Secularism, Modernity, Nation: Epistemology of the Dalit Critique Author(s): Aditya Nigam Source: Economic and Political Weekly,

Vol. 35, No. 48 (Nov. 25 - Dec. 1, 2000), pp. 4256-4268 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4410008 . Accessed: 09/05/2011 17:50
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Special

articles

Secularism,Modernity,Nation
Epistemologyof
the

Dalit

Critique

The emphasis on the language of 'merit', 'efficiency' and class has enabled the upper caste discourse to repress successfully the category of caste. But in the post-Mandal period, the 'secularity' of caste and the dalit movement have proved effctive in combating the rising Hindutva forces, even making 'caste' respectable. However, even as the radical and secular potential of caste is stressed, there is little attempt to theorise the question of caste. This paper explores the theoretical implications of a radical, secular politics and to unravel the existentialist dilemmas of dalit politics.
ADITYA NIGAM

Afew clarificationsregardingthetitle
of this paper need to be made at he very outset. What do I mean by the 'Dalit Critique' of modernity? Is there a body of writings by the dalits that we may call 'a critiqueof modernity'? At least in the manifest sense, there isn't one. However, it is the argument of this paper that such a critique does exist - if without a name, or in a different name. A critique of modernityis an 'absent presence' in a large body of dalit writings which we need to extricate in order to be able to appreciate manyof the moreproblematicaspectsof the dalitrelationshipto radical-secularpolitics. The second clarification concerns the very overused term 'modernity'. In a sense, it may be incorrect, strictly speaking, to talk of a dalit critique of modernity, if by that term we simply mean modern development, Science and Reason. However, as I will argue, these implicit critiques do interrogate the two great artefacts of political modernity in India - secularism and the nation.Dalit politics embodies a dogged resistance to the binaries set up by modern politics in the era of nationalist struggle and subsequently in the contemporary moment. It refuses to get incorporatedinto either term of the binary of nationalism/ colonialism andsecularism/communalism. It represents in its very existence, the problematic 'thirdterm' that continuously challenges the common sense of the secular-modern. This resistance to these categories of modern politics is, at its core, a resistance to the very universalisms that characterise the emancipatory discourses of modernity which placed at their very centre, the abstract, unimarkedcitizen 4256

Universal Man - or the equally abstract 'working class', as the subject of history. Dalit politics in my reading is deeply resistant to both the ideas. In parenthesis, we may note the 'neglect of minority cultures' inherent in this idea, as Vernon Van Dyke and Will Kymlicka argue, 'has deep roots in the western political tradition' and was the dominant common sense of both liberal and marxist traditions throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To be sure, there were 'countervailing' arguments in favour of minority rights too, but they were the marginalised tendencies; hegemonic traditions continued to stand in favour of such abstract notions of citizenship that recognised only national identity. Democratic constitutions, when they did stipulate against discrimination on grounds of race, community, religion, etc, did so too with the individual citizen in mind. It is also worth pointing out here that a critique of abstract unmarkedcitizenship does not entail a critique of the notion of universal citizenship. In fact, I would argue, it is precisely to make the latter more meaningful that the idea of a citizenship that is exhausted by the 'bilateral relationship between state and individual', is sought to be critiqued, so that the third party, that is the community can also be recognised as a rights-beai-ng subject [Kymlicka and Van Dyke 1997; Heater 1999].1 The third clarification relates to the use of the term 'epistemology'. I use the term here to refer to the fact that what we can extricate as the dalit critique represents a resistance to some of the key political and theoretical categories of our modern po-

litical discourse - not merely a 'political difference' of opinion on strategy or tactics. In a larger and deeper sense, the term also refers to the fact that in its emergence - both during the anticolonial struggle and now - the dalit critique presents a challenge to the central diremption instituted by modernity, thatbetween the subject and the object. Dalit histories, dalit accounts of the past, like feminist ones, raise a fundamentalquestion about the possibility of the 'knowing subject' who standsoutside the so-called object whose history she writes and about whom this subject 'produces knowledge'. The centrality it accords to the experience of caste oppression, the insistence that 'authentic' knowledge about the dalit can only be produced by a dalit breaks down the subject-object dualism in a,profound way. That no dalit histories could be produced till dalits themselves started writing their own history - much like the feminists - points to a deeper problem with academic histories written from the distance of a scientist, ever unable to share the experience of oppression. In what follows, I will talk not about the dalit experience but about what the knowledge produced by dalit scholars has to say to us as 'academic scholars'(unmarked, of course), and what it has to say to the believers and practitioners radical-secular politics. We have seen in the last two decades, but more specifically since the anti-Mandal agitation, how the entire upper caste discourse, by speaking the languageof'merit', 'efficiency' and even 'class' and 'economic deprivation', successfully repressed the category of caste. The unspeakability November 25, 2000

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of caste, I will argue, however, was not simply a matterof the casteism of the upper castes; it was also a result of the modernist discomfort with non-secular and 'retrograde' categories that really provided the overarching rationale within which the discourse of the upper castes took shape. In the recent past, however, especially in the post-Mandal commission period, the secularist has discovered the 'secularity' of 'caste', particularly of the dalit movement. The fact that it was the irreducibility of caste divisions that actually turned out to be the rock against which the project of Hindutva seemed to flounder, made the category of caste respectable.The problem however, is thatwhile gestures towards the 'radical and secular' potential of caste are routinely made by the secularists, there has been little attemptto theorise the question of caste and its possible 'secularity'. It was backward and retrogradewhen the hegemony of secular-nationalismwas unchallenged; it is radical and secular, now that bad days are here and the need for all kinds of allies is pressing. In the process, the politics of the dalit movement is never sought to be understood on its own terms. In this paper, I will try to explore the theoreticalimplications for a radical secular politics, of trying to understand the existential dilemmas of dalit politics. I will begin by posing the problem with reference to two recent essays by Sumit Sarkar. In his book, Writing Social Histor3y,Sarkar devotes an entire chapter, "Identity and Difference: Caste in the Formation of the Ideologies of Nationalism and Hindutva" to the question of 'caste'. Here,as in theearlierpaper, "Indian Nationalismand the Politics of Hindutva", he confronts the problem of what he calls the "historiographical silencing" and "elisions of the category of caste" (pp 29293) and the "very obvious links between such silencing and the priorities of mainstream nationalist history writing" (emphasis added) [Sarkar1997; 1996]. Sarkar takes the instance of the "text-book understanding"of "late colonial history" which in his view, is still largely "grounded on the assumption that the entire meaningful world of political action and discourse can be comprehended through the categories of imperialism, nationalism and colonialism..." (emphasis added) [Sarkar 1997]. In otherwords, Sarkarsuggests that the elision of the category of caste, in historiography,is not merely an oversight: it is a silencing that is entailed by the illegitimacy bestowed on it by the very structureof historiographicaldiscourse. It Economic and Political Weekly

is, or has been, illegitimate to talk of caste as a category in the writing of nationalist history precisely because in it the only legitimate actors were the forces of imperialism and nationalism. In the world of political action, one could only be either a nationalist or an imperialist stooge. In arguing so, Sarkar points to an aspect of the politics of knowledge that will concern us in this essay: the way in which the categories of thoughtandknowledge shape the very possibilities of political action. However, Sarkaronly points in that direction; he does not lead us there. One would imagine that the 'very obvious reasons' that he refers to above, would lead him to deploy his analytical skills in laying bare the structure and assumptions of nationalist thought which rendered caste silent. But that is precisely what he does not do. The thrustof his argumenton the contrary, pushes in a very different direction, which is best understood by following him part of the way through his polemic with the historians of the Subaltern School. We need not go into the details of that debate here but it is instructive, for the purpose of posing our'problem,to follow the main lines of his argument. Sarkar, continues: Less obvious, and thereforemore worrying, are some recenttendenciesthat seem to be reproducingthat silence (emphasis added)preciselythroughwhat is accepted and by nanyas themostradical chiccritique of all suchnation-state The projects. burden of this critique is no longer class or even elite domination, but the alleged root of the modernor postcolonial nationstate in rationalism,sucWestern,Enlightenment cessfully imposed on the ThirdWorld by colonial culturaldomination.The logical on corollaryof this totalconcentration the critiqueof colonial discourse is that only movementsoraspectsof life demonstrably freeof suchWesternor rationalist taintcan be given the status of authentic,properly indigenous,protest,resistanceandculture [Sarkar 1996]. The logical connection between the critique of colonial discourse and the search for authentic/indigenous traditions is, of course, merely asserted, never demonstrated.As a matterof fact, it can be argued that the two are logically distinct questions: the object of the critiques of colonial discourse is colonialism, while protests and resistances whether supposedly 'tainted' by 'rationalism' or not, form the object of a very different history and need not at all be affected by the former. However, to proceed with Sarkar's argument: The result of this connection, he

says, is that "(I)t then becomes difficult to study with any markedsympathy, not only the history of the traditional Marxist left, but also figures like Phule or Ambedkar or the many movements that have tried to extend the rightsof lowercastes and women elements from by selectively appropriating western discourses and even on using colonial statepolicies as resources"[Sarkar 1996]. Sarkargoes on to characterise this 'deafening silence' of the 'bulk of subaltern studies historiography in these areas' as symptomatic of the general disease. However, as Sarkar himself indirectly admits, this is certainly not an elision that is peculiar to the hardcore of nationalist historiography and something simply reproduced by the subaltern historians due to their 'obsession with colonial discourse'. Let me quote a long footnote from his chapterin the above book, where he makes a kind of self-interrogation: My own writingscan providesome telling examples. Modern India (Delhi, 1983) probablygave more space to caste movements than did most other surveys of late colonial history. I notice now (emph added), however, thatI had kept on using phrases like 'false consciousness of caste solidarity' and 'sectional forms' of ex-. pressing 'lower class-' discontent, even while presentingsympatheticaccountsof movements like Phule's Satyashodhak Samaj.I have been going back recentlyto some of theearlytwentiethcenturyBengal materialwhich I must have had a look at while writing my Swadeshi Movement in Bengal (New Delhi, 1973). Caste seems now to have been quite a central theme: it had figured only marginallyin my doctoral dissertation and subsequent work [Sarkar 1997]. Interesting here, is the suggestion that not only was nationalist historiography guilty of eliding caste, the only otherserious alternative to it in India, namely, marxist historiographytoo, suffered from the same distorted vision. Caste, which seems now to Sarkar,to have been then 'quite a central theme' had appeared only marginally - if sympathetically - in his own writings of thattime. Despite having given more space to caste than many others, his work too continued to see it as the 'false consciousness' of a 'sectional' form (a section? of the nation? the class?). Isn't the delegitimisation of caste already accomplished in this understanding?If the thing called caste had occasionally been given space in any kind of history writing, it was simply because it kept irrupting shamelessly onto the political stage. It appeared therefore as a matter of deep embarrass4257

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ment - when it did. If that be the case, can we really avoid the suggestion that the 'elision of caste' may have stemmed from reasons not really all that obvious (like the upper caste character of nationalism, as Sarkarseems to suggest)2 but could have something to do with the modernist-universalistdesire to 'transcend' narrow 'sectional' identities? I will just add two more instances here to buttress my point, before I go on to elaborate it. Nehru mentions, in his autobiography, his reaction to Gandhi's announcement of his fast from Yervada prison, in protest against Ramsay Macdonald's grantof a separateelectorate to the 'Depressed Classes'. Reacting from Dehra Dun jail, Nehru expressed his great annoyance with Gandhi. for choosing a side-issue for his final sacrifice - just a question of electorate. What would be the result on our freedom movement? Would not the larger issues fade into the background, for the time being at least?...Andwas not his action a recognition,and in partan acceptance,of the Communal Award...After so much sacrifice and brave endeavour, was our movementto tail off into somethinginsignificant?"[J Nehru]. Nehru's deep embarrassment is evident in his expressions like 'a side-issue', or 'something insignificant'. Nehru in fact, describes the 'emotional crisis' and the bouts of 'anger and hopelessness' that Gandhi's decision threw him into. In the same passage, Nehru then goes on to say that he felt angry with Gandhi for 'his religious and sentimental approach to a political question', leaving us in no doubt that what irked him was the 'irrationality' of Gandhiandiscourse. We now know that Gandhi stood then on the wrong side of thedivide, fromthedalit/depressedclasses' point of view; that it was his stubborn Hindu upper-caste self that resisted their attempt to find separate representation. Yet it was to his credit thathe alone among leadersof theCongress, grapthenationalist pled with the question of bringing them into the anticolonial movement all his life, thoughall his moves were quite insensitive to the lived experience of the dalits. My second example: E M S Namboodiripad in his History of the Indian Freedom Struggle comments on the Poona Pactandthe greatclash of the titans,Gandhi and Ambedkar thus: However, this was a great blow to the freedom movement. For this led' to the diversionof thepeople's attentionfromthe objective of full independence to tile 4258

mIundane cause of the upliftment of the

Harijans (emphasis added.)3 What finds expression in both Nehru and Namboodiripad here is precisely a modernist discomfort with the category of caste and as I will try to demonstrate later in this paper, their argument is clearly drawn from the arsenal of anti-imperialist nationalism rather than from that of an upper caste position. There is another issue that arises from Sarkar's passage above: why is it today thatcaste has suddenly become visible and more importantly, a legitimate object of left-radical discourse - including that of historiography? In other words, why is it that when, after a gap of 20 years, the same historian confronts the same material, s/he discovers the centralityof a theme that had, on the first visit, seemed so marginal? Can we read this as a result of the other that largertransformations have takenplace in recent years - transformationsthat mark the present conjuncture? To be more specific, I read in this passage the idea that the relationship of the historian/scholarto the 'material' or archive is always mediated by the external world of the present, forcing her into endless rereadings, reinterpreting 'facts', and restructuring her vision to be able to 'see' those 'facts'. That many of us today can see what we were hitherto unable to, in that case, is no mere individual achievement. A fundamental restructuringof our vision has taken place in the last decade or more, which enables this re-visioning. And this restructuringof our cherished intellectual frameworks has been forced by developments from the outside. One of these developments, is what I will term, altering somewhat a Foucauldian expression, the insurrection of little selves. For, this insurrection of little selves marks a global crisis of modernity and its great projectof realising the emancipation of Universal Man - embodied in the abstractcitizen, unmarkedby any identity. This project, we realise today, was meant to be achieved by erasing and repressing particular identities. In India, this crisis has been coeval with the crisis of the nationalist imaginary and the nation state. With this 'insurrection of little selves', the dalit has emerged - not merely as the object whose history 'we' secular historians and scholars can now write, but as the subject who writes her own history. It is this emergence of the dalit as the subject-object of another history - one that falls outside the reckoning of secular/nationalist historians that we must now deal with. In other words, we

must begin to deal with dalit history not as an adjunct to, or a part of, a history of nationalism and secularism, merely reiterating its supposed 'secularity', but as the voice that demands recognition in its own right. As I will argue later in this chapter, if the early dalit bahujan assertions in the personalitiesof Ambedkar,Periyar,Iyothee Thass, and such others, resists the incorporation into the nationalist narratives,so does the present dalit movement resist the bid to assimilate its voice into that of secularism. If we listen attentively to the voices from within, we can hear precisely their refusal - despite heavy investments in the modern - to be willing parts of the two great artefacts of our modernity, namely, secularism and the nation. I will therefore argue that, belonging as it does to this instance of crisis, both the manner and the moment of the emergence of the new dalit assertion, direct us to read it as a critique of modernity. This may sound strange because in the entire manifest discourse of the leaders of the dalit and more generally, non-Brahmin leaders, modernity appearsas the liberator from the tyranny of the past Brahminical order. The task that I seek toundertake in the rest of the paper then, is to read the dalit movement and its discourse as a text, against its own self-perception, in orderto extricate the elements of an epistemology of its critique of modernity.

Dalits and Others

The decade of the 1980s, I have argued elsewhere, saw the appearance of the first rupturesin the secular-nationalistdiscourse that had emerged out of the freedom struggle. For the first time, the overarching 'Indian' identity gives way during this period, to innumerable smaller, 'fragmented' identities. Wehave seen that at least four majorstrandscan be discerned in this series of developments: (a) subnational assertions for movements of autonomy and occasionally, the desire for secession; (b) struggles around gender oppression, especially dowry, custodial rape, sati, etc; (c) ecological movements centering on the displacement of people by mega-development projects and the question of local access to andcontrol over naturalresources and finally (d) the coming to the fore of issues of caste oppression in the north.4 The backlash to the implementation of backward caste reservations by the KarpooriThakurgovernment in Bihar and the massive anti-reservationriots, directed against the dalits in Gujaratin 1981, were the early signs of what was to burst forth November 25, 2000

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in the post-Mandal phase, as far as caste conflict was concerned. These developments actually representedthe unravelling of the structure of nationhood that had been laboriously built over the years of the nationalmovement andgiven furthershape in the Constituent Assembly. It is true that a 'critique of the concrete Indian nation, however, need not be a critique of the category of nation as such' [Pandian 1998]. A number of these assertions thereforecontinued to imagine themselves in the nation-form,though the entity whose nation-form was now sought was no longer Indian in many cases - it was Assamese, Khalistani, Gorkha, etc. Though, the very dispersal of the community often made such imaginings impossible andreflected itself in imagining India differently.The fact however, remains that deep inside, these diverse movements reflected a dissatisfaction with the large homogenising, concrete discourse of nationhood thathad submerged their specific cultures. Fromthe dalit or the dalit bahujanstandpoint this moment of rupturehas been seen as unprecedentedlyliberatory. I am aware that clearly there are problems with the attempt to unite all the disparate groups into a single entity called the 'dalitbahujan' - especially from certain sections of the dalits. However, for the purposes of this paper, I will not dwell on these different strandswithin the movement and treat the dalit-bahujandiscourse as one.5 In these articulations, the period since the 1980s but more specifically, the post-Mandal (1990) phase has been seen as the 'turning point'. Before I go into the critique, it may be necessary to recall the'common sense, as well as the self-perception of the dalit relationship to modernity (and colonial rule), in order to make my point clearer. It is by now common sense that there has been a considerable investment in modernity and its emancipatory promise amongthedalitsandmoregenerally, among themanynon-Brahmincastes. To the extent that modernity in India is historically a product of the colonial encounter, this extends to a positive assessment of colonial rule. As V Geetha and S V Rajadurai note, it was the availability of the language of rights and the secularisation of public space, thanksto western education and the moder processes unleashed by British rule, thatprovided the main ingredients of the emancipatory struggle of the nonBrahminand the adi-dravidas (the dalits). If the declaration certainspaces as pubof lic renderedthem open and free in terms Economic and Political Weekly

of approachand use to subalterngroups, a language of rights, which western education and an acquaintancewith political liberalism had provoked into existence, came to structure and direct subaltern for aspirations equalityandjustice [Geetha and Rajadurai1998]. In fact, British presence meant something more. It was seen as a kind of Bonapartist regime that could balance different interests and provide. the much needed space to non-Brahmin and dalit existence. As the Non-BrahminManifesto, issued in December 1916, observed, it was the British alone who could 'hold the scales even between creed andclass and...develop that sense of solidarity and unity without which' India will continue to be a group of mutually exclusive warring groups without common purpose and common patriotism' [Geetha and Ravindran 1998]. Industrialisation and modern education continue to be seen as liberators of the oppresseddalitcommunities andthe social space of the city as the place of freedom. ChandraBhan Prasad,a leading dalit intellectual, for instance, in a highly symptomaticseriesof articles,alsoassessesthe coming of the Britishas "havingmade a difference" in this respect, with the following words: Britisharrivalcoincided with the particular era when societies world over were emancipatingthemselves from the mediof evalsocialsystems.Theemergence urban which civilisationwasa greatphenomenon, made medieval institutions redundant of civilisation worldwide. Emergence urban was intrinsicallyinterwoven with inventions of moderntools, scientific discoveries, spreadof moderneducation,in other words, industrialrevolution, with which were associated the notions of liberty, freedom and democracy [Prasad 1999, I have quoted from an unpublishedversion of the same article].6 How strong this aversion to the village is can be seen clearly from the way D R Nagaraj, relates the conflict between the militant farmers' movement in Karnataka and the dalits. The Farmers'Movement notice board at the very entranceof the village, declaring that no governmentofficial could enter it withoutthepermissionof theRaitaSangha is only a symbolic act... And this naturally means that the Farmers' Movement has intentionsto establishadministrative control also over the village. Dalits are vary. of such moves since it smacksof the caste Hindu hegemony of the past" fNagaraj 1993]. The motifs are all there and clear. The language of rights, the spread of modem

scientific education, the emergence of the secular urban space, the ideas of liberty, freedom, equality - all situated in the city. These are recurring themes. Yet, there is something amiss in this eulogy to the modern. A relentless resistance to the idea of abstract citizenship, the insistence on what was called 'communal proportional representation' is inscribed in the very heart of dalit and nonbrahmin politics from its very inception. The almost life-and-death contestations that took place aroundthis issue and which unrepentant modernists like Nehru and Namboodiripad found so embarrassing, and which eventually found their embodiment in the Indian Constitution, points to the need to examine afresh the various layers of this relationshipbetween the dalits and modernity. There are other compelling reasonswhy this exercise needs to be undertaken. For, a 200 years of modern development and four decades of independence later, the struggle of the dalits had to begin afresh in very different circumstances. It would be interesting to take a look at this new critique now. For the purposes of this paper, I take one of the best articulated critiques, 'Towards the Dalitisation of the Nation', by Kancha Ilaiah (1998). I will occasionally refer to some others, merely to emphasise that his is not an isolated, idiosyncratic position. I will also refer, as when necessary to some other writings by him.

The New Dalit Critique

In the above mentioned essay as well as in 'acompanion' piece, Ilaiah,distinguishes between three schools of thought in the anticolonial struggle, namely: (a) dalit bahujan nationalism represented by Jotirao Phule, B R Ambedkar and Periyar; (b) Hindunationalismrepresentedby Tilak, MahatmaGandhi (and in the second essay, he includes in this 'epistemological current', characters as diverse as Rammohun Roy, Nehru,GolwalkarandS P Mookerjee; and (c)'the brahminicalcommunist nationalism represented by P C Joshi, and S A Dange (in the second essay, this list includes, M N Roy, R PDutt, T Nagi Reddy and E M S Namboodiripad and there it is referredto as the "secular socialist nationalism that was caste-blind") [Ilaiah 1998:268-69; 1999:19]. A footnote in the latter essay, further comments on the secular, communist stream, saying: 'All of them came from upper caste and upper class backgrounds. In all their writings, Hinduism and Brahminism were never critiqued' [Ilaiah 1999]. This threefold

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distinction is importantfor it reveals some of the inner tensions of nationalism, even if it presents it as a singular entity, subsuming the dalitbahujan current as just another 'nationalism' and ignores some other currents like the Muslims. It is also important for what it has to say of the communists - a point I shall returnto soon. According to Ilaiah, with the dawn of independence, (T)headoptionof a republican, parliamentarian, constitutional democracy gave notional rights to the dalitbahujans. Gandhi's Hindu nationalist agenda was subtly given effect to by Nehru, who strengthened the tendency to recruit bhadralokbrahminicalforces to control the state structures[Ilaiah 1998]. He continues further to elaborate this point thus: The GandhianHarijanisation process was also carriedout throughthe state appara-

essentialisation of caste identity that remains unchangedthroughthe greatchanges that modernity was expected to and did bring in its train. Alternatively, we would have to resort to a conspiracy theory of history and see the entire story of our modernity and of postcolonial India as the outcome of such a conspifacy. D R Nagaraj (1993) for instance, refers to it as 'the treacherous deal that was struck between the forces of modernity and the caste system.' His is of course a very sophisticated rendering of the idea and he comes very close to anticipating what I think is the crux of the problem. So, he goes on to suggest that "the Shudra thinkers were accurate and insightful in laying bare the strategies of oppression practicedby traditional society, but they were naive in their optimistic support to agents and practices of modernity" [Nagaraj 1993]. His reference to the 'naivete' in investing their tus. The Nehruvian state did this through 'optimistic support' in modernity actually the process of brahniinisation of the state points to the need for an investigation into structures which ensured that the so-called the discourses and processes of modernity. secular state became the private property However, here Nagarajdisappoints us and of the brahminical castes. The recruitment notwithstanding his own suggestion, still boards,educationalcentres,judicial struc- continues to see the problem as one of tures,themilitaryandpolice agencieswere upper caste conspiracy alone. consciously handedoverto the brahminical To continue with Ilaiah's critique, he forces. To appear to be secular, some goes on to argue that the "Nehruvian state marginalisedinstitutionswere allowed to be headed by the Muslim elite, but they was not a secular agency because in its were coerced into accepting brahminical everyday practices in the offices, brahminhegemony.The Nehruvianstate structure ism alone was constructed as meritorious, resisted the entry of the dalitbahujans even and it alone was shown to be India's salvation" [Ilaiah 1998:275]. His critique through reservations, their entry being described thedegeneration thesystem then makes the most amazing move of as of (all emphasis added). distinguishing between two different The interesting thing about this percep- modernities in India:the Hindu nationalist tion is that it sees the Gandhian Hindu- - or what we may understand as official religious discourse as flowing seamlessly - modernity and the 'indigenous moderinto what took shape as the Nehruvian nity' of the proto-scientific practices of the state - Nehru's own discomfort and em- dalitbahujansand women, always ever inbarrassmentwith Gandhian 'sentimental- novating in the course of their productive ity and religiosity' notwithstanding. It is work [Ilaiah 1998:276]. This operation of also interestingthat Ilaiah sees the process bifurcating high modernity and separating of the secular state becoming the 'private it from the 'low' already problematises property of the brahminical castes' as a modernity whose project has only been conscious act of the Nehruvian state elite, homogenisation, andstandardisation the of not as an unintended by-product of its cultures/knowledges through erasure and working. Finally, his perception that the silencing of such low cultures. Ilaiah then entry of the dalitbahujans even through goes on to elaborate that high modernity reservations,was seen as the degeneration came to its own with the 'feudal brahmins' of the system, points to the continuing selling away their landed properties and embarassment of the Nehruvian/modern coming to occupy the position of the urban elites with the idea of recognising caste. middle class. Through its control ever the How do we understandthis critique? One English language, this class came to conpossible way of reading it would be to do trol the state sector and finally, 'it was in so straight off, in its most manifest sense. the cities thatthe nexus between the twiceBut for such a reading to make sense, one born castes (brahmins and banias) was would either have to fall back on an consolidated' [Ilaiah 1998:280]. Thus was

shattered the 'dream of the city' that was the fulcrum of the dalit's attachment to modernity. Politically, what is most galling however, is that with the emergence of the Hindutva challenge, came the re-imposition of the kind of binarism that was reminiscentof the nationalmovement. 'The dalitbahujanschool looked at the secularism vs communalism opposition with suspicion because brahminism in whatever form cannot be secular...' (emphasis added) [Ilaiah 1998:283]. Many dalit and dalitbahujan scholars would agree with Ilaiah and clearly the BSP's alliance with the BJP in UP would suggest that this argument against an absolute prioritising of the secular-communal divide, has wider purchase.However, I am not very surethey would all agree with Ilaiah's reasons for regarding it with suspicion. Ilaiah seems to give the impression that their critique was that the so-called secularists were insufficiently secular because they were 'brahmin'. More likely, the suspicion is because the imposition of this binarymodel de-legitimised all other aspirations that were now coming to the fore - including that of the dalits. Once the opposition was set in place, any political stance could only be understood if it made sense in the terms set by this discourse. Often the struggle between the dalits and the neobrahmins in the countryside - or the neo kshatriyas as Ilaiah calls them, namely the dominant OBCs - forced a different kind of logic of alliances. Seen in the dichotomous world of'secularism vs communalism', theBSP's alliance with the BJP in UP, however, shortlived could only be understood as opportunism.Ilaiah,laterin theessay comes closer to spelling this out: The so-called secular uppercastes, again in order to underminethe Mandalisation secuprocess,organisedadiscoursearound larism vs communalism.In this, the 'upper' castes working undervariousshades of ideologies - the socialist, Communist, liberaldemocraticforces of the Congress variety...were veryactive...The leadingrole was, however, taken by the brahminical Communists [Ilaiah 1998:285]. Lest this be seen as idiosyncratic, let us quote from the article by Chandra Bhan Prasad mentioned above: "Once again when the question of social transformation is being raised, we are being told we must join the 'secular brigade' to defeat 'communal fascism', and probably they mean that the social questions can be tackled later" [Prasad 1999].

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Fissured Modernity and Protean Self7

Let us try to make sense of Ilaiah's discussion (which as I have indicated, is shared by at least some other important dalitbahujanwriters) above of the seamless flow of Gandhian anti-modern Hindu religious nationalism into the structuring of Nehruvian modernity and his explication of the shattering of the dream of the city. How do we understandthis transformation or explain this perception, if we do not take recourse to either option - that of cultural essentialism or that of a conspiracy theory of history? Here I wish to refer to a slippage in llaiah's readingof the situation thatoccurs in his attribution to the Nehruvian postcolonial state what was in fact an already inherited condition. In his important work, What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, published in 1945, Ambedkar.for example, discusses the nature of what he calls the governing class - clearly in the colonial context. He has no doubt that the brahmins are the governing class. There are two reasons for thinking so. The first is their cultural hegemony or what he calls the 'sentiment of the people'. He explains this through, among others, the instance of Malabar, 'where Sambandham marriages prevail' among the 'the servile classes such as the Nairs, who 'regard it an honour to have their females kept as mistresses by Brahmins to deflower their queens on prima noctis' [Moon 1991:205]. The second test 'is the control of the administration.' He then goes on to provide statistical data of the communitywise distribution of gazetted posts in the year 1943 in Madras presidency to show the preponderance of brahmins- especially in the more highly paid ones. 'Similar data from other provinces could also be adduced in support of this conclusion' but, he adds, that would be unnecessary because it is so patently obvious [Moon 1991]. Ambedkar in fact, went furtherto compile the information on Congress victories in the 1937 elections and the representation of communities among Congress members of provincial assemblies, cabinets, and parliamentary secretariesto buttresshis argument. 'In all the Hindu provinces, the prime ministers were brahmins. In all Hindu provinces if the non-Hindu ministers were excluded, the cabinets were wholly composed of brahmins' [Moon 1991]. Iyothee Thass' frontal attack on the

The point raised by Washbrook touches the key issue involved - if in a somewhat mala fide manner. For Washbrook does point to the fact that it was not brahminism in the old 'non-secular' ('spiritual') sense that was at issue. From there, however, he quite unsurprisingly, moves to asserting that therefore, it was a 'wholly secular' conflict (with individuals who 'happened to be brahmins') that was animating the non-brahmin leaders. It seems to me that this is precisely where we need to uncover the layers of meaning associated with the will eat at a panchama's house; transformation of brahmin power in the Rajaji will bathe on seeing a secular realm - in the realm of civil society Shankaracharya panchama; some others will bathe if a and institutions of modern representative panchama'sshadow falls on them, others democracy. Washbrook's simple concluif a panchamatouches them. Yet others sion that if this struggle was not against will marrya panchamaman or woman the spiritual' brahminism, then it could butall of themwill still remainbrahmanas. only have been against the secular power Brahmin orthodoxyin 1940 wasofadiffcr- of 'individuals who happened to be ent kindthanwhatobtainedin 1900. After brahmins' should alert us to the of 1940 this orthodoxychangedform again.8 the use of such dichotomised pitfalls categories. It is remarkablethatPeriyaris constantly The modern/non-modern or modern/ alert not only to the extreme flexibility of traditonaldichotomy often seems to blind the brahmin self; he is also alluding here us to the complexity of the very processes to the two different realms - one occupied of articulation of the traditional and the and represented by Rajaji and the other by modern. Seen thus, it was probably, not Shankaracharya. In Rajaji's realm the the kniship between Gandhian traditionchanges taking place, I believe were such alism andNehruvian modernity,as Kancha that the brahmin was not only negotiating Ilaiah suggests, but the very forms of the challenges broughtin by the processes articulation of the modern with the tradiof the modern, but also recasting the tional that laid the foundations of the brahmin self in crucial ways. Many Nehruvian state's slide into a domination brahmins remained brahminsbut many of of the brahminical upper castes over the them had seriously started believing that modern state institutions. It is probably Hindu society needed to be modernised more likely that already by the turn of and freed of the blot of caste distinctions. the century neither sector was purely The route taken for this was nationalism 'traditional' or 'modern'. It may be more - the new imagination of a homogenous useful to see what appearto be two aspects Hindu society as the centre piece of the - that of the breakdown of the old order emergent Indian nation. The problem was and the insertion into the new, necessarily that even then they wanted this change on hybrid modernity - as constituting a single their own terms, that is, without relin- moment.l It was not as if the processes quishing their new and emerging power in of modernity ushered in by the colonial the secular realm. encounter were simply destroying the hold This is incidentally one of the points on of caste hierarchies and bringing in the which some of the historians of the Cam- new world of modern development, bridge school seem to have built their industrialisationand a regime of rights and

swadeshi activities, indeed reflected the same anxieties. He "located the power of the modern secular brahminin the control he wielded over public opinion". The nationalist press was especially the butt of his attacks [Geetha and Rajadurai 1998]. Like Ambedkar,E V RamasamyNaicker 'Periyar' too was concerned with the new power being acquired by the brahmin in the modern secular realm. 'As far the SelfRespecters were concerned, the single most secular index of brahmin power in these modern times was the newspaper...The Self-Respecters were so convinced of the links between the powerof the written (newspaper) word that they began newspapers of their own' [Geetha and Rajadurai 1998]. The authors' attention to what they call Periyar's reading of the protean brahmin sensibility. "He remarked on several occasions that the brahmins retained their privileges by remaining open to change and by adopting a winning flexibility." One of his statements in this regardis particularlystriking:

argument against the non-brahmin movement.David Washbrookfor instance,notes: They [Justice Party leaders] argued that their challenge was solely towards the secular, political position which the brahmins had attained. Yet, once the brahmin'sspiritualrole has been stripped from him, how can he remaina brahmin in any meaningfulsense? WhattheJustice party really objected to was the political position of certain individuals who happened to be brahmins.9

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The problem with the pervasive citizenship. Rather, the old was 'always of already' present in the new but no longer sociologistic understanding the category in the old form. At one level this can sound of the 'upper caste' (or caste in general) like a moth-eatentruism.After all, a marxist is that it can only fall back on the formal dialecticiancan always claim thatthe notion nomenclature thus misrecognising the of auhfebung is at once the preservation function it begins to performing changed the of the old in t1e new and its transcendance. context. Let me makethis abit moreexplicit Yet marxist historiography and scholar- by trying to break down the category of ship on India has precisely seen this in the the 'urban upper caste self by interrogatdichotomous terms of the so-called "dual ing the most problematic aspect of it - the role" of colonialism - the destruction of notion of the 'brahminical marxist'. We the traditional and the initiation of the may begin with Kanshi Ram's colourful modem. The categories have remained as metaphor regarding the communists: that dichotomised as in many other writings of they are "green snakes in green grass" the modernisation theorists. What I want [Ilaiah 1999:41]. This metaphor leads us to suggest here is somewhat different. In straight to the deep-rooted anti-commusuggesting that the 'two aspects' be con- nism within one important strand of the sideredas a single moment, I wish to draw dalit movement - right from the days of attentionto the fact that the very process Ambedkar. Why. this anti-communism by which the political category of the came to be so strong among the most 'brahmin' became available to the non- oppressed sections of Indian society is a brahmin movement,thanksto the discourse question that has never been sufficiently of equalityand rights, was also the process posed by the secular, radicalor communist by which the brahminpower was instituted scholars. From the side of the dalits too, in the secular-modernrealm.11By the time at best there has been a gesturing towards it thus became possible to challenge the the upper caste character of the Indian brahmin's oppression he had already communists, but that is precisely the kind mutated into something else. This new of sociologism that has become an power accruedto him now because he had uninterrogatedcommon sense, which falls theadvantagesof English education, rather back on the essentialism that I seek to than because of his ritual superiority. question. Thereare at least two ways in which this The second part of Kanshi Ram's metacan be understood. If it is true that the phor regarding the upper castes in other brahminin colonial India was already a parties like the BJP, provides a cue that differentbeing, we can see one face of his can be productively followed up. These existence, as Periyar did, in the brahmin upper castes are, according to him like whose infinitely malleable and 'protean' "white snakes in green grass". In other self saw the opportunities offered by words, the difference between, the upper colonial rule and quickly adapted itself to castes in other parties and those in the the new dispensation. This brahmin deftly communist parties is that the latter are the appropriated public/private distinction more difficult to identify. The radicalism to his convenience and 'privatised' caste of the,communists makes 'them' indistinidentityby becoming secular in the public guishable from 'us'. This indistinguishrealmandabelieverin the private.12Within ability in itself may not have been a probhis 'inner' domain, he continued to be a lem and the entire dalit movement could casteist, even to the extent of continuing have moved over to marxism if it had seen to practice untouchability. But there was its liberation as being possible there. anotherface - thatof the mutated 'nation- 'Indigenism' was hardly a consideration alist' whose nationalism, like Savarkar's, for them and with the marxists' celebration was modern to the core, but which de- of moderncivilisation andtechnology, there mandedthe subordinationof all questions should have been even less of a distance. of internalreform of the Hindu society to What actually prevented such a possibility the fight for independence. Such was also was the fact that already Indian marxism the face of the brahminsof the secular anti- had exposed itself as being insensitive and imperialistnationalists like Nehru and the blind to dalit oppression, operating within communists, though unlike Savarkar and a framework that was most comfortable Tilak or Sardar Patel, theirs was a more for the brahminical mind. Why this was inclusive nationalism. In a different way so is precisely the issue that concerns us then,this mutateduppercaste self became, here and calls for further investigation. In the first bursts of dalit/bahujanasserwilly-nilly, a party to suppression of the urge for dalit liberation. tion, in the early years of this century, there

was probably an importantfactor at work: what was at issue was a radical definition of the Self, an assertion of dalit subjectivity. This self had to be, of necessity, defined in radicalalterityto its brahminical other. For the dalit to be able to speak its lived experience, it had to speak in terms of brahminism.Marxism,on the otherhand, in its reduction of all oppressions to class, tended to do violence to that enterprise of self-definition. The absolute prioritisation of 'class' made caste oppression unspeakable. Further, the dalit enterprise of selfdefinition was predicated on another, quintessentially modern project, a search for dalit history. Marxism's rendering of history, its claim to be the sole agent of that history and its privileging of the antiimperialist struggle over all others (in the name of history) was likely to be much more irksome, given the fact that it, in effect, proposed what the 'brahminical', Hindu nationalists wanted, although in a language that was irritatinglyclose to that of the dalitbahujan leaders. In fact, Ambedkar's turn towards Buddhism and his production of a whole new narrative of Indian history as one of struggle between Buddhism and brahminism, was I believe an ingenious attempt at instituting as cultural memory, a new historical discourse. By doing this Ambedkar was producing a modernist, rational-historical narrativewhile at the same time, filling up what had been a major blank, an absence, the denial of a past to the dalit. To be able to speak of the past in the language of history and modern subjectivity was the task at hand. If this was the magnitude of the task being undertaken by Ambedkar, he could scarcely afford a resortto abstract universal history. And abstract universal history may have seemed to him to be a means of forgetting rather than recalling. I would in fact, suggest thatthe reason why many individuals from the privileged upper castes took shelter in 'universal history' was that by dissolving the specificities of particularexperiences, it probably helped him/her to forget his/her 'shameful past' as oppressor or person of privilege. Class oppression was universal and we also had it - there was nothing shameful about it. But to accept that 'untouchability' was also a heritage of our past, was something the modern mind found difficult to deal with.13 Anybody even remotely familiar with the historyof Indianmarxismandmarxists, would be aware that the generations of youth who came to the movement did.so

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through a rejection their traditional identities, in search of a modern one. The majority were youth from upper caste backgrounds,though there were Muslims in fairly large numbers, and there were at least some from the lower castes too, who joined the communists. Their coming to marxism, at least in the later phase, was for them the acquisition of a new identity. They could thenceforth talk about their society and the struggle to change it in terms that belonged to the lexicon of modernity. To most of them, even the suggestion that they carried their upper caste socialisation still within them would have seemed scandalous. Marxism was a means of forgetting the specific past for many, in the name of a largeruniversal one ('the history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggles'). Here in this transformation, in the 'overdetermined' constitution of our modern self lies its proteancharacter.This modern Self, is not simply a traditionalcasteist in disguise. It is modern and in its self-perception, thoroughly purged of its traditional, caste socialisation. Often, it sincerely believes that the best way to be modern is to erase all thought of caste and religion from its mind. It is thus the truly liberated self that in looking beyond the narrow confines of sectarianparticularisms, actually becomes blind to their continuing salience in a myriad new ways. It is this modern Self that appears upper caste in all the ways that the modern Self in the West appears routinely as white, upper class, male. If there is any trace in its consciousness of any of these privileges, there is always a rational and modern explanation for it. I will illustrate this with the example of E M S Namboodiripad's text on the National Question in India. In this text, EMS summons the tools of historical materialism to explain Kerala's history. He understandsthe historical role of brahminism in terms of the institution of the caste system that 'ushered in a superior economic organisation of society'. Dilip Menon's fascinating but troubling study quotes from the earlier Malayalam version of the text: Thegreatestadvantage the caste system of was that it paved the way for a major economicrevolution.Whatthe transferof therightsover landfromthehandsof those who clearedthe forests and cultivatedthe land,to thosewho lived off a portionof the producewithout engaging in cultivation, actuallymeantwas theemergenceof a new sense of privateproperty[Menon 1999].

EMS goes on to mobilise the most modern of the available arguments, thus: ...the well-known American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, has conclusively shown that the matriarchal family is of a lower order than the patriarchal family. So have Marxisthistorians...(beginning with Engels himself) shown that the changeover from matriarchy patrito archy takes place at a time when the hoe is replacedby the ploughas the instrument of production in agriculture [E M S Namboodiripad 1952]. Notice that this defense of caste system and patriarchy, follows an altogether modern logic rather than drawing on his erstwhile brahmin Self. One can actually add with a fair degree of confidence that many of the communist leadersandcadres, at least at a conscious level, made serious efforts to purge aspects of casteist practices that they had inherited from their early socialisation. And yet they remained caught within the mesh of caste (as of gender) privilege and therefore, of discriminatory practices. To recognise this phenomenon as modern is to problematise the universalisms of modernity; it is also to realise the formidablechallenge thatthis 'upper-caste-ness' presents. I therefore, find it difficult to agree with Dilip Menon or many of the dalitbahujan critics who would prefer to read this as a straightforward 'attempt at negotiating EMS' Namboodiri identity at a time when brahmins were under siege in south India... [Dilip Menon 1999]. In this context, it is interesting that this problem seems to have presented itself before both Ambedkar and Periyar and they seem to have grappled withl 'this problem of sociologstic essentialisation of caste identity in their own, limited ways. Ambedkar, in fact, at one stage made this explicit: 'By brahminism, I do not mean the power, privileges and interests of the brahmins as a community. That is not the sense in which I am using the word. By brahminismI mean the negation of the spirit of liberty, equality and fraternity. In that sense, it is rampant in all classes" [Dhananjay Keer 1954, 1997]. He then goes on to say that the effects of this brahminism were evident not merely in the social sphere but also in the denial of civic rights to untouchables as well as in the field of economic opportunities [Keer 1954, 1997]. Periyar even coined a term for this new form of brahminism - 'political brahminism'. He often noted thatthe brahmin's

resistance to social reform was grounded less in religious orthodoxy and faith and more in their political proclivities, intents and ambitions [Geetha and Rajadurai 1998]. To understand this upper-caste-ness as mere brahminism in a sociologistic fashion is to imply that they are incomplete moderns. It is to imply that this lack can be overcome by more of the same medicine. On the other hand, to understandthis as the way the universalism of modernity took root in our conditions - in some ways analogous to that in the West, where it has constructed the dominant culture as norm - is to problematise the specific trajectory of modernity in our context and thus open up the possibility of emancipation and of the recovery of lost voices in the new dispensation. We need to recognise that notwithstanding this feature of the universal modern, it remained a 'secular' modernity. In fact this is precisely what the contemporary crisis of modernity seems to be all about. The insurrection of little selves globally, is precisely a challenge to that universalising aspirationof modernity that, in its bid to standardise and homogenise and to create the 'universal man' (the abstract citizen) actually ended up presenting European culture as the norm. Universalism is the privilege of the dominant, in the contemporary world. For it to be able to see what is not dominant, it has to be fissured. Only then does it become possible for us to see this protean modern Self - the self which is a mutant of the old but is still, irreducibly new. The 'treacherous deal' that Nagaraj talks of cannot, therefore, be understood as a mere conspiracy between the upper castes and modernity. However, it is a problem of the universalising tendency of modernity that it is destined to run up against the subversive deployments of its own discourses of rights and equality thus opening up such fissures and breaches on its front.

Ambedkar, Periyar and Modernity

It seems to me that one of the persons to see this problematic aspect of modernity - though he did not articulate his discomfort in these terms - was Ambedkar. His alertness to the question arises out of his subaltern social location and becomes apparent in relation to what Gail Omvedt has described as the 'problem of entry'. What she means by the 'problem of entry' is basically that of 'getting jobs and getting

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land' in the case of the workersand the [Omvedt1994].She peasants respectively that argues 'dalitswereworkers; were they but peasants; as workerstheywereinvariablyin thelowestpaidandmostunskilled industrial and as peasantsthey were jobs likely to be landless or poor peasants' [Omvedt1994:154].It was this thatcon-cerned Ambedkar morethananything else. he saw how the 'basic Consequently, problemsof the untouchables being excludedfromthehigherpaidweaving jobs' wasalso beingreflected theirbeingless in in the represented leadingandorganising strugglesof textileworkers.In the course of the 'historic textile strike' of 1928, Ambedkar theSimonCommission, told he had before brought thismatter up repeatedly union leaders.'I said to the membersof theunionthatif theydidnotrecognisethe rightof the depressedclasses to work in
all the departments, I would rather dissuade the depressed classes fromi taking part in thestrike(emphasisadded) [Omvedt

1994:154]. As we shall see below, there are two senses in which Ambedkar reimportant sists the universalisingurge. First, by refusingto privilege the 'nation', 'antiand imperialism' 'class',overthequestion of caste,he is resistingthe ideaof the part in being represented an essential section of the whole.14In other words, he is recommonsense, that sistingthe prevalent if the whole is free, the partwill be free; if Indiais freeso will be all its constituent of any whole and cannot be represented in anyessenceof the whole.The irreduciof bilityof the partis also its declaration Second,he is also questioning autonomy. the verygiven-nessof the workingclass. The'problem entry'then,is theproblem of of thevery'making'of the workingclass. The workingclass was no transcendent embodiment as entityin whoseabstract the subjectof history - the dalits could investtheirfuture.It was a real, 'actually else, existing'class,which,likeeverything could be and had to be shaped.This was .then the most important question for Ambedkar moreimportant, any rate, at thanorganising 'actual'working the class, whichhe alreadyunderstood be upper to castein its blindnessto the dalitsensibilities. This, by the way, is a partof a larger shared manydalitleadersof sensibility by thetimeandtheinstance the 1921strike of in the Buckingham Carnatic and Mills in Madras brought theconflictswithin out city equallyclearly. It even exposed the fis4264
parts. The part - dalit Being - is not part

sureswithinthe largernon-brahmin idenwas titythat beingconstructed theJustice by Party.We need not go into the circumstances of the strikecalled by the Conunionbut it is important gress-supported to notethattheadi-dravida (dalit)workers of the Binny mills refusedto participate in the strike.Amidstaccusations they that were blacklegs, M C Raja, one of the importantpolitical leaders of the adidravidas commented the'adi-dravidas that had exercisedtheirrightto give or withhold theirlabouras they thoughtbest in their own interests.Previousexperience hadtaughtthe adi-dravidas participathat tion in strikesproveddetrimental their to interestsand they had often been forced to sell their and property pledgetheirjewels in the past' [GeethaandRajadurai 1998]. The interestingaccountof the long fallout of the strikeandthe disturbances that followedasviolence in erupted Pulianthope in north betweentheadi-dravidas Madras, and the strikersis describedin detail by Geetha and Rajadurai (1998). This description throws into sharp relief, the background that may have shaped Ambedkar's laterstance on the matter. The above statement Ambedkar's of is not an isolated instance.He was clearly continuouslytroubled the problemof by the 'making'of the workingclass. Even when he got involved with the task of the existing'working organising 'actually alive to this problem. class, he remained It is well-knownthatwhenhe formedhis firstpoliticalparty 1936,he calledit the in Labour Fromthen,till Party. Independent the time the Crippsproposalsforcedthe on question of constitution-making the agenda,bringingalive the spectreof an imminentHindurule, forcingAmbedkar to re-position himselfas the leaderof the to classes,hecontinued bekeenly depressed involvedwithquestionsof labour the and makingof the workingclass. Dhananjay Keer (1954, 1997) highlightsthis role of his in a fairlydetailedmanner. This was the time that he concernedhimself also' with the generalstrugglesof the working class, resisting the infamous Industrial strikesandpubDisputesBill, organising lic meetings jointly with the communists. Even during this period, however, his concernin this directioncan be seen, for in of instance, his organising theUntouchable Railway WorkersConferenceand to theirissuesseparately attempts address as well. "He asked his critics how they would consolidate the working classes when they did not remove such glaring

injustice and partiality which was wrong in principle and injurious to the principle of solidarity" [Keer 1954, 1997]. While resigning from Gandhi's Harijan Sevak Sangh, Ambedkarwrote a long letter to A V Thakkar, secretary of the Sangh he stated: 'Like the Negro in America, he [the untouchable] is the last to be employed in days of prosperity and the first to be fired in days of adversity. And even when he gets a foothold.he is confined to the lowest paid department...' [Vasant Moon 1991:187]. As I mentioned, not only does Ambedkar refuse to take the working class as given, but he equally vehemently refuses to accept the givenness of the nation, such as was sought to be constructed by the Congress. have notjoined the ...(I)f the untouchables "fight for freedom", he contended, "it is not because they are the tools of British imperialismbut because they fear thatthe freedom of India will establish Hindu dominationwhich is sure to close to them, andforever,theprospectof life, libertyand pursuitof happiness.The Congress,on the other hand regards the freedom of india from British imperialismto be the be-all and end-all of Indiannationalism"[Moon 1991:168, 169]. It is importantto note too, thatAmbedkar not only argued against the Congress idea of nationhood; he problematised the very category itself. In the text I have quoted above, which he intended the 'foreigner' [read westerner] to also read, Ambedkar deals at length with the category of 'nation'. For he believes that the foreigner is allowing himself to be deceived by the Congress brand of nationalism. Thus Ambedkar: '[(f)or], words such as society, nation, and country arejust.amorphous,if not ambiguous terms. There is no gainsaying that 'nation' though one word means many classes. Philosophically, it may be possible to consider a nation as a unit but sociologically it cannot but be regardedas consisting of many classes.' The reason why the foreigner allows himself to be misled into supporting the Congress, he says, "is to be found in the'wrong notions of self-government anddemocracy which are prevalent in the west" [Moon 1991:201, 202]. He goes on to argue: Westernwriterson democracybelieve that what is necessaryfor the realisationof the ideal of democracy, namely, government by the people, of the people, and for the people, is the establishmentof universal adult suffrage. Other means have been

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suggested such as recall, plebiscite, and short parliaments...Ihave no hesitation saying that both these notions are fallacious and grossly misleading [Moon 1991:202, 203]. Ambedkarthen goes on to the comment thatdemocracy and self-government have failed everywhere and the reason it has been so, is their inability to deal with the question of 'classes'.15 The idea that he holds responsible for this failure is that of abstract citizenship. In many countries, 'the governing class may be so well entrenched that the servile classes will need other safeguards besides adult suffrage to achieve the same end, i e, self-government [Moon 1991:204]. This is a failure of understanding that is irritating to him because it afflicts even the 'leaders of the British Labour Party, heads of radical and leftist groups in Europe and America represented by men like Laski, Kingsley Martin,Brailsford, and editors of journals like the Nation in America and the New StatesmaninEngland...' [Moon 1991:235]. I suggest that this desperate bid to deal with the political categories of liberal democracy, born out of Ambedkar's social location, must be read as an attempt at negotiatingthe manneroftheirreception in ourspecificcontext.A tensionruns throughout his life-work between the attempt to occupy an unmarked, universalist ground andhis being forced to repeatedly abandon it. It is certainly as a modernist that Ambedkaracts, but all the same he refuses to take modernity and its theoretical and political categories as a package, deal, questioning and resisting the very mode of its articulation with the non-modern. The refusal to take the nation as given, is evident also in the writings of all the major leaders of the dalits/non-brahmins. I have already mentioned Iyothee Thass. E V Ramasamy(Periyar),too was involved in continuously interrogating the nationalist project.As has been arguedforcefully by M S S Pandian, Periyar's concept of nation 'denied its origin in the classical Indian/Tamilpast and envisaged it wholly in the anticipatory' [Pandian 1993]. Periyar'strajectoryis interesting as, unlike Ambedkar afterhim, he did have a brief five year spell of political life as a committed GandhianandCongressman. In this phase, Ramasamy was fiercely nationalist and it was with his gradualdisenchantment with Congress that he re-evaluated his understanding of British rule. It was then that he came to the conclusion that "if we had remained the slaves of north Indians, we

wouldhaveremained'sudran','rakshashan', 'kundakan', 'kolakan', 'asuran', ipratikolan', 'narakan'..." [Pandian 1993]. His final break with the Congress came in November 1925, with the KancheepuramConference of the Tamil Nadu Congress, when two of his resolutions on in support of 'communal representation' were disallowed [Pandian 1993]. In his interventions at the Kancheepuram conference he was candidthat, '(I)n ourpresentsituationmany fear that swaraj if granted will only usher in brahmanaraj. If, in these days of British rule, it is possible for some to prevent others from walking down certain streets and to prevent them from having access to water from the village wells and ponds... what would they...not do if they came to wield [political] authority? What horrors would they not perpetrate?' [Geetha and Rajadurai1998]. There are many different phases through which his critiques of nationalism pass but all throughthem what remains more or less constant is the attack on the many faces of brahminism as the centre-piece of that critique. It finally led, despite Ambedkar, to his "painstaking... interrogations of the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly. It culminated... [in his] rejection of the Constitution of India..." [Geetha and Rajadurai 1998]. Although, unlike Ambedkar, Periyar actually remained a strong votary of socialism - what he called samaldharma and an admirer of the Soviet Union. He also remains firm in his rejection of religion and his strong advocacy of rationalism, science and progress. And yet, his subject is neither the industrial proletariat northe abstractunmarkedcitizen produced within a discourse of universal history. His search for the Self leads him toranexercise analogous to that of Ambedkar's. He therefore produces a narrative of Indian history as one of the perennial struggle between the subjugated dravidas and the subjugating aryans.16His search leads him to the discovery of the dravidaSelf, which he occasionally expands to include the sudras and the ati-sudras of the north - an untenable exercise in terms of the canons of history in whose name the fight was being conducted. But then, thatis precisely the point. History, in this struggle, was not a scientific, objective reading of the past - it was what it has always been. It was a narrative already constituted by and therefore subordinate to the political demands of the present. Often, this history was not 'memory', it was instituted as memory to fill the big absence that was

the denial of the adi-dravida and shudra past. But this mode of 'modern scientific history', as against the Vedas, Itihasas and the Puranaswhich he relentlessly critiqued as 'irrational' and 'unscientific' was a necessary condition of emancipation, for it framed the entire constitution of the nonbrahmin, dravida Self. Despite E V' Ramasamy's great appreciation of socialism, he, like Ambedkar came intoconflict with the communists and socialists. He argued that class divisions in Hindu society were inscribed within caste divisions. "(B)rahmins lived of their intellectual capital and spiritual surplus while the non-brahmins, denied easy access to either, had to labour to live. The division of labour into intellectual and manual labour and the elaborate religious and cultural codes devised to validate this division were considered by the Self-Respecters to be fundamental to the problems of justice and equality in caste society" [Geetha and Rajadurai1998]. The modern category of class was thus constituted by the very nature of modernity's articulation with the non-modern, by the existence of caste. In concluding this discussion then, I wish to suggest that the very existence of dalit politics, both during the anticolonial struggle as well as in the present, continuously disturbs and challenges the binaries of nationalism/imperialism and secularism/communalism, refusing incorporation into either term of the binaries. Its very existence therefore challenges the complicity of the two terms which effectively serve to prevent the emergence of the dalit as subject. It keeps irrupting as the problematic thirdterm repressedby the.modern discourses of secularism, nationalism and secular-nationalism. In fact, as our discussion shows, the argument is that, precisely at the moments when the dalits begins to find their voices it is the binary mode of conceptualising politics that seeks to stifle it. What continuously pits the dalit against these categories framing thought and political action, therefore, is the experience of subaltern location, which experiences modernity as simultaneously liberatingandas denial of voice andagency. This is what gives centralityto the category of experience in dalit scholarship and lies at the root of the widespread distrust of non-dalit accounts of dalit history. What appears here as the.essentialisation of dalit identity in this insistence of dalit accounts of their own history, seems to be in fact, an attempt to reclaim dalit

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voice from the hegemonic practices of historiography. To go back to Sumit Sarkar then, the 'deafening silence of historiography', I would suggest, needs to be understood as the effect of what can be called, with apologies to Kant,the 'categorical imperative' of modern politics as it historically came to be.

Caste and Political Society

It is necessary, at this stage to underline that the discussion so far deals explicitly, with only one aspect of caste in modern society. This is exemplified by the existence of 'caste' in the modern Self in the form of the committed secularist-liberal/ Marxist individual. I have tried to break down the category of the 'brahminical Marxist'in dalitbahujan discourse, in order to understand the existence of this self. This modernindividuated self inhabits the ground of high modernity in India - the groundof civil society, governed by modem notions of citizenship and defined by contractualrelations and rules of free entry andexit. Equality, autonomy, deliberative procedures of decision-making are the values that underlie the functioning of the institutions that constitute it.17 On the other hand, there are vast domains of life that are differentially incorporatedinto this arena of citizenship. The history of the modem Self in India - and indeed in many non-western, post-colonial societies - is markedby the existence of a very large domain where very different, often contradictory processes are at work. The advent of modernity has transformed the overall context and provided a kind of institutional set-up within which the so-called traditional has to negotiate its daily existence. In this domain of daily transactions between the traditional and the modern, we see the continued existence and salience of caste, religion or ethnicity as it struggles to adjust itself to the new languages and practices of a moderndemocratic polity. I will call this domain, after Partha Chatterjee, the domain of political society. The kind of secularised self discussed earlier, represented by the liberal/Marxist individual actually consists of a small, if crucial dimension of 'our modernity'. In this other vast domain there are people who could even be described as say, 'full-blooded casteists'. If we look at the ways in which routinely, everyday discourse is marked, even in the cities, by the languages of caste, religion and the like, we would be

compelled to acknowledge that there is a great deal of truthin the dalit critique that the brahminicalcastes have taken over our public institutions and colonised the public sphere. And yet these too are neither traditional nor modern. These modes of existence representattemptsat negotiating the new world in languages that inflect the languages of political modernity with a distinctly 'traditional' flavour. To understandthe dynamic of what I am referringto, let us look at the phenomenon of caste associations. In the late 60s, Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph described this politics of the caste associations as the modernity of tradition[Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph 1967]. In this pioneering study, the Rudolphs described caste associations as 'paracommunities' that 'enable members of castes to pursue social mobility, political power, and economic advantage'. They argued that '(t)he characteristics of the paracommunityresemble in manyways those of the voluntary association or the interest group familiar to European and American politics' [S Rudolf and L Rudolf]. This was so in the sense that membership in the association was not purely ascriptive. Birthin a particularcaste was a necessary but not a sufficient condition of membership in the association. More importantly, they argue, When caste associations turned to the state for furtheringtheir purposes, their initial claims were aimed at raising caste status in termsof the values and structure of thecasteorder.Butas liberaldemocratic ideas penetratedto wider sections of the population,the aims of caste association beganto shift fromsacredto seculargoals. Insteadof demandingentry into temples, prestigiouscaste names, and 'honorable' occupations and histories in the Census, the associationsbegan to press for places and in the new administrative educational institutions and for political representation. Independenceand the realisationof political democracyintensifiedthese new concerns.Caste associationsattemptedto have theirmembersnominatedforelective office, workingthroughexisting partiesor formingtheirown; to maximisecaste representationand influence in state cabinets and lesser governing bodies.Perhapsthe most significant aspect of the caste association in the contemporary however, era, has been its capacity to organise-what appearsto be a politically illiterate mass electorate. Doing so enabled it to realise in some measure its new formed aspirations and to educate its members in the methodsandvaluesof politicaldemocracy [S Rudolf and L Rudolf 1967:32, 33].

There is a lot of empirical work that has been done since, in more recent times, that has made us alert to the more complicated dimensions of the developments that the Rudolphs refer to. In the first place, it can be argued that even the early attempts at recognition of their status by the state which the Rudolphs think are in terms of the values of the caste order are, in fact, not so. Once the technologies of colonial governmentality were in place and the operations of enumerationand state recognition introduced the new dimensions in the recognition of status, the desire to get that recognition was already located outside the framework of the caste system. Sanction of status by the ritual authorities was subverted at the very instance the caste associations came into being. This continued well into the post-independence period. In one early study by Rajni Kothari and Rushikesh Maru (1965), for instance, the authors showed how in the formation of the Kshatriya Sabha of Gujarat, a marginal peasant and landless labourer caste called bariyas, and the bhils - a depressed tribal community - combined together under the leadership of twicebornrajputs.Kothariand Maruarguedthat the socially and politically democratic character of the Kshatriya Sabha was evident in the motivation behind its formation."Casteconsciousness played a part, but not for the purpose of preserving caste traditions and customs but ratherof transforming them through political power" [Kothari and Maru 1865]. In a study conducted aroundthe same time by Myron Weiner (1967), this secularisation of caste became more evident. One of the respondents told Weiner, for instance that being a rajput 'is not a question of blood but of spirit and action'. Another told him that '(t)he kshatriyas are a class, not a caste', while yet another told him that if the bhils are brave enough, we will call them kshatriyas [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967]. The change in status, notes the study is not 'merely rhetorical', andthat,at least within the sabha, 'bariyasnow sit on charpoys...on an equal level with rajputs' [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:101]. The more important point however, is the suggestion thatthese associations have turned out to be paracommunities, implying that they have become detached in some way from ritual hierarchy and are emerging as equal to other communities or paracommunities, playing a mediatory role between the 'illiterate mass' and the political system. It is here, in this arti-

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culation of the new caste-community interests in relation to the state and at the same time, in making the new languages more intelligible to the masses they seek to representthat the caste association, and by extension, communities in general, open up a new domain of political transactions between the two worlds. The Rudolphs correctlyobserve that the leadership in the caste association is no longer in the hands of those qualified by heredity. 'The availabilityof association leaders is conditioned by their ability to articulate and represent the purposes of the caste association and for this purpose they must be literate in the ways of modern administrationand the new democratic politics' [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:34]. The very organisation of the association then acquires the structure of modern voluntary associations: 'It has offices, membership,incipientbureaucratisation, publications and a quasi-legislative process expressed through conferences, delegates and resolutions' [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:35]. The Rudolphs also refer to a study by Willaim L Rowe who reviewed 'the doctrinal orientations' of the Kavastha Samachar of Allahabad between 1873 and 1915. The interesting thing about this journalof the All-India KayasthaAssociation is that mid-way through its existence it underwenta change of nomenclatureand became the HindustanReview. Rowe also foundthatby 1905, "thespecifically 'caste' matters have been relegated to the rear section...with an increasing number of articles on national and political questions... (sometimes) by Parsi, Muslim and foreign writers."He also quotes an editorial in the June 1901 issue entitled 'Caste Conferences and National Progress' that argued that caste feeling hindered 'true national feeling' [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:125]. And yet, if were to conclude from this evidence thatcaste has become thoroughly modernised, we would be making a mistake. In order to understandthe existence of caste in this wider domain, we need to referto what-Harold Gould calls 'compartmentalisation'.In his study of the Lucknow rickshawallas, Gould found that all the personsin his sample adheredfairly strictly to the norms of endogamy. They dined too with members of their own caste groups 'under domestic conditions despite the fact that during working hours they constantly violated the rule enjoining commensal exclusiveness': According to Gould, 'respondentssaw no inconsistency in this', as 'they held that their work is part

of one domain with its specific necessities respecting social interaction while their domestic or non-work life is quite part of another' [Gould in Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:121]. This compartmentalisation of the domain of thehome and the family from thatof the workplace - and in a larger sense the entire public domain is a crucial mechanism by which I believe, this other self negotiates modernityandits processes. The Rudolphscall this 'the Indiandilemma' and describe it as the 'contradiction between public ideology and private commitment' [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:130]. They go on to argue, along with Gould, that '(p)rivate commitment to tradition,to ascriptive communities and their values, however, not only is compatible with continued modernisation but also, as long as it remains private, facilitates it by providing adaptive institutions' [Rudolf and Rudolf 1967:130]. One would think, even the continuance of the practices of untouchability in the private domain, along with other less abhorrentcaste practices, are also compatible with modernisation.In this other domain of political society, at least, it continues to be so. In more recent days, D L Sheth has also pointed to the continuance of similar trends of secularisation of caste. On the basis of CSDS' election survey data, he has argued that caste has ceased to 'reproduce' itself as an institution of ritual hierarchy. His description tends to come close to that of the Rudolphs',.that caste has in fact become a kind of 'paracommunity'. There is one problem, however, with this reading presented by the above studies. Despite obvious merits, they producethese descriptions within an overall narrativeof modernisation.All these studies conducted in the 60s, carrythe stamp of the times and the imprintof the modernisation theory is writ large all over them. These studies then, can only see these developments as different stations on the high road to modernisation of the peripheries of the non-western world. The idea of compartmentalisation or the 'Indian dilemma' appears then, to be of major significance, as the assumption is that as long as commitment to ascriptive identities can be kept at a privatelevel they can facilitatemodernisation. And like the west, where religion has been consigned to the private realm, these commitments here too can become and remain private matters. Continued adherence to them can therefore present no problem to the modernising project. The dilemma, in other words, should be

seen as no more Indian than it is of the west. Considerable amount of scholarship interrogatingthatkind of an understanding of the modernisationprocess has now made all the problems with it manifest. Without going into the details of such a critique, we can simply note that it eventually ends up overlooking the specificity of different, alternative modernities. From such an understanding, it is only possible to see these hybrid formations as incompletely modern, but nevertheless, on the way to becoming fully modern ones. If however, we see the domain of political society as one of transactions between the to worlds, then it is not possible to ascribe any telos to it, as the modernisation theorists do. Itis necessary to underlinethatthis simple story needs to be complicated today in order to properly grasp the trajectory of modernity in postcolonial societies like India's. The problem with this trajectory of postcolonial modernity, is that not only was it an elite project as indeed, it was in the west too. Its problem probably, was also that it was the project of an elite that discovered its Self in the humiliating experience of colonial domination. It wanted to be modern, for it understoodthat that was the very condition of its liberation from foreign domination, but it wanted to do so on what it considered to be its own terms. Undoubtedly, this elite was a brahminical Hindu elite and the terms on which it imagined its national liberation to be possible was therefore, by declaring its sovereignty in the spiritual/cultural domain [Chatterjee 1993]. This was what led, from the early years of the formation of nationalist discourse, in its moment of epiphany, to the stifling of all the impulses of internal social reform within 'communities and effected a closure that has been at the heart of the problem of our modernity. The critical point is therefore, that "the search for a postcolonial modernity has been tied, from its very birth, with its struggle against modernity" [Chatterjee 1983:75]. The specific context of our colonial encounter and the way in which nationalism took shape then could not but lead to other such closures - as for instance among the Muslims.18 The modernising project, in our context then, is likely to always carry the trace of this past. In some of his recent writings, Partha Chatterjee has also suggested that there is lodged, in the very constitution of postcolonial democracies, a contradiction that he describes as one between modernity and democracy. If by democracy we

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mean, not merely a set of institutions, but more importantly,the 'entry of the masses into politics', then the ways in which this entry materialised, in the first place, is furtherlikely to pose a constant challenge to the project of modernisation. I would therefore,argue with Chatterjee,and in the light of our discussion so far, that the contradictionis what ensures that the very character of our modernity, therefore, is fraught with all these contradictory impulses. For this reason, even though caste remains but a trace of itself, and may thus have ceased to reproduce itself, it is like the religious community and communalism, bound to acquire a new life within the logic of the modem regime of power. The new dalit critique of caste, then is really not so much about untouchability and the ritual practices associated with caste in the private sphere but needs to be understoodas a continuing struggle against the modern incarnations of 'casteism'. In this sphere, the point I wish to underline in conclusion is that these modern incarnations of upper-caste privilege continue to have a powerful after-life, precisely because they are no more articulatedin the old language of caste. Their new resilience depends entirely on the modern discourses of 'efficiency', 'merit' and even 'hygiene' - when for instance, questions of purity andpollution come to be articulatedwithin a wholly modern universe. To that extent, the language of our secular discourse, provides it with its most effective political weapon. [[D

to the resort by nationalistsof all hues to a now lost glorious past (now Hindu, now 'secular') as the civilisational foundation of nationalism.He says that, on such occasions, "itbecomesdifficult- even fora Nehruwriting his Discovery of India - to resist the further slide towards assuming that that unity, after all, has been primarilyHindu"and adds:"The slide was made easier by the undeniablefact that the bulk of the leading cadres of the nationalistandeven the Left movementshave come from Hindu uppercaste backgrounds" [Sarkar 1997:363]. 3 Quoted in Gail Omvedt (1994) p 177. It is worthnotingthatfor reasonsjust the opposite, the daltis too see the Poona Pact as a disaster - not of course to the 'freedom movement'. 4 See also, Aditya Nigam (1996), 'India After the 1996 Elections: Nation, Locality, AsiantSurvey, Vol XXXVI, Representation', No 12, December 1996. 5 I do not intendto underplaythe contradictions andconflictsbetweenthedalitsandtheshudras, butclearly,I do notalso intendto pitone against the other- especially when,.Ibelieve thereare certain importantcommon elements of their critique, relevant for my purposes - despite the morerealcontradictionsin the real world. The entire discourse of Kanshi Ram and his BahujanSamaj Party, in fact centres around theconstruction this largerBahujan of identity. Therearequitea few non-dalitscholars,mostly from the more backwardcastes, who have affiliatedthemselves,in theSaidiansense, with the dalit position and are accepted by large sectionsof the movementas theirs.I will thereforetreatthemas giving voice to thisdiscourse. 6 I have quoted from an unpublishedversion of the same article. 7 This expressionis suggestivelyusedby Geetha and Rajadurai(1998). 8 Quoted in Geethaand Rajadurai,1998. p 317. The rest of the discussion in this section is based on this work and on M S S Pan-dian (1993, 1995). 9 Quoted in M S S Pandian (1995), 'Beyond ColoinalCrumbs: School, Identity Cambridge Politics and DravidianMovement(s)', EPW, February 18-25, p 387. 10 I owe this point to a discussion with Nivedita Menon.Further discission with M S S Pandian in helped me sharpenthe understanding the context of non-brahminism. [I thank M S S Pandianfor extremely helpful 11 I owe the point about the emergence of the discussions in the course of.formulatingdifferent 'brahmin' as a political category to M S S partsof thepaper.I also acknowledgethe influence Pandian, male in a personal communication of long interactionswith Mohandas Nemishray to me. and Vijay Pratap,throughwhom I first learntthe 12 For a more detailed consideration of this intricacies of dalit politics, while at Lokayan, category, see the last section of this paper. Delhi, and to ChandraBhan, through whom I 13 Some commentatorsin a recent volume Dalit some citical insights. Critical inputs from gained Jan-Ubliar (ed Kanwal Bharati et al; nd the participants (particularly Jagpal Singh) of the Lucknowpoint probably1999),BMPrakashan, and Seminaron'Ambedkar SocialTransformation' outthatenthusiasts class-struggle of considered held in December 1999, in Panjab University, caste an 'unnecessary complication', better and in the fellows seminar in the Chandigarh, look ahead(Renu ignoredandwantedto rather Centre Studies,NehruMemorial forContemporary Rathor,Ashish Rathorand Aviram, Dakkhin Museum and Library also helped refine the Toley Ka Saval, p 284). considerably.Seriouscriticalcomments 14 HereI am slightly misusingAlthusser'snotion argument from Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar and Rajeev of the 'essential section' or coup d'essence, Bhargava also helped me sharpen many thoughmy use of it also falls, strictlyspeaking, To formulations. Nivedita Menon I owe a special within the termsdefined by him. See Reading debtforhavinggone throughsuccessive draftsand Capital, p 94. given her inputat every stage. This paper is part 15 One may note that Ambedkaroften uses the of a larger study on the 'Crisis of Secularterms governing and servile classes to denote Nationalismin India'thathas been made possible castes. by funding from SEPHIS, Netherlands.] 16 It may be mentioned that Ambedkar had 1 The term'bilateral relationship'in this context rejectedthis Aryandomination.theory, though otherslike JyotibaPhuleupheldit. It has since has been used by Heater, p 115. been revivedby KanshiRamandthe BSP. See 2 Later in his book, he does suggest precisely whenreferring Dube (1997) for details. sticha sociologisticexplanation

17 For a quick definition, see ParthaChatterjee (1998), 'Introduction',Wages of Freedom Fifty Years of the Nation-State, Oxford University Press, Delhi, etc, p 10. 18 Since this essay is part of a larger ongoing project, I am only indicatively referring to some of the ideas that have been developed in the other parts of the project.

References
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Economic and Political Weekly

November 25, 2000