Dalit perspective on Indian national movement. Discuss. (UPSC CSE Mains 2019 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1).
- Efforts made by leaders of nationalist movement succeeded in bringing a section of Dalit leadership in the fold of national movement besides the participation of Dalit masses in various popular movements against the colonial rule. But majority of Dalit intelligentsia was critical of the lack of commitment on the part of the Congress to share power with Dalits and expressed serious doubt about the commitment of upper caste leadership to bring social equality. The best example of this was Ambedkar’s book he wrote in 1945, titled ‘What Congress and Gandhi had done to Untouchables’. Ambedkar was so much concerned about oppression and exploitation faced by Dalits that any form of struggle without referring to the abolition of internal oppression had no importance to him. To Ambedkar, without ensuring equal rights of Dalits political freedom had no meaning. Gaining political freedom from the British was not adequate to him unless the struggle for freedom ensured the dignity of life and equal rights to all its citizens. Ambedkar said, ‘the freedom which the governing class in India was struggling for is freedom that rules the servile classes in India’.
- In the high noon of India’s struggle for freedom Dalit intelligentsia in a big way expressed its support to the British government on the ground that the upper caste Hindu leaders were not inclined to share power with Dalits. They felt that, without social revolution giving equality to Dalits, change in political leadership would further strengthen the hold of the upper castes over Dalits. Analysing Dalit movements in Maharashtra, Andhra and Karnataka Gail Omvedt has observed that ‘…the Dalit movement and the overall radical anti-caste movements were a crucial expression of the democratic revolution in India, more consistently democratic – and in the end more consistently “nationalistic” – than the elitecontrolled Indian National Congress.’
- Valerian Rodrigues argued that ‘irrespective of their other differences, dalit bahujan thinkers conceive the nation as a good society where its members, considered as individuals or collectivities, respect one another, protect mutual rights and show concern and solidarity. Self-respecters, therefore, felt that as long as there is the existence of untouchability, all talk of freedom and self-rule is empty. Periyar argued that the liberation of the Shudra was contingent on, and would be complete only with the liberation of the Panchama’.
- What is important to note in this context is that strong advocacy of Dalit intelligentsia for giving primacy to their socio-economic and political rights and not to anti-colonial struggle was primarily rooted in their experiences of living in an unjust society. Their notion of nationhood was based on abolition of existing inequalities and also having equal rights in every sphere of life. To the mainstream nationalist leaders uniting Indians against the atrocities of the colonial rule and to compel the British to leave India was the major goal before the nation. It is also important to note that Dalits were not a homogenous group and there were differences at various levels within the Dalit leadership and in many popular revolts like Tebhaga movement in Bengal Dalit masses in large numbers took part in movement against the wishes of their caste elders.
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