OUTLOOK

Adi Dharam World Mission, a Dalit body today extended support to radical Sikh organisation, Damdami Taksal Bhindrawale, and declared that newly-floated Ravidasia dharm was a conspiracy to drive a wedge between Adidharm samaj and the Sikh community.Kishan Pal Sood, President Adi Dharam World Mission, today told newsmen here that Amrit Bani, new granth of Ravidasia dharma, was not a complete granth but an extract of Guru Ravidas hymns from the holy Guru Granth Sahib.

 by Katelyn Coyle

The Buraku of Japan and the Dalit of India remain the lowest caste of their respective countries. Experiencing more than just poverty and low status, the Buraku and the Dalit have been described as being lower than human, filthy, and contaminated. Members of these castes are considered to be the untouchables. Highly discriminated against, the untouchables remain outcastes, even in modern society. Both the history of the caste systems in Japan and India, andmodern reformation movements must be discussed to fully grasp the current situation of the Dalits and the Buraku.

Read more...

Oliver Mendelsohn

Could Kanshi Ram in '84 have imagined the BSP of '09?

Formative years: A young Mayawati at the mike; Kanshi Ram is second from left

In 1984, Kanshi Ram founded the Bahujan Samaj Party, just in time for his young colleague Mayawati to stand for a parliamentary seat in a byelection the next year. Twenty-five years on, the electoral achievements of the BSP and of Mayawati herself have been extraordinary. It is doubtful that in 1984 Kanshi Ram could have done so much as even daydream of dominating the politics of India's largest state. With the limited exception of the still young Ram Vilas Paswan from Bihar, at the time there was no strong, independent Indian leader of Dalit origins.

Kanshi Ram was already middle-aged in 1984 and a veteran organiser in Maharashtra, the heartland of Dalit politics of the 20th century. As a young science graduate, he had moved to Pune from Punjab—his family was Raedasi Sikh, from a Chamar community converted to Sikhism—to take up a position reserved for the scheduled castes in the defence production industry. In Pune, he soon gravitated towards associations of the Dalit followers of Ambedkar. D.K. Khaparde, who became Kanshi Ram's closest colleague and friend in Pune, recalled to me the electrifying effect that a reading of Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste had on him. Kanshi Ram was instantly radicalised by Ambedkar's attack on caste and on Brahminism in particular.

Read more...