One of the greatest dilemmas confronting both the Left and the Dalit movements in India today is the historic and continuing distance between the two, despite their respective claims of struggling for the cause of comprehensive social revolution. There has been little cross-fertilization between the two movements and there has been a continuing tendency to see them as competitors, rather than as allies or partners.
This remarkable book makes a passionate plea for the Left and the Dalit movements to reconsider their past positions and to work together in a common struggle against caste/class oppression and local as well as global imperialism.
Tel Tumbde argues that the Indian Left has been hostile to the use of caste in its analysis of Indian society and hence has not displayed any interest in critiquing caste and caste- based oppression. This owed to several factors. One to these is a blind and uncritical adoption of Eurocentric understandings of Marxism, seeking to mechanically apply it to the Indian situation.
In India, caste, and not class, is the primary unity of social life and forms the basis of its unique mode of production.
Left is upper caste: Indian social consciousness is till today primarily molded by caste. Although some of its ritualistic aspects may have somewhat declined in urban India, caste still remains the basic building brick of Indian society. Caste and class are still, by and large, synonymous, the ruling elites being almost entirely from the upper castes, while the laboring classes are almost wholly drawn from the “low”.
For Leftists. Tel Tumbde writes, caste is an element of the superstructure which would disappear or dissolve on its own in the aftermath of the revolution. To take up the caste issue at this point is inadvisable since it would go against working class unity. Tel Tumbde opposes this fallacious claim, insisting on the centrality of the caste question and the urgent need for its immediate resolution. To ignore caste in favor of class is completely fallacious.
He sees the Left’s reluctance to take up the issue of caste as also a reflection of the caste background of most Leftist leaders, who are overwhelmingly from the upper castes.
Although he does not fully develop this argument, he seems to suggest that the willful blindness to the caste issue to caste-based oppression and discrimination must also be seen in relation to the caste interests of the largely upper caste Left.
It is this ignoring of the caste question, willfully or otherwise, by the Left that has made many Dalits, the most oppressed and at the same time potentially the most revolutionary section of Indian society, to be suspicious of the claims of the Left. In turn, this has led to the Dalit and the Left movements working on parallel paths or even at cross-purposes, with little or no interaction and mutual support.
Dalits ignoring economics: The fault however, lies not only with the Left, and Tel Tumbde also critiques the Dalit movement for largely ignoring economic concerns and focusing, instead, almost entirely on cultural issues (such as critiquing Hinduism, and stressing the need for Dalits to convert to other egalitarian religions) and on reservations for Dalits. In part, this owes to the petty bourgeoise background of many Dalit ideologues, who are reluctant to take up the bread-and-butter issues of the Dalit toiling classes, who form the vast majority of the Dalit population. It also owes to the co-optation.
Conversion opposed: Tel Tumbde calls for a caste- class struggle in which the Dalit movement and the Left both have their historical roles to play. Imperialism, or what is sought to be sanitized and passed off as globalization, today represents the most potent threat and challenge to all oppressed sections.
However, Tel Tumbde’s approach to religious conversion is one such contentious issue. He does not see conversion as particularly necessary, claiming that Dalit converts to other faiths continue to face caste-based discrimination. While this argument seems fair enough, it ignores the tremendous sense of empowerment and self-respect that Dalits claim that conversions generally engender. It also ignores the point that the degree of caste-based discrimination in non-Hindu communities is perceptibly lower than in the Hindu ase.
Finally, his plea for “annihilation of castes”, which is really the crux of his whole thesis, is somewhat confusing. If caste forms the mainstay of India’s society and mode of production, as Tel Tumbde himself recognizes, can it at all be annihilated as distinct from being transformed?
If the latter is what he actually means, he does not elaborate on it. He ignores the valid argument put forward by other Dalit ideologues that calls for strengthening, rather than annihilation of caste identities as a means for opposing upper caste/class domination. As these Dalit ideologues would insist, asserting their Dailyness and creating a pride in being Dalit is a potent weapon in challenging their subordination.
