Kochi: The silence of the Dalit intellectuals in Kerala on the uprising in Gujarat is conspicuous. Although more than a month has passed since the heinous incident at Una, the votaries of Dalit politics and their supporters in the State remained largely tightlipped. A meeting scheduled on August 14 at Palluruthy in Kochi to coincide with the Una March is the only public display of solidarity with the movement in Gujarat in the State so far. Dalit writer K.K.S. Das will inaugurate the meet.
Even the ubiquitous social media activists in Malayalam are largely silent except by those sympathetic to the fringe activists. The kind of activity seen in the wake of the during the days of the agitation at the University of Hyderabad is also absent on the campuses and streets. The new crop of Dalit intellectuals, votaries of an identitarian politics highly influenced by post-modern discourses, seems to be not comfortable with the grass-root level activism seen in Gujarat, observers pointed out.
The Dalit discourses in Kerala have been dominated more in a cultural sphere having an inherent scepticism of activism, they pointed out, adding that the supporters of the CPM and the CPI, who were vociferous on the Hyderabad agitation, are also conspicuous by their silence. “The people upholding progressives and democratic values have the moral responsibility to support the uprisings of the Dalits,” says Jaison Cooper, a Kochi-based human rights activist. “Democratisation of society is the pre-condition for any social change. The ongoing Dalit upsurge in Gujarat is a path towards such a democratisation process.”
