Dalits and the Commons

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(from Vocabulary of Commons, article 33)

by Yashodha[1]

Dalits and the commons

It is over 60 years since India gained political independence and framed a constitution guaranteeing equality of all her citizens and zero tolerance to discrimination of any kind. However, the ‘practice of untouchability’, specifically abolished by Article 17 of the Indian constitution, and exclusion in the public domain towards Dalits or Scheduled Castes (SC) continues unabated in many parts of the country. Most people belonging to this group are economically marginalised[2] and have been victims of frequent and brutal atrocities primarily due to parochial mindsets. The blatantly poor implementation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 aggravates their problems. In reality Dalits continue to experience discrimination, exclusion and violence on the basis of their caste especially while using common resources and entitlements or simply being there.

Dalits view lands, public places like roads, wells, parks, bus stands, banks, government offices, courts, police stations, hospitals, schools, temples as commons. For Dalits, water, electricity, money are resources for survival that are available and accessible from shared spaces. Networks and forums of Dalits offer a space to discuss ideas, their realities and share experience as well as support each other. Dalits experience many problems in accessing and utilising common spaces and resources. They encounter discrimination from dominant castes. This is despite the government not viewing Dalits as an excluded community in the context of commons. In spite of relevant laws which guarantee equality, specific social entitlements and punishment of exclusionary practices,[3] the government does not seem to care about Dalits much. It would be quite correct to state that the Dalits are excluded from the overarching commons—the nation itself.

Dalits and the legal commons

The constitution of a country lays out the cultural and legal territory, the shared values, aspirations and legal architecture. It is the critical built commons of any nation—the core around which everything else is built. In building a new national identity—a national cultural commons—many conflicting claims will need to be balanced. The victory of one Indian kingdom was oftentimes the defeat of the other. So in building this national common, which aspects should be highlighted is a fundamental choice, for it determines who owns the cultural commons, and indeed the very nation itself. The dominant castes assert their view and only their view as the ‘national’ view. Consequently, in defining the ‘nation’, the prism was always the non-Dalit perspective. The non-Dalit perspective made the Dalit way of life illegitimate, and made even their names derogatory. As far back as 1911, it was recognised that eating beef was an intrinsic part of their food.[4] But that was proclaimed un-Indian and the constitution declared banning cow-slaughter a desirable objective of the Indian state.[5]

The constitution of India declares that all its citizens are equal in the eyes of the law. There are many laws to protect the Dalits. But reality is far from this. If a Dalit has to get access to government welfare schemes, then they have to declare themselves legally Hindu. Those who do not cannot avail of the affirmative action or social welfare provisions Dalits are entitled to. This was done by administrative fiat— the President’s Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order 1950. It took a full 40 years for Buddhists to be included.

There is gross failure on the part of the central and state governments in the implementation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. This happens even though there is an increase in the number of incidents of extreme violence and abuse on Dalits.[6] The very low conviction rate and punishment of the guilty encourages them and others to commit heinous crimes. There are places where such discrimination continues unabated usually with the consent of the government and law enforcement authorities. Complaints to them are therefore not heeded. Instead, Dalits face dire repercussions and are compelled to remain silent. Even if they are courageous enough to seek legal recourse, they rarely get justice. The highly publicised case of Bhaiyalal Bhotmange and his family in Khairlanji in Bhandara district of Maharashtra is a classic example of this.

Another instance of collusion of the state and law enforcement agencies was evident from their delayed, insensitive and minimal response to violent attacks by fundamentalist Hindutva mobs against Dalit and Adivasi Christians in Kandhamal[7] district of Orissa. As a consequence of this, over a hundred young, old, differently-abled, women and children lost their lives. Three women were brutally raped. More than fifteen thousand of the aggrieved are still living in crowded camps and tents and not able to return to their homes and villages. Children are unable to go to school, young girls are being trafficked and families have broken down. This has resulted not only in displacement but a loss of livelihood, physical, mental and emotional trauma and an insecure and uncertain future. In spite of being well aware of the situation, the state government of Odisha has hardly done anything to compensate, reassure the victims and bring the perpetrators to justice. From among more than three thousand complaints filed with the police, just over eight hundred First Information Reports (FIRs) have been registered. Inquiry and investigation is pending for many of these. In the few cases which have been taken up, biases against minorities have led to minimal or lack of punitive action against the criminals and sometimes their acquittal. This has only increased the vulnerability of Dalit and Adivasi Christians in the area.

Even legislation meant for Dalits are impractical and discriminatory. Further, they are often framed by persons from the dominant caste who are not aware of the realities of Dalits. Most of them lack concern for Dalits and their advancement. For example, a law states that Dalits with two acres of land will get subsidised seeds, loans, borewells, electricity supply, etc. from the government. But in reality, they do not have land or at the most half an acre. Even if they do, they face many problems in securing the titles. As a result they do not get any benefits although as per the law it is supposed to be for the good of everyone. This negatively affects their lives and livelihood and instils fear in them.

Dalits and the state institutions

The state is a very important component in the commons framework since it is the only institution permitted the legitimate use of force. Yet the total alienation of the Dalits from this public funded common security infrastructure, a ‘security commons’ as it were, is stark especially when unconsciously expressed through their idiomatic usage. The police claim to be for the security of all, and hopefully for their well being too. But the Dalits refer to the police as Yama—the god of death. Its usage is casual and matter-of-fact. When the ‘saviour’ becomes the ‘god of death’ then how ‘common’ the ‘commons’ are, and who the ‘community’ is become self-evident.

Police personnel across the country do not easily register cases of harassment against Dalits. Instead they imprison and torture innocents through bogus cases. They file false reports, prolong the investigation procedure and thereby delay the indictment of guilty. Owing to this, Dalits consider the police as Yama, the God of death. They view a visit to the police station as sinful and often bathe and clean themselves after going home. If an employee of the police department appears in the dream of a Dalit, it is treated as a bad omen. In contrast to the above, people from dominant castes view the police as helpful, respectable and dependable. This is may be because they tend to use the police to their advantage and that the latter giving their due consideration to the power of wealth and position.

The state institutions, including prisons, are a source of employment and patronage for the dominant caste ‘citizens’ while for the Dalits the non-citizen ‘tenants’ of the nation they are black holes where the constitution does not exist. Even seemingly benign state welfare institutions such as the beggars home follows the same principle, and is seldom more than an open air prison. Most of the inmates are Dalits. Since the rations are allotted on the basis of the number of inmates, vulnerable people are picked up from the streets and bus stands (especially first time migrants) to fulfil the quota. Since the jobs are often disbursed as patronage, a large part of the rations are diverted. If those picked up do not know the language, they are classified as ‘dumb’ and as Dalit. Then the government diverts the funds meant for Dalit development to these institutions from where it goes into the administrative black hole. Though shown as a Dalit share of the common pie, in reality it is administration of patronage.

Discriminatory attitudes against Dalits prevail in government hospitals which are supposed to provide free health care to the financially excluded. The nurses and other support staff treat them rudely and demand money. They ignore them and their needs. Owing to this, Dalits consider a visit or stay in a government hospital as having been to Yamaloka or hell. In rural areas, doctors, paramedical staff and basic amenities in government primary health centres (PHCs) are frequently not present. As Dalits tend to utilise these services more, they lose out and tend to suffer from serious ailments and early loss of life.

Such discriminatory attitudes against Dalits prevail in universities, banks, government offices, fair price shops of the public distribution system (PDS) and in private institutions and organisations. All this adversely impacts Dalits in obtaining loans, food grain and groceries such as sugar and oil obtained through the PDS. In many villages, Dalits are denied access to crematoriums and are forced to segregated burial grounds. Dalits face many difficulties in obtaining caste certificates which are mandatory for securing their social entitlements. These are critical for availing scholarships, waivers and discounts and reservations for Dalits in educational institutions, government jobs, contesting for political office, etc. In the experience of many Dalits, people belonging to other castes obtain false certificates as Dalits to avail benefits and entitlements.

Dalits regularly face hurdles in availing basic benefits and other specific entitlements. A part of the problem is that many of them lack awareness about their fundamental rights and the government does not do much to change this situation. Instead, government funds and grants that are allotted for their welfare are under utilised or redirected to other programmes or elsewhere. A recent report[8] revealed that Rupees 67.8 billion specially earmarked for persons in the SC/ST category were being routed for organising the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi—when at the same time the government was evicting the Dalits there in the name of beautification. RTI applications filed in Karnataka have revealed that grants worth a few hundred crores of rupees meant for the benefit of the SC/ST community were lying unused.

Dalits and land

One of the crucial aspects that contributes to the poor economic status of Dalits is ownership of land. For generations, Dalits have been underpaid, exploited and frequently, bonded labourers on agricultural land that dominant caste persons have claimed as their own typically by forced occupation and false titles (patta). Studies on land ownership patterns of Dalits[9] have shown that the few of them that own small pieces of barely fertile land lack proper titles. Sometimes they are threatened to surrender their land or face terrible consequences when they resist. The government plays a major role in this. It supposedly grants lands to Dalits through legislations but snatches it away under the guise of development for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), infrastructure projects such as road widening, bridge or flyover construction.

Another important and relevant issue is that of the associated inflation in prices of land, transport, food grains and all items essential for daily living. Due to all these reasons, Dalits consider the government as their enemy and harbinger of misfortune. To them, it is a destroyer of their lives and existence. This creates fear and despondency in them. To be fair, the Indian state has been quite catholic about this. The Adivasi not only have to suffer the destruction and displacement by an ‘elephant proof trench’ in the name of ‘conservation’ that studiously avoids the tea and coffee plantations of the encroachers while cutting right through the heart of their villages, wide swaths of their fields, cutting off access of the village to their fields and orchards[10] but in addition suffer the ignominy of having their beloved homeland being named after a corruption ridden ex-prime minister in one state and just across the border after a scandal ridden ex-chief minister.

The Dalits are asserting the right to name their commons, and the larger national commons, after the Dalit leaders. It is one way of asserting that they are also citizens, a part of the national ‘community’ and therefore have a right to access its resources. The assertion of the right to the produce of the commons—such as the fruits of the roadside trees and the fish in the common village ponds—is simultaneous to such linguistic assertion.

To Dalits, land is everything and they revere it wholeheartedly. It symbolises mother, God, livelihood and much more. It is part of them and they belong to it.

Dalits and built commons

The actual contribution of the Dalits in nation building—especially the tough manual labour that goes into infrastructure creation—is unsurpassed by anyone. It is so all pervasive that it is a given. Yet once these ‘new commons’ are built, they are systematically excluded from their very creation. The normative makes it so innocuous—they cannot afford the toll or the fees—that nobody questions the logic of their lowly salaries that ensure that they remain barred across generations. Not very different from prohibition to even see the idol that they carved, in a temple they built for fear of pollution since they did not have the right caste or language skills. The same story is repeated in the offices, schools and hospitals they build, the streets, gardens and playgrounds they create, beautify, clean and maintain and virtually all the fruits of their labour. It is ironic that those who created and preserve the commons are still systematically excluded when it comes to the use and benefits.

When the state comes up with ‘development’ what the Dalits hear is destruction (of their livelihoods) and displacement (from their homelands). The infrastructure projects such as the Bangalore Metro and the Bangalore International Airport assiduously avoid the residences and land of the ‘citizens’ but deliberately mow down the dwellings of the Dalits. When the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor was being built, the adjoining lands were acquired. In addition, the footpath was lessened or completely removed. As a result the lives and livelihoods of hawkers and vendors, most of whom were Dalits who used the space for selling their wares and housing their stalls, were almost completely uprooted. They did not receive any sort of compensation as they were not recognised as organised labour.

The agricultural land in Devanahalli near the new Bangalore International Airport is another example. Most of it was owned by dominant castes. Dalits were employed as labourers. When the land was acquired for the construction of the international airport, the owners of the land were given huge monetary benefits in exchange. But very little was given to the Dalits. Apart from this, the latter lost their livelihood. They did not have an idea as to how to use the money as they did not have much exposure or experience in dealing with such a situation. They had never viewed the land as something of commercial value. Rather, they regarded it as something to be looked upon as venerable.

Major roads and highways are supposed to be common to all. But Dalits are excluded from using these and think that they are meant only for the wealthy and powerful. This is because they do not possess vehicles like private cars, etc. Further, these are constructed by displacing Dalits from their homes. This in turn impacts their livelihoods and very survival adversely and often destroys their lives. Children cannot go to school or play and employment in the surrounding locations sometimes disappears. There is no place for them to graze or feed the few animals that they may own like cows which give milk or hens that lay eggs. To Dalits, land is like their mother whom they worship and honour. They feel hurt when they find that the government does not respect their sentiments especially when it offers money in exchange for their homes and their lands. According to the government, this is supposed to deliver development for all. However, only the dominant caste, rich and mighty benefit from this as they get good roads and money in compensation for the land that they lose. In contrast, the situation of Dalits only tends to become worse.

In many towns and villages of India, Dalits are offered food and drink in specific utensils and seated separately in tea stalls, weddings, other public places and social gatherings. This is in spite of the fact that such an exclusionary practice is a punishable offence under law. Dalits are often denied access to common spaces such as temples and village roads. They are thrown out of temples and tortured when they resist. The Dalit labour is considered a ‘common’ when it comes to building the temple. But when it comes to entry, they are considered untouchable. The Dalits are quite accommodating of Hindu gods. They want to enter the temple not because they are Hindus—they are not, as proved by Ambedkar—but because it was built with our labour. When Dalits try to access public utilities like drinking water from village wells and tanks, electricity, etc they are prevented from doing so. This is in spite of the fact that they are meant for everyone. Experiences such as these drive Dalits to believe that it is their fate and that their situation will never improve.

Even in the present day, dominant caste residents of villages in India refuse to mingle with Dalits or let them integrate with the rest of the villagers. Dalits are confined to ‘colonies’ almost 5 to 6 kms from the dominant caste village. These spaces have minimal infrastructure like roads, wells, public transport, schools and hospitals. Even if they exist, most of them are in a bad condition. Sometimes, schools do not function due to lack of teachers. Commuting from such neighbourhoods is tough due to long distances, roundabout routes, bad roads and minimal public transport. Such problems make Dalits interaction with persons from other castes difficult and enforces segregation.

The brunt of the above problems are borne by women and children. To sustain the existence of their families and children, women are forced to seek jobs in factories and industries where the working conditions are unhygienic. In addition to this salary and benefits are minimal and often delayed. Many of the men in these households who had lost their means of occupation hardly sought or got any alternatives. They ended up lazing around and took to alcohol abuse. These infrastructure projects have adverse effects on the environment. The increased levels of pollution during construction and the additional traffic after completion impact the health of people, animals, trees and other life forms.

Dalits and the knowledge commons

The knowledge that the Dalits had was systematically destroyed. Not being allowed to be literate, they were denied the huge resource base of knowledge that was being built up. When the Dalits go to school, they and their leaders are absent in the syllabus, or portrayed as uncivilised and insulted. This is apart from the discrimination faced by Dalit children who, alone of all students, have to clean the school toilets. They are denied admission into science and technical courses right from eight standard because ‘anyway you are only going to be sweepers and scavengers’ while dominant caste children are encouraged to excel, especially if they lag because the ‘destiny of the nation lies in your hands’. This active discouragement of some sections (especially if they excel) and active encouragement of others (especially if they lag) shows the true ‘ownership’ of the nation.

In the hoary epic Mahabharatha, Eklavya a tribal archer’s thumb is cut off because he became the best archer, better than the best, even without a guru. The notional guru Drona not only had not taught Eklavya but had also refused to teach him when Eklavya approached him. When it was found that Eklavya was the best, Drona then demanded, and got, Eklavya’s thumb—without which archery is not possible— to safeguard the predominance of his favourite Arjuna. Drona was able to demand this tribute (called the ‘guru dakshina’) because the hapless Eklavya practiced in front of an image of Dronacharya. Nothing has changed much in the ownership, access or benefits of the commons.

In the so called modern day too, Dalits begin to experience segregation right from childhood in the public domain. Dalit children in some anganwadis, balwadis and government schools are made to sit separately from children of other castes while eating their noon meal that is provided free of cost by the government. They are often served the food in utensils which are kept apart from those that children of other castes use. In some places, the hot meal is served from a height so that the serving utensils do not touch the plates of these children. The food then splashes on the children causing burns and injury. The school staff entrusted with the responsibility of cleaning the vessels, particularly of the younger children, sometimes refuse to touch those that Dalit children use. Dalit children are beaten more and seated away from the rest of the kids.

As a result, children view the school as a place which inflicts pain on them and they refuse to go. Their parents tend to discourage them from attending school. Hence, the pushout rate is high among Dalits and literacy is low. This directly reduces their opportunities for employment which is formal, lucrative and supposed to be dignified. This leads to Dalits having to seek employment in the unorganised sector like construction labour, domestic work and inhuman and unsafe jobs like that of safaikarmacharis and pourakarmikas. Further, children who are not in school end up being in bonded labour although there is a ban on it in the country as per law. Here they are held captive in exploitative and unsafe conditions by their employers and creditors. They are often subjected to physical and emotional abuse and violence. This usually happens in brick kilns or match, firecracker and hazardous chemical factories, garages, hotels, restaurants and tea stalls, etc. The dominant society calls this push-out as dropout conveniently putting the blame on the hapless Dalits.

The government runs hostels for students many of whom are Dalit. But they are often being discriminated against at meal times and others. Some of them were forced to leave the hostel. Similarly, the operation and standard of government colleges is deteriorating. But these are crucial as marginalised youth, usually Dalits are enrolled in it as they frequently do not have an affordable and recognised college within accessible distance. This is a forced exclusion deliberately done by the government to deny education, and therefore any space in the emerging opportunities, to the Dalits who cannot afford the high fees of private institutions.

The marginalisation of the Dalits from the knowledge commons is felt deeply in the emerging digital commons. The Dalits, due to historical reasons of literacy and access, are among the last to have any significant presence on the internet. This space has allowed the early web literature to present and define India as a ‘vedic’ civilisation and perpetuate many myths of the dominant in cyberspace, including anti-Dalit propaganda. Since Dalits are fewer in number there, and have a weaker presence due to the continuing costs of historical denial of education, the Dalit view is often eclipsed. Dalits are slowly awakening to the potential of the internet, and a few high quality websites of present Dalit reality and the Dalit perspective are slowly becoming visible.

Employment

Typically, most safaikarmacharis, i.e. people who clean human waste, tend to be Dalit women. In spite of laws like the The Employment of Manual Scavenging and construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993[11] banning the construction of dry toilets (which requires people to do this inhuman and unhealthy occupation), it continues to prevail in some parts of India. The women are paid poorly and are compelled to do this back breaking and unsafe work for many hours everyday with little regard for their own health and hygiene. As they are not permitted to enter houses of people of dominant castes, and not provided with other employment opportunities, this often passes from one generation to the next.

Similar to the above situation, most pourakarmikas, i.e., persons who clean roads, sewage pipes and storm water drains and collect garbage in towns and cities are mostly Dalits. Although they seem to be employees of the state government, many of them are contract labourers who lack job security, medical and other benefits, etc. They are overworked and underpaid.

The extensive delay and loopholes in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is impacting Dalits adversely. As Dalits in rural areas are typically landless and economically marginalised, they engage in agricultural labour which is seasonal. Schemes like MGNREGA are hence absolutely essential for them. However, in reality, many of them lack awareness of this entitlement. Even those who know about it hardly benefit from it to the extent they ought to except perhaps in some parts of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. This is owing to the rampant corruption at the Gram Panchayat level in issuing job cards, assigning work for hundred days or paying adequate compensation in its place, maintaining muster rolls, distributing wages, etc.

Employers in the private sector boast of an equal opportunity policy and do not require disclosure of caste. However, when they learn of the caste of a Dalit employee (usually in a discreet manner), some co-workers and management tend to discriminate in subtle forms.

Dalits from rural areas in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh whose meagre land has been forcibly taken in the name of development are compelled to migrate to cities like Bangalore in search of employment. The government promises them compensation but hardly gives them anything in reality. Such people only find exploitative daily wage labour like building construction, head load bearing (coolies), etc. They lack safety and security and proper housing and often live in sheds. They do not have proper sanitation facilities or access to water. Women and adolescent girls are impacted by this as they have to wait until dark to answer nature’s call. This affects their health adversely. Also, they are treated like outsiders due to the difference in their dialect and accent. They do not get voter ID’s and ration cards as they do belong to a different state. Children do not get admission in schools. To get adequate treatment in hospitals is not easy. Further, when they suffer injuries or fatalities at the work place they receive very little or no compensation. Such incidents are hushed up by the contractor, government and police nexus and rarely known or reported by the news media. Police cases are also not registered as mandated.

A few people may manage to find space to live in slums but are not easily accepted due to socio-cultural differences and local politics. They do not easily get work like household helpers, security guards, etc.

Cultural commons

The central and various state governments of India declare many festival days as public holidays. However, this frequently turns out to be insensitive to Dalits for the days happen to be those when Dalits were killed. Cultural traditions of dominant castes celebrate these festivals as the victory of good over the bad. But the fact is that religious myths and literature portray the evil doers and ferocious demons as Dalits. The days of importance to the Dalits are deliberately defiled. The Buddha poornima—a day of special significance to Dalits, and commemorating the apostle of peace—was deliberately chosen by the Indian state to explode Atom Bombs.

Among the most disgusting practices in the world that particularly impacts poor rural women is the Devadasi system. Devadasi[12] literally means god’s (deva) servant (dasi). Under this, economically marginalised Dalit women are forced into sex work under the pretext of serving god is prohibited legally. However, it continues to exist in parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in Southern India.

Young girls are dedicated to the village deity on attaining puberty under this abhorrent tradition. She is then compelled to provide sexual services to dominant caste men—her sexuality becoming a culturally constructed commons. Curiously, untouchability does not apply here. Historically, women in this system were treated with respect and were skilled in the performing arts such as dance and music. But as many women opted out of the practice, young and landless Dalit women were forced into it and exploited. Barred from marrying, women frequently pass this to the next generation of young women for want of an alternative and due to pressure from men of the dominant caste. Therefore, the young daughter of a Devadasi is often at risk of having to become a Devadasi, especially if she lives with her mother.

The minority Karnataka state government, which came to power on less than one third of the votes cast, has banned cow slaughter in the state. This is not for any scientific reason, but solely an assertion of the dominant caste prejudice on the rest of the state. This will deny many people their source of livelihood. Apart from this, beef is also the main and affordable source of protein for many. Dalit activists and other human rights workers have been opposing this but there does not seem to be a change in the stand of the government thus far. Dalits see this as an attack on their culture. Interestingly, history shows that dominant caste persons have eaten beef which they now not only want to deny, but want to impose their newfound beliefs on others also.

The Dalit assertion of identity in the south Indian state of Karnataka was triggered off by a linguistic slight. A Dalit minister in the state government called Kannada literature ‘boosa’—cattle feed—and asked the Dalits to learn English if they wanted to progress and take advantage of the emerging opportunities, rather than Kannada the official state language. The government schools are used mainly by the Dalit children, while the private ones—which were used by the elite and dominant castes—would teach English right from the beginning giving those children a nearly unsurpassable lifelong advantage.

Little wonder then that the slogan of the Dalits was ‘no Sanskrit before, no English now’ alluding to the casteist Hindu law that prohibited any learning for the Dalits—prescribing pouring molten lead into the ears of any Dalit hearing Sanskrit, and cutting off the tongue of any Dalit reciting Sanskrit. The dominant caste government had to back down in 2009. The attempt to fence off the commons citing a love for the dominant language in the state is a common ploy of revivalist forces to keep the access to present and emerging global opportunities restricted. When the state government decreed that Kannada, the regional language, would be the sole medium of education till the fifth standard in government schools, the Dalits immediately saw it for what it was: a crude attempt to fence them off the emerging opportunities in the international knowledge commons.

Language has been an important component in the assertion of their right to be part of the commons and yet remain different. In intensity, it is equivalent to their assertion of the right to eat beef. The assertion of the right to be different and yet be part of the collective—which anyway uses them and their resources—is one of the unique contributions of Dalits to the commons debate: the path of dissent and diversity in the global commons.

In spite of the affirmative action in many spheres, Dalits continue to be strongly discriminated against in the public domain and are excluded from the ‘commons’. The reference to police as ‘yama’ and hospitals as ‘Yamaloka’ reveals the depth of alienation of the Dalit from the nation comparable to the one felt by Ambedkar who demanded separate electorates in 1929 itself. From labour to sexuality, there is forced commoning of what Dalits have, while at the same time excluding them from the benefits of such commoning. India has to go a long way before Dalits feel that they are being treated justly and humanely by society. Their past and present is akin to the victims of apartheid in South Africa, the struggles of African Americans and the Roma of Europe.

Endnotes

  1. This chapter is based on the experience of Yashodha as told to Pushpa Achanta, a freelance writer, and incorporates discussions at the authors meetings.
  2. National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) www.ncdhr.org.in
  3. Specifically the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955; see also NCDHR www.ncdhr.org.in
  4. They ‘Eat beef and do no reverence to the cow’ the tenth criteria for declaring depressed classes in Census of India (1911). Part 1. p. 117 quoted by B R Ambedkar, footnote 4, chapter 9 of The Untouchables Who Were They And Why They Became Untouchables? The ten criteria are: Among those who were not hundred percent Hindus were included castes and tribes which :- (1) Deny the supremacy of the Brahmins. (2) Do not receive the Mantra from a Brahmin or other recognized Hindu Guru. (3) Deny the authority of the Vedas. (4) Do not worship the Hindu gods. (5) Are not served by good Brahmins as family priests. (6) Have no Brahmin priests at all. (7) Are denied access to the interior of the Hindu temples. (8) Cause pollution (a) by touch, or (b) within a certain distance. (9) Bury their dead. (10) Eat beef and do no reverence to the cow. Interestingly, the present government documents quote only the first nine!
  5. Indian Constitution, Directive Principles, Article 48 Organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry: The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.
  6. In 2006, there were 26,665 cases of atrocities of SCs and STs registered across the country, 29,825 in 2007 and 33,365 in 2008. The conviction rate is about 30%— 28% in 2006, 31.4% in 2007 and 32 in 2008. Pendency of cases is around 80%, Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram in the Lok Sabha, 30 August 2010.
  7. orissaconcerns.net
  8. Press release Diversion of Social Sector Funds to Commonwealth Games Reveals Corruption and Financial Mismanagement National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR, www.ncdhr.org.in) and Housing and Land Rights Network, 3 August 2010 and confirmed by the Union Minister for Home P Chidambaram in a statement to the Rajya Sabha on 31 August 2010.
  9. National Federation of Dalit Land Rights Movements (NFDLRM) www.ncdhr.org.in/nfdlrm/about-nfdlrm
  10. Cheria, Anita. Why Does Nagarhole Burn.
  11. Safai Karmachari Andolan safaikarmachariandolan.org/
  12. Dasi=Feminine; Dasa=Masculine