The Dalit Deśiyata: Introduction
The Introduction to The Dalit Deśiyata: The Kerala Experience in Development and Class Struggle outlines the central ideas that frame A. M. A. Ayrookuzhiel’s edited volume. The introduction argues that the historical experiences of Kerala’s Dalits with development and class struggle have led many towards the idea of Deśiyata, presented as an alternative framework for understanding Dalit identity, political power and liberation.
The introduction examines the limitations of development programmes and class-based politics in addressing caste oppression. Ayrookuzhiel argues that state-led development has largely failed to transform the conditions of Dalit communities, while Left movements have not adequately confronted the structural realities of caste. He also critiques the Marxist understanding of caste as merely a superstructural phenomenon, proposing instead that caste is deeply embedded in India’s material, cultural and religious life.
The full text of the Introduction section is reproduced below.
Full Text
This book basically deals with three ideas: Development, Class struggle and Deśiyata. The first two were at the centre of the ideological perceptions and struggles of Kerala Dalits for the past four decades. The historical experiences in these two areas have convinced them that they have reached a blind alley and their true liberation cannot come from these sources. This realisation made them move towards a third idea in recent years as the centre of their search and activity. Namely, that they are a “mardita Deśiyata” oppressed nationality of more than one-fifth of the Indian population who must have their due share in power if they are not to be deprived of their due share in the division of the nations’ wealth, rights and benefits as citizens. This is an idea originally Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had fought for, but eventually had to give up, faced with the threat of fast unto death by Mr. Gandhi for a compromised formula now known as “reservation”. But this idea is re-emerging now with a popular mass base among the Dalits all over the country is clear to any observer. The emergence of Dalit organisations, Dalit political parties contesting elections to various representative bodies, the growing interest in Dalit history and culture, the increasing body of a distinct Dalit literature, the enormous popularity of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, all point to the one and only conclusion that the long submerged Dalit consciousness is on the rise which is bound to acquire its organisational and political forms in the future.
Turning to the other two ideas, the problem with development is that the Dalits remain the objects of the process of development, but the non-Dalits, its executors by and large, lack the will to develop the Dalits. The story of the Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restriction on Transfer of Lands and Restoration of Alienated Lands) Act given by Kuttikrishnan is a good example of this lack of will. The Act was passed unanimously by the legislature in 1975 with a cut-off year of 1960. But it had to wait till 1984 to be brought into effect. It took them another three long years to frame the rules for implementation. Meanwhile the cut-off year had been brought forward to 1982 from 1960 which in effect was sanctioning the plunder of tribal land done during the peak period. The latest records show that 66 acres of land had been distributed to the original owners belonging to Scheduled Tribes. How much public money was spent by the Government for this great dispensation during the 15 years of the chequered history of this Act is anyone’s guess. But one thing is certain that it had all gone into the pockets of the agents of development such as bureaucrats, legislators and ministers. What we know for sure is that over this period 90% of Tribals had become landless agricultural labourers. But that it is not an isolated example is clear from Dr. Sivanandan’s paper, who after examining the various indices of development with regard to Dalits, like land allotment, type of employment, special schemes for the upliftment of the Dalits and programme for diversification of their occupation, concludes that the gains accrued to the Dalits from all these plans remain marginal and they continue in deprivation and poverty. The picture is not anything better but worse if you take the all-India scene as can be gathered from the documents of the Planning Commission, reports of the Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and from other detailed studies by scholars.
The major portion of the papers in this collection deals with Dalit experience with the idea of “class struggle”, a means to the solution of their problems advocated by the Left movement in Kerala. The essays point out that the so-called class struggle has ended up as trade union activities of agricultural workers so far as the Dalits are concerned. The Left parties not only failed to crack the hard nut of caste; on the contrary the party’s programmes, political calculations and structures of the party itself reflect the caste structure of the society in general.
Here I should point out that the Indian Marxists’ understanding that the ideas, values and practices associated with caste are of the nature of superstructure and it will wither away as the means, the relations and the forces of production change, is too simplistic to be true. I would rather hold that ideas, values, practices associated with caste are Indian society’s statement on the power distribution and status relationship among different religio-cultural and ethnic groups which has its basis not only in the material conditions of our society but also in our religious institutions, traditional laws, social conventions, philosophical ideas and art forms. This being the case, the idea of Dalit Deśiyata is a good tool to bring about a change in the distribution of power and status among competing groups, wherein as much emphasis is made in changes in the material conditions as in the cultural and religious sphere.
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