The Time of the Dalit Conversion

Author(s): Gyanendra Pandey

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 18 (May 6-12, 2006), pp. 1779+1781-1788
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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Special

The

articles

Time

of

the

Dalit

Conversion

More than a reference to the mass conversion of dalits to Buddhismin 1956 and to other
religions in subsequent years, "dalit conversion", in this article, also denotes their conversion
to full citizenship that followed with the abolition of untouchability,institutionof universal
adult franchise, extension of legal and political rights to all sections of the population,
with special safeguardsfor disadvantagedgroups. It could also denote a conversion to the
"modern"- signified by a certain sensibility, particular kinds of dress and comportment
and particular rules of social and political engagement. The time of the dalit
conversionis also then the time of Indian democracy - a time of definition, anticipation and
struggle, as seen in the call to educate, organise and agitate.
GYANENDRAPANDEY

et me startby clarifyingtwo termsin my title.By "dalits" urgent political debates of the 1940s and 1950s related to the

I refer to India's untouchables or ex-untouchables,

'acchuts', harijans, scheduled castes, to cite a few of the
names used to describe them. As we all know, the many dimensions of dalit deprivation included an extremely low ritual status,
generally wretched economic conditions, and a denial of access
to many common cultural and political resources. However, the
term"dalit"(literally, "crushed","downtrodden"or "oppressed"),
widely used as a term of description for those at the very bottom
of the social, cultural, economic heap, is also now used as a term
of militant self-assertion on the part of many of those so
oppressed. Several of the submissions and stances that I discuss
in this paper will reflect this sense.
'Dalit conversion' refers, at first glance, and in its most likely
usage, to the mass conversion of dalits to Buddhism in 1956 and
afterwards, as well as to Islam, Christianity and other religions
at various other times, both before and after 1956. However, I
want to use it also to refer to the conversion to formal citizenship
- the abolition of untouchability in the Indian Constitution, the
institution of universal adult franchise, the extension of key legal
and political rights to all sections of the Indian population, with
special safeguardsand supportfor specially disadvantagedgroups
- with all the consequences this has had for Indian society and
politics. I use it, moreover, to distinguish anothertendency, which
may be described loosely as a conversion to the "modern": a
condition signified for many by a certain sensibility, particular
kinds of dress and comportment, and particular rules of social/
political engagement. This is signalled in the dalit struggle by
the emphasis placed by B R Ambedkar and other dalit leaders
and spokespersons on rationality, education, "cleanliness" and
the call for a move to the cities.1

Sovereignty and 'Internal Colonialism'

The time of the dalit conversion that I am speaking of is (in
its most obvious calendrical sense) the 1940s and 1950s, the
moment of establishment of the political in the Indianpostcolony,
although it is a fight that continues until today. Some of the most

question of the rights of minorities, and to the question: "Who

are the minorities?" The dalits laid claim to being a minority,
even a "nation", like the Muslims and the Sikhs. Several dalit
spokespersons advancedan argumentfor a separate 'Acchutistan',
to match the Muslims' 'Pakistan'. A special Scheduled Castes
Political Conference held at Allahabad in December 1942 declared that "India [was] not a nation but...a constellation of
nations," one of which was the nation of untouchables or scheduled castes.2 Ambedkarapparentlymade the same sort of claim
in 1944. He is reportedto have said that Gandhi and Jinnah were
making a serious mistake in holding exclusive talks on the
constitutional future of India, for "[b]esides the Hindus and
Muslims, the scheduled castes are a third necessary party."And
again, a few days later, that the scheduled castes were "no part
of the Hindu community, but constituted a different nation."3
It requires no great insight to observe that the question of the
dalit conversion is tied up with the question of decolonisation
in the subcontinent. One might, however, turn that statement
around. The question of decolonisation has almost everywhere
been linked with the real or perceived threatof persistent internal
colonialism(s). It is this issue of internal colonialism that was
invoked directly or indirectly by numerous dalits, as well as by
Muslims and others, in the India of the 1940s and since. The
charge is not advanced commonly now,4 but the argument
underlying it remains importantand provides, in my opinion, one
of the more importantframes for a discussion of the dalit struggle
from independence to today.
In the dalit (as in the Muslim) case, we are dealing with a
population that is widely distributed over a 'national' territory,
and with disadvantaged communities which have come over time
to some kind of mutual accommodation with more privileged,
numerous and powerful groups, although they have done so in
a markedly hierarchical manner. The political question in such
an instance is this: what happens to the "minority", to Muslims
or dalits in India (or to African-Americans in the US), if the
"majority"gains an apparentlyunfetteredright to rule and to lord
it over the "minorities",and a sense of colonialism persists even

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1779

after the establishment of formal democracy? It is in this context

that we might understandAmbedkar's comment on a new, and
in his view unjust, tax levied by the Congress government on
the lowly mahar population of Bombay Presidency in 1939: "It
is good that the Congress has revealed itself so soon and that
it did not wait till it had secured full swaraj when it would have
been so terribly difficult to remedy matters."5
The difficulty faced by such a "colonised" population is clear,
although it has not to my knowledge been widely discussed, far
less theorised. The problem with this kind of internal colonialism
is that the colonised cannot escape in a physical sense. They have
no independent territoryof their own: they cannot emigrate, and
they cannot send the colonisers home. What is more, they cannot
easily lay claim to an independent history and culture: indeed
they gain their identity at least in part by their incorporation into
the dominant culture or society: 'African-Americans', "the
Muslims of India", untouchable Hindus. I shall return to this
problem at several points below.
I have referredto the claim made by Ambedkar once or twice
in the course of the urgent constitutional negotiations of the mid1940s that the dalits, like the Muslims, constituted a nation on
their own. At other times, he was more circumspect, arguing at
length that the dalits were "a separate element in the national
life of India", that the refusal to allow this minority its proper
representationwas precisely the political problem of the untouchables, that the attentionCongress paid to the place of the Muslims
should not be at the expense of "the other communities who need
more protection",and that the executive power in the government
of independent India should have its "mandate not only from
the majority (Hindus) but also from the minorities (Muslims,
Sikhs, Christians, dalits and so on) in the legislature".6 With this
last argument, put forward in a 1945 speech on the "Communal
Deadlock and a Way to Solve It", Ambedkar also suggested "a
rule of unanimity" as the principle of decision-making in the
legislature and the executive. This would put an end to the
communal problem, he declared.7
In making this proposal, the dalit leader overlooked the internally differentiated and contested character of community no
less than of national politics in the subcontinent. In the event,
the "minorities" failed to gain anything like a veto power in the
political processes of the new India. In the idealism of the
moment, and the aftermath of Partition, no communal grouping
was to be permitted to challenge the unity of the nation again,
and anyone who urged political differentiation among India's
citizens on grounds of religious or caste community was on the
defensive. Religious groups (majority and minority) were guaranteed the protection of their religious institutions and the freedom to profess and practise theirfaiths. However, the independent
state would have no differential "political" rights for religious
or social minorities, except for a 10-year period of grace during
which limited support- in the form of reservations in legislatures
and government services - was to be provided to the most
depressed castes and sub-castes.8
Forthedalits,therewas an additionaldifficulty. While Ambedkar
and others sought to obtain recognition of untouchables as
a minority, no different from Muslims, Sikhs, Christians,
Anglo-Indians and other such minorities, the fact is that the
untouchables, outcastes, depressed classes, harijans, scheduled
castes, whatever the name we might use for them, gained their
distinctiveness - at least until they were constituted into a

Economic and Political Weekly

legally recognised minority - precisely from the fact of their

untouchability, that is, the discrimination they suffered at the
hands of Hindu society. Gandhi was, as always, quick to point
out the contradiction in this position. "We do not want on our
register and on our census Untouchables classified as a separate
class," he declared at the Round Table Conference in London
in 1931. "Sikhs may remain as such in perpetuity, so may
Muhammadans, so may Europeans. Will Untouchables remain
Untouchables in perpetuity?"9
In this respect, the dalits were caught in an extraordinarybind
- that of being Hindus and non-Hindus at one and the same time.
Consider the ambivalence that appears in Ambedkar's
presentation, as law minister, of the case for the reform of the
personal law of the Hindus. At one stage in the debate on the
Hindu Code Bill, he referred to the Hindu shastras as "your
shastras". To a member's interjection ("Your shastras?"), he
responded by saying, "Yes, because I belong to the other caste;"
and, a little later, "I am an unusual member of the Hindu community." At another point in the same debate, he spoke of "our
ancient ideals which are to my judgment, most archaic and
impossible for anybody to practise."10 There was clearly no easy
escape from the aggrandising character of "Hinduism" even for
a leader who had declared, 15 years earlier: "I had the
misfortune of being born with the stigma of [being] an
Untouchable ..It is not my fault; but I will not die a Hindu, for
this is in my power."1l
Paradoxically, then, it was precisely their untouchability
within Hindu society that dalit leaders had to assert in order
to try and gain recognition as a "minority", with the safeguards and rights appropriate to a minority in a democratic
republic. More, once the principle of affirmative action and
reservations had been accepted to give the disadvantaged and
"backward"classes a fairer chance in the life of the republic,
this "minority" status as an untouchable community was what
Ambedkarand others had to fight to preserve even afterthe formal
conversion of particulardalit groups to Buddhism, Christianity
or other religions. Witness Ambedkar's comment in the course
of his speech on the occasion of the conversion of October 15,
1956 - "Even after conversion to Buddhism, I am confident, I
(or 'we', the dalit community) will get the political rights"'2 and the demands made in recent years by groups of Christian
and Muslim dalits for an extension of the benefits of reservations
to them.
The aporia of internal colonialism is here compounded by
the need to underline a historically inherited subalternity.
Unable to leave the shared territory, or claim a completely
independent history, the colonised use every means to hand in
the struggle to gain equal rights alongside their (erstwhile)
colonisers. Occasionally, in the course of such struggles, subordinated groups have turned to the option of converting out of
the colonisers' religion and cultural dominance. Sometimes, they
have taken a step further, and moved to an attempt to convert
the colonisers. This, I shall argue, is part of the claim in the dalit
case: and it makes for a fourth sense of what I am calling the
dalit conversion.
The issue, one might suggest, is one of sovereignty - of the
grouping of humanity into (ultimate) friends and enemies, including internalenemies, as Schmitt would have it.13 If the uppercaste Hindu distributionof this was into something called "India"
and its "development", on the one side, and anyone who would

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1781

divide or detract from it, on the other, the "minority" version

of it was that of a federation of communities threatened by an
arrogant and unduly privileged "majority".14 If the secular
Congress leadership rendered this as a war between India and
Pakistan (or India and Balkanisation), between religion and
society, science and superstition, Ambedkar rendered it as a war
between brahmanism and Buddhism in which superstition was
very much on the other side.

The New Society

Consistently throughthe 1940s and 1950s, Ambedkarand other
dalit leaders and activists called for a reform of Hindu society.
"Those who want to conserve must be ready to repair," as
Ambedkar put it during the debate on the Hindu Code Bill. "If
you want to maintain the Hindu system, the Hindu culture, the
Hindu society, do not hesitate to repairwhere repairis necessary."
Hindus were the "sick men" of India, he wrote on another
occasion, in 1944. It was necessary to generate a new life in
Hinduism. For this the Hindus could draw upon principles found
in their own ancient sources.15 But the surest means of assuring
progress and the greatness of the country as well as of the wider
world, was to embrace the faith of the Buddha and its fundamental
principles - liberty, equality and fraternity.
"Indianstoday are governed by two different ideologies. Their
political ideal set out in the preamble to the Constitution affirms
a life of liberty, equality and fraternity.Their social ideal in their
religion denies them." Thus Ambedkar in 1954. Hindus would
have to convert to the religion of the Buddha "fortheirown good."
"I have to do the work of conversion."16
The need for social morality and rationality, a religion that was
grounded in human experience and reason, that could adapt to
changing times, that called for constant questioning through the
application of knowledge and reason, this is what, in the dalit
view, set Buddhism apart from the superstition of Hinduism.17
Ambedkar's recasting of Indian history as an extended and
unfinished struggle between brahmanismand Buddhism, and the
more general meaning of the 1956 conversion, have been extensively analysed.18 Ambedkar was looking for "a broadly
humanist and social religion", one scholar notes. He found this
in Buddhism. Deeply committed to a scientific outlook, Ambedkar
used "the yardstick of modern science, and its universalist claim
to reason" to "test" the different world religions. "He did this,"
suggests MartinFuchs, "not in orderto disown religion, but rather
to find out and reclaim ancient moral insights - which had proved
their trans-historical validity - and return them to his contemporaries."19
The time of the dalit conversion was, from one point of view,
the time of the conversion of all of India - and the world. It was
not a conversion that looked primarily to the past - to provide
"memory to a memoryless people", as D R Nagaraj evocatively
put it - although that was certainly part of the argument, and
partof the reason for the recovery of Buddhism and of the history
of struggle between brahminism and Buddhism. Rather, as
Ambedkar's restatementof Buddhism showed all too clearly, this
was a conversion for the future. To a religion of humanity; of
liberty, equality and fraternity - but especially of equality (between men and women, upper caste and lower caste, class and
class); of reason; and of progress - with compassion and understanding and a minimum of violence.20

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For a fullerappreciationof the challengeimplicitin this, we

need to examinea numberof contemporary
politicalissues not
dalit
conversion to
the
of
the
with
linked
question
directly
Buddhism.One of the most hotly contestedof these was the
India'sfirstlawminister,
reformof theHindulaw.As independent
Ambedkarwas responsiblefor shepherdingtheHinduCodeBill
throughParliament.This was a very wide-rangingpiece of
legislation,aimed at codifying and reforminga multitudeof
Hindupracticesin relationto marriage,divorce,adoptionand
inheritance.The dalit leaderconsideredthe measureso fundamentalto the new Indiaof his dreamthat he cited the failure
of the governmentto enactit in full as the majorreasonfor his
resignationfrom the union cabinetin October1951.
Among the reasons that led him to this difficult decision,
Ambedkarnoted, was a sense of personalfrustrationand disatnotbeinggivena morecentralplacein thecabinet
appointment
andits functioning,dissatisfactionwiththe foreignpolicy of the
government,and indignationover the continuedneglect of the
problemsof thescheduledcastesas well as thebackwardclasses.
Buttheeventthatfinallyled himto resign,he said,was his bitter
disappointmentwith the way in which the issue of the Hindu
Code Bill had been pursuedin Parliament- lackadaisically,as
he saw it, withundueandexcessive timidity,followedby a final
surrenderthat he judged to be a capitulationto the forces of
reactionand orthodoxy.21
"TheHinduCodewas the greatestsocial reformmeasureever
declared
undertaken
bythelegislatureinthiscountry,"Ambedkar
in the statementexplaining his resignationfrom the central
government."Nolaw passedby the Indianlegislaturein the past
or likely to be passedin the futurecanbe comparedto it in point
of its significance...Toleave inequalitybetweenclass andclass,
betweensex andsex whichis thesoulof Hindusocietyuntouched
andto go on passinglegislationrelatingto economicproblems
is to makea farceof our Constitutionand to builda palaceon
a dung heap. This is the significanceI attach... to the Hindu
Code."22
Whatexplainsthis extraordinary
emphasison the reformof
the Hindu law? It may help at this junctureto returnto the
metaphorof internalcolonialismand my propositionthat one
wayto liberationforthecolonisedwasbyconvertingthecoloniser.
The importanceof the HinduCode Bill for Ambedkarlay precisely in the opportunityit presentedfor such a conversion.In
speakingof the bill, the dalit leaderstressedthe benefitsthat
would flow froman end to discriminationon groundsof caste,
and from the economic independenceof Hinduwomen which
was a necessaryconditionof theirsocialadvance."Anyone who
has studiedHinduLaw carefullywill have to admitthat...there
areprinciplesin the HinduLaw whichdiscriminatebetweenthe
savarnacastes andthe shudras.They also discriminatebetween
a male Hinduanda femaleHindu."23He arguedalso that"the
sameset of laws shouldgovernHindusocial andreligiouslife;"
sucha developmentwouldbe "beneficialfromthepointof view
of the country'soneness."24
Thereis somethingironicin thedetermination
shownby a law
minister,who had vowed not to die a Hindu,to do everything
he could to bringaboutfundamentalreformin "Hindusociety"
for the progressof "thecountryas a whole".However,it was
not only at the level of theirmost visible andarticulatespokespersonthat dalits were seeking this kind of change in social
practicesandmores.Considertheparallelexampleof a dalitcivil
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May 6, 2006

servant who served in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)

for five years from 1959 to 1964.
"In an independent cc ntry, the responsibilities of the administration are not confined merely to law and order, for [the
maintenance of] the status quo," Balwant Singh writes in his
autobiography,written a few years after his resignation from the
IAS in May 1964 and published in the 1990s. "In a welfare state
the man in the street also has something at stake and his progress
and development are of paramount importance." He speaks of
the need to purge the Hindu religion of its social evils, "for a
house built on discrimination and hatred cannot stand and this
ancient religion should ensure a life of dignity and respectability
to its poor and low brethren.... That is not possible until it is
free from the stigma of high and low and [continues to be] without
equality, liberty and fraternity..."25
The autobiography, tellingly entitled An Untouchable in the
IAS, provides a detailed account of the circumstances that led
Balwant Singh to quit what was in the 1950s and 1960s, and
for some time afterwards, the service of the educated middle
class's, and even more emphatically the dalit graduate's dream.
He spells out in the text his understandingof the needs of a new,
democratic society and the reasons for his own clash with the
establishment, which was to lead to his resignation from the
covenanted service. The young officer's brief career in the IAS
ended soon after he recorded a combative statement against
persistent caste prejudice, derision and discrimination in
public life, and against the unacceptably slow pace of change
in the new India, which had committed itself to the establishment
of a modern,democratic, even "socialistic" society in the subcontinent - "the judgment on untouchability that created so much
uproar", as he titles it in bold type in an appendix to his
autobiography.
It will help to quote from Balwant Singh'sjudgment at some
length. This was a case in which a poor wayside barber
showed his disinclination to cut the hair of a dalit customer, and
then gave him a hair-cut only after demanding an unusually
high price and insisting on doing the job outside, rather than
inside the shop. The facts of the case were quickly established
- "It has...been proved beyond any doubt that Sri Shyam Lal
went for a hair-cut to the shop of Sri Bhaiyan and he was
refused the service on account of his being a Barar...FirstlySri
Bhaiyan demanded a very exorbitant price for a simple hair-cut
and to add further insult he also asked Sri Shyam Lal to sit
out[side] the shop to get his hair-cut by which Sri Bhaiyan
thought he was giv[ing] a befitting status to Sri Shyam Lal,
the unfortunate untouchable in the society" - and the magistrate
could immediately have proceeded to pronounce his judgment
and sentence the accused. However, Balwant Singh felt the need
to pronounce judgment on the wider social forces and prejudices
at work.
This is...[the] highly derogatoryinhumanandmeantreatmentthat
the so-called untouchablecould receive from the so-called high
caste Hindusin this second half of 20th centuryindependentIndia.
In the eyes of a Hindu even a dog can be allowed to enter the
shop but not a human being who by force of circumstancesand
ill-luck happenedto be born in so-called scheduled castes. The
Hindu society is a society of defeat and degenerationand it can
inspire no confidence in the mind of a sensible human being.
Hindu society is a society of distinction[s] which have been
sought to be imposed upon the so-called untouchables.It is a
society of meanness and a storehouse of degradations. The

inhuman treatmentgiven to the so-called untouchables by the

Hindu fanatics is much worse than that given to any coloured
African by the governmentof South Africa. Every conservative
Hinduhouse is a South Africa for a poor untouchablewho is still
being crushed under the heels of Hindu Imperialism.26
The tone of the judgment was almost certain to lead to trouble
for the young magistrate, as he will surely have known.
Nonetheless, Balwant Singh felt constrained to put forward
a brutal social analysis in unapologetically polemical terms.
This deliberate departure from legalese deserves a moment's
reflection.

Reinscription of Subalternity
Like the debate on the Hindu Code Bill, Balwant Singh's
autobiographyindicates the majortransformationscontemplated,
and to some extent set in motion, in the India of the 1940s and
1950s. These and other texts tell us something about the extraordinary hopes and expectations of the time, as also about the
sense of betrayal and consequent bitterness felt by many among
the depressed castes and classes. The dalit bureaucrat'sposition
was not in this respect wholly different from that of the dalit
law minister, by whom it was almost certainly inspired and from
whose writings it borrowed directly in parts.
"The practice of violence binds them together as a whole,"
Fanon has written about the colonised.27 Ridding oneself of fear
- the fear of the white man - that was the essential condition
of swaraj, Gandhi declared. At issue in the dalit conversion at
the dawn of Indian independence, I suggest, was the matter of
the violence of untouchability and the fear of the untouchables.
It was a matter of the transformation of dispositions all round.
Let me elaborate this point a little.
Census enumerators, as well as other observers and commentators, have made the point that there was never an easy way
of separating dalits or untouchables from others among the
subordinatedcastes and classes. In the established Hindu social
system, as Robert Deliege has put it, "everyone is to some extent
impure, and ... impurity is a relative concept." Conceptually, he
argues, the impurity of untouchables - or of untouchability, as
a category - is distinctive, in that it is "indelible and irreversible."28 Nevertheless, it is necessary to note that the distinction
between the lowest "touchable" castes and the "untouchables"
is not always very sharp. Nomenclature and standards vary: the
same castes are not everywhere considered polluting to the extent
of being "untouchable", or at any rate not in the same way or
to the same extent - for there are different degrees of permitted
"touching" even in untouchability. This is where the question
of dispositions becomes critical.
Ultimately, one might argue, the question of untouchability
hinges on the matterof dispositions - of non-untouchablestowards
so-called untouchables, and of the latter towards themselves and
towards the rest of society. This is of course what Gandhi
famously contended, for all his painful vacillations and ambiguities on the subject. And this is what many dalit activists and
leaders discovered, although they saw much more clearly than
Gandhi that the political and economic props of upper-caste
Hindu dominance had to be kicked away if dispositions were
to change significantly. Balwant Singh's discovery of the IAS's
continued 'taluqdari' mentality illustrates the proposition very
well indeed.

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1783

Young men like him joined the Indian Administrative Service,

he observes in the autobiography, in the hope thatthis "prestigious
service would be responsive to the common man and provide
relief and succour by alleviating his sorrows and sufferings."
But five years in the service "totally disillusioned" him. "The
IAS was still the protector of the rich and the socially privileged
and the man in the street did not count much in their scheme."
The old order had enormous power. Caste and communal bias
persisted among the high caste officers, and "one was reminded of the taluqdari system [a particularly oppressive form
of high landlordism upheld by the British in Awadh and
certain other parts of northern India] where law was the rod
or the whims of an individual and social equality was out of
[the] question."29
The distinction between "their" administration and "the man
in the street" is a recurrent motif in Balwant Singh's autobiography: and the author himself ends up, not on the side of the
administration but that of the oppressed majority. "For officers
from the low castes things were...complicated. They were acceptable if they accepted the prevailing...social norms" (p 196).
Even this is not the whole story. For it would be more accurate
to say that while such officers were "tolerated"if they accepted
upper caste ways and attitudes, they were never fully accepted
socially.30
Low caste officers suffered from much social indignity and
humiliation. Any expression of discontent from them was met
with the response that these were "trivial", "inconsequential"
matters (p 197). The question we have to ask is "trivial" or
"inconsequential" for whom, and how frequently do trifling
insults have to be repeated before they become historically or
politically significant. The history of the trifling is precisely what
we need to rediscover, whether we seek to write feminist and
minority histories, subaltern studies, or the history of Partition
and independence.
"There were numerous...cases where the officers and other
employees of the scheduled castes became victims of day to day
social malpractices. They could not say anything because they
were [in the eyes of theiruppercaste colleagues] petty men... [who]
were born to carry out the orders of the superiors" (p 197). It
was in this context that the dalit magistrate wrote the judgment
cited above in the case of 'state vs Bhaiyan'.
The fall-out was predictable. The judgment was followed
quickly by a series of charges and complaints against the dalit
officer for his acts of commission and omission as an official
and a magistrate. While there was not a single complaint against
him until March 1964, Singh writes, the complaints came fast
and furiously in April (p 214). He was accused of lying by the
local Congress MLA, in connection with his efforts to maintain
peace on the occasion of a hunger strike by a Hindu Mahasabha
worker (p 210). He was described as unduly sensitive by the chief
secretary, the senior most civil servant of the province: "My
friend, your work is not the consideration. You are supersensitive
and not settling down" (p 215); and told by the same official
to "shut up" and not "talk like a clerk or a tehsildar" (lowerlevel officials, unworthy of the status and standing of the IAS!)
when he sought an explanation for the effective "demotion" he
was being given through a posting as assistant commissioner
(p 217: see also p 213 and passim).
It is instructive to juxtapose Balwant Singh's narrative with
reports of Ambedkar's experience, as law minister, at the hands

1784

of his fellow parliamentarians in the course of the debates on

the Hindu Code Bill. The exchanges between other parliamentarians and a dalit leader at the height of his intellectual and
political power, a member of the central cabinet in the first
government of independent India, hailed as the architect of the
Indian Constitution, and acknowledged as an outstanding scholar
and writer on a wide range of subjects, are remarkable. One is
struck repeatedly - even on the basis of the written record alone
- by the deep-seated caste prejudice and spite displayed in this
most public and supposedly most advanced of Indian political
forums. A few extracts from the proceedings of September 20,
1951 will suffice to make the point.
Responding to the idea that the longevity of the society proved
the essentialgoodness of Hindulaws andsocial structure,Ambedkar
had argued that its much vaunted adaptability and absorptive
capacity had not helped to democratise the Hindu social order.
It had failed to assimilate the Buddha's preachingof equality, for
example, while adopting a considerably watered down, and practically meaningless, version of the doctrine of 'ahimsa'. "Whatever else Hindu society may adopt, it will never give up its social
structure (which is designed) for the enslavement of the sudra
and the enslavement of women. It is for this reason that law must
now come to their rescue in order that society may move on."31
At this, Govind Malaviya, son of the renowned orthodox Hindu
scholar and politician, Madan Mohan Malaviya, and a scholar
and journalist in his own right, interjected: "Move on to what
even Buddha could not do". Ambedkar ignored him and went
on to make a point about degeneration ratherthan improvement
as the mark of Hindu history.
Dr Ambedkar:There was, as everybody knows, no caste system
among the Aryans...the varna system never came in the way of
inter-marriages.You can find many.. .cases of Brahmansmarrying
untouchable women, Kshatriyas marrying sudras and sudras
marryingupper class women.
Pandit Malaviya: Which were the instances?
Dr Ambedkar:I can give many instances if you will come to my
room. I have got them.
Pandit Malaviya: Why not now?
Dr Ambedkar:But, the Aryans never had a hide-bound social
system of class division that was later introduced.Nobody can
deny that has been a subsequent change...
A few moments later, the law minister referred to the charge
that reforms like the Hindu Code Bill were simply an attempt
to put India in the good books of the west, given that western
nations had strict insistence on monogamy and liberal provisions
for divorce. Those who made this charge, Ambedkarnoted, "have
said that our ideal should be, what? Somebody said Ram; somebody said Dasaratha; somebody said Krishna...I do not wish to
comment upon any of the ideals which have been presented to
the House, and I do not..."
Shri SyamnandanSahaya: You will be well advised not to do so.
Mr Chairman:Order, order,
Dr Ambedkar:My ideals are derived from the Constitutionthat
we have laid down. The preambleof the Constitutionspeaks of
liberty,equalityandfraternity.We arethereforeboundto examine
every social institutionthat exists in the countryand see whether
it satisfiestheprincipleslaiddownin theConstitution(pp 1160-61).
Ambedkar went on to argue for the married woman's right to
divorce, saying that "circumscribe[it] as you may, ... and... I shall
be quite prepared to consider any proposal ... from any side of

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the House to narrow down the conditions of divorce that have

been prescribed in the Bill as it stands", the constitutionally
guaranteed liberty and equality of citizens necessitated the
extension of this rightfor Hindu women. "Thatis the reason why,"
he said, "we are proceeding with this Bill and not because we
want to imitate any other people or we want to go in for our
ancient ideals which are to my judgment, most archaic and
impossible for anybody to practice." That tough statement was
of course not going to remain unanswered.

it, and at the same time part and not part of it. However, the
ambiguity of this position affected not only B R Ambedkar but
also the caste Hindus who opposed the Hindu Code Bill he was
piloting through Parliament. Was he, or was he not, a Hindu?
What right did this scion of an untouchable family have to reform
the laws of the Hindus? There was more than one legislator who
balked at this proceeding, and challenged the right of Ambedkar
to seek to don the mantle of Manu, Yajnavalkya and other
renowned Hindu lawmakers.

Dr Ambedkarhas...tried to take a place in the galaxy of Manu,

Parasharand Yajnavalkyaby following in their footsteps, but I
believe it is an unjustifiedeffort on his partbecause our traditions
have gradually evolved according to the dictates of time and
circumstances.They areformedon the basis of collective wisdom
andexperience.Therefore,the wisdomof any particularindividual
cannot affect them...we cannot violate our traditionsso simply
andso easily. We perhapsdo not even know all of these traditions.
I would challenge Ambedkar,our minister of law, to state how
many traditionsof ours, which he wants to destroy completely
throughthis Hindu Code, are there in this vast country of ours,
in the Bharatvarsh.How far is it properfor him to say that these
traditionswhich he perhapsdoes not know of shouldbe destroyed?
At this point, the prime minister, JawaharlalNehru, intervened
with a comment on the "tender skins" of some members. Many
(p 1280)
harsh things had been said earlier in speeches against the Bill
The reference to vast "traditions which (the Law Minister)
without objection from anyone, he observed: he could not see perhapsdoes not know" - set off against the "collective wisdom",
why people were objecting to Ambedkar's statements in this way. the antiquity and greatness of this 'Bharatvarsh'- suggests more
However, an agitated Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra proceeded than the limits of any individual's capacity. It also suggests, it
with anotherinterjection that is recorded in the proceedings: "We seems to me, the illegitimacy of an "untraditional"interpreter,
have been listening with raptattention to Dr Ambedkar, but what an ex-untouchable to boot, seeking to define and overhaul "Hindu
we do not want is these invectives and reflections on some of tradition" (or for that matter Indian democracy). This is not an
the best ideals which we cherish. The provisions can be defended attitude that has been easy for the upper castes and the tradiwithout injuringthe religious susceptibilities of Members." "Side tionally privileged to shed, in relation to the profession of teachconversations", as they are described in the official record, and ing, the practice of medicine, the matter of policing, or the
disturbance continued for a while before the house settled down administration of justice, as the evidence of the recent battles
to hear the rest of the law minister's statement on this particular over "reservations"continues to show. I shall returnto this point
clause (pp 1162-63).
in the last section of this essay. Before thatI wish to draw attention
Earlier in the debate, when Govind Malaviya referred to how to one other aspect of the dalit struggle in the 20th (and the 21st)
Hindu society prescribed "rightsand privileges" for the chandala centuries that has gone relatively unnoticed in the scholarly
as much as for the brahman, there had been objections from account of dalit history and politics.
various members, including the deputy speaker, on the grounds
that the use of any name that suggested untouchability was now
Multiple Requirements of Citizenship
unconstitutional. Following some further arguments suggesting
that the reference was "only to history", the deputy speaker went
In the struggle for emancipation and political rights, dalit
on to say that "all history is not very good to mention". The leaders have laid exceptional emphasis on the importance of
exchange that followed is extraordinary.
education, of refined speech ('sadhu bhasha') and manners, and
Pandit Malaviya: I was referringto it [the word Chandala]not of modem dress and cleanliness. Why is it that these apparently
as to an individual, but as to a system in the past. However, I "trivial" matters have commanded such attention in dalit
will abide by what you [the Deputy Speaker] have said.
discourse? Ambedkar himself underlined the need to look and
Dr Ambedkar:Why should you?
act like the highest castes and classes. Zelliot cites, as one
PanditMalaviya:The Hon Law Ministerasks, why I should.Only striking illustration, the 1942 speech in which Ambedkar
because I am a law-abidingMemberand not the other name that
congratulated his mainly dalit audience on their growing poI had been mentioning (p l i 12).
litical awareness, progress in education and entry into state
That scarcely veiled reference to Ambedkar's origins in an institutions like the army and the police (not to add legislatures,
untouchable community, amongst people who could easily act which he mentioned in other speeches). However, the dalit leader
like chandalas (that is to say, scum) ratherthan like law-abiding noted, "the greatest progress that we have made is to be found
citizens, was perhaps the lowest point in the debate. But the among our women folk. Here you see in this conference these
controversial question of the ability of ex-untouchables to speak 20,000 to 25,000 women present. See their dress, observe their
for Hindu society, and more broadly democratic India, runs manners, mark their speech. Can any one say that they are
untouchable women?"32
through the exchanges like an undercurrent.
There was some ambivalence in the dalits' relation to Hindu
Again, to takejust one other example, a dalit intellectual recalls
society, almost inevitably as I have noted: they were defined by the army of local leaders and activists who emerged in Bombay
Dr C D Pandey...: We are ready to supportthe Bill, but we do
not want these invectives. How far the Hon. Minister is justified
in dealing with this subject [in this way?] and resortingto such
invectives...
An Hon. Member: Why vilify the Hindu religion?.
Dr Ambedkar:Now, I come to the specific amendmentsthathave
been tabled by various Members to clause 2.
Rai...: The House is for divorceandmonogamy,
ShriKrishlanaand
but not for this kind of abuse.
Dr C D Pandey:We are for these provisions, but we do not want
these abuses and invectives.

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1785

in the 1940s and 1950s, inspired by B R Ambedkar, all of them

with two things in common - "immaculately clean attire and
impressiveoratory".He writesof a huge procession on Ambedkar's
birthday,in which women activists, "dressed all in white", played
a major part; and recalls how his own working-class parents,
affected by the Ambedkarite movement, while thrifty about
clothes, "insisted that we always wear shoes." They "brooked
no compromise in this regard. Maybe their idea of being "up
to date" was firmly linked to wearing shoes."33
The dalit stress on books and formal education, on "cultured"
speech and urban manners, clean clothes and shoes, in the
construction and presentation of the dalit self makes a good deal
of sense in the context of the struggle to transform dispositions
- that of the dalits and that of their opponents. If rationality,
science and a belief in progress was to provide the spirit of a
modern, democratic society, and adult franchise, elected legislatures and governments, a free press, transparentlaws and an
independent judiciary its political institutions, then education,
articulate speech and self-confidence reflected in dress and
manners, were the conditions of their use.
"Decolonisation is the veritable creation of new men...,"
writes Fanon: "the "thing" which has been colonised becomes
man during the same process by which it frees itself."34
Rationality, social morality and the possibility of individual
choice were. from the dalit point of view. the need of the age.
The city was their location. Nagaraj writes of the motif of
escape from persecution and the journey to the promised land:
"this time the promised land is the modern city."35 As against
the Gandhianadvocacy of a returnto the roots, the "harmonious"
village community, and the simplicity of village life, dalit
leaders have stressed the need for dalits to look to the future,
and to move to the towns where they could escape from some
of the worst disabilities of the caste system as experienced in
the countryside.
"I am...surprised that those who condemn provincialism and
communalism should come forwardas champions of the village,"
Ambedkar observed. "I hold that these village republics [and he
uses the Gandhian phrase, borrowed from colonialist writings,
with some irony] have been the ruination of India.... What is
the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrowmindedness and communalism?"36 "In this republic there is no
place for democracy. There is no place for equality. There is no
room for liberty and there is no room for fraternity. The Indian
village life is the very negation of a Republic."37
Ambedkar was hardly alone in his condemnation of the
Indian "village community". It is evident that dalits were
expected to perform functions - to follow paths. literally and
metaphorically - that were symbolic of their very low status in
ritual and social life, especially in the villages. Such has been
the weight of this history that many politically conscious
dalit youth have sought to shun the very instruments
and expertise - say, in music or in particular handicrafts that they have inherited as a mark of their lowly status.
D R Nagaraj wrote of his activist friend, Krishna, for whom
"the art of playing drums is linked with the humiliating task
of carrying dead animals. The joy of singing oral epics is
traditionally associated with the insult of the artist standing
outside the houses of upper caste landlords with a begging bowl."
He will have none of these, even when it is friends and activist
colleagues who are celebrating. "I want to forget all this," he

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screamedone night:"Iwantto forgettheirgods, theirfolk epics,

their violence."38
The discarding of the demeaning dress and speech and
deferenceof thatearlierhumiliatingcondition is a necessary
partof the dalitstruggleforfull citizenship.To Gandhi'schoice
of the loin-cloth,and his advocacyof vegetarianism,manual
labourand the simple village life, dalit spokespersonsrespond
withthestatementthattheyalreadyhavethese,indeedtheyhave
had too muchof them.Whatthey need, instead,is the hat and
the three-piecesuit, the pipe and the spectacles.It is not an
accident, as Timothy Fitzgerald notes, that the dominant
methodof representingAmbedkarin sculptureand painting,
in calendar art and in little images found in dalit homes and
offices andfairsall overthe countryis "notas a mendicantwith
[a] begging bowl, or as a meditator['bodhisattva']beneatha
'bodhi'tree,but as a middleclass intellectual,wearingglasses,
a bluesuit,andcarryinga bookwhichsymbolisestheRepublican
Constitutionand the power of educationand literacy."39The
struggleto overthrowthe marksof subalternitymust proceed
on many fronts.
Inheritance of Privilege
I want, at the end here, to illustratethe differentaspectsof
thisstruggle- to overthrowthemarksof aninheritedsubalternity
on the one hand,andto re-inscribeit on the other- by reference
to one final example,takennot from the 1940s and 1950s, but
from an encounterthat has occurredhalf a centurylater.This
is a public exchangein the form of letterswrittenin 2001-02
to a dalit columnist writing a weekly column entitled "The
Problemsof the Dalits"in a nationalnewspaperpublishedin
Hindi from Delhi.40
To put this in context,let me emphasisethatthe columnist's
own writingsare markedby some aggression,and a polemical
quality not unlike that found in many political interactions
betweendalits andnon-dalitsfrom the days of B R Ambedkar
until today. This is perhapsnot unexpectedgiven the gross
inequality and evident lack of respectful communication
between the two sides over a very long period; but it is
importantto note that the aggressionand polemic is hardly
restrictedto one side when we come to the momentof open
politicalcontest.This is what the lettersto the dalit columnist
demonstrateall too clearly.
Amongthe hundredsof lettersreceivedby thecolumnistfrom
readersof his column,a large numbercome from dalit youth
askingadvice or seeking help - to get a job or a loan, to find
waysof continuingtheireducation,to learnmoreaboutAmbedkar
or Buddhism,and to makeclear theirown desireto contribute
to the struggleandchangesociety. Therearenumerousletters
from Muslim readers, which seems a little more surprising
until one recallsthatthis is the periodof the ascendancyof an
aggressiverightwing Hindumovementdominatedby the upper
castes:in the face of the latter,targetedandvulnerablecommunitieslike theMuslimsseek to buildnew politicalcoalitionsand
see in the dalits an importantpotentialally.
For these non-dalitwell-wishersas well as for dalit readers,
the columnistis morethanjust a writer.He needs also to be a
leader,of the dalits and of otheroppressedcommunities.Dalit
correspondentscondemn as traitorsthose dalit intellectuals,
officialsandotherprofessionalswhofailto representtheinterests
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of the dalits at large, and call on the columnist to continue to

lead the struggle to raise dalit consciousness and establish dalit
power. The high stakes involved are indicated in the very forms
of address, which are extremely reverential in the case of letters
from many supportersand often downright abusive in letters from
opponents.
For some of these supporters or "followers", the columnist is
no less than "today's Ambedkar" or (in one case) "more courageous than Ambedkar". For opponents, usually from higher
castes (including some from the so-called "backwardcastes" who
do not see themselves as dalit), he is anything from "Mr Dalit",
"Mr Dalitji", "Dalit Maharaj (or 'Almighty Dalit')", "The allknowing one" and "The pimp of the dalits", to "Mr Pig", "Mr.
Shit", "Dog", 'goonda, suvar, chamar, dom', and so on. More
than a few of these letter-writers (from "respectable" backgrounds) heap every term of sexual abuse on the female relatives
of the dalit columnist, freely using words and phrases that they
would have been careful to keep from the ears of their children
(at least until the agitations that followed the decision to
implement the Mandal Commission's recommendations on
reservations for backward castes, when the tone of the conversations in upper caste and middle class homes seemed to change
overnight).
In the letters to the columnist they even threaten him with
anthraxif he does not stop abusing them, that is to say, attacking
the Hindus and their religion, dividing the nation, forgetting the
duties of Indian citizens, forgetting what "we" have done for
"you", and forgetting his - inherited - place. Some of the same
letter-writers, having heaped abuse on the columnist and his
relatives, and perhaps threatened him with anthrax and other
forms of imminent death, go on to demand the publication of
their letters in full and warn him of other untoward consequences if he fails to comply. This unrepentant exhibition
of aggression and shamelessness on the partof the "respectable"
must surely give us pause. It is a statement of extraordinary
arrogance, of the right of masters to speak as they will, of groups
who believe they are above the law (and other requirements of
"civil" society) at least in their dealings with certain kinds of
people, and of an unshaken belief in the upper castes' inalienable
right to rule.
Two letters make the point succinctly. One says: 'Upar vale
ne tumhein banaya hai hamari seva karne ke liye' (The Almighty
has made you [precisely] to serve us). The second: 'Hamarejoothe
tukde khane vale, hamare bailon-bhaison ke gobar mein se dane
nikal kar khane valon, hamare mare hue jaan var khane vaalon,
hamaresaamne tumharihimmat kaise hoti hai hamarekhilaf baat
karne ki...' (You who eat the crumbs we leave for you, who
eat the grains you pick out of the shit of our cattle, who eat our
dead animals, how dare you speak out against us [or, for that
matter, even "speak"] in our presence...)?
I could multiply these examples of abuse and the arrogant
statement of inherited privilege. Instead, r will round off my
discussion of this particular dalit/non-dalit interaction by
reference to a much more polite intervention which nevertheless re-states the dominant upper caste and upper class belief
in the appropriateplace of the dalit, or any other insurrectionary
voice, in the order of things - and of progress. This particular
letter comes from a brahman male who lives in Delhi, on the
eastern side of the river Jumna. Addressing the dalit columnist
in the most respectfultraditionalterms ("honourable"- "respectful

Economic and Political Weekly

salutations"), the correspondent writes that he has been reading

the column on 'The Problems of the Dalits' for some time, and
recognises that "somewhere", in some importantway, "whatyou
say is true". However, he asks,
Will you tell me whether you think of yourself first as a dalit,
[a member of] a so-called low caste, or as an Indian? If the
answer is "Indian", then I plead with you not to divide this
nation up further,physically or psychologically. In my view you
are capableof lifting up the dalit communityof the entirecountry
through [their] education, thereby contributing to the progress
of the nation. You must endeavour to lift them up out of the
feeling of being dalits or so-called low castes, and make them
[conscious of being] Indians. Let them know that we are not
brahmans,kshatriyas,vaishyas,shudras,we arenothingbutIndians
and will remain [nothing but] Indians... Our nation needs your
assistance.
The correspondent goes on to express his opinion against
affirmative action, or constitutional provisions for the reservation
of a quota of educational and political positions for people from
lower caste backgrounds. "There are other ways of lifting up [the
dalits]." "Reservations ... harm the nation."
Note that this "sympathetic" reader too believes in the
necessity of the columnist playing the role of the leader of
his community, though of course not of the nation or country
at large: "you are capable of lifting up the (entire) dalit community" and thus "contributing to the progress of the nation"
Note the unselfconsciousness of the enquiry, "Are you an
Indian first or a dalit first?", a question periodically asked
of Muslims in India but of course never of upper caste and
class Hindus: for they are the nation, invisibly and axiomatically. Note in this context that India (and Indians) are
abstract and unmarked categories, while the dalits are a concrete
and identifiable group, with identifiable but sectional problems.
They must never forget that these are, in the end, sectional
problems, minor in comparison with the maintenance of the
nation at large - the wider community in which the sections
must merge.
There is the rub.The dalits are real people. the concrete product
of a concrete history that produced not only a real, concrete but
also an abstract "India". In that abstract India, the dalits must
be Indians first and Indians last, even as they are enjoined to
remember where they have come from, how much things have
changed in such a short time, in a word, how much India
has done for them. One might return here to the question of
sovereignty, of (ultimate) friends and enemies, and of the need
to rethink the design of Indian history as Ambedkar and others
have tried to do.
The time of the dalit conversion, then, is the time of Indian
democracy. It is a time of anticipation and struggle: whence
the call to educate, organise and agitate. It is 1951 and 1956,
2001 and 2006. "Decolonisation is quite simply the replacing
of a certain "species" of men by another "species" of men....
The proof of success lies in a whole social structure being
changed from the bottom up."41 Colonisation is always a
violent phenomenon, with deadly effects on both the coloniser
and the colonised. Recall that Gandhi shared this position
with Fanon. So, obviously, did Ambedkar, although he spoke
from a different vantage point and used a different kind of
language. The escape from such a condition could only come
through the conversion (as I have called it) of both oppressor

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1787

and oppressed, a conversion that would produce a new social

compact. Ti
Email: gpande2@emory.edu

Notes
[Earlierversions of partsof this paperwere presentedat seminarsin CSDS
and JNU, Delhi; and at the universitiesof Pennsylvania,Minnesota,Emory,
Yale and Tokyo. I am grateful to participantsin those seminars for their
comments and questions.]
1 ChristopherQueen delineates some of the relevant issues well in his
analysis of Ambedkar'sconversion to Buddhism. In the act of leaving
HinduismandembracingBuddhism,he suggests, Ambedkarfulfilled one
of the primaryconditionsof modernity:"theexercise of individualchoice
based on reason, careful deliberation, and historical consciousness;"
ChristopherS Queen, 'Ambedkar,Modernity,and the Hermeneuticsof
BuddhistLiberation'in A K Narainand D C Ahir (eds), Dr Ambedkar,
Buddhismand Social Change (BR PublishingCorp, Delhi, 1994), pp 99
and passim. I have takenthe quotationfrom GauriVishwanathan'sgloss
on Queen in her Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity,and Belief
(Princeton Univ press. Princeton, NJ, 1998), p 228.
2 SekharBandhopadhyay,'Transferof Powerandthe Crisisof Dalit Politics
in India, 1945-47', Modern Asian Studies, 34, 4 (2000), p 903.
3 Ibid, p 906.
4 By contrast,of course, the charge of internalcolonialism - or outright
colonialism - continues to be made by various political leaders and
movementsin relationto a numberof regionalnationalitieson thenorthern
and north-easternbordersof the territoryof the Indianstate, in Kashmir
and the states and territoriesof the north-east.
5 Babasaheb Ambedkar's Writingand Speeches (hereafterBAWS), Vol
17, Part III, p 214.
6 BAWS, IX, pp 181, 190; XVII, pt 3, p 418; and Volume I, p 368.
7 Ibid, p 376.
8 Ambedkararguedthatthese provisionsfor affirmativeaction should stay
in place as long the condition of untouchabilitylasted, but had to settle
for 10 years; BAWS, 17, III, pp 420, 433. It is another matter that
reservationshave since been extended over and over again by 10-year
periods.
9 BAWS, IX, p 68.
10 BAWS, XIV, 270-271 and 1162.
11 Eleanor Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar
Movement(Manohar,Delhi, 1996), p 206.
12 BAWS, 17, III, p 536.
13 CarlSchmitt,The Conceptof the Political (1932; trans,George Schwab,
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996), passim.
14 See Ambedkar's repeatedcalls in 1950-51 forthedalitsto seek cooperation
with other communities. in spite of the bitter experiences of the past;
BAWS, 17, III, pp 398-99, 412, etc.
15 BAWS, vol 14, I, 283; vol I, 26 and 77-78.
16 BAWS, vol 17, III, 503 and 505.
17 In this context, see also Swami Dharma Theertha, The Menace of
Hindu Imperialism(2nd ed, Happy Home Publications,Lahore, 1946),
passim.
18 Fora recentstatement,see GailOmvedt,Ambedkar:Towardsan Enlightened
India (Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2004), passim. See also the essays
in NarainandD C Ahir,eds. DrAmbedkar,Buddhismand Social Change;
Jondhaleand Beltz, eds, Reconstructingthe World;and several sections
in Rodrigues, ed, The Essential Writingsof B R Ambedkar.
19 MartinFuchs, 'A Religion for Civil Society? Ambedkar'sBuddhism,the
dalit Issue and the Imaginationof Emergent Possibilities' in Vasudha
Dalmia,et al, eds. Charismnaand Canon:Essays on the Religious History
of the Indian Subcontinent(Delhi, 2001), pp 252-53.
20 Ambedkararguedthatcommuniststoo could learnfrom the Buddhahow
to bringaboutthe"bloodlessrevolution"and"removetheills of humanity".
"Communismof the Russiantypeaims to bringabout[change]by abloody
revolution. The Buddhist Communism brings it about by a bloodless
revolution;"17, 1II,515, 517,493. ThereareGandhianechoes here,which
must form the subject of anotheressay.
21 The reformof the Hindu law was carriedout piecemeal in the years that
followed, andmanycommentatorshaveseen even thetruncatedlegislation

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as a significant progressive achievement- cf. Derrett- but Ambedkar

believed that much more could have been achieved, much morequickly,
underhis stewardship,if only thecabinet,the primeministerandtheruling
party had been willing to back him properly.
22 BAWS, XIV, 1325-1326.
23 BAWS, XIV, 772.
24 BAWS, 17, III, 396, 411,455. By differentprovisionsof the HinduCode
Bill, inter-castemarriagesand inter-casteadoptionswere to be legalised,
'stridhan'(the woman's propertyor belongings) were to be remain in
possession of married women, and daughters were to gain rights of
inheritanceequal to those of sons.
25 BalwantSingh, An Untouchablein the IAS (BalwantSingh, Saharanpur,
n.d), pp. 216 and 199. It is no accidentthatthe book is dedicatedto Nelson
Mandela,presidentof SouthAfrica,"thechampion,crusaderandliberator
of the insulted, humiliatedand discriminatedmankind".
26 Singh, Untouchable in the IAS, pp 224-227.
27 FrantzFanon,The Wretchedof the Earth(GrovePress,New York, 1963),
p 93.
28 RobertDeliege, The Untouchablesof India (Berg, Oxford,2001), p 50.
29 Singh, Untouchable in the IAS, pp 221-22 and 216.
30 One could adduce all kinds of evidence to show this. Among striking
examples that I came across in my own interviews are the recollections
of a retireduppercaste IAS officer's wife thatin the bureaucraticcircles
of her husband,an ex-untouchableofficer (whom she recalled clearly)
was superficiallytreatedas a friend, but 'hameshaheya drishtise dekha
karte the'; and the recollections of Meera Kumar,Congress leader and
long-term cabinet minister, Jagjivan Ram's daughter, now a central
governmentministerherself,aboutherexperienceof beingvisitedathome
by severalschool andcollege friendsbutneverbeing invitedto theirhomes
in return.
31 BAWS, XIV, 1160. Page numbersfor the extractsthat follow are given
in the text.
32 Report of Depressed Class Conference,Nagpur Session (Nagpur,G T
Meshram,1942), pp 28-29, cited in Zelliot, From Untouchableto Dalit,
p 131. See also the autobiographicalmemoir, written at the end of the
1930s or in the 1940s, in which Ambedkarrefersto the first trainjourney
thathe and threeotherchildrenof his extended family took to Goregaon
where his fatherwas stationedas a cashier in the army. "We were welldressed children,"he wrote. "Fromour dress or talk no one could make
out thatwe were childrenof ... untouchables;"Rodrigues(ed), Essentiai
Writings,pp 48-49.
33 NarendraJadhav,Outcaste:A Memoir(Viking, Delhi, 2003), pp 228-30.
34 Fanon, The Wretchedof the Earth, pp 36-37.
35 D R Nagaraj,The Flaming Feet: A Studyof the Dalit Movementin India
(South Forum Press, Bangalore, 1993), p 58.
36 ValerianRodrigues(ed), TheEssentialWritingsofB RAmbedkar(Oxford
University Press, Delhi, 2002), p 486.
37 BAWS. V (1989), p 26, cited in G Aloysius, Nationalismwithouta Nation
in India (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1997), p 166.
38 Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet, pp 74-75.
39 TimothyFitzgerald,'AnalysingSects. Minorities,andSocial Movements
in India: The Case of AmbedkarBuddhism and Dalit(s)' in Surendra
JondhaleandJohannesBeltz(eds),Reconstructing
the World:B RAmbedkar
and Buddhismin India (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2004), p 270.
40 I am grateful to the columnist for his kindness in letting me read and
copy all the lettershe received, and for his permissionto let me use them
Translationsfrom the Hindi in the quotationsthatfollow are mine. After
some considerationand consultationwith the columnist,I have withheld
his name and other particularsin orderto preventthe personalisationof
the larger issues at stake here.
41 Fanon, The Wretchedof the Earth, p 35.

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