The upsurge of the Dalits in Gujarat has taken the country by surprise. The speed with which the agitation gained traction has also dented the carefully cultivated image of Gujarat as the model of a growing India. The trigger for the agitation took place on July 11 at a place about 2.5 km away between Mota Samadhiyala village in Una block of Gir Somnath district and Bediya village. Four Dalits -- Vasharambhai Balubhai Sarvaiya, Rameshbhai Bhalubhai Sarvaiya, Becharbhai Ugabhai Sarvaiya, Askokbhai Bijabhai Sarvaiya -- from the leather tanning Rohit caste in Gujarat, engaged in skinning the dead cows, were attacked by dominant caste group of youths in the name of ‘gauraksha’ (cow protection).
This was not an isolated incident for Balubhai Sarvaiya and his wife Kuvarben, the parents of two of the Dalit youths. (They were also attacked and Balubhai had nine stitches on his head). His caste-based work involved collecting carcasses from not only his village of Mota Samadhiyala but also from nearby villages. Village head Prafulbhai Korat, who comes from a dominant caste, had been threatening Balubhai against continuing with his work or face consequences for quite some time. Balubhai ignored the threat, and the rest is history.
According to Manjula Pradeep, director of Ahmedabad-based grassroot Dalit organisation Navsarjan, the ongoing Dalit upsurge is not sudden as years of hard work of mobilisation on issues ranging from land, atrocities, forced migration, untouchability, sexual assaults, kidnapping and issues of manual scavenging has gone into it. The activities included offering para-legal training, organising awareness camps and campaigns against violence on women, panchayat trainings, leadership trainings, women’s leadership, and engaging barefoot lawyers. The more recent campaigns include observation of 125th birth anniversary of Babsaheb Ambedkar involving not only Dalits but also Adivasis, Muslims and other marginalised sections. They, together, prepared the ground for the current upsurge.
A poster of Gujarat Dalit upsurge (below) The protest by Radical Study Circle of Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Solidarity with the Gujarat Dalit Movement.
The Una atrocity, so blatant and brutal, has energised the Dalits and other sections in a right-wing ruled state. The Dalit youth in Gujarat, in particular the more educated ones with higher aspirations, are now replacing the older generation of Dalit activists who were wary of state and the dominant caste retaliation to Dalit assertions. The youth movement is going beyond issue of reservations and raising a lot questions, including on unemployment and the caste system. It is about annihilation of caste, rather. Hence, there is a new energy and unity among the different Dalit organisations and the Dalits of all 32 sub-castes including Valmikis, weavers and toilet-cleaners.
The mobilisation on local issues involving the Dalits, the Adivasis and the Muslims is creating the ground for larger unity and common opposition to the efforts of the Hindutva forces and organisations and of the state to create communal polarisation. Although the huge rally at Ahmedabad was called by Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat Samiti led by former AAP state coordinator and young Dalit lawyer Jignesh Mewani, the Leftist Jan Sangharsh Manch, a Dalit labour organization, spontaneously joined the rally and the ongoing march from Ahmedabad to Una to culminate on August 15 in Una town.
Navsarjan, along with other organizations, is planning to organise regional conferences or mahasabhas in Saurashtra, in Rajkot in north Gujarat and in the Patel strongholds of Anand, Kheda, Vadodara and Surat. The sabhas are aimed at raising the awareness of the youth about the rights and about the amendments to the SC/ST Atrocities Act. A petition will also be filed with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to form a team and make a status report on the Dalits in Gujarat. The point is to work at varied levels and keep the movement going.
According to Gujarat’s Dalit human rights activist Martin Macwan, the wider context of the Dalit upsurge, particularly of the youth and women, include the imagery of Kashmir violence, Rohit Venmula and other forms of attacks on freedoms, including intellectual freedom. The video prepared by the attackers and proudly posted online, particularly the abuses on mothers and the flogging in broad daylight, evoked wider response and revulsion. The chief minister was silent for eight days and the Prime Minister, for 25 days. The posters of then chief minister Anandiben Patel listing her achievement were placed all over the state and online but not a word on the Dalits found a place in them, a point highlighted by Dalit protestors.
The underbelly of Gujarat model and rampant casteism form the background of Dalit youth protests and anger, Mr Macwan said. “Gujarat’s brand ambassador film star Amitabh Bachchhan calls on people to visit vibrant Gujarat but the call,” he said. “Instead, he should invite them to come and see Una.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power and gained political majority through both caste and religious (two sides of the same coin) appeal and mobilisation. Since then, the RSS and other ‘Parivar’ organisations were attempting to own and reinterpret Dalit radical histories and create a wedge between the Dalits and the Muslims. Booklets were released by the RSS blaming the Muslims and ‘the Muslim rule’ for the plight of the Dalits. The Prime Minister also underplayed manual scavenging by stating it as a ‘spiritual’ exercise!
According to Mr Macwan, perhaps Mr Modi had inside information to call 80 per cent of gaurakshaks as anti- socials, a remark that Mr Modi revoked the next day, replacing it with the word ‘handful’. Instead of calling on the so-called gaurakshaks to shoot him rather than the Dalits, the Prime Minister should have spoken on the loss of 25 lakh acres of land meant for the Dalits and tribal communities under land reforms in Gujarat, of the plight of 7.5 lakhs of manual scavengers and the large number of vacancies under the reservation category that have remained unfilled. While Mr. Modi has a clear development policy for industry, there are no policies for the poor, and the focus on cows is a diversion from the real issues, Mr Macwan said.
(Dr. Meera Velayudhan, Fellow, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, has been involved in studies on social movements in varied contexts, historical and contemporary, with a focus on labour, women and Dalits. Views are personal.)
