Due to the “Poona Pact”, the politically focussed component of the Dalit movement is limited in the means that it can use, and, in the ends, it can hope to achieve. Due to the “Poona Pact®, solutions which put non-Dalit interests at risk will not get explored by the politicians and so tokenism will prevail for the foreseeable future. Hence in parallel! with the politically focussed component of the movement, it makes sense to focus on Dalit movement at individual, family and community level in that order. These require an inward-looking Dalit community. When a reasonable level of maturity is achieved at these levels, these foci can be safely expected to. Merge into the body politic. Here | suggest a few means to accelerate the pace of increasing the said maturity.
At individual & family level: The Dalit movement must begin with oneself and modify one’s family before anything else. People who shout from the treetops about being Ambedkarites— but do not live their lives on the path of education, agitation, organization to achieve pradnya, sheel and karuna in all spheres of their lives —are not Ambedkarites. We must show ourselves and others, in our personal and work lives, that we can rise to the highest standard achievable by any human being anywhere.
The rising educational standards by which our youngsters are qualifying themselves and standing in the queue to receive their share of the growth being seen by the Indian economy needs to accelerate. We must drive ourselves and our youngsters to achieve high marks, best degrees, best jobs, etc. A Dalit pattern of education (like the Latur pattern in SSC and the Kota pattern in 1IT) needs to emerge from the heightened consciousness. In this context, | believe there is a unique opportunity available today, which represents a social shortcut to raise this consciousness quickly. ‘ .
Girls edtication: Girls have free education these days till almost graduation. | have not come across any resistance to this from any section of society. We must educate our girls as much as they can and let them choose their grooms. Such educated girls, who today can get into good jobs, would marry boys who are at least as educated as themselves. If these boys are from our community, then it is safe t0 -assume that their progeny will start with significant advantages than their parents, thereby accelerating the Dalit movement. Even if the girls choose grooms from outside the community, the Dalit movement benefits in two ways. Firstly, this fosters integration with the non-Dalits and secondly the non-educated Dalit boys find it more difficult to get married, thereby creating pressure on them to educate themselves. Overall, therefore, education of girls and giving them higher freedom will accelerate the pace of emancipation of the Dalit community.
Girls more sincere: | think any contribution of the participants of this list in educating female Dalits and helping them find jobs (call centres, BPO, software, banks, diamond polishing, electronics assembly, and many others) and or providing services which support female Dalits in reaching their full potential will illustrate the truth of this. | say this from experience. I have seen this happening. Dalit families (including my own) start with male-centric education policy, whereby the gharanya-cha-diva gets higher funding and facilitation for education and the Devii’s get less funding. The government compensated for this by making education free for girls.
| have not come across any resistance to this form. any section of society. | strongly feel that supporting this “affirmative action” by the government, through our actions will help accelerate the forces pushing our boys to leverage the educational facilities available. Most of the time | have seen girls being more sincere and working harder than guys. |f we support our daughters, sisters, girlfriends, wives in their quest to make the best of their potential, it will help improve our community radically in a few-generations.
Community level movement: Dalit movement at community level is less important than the Dalit movement at individual and family level. Initially the former can be supported by ideology (books, cassettes, lectures, etc.). But over time, the community movement needs to come into its own and take shape through institutions which embody the social ideals of the Dalit community.
The pathetic state of educational institutions founded by Dr. Ambedkar is symptomatic of the malaise that has gripped our community.
The very people that he bequeathed the vanguard institutions of the movement seem to have failed him. These institutions have decayed in academic standards, and one rarely hears their name being taken in the same breath as the better ones. Good students prefer to stay away from them. Good teachers too prefer to stay away from the internecine struggles there. We have to find ways of resuscitating such old institutions from their problems of financing, HR, marketing as well as build newer institutions which help us improve the educational level of the community. The tradition of Christian convent schools could be replicated by Buddhist monks. Buddhist monks (male and female) need places to live. Buddhist religious places could co-locate marriage halls, lecture theatres, educational institutions, etc. which could be operated by the monks themselves in manner similar to the Christian clergy.
Dalit entrepreneurs should try to focus ‘on making money by accelerating the education and delivery of Dalit human capital (both males and females) to the job markets by
- Educational/training financing and/or advisory
- Placement services
- Training and/or grooming services focused on job procurement
