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Date : 13 June, 2003
Sharing more than scraps
By Kancha Ilaiah
Indian nationalism is not only the property of Hindus. It is the
property of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Sikhs as well.
THE JUST released English translation of the autobiography of the
famous Dalit writer, Omprakash Valmiki, of Uttar Pradesh, is
entitled `Joothan'. The work deals with the miserable life of
Bhangis who believe that they are descendents of Valmiki, the author
of Ramayana.
The surname Valmiki comes from this peculiar claim of the Bhangi
community, which lives by lifting the night soil. Omprakash
recollects how, during his childhood, the most celebrated days for
his family were those on which it got scrap food (joothan) from the
plates of upper caste landlords of the village on festive occasions.
He never knew of sharing food with members of other community with
dignity, though his father's dream was to declare himself a Hindu
with some dignity.
When Omprakash's father realised that his son could read, he bought
him a copy of the Bhagavad Gita with the money that he earned by
selling a cowhide. And while he was elated on hearing the Gita being
read to him, it made no difference to Omprakash because it did not
suggest any remedy for untouchability. Till Omprakash got his first
salary as an employee in an ordnance factory, he never knew what was
good food, dignity or equality. And with his landing a Government
job, his family's fate of eating `joothan' began to change. A
majority of Dalits in India live in similar appalling conditions of
eating scrap food on a day-to-day basis even today.
Recently, the Jamiat-Ulema-I-Hind, an organisation that shouldered
the national struggle, and produced Maulana Abul Kalam Azad,
declared that in order to establish friendly relations with Dalits,
it would organise a `jootha khana' (sharing food in the same plate)
campaign with them. Muslim leaders including Maulanas and Moulvis
ate from the same plate as Dalits in Hyderabad as part of the
campaign. Maulana Mohammad Madani, general secretary of the Jamiat,
shared the plate with many Dalits. On December 6, 2002, Bishop
Thomas of the All-India Christian Council washed the feet of Dalits
in Chennai and declared that it was a day of washing away the sins
that even the casteist Christian society in India had committed.
The Jamiat organised a massive rally on March 9, 2003, in Delhi, in
which it said that it would form a Dalit-Muslim Front. The front
would take up social reform activity all over the country. Some
people are of the view that this process may lead to the formation
of a Dalit-Muslim political front. If such a formation emerges, the
course of Indian democracy might change. However, the Ulema itself
is a social organisation which does not participate directly in
electoral politics. It has been working on education for Muslims and
for the socio-economic amelioration of the Muslim community. But so
far, it has not worked among tribals, Dalits and the OBCs.
The Gujarat carnage has taught many new lessons. Post-Gujarat,
Muslims who have hitherto confined their socio-educational activity
to their own society, realised that unless social bonds are built
with the Dalit-Bahujans, who are said be part of Hindu society,
Muslims and other minorities may not find social blocs that stand by
them. For the first time, the Muslim civil society decided that it
should participate in the social reform process of the caste-ridden
Indian society. Since the days of colonial rule, Christian
missionaries have been involved in the reform of non-Christian civil
society but Muslim social forces never talked about social reform.
The Gujarat violence and the Dalit-Bahujan movements for equality
have made the Muslim community think in terms of social reforms in
the interest of the larger Indian civil society.
The Jamiat has a long history of nationalist secular activity.
During the struggle against the British rule, it supported, much
against the politics of Muslim League, the Indian National Congress
in general, and Gandhi in particular. For doing so, it was
characterised as "Hindu-Muslim" by other Muslim organisations. But
unfortunately, until the Gujarat carnage took place last year, even
the Jamiat did not realise that it needed to work among Dalits,
tribals and OBCs who were being oppressed by the very same social
forces that controlled Hindu religion.
So far, the forces of Hindutva, which have used Hinduism for
political purposes, have not worked out any reform agenda. They
believe in the Savarkar mode of Brahminism, which has its roots in
Kautilyanism. Only if competing modes of social reforms operate,
casteism and Kautilyanism can be weakened.
The Jamiat seems to have realised its reformist role at a time when
the very existence of the Muslim community is under threat. In their
own interest, and in the interest of the nation, Muslim
organisations must begin interacting with the larger civil society,
overcoming their sectarian way of living. If they expand their work
among non-Muslim masses, the Hindutva forces might project it as an
agenda of conversion. In fact, the Hindu religion is at a
crossroads. If it does not become spiritually democratic by
abolishing caste discrimination in all spheres of life, it will no
longer remain secure. Its communal agenda is the result of its
insecurity. If
minority religions also address the issue of caste, the suppressed
will certainly change their attitude towards them.
Muslim organisations should also work for reforming their own
community. Their schools, like those run by the RSS, have a
curriculum that ingrains religious ideology. They must change their
syllabi. Schools run by Christian missionaries are a good example of
imparting positive education. Children of all religions can study in
these schools and take an independent, individual decision on their
religious beliefs. Hindutva forces keep asking Muslims to remove
what they call the negative sections from the Quran, but no Muslim
intellectual asks why Hindu spiritual texts speak a language that
humiliates Dalits and Sudras. These forces assume that they have the
exclusive authority to ask any religion to change its form and
content. But at the same time, they think that nobody, not even the
victims of Hinduism, should ask for a change in the form and content
of their religion. Though the Hindu texts use very derogatory
language such as Sudra and Chandala against people who they claim
belong to that very religion, nobody, it is felt, should question
them. If the Quran uses the word kafir for non-believers, a serious
objection is raised. But other religious forces never question the
language used in the Hindu scriptures. If someone talks about caste
on other religious forums, the counter-argument is that it is an
internal issue of Hinduism. When someone asks others to reform their
spiritual texts, why not reform one's own religion? Why not an
honest debate on the positive and negative aspects of all religions
and their books, so that competing spaces can be created in a multi-
religious nation such as ours?
Hardly any Muslim scholar has asked for space for the Quran and the
Bible in the Indian nationalist discourse, along the lines of what
is available for the Rigveda and the Gita. Is it not a fact that
many turned anti-British after being inspired by the Quran and the
Bible? In any honest discourse of nationalism, the influence of all
the texts that inspired equality among people has to be seen. It is
not just heroism and masculinity that can build nationalist ethos.
It is built in a culture of sacrifice in order to improve day-to-day
living.
Indian nationalism is not only the property of Hindus. It is the
property of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and Sikhs as well. This
nation did not imbibe only the textual tradition of the Vedas, the
Gita and the Puranas. It also imbibed the tradition of the Bible,
the Quran, the Vinaya Pitaka, the Gurugranth Sahib and others. The
moment Muslim organisations expand their activities to the larger
masses, a whole range of new issues will come into the discourse of
nation-building.
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