A file photo of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue being renovated ahead of his birth anniversary on April 14 in Mumbai's Thane (Express Archives)This book of essays edited by K Raju is an eclectic mix of erudite scholarship sprung from a theorist’s insight on anti-caste themes with its mix of vicissitudes and conformism. Reminiscent of the writings by BR Ambedkar, each of these essays helped me embrace the “emotional in the intellectual”, to borrow a phrase I had subsumed from a thought-provoking piece in the Round Table India — an anti-caste platform owned and run by Ambedkarites.
This book has arrived after about two decades of Dalit activism on social media, where platforms which are uncensored (due to the absence of a centralised editor) helped nurture a radical anti-caste vision that gathered momentum. This book of essays could be one of its outcomes. It is a welcome addition to the national discourse spearheaded by Ambedkarite Dalits in the Rohith Vemula era. The icing on the cake is that this book is dedicated to two stellar poets from the Dalit community who are still unsung heroes — Gurram Joshua (1895-1971) and Boyi Bhimanna (1911-2005).
At the outset, there are three aspects to this book that enthrals the Ambedkarite in me. Firstly, these essays are thorough engagements with anti-caste themes, varying from electoral and judicial reforms to more hip vistas like the advent of Ambedkarite cinema and emergence of anti-caste politics in the Indian diaspora in the West — all conceived in the English language for a discerning reader. These are not essays where the agency of the author is severely curtailed due to the intervention of a translator who may not have harnessed a political vision aligned with Ambedkarite ideals.
Secondly, the choice of authors commissioned to contribute to the anthology is an interesting mix of various dimensions of difference — old school, as I understand it (such as Sukdheo Thorat and Rajasekhar Vundru ) and new school (such as Jignesh Mevani and Suraj Yengde). The inclusion of millennial voices like Pa Ranjith is, indeed, a whiff of fresh air. While only a handful are from academia, others come from the heat and dust of election rallies, gaudy oratory and tireless shooting schedules, or hustling in bureaucracy. This makes for an interesting spectrum of Dalit activism/engagement with anti-caste missions in the 21st century. The other enriching aspect is the vision towards diverse streams of economic emancipation for Dalit bahujans. On one end, we have a consciousness of thought represented by Mevani, who calls for a judicious mix of Marxism and Ambedkarism and, for whom, coinages such as “Dalit capitalism” may not be so palatable. On the other end, there is an essay with a clarion call for entrepreneurship revolution among Dalit bahujans by Priyank Kharge and Neeraj Shetye . This is, indeed, a quest to understand the truth of the new India with all its diversity and inequity, albeit in the post-truth era.
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This book reached me for a prospective review when Mevani was languishing in prison on charges of (false) cases. He was granted bail later and the police were reprimanded by the honourable court in Assam for misuse of state machinery. As expected, his essay weaves a narrative that intertwines class and caste aspects of the wider struggle that he urges all of us to embark upon. There have not been many essays like the kind Suraj Yengde writes, which connect ant-caste struggles to other struggles elsewhere across the globe and give us a vision that may transcend any geography.
Yengde’s essay spells out a blue-print for international activism that can be spearheaded by anti-caste crusaders from the ramparts of their NRI status. Students who graduate from higher-education institutions in India and elsewhere, and who may later become globetrotters, can use this particular essay as their manifesto. His current position as a senior fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, is definitely a shattering of the glass ceiling and a beacon of light for Dalit activists of his generation.
This might be the first-ever full length essay by RS Praveen, a former civil servant from Telangana after he quit government service to work towards his vision of an egalitarian society. The essay by Pa Ranjith bares the flip side of his much touted success story in Tamil cinema. I have followed these younger cohorts of mine on social media with great interest.
This book is the brainchild of K Raju, former civil servant and now a politician with the main Opposition party of the day. The book comes like a ray of hope as it inextricably intertwines erudition and scholarship with practice — be it in electoral politics, cinema, academia or poetry, making it a crucible where perspectives from theory and hands-on-practice enrich each other.
Another fascinating aspect of this book and the well-researched introduction by K Raju is that certain salient features of the accomplishments of the Congress Party towards Ambedkarite ideals are documented. These can be much valued ammunition in the arsenal of an Ambedkarite when battling Sanghis/Internet Hindus.
The few shortcomings of this books that crossed my mind is that though Sudha Pai is one of the authors, there is a conspicuous absence of an essay from an anti-caste feminist perspective. The editor could have solicited at least one essay from an Ambedkarite feminist woman or a queer-anti caste scholar and obliterated the vacuum emanating from the absence of an intersectional queer or feminist scholar voicing her strand of emancipatory vision. The Northeast of our country has also been missed in this otherwise commendable quest for the “truth of our nation”. Perhaps, this is a lacuna in the ideals propounded by mainstream politicians of India.
Chandramohan S is an Indian English Dalit poet based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He was a fellow of the IWP at the University of Iowa
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