On our way from Cochin airport to our campus at Athirampuzha in Kottayam, Prof. Sukhdev Thorat, chairman of Indian Council for Social Sciences Research and former UGC chairman, asked me about the status and life of Dalits in Kerala. I had no linear answer to offer him.
This is because Dalits in Kerala have a peculiar experience. A bundle of contradictions, in fact. They are included in all spheres of life, be it school education, technical education or in political spheres; but only at the subordinate level to fulfill the requirements of the policy of reservation.
(Its ‘unfavorable inclusion’ in Dr Amartya Sen’s terminology). Land reforms by government gave the Dalits homestead land but they ended up in colonies, thanks, again to government policy. There are welfare schemes such as public distribution system but the Dalits face humiliating discriminations by upper caste ration shop owners who give the impression that it is their benevolence that gives the Dalits their daily morsel. The owner may even force him to purchase unsubsidised commodities.
Myriad are the forms of discriminations Dalits encounter in their everyday lives which include exclusion from surroundings where we live, at educational institutions and at places work. My father had to stop his schooling after a teacher humiliated him in class saying a goat from his family destroyed his plants and crops.
I got my self- confidence only when I read a small piece on Dr. Ambedkar from our local library. I felt that I have similar kinds of thought on people around me and about the people who behave badly towards us. This gave me a conviction that my thoughts are in right direction and it is worth discussing in social domain as it is portrayed extremely well by Ambedkar in his writings and speeches.
The Dalit scholars and students perceive the death of Rohith Vemula as a systemic induced atrocity against their pursuit of higher education. Prof. Thorat was discussing with me about the data in his hand on the atrocities aginst Dalits in Kerala. When he told me atrocities against the Dalits and Adivasis in Kerala have tripled in 2015, my response was it’s a variable of ‘Kerala Model’ because its fruits are plucked after silencing the Dalits and Adivasis.
Prof. Thorat has addressed scholars, teachers and employees of the Mahatma Gandhi University with a keynote address titled ‘Social inclusion/exclusion dynamics of the Contemporary India’ and took the position of the chairman of the ‘KR Narayanan Chair for Human Rights and Social Justice’. The next day we heard the news of the death of Rohith Vemula. This has disturbed all students especially Dalit students in our campus.
It’s a fact that Dalits students in our university face similar problems that Rohit had faced. Most of the students are waiting for the fellowships which are due for around one-and-half-year and more. Facilities in the hostel such as drinking water and hygienic toilet facilities are a far cry; there are subtle ways to smother their right to freedom of expression.
After hearing of Rohit’s death and the letter he has left for us, one of my students who supposed to go to Bangalore to pursue her PhD shared with her fear to go outside the state for higher studies. It helps the students to get a different academic experience by studying in a campus outside the state but the the events in University of Hyderabad have become an impediment in their way.
An incident of such magnitude psychologically impacts them severely, driving some to withdraw from their decision to acquire higher education. The death of Rohith is simply not a death of a person, it raises number of questions and anxieties to Dalits in particular.
How does the Dalit student understand and overcome the working of caste? I would rate the writings and lessons from the life of Dr. Ambedkar as crucial to it. Secondly, it’s the caste certificate. While others acquire knowledge by exchanging land, employment and social status and make use of social networks of caste and religion, the Dalits have only his certificate of caste to protect himself.
Hegemonic forces may try to break this inherited asset which is intangible in nature. And the Dalits have to be aware of this threat. Before entering the airport, he told me that ‘Let Dr. Ambedkar be the hero for you and all’. Rohit Vemula is an icon which will lead the Dalits in their agitation to achieve human rights and social justice.
- Rajesh Komath is an assistant professor in social sciences, MG University, Kottayam.
Concentration of power should go
After having spent an entire working life in the university system- as a researcher, as a teacher and as a writer, and after having been a victim of discrimination and oppression on a daily basis- I was less ‘shocked’ on hearing the news of Rohith’s suicide. Many suicides, mostly by dalit students, had occurred on the same university campus earlier.
On other university/college campuses also, dalit students had been the victims of discrimination and victimization. What stands out specifically in Rohith’s case is the new dynamism seen in the dalit community. Dalits are targeted, not just for the policy of reservation. In fact, the OBCs enjoy more reservation: but they are seldom the victims of social oppression. Rather, they themselves perpetrate cruelties and inequities on dalits.
Rohith’s tragic end is significant for a different reason. He belonged to the aspirational class of the oppressed. Owing to the back to back changes taking place in the economy as a result of frontloaded economic reforms, new opportunities are being opened up for startup units, financial inclusion, aspirational mobility etc.
Chances, though putative, of youngsters like Rohith becoming entrepreneurs and employers are, indeed, high. Some are availing of these as well. Obviously, the semi feudal apostles and the status-quoits cannot tolerate this. Hence, their intolerance. If the dalits remain just as the passive beneficiaries of programs like MGNREGA, there would be less problem. After all, everyone likes a slave.
Young, meritorious, persons like Rohith( the green shoots of hope for the maginalised and oppressed) are a threat to the system. If they are ruined, the upward mobility of the dalits can be blocked for ever. Personally, I feel guilty. As a university teacher, cherishing high academic values, I have been exhorting the student community to be liberal, free and bold.
But personally, for reasons of sheer existence and survival, I have been kow-towing to the rulers in the university system. The rulers want the academics to be conformist, obedient, and obsequious. Disobeying the rulers entails great risks. A ‘good’ academwing obeisance to the powers that be. This way, by adopting the Orwellian double speak, I betrayed the cause of higher education; and more sadly, I betrayed the student community. My apology to the student community.
As a professor of Economics, I am supposed to help develop academic excellence by teaching the rich students ‘advanced economics’ to enable them to move into Ivy League universities which contribute ‘leading’ academics, RBI Governors, planning and policy makers who are overly concerned about the poor and marginalized or I am supposed to enable students to become ‘civil rulers’. Thus, education instead of becoming a liberating force, promotes elitism and power centers.
Universities are ruled and controlled by narrow, feudal minds, assiduously maintaining and strengthening the establishment. These persons terribly lack parametric, transcendental academic values and have pathological inferiority complex. They are after power and bureaucrats are their role models. It goes without saying petty minds cannot think big.
University autonomy and decentralization of power are not the answers to the problems bedeviling our universities, for these two will be only giving more powers to the regional/local satraps. In fact, the situation can be even worse. Centralization is not the problem; and hence decentralization is not the answer. The problem is power, no matter at what level it is concentrated.
The answer is democracy comprising three Ds, debate, discussion and dissent. The university system provides narrow and dwindling scope for this. As the urgent necessity is saving the polity from politicians , the basic academic problem is liberating the academia from the clutches of narrow minded academics who are in a time warp. Rohith’s martyrdom points to all of these.
Dr Kunhaman is Senior Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tuljapur Campus
