Dalit ancestors are a hope for this nation

Radical Views
M C Raj

Dalit ancestors are a hope for this nation 07 December, 2012

'Oh, you have created an ancestor festival for Dalits. It is fascism.' Some European friends who visited Tumkur said without even trying to understand the historical context in which this and other fours festivals for Dalits were created in the Ambedkar Era.

‘GOING BACK in history by dominant forces will amount to fascism. You are right if that is the case with us. When dominant caste people want to go back to their past it means that there was a time when they oppressed the others and entered into a period of prosperity through oppressive measures. It will mean the return of the era of oppression that they practiced. Prosperity and oppression are inseparable in fascism. But when oppressed people want their past to come back to them it means something totally different.’ I used to explain to them.

Not convinced! That was not what they picked up in their universities. They just swallowed the paradigm and the framework that their universities gave them. Intellectual drilling! ‘Please explain to me what you really mean.’ Their search for truth was not light hearted. One of them flew all the way from the Netherlands only to have three days of discussion and went back directly from Booshakthi Kendra, the first ever Dalit Ashram set up in Tumkur district of Karnataka.

‘Our fathers and grandfathers used to wash their faces in the morning. They would spit out the water from their mouth, wipe their faces with the towel on their shoulders and shake the dust off the towel, saying with pain, ‘When will that time come”. What they hankered after was the return of ‘that time’ in the past that was prosperous in their history, that was free from oppression and inequality.

It was a time before the oppressors invaded their life. It was a time when governance of their communities was a smooth affair distributing material and spiritual values to all members of the community. It was a time of equality and dignity. When we create our Ancestor Festival we want that time of equality and dignity to come back in our lives, in our country and in the governance of our nation.’

‘Flabbergasted’ is not at all an exaggeration. They were left dumbfounded. The ordinary illiterate and semiliterate Dalits and Adivasis know this very well. Their deep desire for the return of everyone’s space in society in manifested in this festival. Ancestor festival is a time when we draw our energy from them. Their aspiration for our prosperity sent out waves of feeling and thinking in the universe. We imbibe such waves when we also tune ourselves to receive those desires. We become strong by worshipping our ancestors.

The caste forces in India knew this much better than the Dalits and Adivasis. That is why they destroyed Dalit and Adivasi ancestors. The introduction to Valmiki's Ramayana says proudly that Rama killed 14000 of the kings and queens of the indigenous peoples. Vamana puts his leg on the head of Mahabali to subjugate him totally. The killing of Narakasura is celebrated as the festival of lights.

The killing of Ravana is celebrated as the day of peace. Adishakthi, the wife of Shiva takes the avatar of Chamundeshwari to kill Mahishasura. Mahesh is buffalo, the symbolic ancestor of Dalits, Asura is an ascriptive name for Dalit kings. Killing of Mahishasura is celebrated as Dussehra. Ayutha Puja is the Hindu festival on this occasion.

This is the caste shenanigan. On the days Dussehra is celebrated all over the country Dalits are also made to do ‘Thithi’ for their ancestors. One worships the weapons that killed Dalit ancestors, the other performs ‘Thithi’ for their dead ancestors. The connection is evident. The new celebration of the Festival of Dalit Ancestors is a symbolic protest against the indignity that was heaped on the Dalit community through such Hindu festivals. It is also a celebration of our community value of providing unlimited space to all people, of equality, liberty and fraternity.

What better day can that be than the death anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the modern icon of Dalit liberation? Unfortunately the Dalit world has made him an exclusive symbol of their liberation. They get bogged down in his mega image and keep on adding illusionary weight to his image. Such additions are more rhetorical than rationally carrying of his ‘liberation chariot’ forward. Many other Dalit ancestors are buried under the weight of Ambedkar.

There are many others who have innovated effective ways of getting their people out of the wheels of oppression. Sri Narayana Guru, Ayyankali, Swami Achutanand, Sir Kumara Gurudevan, Muthukuttiwasmy, Iyodhidass, Mangooram, Sri Guru Ravidas etc. are only some examples of ancestors, who designed their own way of Dalit liberation based on the history and culture of Dalit people. Many of them condemned all established religions equally and were effective in getting Dalits out of the evil of untouchability.

Dalit community has ten ancestries and not one as many dominant religions trace their origin to one god. Multiplicity is an essential ingredient of Dalit culture and history. Converting to other religions is once again taking us backward to the era of oppression. Rediscovering our history and culture through the veneration of our ancestors takes us forward to face life on our internal strength. We bring our past back into the future.

The crucial difference in this effort is the discovery of our inner strength embedded in our culture. We cannot realize this strength unless we re-discover our history. We make a quantum leap into the future through our history and culture. The strength of such recapturing is that we do not have to make the caste forces as our reference points and keep on blaming them for every negative thing that happens to us. We make our strength as our reference point. If we do this we do not have to run after other religions that have only created in us illusions of eternal happiness and reward.

Celebration of Dalit Ancestors festival is a strong message to Dalits that we are a people of our own and that we have arrived as a people in India. It is a very strong invitation to Dalits to realize their right for self-governance as a people with their own norms, rules and regulations and not be subjugated to the caste governance that enslaves them everyday. It is an ultimate message of uncompromising freedom and dignity. Let the entire country join this celebration of Festival of Dalit Ancestors and make India a country in which all people can live together.

About The Author

M C Raj is a human rights activist and award-winning author of more than 18 books. He has initiated a national campaign for proportionate electoral system, popularly known as CERI, in India. He is deeply involved in Climate Change issues.

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COMMENTS (6)

Guest

Haider

Mr. Raj, with all respect to you, I would like to inform you that I haven't said that dalits are using such bad words. Instead I wanted to say people from the upper strata having all types of facilities and having good education of our education system are using such bad words. Believe me Sir, though I, myself belong to an one of the upper caste of the system but I never believed in such notion. During my school days teachers asked my father to fill the surname column and at very time my father refused to use caste name or surname with my name. Because He believe that all such system are causing more problems to society. Once he told me that It is your work which should speak for you and not your caste. Since that time I had respect for all human beings.

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M C Raj

HAIDER, No disagreement on the issues you are raising. But your statements also reveal that people cannot become 'educated' in our education system. The is a problem that our education system does not really give knowledge as it is designed in a dominant way to serve the interest of dominant caste forces. As for the type of language that Dalits speak, you call it uncivilized. Please read some English novels and you will see the type of language the 'civilized' society uses. Every community has its own slangs and some may or may not be palatable. In as much as you blame Dalit slangs Dalits can also blame the caste slangs. There are caste people who never call the Dalits by their name but use only unparliamentary language to address them. They are highly educated and literate. But they do not have the culture to respect the Dalits as human beings. Did you see some photos of the Dharmapuri incident in Tamilnadu, how the Dalit girls were stripped and kicked in their vagina by legs with shoes. Uneducated people? No, highly educated Vanniar caste people did this barbarian atrocity.

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Haider

Mr. MC Raj, you had articulated article in very good manner. There is no doubt that Dalit are facing problems in society since time immortal and it should come to an end now. We are living in a society which is knwon as eduacted and civilized one. But when it comes to their thinking they didn't seem to me civilized anymore. They may be literate but they are not educated. Education gives you knowledge to understand right and wrong and behave in a particular manner. Whereas it is very common to see wrong words and phrases attached by so called educated people to havenot people. This is completey wrong and we should respect everyone irrespective of their creed, caste, ethnicity, religion etc. The most important thing is that all of us are human being. There is saying by one of muslim saint almost 1400 years ago "we should behave with others the way we expect from others for us."

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M C Raj

Nitin, So you seem to be threatening the Dalits that if there are affirmative actions by the government you will perpetuate atrocity on Dalits. Is this what you mean in your posting. If this is the case then the Government will have to be even more stringent on such forces. We live in a world that professes freedom for all people. The caste society in India must introspect on how much of such freedom exists for Dalits and other backward classes in this country and get into a serious act of reforming their ethos.

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NITIN

Certainly a nice way of assuring the Dalits that a sack full of glory and equality of space in society prevails them and they can hope for even better room in society.But in the incumbent scenario of too much and misuse of privileges given to these so-called backward classes they must also check in for the same so that their contemporaries of different sections of the society do not feel cheated(which in a way invigorates atrocities on Dalits).

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ASHA PAIDHUNGAT

Asuras were powerful people, who used their power to trouble helpless people & hence the Gods(Suras) had to destroy them for the welfare of humanity!Asuras must not be identified with or equated with Dalits, because Dalits have been the oppressed people till very recent years.At the same time, I personally feel that Dalits who have benefited from reservation in education, job, promotion, etc, must try to help at least one deserving candidate from their community to come up in life, instead of making a new group of elites!Conversion to other religion doesn't really help them as they are still considered as Dalits unofficially especially for Roti-Beti deals! One Ambedkar is not enough, if Dalits have to rise continuously.As Lord Krishna said, such great men must take birth repeatedly, for the welfare of the community. Dalits themselves must take up the cause of helping their less fortunate brethren, by starting educational institutes & hospitals, on a charitable, no-profit-no-loss basis, as seen among Jains & Christians, in particular.

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