I get reminded of the way BR Ambedkar described villages- cesspools of degradation. He chastised intellects for romanticising the villages in India. Even after seventy years of Independence villages in India live out of the characterisation of Ambedkar with the deep rooted Gandhian assertion that India lives in its villages. Going by the reports of a village in Nalanda, Bihar was forced to lick its own spit as a ground of punishment for a crime of entering the house of a superior caste without permission.
Few weeks ago , some young Dalits in Gujarat were thrashed fatally in a case of offence like watching a garba or growing a moustache. Can you imagine we take about our Constitution which has this whole range of Freedom for its citizen and what are we ending up at? Growing hair and watching dance ritual is an offence—yes you are hearing it right. This triggers disrespect to the caste hierarchy and deems untouchable claiming equality by those tradition.
It is not always that oppression of those at the bottom rung is done by the top. This man from Nalanda village was from a backward caste and made to lick his spit by those who decided to punish him and they belonged to backward caste. This is an albeit of ersatz punishment placed above the victim and truly an act of inhumanity.
The ideology of Brahminism has been oppressing other castes other than their own – who are better described by Manusmriti as the lord of all creation. We need to eradicate this ideology of Bramhinism with the principal means employed to remove caste inequality that has been pursued in the reservation systems of government jobs to give an access to educational opportunities.
Way back Ambedkar tried to eradicate the Brahminical tradition and oppress the social hierarchical stigma that flowed from it. Buddhisim was again treated same with scheduled caste nor Christianity or Islam eradicated the low caste origin stigma. These faiths have no place terms of their theological framework.
Using the philosophy of Advaita , the foremost social reformer of Kerela Sri Narayana Guru tried a different tactics visualizing everything as a manifestation of Atman to fight back that caste distinction considering it as delusion. He was converted into another pantheon by his own caste men implementing the caste superiority and relating his philosophy to books traditionally lowering down the hierarchy.
Kerala being the only place where caste has weakened and studies have shown to be less oppressed for Dalits. If you analyze the reason- it is purely the advance democratic society with a intuitive political empowerment of all section. As a result of massive acquisition of agency by the subaltern group, education and healthcare has improved in a smooth way in the state.
Instead of the caste of the person determining the access of the job, there need to be a breakthrough of new kinds of jobs opened from all sections of the society to execute this challenge and leverage the thought of a democratic Nation. Organised services and industrial growth is the key to more and more non-traditional jobs.
An urban environment is what they call it as and define to be the key element of breaking this caste system stigma. The villages remain the cesspool of degradation because few Dalit millionaires live in town. The diversification of economy is guarded by Globalization growth as the pivot of the system with numerous opportunities for new jobs on a global platform.
So stop prioritizing reservation and demand education, healthcare, governance, infrastructure and rapid globalized growth as the new way to emancipation.
