

Spastic Minds, Sick Society

Modi is unduly presumptuous about his intelligence in regarding dalits as men­tally retarded. First, the creed he swears by fundamentally treats him, a member of shudra, as dumb. As such, he may not be particularly in a position to pontificate on others’ retardation. Second, if he is truly intelligent, he must know that the disability, mental retardation or whatever is not of dalits but of society. It is Hindu society which is sick not dalits. Dalits have defi­nitely been infected by this sickness, inso­far as they too have emulated this sick sys­tem among themselves. They are surely infected because, despite Ambedkar’s clarion call for annihilation of castes, many of them foolishly cling to the idiom of caste. But that is another matter. The important thing is to see the society as sick because it is incapable of treating its own people on the basis of equality. It is also mentally retarded as it could not learn from its long history of slavery, which is directly attributed to its myopic notion of caste division of society. Modi had better learn to be a statesman and think of how to cure this society of its debilitating sickness.

This is a serious point which is totally missed in reservation discourse. To think of dalits as disabled is pure brahmanism. Dalits needed reservation not because they lacked merit or skills, but because the societal prejudice will never let them get their due. With imposed backwardness over two millennia they did look weak to start with, which created an erroneous impression that reservation was a kind of helping hand. It has done a great damage. If reservation had been conceived as the countervailing measure to force society to behave, it would have been contingent upon the society overcoming its disability. The onus to do that would be upon soci­ety. Today it is on none, making reserva­tions appear perpetual and hence a cause of eternal conflict. Worse, with this “help­ing hand” notion, it has become a game to be played by unscrupulous politicians.Modi’s Slippery SamarasataWhat Modi spoke is basically the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) samarasata solution to castes. It aims at strengthening the Hindu identity for its communal agenda. It believes in the greatness of Hindus, their religion, culture and every­thing and wants to regain it. Naturally, it does not see anything wrong with the varna or caste system, the defining compo­nents of the “Hindu”. In justifying it, its protagonists indulge in all kinds of ideo­logical acrobatics to confuse the public. A typical gem of wisdom on castes in its rep­ertoire is taken from Golwalkar who gave a slogan – sab jaati mahaan, sab jaati samaan (all castes are great and all castes are equal), which seems to inform the samar­asta project. Actually, in this lofty declara­tion, Golwalkar has not made any depar­ture from the orthodox brahmanical posi­tion which argues that all the varnas (and castes) were parts of same virat purush and hence equal. What it truly means is that all the castes should perform their assigned tasks as their dharma. Valmikis should con­tinue to scavenge and Modis should rule!

Actually samarasata is the expedient political strategy of the Sangh parivar, inaugurated in Pune in April 1983. Until then, the RSS did not feel a particular necessity to woo dalits in a conscious manner. What prompted this realisation was the increasing competition in electoral politics in the impending coalition era in which dalit votes could make a big dif­ference. The decline of the dalit move­ment and degeneration of dalit politics provided fertile ground to seed such a strategy. After the fall of the Janata Dal government, the old Bharatiya Jan Sangh dissolved itself and formed a new party – Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980, which needed to try out new strategies. An important component, the samarasata manch, the platform created for the pur­pose, undertook to saffronise Ambedkar and paint the RSS gurus in radical colours. It worked with some half-baked dalit intel­lectuals but did not make much headway with people.

Samarasata means social harmony. Like Dengist China replaced the Maoist lingo of class struggle with social harmony, samarasata means that various castes should coexist without conflict. How could castes in exploitative relations with each other coexist in harmony except by inter­nalising Manu’s ideology? It is here we can get the import of Modi’s statement about Valmiki’s “spiritual experience” in carry­ing upper caste shit on their heads. It is a shame that such a grave atrocity as remov­ing human excreta manually, officially banned way back in 1993 by the govern­ment of India, is eulogised as “spiritual experience”. No dalit ever cared for the “spiritual”; her/his concern has been solely material. If Modi values this “spirit­ual experience”, as he seems to be, anyone of the 14 lakh scavengers in the country will gladly handover his/her shovel and bucket to him. He must know as the chief minister of the state that Safai Karmach­ari Andolan has given a call for abolition of this atrocity by the end of 2010.Congress’ Fake ConcernIt is curious to see Congress agitated over the issue. Actually, Modi in a way voiced his concern for dalits in the grand Gujarati tradition embodied in the word “harijan” or in the idea of trusteeship that the rich people could go on enriching themselves but hold their wealth in trust for the weak in the society. Both incidentally came from Mahatma Gandhi, the patron saint of the Congress. Gandhi has been perhaps the pioneer in creating ascriptive and patron­ising labels for dalits in modern times. While he always claimed to identify with and represent the untouchables, he has also used the term like “uncultured” and “dumb” for them, highlighting his distance and difference from the masses. Look at this advice from Gandhi to the caste Hindu workers for the harijan cause: “Workers in the Harijan cause…must come in closest touch with utterly unsophisticated, inno­cent, ignorant men and women who might be likened to children in intelligence” (Harijan, 7 November 1936). Is there any difference in this and Modi’s calling dalits retarded?

Of course, Modi as a committed func­tionary of the RSS would openly uphold the tenets of Manusmriti that takes dalits as inherently inferior. The Congress would never do so. It is thrilled when the BJP is condemned as communal and casteist by progressive elements in the country. But as the vanguard of the ruling classes, has it been any different? Its track record in communalism is at best suspect. Its deal­ing with dalit issues has been muddy. Right from the days of the Poona Pact that robbed dalits of their political autonomy to the unscrupulous co-optation phase of dalit politics, its role has been antithetical to its own projection as a friend of dalits. The only difference between it and the BJP perhaps is in the intricacy of its strategy.

Interestingly, some years ago (around 2005), the Gujarat Congress had formu­lated a training programme for Congress workers at the instance of Sonia Gandhi. A course booklet was prepared for the pur­pose by one leader of the Gujarat Congress Seva Dal. This book extolled India’s ancient culture and social order, based on Manu’s code and articulated the objective for the Congress as to bring back this social order. Can one still see any differ­ence between the Congress and BJP with regard to their anti-dalit Hindu vision?

Caste venom is embedded in the body politic of this country. The BJP occasion­ally spews it; the Congress successfully conceals it.

 

Anand Teltumbde (tanandraj@gmail.com) is a writer and civil rights activist with the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Mumbai.

 

 

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ANATTA

June 8, 2010 at 8:35 am (Buddhism)

 

By Ajahn Brahmavamso

 

Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa
Sabbe Sankhara Anicca – Sabbe Sankhara Dukkha – Sabbe Dhamma Anatta 

“All conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are suffering. All dhammas (all things conditioned and unconditioned) are anatta”. These are the three basic factors of all existence. It is in order to penetrate these truths that we practice the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Buddha’s teaching on anatta (non-self) is deep and profound because it challenges something very basic to our assumptions about life. The Buddha talked about avijja (delusion) being the root cause of all problems, of all rebirths, the root cause of defilements. He explained what avijja is through the teaching of the vipallasas (the perversions or distortions of view, thought and perception). Namely, the vipallasas say that by view, thought and perception we take what is dukkha to be sukha (happiness); we take what is impermanent to be permanent; we take what is not beautiful (asubha) to be beautiful (subha); and we take what is anatta to be atta, a self.

What do you take yourself to be?

One of those wrongly formed questions is “Who am I?”   However, a little bit of reflection should make it very clear that this question already implies an assumption that you are someone. It already implies an answer. It’s not open enough. Instead, one needs to rephrase the question from, “Who am I?” or even, “What am I?” to, “What do I take myself to be?” or, “What do I assume this thing called ‘I’ is?” Consider the human body. Do you consider the body to be yours? It’s very easy to say, “The body is not self” when one is young, healthy and fit.

The test comes when one is sick, especially when that sickness is very deep and lasting, or can even be life threatening. That’s when one can really see at a deeper level whether one is taking the body to be ‘me’ or ‘mine’. Why does this fear arise? The fear is always because of attachment. If ever a fear of death comes up at any time, that will show with ninety nine percent certainty, that in that moment one is seeing or thinking that this body is ‘me’, or is ‘mine’. Contemplate this body. Contemplate the death of this body, contemplate the contents of this body, and take it apart as it says in the Satipatthana Suttas . See that with whatever parts of this body, that it’s just flesh and blood and bones. It’s just the four great elements (earth, water, heat and air), just atoms and molecules and chemicals, that’s all. Continually contemplating the body in this way, one will eventually break down the delusion that this body is substantial, beautiful, delightful and one’s ‘own’.

 The illusion of control

When there is a self, there will be things that belong to a self. When there are things belonging to a self there will be control, there will be work, there will be doing. This illusion of a self  is what creates craving and attachment. This is what creates will. That’s why when people take the body to be the self, then they go and take it to the gym, they take it to the beauty parlour, they take it to the hair dressers, they wash it, they preen it, they try hard to make it look nice. “This is important, this is me. It’s my self image.” Such people think that it’s very important what they look like. They think that it creates their happiness. Other (wiser) people say how stupid they are.

Achievements are not yours

Even deeper than the body is the stuff of the mind. First of all, let us consider the objects of the mind. So often people identify themselves with their thoughts, or with the perceptions or objects, which come up in their minds. For example, it’s so easy to actually take one’s achievements to be ‘me’, or to be ‘mine’. If one takes any achievements to be ‘me’, or to be ‘mine’, the inevitable result of that is pride, and the attachment to praise. How much suffering results from pride? Every time one does something wrong, one will feel that there is some problem there. Very often because of pride, when one does something wrong, one may even break the precepts and lie, just out of taking one’s abilities to be ‘me’, or to be ‘mine’.”

People often say that speaking in public is one of the most terrifying things that one can do. This kind of fear is always because of some attachment. One then needs to ask the question: “Fear of what?” “Fear of losing what?” It’s always fear of losing what is called ‘reputation’. That is to say, the delusions about what one takes oneself to be.

Thoughts are not yours

When thoughts come up in the mind it’s both useful and fascinating for one to consider, “Why did I think that? Where did that thought come from? Why did you think that thought? Is it really your thought, or is it the thought of Ajahn Brahm, or maybe the thought of your father, or the thought of your mother? Thought does not belong to you. Thoughts come according to their conditions; they are triggered in the mind because of causes. It’s fascinating to see that thought is anatta, not ‘me’, and not ‘mine’.

Why is it that thoughts obsess the mind? Thoughts come in and we grab hold of them. We make them stay because of the illusion that they are important. People sometimes have such nice thoughts, they come and tell me later, and they call them ‘insights’. They are just thoughts, that’s all. Just leave the thoughts alone. Don’t take them to be ‘mine’. Therefore, give thinking no value.”

The ‘doer’ is not self

If one thinks “I am in charge”, if that delusion is still there, that will be a major hindrance to one’s meditation. This will create restlessness, and there will be craving for this, that and the other and one will never be able to get into jhanas ( deep states of meditative ‘absorption’).

However, one must understand that the ‘doer’ cannot let go of doing.  They try to do the non-doing. It takes some wisdom to see that this ‘doing’ is just a conditioned process. Then one can let go. When one lets go, then this whole process just goes so beautifully, so smoothly, so effortlessly. With luck one might get into a jhana. In the jhana states the ‘doing’ has gone and it has stopped for a long time. Then one will start to see this illusion of the ‘doer’. To do is to suffer. Doing is dukkha, dukkha is doing. When there is doing, it’s like a wave on the lake. The stillness is lost. When the stillness is lost, like the rippled surface of a lake it distorts the image of the moon high in the sky. When the lake is perfectly still and nothing is happening, when no one is doing anything to disturb the moment, then the reflection is pure, truthful, real, and it’s also very beautiful. The jhanas should give one enough data to see once and for all that this thing, that which we call ‘the doer’, is just a completely conditioned phenomenon.

‘The knower’ is not self

Even deeper than ‘the doer’ is ‘the knower’. The two actually go together. One can stop ‘the doer’ for a little while in the jhanas (deep states of meditative ‘absorption’), but later it comes back again. One even can stop ‘the doer’ for aeons by going to the jhana realms after one dies.

‘The knower’ is usually called consciousness or citta (mind).  Knowing is often seen to be the ultimate ‘self’. Very often people can get the perception, or the paradigm, in their minds of perceiving something in here, which can just know and not be touched by what it knows. However, at the same time, it can just stand back and not be known, and not be touched by what’s actually happening. Owing to this illusion, one misses the point that whatever one sees with your eyes, or feels with the body, the mind then takes that up as it’s own object, and it knows that it saw. It knows that it felt. It’s that knowing that it saw, knowing that it felt, that gives the illusion of objectivity. It can even know that it knew.

When philosophy books talk about ‘self reflection’ or ‘self knowledge’, the fact that not only do “I know”, but that “I know that I know”, or that “I know that I know that I know”, is given as a proof of the existence of a self. I have looked into that experience, in order to see what actually was going on with this ‘knowing’ business. Using the depth of my meditation, I could see the way this mind was actually working. What one actually sees is this procession of events, that which we call ‘knowing’. It’s like a procession, just one thing arising after the other in time.

Getting out of the pond, and onto dry land

The only way that one can understand what is meant by, “the self is not ‘the doer'” is to get into a jhana. This means that one is getting out of the pond of doing. The only way that one can really understand that ‘the knower’ is not self, is to get out of the pond of the five senses, and to stay just with the sixth sense. With just the mind consciousness remaining, one will actually see that that which is called ‘knowing’ just arises and passes away. It is granular, it is fragmentary.

The whole purpose of these jhanas is to learn through practice, bit by bit, to let go of more and more consciousness. Then the consciousness completely ceases for long periods of time in what’s called nirodha-samapatti (the attainment of cessation). This is the cessation of all that is felt and all that’s perceived asanna-vedayita-nirodha). Any person who experiences this attainment, they say, will be an arahant or an anagami afterwards. Why? Because they’ve seen the end of consciousness, they’ve touched that as an experience.

With this experience there is no longer any thought or theories or ideas. This is bare experience. All that one formerly took to be ‘me’ is seen as just delusion (avijja). What was anatta? One will realize that for many lifetimes, one had taken all these things to be a self, and that the result was so much birth and consequent suffering. The cause was so much controlling and doing and craving (tanha). Wriggling through Samsara, wriggling towards happiness, wriggling away from pain, always trying to control the world. It’s not what one would like to see. However, through the experience of the jhanas, and the surmounting of conditioning, one has gone beyond all of that. It is not what one has been taught. It is what one has seen, it is what one has actually experienced. This is the brilliance of the Buddha’s teaching of anatta. It goes right to the heart of everything.

 

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Buddhism in everyday life

June 8, 2010 at 7:17 am (Buddhism)

by Andrew Scott

  

The Western world has realised the benefits of meditation

Buddhism, the message of the Buddha, delivered over 2,500 years ago, has now penetrated into even the remotest corners of the world and the modern world views it with deeper understanding, attaching a great meaning to it. Some call it a religion. Others call it a philosophy. Some others think of it as both a religion and a philosophy. However, the most appropriate meaning to attach to it is that Buddhism is a way of life where the Buddha always emphasised the practical aspects of His great teaching.

We are fortunate to be Buddhists as the Buddhist way of life is the most simple and the easiest to follow. But it is saddening that many are unaware of how they could lead a true Buddhist way of life while sometimes even devout Buddhists tend to forget the correct Buddhist way of life.

For one to lead a correct Buddhist way of life he should follow accepted Buddhist cultural practices which is a unique feature in the philosophy of a religion with depth and understanding. An important feature in Buddhism is that Buddhist culture has penetrated into every aspect of our lives and we need its guidance for our everyday living. As practising Buddhists we should always keep in mind the day-to-day accepted religious observances and practices which will bring peace, happiness and ultimate salvation.

Children should be sent to religious classes in temples

There is no doubt that the Buddha Dhamma occupies an exalted place in a true Buddhist life, forming an important phase in our daily lives. For a Buddhist it is a very admirable habit to rise early in the morning so that he could attend to his morning ablutions quietly and still have a few minutes left to be spent in one’s shrine room and to contemplate before a Buddha statue or even a serene Buddha picture. If one recites the five precepts and determines to live up to them each day there is no doubt that he begins the day well. There are many Buddhists who are particular to read a passage of a Dhamma book before starting the day’s work and this is an admirable way to begin one’s day.

Today, especially in the mornings, most of us have to rush through our activities and it seems that one cannot spend very much time for religious observances in the morning. But even in this situation anyone can start the day contemplating on some Buddhist thoughts – one could mentally recollect the words of homage, refuge, precepts and worship. It is in this fashion that a true Buddhist should mindfully start his day, filled with noble thoughts of the Dhamma and determined to spend the day in the true Buddhist tradition. Thus, following the practical way of the Dhamma, we must try to free ourselves of all thoughts of worry, hurry, irritation and impatience and Buddhists must always try to radiate metta or goodwill towards all around them. It is worth realising that a day spent in this manner will not have a tiring effect on you and even at the end of the day you would feel fresh, calm and serene to successfully handle more and more work.

Today many of us, both Buddhists and non-Buddhists, are used to spending a greater part of our leisure time in idle gossip and engaging in other anti-social habits such as consuming liquor, going to clubs and wasting time in unwholesome pursuits. This is harmful to both the progress of the individual as well as the progress of the society in which he lives. Everyone living according to the Buddha Dhamma should shun unprofitable gossip and instead should engage themselves in thoughts of goodwill and joy and should take special care to bestow a calming effect on the environment in which they live.

It is natural that after a day’s hard work one should relax. But even in relaxation one could think of the Buddha Dhamma and its serene effects on humanity. For instance, when we observe the beautiful colours and the many shapes of clouds in the evening sky and then when we see, in a few minutes, the magnificent colours change, the shapes disfiguring and disappearing, we can apply the thoughts of Annicca, Dukka and Anatta. The same principle can be applied to every change in life.

To a Buddhist meditation provides an effective antidote to the stress and strain of the modern world beset with numerous economic, social and cultural problems. At least a few minutes from one’s day should be set aside for meditation which bears a tremendous influence on those who practise it regularly. Even when tired of some activities such as walking, reading or writing one can turn to meditation to regain mental calmness, peace and joy.

Participate in Temple Ceremonies

It is very beneficial if from their young age children are nurtured in the good traditions of the Buddha Dhamma. Children brought up in such a religious atmosphere will grow up with a deep veneration for the Buddha, Dhamma and the Sangha. A home where the parents and the elders are truly religious sets a noble example for the children and such a home built up on a solid religious foundation will be a happy home.

Misfortunes and Frustrations

If all Buddhists apply the Dhamma to our everyday life we can create an integrated society which will be a solace to the entire world. A true Buddhist will be serene at all times and will not be disturbed by petty worldly things. Buddhists who frequently meditate on the transitory nature of all things around us will always bear lightly the misfortunes and frustrations that visit us at some time or the other in the lives of everyone. Let us think about some other simple ways of practising Buddhism in our daily lives. It is appropriate for all Buddhists to have a Buddha image or a picture of the Buddha in their homes as an object of inspiration and veneration. The serene figure of the Buddha, an emblem of loving kindness, purity and perfection will serve as a great source of inspiration and will help us to surmount all difficulties and worries.

Another important Buddhist practice is to send young children to systematically organised religious classes conducted in the temples. From the young days, all should be trained to actively participate in the temple ceremonies, especially on Full Moon Poya Days. A most desirable and meritorious act is to observe the Eight Precepts during the Poya days. One’s entire Poya day should be devoted to religious matters such as meditation, religious discussions, reading of religious books and helping the needy and the lesser privileged beings.

In celebrating family and social functions too, Buddhists should remember to conduct themselves according to Buddhist principles. They should make it a point to conduct these activities in a dignified manner in keeping with the principles of cultured Buddhists and even on such occasions Buddhists should refrain from all intoxicants and any form of vile amusement. It is good to remember that in organising any function Buddhists should take care not to cause any nuisance to the others.

In life we are always amidst death, a sad and solemn occasion. The elaborate and expensive funeral rites which are carried out at certain funerals are not Buddhist practices at all. According to Buddhist practices funeral rites should be solemn and simple. It is a good Buddhist practice to refrain from expensive decorations during various religious festivals such as Vesak. This money could be channelled to better use by giving it to some religious or charitable organisation which could use that money for a worthy cause.

The Dhammapada

Giving Dana or alms is the foundation of Buddhism and Dhamma Dana is pre-eminent among them. In passing I wish to mention briefly about the Dhammapada, an inseparable companion of all Buddhists. In the entire literature of the world there is no other anthology so rich with beauty of expression harmoniously blending with beauty of thought. It is the oldest anthology of the world and its Pali stanzas are so fascinating and instructive that scholars throughout the world have translated it into several languages.

The Dhammapada is held in great esteem by both Eastern and Western scholars. Prof. Radhakrishnan, in his preface to the Dhammapada states: “The Dhammapada has an appeal to the modern world because its central theme is that human conduct, righteous behaviour, reflection and meditation are more important than vain speculation about the transcendent.”

Today in Sri Lanka as well as in other countries, the value of the Dhammapada is being increasingly appreciated and sermons based on its stanzas are delivered. The Dhammapada reflects the true spirit of the teachings of the Buddha and each stanza of this remarkable anthology brings out some special remedy for any particular ill of any individual at any time of his life.

To a world lacking in the fundamentals of serene living, a world intoxicated with a passion for power and money the message of the Dhammapada is something to be reckoned with. In fact the Dhammapada is a tome with a timeless message.

Our minds accumulate many impurities as a result of unwise living and thinking unwholesome thoughts interfere in the smooth functioning of our minds. It is only the wholesome thoughts of the mind closely adhering to the Buddha Dhamma that brings mental health, the efficient functioning of the mind and the arousal of spiritual feelings.

If Buddhism is given the foremost place in our everyday living and if it is practised daily, our living will become more meaningful and there will be happiness and harmony in this world.

The writer is a freelance journalist who also writes on Buddhist topics to national and international publications.

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Buddhist attitude to Education

June 8, 2010 at 6:43 am (Education)

 

Does Buddhism contain a theory of education?

by Bikkhuni HALPANDENIYE

 

According to the Oxford Advanced Genie Dictionary, education means a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools or colleges, to improve knowledge and develop skills. Here we will examine in brief how much Buddhism has taught and done in this regard.

Buddhism gives the highest regard for wisdom (panna) and purity (visuddhi) of the mind from mental defilements, and the worst condemnation for ignorance. In Buddhism wisdom is the sharpest means to cut off all impurities. But what we are talking about here is knowledge (nana), and of course knowledge and wisdom are not the same.

One can gain knowledge by learning, but not wisdom. Buddhism places emphasis on learning as a way to dispel ignorance. People understand education as a means of teaching people to gain knowledge, do good and avoid evil and promote moral and ethical conduct.

“By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure. Purity and impurity depend on oneself, no one can purify another”. – Dhammapada.

The Buddha gained Enlightenment, without a teacher but that does not mean that he didn’t learn. Actually he had trained himself to be a master of the skills of statecraft and sciences of His day. He was endowed with the knowledge of brahmic and Samana traditions.

He had realized the unrealizable of the Samanas’ experiences and proclaimed the unheard Dharma that was lacking in Vedic scriptures. He gave a new interpretation to the ancient knowledge.

In the Brahmanical way of teaching, the student listens to his teacher – the student and the teacher developed a very close relationship; pupils were tested orally; they learnt by continuous recitation.

According to the ‘law of Manu’ which explains the functions of each caste in education, it was the Brahmins who had all the responsibilities for education. They could do all the teaching and learning. The other castes could only study certain subjects. Also it was only the Brahmins who had access to the four Vedic books.

Buddha was a skilful teacher who strongly believed in the power of transferring knowledge to convince people to change their lives. The Buddha expounded the Dhamma in many ways to suit the different types of individuals.

He used many different methods and devices to transfer His knowledge to others, such as similies, parables, analogies, analyses and so on.

Through His ability to read other peoples minds and see their post experiences, he was able to give discourses that were uniquely tailored to each listener so that he was able to understand and put his teaching into practice.

We see that some discourses are lengthy, medium-sized and also very short. Some are rich with the lofty philosophy, some contain nuanced philosophy and other simple and practical for the day to day life of the peasant.

The education from the Buddhist standpoint consists of three aspects:

1. Vijja – knowledge

2. Carania – value

3. Kosalla – activities

Vijja means spiritual knowledge and Carania means virtuous conduct. Kosalla has been described as skill that originates from the possession of knowledge and conduct. He exhorted His listeners to pay close attention to what is being taught – be willing to learn, remember it well then retain it and examine its meaning.

In Sammosa sutta of the SN it is stated: Idha Bhikkhave Bhikkhu na dhamman pariyapunanti suttam geyyam veyyakaranam getham udanam itivuttam jatakam abbhutadhammam vedallam ayam pathamo dhammo saddhammassa sammoraya antaradhanaya pavatti.

Herein if the Bhikkhus do not master the Dhamma, the discourses, power expositions. verses, inspired utterances, brief sayings, birth stories, marvelous accounts, miscellanies, this is the first cause of disappearance of the true teaching.

Buddha emphasised that the learning and mastering of the Dharma was a crucial factor to ensure the longevity of the Dharma.

One of the factors which gives rise to right view is named paratoghosa which literally means hearing the sound of the other. This is not a kind of revolution secretly transmitted by the gods.

It simply means one listens to the wise and gains some knowledge or suddenly realizes some essential truth. Another word to describe a person of great knowledge is in bahussuta.

A person who is endowed with ‘much heard’ is regarded as a blessing. (Mangala Sutta). Sutadhanam is the treasure of having ‘heard much’ sutadharo is remembering a lot, and sutasanniccaya is the collecting of what is heard.

Suta is one of the five treasures (dhana) confidence (saddha), virtue (sila), learning (suta), benevolence (caga) and wisdom (panna) for lay persons and it is among the seven treasures of monks and nuns. Buddha who reminded his audiences to be cautious in accepting what is taught by others.

“Nay kalama, do not be led by revelation, or by tradition, or by hearsay. Not by the authority of secret scriptures or by mere reasoning, not by the apparent logic and not by believing in the person who spoke it”, On another occasion the Buddha pointed out the five things that should not be taken for granted. They are;

1. Saddha – faith

2. Ruci – liking (emotional inclination)

3. Anussava – oral tradition

4. Akaraparivitakka – reasoned consideration

5. Ditthi nijjhanakkhanti – reflective acceptance of view

‘These five things can turn into different ways here and now. Now something may be fully accepted out of faith, yet it may be empty, hollow and false. But something else may not be accepted but it may be factual, true and unmistaken’.

In the case of the Sangha, the community of bhikkhus and nuns, and the monasteries are a place of religious training as well as a congregation of contemplatives.

In the traditional way, the new comer has to remain with a teacher (upajjhaya) for at least five years to learn the monastic way of life as well as the scriptures and meditation methods, and so on.

The methods of learning are listening, memorising, reciting, (verbally) and investigating by oneself or by debating with friends and teachers of Dhamma. In the Buddhist approach to imparting knowledge there are four factors that we have to consider:

The teacher – the unique figure of the Buddha

The pupils – the Bhikkhus, Bhikkhunis, Upasakas and Upasikas

The teaching – the Dhamma and the Vinaya

Method of teaching – the intellectual liberation of Buddhism

There are three stages in the Buddhist education: Pariyatti – learning, patipatti – practising, and pativedha – realization. Thus learning is the first step on the way to Nibbana. The study of Dhamma consists of learning and practice.

Sunantha – listen

Dharetha – retain

Caratha – follow the Dhamma

In this context Buddhism emphasizes learning and practising.

Conclusion

Today bhikkhus and nuns are actively engaged in the educational field. Building schools, writing and distributing books, giving lectures, supporting poor students and giving Dhamma talks are the most popular ways to educate the people.

Following the footsteps of these teachers the bhikkhus and nuns wander from place to place to awaken people to the reality of life.

A typical progressive talk would move through the topics of charity (dana), morality (sila), heavenly states (saga), renunciation (nekkhamma) and finally to the Four Noble Truths that embody the liberation from all forms of suffering.

Thus Buddhist education is the way leading upwards, although it does not stress the need for skills and knowledge for material gain. It always encourages people to ‘be able’ to support oneself and one’s family, to benefit society and above all to be detached and liberated, free from greed, hatred and delusion.

These characteristics of the Buddha’s message can be explained in various ways. The teachings that are passed down to us contain much information in various forms.

The Buddha knew that his listeners had different learning styles and different needs. That is why we get the same message in different ways. The word used to describe this is aneka pariyayena Dhammam desethi.

Buddha is not a saviour. He has preached to his followers that the Dharma enables them to cross the ocean of Samsara; Kullupaman vo Bhikkave Dhammam desissami nittaranatthaya no gahanatthaya”.

The Buddha expalined that He (the Tathagatha) would only show the way; Tumhehi kiccam akkataro Tathagatha’. The striving should be one by oneself, the Tathagathas are only teachers. And the Buddha’s advice was to follow the path that leads to the extinction of suffering.

 

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