The most oft-quoted solution to wipe out India’s flourishing caste system has been “education”. Once education is given, a person loses his caste consciousness, it is said. This panacea is prescribed so forcefully right from a school child’s essay to the Prime Minister’s speeches. Many a time we are deceived by this argument. But truth, as always, is stranger than fiction.
The biggest ‘caste war’ that India has ever witnessed found its germination in a college of “higher learning”. The Gujarat anti-reservation agitation, which rocked that State in Jan. 1981, was launched by “highly educated” postgraduate medicos. It would be difficult to forget how those high caste Hindu doctors reacted so violently when they felt the fringe of their private domain of ‘higher education’ being touched by Dalits. And these doctors had enjoyed the best of education the country could offer. The myth of “education” eradicating caste is thus once for all exploded. Ironically, the scene now has shifted to the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, (JNU) a name which strikes awe in the hearts of the purest of pedants. A ‘temple’ of higher learning offering only postgraduate and doctoral courses. An abode for the high priests of Academe: a factory producing super-Brahmins. Alas, it is here that the ugly head of caste has raised itself in all its brutal nakedness. Trouble had been brewing since a long time. But when Dr. P. C. Saxena, a high caste prof. in the Computer Science School, hurled abuses at three Untouchable (Chamar) students for their caste pollution, the purity of our education system stuck out like a sore thumb. The JNU incident offers a classic case for analysis.
It is a not-so-strange paradox that JNU is in reality a stronghold of hardboiled Marxists. The SFI (CPM) and AISF (CPI) have been championing the students’ cause with a generous dose of “Marxian” and “progressive” jargon. The teachers’ body, JNUTA, also sings the same song. The facts of the case given below make a woeful reading. It was in 1979 that a SC/ST (Dalit) Students Association was formed. But this was a gimmick to marshal the valuable Dalit votes by the Ruling Class. In Aug. 1982, a Dalit student, Surjeet Singh, faced the wrath of high caste Hindus in JNU’s Centre for Political Studies. The SFI turned a deaf ear to his plea for justice. The Dalit students began to rise from their slumber. And on Aug. 11, 1982, the SC/ST Association leadership was impeached, displacing the SFI lackeys. The recast SC/ST Association organised a mass indefinite hunger strike on Aug. 23, 1982. The “Left-Democratic” teacher-student combine lost no time in dubbing the Dalits as “casteist” and “extremist”. The Dalit students were, however, undaunted. Their demands included implementation of reservations in admission and recruitment of faculty. “There were only 3 SC/ST teachers out of 350” (Massline, March, 1983).
On the 10th day of the hunger strike, the Vice-Chancellor conceded their demands. SFIAISF front, which would split hairs over fine Marxist stands including platitudes on Kampuchea and the Afghan crisis, stood exposed. Their consequent defeat at the student election came as no surprise. The latest incident, early this year, was much more serious. Dr. Saxena, a Prof. in the Computer and Systems Sciences School, brought the simmering discontent among the high caste JNU-ites to the fore. We reproduce from Massline the exact words of abuse hurled by Saxena: “You people are not. suited to study science. Better go home and do your original work. You people are a liability to the university. You SC/ST people (Chamars) should be tied to a tree and flogged”. These words came from the mouth of a “scientist”! Highly educated. The SC/ST Association boldly took up cudgels against this blatant case of caste oppression.
Systematic victimization of Dalit students in the Computer School was observed even in the past. It goes to the credit of the Dalit students who waged a lonely and protracted battle with their back to the wall. The longest struggle that JNU has seen on social issues. What makes the struggle doubly commendable is that the SC/ST Association was alone in its crusade. Under the mask of Marxism, everyone including the SFIAISF and the JNUTA (let alone the University authorities and other political parties), scuttled and sabotaged the Dalit struggle at every stage. Even SYS, a student body professing Lohiaite and Gandhian ideals, turned its back on the Dalits. The Revolutionary Students Organisation (RSO) apparently proved the honourable exception. The university was closed, the VC gheraoed and a criminal case has now been filed against Saxena.
A revealing account of the struggle is published in the Massline (quoted earlier) written by a JNU student, Chandra Bhan Prasad. A Jai Bhim to the journal and the author for the brilliant expose. We also visited JNU and all its hostels. It gave us a ring side picture of the battle. Discussions with P. Arun Kumar, and S. K. Das, president and secretary of the Dalit Students Association, revealed the intensity of the struggle. There was no semblance of the reservation policy in JNU. Posters screaming: “If progressives and reactionaries are different, why should they unite against the just struggle of SC/ST students? ” proved that in India Caste is, the Ideology. The administration of the JNU was in shambles with practically everything malfunctioning, they said. Both, the Gujarat anti reservation stir and the JNU Dalit students’ struggle, not only lay bare the hollowness of the claims of “education” and the high-caste-dominated Left parties, but also raise a few more moot points. Higher education, if not all education, in India is the preserve of the rich. The alumni of these institutes of higher learning are, therefore, reasonably well off. Looking from a purely Leftist viewpoint, one would expect no trace of caste in these students and their professors assured of economic security. Unfortunately, the opposite is observed. Affluence has fortified caste with all its perversities. In Hindu India, it is the “educated” who are more caste conscious than the illiterate. Hence the need to educate the “educated”. Further, it is said that caste disappears in the cities which offer “urban anonymity”. Ahmedabad and New Delhi are by any definition urban areas. That means neither education, industrialisation nor urbanisation removes the caste hatred. The Hindus believe what they want to believe.
