Resumo de Social Status Quo - Chandra bhan Pasad

THE UNTOUCHABLES
In June this year, a Dalit panchayat chief, Adiamma was removed from her office in Karnataka. Her only crime was that she continued with her toilet-cleaning job even after becoming president of the panchayat. A few years back a Dalit youth was forced to swallow human excreta in a Karnataka village. Similarly, in southern Tamil Nadu, a Dalit MLA was shoed away, abused and humiliated publicly, when he visited his constituency, simply because he was a Dalit and yet he had audacity to visit his constituency and hear people s grievances.
In most parts of rural Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, hotel/tea shops maintain two-glass system one for Dalits and other for non-Dalits. In all the three States, practice of untouchability is rampant in its crudest form, incomparable to rest of the India. The pattern of violence in this part of India contains medieval era characteristics, and is comparable only to the pattern of violence in western UP, Haryana and parts of Rajasthan bordering UP.
A few years back, in district Mathura of UP, a Dalit youth and Jat girl were hanged from a banyan tree. This gory crime occurred in daytime, witnessed by some 20,000 people. Their only crime was to enter in wedlock, defying the caste norm. About a year back, Gujjars of district Dholpur, Rajasthan caught hold of a Dalit youth, punctured his nose, and put a thin rope, meant for stitching jute bags, through it. The bleeding victim was paraded in the village streets. The victim, Rameshwar Jatav ran a small grocery shop, and had demanded Rs 50 from Kamlesh Gujjar, who had bought items on credit.
There is no dearth of such incidents to illustrate the point. Every year, during the marriage season, we come across news items how a Dalit bridegroom was attacked for riding a mare. Also, the Dalit panchayat chief elected from reserved seats in this region, face similar social handicaps as witnessed in the southern States.
What is common to both the regions? Climate, cropping pattern, language, dress and food-habits are all radically different. It should have been only natural that the pattern of violence in both the regions was either radically different from each other, or similar to the pattern as witnessed at all-India level. Contrary to that, both the regions have a distinctly similar pattern of violence, distinctly dissimilar to the rest of India. Why?
If there is any commonality in the two regions in question, distinct from the rest of India, it is the social composition of the ruling castes. In both the regions, Brahmins have a thin presence, and Kshatriyas are virtually non-existent.
Traditionally, the upper Shudras have owned agrarian assets, but were subjected to politico-cultural dominance of Brahmins. In post-Independence period, slowly but steadily, they consolidated their political power as well, replacing Brahmins decisively. Despite that, at cultural level, their dominance lacked socio-cultural legitimacy, neither Brahmins and nor Dalits, for their own different reasons, accepted them as the ruling castes.Traumatised by this unique varnal-caste logic of power and legitimacy, the upper Shudras tended to invoke fundamentals of the Chaturvarna value system, as it existed earlier. Since a social order of the medieval era cannot be enforced today, it only adds to frustration. In order to gain an upper varna-like dominance, violence is the most reliable and the final tool that the upper Shudras know. In both the regions in question, there exists a parallel system of governance, where regulatory authority of the modern State is subjected to the antiquated laws of Chaturvarna order. If in a couple of decades, migration of upper Varna population from rural India to urban India is accomplished, and the upper Shudras take full control of rural India, the Italian fascists, in their graves may feel ashamed of being amateurs. The Dalits and the artisan OBCs, who together constitute about 57 per cent of India?s total population,and who are the real proletariat, have a tough task at this juncture of history. While the struggle for a democratic social order has to fight the upper Shudras in rural India, it has to oppose the upper Varnas in urban India. As if that is not enough, it?s also has to fight the intellectual hegemony of both the ruling social blocks. And the progressives expect the people to believe in the following:

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