Workshop Report on
'Harnessing Counter-Culture to Construct Identity: Mapping Dalit Cultural Heritage in Contemporary India',
7-8 December, 2012, Convened by Ronki Ram

Ronki Ram

1. The topic and the goal

The workshop entitled Harnessing Counter-Culture to Construct Identity: Mapping Dalit Cultural heritage in Contemporary India was organized by International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden, The Netherlands at Lipsius, Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden on December 7-8, 2012. The workshop focused on the emergence of Dalit cultural heritage as a counter-culture to the mainstream culture of upper/dominant castes social set-up and world view. If any social institution or phenomenon that can be singled out to boldly mark the centrality of the Indian society, caste qualifies to be the foremost one. Anti caste movement has a long history in India. It was further radicalized by the emergence of Dalit movement with the entry of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar into the highly contested political domain of the colonial and post colonial India. Dalit movement adopted various strategies in its tirade against social exclusion and made concerted efforts for the emancipation and empowerment of the socially excluded sections of the society. To begin with, the Dalit movement spearheaded by Dr. Ambedkar attempted to find a way out of caste discrimination and social exclusion while focusing on social reforms within Hinduism. It tried its level best to pierce through the iron-curtain world view of caste hierarchy by cultivating a sense of social interaction across caste divide through proposals of inter-caste marriages and food sharing, on the one hand, and launching Satyagrahas (non-violent mass struggles) for the entry of Dalits into Hindu temples, on the other. Finding hard to achieve its goal, the Dalit movement took a sharp turn in the 1930s to mobilize its vast constituency towards the critical direction of building a counter-culture for the sole purpose of empowering downtrodden by offering them a distinct social identity different from their tormentors based either on their forgotten cultural past or seeking a refuge in an egalitarian religion. With the adoption of the constitution (prepared under the Chairmanship of Dr. Ambedkar) in independent India, the Dalit movement also found a solid support from the state of India in its efforts to bridle caste and build an egalitarian social order through state affirmative action.

For a quite some time, Dalit social mobility based on cultural assimilation (Sanskritisation) came to command a large following among the extremely marginalized sections of the society. But with the advent of Dr. Ambedkar, a strong alternative and powerful Dalit movement emerged on the basis of conversion to Buddhism. However, another equally powerful Dalit movement that found an immediate appeal among the ex-Untouchables became popular by the name of Dalit cultural heritage. Initially, the Dalit cultural heritage movement found its tender sapling growing on the meticulously fertile field cultivated by the strenuous efforts of Jotirao Phule and the protagonists of the Adi-movements (indigenous) in different parts of India. Since then the domain of cultural heritage has fast been emerging as a politically contested site where the hitherto marginalized and socially excluded Dalit communities started learning how to deploy it as a viable agency in their identity formation processes and struggles.

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Call For Delegates

National Dalit and Adivasi Women's Congress

Organized by
Tata Institue of Social Sciences
Centre for Social Justice and Governance
in Collaboration with
Insight Foundation, Delhi
supported by
Dalit & Tribal Social Work International Forum
Venue: Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai Campus
Date: 15 – 16 February, 2013

Concept Note

What does it mean to be a Dalit woman, an Adivasi woman? At this conference, which is conceptualized, organized and co-ordinated by Dalit and Adivasi women , we frame these fundamental questions along with questions of the community and society at large. We examine the categories of Tribe, Caste and Gender from the viewpoints of Dalit and Adivasi women – a natural extension is to interrogate their intersections with each other and with other categories. We aim to contextualize our historical and continuing assertions against all forms of oppression and place them within a framework of social movements; as women leaders, participants and coordinators engaged in a process of social action.

For Dalit and Adivasi women assembling at this congress it has become imperative to think of innovative ways of reconstructing histories of resistance to patriarchal controls within our communities and build on the feminist legacies of our ancestors, elders and peers. Patriarchy within the community has always been questioned and resisted, as is evident in the pithy sayings, songs and poems of our foremothers. In this context, how do we document our oral traditions that were aimed at displacing the grip of patriarchy on Dalit and Adivasi women? How do we document our present questions against male domination within the community? Extraction of feminist articulation from oral and written traditions into the digital medium is already a vibrant activity, which even in its nascent stages has enabled several Dalit and Adivasi women to locate familiar feminist traditions within their own communities and take a critical look at received wisdom from mainstream articulations of women's rights.

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Caste and Caste-Based Discrimination among Indian Muslims - Part 6: : In the Period of 'Muslim Rule'

Continued from here.

Caste Struggle

Masood Alam Falahi

(Translated by Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com)

[Part 6 of Masood Alam Falahi's Urdu book Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman ('Casteism Among Muslims in India')]

With its philosophy of human equality Islam would have rapidly spread across India but this was not to be tolerated by the upholders of Brahminism or Manuvad. With the conversion of vast numbers of oppressed caste people to Islam they saw their hegemony, built on the caste system and untouchability, rapidly crumbling. They realised that if they did not modify Hinduism and if they did not halt the spread of Islam, Hinduism would be destroyed forever. Accordingly, they adopted many different strategies to counter the Islamic wave.

Division of Muslims into 'High' and 'Low'

Because political power over most of India was now in the hands of Muslims, the Brahminists could not quash them in the same way as they had earlier destroyed the Buddhists and the Jains—by physically exterminating them on a massive scale. Instead, they tried every means to prevent the further expansion of Islam. To take revenge on the Muslims for their political defeat and for attracting vast numbers of Shudras to the Muslim fold, the Brahmins spared no effort to promote hatred against the Muslims and their faith. In this way they tried to dissuade the Shudras and others from converting to Islam. They branded the Muslims as despicable Mlecchas, and treated them as 'impure' and 'polluted', a tendency that continues even today in large parts of India. This is why, leaving aside the Dalits, even 'low' caste Hindus refused to consume food or water touched by Muslims or to draw water from wells used by Muslims. If a Muslim touched a Hindu's water pot, he would break it, considering it to have been rendered impure. If a Muslim touched a Hindu, he would consider himself polluted and would have to take a ritual bath to 'cleanse' himself.

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V. Ratnamala

Abstract: The present paper aims to study the representation of biological and symbolical killing of Dalits with reference to Paramakudi Firing in the Print media. Space allotted for Dalits in print media will be analyzed. Six Dalits were shot dead at the Police firing on Sep 11, 2011 in Paramakudi. The Dalits were assembled to pay homage to Immanuel Sekaran, a Dalit leader on his death anniversary which turned violent following the arrest of their leader John Pandian. Content analysis will be the primary research method for this study. To study the inclusion and exclusion of Dalits in Print media, both the English and Tamil dailies will be selected including one week samples from September 11-17, 2011 of Dinamalar, Dina Thanthi, Dinamani, Dinakaran, The Hindu, The Times of India and The New Indian Express (Madurai editions) will be used for the content analysis. All the articles, editorials, photographs, letters to the editor regarding the Paramakudi incident will be the unit of analysis. The variables of the study will be the sources in the article, the news language, the frequency of news occurrence and the themes.

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Caste and Caste-Based Discrimination among Indian Muslims - Part 5: The Origin and Spread of Islam in India

Continued from here.

Masood Alam Falahi

(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com)

[Part 5 of Masood Alam Falahi's Urdu book Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman ('Casteism Among Muslims in India')]

At a time when in India, as in many other parts of the world, social hierarchy, inequality and oppression were at their peak, with a large section of humanity, such as the Indian Shudras, being treated as worse than animals in the name of religion, the Prophet Muhammad began his mission in Arabia. The core of his message was the oneness of God. 'Say: "He is Allah, [the] One', the Quran exhorts the Prophet to announce to the world. Another central aspect of the divine message the Prophet was commissioned to preach was the oneness and ontological equality of all human beings. Thus, the Quran declares, 'O mankind! We created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other [not that you may despise each other]. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is [he who is] the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted [with all things]' (49: 13). The Prophet very explicitly announced, 'An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor has a non-Arab any superiority over an Arab. Nor has a black man any superiority over a white man or a white man over a black man except by the criterion of God consciousness (taqwa). All of you are from Adam, and Adam is from dust.' This message of social equality is a central pillar of the Islamic dawah or missionary call. It was, undoubtedly, one of the major factors for the powerful attraction that Islam exercised and for its rapid spread, in a matter of just a few years, across the Arabian peninsula and beyond.

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Caste and Caste-Based Discrimination among Indian Muslims - Part 4: Early Anti-Aryan Movements in India

Continued from here.

Masood Alam Falahi

(Translated From Urdu by Yoginder Sikand, for NewAgeIslam.com)

[Part 4 of Masood Alam Falahi's Urdu book Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman ('Casteism Among Muslims in India')]

It is a law of nature that when oppression reaches its zenith, people begin to rise up in revolt. Oppressed people raise their voice and protest, refusing to accept their conditions. Yet, there is no guarantee that their revolutionary stirrings will necessarily succeed. This is precisely what happened in the case of numerous revolutionary movements that emerged against Brahminism in the early period of Indian history. The Shudras and a large section of the Vaishyas were, from the very beginning, victims of the oppression of the Brahmins and, therefore, harboured deep resentment against them. The Kshatriyas had entered into an alliance with the Brahmins, patronising the latter in return for the religious sanction they received from them for their rule. Yet, a large section of the Kshatriyas became increasingly resentful of Brahminical hegemony and despotism. This was reflected, for instance, in the emergence of powerful anti-Brahminical movements led by Mahavir and Gautam Buddha, both of them scions of ruling Kshatriya clans.

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Caste and Caste-Based Discrimination among Indian Muslims - Part 3: The Impact of the Aryan Invasion of India

Continued from here.

Masood Alam Falahi

(Translated From Urdu by Yoginder Sikand for NewAgeIslam.com)

[Translator's Note: This is a translation of Dr. Faridi's Introduction to Masood Alam Falahi's Urdu book Hindustan Mai Zat-Pat Aur Musalman ('Casteism Among Muslims in India'), Ideal Foundation, Mumbai, 2009, pp. 32-35. For the sake of brevity, I have deleted some lines that I did not find directly relevant. I have sought to present the spirit of the text and, hence, have not made a literal translation throughout -Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslan.com]

Definition of Caste

According to sociologists, caste refers to a social system characterised by hierarchically-ordered divisions based on birth. In such a system, there is a strict limit to one's choice of occupations, which is, theoretically, inherited over the generations. There are also strict rules that govern and restrict commensality, marriage and other forms of social intercourse between the different castes. At the same time, each caste is interdependent on the other castes for various services. A caste-based society is contrasted with a class-based one, in which, at least in theory, people's status depends on achievement, rather than birth.

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