Hindutva, not withstanding the camouflage of its protagonists, is the movement of restoring the old hierarchical social order, in its essential terms, to what it was before-before it was disturbed by the non-Hindu rulers and particularly during the last six decades of the constitutional regime. Dalitatva is nothing but complete antithesis of Hindutva and is directly opposed to Hindutva.
IMPERIALIST CREED
Hindutva originated and grew to its menacing proportion. In one way, it is a kind of attitude. And, we find that this kind of attitude is borne by the ruling classes of this land and has run through a long history. There were Brahmans and shramans, the classical antagonistic forces. They had fierce ideological struggles since ancient times which, as we see, manifested into bloody wars between Budhism and Brahmanism later and wiped out the former from this land. This goes quite deep into history and therefore for our contemporary struggle we need not go into those
The current Hindutva is not to be traced out from what it was in those distant times. The current Hindutva is little different in colour. We need not shun the history entirely though. We may have to start from the colonial history to understand the roots of the contemporary Hindutva which while it doesn’t get tired of chest beating over nationalism, it had never opposed colonialism or imperialism or for that matter any foreign rule. It has always been their hidden ally. Because, it itself is
basically an imperialist creed. We can trace out its political profile from this single fact
ATTACK ON CHRISTIANS
As an imperialist creed, it seeks to polarize society, to divide it in communitarian terms by consolidating all the “Hindus” on one side and the non-Hindus on the other. Isolating all minorities, the religious minorities on one side is what it apparently wants to do but it is not quite true. It is superficial and deceptive. We should understand its logic clearly and not fall prey to such superficiality. The strategy that gets reflected from what its protagonists have been doing is clear enough. By attacking Christians as they did in Gujarat and elsewhere and recently in Orissa and Mangalore, under the benign shelter of their own govt. and the Muslims, which is too obvious to need examples, they want to consolidate the “majority Hindus”.
Now there is nothing like Hindu. There are castes and castes. To that they cannot have a straight answer. They would say varied things to deliberately confuse the issue. At one end, they would try to show that castes were the product of natural evolution of society. They would argue that they were scientific and would even present pseudo scientific evidence in support. For
example, they had gleefully upheld and publicized recent pseudo scientific observations from somewhere that there were genetic differences between the caste stocks.
They say there is nothing wrong with castes; they only reflect the natural order in the human society. At the other end, they would appear to be apologetic about its evil and try to externalize it. They say that the evil of castes lies in rigidification of castes, which has come as a self-defending reaction induced among the Hindus in response to the onslaught of Muslim rule.
GOLWALKAR DISOWNED
They do not hesitate taking a moralistic stand and accuse other parties using castes for their vote bank politics as though they were above it. If one takes stock of what they say in cumulative terms, one would be left with nothing but cobweb of confusion
One has to just shuffle through the pages of what their great ideologue, Golwalkar, wrote, to get their orientation on castes and communities. Their deception goes to the extent that they would even discard Golwalkar or say that he has never written it or even disown them altogether. But it is not confined to a lone Golwalkar. With varied degree of nuances, if one studies the ideological basis of their politics, right from the early Bengali Hindu protagonists like Bankim Chandra and the later Maharashtrians from Tilak to Savarkar, Hedgewar, Munjes and many others, one would not miss that they are the supporters of what existed in the Hindu or more correctly Brahminical society. Their cultural nationalism and the way they have been pursuing it proves the point
SAMARASTA MANCH
Deception, deliberate lies have been the classical method of fascism.
And if you look at what the Hindutva movement has been doing from this perspective, its character comes out glaringly as fascist. Golwalkar’s every single word may pass as a fascist classic. This characterization of Hindutva also is very important to bear in mind.
Currently, their strategy is to consolidate their constituency by showing themselves as pro-Hindu, the cultural nationalists, by displaying their macho image in physically attacking Christians and Muslims, wherever they are strong and have political cover of their own govt. They have deliberately created varied outfits under their pariwar that caters to all segments of electoral market. There is samrasata manch that may appeal to the middle caste Dalit sensibilities, there is BJP that projects itself as an alternative to the prevailing mode of governance, identified with Congress, there are many other specialized wings to do varied kinds of tasks, there are outfits that appear to be engaged in social work, and of course there are multiple outfits that indulge in physical violence and terrorism. In superficial terms they all appear autonomous in their ideology as well as practice but actually all of them cohere well into what is called a Hindutva agenda.
FARCE OF POLITICAL PARTIES
In the political arena, only BJP and its cohorts are identified as the communal bloc. All parties, including the parliamentary left have
systematically pumped up this notion among people and in a significant way have helped the Hindutva project. Because, when all others single them out as the communal farce, which means the protagonists of majority Hindus, it only helps the BJP agenda. Actually, our electoral politics has come to such a farce that it is doubtful if there is any political party, including the parliamentary left, which can genuinely qualify to be secular.
LEFT ABANDONS CLASS STRUGGLE
Actually, I would say that secularism has come as a big excuse for the parliamentary left to shun their basic agenda of class struggle. When we call BJP a communalist party, it does not follow that Congress is a secular party.
The Congress is as big a Hindutva party as BJP. The only difference between the two is that one has been naked in its strategy and other has managed to cover itself up all these years. In lighter vein, I differentiate them as one wearing underwear and the other without it.
BHAGAT SINGH & BABASAHEB
You go to Hindutva websites, and there are plenty of them spewing venom of casteism and communalism. In the cyber space also they have replicated their cacophony by raising varied voices. Cyber space rather with its relative anonymity, has come extremely handy for them to do so more than the real one. Many of their sites have projected their set of heroes. Some are unique and some are stolen. The best example is in Bhagat Singh
Now everyone knows what Bhagat Singh was, what he stood for. He was a true revolutionary India has produced. I usually make a provocative observation I had made
last year in a presidential speech I had given while launching the Bhagat Singh Centenary Programmes in Maharashtra. I said that of all the great people of this country in the pre-independence history, only two people. paradoxically unlike each other in every possible respect, understood the real problem of this country and sincerely strove for its solution in their own ways. One was Bhagat Singh and the other was Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. Both of them are getting projected from Hindutva sites as their own.
ANTI-BRAHMIN STRUGGLE
If you name the state which can be identified with the anti-Brahminical struggle. I guess, the first name that comes to your mind would be Maharashtra. It is here that Jotiba Phule first launched the anti-Brahminism crusade. It is here that
the legendary leadership of Dr. Ambedkar fired its salvos at the citadel of Brahmanism. It is history’s paradox that Maharashtra has been the center of reaction too. Not only Savarkar, who is considered as the father of and is credited with first definition of Hindutva, and Hedgewars and Golwalkar’s, but Maharashtra for a long time, much before it, also has been the motherland of this ideology. After the defeat of Peshwai, which was the prototype of the Brahman rule in recent history, the British established their empire in India in true terms.
ROLE OF MAHARS
Mahars played a big role in this conclusive battle. A commemorative pillar at Koregaon, near Pune, stands testimony to their valour. It also depicts the hatred the Untouchables came to bear against the Brahmin rulers. Thereafter a series of individual rebellions ensued in Pune, the seat of Peshavas, curiously from the castes of Peshavas, the Chitpawan Brahmins. From Vasudeo Balawant Phadke to Chaphekar brothers to Tilak, they all appear to be fighting a militant battle against the foreign rule. That is the way official history and now particularly the Hindutva history projects them.
But in reality, all these rebellions were the Brahman battles for regaining their lost kingdom.
CASTE SYSTEM IS UNBREAKABLE
There is absolutely no vision of free India reflected in all of then, as it does for instance, in the case of Bhagat Singh.
Simple people would just be misled by this propaganda. Oh, these people are true patriots, they have suffered so much hardships…. and may fall prey to the machinations of the Hindutva arguments. The first and foremost thing that you should do is to guard against such propaganda. Just reminding yourself that these forces invariably indulge in falsehood, true to their fascist character, you should train yourself to stay away from it. The most appropriate question to ask yourself is what social structure they propose for rooting out the prevailing injustice, exploitation, indignities of common folk? What vision they have to remove poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, corruption and many characteristic evils inflicting this country? Do they talk of casteless society? Do they ever speak of socialism? Do they ever utter a single word against evil traditions and customs and caste culture that enslaved this land for most of the known history? These questions would act as your fortification against all possible mis propaganda of the Hindutva forces.
These people are not fools. They do know that their strategy of polarization etc. is not going to
work. That is why they would call all people living in India as Hindu, even going so far as diluting their definition to call Christians and Muslims as Christian Hindus and. Muslim Hindus. Sawarkar had given a criterion of pitru bhumi and punya bhumi for being a Hindu, that clearly excluded Muslims and Christians. But now all can become Hindus. But the problem is whenever you utter this word “Hindu”, the only characteristic that comes to your mind is the hierarchy. Supposing tomorrow their rule gets established, although there is no possibility of that happening ever, what they would do is to restore that order. Now it may not be necessary for them to restore it to its classical form, but they would like to institute some hierarchical sense in the structure akin to the caste order. Because they do know that this caste structure has been the most formidable structure ever devised by man. If some one could ideologically fortify that structure, he would be able to rule the country far more cheaply and for a far longer period of time.
WORLD’S ONLY SYSTEM OF SLAVERY
It is not that they would bring back ‘touch-me-notism sort of untouchability. They vocally disown untouchability but not caste.
But restoring the caste system would not mean bringing everything back. It does not mean that Dalits would be driven back to their ghettos and allowed only with the spittoons hung to their necks and a broomstick at their back. It also does not mean that Tribals would be driven away to their jungles as they euphemistically call them “jungle dwellers – vanavasis. If someone imagines that kind of situation, he is a fantasizing fool.
The essence of that order is not in recreating what existed.
The essence of the Brahminical order is in hierarchy. And that order could be operated very well even in a modern setting. The order may not deny you air conditioned house, car and perhaps all modern amenities, if you have them. But it would make you internalize your state vis-à-vis others.
You could not subvert it by challenging it. It would effectively choke your voice.
HINDUTVA IS NOTHING BUT BRAHMINISM
The essence of casteism never lay as much in material deprivation as in the deep drawn notion of hierarchy. The caste system rather is the only system of slavery where the system did not let you die provided you observed its code.
It had allowed even the Dalits to accumulate huge wealth. You find such examples in every region. Tomorrow this hierarchical notion could be restored by way of suppressing democracy, reverting the ideological orientation of liberty, equality and fraternity and establishing the fascist regime that ruthlessly curbs dissent, challenge to the rulers that be. To a large extent, we have been living this kind of reality but the ideological orientation of our times is still compelled to source itself from our egalitarian constitution. The Hindutva regime would be a negation of it.
Hindutva is nothing but Brahminism in Ambedkarian sense, not the rule of Brahman castes but the rule of an ideology which is opposed to democracy, principles of liberty, equality and fraternity and adhering to fascism. Dalitatva then means opposing it, it would mean fighting against all orientation’s that preserve or facilitate the order of Brahmanism. As Babasaheb Ambedkar said, it would mean fighting against Brahminism and capitalism. The latter, because capitalism, although it negates the feudal caste-based hierarchy, it also brings in a hierarchy of different kind It may not remove social hierarchy. contrary to the fond notions of early historicists, but certainly creates de facto economic hierarchy. Although, it draws up its source ideology from European enlightenment and liberalism that brought in all lofty sounding values such as democracy, liberty, equality and fraternity, universal franchise, one man, one vote, one value, and so on, in actual operation, it has denuded these terms of their meaning and rather reversed them in significant degree.
Hindutva forces never utter a single word against capitalism although they keep cursing it in the name of modernity as anti-thetical to their notion of Indian culture. It is a genius of Dr. Ambedkar, the epitome of modernity, who named capitalism as one of the enemy duo of the Dalits.
TRIBALS FULLY HINDUISED
The Hindutva forces have been working silently and perseveringly for many decades in tribal areas and they have nearly achieved their goal of hinduizing the tribals. As you know tribals constitute over 8% of India’s population and typically mark the boundaries of the political states across the country, making them strategically very important people. However, nobody paid any attention to them and that important space was therefore grabbed by the Sangh Pariwar Today they have established their monopoly except for the pockets under
Maoist influence. Now they are badly after Dalits who are more than double the population of Tribals and unlike them, are dispersed everywhere.
Besides constituting the core of the Hindutva premise, Dalits are needed to fight Hindutva’s street battles.
SECRET OF LONGEVITY OF CASTE SYSTEM
The classical varnashram order comprises four vamas: Brahmans at the top and Kshatriya, Vaishya, shudra below them in that order. The Dalits, the ati-shudras of Phule and Dr. Ambedkar, in reality do not come within this varnashram order but have been later included as the pancham or fifth varna. In this classical order, each varna was endowed with some power in the social system. Brahman had knowledge power, Kshatriya had political power, Vaishya had the commercial power and the shudras had the labour power.
In this system the shudra varna could only be pitted against the above three vamas, being the non-productive varnas, classed differently as the dwija varna. If it was left like that for long, there would have certainly been the revolt of shudra varna against the others. Indeed, there are historical indications that such revolts did happen. But this problem was solved by the advent of Dalits, the fifth varna. These people were placed in hierarchy below the shudras to provide all kinds of unwanted labour.
I do not know what their origins are and rather would not like to know them. I am concerned with the existential castes and not the ones that exist in books. Needless to say, I see the difference between these two. Whatever the origin of Dalits, what I see is that they were rendered absolutely dependent on
the system without any rights whatsoever.
When the varma system evolved into the caste system, splitting each varna into numerous castes, all strung in a vague hierarchy, the system became far more self preserving. The specialty of this system is that it made the caste continuum of hierarchy very approximate which could be understood only with reference to their parent varna but within the varna there is no definitive order among them and they are, therefore, left to contentious resolution. As a result, each caste engaged with the caste in its vicinity for claiming its superiority and in corollary preserving its own superiority from the lower one. While it dissipated its energy in this contention, it did not challenge the broad hierarchy at all. Each caste in this hierarchy, with its vocational association in a non-competitive mode, experiences stake in the system and hence strives to preserve this order. That is the dynamics that explains the longevity of the system. I would call it the most potent exploitative system ever devised by the human brain.
DALITS ARE NOT. HOMOGENOUS
Dalits are not a homogenous mass. They have also emulated savamas and created caste among them, mirroring similar hierarchy as it existed in the savarna part. All the castes presumably had their specific vocations. But over the time certain vocations vanished pushing their castes into a pool of general mass that perhaps became a new caste. Every region has this kind of caste without a definitive caste vocation, thereby constituting a majority among the Dalit castes. Others continued to have their caste vocations until recent times and perceived stake in the system.
The stake less majority Dalits are the people who typically ran after opportunities that emerged during the colonial times, took up jobs in army and modern infrastructure and industrial sector; educated themselves and eventually constituted the Ambedkarite Dalit movement. Other castes kept away; primarily, because they did not have strong motivation to rebel against the system and later because they could be influenced away from the rebelling Dalit masses by the coopting strategy of the Congress
SHUDRA REVOLT AGAINST BRAHMINS
As regards the shudras, in the colonial setting, they were the first to rebel against Brahmanism. Although the pioneers of this struggle, like Jotiba Phule and Periyar rightly assimilated Dalits, these struggles could not hold them within for long. Phule’s glorious anti-Brahman movement soon drifted after his death and merged with the Congress, stray activists joining the communist party.
PERIYAR MOVEMENT
Periyar’s movement lasted longer but again could not get over the intrinsic contradictions between the Dalits and the shudras.
After independence, the kind of developmental dynamics that was unleashed here disproportionately benefitted the landed shudra castes. The half-baked land reforms followed by the “green revolution”, that brought capitalist relations in village economy, the first-past-the-post type of electoral system, broadly constituted this dynamics. It empowered the shudras and at the same time resulted in relative
disempowerment of Dalits. This power asymmetry accentuated the intrinsic contradiction between the Dalits and the shudra castes as the landless labourers and the landowning employers, respectively. The disappearance of the upper caste landlords left the baton of Brahmanism in the hands of shudras.
SHUDRA POLITICAL MUSCLE
The economically empowered shudra castes soon consolidated into a formidable political constituency with the amorphous caste identities and almost captured the local to state level state apparatus and became the major challenger at the center. The increasing atrocities on Dalits by these shudra castes are the direct outcome of this process.
Under the onslaught of the capitalist development during the last six decades, the castes have undergone a significant change in terms of creating clear two-caste blocks: one Dalits and the other of non-Dalits. The caste contradiction is concentrated at this point. This is the feature of the existential castes that provides us an unprecedented opportunity for accomplishing the long awaited annihilation of castes, I have elaborately discussed this strategy in my book, Anti-Imperialism and Annihilation of Castes.
BC-SC ALLIANCE_NOT POSSIBLE
Unfortunately, there is a huge confusion around this aspect among Dalits. The discovery of Bahujan by Kanshi Ram, and its emulation by many because of its success may be a viable strategy for electoral success but it cannot be useful for any radical change. Casteist paradigm created by the ruling classes as an imperative of the increasingly competitive politics
since 1970s has given a new lease of life to castes. The Bahujan can be seen as the fall-out of this process. The rampant politicization of reservations is another factor. Unfortunately, the Dalits lacking in political education do not comprehend the nuances of these developments and are misled by their politicians after the simplistic symbols made out of the real issues.
You cannot gloss over the caste contradictions that exist between the BCs and Dalits and just create a wishful alliance for electoral gains. Bahujan only becomes a viable category if it is constructed along class lines.
MISCHIEF OF ELITE DALITS
It is extremely necessary for Dalits to identify who their friends are and who the foes. Caste is the pest they should cast off as quickly as possible. Caste is an excellent descriptive category, but it is utterly useless in waging any struggle.
You can never fight Hindutva or pursue your aim of annihilation of castes using an idiom of caste. You have to throw it away and adopt “class”, which can bring you hope of strength through integration with others.
Class however needs to be defined through specific Indian context, taking social aspects into class analysis. Through such an analysis, the organic proletariat of this land will no doubt be the Dalits but minus a thin layer formed above them of the well to do Dalits, comprising the political class, higher bureaucracy and PSU executives, businessmen, etc.
This layer of elite Dalits has been distorting the emancipation agenda of Dalits and thus damaging the majority Dalit interests.
They presumptuously project that they are working for Dalits, but their work goes against them. They are doing the same thing as being done by the Hindutva forces either misleading the Dalit masses to non-issues or keeping them into limbo of confusion, But for that creamy layer, the Dalits constitute the organic proletariat of this land.
There is absolutely no dispute about it.
DALITS ALONE CAN’T FIGHT THE BATTLE
Whenever I speak about Dalits, I remind people that my Dalits are not you. Usually, I have a gathering of English-speaking white collar people as my Dalit audience, whom I provocatively remind that they ought to worry about the people who have been left behind. I typically say that my Dalits are over 85% people, who have been left behind in villages and the urban slums for rotting, without any hope, whatsoever.
If we talk of Dalit emancipation, one important thing also needs to be borne in mind, which is that this battle cannot be fought by Dalits alone. They will have to take with them similarly placed people from other castes too. The fight against Hindutva, some way, becomes a part of Dalit emancipation and necessitate similar strategy. While Dalits can rightfully assume the vanguard position in this struggle, they will have to take along many others.
MUSLIMS & CHRISTIANS
Other people need to be convinced that the Hindutva kind of project is not in their interests. This fight is much simpler because it is tangible. You can touch it. They are making Muslims and Christians as their other. Unfortunately, even these people do not reflect that kind of understanding and get caught alone.
In Mangalore, while addressing Christians, when I told them that they should go and join the Dalits and Muslims, it was met with deafening silence. Any one can clearly smell caste in it. It only illustrates that castes afflict all aspects of life here. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that beginning has to be made. If you think that you cannot do that,
just keep away from the Hindutva propaganda, physically as well mentally. Keep away from their poisonous ideology. And that would be enough. They will fail just by your apathy. Remember, their entire plan is pivoted on the concept of Dalit and its implementation wants Dalit masses. You thus hold the key.
HINDUTVA WILL DIE WITHOUT DALITS
They always think that Dalit masses will join their forces and fight their street battles. That is why I say the entire Hindutva project is based upon these premises. You take any instance; who fought their street battles? It is mainly the backward castes, particularly the lower strata of them but Dalits are being increasingly seen in those crowds. Their growth is relying on Dalits. The tribals, have been largely won over. But they are still away, they become external, a kind of mercenary force. It is Dalits who live in towns and cities and villages who are crucially important because they can either make it or completely mar it.
If Dalits are with Hindutva, there is nothing that can stop its success but if they turn against Hindutva, again there shall be no force that can help it accomplish its objective. Do not underestimate; the Hindutva forces have made significant inroads among Dalits. In reserved seats, it is the BJP which has won most seats all across the country. That itself shows what is happening among Dalits and what the strategy of BJP is.
DALITS IN SHIV SENA
Over the years Dalits have developed a peculiar way of symbolizing everything. Symbols are good but beyond a point they turn negative; they tend to take you off the reality. You get into the unreal world where everything starts appearing plausible. All the coordinates of reality having been lost, anything and everything appeals to us. That is why we find so called Ambedkarite Dalits joining the rabidly anti-Dalit forces like Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. You just have to pay encomiums to Dr. Ambedkar, say how great he was and that is enough. That creates a magic force to pull Dalits towards you.
Entire Dalit movement is reduced to singing praises to Babasaheb Ambedkar as Muslims do to their Allah. By singing jay ho we have reduced ourselves to political zeros. Anyone, howsoever reactionary he may be can come, and win us away to play his game. That is not what Babasaheb Ambedkar imagined us to be.
HINDUTVA HIJACKED DR. AMBEDKAR
Our political education has been almost nil and that is what BJP and Hindutva forces would take advantage from. To understand reality, you have to exert, do a hard work. It is not easy either to understand Dr. Ambedkar. Therefore, you package him in a simplified icon; create packaged symbols of reality. Ambedkar icon has done a great job to induce self esteem among the Dalit masses in early days but the same icon today
stands for their divorce with reality.
These icons are available for grab by any charlatan and that has precisely happened. Hindutva forces skillfully hijacked these icons initially creating their samrasata, which many people laughed away but has not been much unsuccessful. In Maharashtra when they took away some prominent people, supposedly in leadership position. in Ambedkarite Dalit movement, people were alarmed. But to me that is proof enough for our being political zeros. They are doing similar thing with their Hindutva project and steadily scaling progress without our knowledge.
DALIT REVOLT GAVE BIRTH TO HINDUTVA
Again many prominent Dalit people in Maharashtra find it a considerable alternative for Dalits, There was a new equation coined some years ago as shiv Shakti Bhim shakti desh bhakti. It is not heard so much about today but it had already done its share of damage. This all show that we are political zeros.
If you understand little bit of politics, you can defeat Hindutva project hands down. I am not being rhetorical in overestimating your potential. No, not at all. I say so because I find entire Hindutva project as rooted or contrasted with Dalitatva. It is not mere coincidence that the Hindutva was born in 1920s when Dalits in Maharashtra had begun to give expression to their independent aspiration
It is not the threat of Muslims that triggered Hindutva, because the Lucknow Pact that gave fillip to Muslim separatist politics in 1916 was actually brought about by Tilak himself. The real threat was also not from the emergence of the communist party, which again born approximately at the same time.
Because Hindutva bigots really did not understand what it was.
But they could not stomach Dalits raising their distinct identity away from Hindus as it potentially threatened the collapse of their social structure.
WHY CHRISTIANS & MUSLIMS ATTACKED
For long, the Hindutva forces were on defensive when the Dalit movement was on ascension. When the Dalit movement began to have downslide, the Hindutva forces began their offensive. There is this big negative correlation that one can see in historical happenings.
In many ways thus we can see that the Dalits hold the key to the success or failure of Hindutva forces. If tomorrow Hindutva project succeeds, I would be the first person to blame you for that.
There are other forces too which have come handy for the Hindutva offensive. The neo-liberal order that swept the world since mid 1980s has also helped Hindutva in major way. The unipolar world under its aegis has also helped Hindutva a lot. In this context, the Left’s Leninist dictum of anti-imperialism is quite mis founded. I have shown in my Anti-imperialism book how that concept has marred the communist movement. Imperialism is real but anti-imperialism is equally unreal. It cannot be fought against as an abstraction; the real battle against imperialism is to be fought on the terrain of nation-states keeping in mind its specificities
In that sense, the anti-caste struggle and the struggle against the Hindutva forces get incorporated into the anti-imperialist struggle.
We did a fact-finding into the recent attack on Christians in Mangalore. There is a video documentation available which depicts partisan behaviour of the police in the entire episode. How do these things happen? They happen because people are fragmented. Christians have never sensed danger when Muslims get isolated and bashed. Both are insensitive to Dalits plight. Hindutva forces thrive on this fragmentation. The state also knows that there would be no consequences. If the victims had identified with other victims, such a situation would not arise. But there is something in the caste culture that it would never let it happen.
COMMUNALISM IS ROOTED IN CASTE
This country is a country of minorities. No one community can claim to be majority. Least, the Hindus. Because, there is nothing like Hindu. As long as people are sleeping; there is a notion of Hindu majority. But if they wake up, they realize there is nothing like that. The reality is that there are castes and each caste is as small a minority as anything could be. Caste also has subcastes, and may be sub-sub-castes. Castes thus are intrinsically a divisive category.
Hindutva is not to be identified with BJP alone. Congress and for that matter all the ruling class parties have been using it for their own advantage. Even parliamentary loft also have not been an exception to it. I tried to connect Hindutva with Dalits but the commonplace understanding of it is in relation to communalism. Because Hindutva forces attack Muslims and Christians, superficially, they focus on the problem of communalism.
Communalism is a fanciful thing to fight, caste is not
If you show yourself against communalism, you are hailed as progressive; but if you stand against castes, you will get branded as casteist. Any communal conflict attracts horde of civil rights organizations and impel “progressive” individuals to speak and write against. But the Jajhars and Khairlanjis are left only to Dalits. This itself reflects how deep drawn the castes are.
What is not known is that the problem of communalism itself is rooted in caste. Why do Hindus hate Christians and Muslims and not, say, the Parsees? Because the former mainly have been erstwhile Dalits and the latter is not. They hate Muslims because most of them have been Dalits and low castes. So is the case with Christians. Most problems if you look incisively at them would appear to be rooted in caste.
The manifestation of Hindutva on streets is pure terrorism and
terrorism of any kind is intrinsically hollow. They terrorize you only so long as you wish to be terrorized. Once you show them that you can answer in their own coin, the entire tamasha would collapse.
The irrationality of Hindutva eventually warrants only that kind of response, And that response can come only from Dalits imbued with the spirit of Dalitatva. I would wait for that day to dawn when Dalitatva would conclusively defeat Hindutva.
