The curse of untouchability continues to chase Dr. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar even half a century after his death and the bane is not a history yet. The Dalit faces it almost at every step within or outside India, though we love to imagine and preach on that basis quite otherwise. Dr. Ambedkar has been subjected to discrimination in the alma meter where about a century ago, he had prosecuted his higher education. Enrolled in 1913 as a student of the prestigious Columbia University of New York, he obtained his MA and Ph. D. degrees there. The University in 2004 had initiated a proposal to create Ambedkar Chair for studies, research and analysis of Indian Political Economics.
CASTE HATRED SWALLOWS AMBEDKAR CHAIR
The University, where the brilliant and meritorious student spent his formative years, wanted to finance the project out of its own resources, considering the indelible imprint the social revolutionary left on the nation’s socio-cultural and political life. Needless to note that when he went to the University, he faced no hostility based on descent. This ipso facto underlines that the class or coterie that has taken position now there did not exist or lay their foothold to pollute its pristine environment. Ala’s footprints of untouchability have now become a hallmark in the temple of learning.
In a thought-provoking article in The New York Times (Oct.24, 2004), Joseph Berger had exposed a sensational but well-guarded secrecy how the Columbia University was compelled to abort a project for “Ambedkar Chair” in the teeth of opposition by some faculty members. It is clarified at the first opportunity that the opponents of the Chair were not Americans per se but Indians – one and all. And they were, according to Berger, the “upper caste Indians”. They were also educated and intellectually equipped upper castes to revile Dr. Ambedkar in the prestigious overseas temple of higher learning. Prof. E. Valentine Daniel of Anthropology Dept. was the architect of the project.
The man who scripted the very Article of the Constitution of India abolishing untouchability was himself targeted for brazen discrimination on the altar of his own alma meter.
HINDU VICES
It was here he had acquired and honed his skills for an odyssey against the social vices enshrined in the Hindu scriptures and immortalized by their meticulous practices. Nobody could raise fingers alleging that Dr. Ambedkar lacked merit, efficiency or competence or diligence, a theme song usually sang against the Dalits. He, on the other hand, outshines many of overrated contemporary icons in erudition, statesmanship, patriotism, or administrative abilities. He was a brilliant researcher, writer, historian and above all, an untiring crusader against injustice all his life. He brought the concept of social justice in the public domain and discourse by incorporating it in the Preamble to Indian Constitution. The Constitution enshrines the following article dismantling untouchability:
“Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability shall be an offense punishable according to law.”
CRIMES AGAINST DALITS
The provisions of Indian constitution or laws thereunder do not apply to crimes committed by Indians in USA. Even in India, we know the treatments Dalit receives and challenges he faces in all walks of life every day. Crimes against him are legion and insensitivity in the polity abysmal. The above Constitutional provision adores the statute book only as a useless piece of ornament, which does not embarrass his countrymen. It is factually a dead letter now. Mere 2.5% of the cases of atrocities committed against the SCs and STs end in convictions. The roles of agencies assigned with investigation, prosecution and trial are well demonstrated in this state of affairs, involving the dignity, life and properties of the target groups. Speaking dispassionately, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 today, designed to safeguard the target groups from myriad atrocities, oppressions and exploitations is of no use to them.
MULAYAM’S ANTI-NATIONAL ACT
One may recall, in this background, how Mulayam Singh Yadav, as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, once made a shocking public declaration that he would not enforce the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act during his tenure. That an Act passed by the nation’s parliament could be shelved by a state in such supercilious manner on its chief minister’s discretion is anti-national. It was a challenge to the highest legislature of India. And no voice of sanity was ever raised against such arrogant declaration from any corner. Dalit opinion even on core issues affecting their vital interests rarely find space in the media. Nobody would ever remember if and when an annual report of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes or National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, both constitutional watchdogs, was discussed in the Parliament.
Since decades the National Commissions have hitherto submitted their reports to the President of India year after year but their labors of love have been gathering dust in a corner of the labyrinthine corridors of power. The measure of parliamentary as well as official neglect towards India’s scheduled castes and tribes in totality is starkly reflected.
CRIMES OF HINDU ACADEMICS
The discrimination targeting Dr. Ambedkar by Indian members in Academic Committee on the prestigious Columbia University, poses a perplexing predicament. They being Indians, the Indian Govt. with best of intentions, if at all, could not raise an alarm or bogey of racist attack against the Ambedkar baiters. Nor will the Indian authorities have the inclination to take up the issue even now with the Obama administration urging appropriate actions against those Indian-American academics for violation of civil rights of USA and to honour Dr. Ambedkar in the way the South Asian Institute had planned. The countrymen did not know if the vast establishment maintained by the Indian Govt. at tax payers’ money in New York and Washington or elsewhere ever cared to intervene in the matter and invite the attention of the home authorities for guidance/ advice.
Since the article portraying the Indian social mindset in the powerful New York Times has fallen on deaf ears and blind eyes of authorities, both in the US and India, we have no way but to conclude that they are least bothered if Dr. Ambedkar is disgraced, desecrated, discriminated or humiliated there in USA despite his record of his spectacular services to the nation.
C.I.I. OPPOSES RESERVATIONS
The issue has implications far wider and too deeper than meets the eye. The same New York Times underscored the depth of hatred against Indian Dalits enveloping the length and breadth of USA. Joseph Berger further writes:
“E. Valentine Daniel, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, says some Indian executives will not hire untouchables, now usually called Dalits, or downtrodden, no matter their qualifications. “It’s even more than a glass ceiling, it’s a tin roof,” he said. (Ibid)
The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the apex body of captains of industries in India, we may recall, went on overdrive against a proposal of the Ministry of Social Justice that the Government of India would like to initiate measure favoring reservation of jobs for SC/STs in the private sector.
PREJUDICE IN U.S.A.
This is warranted by the fact that the government, both at the center and states have ceased to recruit manpower in any significant manner. So, the Indian executives on US soil and their country cousins are equally contemptuous to the Dalit and Tribal. In fact, they are on the same page when the question of recruitment of Dalit and tribal candidates is concerned.
The American Indians are alarming not so much for Indian Dalit or Tribal as for the Americans of African origin and descent. Sociologists do not form their opinions nor draw conclusions based on solitary instance. Observation of instance after instance, repetition of similar events besides adequate experiment and experience lead social scientists to believe and thereafter form an empirical opinion on any issue. Given the circumstances, the Dalits have to contend with the same degree and dimension of prejudice in USA as they encounter in their motherland back in India. The Dalit there is under a tight grip, if “tin roof” as against “glass ceiling” conveys any meaning. Enduring intense caste hatred has gone into genetic code of the Dalit as also tribal communities in India. A Shiva Sena type movement by African Americans against Indian Americans of the kind noted by the professor of anthropology may not be altogether a ridiculous idea. Only time will say.
6TH OLDEST UNIVERSITY
Indians can scarcely grasp the dimension of contributions the Columbia University has made to the human knowledge and civilization. Oldest educational institution of the New York State, founded in 1754 as King’s College by Royal Charter of King George II of England, the Columbia University is the sixth oldest in the USA. The University most justifiably prides itself with more winners of Nobel Prizes than any other university across the globe. It administers and annually grants the Pulitzer Prizes. Notable alumni and affiliates of the university include four US Presidents, nine Justices of its Supreme Court, 79 Nobel Prize winners and 96 Pulitzer Prize winners. US President and a Nobel Laureate for Peace [2009], Obama is one of the shining alumni of Columbia University.
BRAHMINS LOVE ONLY BRAHMINS
Dr. Ambedkar had made an observation based on his galling personal experience that merit is not appreciated in India. He was, however, very quick to add that Brahmans appreciate the merit of a Brahman, Kayasths of a Kayasth and so on. On the same analogy we can as well say that in India, honour is not an universal cause celebre if bestowed on a Dalit. Honour to Dr. Ambedkar in Columbia University, his unidentified detractors felt, did not glorify India or Indians. Their senses and faculties for appreciation are jaundiced by morbidity: They saw Dr. Ambedkar’s caste; they did not see, much less acknowledge, his towering achievements and accomplishments coupled with crowning scholarship. Tragedy is that this happened in USA, the land that saw the rise of Barak Obama, a half African-American.
No American President hitherto opened up the heart of that proud, nay, insensitive-and often perceived as arrogant-nation exposing its depth and eagerness for adoption and assimilation of all in the style and fashion Obama did on the day of his inauguration. His words for the Hindus of America were translated into action soon by organizing the first ever Deepawali celebrations (2009), a festival of lights in the White House. By this solitary action, the President Obama has endeared himself to the world of millions of Hindus and practically converted them into his fans, friends and admirers. He has ingratiated himself to them without exception.
But Obama should be aware of the dark side of the Hindus. The worrying, though conclusive, evidences of their venom are already on record. If they enjoy free and unrestrained hand with claws and nails to deal with the way they have been doing with the Indian Dalits on US soil, even people who are stone-blind could see, would be convinced that the same calamitous fate or misfortunes would befall the African- Americans too, if not others.
BENGALIS HATE DALITS
In any case, we know the Indians generally refer to them pejoratively as the kalua, bloody niggers. This is no longer a secret. We may recall here the impressions and attitudinal hostility the Bengali-Americans nurse against Obama. When his candidature for the Presidency was announced in 2008 after his victory in the Primaries, an American dispatch for a Bengali weekly, Bartaman, reported it. Loosely translated, the Bengali weekly says that the second generation of Bengali immigrants in America might be enamored of Obama’s education in Harvard University, his record of unblemished community services since student days, his erudition and oratory as the Presidential candidate, program of action, etc. But their parents or elders do not share the same degree of sentiment, enthusiasm or infatuation about Obama. They are, on the contrary, clearly unhappy at the thought of a Black guy at all entering the White House as the US President.
The brown people, in fact, are no less resentful than the Whites against a Black occupying the highest office in US. Once Obama got elected, many Bengalis genuinely apprehended, the Blacks would have a field day. Out and out lazy and thoroughly shirker, the kaluas are a dead-weight on the American people and the society. They are like the working classes wedded to rabid trade unionism under the indulgent Communist Party of India ruling the roost in West Bengal since 1977. Those people are fully responsible for derailing the state into chaos, conflict, confusion and stagnation. For America too, if Obama got elected as the President, the writing of the wall is quite clear. Many Bengalis were deeply worried that he would be under acute community influence and/or pressure despite his brilliance. One Bengali-American went to the extent of exclaiming: “
“Thirty-five years ago, I had left India for the USA with a fond dream of working with white skinned people [sahibs]. Lo and behold! Now | am destined to serve under a bloody nigger.”
The outburst is a clear and unambiguous reflection of the mindset of the educated Bengalis who had adopted America as their home several decades ago but have not changed a bit from their retrograde moorings.
HINDUS CARRY CASTE TO U.S.A.
The Indians have already joined the global village in singing paeans sonorously for the 44th President of Kenyan-American origin. However, such change of attitude is utterly opportunistic and prudence dictates that it should be viewed with suspicion it merits. Beneath their skin lies deep layers of hatred for the people of African descent. The Hindu perception and attitude, marked by age-old precepts and rituals, concepts of privileges, prejudices and graded inequality, inflexible sense of exclusiveness and gnawing discrimination have become veritable graveyard for a vast humanity on its own home-India. Wherever the Hindus migrated under the sun, they did not leave their old baggage behind. They have carted old baggage with their culture and heritage, which are like round pegs into square holes. They fail to appreciate how their ancient baggage is stinking beyond tolerance and has been causing nausea for the humanity.
America would better take note of the prospect of unbridled growth of a Hindu America because its dimension would be horrifying. The dimension of the Indian population there needs to be underscored. “In the 2000 census, there were 454,686 Indians in the New York-New Jersey- Connecticut metropolitan area.
According to one source USA stands at 8th of top ten countries with Hindu population. It has 10,32,000 Hindus.
United Kingdom, on the other hand, has 1% Hindu who in actual number accounts for 607,762. A struggle to curb the menace of caste has begun. The caste has poisoned the nerves and arteries of the country’s polity so as to alarm the authorities to suppress it in right earnest by putting on anvil an Equality Bill there. The problem appears no more trivial, if anybody thinks so.
Atrocities in hundreds and thousands of cases on Dalits and tribals across the country evoke no interest of the media or even to the intelligentsia at large in India. They scarcely turn their eyes to them for redress and/or creating public knowledge. The American Congress as well as the European Parliament has noted the nature of atrocities and exploitation Dalit and tribal are destined to suffer.
[The writer is a former Vice- Chancellor, B. R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar.] For comments and observation: atul.biswas@gmail.com
