India’s Dalits really, really distrust the Maoist movement of India and Nepal. As the Maoist movement begins to challenge for state power in Nepal, and has struck a serious level of alarm in the ruling elite in India, this question has important ramifications for the future of south Asia.
The Dalit movement in India is the largest and fastest growing threat to the status quo, followed at some distance by the Maoists. Interestingly, almost all the Dalit leadership I know, mostly mid-level cadre in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), India’s third largest national party and main force in the Dalit liberation movement, are ex-Maoists.
When asked why they distrust the “Naxalites”, the common term for the Maoist movement, they point out, to start, the fact that almost all the rank and file fighters in the Maoist movement are Dalit and that almost all the leadership are “high caste”. The Dalits I know have had firsthand experience with just how caste-ist the “Naxalite”/Maoist leadership is.
When delving into the “political line” put forth by the Maoist movement in India and Nepal, it is rare to find mention of caste/varna, let alone any attempt to address caste/varna (color) in any sort of historical perspective. It would seem that the Maoist leaders would prefer to blend class with caste and avoid any dealing with such a potentially divisive question.
The Dalit movement exemplified by the BSP cadre I know is firmly rooted in organizing Dalits into community collectives and focused on mobilizing Dalits in exercising their voting rights. When it is pointed out that no ruling class has ever peacefully relinquished their privileges, i.e, through elections, my Dalit comrades point out that 85% of India Dalits still believe in the one, unifying tenet of Hinduism, varna/caste/color. Simply put, most Dalits believe they are being punished by God for sins in a previous life and their lot as “untouchables”, Dalits, is God’s will. If God willed your punishment today with the promise of a better re-birth in the next life, than trying to lift yourself and your children’s lot above that of cleaning the communal toilets is going against God’s will. Sounds like a brilliant scheme for social control using a religion, Hinduism, in the opinion of all the Dalits I know.
Taking into consideration just how mentally enslaved most Dalits remain, moving the masses of Dalits from being so crushed and broken to real liberation might take a series of steps instead of one giant leap, or so my Dalit comrades seem to feel. Dalits may have to see for themselves that casting a vote is not going to midwife any real liberation for the rank and file. While acknowledging that a series of trial and error may mark their struggle and that the Maoist scorn such an approach, Dalits feel that if the Maoist movement continues to ignore varna/caste while still dependent on Dalits to win power, Dalits are doomed to see their struggle for equal rights and justice betrayed by the new Brahmins, the leaders of today’s Maoist movement.
One fact remains utterly non debatable and that is that India and Nepal remain overwhelmingly a society of villages. Equally non debatable is that in India’s villages, caste rules. How the Maoist movement can hope to succeed without even addressing this issue in any real way bodes ill for any hopes the Maoist movement offers any real solutions to the most barbaric, inhumane system of human oppression in the world, apartheid in India and Nepal.
In my opinion the author is way off the mark in the arguments and the overall idea of the dalits trusting or not trusting the maoists. Dalit movement is an anti-caste movement and maoist is a class movement, and there is no overlap/synergies between these two movements. Dalit movement is not backed by any maoist organisations. The maoist movement may involve some dalits which is discussed later. And this small dalit involvement of dalits in maoist movement being labelled as dalit movement is preposterous and exposes the lack of understanding of the actual dalit movement by the author.
First of all calling the rise of dalit movement a threat to status quo indicates a clear bias and very cleverly the author stops short of mentioning what the status quo is? The status quo is the ongoing oppression of the dalits by the the current ruling class caste-hindus i.e, Brahmins and their innovative ways of keeping the dalits deprived of education, job oppurtunities and taking away their land and means of lively hood by creating SEZ etc.
Secondly I beg to differ that most of mid-level cadre in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are ex-Maoists. This is utterly a false propaganda by the congress led govt. in order to give the govt an excuse to take MILITARY action against the dalits of India. Though I dont deny that there may be a few dalits mainly, ST’s (scheduled tribes) in the lower cadres of the maoists(as pointed out by the author), but they are mere foot soldiers(most of the times recruited by force due to their vulnerability) and have no say whatsoever in decision making. And the dalit movement of india does recognize the serious perils of joining hands with the ARMED maoists and thus have stayed away from the maoists.
Thirdly on the political line , the usage of caste/varna in the agenda of maoists doesnt really matter as the dailits who the maoists are intrested in, are the poorest and the most oppressed tribals who are used as foot-soldiers. Being poorest of poor dalits these people would not really look out for caste/varna mention in the agenda of the maoists, all they would think for would be food and security which the maoists provide them with. Thus lack of mention of caste would not make a difference to this small section of dalits.
The picture painted that 85% dalits still believe they are being punished by God for sins in a previous life may not be true in today’s India. The reason why people pretend to believe in superstitions is because of the social insecurities the dalit community harbors vis-a-vis caste hindus. They try to show to the society that they too are part of the hindu culture and are not socially out-cast. This vulnerability and ignorance is used by the brahmins maoists to misguide the uneducated poor tribal dalits into the maoist movement.
Today there are many dalit organisations/parties/leaders most of whom are stooges of the Brahmins(for eg. Athavale from the state of Maharashtra, and the biggest disgrace being Prakash Ambedkar, who happens to be the grandson of dalit’s favorite reformer and architect of indian constitution – Dr. B.R. Ambedkar). However an intellectual class comprising of Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, MBA grads, entrepreneurs etc is growing and this class with a little bit of social honesty can and will lead the right way forward,( i.,e non-armed struggle) for the development of dalits and India together.
Yes Thomas, India’s Dalits do not believe or Trust Maoists, look at the brahmin guy who runs the Moaists of Nepal, fit for nothing, this guy could not even move the pubic hair of hindus after he took in charge of Nepal, he could not make a dime of change in attitudes of casteists in terms of cleaning up the caste pathology, that tells the tell tale story of Maoists?. Dalits are quire well aware that Maoists cannot do any good to the society, nor do dalits believe in any of the existing Congress, BJP or other casteist Parties, except BSP in UP. The time is now, in the coming years and in the next decade, the whole of Indian history will be rewritten, India will be restored back to Buddhist Nation. I hope Mayawatiji will take over the Delhi’s power, even if she cannot, she will do the largest damages to all the political parties in the coming years, and somewhere in India, someone will emerge from Dalit community to rule India, keep this in your diary.
I also agree with many points that the previous post mentioned, such as the authors claims most of the BSP is from Maoist is simply idiotic and baseless. I would like to ask the authors to list the names of any BSP leaders of the present govt who has anything to do with Maoist, I can guarantee that you will fail to list even a few, let alone most of the cadres as you claimed.
I also agree with the previous post by aborigine that not all dalits believe hinduism is a religion of any interest to dalits, let alone think about it was god’s act to clean shit or whatever. I will assure you that go to a village and talk to people, most of them will give a damn about hindu religion, though in remote villages people still behave or practice some hindu mythical things due to ignorance, but even in villages things are changing and the pathological structure of India is taking heavy beatings as we speak, it might take many more years to see total change but the path is laid by Buddha and later by Dr.Ambedkar, then Kanshi Ram, and many other good dalits like K.R.Narayanan in the bureaucratic side of dalits. Most of today’s dalit politicians are POS, fit for nothing as the other guy mentioned they are slaves. There are hardly any good dalit politician today, except BSP, though even in BSP there are certain policy drawbacks and negative issues with regard to dalits upliftment, to the most part, BSP is the only dalit political party ever became national party, being the third largest party today in itself is an achievement that took atleast three decades. All we have to hope today is that bsp will move further up and govern India.
Dear Author,
I am totally disagree with your views expressed about Dalit. Dalit are peace loving people of India and because of their hard working India is progressing. Most of the upper caste Hindu are confine to their enjoyment, sitting in Air condition, & adopting different tactics/practice to become rich at cost of India by exploiting Dalits. You can see the Top Industrialist of India, most of them are involved in day to day scam to Billions of Dollar scam apeearing News paper. They do also not hesitate to make a dalit as scap goat to defame them. In india, from State Govt to Central Govt taking from Indian Independence to till day, every day is full with scam, atrocity on Dalit/lower caste. India is not progress because of these Upper caste Hindu. They do not want that India should be super power. Bluntly speaking, Upper caste Indian do not want to see the rise of Dalit at any cost. These people are so much biased that they will not mind to hand over or sale of this country to Foreigner but they will not agree to accept a Dalit as Ruler of India. Once Dalit has become a ruler of this Country, India will be far ahead of America or China. Cheers
Cast colour sreed are nothing these are trash only the mean of the means can put an ear to such none sense. All humenbeings are equal deserve equal rights and equal medicine for equal diseases. We need to be sane in this world of enlightenment and abhore all kinds of exploitation. We in this part of the world, I mean, India and Pakistan are the poor of not resources but of wrong ideologies purported to keep the lowest to the lowest of strata.