We are sorry Kanaklata
Dear Kanaklata, we the revolutionary workers, apologise for our limitation as painfully revealed again by the humiliation and torture inflicted on you and your family members by your landlord family of Grover-s, because they came to know your caste-identity ? we still couldn?t make India free from the hideous caste system imposed by the upper caste gentlemen, by Brahmanism; we couldn?t make India ?Democratic? ? more exactly, we are very far from the goal of starting a journey towards egalitarian society at this moment. For those who still don?t know the incident we?ll have to narrate it very briefly, and then we?ll pass on to our comments.
Kanaklata was a M.Phil. student of Delhi University and had been staying in a rented accommodation at Mukherjee Nagar, Delhi, at the residence of the Grover family since February 2007. That she belonged to ?chamar caste? was unknown to the landlord till the fateful evening of 3rd May 2008. She and her sister, then brother ? were severely beaten by Mr Grover and his son; their water and electricity facilities were snapped and they were served ultimatum to leave the Grover premises immediately.
But more shameful surprise awaited them. Kanak with his brother and sister went to the Police Station to lodge a complaint, naturally under SC-ST-Prevention of Atrocities act. But the police officer-in-charge Ms Indira Sharma refused to take any complaint and they had to wait 18 hours to lodge complaint under a different section! Her brother was having a fever that time when they were waiting in the police station, he needed some water to drink. On seeing Kanak taking a glass meant for public use to take water to her ailing brother a policeman told them to use the glass cautiously so that his (chamar?s) lips do not touch the glass making the glass ?blemished?!! Kanak was repeatedly forced by the police officers to come to a compromise, to withdraw complaints, and she was even offered monetary compensation! And the Grover family lodged a counter FIR in that police station quite easily making false charges against Kanak, her sister and brother. Her father arrived from Bokaro. The family moved to many places of higher-ups of govt administration ? Asst Commissioner of Police, Commissioner of Police, Woman Commission, VC of Delhi University, SC/ST commission? for justice. The ACP also talked about monetary compensation and discouraged her to proceed legally. Days passed by and weeks. Till mid June no case was registered against the Grover family. And this is the treatment a Dalit girl gets in the capital of India. Some organisations took initiative to protest on this issue and joint-demonstration etc started from mid June. After protest mounted the Delhi administration removed the Asst Commissioner (North-West Delhi) ?after he was allegedly found to be colluding with the accused in the case registered under SC/ST (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act ? R. R. Meena, Joint Commissioner, Delhi Police said that the case had been handed over to Sagar Preet Hooda, DCP, North West. The DCP assured to furnish a progress report within 48 hours? as officially reported by newspersons.
We know how difficult it is for Dalit students to get rental accommodation near Delhi University, JNU and other institutions. It is not much uncommon practice there to conceal caste identity. Another girl student from an eastern state went there for preparation of last phase of IAS exam and mistakenly thought that her glittering academic background would overshadow her caste background. So she didn?t try to conceal (or forge) her caste identity and was shaken by the answers of house owners, the kindest and gentle-most of the remarks being ?find your place in a bhangi-patti (sweepers? ghetto), that?s your proper place. Muslim students also face the same problem and almost never get a chance to live outside Muslim ghettos. This is India that is Bharat ? the wannabe world?s new superpower.
Parents of a school boy who had been severely beaten by a teacher for a minor issue lodged a complaint for so harsh a punishment at the school and that led to further merciless beating of that boy by that teacher ? how dare a Sheduled Caste chasha (peasant) come to tell a teacher how to teach! That is Bengal which boasts of having higher culture and no caste problem (but where almost all matrimonial-advertisements bear caste signature etc); and hence no case will be lodged in the SC/ST-prevention of atrocities act which invites a bit severer initial legal actions, because caste based oppression cannot officially happen in WB!. For another state of ?advanced culture? ? we get from Sunanda K DuttaRoy?s Business Standard column ?Rahul Becomes Gandhi? ? ?A Tamil Nadu police officer was once quoted as saying, ?If we take this (anti-untouchability) law seriously, half the population of Tamil Nadu will have to be arrested. In any case, the police have better things to do than go poking their nose into the private affairs of the people.? Note the grim twofold message. First, half the population of Tamil Nadu, that is, all or almost all non-Dalits, exercise some form of caste prejudice. Second, the police regard human rights offences that also violate the law of the land as a ?private affair? rather than a public crime.?
And these SC-ST people know that the sop of reservation in job is becoming meaningless as govt jobs are vanishing. Hundreds of young contract-sweepers wait for important trains to come at selected junction stations, naturally they are the lowest of the low Dalits. And thanks to Laluji-s magic economics to make railway profitable following globalisation, liberalisation ? none of those sweepers are permanent staff ? they don?t have Rail-Pass, Pension-after-retirement, Quarters in Railway colony etc facilities ? they are low paid contractor-staff working 12 hours a day with Rs 100 a day. Permanent govt jobs in coal fields, mines etc are diminishing. Contractors are seen everywhere with increasing preponderance. No better is the life of workers of Kanpur Tanneries now relocated to Unnao.
Giving a sarcastic reply to economic-reductionism in the viewpoints of the lefts ? capitalist development in this country retained pre-capitalist filths as much as possible. Even many townships developed by private foreign and native capitalists have their sweeper-colonies, isolate and separate, so as not to make others unholy! How holy India is ? lo ? here capitalism got mingled with pre-capitalism ? several thousand years old caste system coexist with Backward Capitalism. The CPIM is so ruined as to title a talk of Sitaram Yechury as ?Problems And Means Of Integration Of The Dalits In The Mainstream Of Society? in a seminar organised by govt of WB in Ambedkar birth anniversary in 1998, and not conversely think the so-called ?mainstream of society? as it is now as an appalling moribund social structure that imposes itself upon the Dalits!
But where is the hope if there is any at all? Is there any social force that can liberate India from the evil domination of both types of oppression ? of the thousand years old social structure plus the late-20th?early-21st-century economic crusher standing on a five century old formation? Well, that force is there, though only objectively, but sadly, it is a force that is not yet ready to act as a force. Let us name it first and then look into the reason behind such ?optimism?. That social force is the working class who cannot liberate itself totally unless all other types of repression are wiped out. This class started its movement towards equality and liberation 160 years back; it could bring political revolution on a third of world?s surface area so as to march forward towards social and economic equality. But somewhere amid their journey they lost command over their vital instruments, the state and the party, there were mistakes and limitations too, and ultimately landed in a humiliating defeat. So shattering was the impact of the defeat that this class is yet to recover from the crash.
But very slowly, almost invisibly an awakening is taking place, though not yet in the broader social political plane. And while the reawakening is taking place, we are witnessing that the socially most oppressed section of that class is also trying to forge ahead. This phenomenon is seen within each of the fights of the downtrodden and oppressed workers and rural labourers that are developing defying the command of all parties of establishment, including the decadent lefts or so-called communist parties like CPI, CPIM etc, who are trying their best to preserve the present oppressive social and political framework. The political organisers of that class have taken note of this phenomenon and will naturally put due attention to this fact. They also know that one of the main task of the ensuing revolution of India is to eradicate this ugly social stigma called caste system; they know it too that growth of class struggle in India means growth of political-social struggles against all kind of enslavement, oppression, extortion, exploitation ? including caste based ones. And when the revolutionary class struggle will start amassing strength in industrial belts, of course encircling Delhi too, like in Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida, Gaziabad, ? ? no Grover will have courage even to think of thrashing our Kanaklata ? we promise.
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