Ideology and Expansion

How “certain” Ideologies Expand

During World War 1, a wave of nationalism had swept through Europe, even the communists wanted their own “Imperialist monarchs” to win over a foreign one. There was a major individual exception to this trend. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, popularly known as Vladimir Lenin, wanted the Russian Empire to lose this war. He wanted them to lose this war because that would lead to a social and political revolution. A foul rhyming of the “revolution” during aftermath of Russo-Japanese war of 1904–05.

He was a German Military intelligence plant, but this was his position even before he became an agent. His reasons for this range from him wanting the proletariat to overthrow the Imperialist Bourgeoise and usher in Marxist ideals to wanting to turn the Imperialist War into a civil war to “help the Russian proletariat”.

The reason was much simpler and sinister. He wanted the Russian proletariat to suffer so that they hated the bourgeoisie enough to want to overthrow them with violence andperform righteous atrocities to avenge centuries of oppression. He knew that the only way to ensure a communist revolution was suffering, whether he engineered that suffering was immaterial. The war had already cost the Russians enough resources and the populace was suffering, but a loss would be the final straw as it would lead to riots and those riots would be quelled with force, leading to more suffering. They would use Russia as a base to expand Marxism all over the world.

Ideologies expand due to either institutional support: Nehruvian liberalism(Congress Party, colleges), Hindutva(Sangh Parivar) or Lohiaism (Chaukambha, JDU, RJD, and SP) or due to increased suffering: Nazism, Communism and Anarchism. Some increase due to a mixture of both institutions and suffering. The ideologies mentioned are not mutually exclusive in their modes of expansion.

My interest in this subject came about due to the accusations being leveled at the Bhartiya Janata Party of helping the Ambedkarites in spreading their ideology. While this may be true to some extent for visibility, it is utterly false for their expansion. It is an ignominious view of the political movement and the institutions which were formed for the expansion of the said ideology.

The origins of the Dalit Panther lies in the failure of the Republican Party of India(RPI) as after the death of their founder and leader, Dr. Ambedkar, the party broke into personality headed factions as by 1974 there were four separate factions in the RPI, the B. C. Kamble group, the Gawai group, the Khobragade group in Nagpur, and a group led by Ambedkar’s son, Yeshwantrao[1]. The Dalit Panthers felt that the RPI had abandoned its original aim; therefore, a new movement was required, a new revolutionary zeal.

The Dalit Panthers were formed in the year 1972 and started gaining prominence in Mumbai in the year 1973. Their Manifesto stated[2]:

We do not want a little place in the Brahman Alley. We want the rule of the whole country. Change of heart, liberal education will not end our state of exploitation. When we gather a revolutionary mass, rouse the people, out of the struggle of this giant mass will come the tidal wave of revolution…. We will build the organization of the workers, dalits, landless, poor peasants throughout all city factories, in all villages. We will hit back against all injustice perpetrated on dalits. We will well and truly destroy the caste and varna system that thrives on people’s misery, which exploits the people, and liberate the dalits. The present legal system and state have turned all our dreams into dust. To eradicate the injustice against dalits, they themselves must become rulers. This is the people’s democracy. Sympathizers and members of the Dalit Panthers, be ready for the formal struggle of dalits.

While the Dalit Panthers make it clear that their goal is complete domination of all facets of society. I do not understand how this State and legal system destroyed their dreams as the state bans untouchability, allows for no discrimination of caste, gives equal opportunity, and indulges in positive discrimination in support of them. The only logical answer to this is that society at large behaved in a discriminatory manner towards them, which is regrettable but not out of the ordinary, as societies by nature change slowly and have changed. The only other reason I can guess is domination and revenge for perceived and real transgressions against them for their caste. Even Gail Omvedt, an Ambedkarite-Marxist sociologist/intellectual says that the Dalit Panthers were[3],

With their language of exploitation and revolution, with their spearheading of the dalit claim to be the “true proletariat,” the Panthers seemed almost an urban reincarnation of the Naxalite revolt.

She also correctly claims that they were not violent like the Naxalites, but a political vocabulary resonant with violence, the Panthers captured newspaper headlines in India and abroad and they did employ abusive language as a form of rhetorical violence as seen in the Marathwada episode where they ignited a riot by insulting “Caste Hindus” which resulted in expansion of their ideology[4]. She sees the movement as a cultural revolt against classical Marxism and as they force Marxist intellectuals to add both class and caste to their sociological analysis. I also discussed how both Marxist and Ambedkarite-Marxist analyses seek to fume further violence within society[5], which provides cushioning to Omvedt’s argument regarding Ambedkarites being Urban Naxals.

We see this trend of violence leading to expansion of their support base. Sometimes it was caused, other times it was not but it helped organizations like the Panthers expand their foot-print within dominant Dalit communities.

Worli Riots

Let us see this through the first example[6], Worli riots of 1974[6],

The riots occurred on 5 January when the speakers at a Panther rally were stoned after they allegedly made some obscene comments about Hindu deities. The exact cause of the outbreak is, however, in dispute. It was said that some Congress leaders had attended the rally in the hope that the Panthers would come to an agreement with the Congress in return for the withdrawal of pending police cases against some Panthers. This did not happen and the rioting began.

The riot is condemnable because it employs Matsya Nyay and resulted in violence against the Buddhist Mahars. It is important to note that this violence did not take place against Dalits such as Mangs, Chambhars or others who are still largely Hindu, but against Buddhist Mahars who were associated with the Dalit Panthers who used abusive language towards Hindu deities. Violence is condemnable, but it was more of a religious riot rather than a caste riot or as Gail Omvedt says, a caste war. It is also noteworthy that the riots reportedly started after individuals associated with the Panthers started abusing the Hindu gods and hurt the religious sensibilities of the Hindus. It would also be a false argument to state that it only hurt the sensibilities of caste Hindus as it hurt the sensibilities of all Hindus including Dalit Hindus like Mangs and Chambhars.

This pattern is also seen in the Marathwada riots, where a Dalit Panther leader abused the “caste Hindus,” and when they retaliated with violence, they did not need to employ said violence against other Hindu Dalits. In some cases, the Mangs and Chambhars participated in the riots against the Mahars, which is condemnable.

Marathwada Riots

A Dalit Panther leader, Ganghadhar Gadhe went ahead and decided to hurl caste abuses on the “Caste-Hindu” students. This led to a takeover of a student movement by the Dalit Panthers. Dipankar Gupta captures in his paper how this single movement led to a larger caste riot[7] through the region and how Gail Omvedt’s definition of it being a caste riot does not makes sense as,

if it had been only a caste war then the Mangs, Chamars and the other castes lower than the Mahars, and therefore infinitely more despicable to the upper castes, should have been affected, their persons threatened and their proper destroyed. On the contrary, this did not happen.[8]

Dipankar Gupta is also not completely right as he does not take into account the caste hatred of the Dalit Panthers against the so called Caste Hindus[9], into account and even of other Dalits against the members of such organization, as in many places the Chambhars and Mangs did attack the Mahars with the so called Caste Hindus[10].

The actions of Dalit Panthers have always resulted in breaking of any form of solidarity between all Dalit groups. Another similar incident which thankfully did not turn violent and abusive was the Ganesha temple incident in Sangli 1974[11],

In February 1974 the confrontation concerned the temple of Ganesha, a privately-owned Hindu shrine in Sangli. The Sangli Panthers announced that they intended to offer worship in this temple, causing a furore through out the caste-Hindu community. The Shiv Sena threatened violence. But the Panther leaders at their meeting stated that as they had renounced the Hindu religion there could be no question of their wanting to offer ritual worship and that their first announcement was intended merely to expose the caste-Hindu animosities against the dalits and the hypocrisy of the Hindus.42 The Ganesha worship stunt thrust the Panthers of Sangli into the public eye though it is doubtful if it had any lasting or constructive effect on the growth of their oiganisation. On the other hand it hardened the attitudes of the caste-Hindus against the Panthers and detracted from the Panther programme as a whole. It affirmed Panther militancy without strengthening their credibility and it further alienated them from the Chambhars and Mangs who remained loyal to Hinduism.

While it can be that it was due to the caste of the Panthers that they were not allowed into the temple, it can also be due to their incendiary rhetoric they had employed before in literature and their poetry[12]. The Panthers as a whole were infamous around Maharashtra due to their production of literature and poetry, even though they did not have a centralized leadership structure[13].

The literature they were infamous for was either abusive towards the Hindu gods and Caste Hindus or towards Liberal Bouregoise intellectuals, some examples of these are,

One day I cursed that mother-fucker God (Keshav Meshram)
No! No! No! A triple rejection
To your economic, social, political, mental, religious moral and cultural
pollution.
You ever-living, ever-luminous suns!
Your very touch brings a contagious disease! (V. L.Kalekar) 2

They had also challenged the liberal intellectuals to become prostitutes through their literature if they saw it as a honourable profession after a liberal literature elite had called the profession an honourable one.

These incidents had made them infamous in most intellectual and literature circles.

The Dalit Panthers themselves as a movement broke up due to the same reasons as the RPI: personality-driven factions. It would be unfair to only call it a break-up due to personalities, as there was a component of ideology that was a part of it. They primarily broke up into pro-Naxal Marxist-Ambedkarites and Buddhist Ambedkarites. The personalities who were leaders of these two groups were Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale[14].

At a conference called in Nagpur in late 1974 the Dhale group took control, rejecting the manifesto, expelling Dhasal, beating up a couple of the leftist dalits and their upper-caste Naxalite friends. The Dhasal activists did not even try to attend; they failed in building an alternate organization. Dhale’s Panther faction itself lasted only about a year, until its’leader declared it dissolved and announced the formation of a new organization called “Mass Movement.” This was in the middle of the Emergency, and his opponents charged that he had done so out of fear of repression. In 1976 the younger section of the Dhale group, led by Arun Kamble and Ramdas Athavale, took up the cause of rebuilding. They called themselves the “Bharatiya Dalit Panther,” making a claim to all-India status, on the grounds that units were getting built up all over the country. The reconstructed Dalit Panthers also had a strong cultural focus. Their demands included a number of issues regarding the educational system, extending facilities to dalit converts to Buddhism, and a nominal demand for “nationalization of basic industries”

We all know what happened to the Bhartiya Dalit Panthers as their leader Ramdas Athavale is part of the ruling NDA and has been part of the UPA. Their other leader Arun Kamble was the National General Secretary of Janata Dal.

The differences between Dhasal and Dhale can be taken more into acount with their view of Buddhism and Dr. Ambedkar himself,

Dhale’s views of class and caste[15]:

On conversion the untouchable became a new man, with a new sense of his humanity and new values. For Dhale and his group, this was the most important single event in the history of Untouchability. Con version to Buddhism was also an essential element in the development of a viable political movement, for the new Buddhist identity and self-image generated by it would unify the dalit community and become the basis for effective political action. Buddhism had enabled the ex-dalits to join the world Buddhist community, ending their isolation as a degraded group. It would also eliminate caste divisions among the dalits and enable them to join forces with other Indian minorities. The propagation of Buddhism would give the movement an instrument to penetrate the rural areas and to mobilise the rural masses for political action. The buddhist temple could thus become the new focus of unity and a base for politicisation.46 Dhale questioned the sincerity of the caste-Hindu dalits and the communists and other left parties and felt that Dhasal’s alliance with the CPI would only lead to the exploitation of the new Buddhists for communist purposes.

Dhasal’s views of class and caste[16]:

Dhasal, on the other hand, saw untouchability as primarily a politico economic disability and criticised the Dhale group for injecting religion into an essentially political problem. This problem could be successfully handled only through unity with other minorities, poor peasants, share croppers and political parties representing them. In such a task caste or religion would only be divisive and Dhasal accused Dhale of playing caste politics. Dhasal argued for collaboration with non-dalit Hindu exploited castes and classes.

Dhale’s views of Dr. Ambedkar[17]:

For Dhale, Ambedkar was more than an extraordinary political leader; he was a prophet of superhuman nature. His statements acquire a quasi-divine character demanding unswerving loyalty. Ambedkar gave meaning to the history of India’s untouchables and restored to them their lost humanity. It is Ambedkar who, in his mission, became the denning element in the identity of the dalit community.

Dhasal’s views of class and caste[18]:

Dhasal and his group unequivocally accept the pre-eminent role of Ambedkar as a leader but deemphasise the super-human and quasi-sacred characteristics of his personality and writings and speeches. They argue that one man alone does not make history, and seek to ‘demythologise’ Ambedkar and evaluate his role and teachings within the context of the present political situation.

An analysis of the present-day Dalit movement will show that the Dhale group won the ideological conflict as the Dalits did not ally with Naxals nor become Marxist in orientation to a large extent, and have allied with the larger Neo-Buddhist movement.

Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner in her paper contends that the Dalit Panther movement, while being revolutionary and radical, did not change a lot for the Dalit movement or Dalits on the ground and that their biggest contribution was the literature and criticism of liberal-bourgeoise or Caste Hindu literature from a class and caste perspective respectively[19]. This is a myopic view of the movement as it broke the lethargy within the movement and led to expansion.

For this, we would need to understand why the Dalits convert from Hinduism to Buddhism. Dalits, ranked lowest on the Hindu caste hierarchy, first started converting to Buddhism as a political gesture in 1956. This was the year Dr. Ambedkar embraced Buddhism, contending that this was the only way to escape caste oppression. The community has continued to use initiation into Buddhism as a gesture of protest. The conversion is not only a sign of changing religion but also announcing allegiance to the larger ideology in its entirety. After every episode of violence, dominant Dalit communities against whom the violence was exercised have converted to Buddhism. The two incidents I covered above, the Marathwada riots and Worli riots, both led to mass conversions to Buddhism in both Marathwada and Worli for the Mahar communities, who happen to be the dominant Dalit community[20].

Another incident which proves this were the anti-Dalit Gujrat riots which took place in 1981 after the Gujarat government announced the implementation of the reservations of the Baxi Commission. Massive attacks on Dalits began, with agitations initiated by a medical students’ strike accompanied by garlanding of Gandhi’s statues and emotional propaganda about the effects of being operated on by incompetent Dalit doctors. The strike turned into gangster-type attacks on Dalits in the cities and dominant caste onslaughts in the villages of north Gujarat[21].

In 2017, after the Saharanpur riots, 180 Dalit families converted to Buddhism as a form of protest[22], but, unlike before the Saharanpur riots have become rarer than before and that has led to decrease in conversion to Buddhism[23]. Karnataka which had faced similar increased conversion to Buddhism due to caste based atrocities on Dalits as a community have seen a decrease as caste based violence has decreased.

Some people have claimed that the Saharanpur riots also took place due to the Bhim Army but the claim is far fetched at best and malicious at worst. It as a riot was condemnable as it resulted in the death of both Dalits and Rajputs which is tragic.

The reason for the conversion rate decreasing is due to violence as a whole decreasing within India, and therefore, another revival of a Dalit Panther-esque organization who calls themselves an army seeks to revive the same conditions, which will once again lead to more violence and therefore expansion of their ideological base. The book Internal Security in India states how caste based mass violence has decreased even though it fuels resentment to this day, as the victims naturally remember it of such grossly perpetrated violence[24] and so have riots as a whole[25].

A interesting observation

Before the inception of the Dalit Panthers, Congress dominated the Dalit movement in the two states where the Ambedkarite movement is now dominant, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The reason for their domination were not because the Congress was good at communicating but because they were allied or had powerful Dalit leaders, who happened to be Hindutvavadis. The two leaders being Ganesh Akkaji Gavai(G.A. Gavai) and Babu Jagjivan Ram. Babu Jagjivan Ram had opposed Dr. Ambedkar on his conversion to Buddhism as by converting to Buddhism according to him would be to give up on the aim of the movement which was to get dignity within the Hindu faith for the Dalits[26]. Him being a Hindutvavadi is proven after his participation in the founding ceremony of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad(VHP)[27],

Ganesh Akkaji Gawai was a powerful Dalit leader from Maharashtra who ensured the defeat of Scheduled Caste Federation from Berar with Mr. Khandekar as the Congress could not win in Berar. This was the opinion of Sardar Patel[28].

People will also read that Gawai did not want to work with the Congress because their ideologies did not match. G.A. Gawai was a lifetime member of the Hindu Mahasabha[29]. His collaboration with the Congress took place even after Independence to ensure that Ambedkarism as a whole would not gain dominance, and he was successful in his mission, until his death, as many Dalits from Bombay were joining the Shiv Sena and not the RPI[30], until the formation and prominence of Dalit Panthers after his death. He also supported the Rajah-Moonjee Pact, which was more popular within the larger Depressed Classes Community over the Minorities Pact, which was supported by Dr. Ambedkar. [31]

The Dalit Panther movement in Maharashtra took ground within the dominant Dalit communities in the year 1974, to be exact. They were formed in the year 1972. BAMCEF, which was formed in 1971, won ground after the year 1979, by then, the scandal of Babu Jagjivan Ram’s son had taken place, which led to his prestige taking a hit in both social and political realms. In 1982, a book was published, called the Chamcha Age, which was an attack on “fake Dalits”, who did not support the Ambedkarite party. In this case, the BSP. Babu Jagjivan Ram was even attacked by Gail Omvedt as a capitalist apprentice of the Congress [32].

Some other realities:

A fact that is of interest to me is that ideologies can only grow in vacuum of accepted terminologies within the Political Parlance. In India, those being primarily socialism and social justice. Ambedkarism in its earliest form used to campaign on both. In certain places, they were not successful as there was no vacuum.

1. Strong OBC politics: In regions with strong OBC politics, where the plank of social justice and socialism has been taken over by the landed castes or dominant non-brahmin classes, such as Bihar with Lohiaism, Tamil Nadu with Dravidianism, and South Maharashtra with the Purogami movement. This is not to say that these places do not have Ambedkarite undercurrents, but that these undercurrents are subsumed within the larger non-Brahmin movements.

2. Communism: States with large communist party membership tend not to have strong Ambedkarite movements due to the emphasis on class instead of caste like Kerala.

3. Failure of ideology: In Bengal, many efforts by leaders such as Jogendra Nath Mandal were made even after the disastrous partition experience, and the ideology still holds dominance in intellectual circles, but overall has been wiped out of public memory as the Dalits of Bengal, known as Namasudras, are members of Matua Mahasangh.

4. Hindu Religious groups: The Warkari Samapradaya and its perceived message have led to the Ambedkarite movement being weak in Southern Maharashtra, due to the devotion of Dalits towards Hindu Saints, such as Chokha Mela, the author himself is a devotee of the great saint. In Bengal, the Matua Mahasangh fills this role, their philosophical leader, Harichand Thakur, has twelve instructions to his followers. These twelve instructions are: (I) Always speak the truth (II) Treat the woman as your mother-being; Respect the woman (III) Always respect your parents (IV) Treat your neighbors and all earthly living beings with love, pity, and kindness (V) Never discriminate on racial grounds (VI) Bring all the six passions of the mind under your control. These six passions of the mind are — Lust, Anger, Greed, Infatuation, Pride, and Jealousy. (VII) Remain liberal to all other religions and creeds (VIII) Become honest in mind and activities and avoid saintly dress to adorn yourself with (IX) Perform your duties devotedly and utter the sacred Haribol and pray to God simultaneously (X) Build a temple of pure thoughts in your heart and soul and a temple of Shree Hariparameshwar at your dwelling place (XI) Pray daily to God with devotion and sanctity (XII) Sacrifice yourself to the cause of God[33]. The riots between the Namasudras and Muslims in Bengal and the subsequent support by Hindu leaders and the Hindu Press also led to a feeling of community with the larger Hindu society, which did not happen in other regions[34].

5. The local traditions of certain regions also change the dimensions of the social structure in a manner that such movements gaining ground becomes a uphill battle. States in our North with strong Yaksha cults and Chela traditions which are usually strong within the lower castes have ensured a feeling of fairness within society as the Chelas get to decide who can and cannot enter the temple and the Chelas are also treated with respect in society at large. A similar practice was seen in the movie Kantara. The temples in these places also offer a feeling of spiritual egalitarianism due to their structure, climate and size.

Conclusion

Certain ideologies require violence and social disruption to grow. India cannot allow such ideologies to create a state of perpetual violence as it is obstructive towards our goals. The State should take strict action against elements who would like to foster violence within society and destroy societal cohesion. It is of great importance that the State use all means it has to stop these ideologies.

Footnotes:

1. The Dalit Panthers and the Radicalisation of the Untouchables by Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner pg 85

2. Reinventing revolution : new social movements and the socialist tradition in India. page 55

3. ibid pg 55

5. ibid para 12

6. The Dalit Panthers and the Radicalisation of the Untouchables by Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner pg 87

7. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3516774?read-now=1&seq=12

8. ibid pg 10

10. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4405671?read-now=1&seq=1

11. The Dalit Panthers and the Radicalisation of the Untouchables by Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner pg 88

12. ibid pg 91

13. ibid pg 88

14. Reinventing revolution : new social movements and the socialist tradition in India. page 66

15. The Dalit Panthers and the Radicalisation of the Untouchables by Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner pg 90

16. ibid pg 90

17. ibid pg 89

18. ibid pg 89

19. ibid pg 91

21. Reinventing revolution : new social movements and the socialist tradition in India. pg 79

22. https://www.indiaspend.com/dalits-are-still-converting-to-buddhism-but-at-a-dwindling-rate-34369

23. ibid para 9

24. Internal Security in India pg 20

25. ibid pg 16

26. https://inc.in/congress-sandesh/tribute/jagjivan-ram-an-administrator-par-excellence

27. Makers of Modern Dalit History by Guru Paswan

28. Selected Correspondences of Sardar Patel from 1946–50. Volume 2.

29. Rajah-Moonjee Pact by Meenakshi Jain and Devendra Swarup pg 196

30. The Dalit Panthers and the Radicalisation of the Untouchables by Jayashree B. Gokhale-Turner pg 85

32. Reinventing revolution : new social movements and the socialist tradition in India. pg 85

33. https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2007558.pdf

34. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4396995?read-now=1&seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents pg 3–5