Dalit Veda Vyasa was India’s first nation builder. He was the child of an inter-caste union

 In ‘Makers of Modern Dalit History’, Sudarshan Ramabadran and Guru Prakash Paswan write Veda Vyasa’s achievements show how Dalit communities have helped Hinduism revolutionise and reform.

A revolutionary reformer, a path-breaking poet, a writer par excellence, a brilliant editor, an inspirational sage who institutionalized teaching with passion and an institution unto himself, Veda Vyasa is one of the central names in Indian spiritual tradition. He can be referred to as ‘the first nation builder’ for his creation of the teertha-yatra pilgrimages, for ‘chitta-shuddhi’ (cleansing of the mind), that prepared the ground for national unity and as someone who changed the face of a nation that is known for its spiritual philosophies and practices even in contemporary times.

Veda Vyasa’s extraordinary achievements are evidence that those who came from the Dalit and lower-caste communities have helped Hinduism revolutionize, reorganize and reform. Krishna Dvaipayana Veda Vyasa was a product of one of ancient India’s first inter-caste unions, born to a sage, Maharishi Parashara, and a fisherwoman, Satyavati. No one would have thought that this son of unequal parents would go on to represent Hinduism and its tenets. Every year, Vyasa’s birth anniversary is observed as Vyasa Purnima (full-moon day), also known as Guru Purnima in the month of Ashada (July–August) of the Hindu calendar. The day is dedicated to gurus or teachers. 

Representational image | The battle of Kurukshetra in Mahabharata | Commons

The apple does not fall far from the tree, and Veda Vyasa’s father, too, was a sage recognized for his immense knowledge and self-realisation. He worked tirelessly to bring order and cooperation between the different sections of society by travelling extensively and setting up ashrams to impart positive values at a time when there was a lot of discord in society and little respect between communities and castes. 

Right from the time he was a child, Vyasa had a strong urge to transcend the limited and the meaningless, and venture into the unknown realms of infinitude armed with a universal outlook. He set out to present the ancient wisdom of the past in a way that it could be appreciated and absorbed by all. During his young years, there was no one equal to Vyasa. He was intelligent, with a high grasping power, learning and absorbing what his father, his guru, taught him.

Vyasa was deeply committed to the service of mankind and wanted to disseminate knowledge among people. Due to his relentless contribution to Hinduism in which he outlined that knowledge was vital for self unfoldment, the positive impact of which is felt even today, Vyasa can be considered one of the most daring religious revolutionaries to have appeared in Hindu cultural history. His work has had a tremendous impact on scholars, thinkers and seekers from across the globe. In the words of German Indologist Paul Deussen: 

‘Love your neighbour like you love yourself’: Why should I do that? The answer is not found in the Bible, but in the Vedas, namely in the great formula ‘Tat Twam Asi’, which in three words, communicates the underlying metaphysics: You should love your neighbour like yourself, because you yourself are your neighbour, whereas to see him as different is mere illusion. 

It was Vyasa, equipped with an incomparably astute intellect, who decided to give humanity the categorized and documented version of the Vedas, India’s immense book of knowledge that had, until then, had only been shared orally. To compile and document that was an onerous task. His mission was not an ordinary one. He had perhaps realized that there was a definite need to pen down the treatise amid forgotten traditions and calamities, such as famines, as it would prove beneficial for the generations to come. The visionary sage not only compiled the Vedas but segregated it into the four parts that it is known to have today, namely the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda. 

However, the systematic thinker in Vyasa was apparently not satisfied with merely classifying the entire wealth of Vedic knowledge into four volumes; in each volume he also brought about a harmonious rhythm, both in the arrangement and the classification of the contents. He divided each of the four volumes roughly into four sections: Mantras (chants or hymns), Brahmanas (rituals and rules of conduct), Aranyakas (methods of subjective worship) and Upanishads (philosophical revelations). 

Arthur Schopenhauer, a German scholar who was widely read before the Second World War and discussed in public newspapers and magazines, saw in the Upanishads the ‘fruit of the highest human knowledge and wisdom’ and in their introduction into the Western world ‘the greatest gift of the century’. In his writings, Schopenhauer confessed that reading the Upanishads had been the joy of his life and later the consolation at the hour of his death. According to him, this was such a great legacy to mankind because its study purified the mind like nothing else could.

Vyasa was an original thinker with astounding faculties of insight and foresight. In the words of Swami Chinmayananda, one of the first spiritual teachers to expound the knowledge of the Upanishads in English, ‘Vyasa was one of the sages who had a vast vision of the past and the great imagination to see the future, both of which he brought forth in order to tackle the problems of decadence in his immediate present.’

Was Vyasa reaching out to the people in a way they could understand? To explain how the subject should be understood, he brought to the fore the Brahmasutras, an analysis based on the essential thoughts contained in the Upanishads. While the Upanishads tell us who we are, the Brahmasutras analyse and clarify, shining a light on this most vital knowledge. The Brahmasutras are the substratum for the ancient Indian philosophy; Advaita Vedanta, which states that the divinity in one is the divinity in all. To Vyasa’s credit, the Brahmasutras form the umbrella of Vedantic knowledge and studies. 

Vyasa’s quest to present knowledge in simplified and easily comprehensible forms was both refreshing and relentless. He seemed to be of the belief that there could always be more creative ways to reach out to people. And to accomplish that, he perhaps decided to travel extensively, engage with and speak to various sages, cutting across the length and breadth of the nation, to write the Puranas (mystic stories based on ancient India). Vyasa compiled and wrote all of the eighteen puranas. In Vyasa’s work, one can find a unique harmony of technique, plot development, character portrayal, description of nature and cultural connections. In other words, he was the greatest producer of potboilers of the time! 

David Frawley, author, teacher and founder of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, has said, ‘As such, Veda Vyasa developed the foundation for Hindu dharma as it endures to the present day, with its main deity forms, philosophies and yogic paths. Yet Veda Vyasa stayed in the background and never made himself into an object of worship.’ 

One of Vyasa’s most applauded works is the Mahabharata. Along with the Ramayana, this epic poem is one of Hinduism’s most eminent works. The duo lies at the core of Indian national identity and culture, spanning millennia. 

Set against the backdrop of the Mahabharata, Vyasa also produced one of India’s ‘FAQ’ handbooks—the Bhagavad Gita—which teaches human beings how to practically live the subtle philosophies of everyday life. The Bhagavad Gita occurs in the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata, comprising eighteen chapters. It is Veda Vyasa’s sheer brilliance that he translated subtle Vedic maxims in his unique way, against the intricacies of politics and the edginess of a family feud. 

Vyasa’s accomplishments show that birth and background do not dictate a person’s accomplishments. 

This excerpt from ‘Makers of Modern Dalit History’ by Sudarshan Ramabadran and Guru Prakash Paswan has been published with permission from Penguin Random House India.

(Source: The Print)

Meet M. Nagloo, India’s first Dalit hotelier who was famous among British, US travellers

 M. Nagloo rose from obscurity to become a prominent figure in late 19th century. His biography, written by his son, is perhaps the first Dalit biography written in English.

During my doctoral research, I was advised by my research supervisor Peter Robb to read catalogues. I used to diligently pick up catalogues in the India Office section of the British Library. Once, I landed on a biography of M. Nagloo, the first written-about Dalit hotelier. I was astonished to see a Dalit biography written as early as 1908 and that too in English. The biography, Maidara Nagayya, written by Nagloo’s son M.N. Venkataswami, opened all-new vistas about the unusual rise of a Dalit and the historical account of the early colonial encounters and British rule’s stabilisation in the Central Provinces.

A file photo of M. Nagloo | Source: Maidara Nagayya, the biography of M. Nagloo written by his son M.N. Venkataswami

Another significant aspect of this biography is that it was written twice in two different versions. Venkataswami first wrote and published a hundred copies of the biography in 1908. He had sent 57 copies to his father’s well-wishers and friends in England and the United States. Unfortunately, the remainder of 43 copies were swept away in the floods of 1908 in Hyderabad. Venkataswami rewrote the biography and published it in 1929 with extensive corrections and additions. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, both the versions of the biography ended up in the British Library.

This biography is not only rare, but is perhaps the first Dalit biography written in English. It challenges conventional historical understanding in Dalit studies, which presumes that before Ambedkar, there were no significant scholarly articulations and writings by Dalits. In contrast, the author of this biography, M.N. Venkataswami, was a prolific writer in English. He was a Royal Asiatic Society member and a well-established folklorist of his time. He consistently published in international journals like Folklore and Indian Antiquity. He translated Valmiki’s Ramayana in English with Ralph T.H. Griffith. He wrote The Story of Bobbili: As Handed Down Through Minstrels with Jadhunath Sarkar in 1912, and with Narayan G. Chandavarkar wrote Folk Stories of the Land of Ind in 1927.  He worked as a librarian at the State Central Library in Hyderabad.

Most importantly, Venkataswami’s acquaintance with the larger academic world is too impressive and difficult to ignore. In her recent book The Audacious Raconteur (Cornell University Press, 2020), Leela Prasad has a chapter devoted to Venkatswami titled ‘Sovereignty and Storytelling Colonial India’, which describes his folkloric contributions. Meanwhile, I am trying to trace the family both in Nagpur and Hyderabad, and so far have made multiple trips in vain. I will edit and publish the biography soon. 

Nagloo’s royal ancestry

Venkatswami writes that Nagloo’s ancestors were from the Rayalaseema region of Madras presidency. He claims royal lineage to his family and narrates their downfall in the caste ladder because of one forefather’s debasing act. According to him, during the 1783 famine, Nagloo’s grandfather Maidara Govindoo saw a group of Malavandlu (Malas) sitting around and voraciously eating a cow’s much-desecrated flesh. Pinched by hunger, Govindoo took a piece of the flesh, and ate it. The king came to know about it and ostracised him to the status of untouchables.

Govindoo supplied bullock carts to British native infantries during the battle of Seringapatam in 1799 and amassed a lot of wealth. He died when his son Polaya (Nagloo’s father) was still young. Polaya lived on the wealth amassed by his father and became a sorcerer and witchcraft man. Nagloo too lost his father in childhood. After marrying off two of his sisters, Nagloo’s mother brought him to Hyderabad to live with her brother. Within a few months, Nagloo’s mother died.

Nagloo joined country carts carrying goods to Jalna, a British military station. British Army officers picked up low-level servants and assistants in the early days of colonial occupation, predominantly untouchables from Machilipatnam (Bandaroo). It was a trading centre and port city that acted as an entry point for the Europeans in Coromandel Coast. Nagloo was employed as a domestic servant in the house of Lieutenant Colonel of Royal Horse Artillery. From Jalna, he moved to Kamptee near Nagpur and worked for different British army officers as domestic servant-cum-butler till 1857.

A file photo of the hotel M. Nagloo built in 1864 | Source: Maidara Nagayya, the biography of M. Nagloo written by his son M.N. Venkataswami

Nagloo’s rise as a hotel entrepreneur

After 1857, Nagloo started a bullock cart carriage business from Nagpur to Bombay and simultaneously worked for Captain R.H. Bolton of Bombay Infantry and Robert Brereton, Chief Engineer, Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Both these officers entrusted Nagloo with the purchase of durable timber logs for the Railway’s sleepers. The profits from rail logs contracts and transport business enabled him to establish a Nagpur hotel on 20 March 1864.

The gradual consolidation of power and constitution of Central Province along the expansion of railway lines increased the volume of trade between different areas. Moreover, it also increased access to interior regions for British officials and traders who used Nagpur as a base. This brought in lots of English clientele to Nagloo’s hotel; sometimes, his former bosses were his clients. However, the first chief commissioner of Central Provinces, Richard Temple, helped Nagloo expand his business by providing free lands, clientele, and the much-needed encouragement.

In 1866, an industrial exhibition was organised in Nagpur by Richard Temple to expose the Central Provinces to business and commercial opportunities. Nagloo was entrusted with transport, food, and accommodation arrangements. This official patronage helped Nagloo increase his business in terms of financial options and his standing in the public eye, especially in the caste-ridden society. The successful arrangements and British officials’ patronage helped Nagloo overcome the caste disadvantage (untouchable status) and got him clients from caste Hindus who were native rulers while Muslim ruling elite was also patronised for special occasions arranging food and wine.

Nagloo’s hotel became globally known with travellers from the UK and the US mentioning him in their travelogues. Punch, a British satirical magazine, published advertisements about the hotel. The Tatas wanted to buy the hotel for Rs 1 lakh at the height of its glory, but Nagloo refused to sell. As his success reached the pinnacle, he also made enemies among caste Hindus who had been facing court cases. He had to surrender his property to the British, who paid him a meagre Rs 10,000 as compensation and converted the hotel into Bengal-Nagpur Railway Headquarters. That downfall led to paralysis and the eventual death of Nagloo. His son Venkatswami was determined to tell his father’s story from obscurity to a prominent figure in early colonial India whose name was known worldwide.

(Source: The Print)

How this Travancore King sparked off temple entry reforms for Dalit citizens

 In ‘History Liberated’, Princess Aswathi Thirunal Gouri Lakshmi Bayi writes about reforms & policies undertaken during the Travancore royal family’s last phase.

God, the Supreme Being, reigns in every human heart. Yet to approach Him physically stood denied to sizeable numbers all over India who were constrained within the orbit of Avarnas (as against the Savarnas) cruelly and contemptuously labelled as ‘untouchables’. Progressive Travancore with much to its credit was unfortunately no exception in this case.

Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala | Photo: Commons

However, when the brittle pages of the far past are turned back, the year 1486 AD rises like the splendorous sun—King Jayasimha Devar of Venad ruled the land. He enacted a reform far ahead of times. Generations can offer nothing to compare with the reform dealing with social justice and social emancipation enacted by this noblest of kings. It directly extended to the dyers of Parasurama Perunteru near Nagercoil. These dyers who had come and settled from far-off lands were branded lower caste and were at the receiving end of acute caste discrimination. They could not worship the village deities, like the upper classes. The dyers had to pay all kinds of taxes and were forbidden from approaching the King directly. Violators, besides getting corporal punishment, would be evicted from their own village and would not be allowed to use village wells. When King Jayasimha Devar visited Vatasseri, these unfortunates pleaded their case before him. After lending a sympathetic ear to them, the benevolent Ruler ordered:

That if they had grievances they might present themselves before the King whenever he came in procession on his elephant;

That all taxes except those for the upkeep of the army and the navy were slashed;

That the upper classes should not interfere with their religious worship or festivals;

That they should be subjected to no injustice;

That they could use public wells and tanks without restrictions;

That meddling in their affairs by Brahmins, Pillamar and other upper classes would invite Royal displeasure and punishment.

Sometime during the cyclic rotation of seasons, Jayasimha Devar and his stunning reform were banished into oblivion. In the 1700s, Maharaja Anizhom Thirunal Marthanda Varma the Great, architect of modern Travancore, conferred on the Ezhavas many an important position. The presence of Avarnas in administration and such do not come under the survey of this chapter as of now. It stands restricted to one aspect—the fundamental right of worship of every Hindu in the State of Travancore.

The Vaikom Satyagraha (1924–1925), which commenced in crescendo of clamour during the final year of Sree Moolom Thirunal’s reign and concluded in success during Pooradom Thirunal Maharani Setu Lakshmi Bayi’s regency, was a landmark in the struggle for the dignity of the human being, in this context the sizeable Avarna population of Travancore. This major issue apart, the rule of both the Maharaja and the Maharani Regent have widely invited much appreciation. The view that this Satyagraha was the initial step against untouchability is chronologically incorrect. A brief flashback of events is narrated.

At a public meeting held in Quilon (now known as Kollam), an important town in Travancore, in 1917, Sri C. Raman Pillai, retired High Court Judge (and hailing from the upper caste) appears to be the first to ask that all State temples may be opened to the Avarnas. Then came the more serious move by the prominent leader of the Ezhava community (which even then stood on a much better footing) Sri T.K. Madhavan (who did not live to see the fruits of his labour) whose demand was on the same lines: removal of untouchability and entry into temples. He was also the editor of a Malayalam weekly Deshabhimani which was a distinct advantage to him. A representation was brought before the Sri Mulam Popular Assembly. In 1921, he again raised the question before the Assembly. At both instances it met with no success other than it was heard.

A very strong organization of the already established Ezhavas had taken birth under the banner of the great spiritual Guru revered as Sree Narayana Gurudevan, a multi-dimensional personality. It went by the name SNDP (Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana) Yogam and continues to be a real force in the socio-religious-political scenario of the State of Kerala. (It has to be added that Sree Narayana Guru was totally nonpolitical.) At every one of their meetings the Yogam under the Guru had been passing resolutions for temple entry.

A slight digression may be pardoned. It has been said many a time that once when the Guru was resting on a beach (possibly Varkala) one of his disciples asked of him when there will be an end to their sorrows. The Guru replied that a king is going to be born who will put an end to them. The king who was born next was none other than Sree Chithira Thirunal. Guru’s words were prophetic.

Yet another sage of the city Sree Ayya Guru Swamikal, famed for his saintly eminence, had also predicted this young King’s birth. He declared in Tamil that a king is going to arrive with scepter and royal umbrella. The royal personage in question was Sree Chithira Thirunal. Thus, Sree Chithira Thirunal received the blessings and acknowledgement of great spiritual personages even before birth.

The 1923 Kakinada Congress meeting constituted the Kerala Untouchability Committee to work for removal of untouchability. It is extremely significant that the Avarna cause received solid support from the Savarnas which was impressive. Kerala Hindu Sabha, Nair Service Society (NSS), with Sri C.K. Parameswaran Pillai as its long-term President and Sri Mannathu Padmanabha Pillai as General Secretary, Yogakshema Sabha, the premier organization of the highly respected Namboodiri Brahmins, and the Kshatriya Mahasabha to which the royalty (including of Travancore and Kochi) and most of the aristocracy belonged, all strongly supported this peaceful agitation. It is a matter of lament that while the undeniable ills were generated due to long standing Savarna attitudes and actions which have invited repeated negative exposure in the modern age, the part they played in the peaceful success of implementation of the Temple Entry Proclamation (1936) is also undeniable, but oft banished behind shadows.2

It should not be misconstrued in any way that all was smooth sailing. Opposition was very much in evidence from certain power centres. That it was finally peacefully resolved, was indeed the grace of God.

It is informative to glance at the numbers of the different caste groups which formed a staggeringly substantial mega section. In rough estimate, the Ezhavas who were around a million strong and who were even then cultured, educated and with economic standing, stood well ahead of the other marginalised sections. The other castes recorded were the Pulayas who were about three hundred thousand strong, and engaged in agriculture as labourers; Parayas too about three hundred thousand; Channars or toddy tappers and connected workforce, all also reaching the same numbers. Apart from field labour, their services were essential on many fronts, including for jaggery production to meet the steady demands from temples, households and food outlets.

Sri Mahadev Desai, in his elaborately recorded work titled notably The Epic of Travancore, quotes Gandhiji thus:

Indeed I had the privilege of meeting the Maharani and her young hope, the present Maharajah, when I was in Travancore years ago. The Maharani had even then professed her belief in the reform. I had even jokingly asked the boy, as the Maharajah then was, whether he would remove untouchability and throw open temples when he mounted the gadi of Travancore. He had enthusiastically said, ‘Of course. To put the record straight, at that time (in 1925), Sir C.P. was not involved in any way, though at later stage his contributions were solid.

At this time the Vaikom Satyagraha was in full swing. During the interview at Varkala Palace with Gandhiji, the Regent Maharani was not alone; her consort, the Valiya Koil Thampuran who was the inevitable presence, was also there. With his considerable power of expression, Gandhiji appealed to Her Highness to issue a new ‘Smrithi’ to resolve the uprising and to throw open the temples to all. Both of them expressed their sympathy to the cause of liberation of the Avarnas. However, ‘they felt burdened with the responsibility of a great State and told me that the time had not come for taking such a step’.4 She also rightly felt that the Savarna stand in the matter was inevitable.

Gandhiji had become a huge factor exercising tremendous power and control over the minds of the multitudes. The Regent had her own reservations on the responsibilities and repercussions that would become her destiny. At the same time, it was none other than Gandhiji who was passionate about the reform, who brought it up. Dissent would be a disaster and not required as the Regent had no intention of associating, apart from expressing sympathy. 

Uncharitable minds whispered that her positive attitude regarding temple entry without going a step further would have been a diplomatic option.

Possibly unavoidably, the Maharani Regent’s and her consort’s stand commenced and concluded with sympathy to the cause while the young (boy) King, Sree Chithira Thirunal did not even require a second to respond enthusiastically, “Of course”. Gandhiji had met him at the Kaudiar Palace.

Quite a few steps were taken, many rallies organized, resolutions passed, all revolving around hateful untouchability, before the stage was set for the Vaikom Satyagraha (1924–1925). It received sweeping support of big names from within the State and outside, including the decisive presence of Mahatma Gandhi. Savarna support was significant but so also was strong opposition. In a historic step the Regent Maharani Setu Lakshmi Bayi abolished the restriction on the use of the roads leading to the great Sree Mahadeva Temple at Vaikom applicable to the Avarnas, except the eastern road to the main entrance.5 In itself it was a landmark reform of a gracious reign. With it the curtain fell on the Vaikom Satyagraha.

By the grace of Sree Padmanabha Swamy, the Investiture of Maharaja Sree Chithira Thirunal Rama Varma took place on 6th November 1931.

Sir C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, already a known figure in India’s multifaceted map, was appointed as the Maharaja’s Legal and Constitutional Adviser. The decision was the Maharaja’s own and resulted in some opposition from even high up

quarters. But this did not make the Maharaja have a change of heart. Sir C.P. served in this important position for five eventful years, harbinger of an equally or more eventful tenure as the Dewan.

In November 1932 a nine-member ‘Temple Entry Committee’ was constituted with full sanction of the young King and with the wholehearted backing of Sir C.P. Comprising chiefly of non-officials, it was to enquire and report on the highly sensitive matter of temple entry for the marginalised sections of society, the unfortunate untouchables. The members, who were in majority Savarnas, read as follows: V.S. Subramonya Iyer (former Dewan of Travancore) as President with C.K. Parameswaran Pillai (High Court Judge), S. K. Mahadeva Iyer and M. Govindan (retired Dewan – Paishkars), T.K. Velu Pillai (High Court Vakil – Advocate), T. Kesavan Sastri (Pulaya representative), Punnasseri Nambi Nilakanta Sarma (Principal, Sanskrit College, Pattambi) and Narayana Bhattathirippad of Thiruvalla. They undertook a state-wide tour to elicit public opinion.

With this end in view, questionnaires were sent to 5,774 persons, including temple trustees (especially hereditary), representatives of associations, innumerable members from among the Savarnas, as well as women. Out of the total number, 3,122 persons including eight women responded, with 2,867 being Savarnas. Elaborate study of the pros and cons of such a step which could be designated as courageously revolutionary, with exhaustive discussions with the Brahmins—especially Namboothiri Brahmin sections and the priestly orders, religious scholars and learned men, all featured in this study. Rites and rituals, customs and rules all came under the scanner. In one observation the Committee said, ‘there was a strong feeling among Savarnas in favour of temple entry being allowed’.

This excerpt from History Liberated: The Sree Chithra Saga authored by Princess Aswathi Thirunal Gouri Lakshmi Bayi has been published with special permission from Konark Publishers. (Rs 2,500/-)

(Source: The Print)

Remembering Vaikom satyagraha in the light of Sabarimala

Congress party’s stand on the Sabarimala issue is but one sign of how far it has fallen in recent times. The once brave party of the freedom struggle is now represented by self-seeking cowards, writes Ramachandra Guha. Read on: 

In the last week of January 1924—fully 95 years ago—two radicals in Kerala formed an ‘Anti-Untouchability Committee’. They were TK Madhavan, a journalist and a follower of the great Shri Narayana Guru; and KP Kesava Menon, a Congressman and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. In the months and years to follow, this Committee and its members were in the vanguard of an epic struggle for social equality, that is worth recalling for its own intrinsic interest, and for the light it might shed on the ongoing controversy over the entry of women of a certain age into the Sabarimala shrine.

Dalits and women are the two groups that Hindu society has historically discriminated against. Down the centuries, they were treated as less-than-equal in everyday social life, and as less-than-equal under the law as well. This essay relates to yet a third area of discrimination; that of religious custom and practice. In Sabarimala today, women are treated as less-than-equal in the eyes of god. Back in the 1920s, Dalits were also treated as less-than-equal in the eyes of god. The entry of women of a certain age in Sabarimala, now, and the entry of Dalits in Hindu shrines, then, was regarded as ‘polluting’. The struggle of Dalits in Kerala to achieve equal rights in the temples of the 1920s is therefore of compelling relevance to the struggles of women to achieve equal rights in the temples of today.

The first target of the Anti-Untouchability Committee formed in 1924 was a famous Siva shrine in the town of Vaikom, where worship was restricted to upper-castes alone. Lower castes and Dalits were denied entry not merely to the temple, but also to its surroundings. In February 1924, the Committee held a public meeting in Vaikom, where it was decided that the rule barring the temple roads to low castes would be defied by a group of satyagrahis. March 30 was fixed as the date when this defiance would take place.

On March 30, 1924, volunteers arrived in Vaikom from different parts of Travancore. Some came from Malabar, the Malayalam-speaking district of the Madras Presidency. The atmosphere in the satyagrahis’ camp was, one chronicler wrote, ‘charged with the austere serenity of Gandhian idealism and the burning odour of nationalist sentiment.’ Mahatma Gandhi had sent a message to the satyagrahis; after this was read out, three men—a Pulaya (a caste then considered not just ‘untouchable’, but also ‘unapproachable’), an Ezhava, and a Nair—were garlanded, before marching hand-in-hand towards the prohibited road. When they were stopped by the police, the satyagrahis refused to turn back, but squatted on the road. A further batch of three men from different castes then came forward to break the law. The six protesters were arrested and taken off to court—one apologised, but the others stayed firm, and were sentenced to six months in prison.

A week later there was a fresh round of rule-breaking in Vaikom. This time both TK Madhavan and KP Kesava Menon courted arrest. More volunteers came forward to take their place. The authorities now changed their tactics, in part because the jails of Travancore were not large enough to house many more protesters. Now they had a large barricade erected across the road and placed a police guard next to it.

Meanwhile, the roads to the temple remained barred to the lower castes. The satyagrahis now changed their tactics too, by sitting outside the barricade and refusing to eat or drink. This part of India is always hot and humid—and these men were unaccustomed to fasting anyway. Several fainted, and were rushed to hospital.

Mahatma Gandhi had been in close touch with the satyagrahis of Vaikom, and, in a long, reflective, article in Young India, he took up the larger meaning of their struggle. He had been criticised for suggesting that while the satyagraha continued, the organisers should simultaneously send petitions and deputations to the authorities. In advocating an approach of determined incrementalism, Gandhi remarked that ‘in Travancore, the satyagrahis are not attacking a whole system. … They are fighting sacerdotal prejudice...Satyagrahis would, therefore, be deviating from their path if they did not try to court junction with the authorities and cultivate public support by means of deputations, meetings, etc. Direct action does not always preclude other consistent methods. Nor is petitioning, etc., in every case a sign of weakness on the part of a satyagrahi. Indeed, he is no satyagrahi who is not humble.’

In the third week of May 1924, a group of activists from Vaikom arrived to meet Gandhi, who was then in Mumbai. When asked what their future course of struggle might be, Gandhi suggested that the caste Hindus who supported reform should march peacefully from Vaikom to the state capital, Trivandrum. He advised them to ask the Ruler for an audience, and persuade him to act to remove the restrictions imposed by the temple authorities. Gandhi told the deputation that ‘the caste Hindus comprising the procession must be prepared to suffer the inconveniences incidental to a slow march on foot. They must camp in places away from villages and towns and make their own arrangements for food.’

Back in Vaikom, after the local leaders, Madhavan and Kesava Menon, had been arrested, reinforcements came in from the Tamil country. Among the new volunteers was EV Ramasamy (later known as ‘Periyar’), an activist with a deep antipathy to the caste system. Ramasamy threw himself into the struggle, being arrested twice. His commitment earned him the appellation Vaikom virar, the valiant hero of Vaikom.

In the second week of February 1925, the matter went up to the Travancore Legislative Council. Its members voted by the narrowest of margins (22 to 21) against the entry of lower castes to the temple road. A satyagrahi from Vaikom now urged Gandhi to visit the town. If they did not have his sustenance and support, he said, the movement would wane, and perhaps die out altogether.

In March, Gandhi decided to visit Vaikom. He reached there on the 11th of the month, having stopped in and spoken at Cochin (the state’s largest city) en route. In Vaikom he found the volunteers squatting in front of the barricades put up to guard the temple’s four entrances. Each batch was stationed for six hours, its members spinning or singing.

Addressing the satyagrahis, Gandhi asked them ‘to forget the political aspect of the programme. … We are endeavouring to rid Hinduism of its greatest blot. The prejudice we have to fight against is an age-old prejudice. … The end is to get all such roads throughout Travancore to be opened up to the [lowest castes]….’

Gandhi, meanwhile, also sought an audience with the high-caste Namboodiri Brahmins who were most bitterly opposed to granting the Ezhavas and Pulayas the right to walk on the roads outside the temple.

The conversation between Gandhi and the Namboodiri orthodoxy in Vaikom was recorded for posterity by Mahadev Desai. When asked why they treated the low castes so harshly, the leader of the Namboodiris—named Indanturuttil—said placidly that the Ezhavas and Pulayas were merely ‘reaping the reward of their karma.’ It was for their (bad) behaviour in their past life that they had been relegated to the bottom of the pile in this one.

Gandhi told Indanturuttil Namboodiri that their conduct was a form of ‘Dyerism’—as shocking, and as brutal, as the actions of General Dyer in Jallianwala Bagh. The Brahmin said, in justification, that the practice he and his caste men followed had been started by Adi Sankara, the eighth century preacher from Kerala who had helped create a sense of unity among Hindus. Gandhi asked that if indeed this was an ancient custom, why was it not practiced elsewhere in India? To this the Namboodiri answered: ‘Surely untouchability is there in every part of India. We carry untouchability a little further. That’s all.’

Gandhi discussed the caste question with the most reactionary elements in Malayali society, as well as with the most progressive. On March 12, 1925, Gandhi met Narayana Guru, in the Guru’s math in Varkala. In Gandhi’s version of the meeting, when the Guru told him ‘religion was one’, he respectfully disagreed; in his view, ‘so long as there are different human heads, so long will there be different religions, but the secret of a true religious life is to tolerate one another’s religion.’

To make his point more effectively, Gandhi used a homely metaphor. The two men were sitting in an open courtyard under a mango tree. Gandhi told Narayana Guru that ‘no two leaves of this very tree, under whose shadow we are sitting, are alike, though they spring from the same root, but, even as the leaves live together in perfect harmony and present to us a beautiful whole, so must we, divided humanity present to the outsider looking upon us as a beautiful whole.’

The version told by the Guru’s biographers uses the same metaphor, but with a crucial twist. Here, Gandhi plucked two leaves from the tree, and, pointing to their different textures, sizes and shapes, said they illustrated the variety of humanity, and hence of their religious affiliations. In response, the Guru bit into the stem of one leaf, and then the other, and asked Gandhi to do the same. He would find that the juice of the two stems tasted exactly the same. In the same manner, men may appear to differ in size or skin colour or caste identity, but in essence they were the same. Hence Narayana Guru’s slogan, ‘One Caste, One God, One Humanity’.

A poem attributed to Narayana Guru beautifully conveys his egalitarian and universalist philosophy. It reads well enough in English, and must surely be even more evocative in its native Malayalam. Here are a few lines:

One of kind, one of faith, and one of God is man
Of one womb, of one form, difference herein none
Within a species, is it not, that offspring truly bred?
The community of man thus viewed to a single caste belongs
Of the human species is even a Brahmin born,
And the Outcaste too.

Despite their different theological positions, Gandhi was greatly impressed by Narayana Guru, and by the manifest influence he had on the self-esteem of the Ezhavas. In a public meeting held in the state capital, Trivandrum, he said it ‘hurt his sense of religion, humanity and nationalism’, that someone like Narayana Guru could not enter the prohibited roads in Vaikom. Gandhi believed that ‘blind orthodoxy could not stand the fierce light of local public criticism provided it was sympathetic, non-violent and humble. There were only 60 thousand Brahmins, compared to eight lakh non-Brahmins and 17 lakh untouchables in [the state], and while he was gratified by their educational advancement, he felt they should not be refused the rights of common humanity.’

It took another decade for these rights to be recognised. In the second week of November 1936, the Travancore Darbar announced that all temples in the state were henceforth to be open to all Hindus, regardless of caste. This was the final fruit of the Vaikom satyagraha begun by the followers of Narayana Guru, and later supported by Gandhi. Gandhi made a public announcement congratulating the Travancore Darbar, for allowing the oppressed and excluded in Travancore to ‘feel the glow of freedom and real oneness’ with other Hindus.

The discrimination against Dalits and women practiced by upper-caste patriarchs has been, as Gandhi put it, ‘the greatest blot on Hinduism.’ The Vaikom Satyagraha was in this regard a crucial milestone in the struggle of Dalits to achieve equality in the eyes of god. The Sabarimala struggle is centred on the right to equality in the eyes of god for women. Both movements have challenged what Gandhi called ‘sacerdotal prejudice’, whereby orthodox and closed-minded priests denied morality and justice in the name of custom and tradition. Back in the 1920s, the state and public institutions—the Travancore Durbar and the local courts, in this case—were on the side of the inequality and oppression sanctioned by sacerdotal prejudice. Now, the Kerala government and the Supreme Court have both weighed in strongly on the side of equality and justice. Sadly, however, powerful elements in politics and society in Kerala today support the irrational, manifestly unConstitutional restrictions sought to be imposed by the temple authorities in Sabarimala on women devotees.

That the BJP led by Amit Shah would seek to polarise and divide Kerala on this issue should not surprise us. That they should encourage violence and intimidation by young men seeking to maintain patriarchal hierarchies is entirely in character. The BJP will do anything to garner votes and win elections. Far more surprising, and altogether more distressing, is the reaction of the Congress party, which claims to be heir to the legacy and mantle of Mahatma Gandhi. Let me remind them that, at the same year as the Vaikom struggle was gathering momentum, 1924-5, Gandhi convinced his party colleagues that their next president must be a female. Thus, in 1925, Sarojini Naidu was chosen president of the Indian National Congress, this at a time when no major (or possibly even minor) political party in the west had women in leadership positions. A few years later, the Motilal Nehru Report emphatically stated that in free India, ‘Men and women shall have equal rights as citizens’, this at a time when in many western countries, women did not even have the right to vote.

The Congress has evidently regressed a great deal since those days. Those great heroes of Vaikom, TK Madhavan and KP Kesava Menon, would have been absolutely appalled by the argument of Congress MPs that because ‘popular sentiment’ is allegedly against the entry of women of a certain age into Sabarimala, thinking citizens should capitulate in the face of reaction. Back in the 1920s, perhaps well over 90% of upper-caste Hindus were against the entry of Dalits into the Siva shrine in Vaikom. That did not deter the reformers, who struggled on for their cause. Now, even though (as the Women’s Wall across Kerala on January 1 showed) popular opinion is more evenly divided, the Congress party chooses to take fright in the face of the mob, and side with the bigots. This, tragically, is but one sign of how far the Congress has fallen in recent times. The once brave party of the freedom struggle is now represented by self-seeking cowards.

[The historical sections of this essay draw on my recent book, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World (Allen Lane). Two excellent monographic studies of the Vaikom Satyagraha are TK Ravindran, Eight Furlongs of Freedom (New Delhi: Light and Life Publishers, 1980), and Mary Elizabeth King, Gandhian Nonviolent Struggle and Untouchability in India: The 1924-25 Vykom Satyagraha and the Mechanisms of Change (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015).]

(Source: TNM)

Train journey in Europe left me thinking if we’re ready to embrace diversity

Humans carry the baggage of their multiple identities, creating a complex matrix of intersectionality, which exposes their privileges and disadvantages. Diversity is necessary for celebrating differences in our society, and human interaction allows one to grasp this diversity, to embrace others despite the differences in cultural, racial, ethnic, religious and caste, rather than fearing and hating them, writes Swati Kamble in The Ladies Finger. Read on: 

I am a Dalit woman and a marginalised women’s rights activist-researcher, born and raised in a slum in Mumbai. I am doing a PhD abroad now. I am in a heterosexual-married companionship with an upper middle class white man in a wealthy western European country. One can gauge my intersectional identity, my disadvantages, and privileges in every term I have used to describe myself.

The term ‘intersectionality’, with its genesis embedded in black women’s struggle for their rights, has sharpened my critical perspectives so I can now view the web of interconnected identities that make an individual either privileged or vulnerable. My perspectives on individuals, their privileges and disadvantages, widen with every new experience.

Two such incidences occurred recently as I was traveling to Ghent from the Brussels airport.

On the train to Ghent, I saw two little girls, about three and five, sitting with their mother on a seat opposite mine. The girls were playfully singing something. When I paid close attention, I heard “Daddy finger, daddy finger, where are you… Here I am, here I am, how do you do?” I was amused to hear that these young girls were reciting the same rhyme that my four-year-old nephew Menander from Mumbai recites. I know for the fact that in Europe it is not very common among kids to learn English rhymes unless they are raised in a multicultural household or they are Indians. I was curious and I asked the mother, “Excuse me, where do you come from?”

Only when I asked the question did I realise how deeply engrossed in thought she was. She also looked concerned. She said to me in broken English, “I am Albanie (Albanian), I am sorry I am confused,” she worriedly said, I figured. She explained to me, “I have to go to Luxembourg, but I was given a wrong direction. Only after I got on to the train, I realised it’s a wrong train.”

I asked her where she lives in Belgium. She told me she lived in a camp in Belgium for the past five months, but now she was traveling to Luxembourg, and that because of the confusion of the train route she will not have a connecting bus in Luxembourg to get to her destination. This time I looked around. The woman was carrying two bulky bags without wheels, which meant she would have to carry them. In addition to that, she had a baby stroller for the little girl and a handbag. I realised she had every reason to be worried. She was travelling with two little girls, with very heavy bags and nobody else to assist her. I further asked her, for what reasons she had come to Belgium. I thought she may be a war-affected minority from Kosovo. But she said she had escaped an abusive husband and had fled the country with her two girls to seek asylum in Belgium. We started to chat a little more. When I asked her about the rhyme the girls were singing, she said they learned it in the camp on YouTube. It amused me to see how YouTube has brought people of different cultures together. While my nephew in India enjoys watching ‘Masha and the bear’ in Russian, a friend’s daughters in Belgium relish watching Kannada animation rhymes ‘Veeri veeri gummadi paddu’, so much so that my friend could recite it without knowing the meaning.

The Albanian young mother asked me if I was Indian and if I knew Mother Teresa. She told me that Mother Teresa was Albanian and had lived in India. She told me, as a child she would look at the Indian sisters (nuns) who came to Albanian churches in her city. While we were talking, it was time for her to change the train. I told her I was going to help her with the bags. As the train stopped, I dropped the bags on the platform and helped her to get the girls off of the train safely. In that moment I realised it was not enough to just have dropped the bags on the platform, as she it would have been difficult for her to pull those bags down the stairs. Additionally, she had a stroller and two very young girls who were quite afraid of the automated train doors. In the previous ride, the doors had almost closed down on the little girls. I rushed to the compartment to get my bag to get off the train but the automated train door closed before I could rush back.

As the train moved away from the platform, I was heartbroken to see the image of a distressed mother standing with heavy bags and two little girls clinging to her. The weight of her intersecting identity as a refugee woman from a poor European country with a recent history of war, who has fled an abusive relationship was heavier than those bags. I felt sad that I could not help her more. While my husband waited at Ghent station to receive and embrace me lovingly, she had to flee her country to escape the brutalities of her husband — being a survivor of domestic abuse myself in a previous relationship, I found her to be an embodiment of a strong courageous woman; a survivor. I was sad that I didn’t ask her for her name or any other details.

On the next station, it was time for me to get off the train and get on a connecting train to Ghent. I went up the escalator to the platform where the train would come. On my way up I saw a tall young black man struggling with two big bags, one piece of handbag and a plastic bag, descending from the escalator to get to another platform. I had a déjà vu from my early student days when I too travelled to Europe with heavy bags using public transport. I know well the impulse that one has in packing a slice of one’s home s/he is leaving behind to head to the land of promises. In that time, it was announced that my train had changed platforms. I descended the escalator hurriedly, only to encounter the young black man rushing with his heavy bags again. I decided to give him a hand with one of his bags so he and I would both walk with a bag in each hand. I asked him where he was going. Since he too was headed to Ghent, it was convenient. I helped him get his bags on the train and once inside the train, we stood talking.

Wole is from Nigeria. He had gone to Nigeria for two months on holiday and was returning back to Ghent, where he came seven years ago. Wole has a masters degree in political science but came to Belgium to make a living, in search of better opportunities. Having spent seven years working part-time as a cook, he wants to leave the hustle and bustle of a European city. Wole has a four-year-old daughter whom he wants to raise in Nigeria. Life here in Europe is too demanding, he says. But as we came near Ghent, he said, “Man, I missed Ghent”. The city he made his home for seven years and clearly developed a bond with has not given him much to stick for a while longer.

We spoke a lot about global politics, about how people judge other individuals based on outer appearances — skin colour, faith, sexual orientation. And how these prejudices have taken away humanity in this era of technology, where we are globally connected and are closer than ever, where social networking strives to bring humans together, yet we are engulfed with differences that set us apart.

The two incidences on the train taught me a lot. I experienced how reaching out to fellow humans enriches you; teaches you about life in more ways than one.

Humans carry the baggage of their multiple identities, creating a complex matrix of intersectionality, which exposes their privileges and disadvantages. Diversity is necessary for celebrating differences in our society, and human interaction allows one to grasp this diversity, to embrace others despite the differences in cultural, racial, ethnic, religious and caste, rather than fearing and hating them. These interactions have the tremendous power to connect people in a world that is wounded and oozing from violence, hatred, and fear — the fear of others, who, despite all the differences, share a common thread of humanity.

I’m left with some questions. The fact that I, an Indian in a foreign land can encounter an Albanian and  a Nigerian in a single trip, shows how ‘glocal’ we have become. But are we ready to embrace this diversity? To recognise the beauty and wealth it brings? Are we willing to prepare for a world order that responds to diverse individual needs? Are we willing to create a safe haven for everybody to coexist happily and meaningfully? Accepting the difference rather than tolerating it? I wish for that world, now more than ever.

How women from Punjab end up in ‘Gulf of slavery’

Women from Punjab’s Doaba taken to Saudi Arabia to work as maids fall prey to dubious travel agents, end up as slaves

It’s like someone died. But Gurbaksh Kaur — crying intermittently as relatives hug her — insists it’s her second birth. She returned from Saudi Arabia on November 4 after three months of “torture” while working for a family there. She’s crying because the fate of her daughter, Reena, 21, wasn’t known till two days ago.

Reena was finally home on Friday.

A school dropout, 40-year-old Gurbaksh worked as a cleaner at a college near Fateh Garhi Khan village in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar (or Nawanshahr), for Rs 5,000 a month. Reena, younger to a brother and a sister, was ambitious ever since she completed Class 12 – the highest qualification in this Dalit peasant family.

Gurbaksh Kaur, back from Saudi Arabia, at her home in Fateh Garhi Khan village near Rahon in SBS Nagar district. (Keshav Singh/HT)

Ambition in this case — particularly in the Doaba region of Punjab — means going to the West. She tried for three years but did not get the required IELTS score. So, she settled for Malaysia. The mother thought of going with her. “Here in India, work meant washing utensils; how much worse could it be?” says Gurbaksh. They were promised Rs 18,000 a month each. Father Gurmail Ram had already invested Rs 50,000 in Reena’s IELTS training. “I sold off a part of my 10 marlas of land for Rs 1.6 lakh, and paid Rs 1.2 lakh to the agents,” he says.

FACELESS AGENTS
In July, Gurbaksh and Reena were dropped off at the Delhi airport by the family. An agent they call “Neha madam” was the contact. The mother was flown out first and the daughter three days later — to Saudi Arabia, not Malaysia.

“I worked for a family with 15 members, including 10 children. I was the lone servant. They did not consider me human,” says Gurbaksh.

She has since become the face of a growing menace in Punjab wherein women are taken to Saudi Arabia to work as maids, and then appear in videos on social media, crying over slavery-like conditions. The pattern involves a tweet by a political leader and the embassy then locating and deporting them.

In several cases, there is a contradiction as to whether the women went to the police or were handed over by “owners” after the case got highlighted. Gurbaksh says she was left on the road with a knife in hand. “The police arrested me, from where the return process began.”

IS IT THAT SIMPLE?
An agent in Rahon, 6 km away, Sukha Ram, says Gurbaksh may be speaking the truth, “but a lot of times it is a case of building a rosy picture to match imaginations”. He sends workers – masons, mechanics, et al – to the Gulf, “but no women”. “Even men get homesick and send videos seeking help. About 90% cases are such.”

The dreams make “gullible and poor” people trust fraudsters, he says. “The Gulf is a hot, sandy region, and you have to work hard – this has to be told. But these agents or sub-agents are faceless.”

Agent Sukha Ram at his office in Rahon. The office door has names of Gulf countries where he send workers.
(Keshav Singh/HT)

The faces that matter – of agents in Delhi and beyond – remain unidentified. Police register cases of cheating, but cash transactions and oral agreements mean little material evidence. “We’re working on locating this ‘Neha madam’,” says assistant sub-inspector Shah Ram, probing Gurbaksh’s case.

THE NETWORK
“Neha madam” resurfaces in a case 50 km away in Jalandhar’s Goraya town, where we meet Lal Chand, a mason-turned-musician whose wife Sonia Ram Murti, 42, went to Saudi Arabia around the same time, and has now sent a video in which she talks of “inhuman conditions”. She has wired Rs 18,000 a month regularly to Lal Chand, though.

In three videos sent via WhatsApp on Friday, she appealed to the Centre and Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann to help her. In the videos, she claims that she is leading a “miserable life” and that her landlord is “harassing” her physically and mentally for the last four months.

With daughters Sukhdeep (left) and Hardeep, Lal Chand talks about wife Sonia who has pleaded to be brought back from Saudi Arabia, in Atti village near Goraya in Jalandhar. (Keshav Singh/HT )

“She is sick there. Here, our youngest of three daughters, who is nine years old, has fever,” says Chand, whose legs have metal inserts after an accident three years ago. As he switched to music – a traditional occupation of sections of Dalits here – they met two dancers planning to go abroad. “We thought we’d rebuild our house – the smallest and oldest in the locality – with the money she’d make.” The two women got them to send Sonia’s passport to “Neha madam”.

When he went to drop off Sonia at the airport, he said, “They gave us the passport with the Dubai visa, and a bar of soap! Neha said this soap has the Saudi visa inside it and Sonia only has to give it to a contact person in Dubai. I thought it was illegal, but Sonia was so excited.”

Dubai is a favoured route for such trafficking. This was the case with Hoshiarpur’s Rina Rani, 38, whose mother lives in a village 5 km from Chand’s house. She was sent to Dubai on a tourist visa, trafficked to Saudi Arabia a year ago, only to start experiencing slavery-like conditions six months ago. That happened after she sought leave to come and help her mother — a cleaner here at Rs 100 a day — get medical help for a leg ailment.

Sonia Ram Murti in a video she sent over WhatsApp. (VIDEO GRAB)

Her case hit the headlines when her video went viral. In it, she too begs Bhagwant Mann for help. “She was brought to the embassy’s deportation centre and her papers are being processed,” says Sukhwinder Singh, a local AAP activist. He says there are 40 women like her at the centre: “Many are from Punjab. That’s why every other day there is a woman coming back with a tragic story.”

LARGER PICTURE
Every year, of the thousands who go to the Gulf for work, most are from southern states. In Saudi Arabia, maids from India are preferred besides Filipinos and Sri Lankans. An estimated 5 lakh maids have gone there from India.

“This boom in Punjab, particularly in Doaba that has a craze of going abroad, happened in the last two years,” says agent Sukha Ram. Agent Ashwani Kumar in Nawanshahr says it’s picked up pace lately after starting five years ago. “Now is the time for ‘return cases’, because people there are not hiring maids; they buy slaves!” he says.

The law says maids have to be 25-50 years old and be paid 1,200 Saudi Riyals (about Rs 21,000). Governments have been working on dealing with illegal hiring, but Saudis continue to underpay and mistreat maids; they even hire via Facebook.

There are only six authorised agencies for hiring in India, but none in Punjab.

“Sub-agents here take Rs 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh, but really make money from ‘slave buyers’ who deal with agents in Delhi,” says a sub-agent in Jalandhar. “It’s multi-level marketing.”

WHY DOABA?
Doaba has 40% Dalit population as against Punjab’s overall 32%, the highest proportion in India. This makes it ripe for such frauds. Sukha Ram says, “Aspirants must pay only after checking visa online and finding job conditions as depicted in the promise.”

Mann says, “How bad must conditions be in Punjab, that people go abroad even after knowing the harsh conditions!” He says he has 15 applications with him. “People approach me like I’m the foreign minister!” But he says he has got help every time from external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj despite their parties being rivals.

HEADLINE HUNTERS
There is a credit war too. “I gave the Sonia case to Jalandhar Congress MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh as locals asked me to take his help after Mann helped many,” says Sukhwinder.

Rina’s mother was even approached by a religious seminary to raise money to help her return. “They wanted to do a Facebook live but I found it awkward,” says Chand Rani. “I told her no money is required after the embassy came into the picture,” says Sukhwinder.

Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, too, took to Twitter earlier this week to assure Swaraj that the police have been asked to crack down on dubious agents.

In Gurbaksh’s case, the family used media attention. “I told her to send us a video over WhatsApp, which she did from the police station using a South African woman’s phone somehow,” says nephew Jaswant Kumar, “And then I called local channels and papers.”

Now that his wife and daughter are home, Gurmail says, “I just want our old life back, howsoever bad it may be.”

Elsewhere, the circle goes on. Agents are now issuing advertisements for work permits in New Zealand and Canada with “preference to the Gulf-returned”.

(Source: HT)

Six books by Dalit women writers exploring lives

Dalit women’s voices have been inadequately represented or sometimes completely erased from the literary canon. Other times, Dalit women have been represented in romanticized narratives, without a real examination of their marginalized position in the hierarchy of caste and gender.

The Dalit feminist struggle began when the upper caste women’s movement discarded the category of caste as impactful of the woman’s position, claiming that caste had been transcended by category of “woman”. Dalit women’s issues did not find a place in that narrative.

THE EXCLUSION OF DALIT WOMEN FROM THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT GAVE RISE TO DALIT FEMINISM.

The 1990s became a crucial decade for feminist politics in India. There was a radical shift in feminism when Dalit women began to vehemently question Indian feminism’s exclusive focus on the issues of upper caste/middle-class women.

1. Shantabai Kamble
Text: Majhya Jalmachi Chittarkatha/The Kaleidoscopic Story Of My Life (1923)

The word chittarkatha in the title means “picture story”. The book is a group of pictures which when put together, take into account the life lived as a Dalit woman. Shantabai Kamble wrote this work at a time when several Dalit men’s autobiographies had been published and discussed. She felt that her experiences also needed to be told. The book recounts her life as lived in the community and the caste. It speaks about the sexual division of labour and the ingrained cultural experiences to life after her marriage to Master Kamble. She talks about food and hunger as faced by her throughout her childhood. This book is one of the first autobiographical accounts of women to come in the forefront, centring the specific experiences Dalit women faced inside and outside the house.

2. Urmila Pawar
Text: Aaidan/ Weave Of My Life (1945)

Pawar’s title is an ode to her mother who brought up the author and her siblings on the meagre wages she earned by weaving bamboo baskets. In this memoir, Pawar compares her act of studying to her mother’s act of weaving the baskets. Pawar was born in a Hindu Mahar family in Maharashtra. Her father died in 1954, wresting a promise from his wife to educate their children. Her autobiography is an account of acute destitution, schooling through hardships, and finally achieving an M.A. in Marathi Literature. Aaidan has also been adapted as a play in Marathi theatre by Sushma Deshpande. Apart from Aaidan, she has published several short story collections which talk about the caste-class and gender axes in everyday life.

3. Babytai Kamble 
Text: Jine Amuche/ Prisons We Broke (1929)

Babytai Kamble ran a small provisions store. The only contact she had with books were the old books and newspapers used as wrapping paper to pack groceries. She wrote her book hiding from her husband. Her book has detailed descriptions of a life lived in the poverty of Maharwada. Her descriptions of the houses “decorated with eternal poverty” in the 1920s is emblematic of the hunger, labour and caste ingrained in the lives lived at margins. Her book is also important because even a hundred years after Mukta Salve’s essay voicing the dire conditions of the reproductive health of Mang and Mahar women, Kamble talks about the skewed division of labour in her community. Babytai Kamble’s book is an extremely important read to understand the sexual division of labour that the women in the Dalit community take up, where they are expected to work at home as well as work outside to support the family, even as their reproductive and domestic labour goes unrecognized as real work.

4. Kumud Pawade 
Text: Anthaspot/ Thoughtful Outburst (1938)

Kumud Pawade wrote of the double exploitation Dalit women faced due to their gender and their caste. She strongly believed that caste could be excluded to understand a certain community’s humiliation and oppression. Anthaspot literally means “outburst” – not of emotions, but of the ideas and thoughts of women who have long been silenced. To deem women-centric Dalit writings as emotional outbursts in her opinion was to take a patriarchal/male-centric view of women’s narration of their lives as lived and experienced as Dalit women.

5. Gogu Shyamala 
Text: Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But… (2012)

Gogu Shyamala was born in a family of farmers. She is now a senior research fellow at Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies in Hyderabad. She was only one among the three siblings to get the opportunity to complete her BA at Bhimrao Ambedkar Open University. Her book ‘Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But… ’ weaves together the struggle of Dalit women living in the magida quarter in a village in Telangana. She builds a portrait of the life lived in the rural community with descriptions of its everyday events and experiences. Shyamala writes about oppression and discrimination faced by the Dalit women in clean short prose and raises questions of the dignity of individuals from communities thus far marginalized.

6. Vijila Chirrappad
Texts: Adukala Illathaa Veedu (A Home without a Kitchen, 2006), Amma Oru Kalpanika Kavitha Alla (Mother Is Not A Poetic Figment Of Our Imagination, 2009)

Vijila Chirrappad uses poetry to put across a story of a life lived on the margins of gender and caste. Using poetry, a rather romanticized genre of writing, she builds a picture of the experiences and the questions felt and lived by women who are doubly marginalized because of their gender and caste in a highly patriarchal system. Born in Kerala, Vijila has been writing poetry since her college days. Her poetry is personal and political – writing of the several instances of discrimination she has faced for being a Dalit woman.

Disclaimer: This list is by no means comprehensive. There is so much literature and poetry available and being written by Dalit women writers in different languages.

References:
Moghe, Nanda. ““We fight!” Dalit Feminist Writing.”
Rege, Sharmila. (2003). Dalit Feminist Stand Point. In A. Rao (Ed.).Gender and Caste,
Delhi: Kali for Women
Rege, Sharmila. (1988) “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position”. Economic and Political Weekly 33.44: WS39-WS46.
T. Sowjanya. ‘Understanding Dalit Feminism’.
Guru, Gopal. “Dalit women talk differently.” Economic and Political Weekly (1995): 2548-2550.

(Source: Feminism In India)

17- year old Indian girl cuts penis of man during rape attempt

A 17-year-old Dalit girl bobbitised a man who allegedly attempted to rape her at knifepoint, police said today.

The incident took place last evening when the girl had gone to relieve herself at a jungle in Incholi area here, a police spokesperson said.

The girl snatched the knife from the accused Raees (23) when he attempted to force himself on her, and attacked his private parts with it.

Villagers arrived at the spot after hearing his cries and admitted him to a hospital, where his condition is stated to be serious.

Police said they have registered a case against the man after a complaint by the girl.

They said security has been stepped up in the village as a precautionary measure, since the accused and the girl belonged to different communities.

The media who took pleasure in highlighting the Rohtak girls who played victim but turned out to be the conspirators, but seem to have no knowledge of this incident of bravery. As a general trend, it can be observed nowadays that the media chooses to hide incidents when the culprit is from one particular community. Even the so called minority Messiah Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal etc. who said Dalits were under attack when Rohith Vemula died now seem to be missing. We sincerely ask them, WHY THIS HYPOCRISY?

This brings us to another important debate. At present, there are high number of rapes and rape attempts in India. What measures

(Source: Jews News)

What it means to be a Dalit woman in corporate India

“I strongly believe in the movements run by women. If they are truly taken in to confidence, they may change the present picture of society which is very miserable. In the past, they have played a significant role in improving the condition of weaker sections and classes.” – Dr BR Ambedkar

Before I delve into my article, I want to provide some context into why and how this is my story. I am a Dalit woman who grew up in a semi-urban context in Southern India to parents who are second generation Christian converts. I’m an English-speaking, university-educated Christian, who currently works in corporate and lives in the city. Apart from my obvious privileges, relative to other women of my community, I am lucky to be working for a multinational company that puts a high emphasis on the importance of diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace. As an employee, I have access to tons of material, online and offline, on what D&I means in everyday corporate life. There are also trainings, learning sessions, and focal points that are available to help everyone make unbiased decisions, especially if they happen to be in a position of authority. In many ways it almost feels like I cannot falter, and neither can my superiors. Almost.

While I do believe frameworks that seek to create inclusive cultures have to be in place, they do not always guarantee the everyday, actual practice of accepting people from marginalised communities in the workplace. In reality, when such almost perfect frameworks are applied in contexts such as India — which is diverse not only in terms of gender, language, and religion, but also caste, color, and region — it results in a number of loopholes that can be taken advantage of. My journey, spanning nine years in techno-commercial intelligence and three years in technical research, has thus been a toughening and a liberating experience. In the course of it, I have tried to observe, understand, and articulate what it personally means to be a Dalit woman in corporate India.

Generally speaking, there is an extremely minimal presence of Dalit women in corporate spaces, which by itself is a huge challenge. Unlike the public sector, no affirmative action policies in India mandate the recruitment of Dalits or Dalit women in the private sector. A study conducted in 2010 by the Centre for Social Equity & Inclusion in New Delhi found that while Indian economic reforms (that started in 1991) did result in an increased employment for educated Dalit women (EUDW) in private companies, it did not necessarily ensure higher wages, security of employment, or better welfare. Only 10 percent of EUDW in the sample studied had income over Rs 9,000 per month (33 percent had incomes between Rs 4,500 and 6,500; 30 percent between Rs 3,000 and 4,500; and 22 percent less than Rs 3,000). When cross-tabulated with their academic qualification, the study found that there was a severe mismatch – 64 percent of Dalit women graduates and above, with vocational, diploma, or certificate, were earning only between Rs 3,000 and 6,500 per month. This is undoubtedly an extreme disparity when compared to non-Dalit female counterparts.

More recently, a study conducted by Surinder Singh Jodhka, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, showed that 94 percent of the top jobs in the private sector went to Brahmins and Baniyas. To some extent, Sukhdev Thorat’s and Paul Attewell’s 2009 study helps explain why. The professors discovered, through a social experiment, that for every 10 ‘upper’ caste Hindu applicants who received an interview call, only six Dalits and three Muslims were chosen. They concluded that in private companies, applicants with a typical Muslim or a Dalit name had a lower chance of success than their upper caste Hindu counterparts. A study by the Center for Social Studies in Gujarat also concluded, that based on a sample of top 1000 companies listed in the Indian stock exchanges for 2010, caste-based diversity was non-existent, and nearly 65 percent of corporate board members were from ‘upper’ caste groups. Given that this is the current state of affairs, if Dalit women do manage to find jobs in private companies, career progression into executive roles are likely to be close to impossible. Other issues include, but are not limited to, low income, hostile work conditions, lack of role models or representation, segregation and exclusion, discrimination in job allocation, and lack of growth opportunities.

When I began understanding how patriarchy plays against women in the workplace (technical and commercial), I did not place myself in the milieu as a dark-skinned, obviously Dalit, Christian woman. Unaware of how people perceived me individually, I believed that all women were seen as one disadvantaged group that needed proactive policies to aid growth within the company. But thanks to several debilitating experiences, I realised that the predominant narrative of women being a single homogenous group, facing equal challenges in the workplace is simply not true. Very similar to black women in corporate America, I believe Dalit women’s challenges in the workplace are also bound to be multiple and unique.

Dalit women’s entry into private companies take place despite the different kinds of discrimination in educational institutions and social spaces. And the stereotype of being ‘weak’ and ‘non-meritorious’ spills into workplaces as well. Lunch table conversations that veer around caste invariably end up in debating the need for caste-based affirmative action policies, which most often are seen as unnecessary by the majority. Being in favor (or being anti-caste) puts one at risk of being discovered, which in all likelihood may result in hostility from colleagues, both male and female. But hiding doesn’t always mask one’s caste identity. Given that it is commonplace, almost casual, to discuss one’s caste background, caste markers such as religion, surnames, and skin color give it away fairly easily.

Although the lack of diversity, in terms of gender, sexuality, disability, and ethnicity, are key issues, the current feminist narrative of corporate India does not recognise caste as a factor. This is not surprising since caste is never spoken about openly as an issue, but only as a proud identity marker by those belonging to dominant/upper castes. Typical issues such as gender bias, lack of leadership opportunities, and poor work-life balance are almost never viewed through a caste lens. The emphasis on intervening when sexist comments are made is not always extended to casteist remarks. This is worsened by the fact that very few Dalit senior leaders (women and men) exist, which if present may help ensure policies that address casteist conduct.

Unlike others, Dalit women also cannot look up to the likes of Indira Nooyi and others as role models; they don’t look similar, or come from similar socio-economic contexts, or voice issues that Dalit women can always relate to. Further, within the Indian corporate set up that is increasingly becoming multinational, interactions with non-Indian women take place extensively. While this might be beneficial for Dalit women to some extent, in that it offers networking opportunities, power structures that are already in place by virtue of caste, class, skin color, and language, do not work in favour.

It might not be entirely untrue to say that the predominant gender diversity discourse over the past few years, globally, has been heavily influenced by Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In manifesto. This is probably true of India as well. Leaders, both male and female, repeatedly place the onus on women to change, either themselves or their immediate contexts. In other words, lean in. Women’s day celebrations within the corporate are typically reduced to ‘advice’ sessions for women – be better, do better, put your hand up, say yes, say no, seize opportunities, step out, and so on. While this is most definitely empowering on one hand, it does not help address systemic patriarchy that is in motion.

Also Read:  The Ladies Finger is Hiring Writers!
Stereotypes and perceptions about single women, motherhood, assertiveness, and others, still play a huge role in determining if women will be given opportunities to grow; and if they are, possibly because of a diversity mandate, then comes the question, who would these women be. In an Indian corporate context, although merit and performance are touted to be the only determinants, Dalit women hardly get chosen. In my experience, the typical profile of a female colleague who is most often encouraged or promoted, is that of a non-Dalit who is fair-skinned, is generally regarded as a physically attractive woman, belongs to the upper or the upper-middle class, and is visible to most people.

Also, in the corporate context, social networking is perceived as a successful strategy to further oneself. This means that caste affiliations could help non-Dalit women where gender fails, leaving Dalit women completely helpless even within ‘merit-based’ private companies. Similar to black women, Dalit women can be leaning in, following every piece of advice given by non-Indians and Indians alike, but could still be getting nowhere.

What we need at present is a complete overhaul of the gender diversity discourse. While the statement that, ‘women are good for the bottom line’ is most definitely true, it should not be the only reason to recruit and promote women in the workplace. In fact, we must be asking the question, why at all should we provide a business case? Secondly, it is time that we stopped placing the onus for change on women. Male leaders, peers, and other colleagues have to be engaged with, and protocols to deal with offensive conduct followed meticulously. Thirdly, diversity among women must be valued and encouraged. If leaders, male and female, can take a sincere effort to understand that all women are human beings who come with different characteristics, identities, and backgrounds (including marginalised communities defined by caste), perhaps then all women can compete equally; not just with each other but with everyone to aspire for growth that is merit based.

For Dalit women who observe and understand the complexity of such a reality, it can be extremely frustrating to do everything that one can possibly do, and still be left behind. What one needs are not just sponsors and solidarity, but an immediate and an urgent redressal of the Indian corporate space, which still continues to be casteist and sexist.

(Source: The Ladies Finger)