I

Hinduism is generally supposed to be dominated by exclusivist orientation. This implies its ethos as being too orthodox to afford liberal space. However, the history of its existence does not subscribe to this view that was chiefly generated in the colonial period. It has remained a rather dynamic religio-cultural order constituted by different orthodox as well as heterodox traditions. An attempt is made in this chapter to contest its exclusivist image in the light of historical experiences.

In the 1930s, J. H. Hutton observed that in Tamil Nadu Dalit women were not allowed to wear gold and silver ornaments, use sandal paste and flowers; Dalit men were prohibited from wearing clothes below the knee and above the waist, etc. Discrimination against Dalits, perhaps, became more prominently visible during the colonial period, which must have been distressing the conscience of a lot of a people. However, a few of them came forward to raise their voice against the very system that was said to have projected and nourished it. Ambedkar, for example, considered untouchability as a ‘permanent hereditary stain’ of Hinduism, which nothing can cleanse. Hinduism, he asserted, has no concern with moral basis, liberty and equality. Perhaps, the extreme level of dishonour to which the Scheduled Castes (SCs) were being subjected in the name of religion, prompted Ambedkar, Gaekwad of Badodara, Anant Krishna Aiyar and others to hold such a view against Hinduism.

Introduction

The debates on the indigenous knowledge and practices have mainly focused on how to get the indigenous people acquainted with modern scientific and technological systems and very little effort has been made to make modern scientists to understand the indigenous techniques and practices which could provide important clue to find solutions to many of the current problems. Based on the analysis of occupational roles of two-service castes – Washerman and Barber – this chapter explores the importance of indigenous techniques and practices in the development of modern science. The analysis shows that discourse on knowledge production in India has centered mainly on Hindu religious texts and has overlooked/undermined the importance of subaltern techniques and practices. The chapter shows that many traditional practices and techniques of marginal people in Western societies triggered the development of modern science and technology and their position improved with it; while in India the marginal people despite having almost the same level of expertise and technical skills got further marginalized and subjugated along with their techniques and practices.

In tracing the presence of science and technology in India, there were two groups of scholars: one dominated by the colonial perspective who viewed India as a ‘tabula rasa’ onto which modern science and technology had to be inscribed as part of the colonial civilizing mission. The other group of scholars acknowledged the philosophical and theoretical ingenuity of native people but relied mostly on the Hindu sacred literature to prove their arguments.

Since the beginning of the publication of Subaltern Studies in the early 1980s, new interest has been generated in the study of subalterns in South Asian society. Numerous articles have been written on the subalterns, in historical as well as contemporary contexts. Most of the studies on subalterns are, however, narratives of the socio-political experiences of subalterns and their contribution to society, ignored by the mainstream history; at least the twelve volumes of Subaltern Studies remained centrally concerned with that. On the other hand, critics of subaltern studies challenged the approaches and methodologies of subaltern studies. The question of subaltern reproduction has neither been given appropriate attention in the series of Subaltern Studies, nor has been underlined as the new context of undertaking studies on subalterns. The critics too missed the issue of subaltern reproduction.

The issue that is of critical importance to understanding subalterns is their reproduction: why and how does a society produce and reproduce subalterns? How do subalterns negotiate their social and political emancipation? How do they absorb social and political changes? These questions are relevant in historical as well as contemporary contexts.

This volume is an attempt to capture some of the processes of the use of ideology, knowledge and power to reproduce subalterns and subalternity in Indian society; to map the dominant trajectories of emancipation and assertion adopted by the subalterns; and to analyse the forces of social and cultural changes including resistance to those changes.

Introduction

The study of agrarian change in rural Bihar owes a great deal to the research of Pradhan Harishankar Prasad, with whom the author worked in the 1980s. Some early results of his fieldwork in Bihar villages were reported in an Economic and Political Weekly article titled ‘Production Relations: Achilles' Heel of Indian Planning’ (Prasad, 1973), in which he investigated the notion of semi-feudalism as a way to understand the agrarian system. Among the intellectual challenges that he explored, an important one concerned the relative importance of caste, class and land holding in determining economic behaviour. For a pure Marxist, caste is superstructure and subordinate to class. But Pradhan had a finer understanding. In his study of caste and class in Bihar, he explored how far caste and class hierarchies were aligned and how far caste might play a separate role. Writing in 1979, he stated that:

This chapter explores how caste and class have interacted in Bihar's rural economy over the subsequent 30 years, drawing in part on collaborative work between Pradhan Prasad and the author in the 1980s.

Only recently have historians begun to draw upon anthropology in a non-discursive way – in terms of utilizing anthropological conclusions for processing and grappling with historical material with the skill and insights recommended for anthropologists. The ostensible purpose of this new mien of historical writing, according to its proponents, is to correct the elitist bias in received historical literature. Undoubtedly, they have a point there, for written history has a natural tendency of placing the literati in the centre, drawing in the multitude, in various stages of recalcitrance, into the historical process. What this new brand of anthropology-inspired history hopes to do is to alter the ego in history by bringing the people back in. We are faced then, perhaps for the first time, with the prospect of a written history, which is the history of class struggles, and not, as hitherto, of struggles within a class.

This new style of writing ‘history from below’ has already produced an impressive volume of academically certifiable literature and has successfully established a new genre (Guha, ed. 1982, 1983, 1984; and Guha, 1983). The History Workshop group in Britain is perhaps the most systematic campaigner of this genre. From 1982 onwards, further impetus to this movement has come from Ranajit Guha who has fathered the campaign for its integration into the writing of Indian history.

I

Introduction

At the outset this chapter examines the paradox and contradiction of the project of inclusion using a dalit narrative, Karukku, an autobiography of Bama, who subjugates herself in search of a mainstream space that she does not get finally. On the other hand, she is left dejected, lost and perplexed and that reflects the paradox and mirage of inclusion in a society where subalternity has various facets and forces that perpetuate subjugation and exclusion. These are ironically the very facets that are considered as the forces of inclusion. Secondly, it challenges the notions, that religious conversion might help the subaltern community in eradicating their subalternity. This does not imply that Bama herself gets converted, but the community got converted sometime in the past for bettering their position as far as economic, political and cultural capital are concerned. Here, Bama's joining the convent is a move towards inclusion and away from subalternity, which does not work as planned. Thirdly, it attempts to show that communities and cultures like the Christian community in India seem to be progressive, liberal and global but in reality are not so because they are compelled to exclude by structures that paradoxically support inclusion of the subaltern. Finally, it tries to show that the politics of inclusion is normally in the hands of those who practice exclusion. This implies that subalternity and marginalization will continue to operate.

The main point of this chapter is to highlight the significance and relevance of caste–class nexus as an approach to the study of social stratification in India. Such an approach exposes misconceptions such as that caste and class are antithetical formations, being at opposite poles, caste is a socio-cultural entity and class is an economic phenomenon.

Colonialism, policies of the contemporary Indian state, western frames of reference and ideological moorings have undermined the caste–class nexus and its dynamics. Neither the ‘caste alone’ and nor the ‘class alone’ approach would bring out the complex social inequality. The caste–class nexus approach does not imply a correspondence between caste hierarchy and class ranking. It refers to the dynamics of caste–class contexts and situations at a given point of time and also over a period of time. For example, it has been argued that caste system was never absolutely rigid and stagnant. There are innumerable evidences of protests and movements against rigidity and hegemony of the upper castes by the middle and lower castes. There were also institutional mechanisms for redressal of grievances and for settlement of disputes.

Both individuals and families have been units of status-evaluation within and between castes. ‘Caste model’ ignores this historical fact which is evident in the analyses of ancient, medieval and modern Indian society. Today, castes are acting more as interest groups rather than as socio-cultural entities. Emergence of a new class structure comprising industrialists, big businessmen, entrepreneurs, professionals, government functionaries, workers, etc., cuts across caste hierarchy.

This chapter maps the contours of a century of history of Dalit movement in south India in general and Telugu-speaking regions in particular, and argues that the Dalit movement in India is an ideological movement for establishing an egalitarian social order, rejecting existing hierarchical Hindu social order that sanctions and glorifies inequalities – oppression epitomized in the most inhuman practice of untouchability, and it is a radical movement that aims at reconstruction of ‘self’ by destroying pejorative and community identities imposed by the non-Dalits. The first part of the chapter explains the manner and sources of history writings in India with reference to Dalits and their movement; the second part describes some of the major events that represented some shifts in the history of the Dalit movements during the colonial period; and the last section analyses Dalit movement during the post–independence period as constructed through.

I

Dalits and Historiography

The mainstream history has shown apathy to Dalit consciousness. To begin with the ‘nationalist’ historiography, in the narratives of the ‘struggle’ for freedom does not recognize non-elite and non-Brahmin contributions towards the national movement. Likewise, the Cambridge historiography, though it contests the ideological basis of the nationalist narrative, does not initiate a dialogue with the social periphery and projects the ‘lower’ castes as mere passive followers of elite leaders. Marxist historians have shown reluctance to address the issues of caste, as they essentially adopt a class framework.

I

Posing the Problem

Subalternity, exclusion and social change are complexly interwoven in Indian society. While subalternity and exclusion are not mutually exclusive, social change is not an independent variable either. A major determinant of subalternity in India has been the distance and degree of exclusion – distance of social and degree of economic exclusion; both exist in a mutually reinforcing relation. Different subaltern groups have been subjected to different levels of social and economic exclusion. Land and caste – control over the means of production and socially ascribed position – have been the two major determinants of social exclusion in rural society. Exclusion has multiple determinants and dimensions in urban society. Nevertheless, access to economic resources, state and political power, and knowledge are important in the urban context. Exclusion, in turn, has been justified through an ideology of caste and religion, and perpetuated through deeply entrenched inegalitarian social and economic relations, retrogressive cultural and religious norms, values and practices. Forces of social change in such a society do not have an independent character and a linear trajectory. Also, determinants of social change are not singular, say, industrialization in Western society.

The issues of subalternity, exclusion and social change have been debated and discussed as different and discrete social problems in India. This is partly because of the methodological issue and partly because of the inclination (subjectivity) of scholars. For example, the focus of Subaltern Studies has been excessively historical and narrative.

In this chapter, the interesting case of the Subaltern as constructed by education will be discussed. The focus is largely on the failure of mass education and how this produces and reproduces a vast class of citizens who do not have access to the democratic rights that could be theirs through an educational system that was equally good for the masses and the elites. This discussion will be divided into three parts that are thematic as well as roughly chronological: in the colonial period, the failure of missionary, state, indigenous and nationalist education; and in the post-colonial period, the failure of independent India's education to fulfil its democratic mission.

Two concepts that are being used in the analysis are that of ‘the construction of colonial knowledge’ and ‘discourse’. The first is taken from the work of Bernard Cohn at the University of Chicago, who emphasized how the meaning of ‘Indian culture’ had been constructed in colonial times by the visions and needs of the colonizers. His colleague, McKim Marriott, showed that South Asian peoples had sciences and epistemologies that were as complex and sophisticated as the European ones. These, too, comprised a discourse that, amazingly, paid little attention to Europe and reproduced itself with vigour (Cohn, 1996; Marriott, 1992).

The entire notion of the world as consisting of two spheres, East and West, or Europe/Occident and Asia/Orient, or metropolis and colony, was discussed by the Palestinian American scholar, Edward Said, as based on the gaze of the Europeans.

I

Opening Remarks

In the winter of 1942, Sarvepalli Radhakrishanan, at that time Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, delivered special lectures at the universities of Banaras and Calcutta on the theme of ‘Religion and Society’ (see Radhakrishanan, 1947). World War II was in its third year: it was a time that Radhakrishnan characterized as ‘one of the most decisive moments in the life of mankind’ (Radhakrishanan, 1947). He called the war ‘the last act of disintegration which [would] precede the eventual birth, through a long period of travail, of a world community’ (Radhakrishanan, 1947). This was an affirmation that could only and truly be called an expression of religious faith. Characterizing ‘secularism as the chief weakness of our age’, he declared (Radhakrishanan, 1947):

Needless to add, Radhakrishnanan's use of the term secularism was in consonance with its commonly understood connotation of opposition to religiosity. Anticipating ‘the opening of a new age’ (Radhakrishanan, 1947), he said:

The volume, Subalternity, Exclusion and Social Change in India edited by Ashok K. Pankaj and Ajit K. Pandey, offers a comprehensive and critical perspective on the theoretical and substantive issues in the understanding of contemporary changes in Indian society. The conceptual adequacy of the notion of subalternity in the analysis of social change and comprehension of its multiple dimensions remains a challenging issue. The Indian subaltern school of historiography inaugurated a remarkable debate among historians on the nature of historiography and made several significant innovations. Its (Indian subaltern school) seminal contribution has been in the study of the nature of marginalization and inequalities in India and the exploration of the factors determining the disenchantment of the under-class, the poor and the exploited categories with the established social order which trigger continual tension and conflict in society. In addition, it made meaningful theoretical departures. With the aid of concrete social and cultural data it demonstrated the limitations of the functionalist paradigm, a dominant theoretical approach of the time, as it also enriched historiography by integrating it with the art of ethnography. It demonstrated how relevant it was that comparative ethnological studies across regions and communities in India were undertaken to offer meaningful understanding of the conflict and social processes.