THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
The murder of Saksham Tete, a Dalit, described as ‘jaibhim wallah’ by the family of his girl friend Anchal Mamidwar in Nanded should not surprise any one as the bitter and brutal fact is that we are a highly caste conscious society and any one venturing beyond his or her caste line must be prepared for the repercussion that Saksham faced. So, there is not one single caste or region or identity to be blamed for it. Fact of the matter is we all are proud of our ‘castes’ and any one cross the ‘redline’ actually become unwanted and unaccepted.
Baba Saheb Ambedkar had spoken about annihilation of caste but that would mean annihilation of the primitive brahmanical values where ‘jaatis’ have become the sole ‘identity’ and there is no other way to appreciate a person’s achievements except when he or she belong to your jaatis. Every jaati i.e. caste, has an inherent supremacist attitude towards other and that is why Dr Ambedkar explained it as ‘graded inequality’. He does not stop with mere this term. It is important to move further and understand the psychology of the caste supermacism. Dr Ambedkar says, it is asecnding order of reverence and discending order of contempt.
Saksham Tete was a Buddhist youth who fell in love with Anchal Mamidwar. In Maharashtra, a Buddhist in Dalit community is predominantly Mahar while Anchal belonged to an SBC or simply special backward Community. The particular jaati of Anchal, it seems was from Padmashali community, whose occupation actually is weaving. According to Anchal, her family was against Saksham because he was ‘jaibhimwallah’. She also said that Saksham was ready to ‘convert’ to ‘Hinduism’.
The worst part of this story is that Saksham and Anchal’s relations were well known in the family and they pretended to have accepted their relationship but that was a strategy of the family to get closer to him and one final day they murdered Saksham. The things did not end there, Anchal showed her defiance and married to the corpse of Saksham, put a ‘sindoor’ and demanded that per parents and brothers be hanged to death. Anchal’s act are a defiance but definitely in the height of emotion who has lost her love. Her life is bigger and she must ensure that Saksham get justice but it is also for the elders to ensure that she is empowered economically and get a chance to live her life as per her choice. She has left her parental family now and staying at Saksham’s house and that would be a challenge. Many young girls have done that but the socio cultural economic crisis they face is tremendous.
It is a fact that self arranged marriages or so called inter caste or inter religious marriages are not accepted by the Indian society. Whatever the self proclaimed progressive suggests but the bitter fact is inter faith couples face problems not only with the outside acceptence but also among themsleves due to cultural clashes. In the last two decade, Indian middle classes have grown into believing the ‘power’ of ‘traditional values’ and greatness of their caste resulting in unuacceptability of person outside their domain of jaatis.
The so called inter caste, inter religious marriages are impossible now. It will only be posssible if we become a society of individuals where none is bothered about who you marry, what you eat and where you dine but that thing is now difficult. Your food habits, your sexuality and jaatis are important aspect today being flaunted everywhere. The gap is increasing. Friendship grows when you learn to appreciate others but we are fast becoming homesick and caste supermacist with strong love and hatred against other. In such cases, our minds dont work rationally and totally function as per the prejudices injected into our minds since childhood.
Our political process today has shown that there is no unity among people in terms of their identities and each one of us want to keep a separate identity to make personal gains. So whether the community get something or not, in the name of it, some will gain and they will continue to speak up against individuals who cross the red line. That is the reason why very few speak against such violence. Political parties have rarely spoken against it as it threaten their identity politics. They will only use it when such incidents actually help them in their political games. Unfortunately, not every incident become political to be raised by the political parties.
Also important is that annihilation of caste as envisaged by Baba Saheb Ambedkar has been rejected by majority of the Dalit Bahujan communities part of the brahmanical system. The unity among these communities merely politics of their space and nothing beyond. This fact must be kept in minds that communities are not interested to speak about any reforms. They want their share in power and elsewhere. Except that, there is no interest in reforms or looking from with in.
The anti caste violence or patriarchical impositon is not just work of the brahmins or Savaranas but OBC community too come out as biggest gate keepers of brahmanical patriarchy. The cases of violence against Dalits from Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar etc is concern that political unity is possible but jaatis dont want to cross their ‘identity’ line which they consider as ‘sacrocant’ and any crossing of that line is a challenge to caste patriarchy.
What should individuals do.
Well, young boys and girls should understand very well that the administrative or political set up can not protect them if they cross their line. Sadly, it is a dark reality in our part of the world. They become isolated. The individuals too depend on community and therefore think well before entering into any alliance. You must be prepared to leave your community and migrate to cities. You dont know who will turn out to be your dushman, enemy.
It will increase as long as there will glorification of everything in the name of culture and tradition. Today, our youngs are being made dumb who just accept what is being fetched in their mind and the result is things happening now. Our constitution give us rights as individual but what is happening is politics of identities are growing and it is not easy in our country as each identity live in an illusion of a ‘glorious’ and ‘golden’ past. Our present may not be that great but we all suffer from a glorious past and a golden future which is strengthening the community identity but reducing the space for an individual who can take action on his or her own will.
Will this stop.
I dont think you can stop love. As you boys and girls get more avenues to meet each others, social media, common education and so many things, they will definitely engage and get in love with it. Despite all murders and failure of the state, you can’t really stop youngsters loving each other. Love or being in love is the supreme power, a feeling that each one of us want but yes the elders will worry about it. Yes, youth who want to engage in it must understand that boys and girls dont end their identity by loving each other but they will have to learn to appreciate, understand each other but the issue is not whether they love each other or not. In our society, the parents and family of both must love each other. Now, all this is not possible as long as we have jaati supermacism with us. Boys and girls will love each others could only survive if they have understanding parents otherwise they will have to leave their place and shift somewhere else. It is therefore important to first ensure your economic autonomy as so long as they are depended on their families and their properties, it would always be life threatening if you hail from different ‘jaatis and decide to love each other. Each jaati has a self glorifying theme which dislike the other or simply uncomfortable with other in terms of marriage relations. The idea of annihilation of caste is simply unacceptable to public at large and the caste supermacist only annihilate those who speak against it. Love is the biggest threat against hierarchical caste order and traditional marriage system santify the caste supermacism and purity. So, sanctity of marriage on the basis of varna vyavastha is the root cause otherwise nobody would care for this. When we can have friends from different communities then why it stops at the door of marriage ? It is just to protect the jaatis and their supremacy. If people are allowed to marry as individual the castle of the caste will collapse and so will the very edifice of its structure that glorify it. Are we ready for it ?
