Mallepally Lakshmaiah
Is there a single village in India which has no Dalit? There could be a few exceptions but we do find Dalits in most parts of India - who have fought the system relentlessly. Every village has produced its very own Dalit social revolutionary but is there any Dalit reformer with a pan-Indian identity? And how exactly does one acquire a pan-Indian identity? Does one go around the country reforming society or can one confine oneself to a particular area and still acquire a pan-Indian identity. And does one become a national icon either of these ways. What matters most is how mainstream media and academics project a reformer.
Amongst non-Dalits, we have icons in every field. But from amongst the Dalits, barring Dr Ambedkar, it is difficult to think of even one reformer who is famous all over India - even though reformers from within Dalit communities may far outnumber reformers from non-Dalit societies. Dalits don't own any part of the media, they don't own academic institutions, they're not part of the English educational setup and, therefore, they are unable to push forward their own icons. Thus, most Dalit icons remain local phenomenon - a Telugu or Tamil reformer remains a Telugu or Tamil legend forever. The same goes with the Hindi heartland.
The hostile attitude of mainstream society can best be illustrated by citing the great Dalit social reformer and teacher Bhagyareddy Varma's case. He was born on May 22, 1888, and named Bhagaiah. The family guru, a learned man belonging to the Shiva Cult, visited the untouchable family in November that year and renamed the child Bhagyareddy. The father, Maadari Venkaiah, asked why. The Guru argued that the so-called untouchables had been rulers prior to the Aryan expansion towards the South - hence the term "Reddy," from the Telugu word "redu", which means "ruler."
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