DALITS IN AMERICA LOOK AT INDIA

The ghastly spectacle of the people of Gujarat virtually going to war against their dalit brothers over admission of a student to medical college was sickening. A mature and law-abiding society will not take recourse to In the US in the case of Allan P. Bakke. where preference to a Black candidate was given for admission in medical school over Bakke, a White, the American society did not react madly as its Indian counterpart nor did the American, medicos start rioting. The case was settled in courts. The Indian medicos by leaving their classes, and rioting showed that they lacked emotional control which is one of the funda- mental qualities of a good physician. The selection board made a mistake by admitting such students to medical colleges. The physicians, besides being academically good, should have other qualities including an aptitude for studies and a good degree of emotional stability. A good un- understanding of the society & compassion for the poor. Nowhere in the world medical college admissions are made solely on the basis of marks. Even in US the results of Medical College Admission tests are used as one of the many factors in deciding whether or not an applicant be admit- ted to medical colleges. Besides his scholastic achievement each candidate is assessed of his intellectual potentiality by way of interview, letters of recommendations and in some instances by objective tests. Marks and intellectual potentiality are two different things. Getting good marks as in case of Gujrat students, there- fore, does not necessarily indicate a student’s intellectual superiority over the other. In India, marks are taken by concentrated efforts. Nowhere, except in India does one see the maddening concentrated effort on the part of students and their parents alike for getting a “class” in examination by any means fair or foul. All possible ways are used coaching by private teachers, cramming, using influence and money for “leaking” the quest- ion papers as well as cheating on the ex- amination. Hindu students because of their high-caste status and rich fathers excel in this game. Candidates with the 70-80% marks are thus forcibly manufactured for admission to medical or engineering colleges. A dallt student, on the other hand, because of his poverty, lack of parental guidance and because of the unsuited environment and his inability to play the same game as the Hindu student cannot achieve his full potential and earn as much percentage of marks as the Hindu student does. Many of the Hindu students getting 70 80% marks-in the face of such difficulty as faced by the dalit students would have probably dropped out of the school and in similar good environment like that of the Hindu students, dalit student would have achieved 70-80% marks or more. Dalit student getting 50- 60% therefore has the same “merit” as that of the non-dalit student with 70-80% marks. It is. therefore, wrong and malicious to say that because of securing 10-20%, lower marks in entrance examination the dalit students are lacking intelligence and merit. The very fact that the dalit students admitted to medical colleges on reserved seats are able to complete their education successfully year after year without dropping out of the colleges proves that their selection for admission was right. This fact is time-tested since the start of reservation. No university offers such students the degree of MBBS because they are dalits. As far the Intelligence of the dalit society as a whole is concerned, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this society is as intelligent as any other. It has produced intellectual giants like Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, sages like Valmiki, poets like Rohicas. Chokhamela and Nandanar and philosophers like Thiruvalluvar and that too under extreme adverse conditions. The Hindus should take out from their minds the traditional dogma that the dalits lack intelligence. The same notion was held by the Britishers about the Hindus in particular and the Indians in general that ‘Kala admi (Black-man) was of inferior intellect and was not fit to rule and for that matter even to hold a post of a judge. History has proved this wrong 1 We do admit that because of the high rise in the number of students desiring to go to medical and engineering colleges because of the low number of such colleges available, many of the deserving students cannot be admitted. This problem of high education is faced by all nations. The choice between educating a select group at government expense or making higher education available for everyone is a matter of debate in all societies (even USA) to which no one has yet found a satisfactory solution. The rioting students of Gujarat, instead of demanding seats from the reserved quota should have agitated for an increase in the number of enrollments in the present schools and also for establishing more medical schools. With the money they wasted by destroying the public and private property & force closing the normal day-to-day business, the Government could have established some new colleges thus meeting their demands. But one wonders whether the riots were because of the genuine desire of getting places for more worthy students in colleges or because of the traditional hatred of the Untouchables. If the Gujarat students were really interested in raising the standard of medical practioners, why did that not demonstrate against some private medical colleges where seats can be bought years in advance without any con sideration to merit ! Why did the Gujarat students not raise a single protest against the declining standard of professors or for the revision of curriculum? The fact that Gujarat students did not demonstrate against other real causes of bad education and also the fact that high caste Hindus and students from other States like Bihar, Maharashtra openly harass the dalits on one lame excuse or the other show that they are jealous of even the little progress made by the dalits. In the last 5 years, in Gujarat, 837 students joined the graduate courses out of which only 37 were dalits. The same story is repeated in job market. According to 1976 figures, in Gujarat only 1.7%, of Class I posts were filled by the dalits. These figures show that the cry that the dalits are taking over is a big hoax perpetuated because of jealousy and misunderstanding. This jealousy is the main cause why even after 30 years of safe- guards the fate of dalits has not improved nor has the institution of the untouchability crumbled a bit. The hatred and jealousy of the dalits by the Hindus will continue as long as the Hindu religion and its caste system remains. Hinduism. and caste are inseparable. Destroying caste is to destroy the law of Chaturvarna. destroying the sacredness of Shastres and Vedas-in short is to destroy the whole Hindu religion which is impossible. The only solution of removing this traditional hatred of this vast minority is, therefore. to encourage the dalits to change their religion by extending them the same privileges as enjoyed by them as Scheduled Castes. Mischief-mongers like the framers of the “Freedom of Religion Bill” during Janta Govt., which tried to ban conversion from one religion to other, should be held as anti-social & anti-progress. The basic idea behind granting special privileges to this dalit minority was to raise its level educationally and economically so that they could join the mainstream of national life as equals. This equality in social life has not yet been achieved nor does it seem likely that it will be achieved in the near future because of the terrorist tactics of the majority Hindus against the minorities like dalits and Buddhists. This poses a great danger to the country. It will be proper to remember here Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s warning which he gave while presenting the Indian Constitution to the Parliament when he said “On Jan. 26. 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we have equality and social & economic life we will have inequality. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this assembly has so laboriously built up..”. For thousands of years, the dalits because of the dogma of “pollution” have remained concentrated outside the cities, in ghettoes. Their schools elementary, middle and high-are totally segregated thus lacking “standard”. In a similar situation the American Govt. came up with the idea of ‘Busing the transportation of Negro students to schools in white areas. To mitigate the defacto-segregation Govt. of India will have to adopt similar or less costly ways like denial of ‘grants to such schools which do not enroll at least 20% students from minority castes & religions. The dalits will also have to help them- selves. Like the Buddha, who said ‘Be your own light’, this community will have to elevate itself by hard work and co-operation. The educated dalits (the second class brahmins) and the ‘reserved-seat politicians will have to shed their selfish attitude and work for the upliftment of their community: It is very suicidal that after getting education, many of the dalits spend their time apeing the Hindus and in hiding their identity. Likewise many of the dalit politicans are seen doing no thing after getting elected. All political parties have in fact always misused the dalit reserved seats for their own good by selecting only the ‘yes-men’ to run for political offices. Though dalits have representation in the political offices, nothing is done to this community because of these selfish good-for-nothing so-called politicans belonging to the dalit community. Real leaders of dalits, therefore. never get elected to any political offices. Mass conversion of scheduled castes to Buddhism in States like Maharashtra & in some parts of U.P., and the recent conversion to Islam in Tamil Nadu is a welcome change for this community. Dalits will never be allowed to come to the mainstream of Indian (Hindu) life, as long as they stay in Hinduism, because the Hindus always see in a dalit person. not his education, not his merits, not his achievements, not his ability, not even his pathetic background, but only his caste. If another religion would give these un- fortunate people self-respect. dignity. equality and a sense of being as human at last, why should anyone stop this life- saving process ? No human with any common sense at all should criticize this conversion. Enormous harm to these people have been done for several centuries by the Hindu religion, and if anyone expects these people to jump up and fight for jobs and seats in educational institutions on equal footing in a short period of time, they must be asking the impossible. This is like asking a one year-old child to get up and run. Dalits need time and more importantly encouragement & under- standing from other communities to come out of the mud pile thrown on them all this time by the Hindu religion. The dalit community is now awake. It is not going to sit around and bear everything the Hindus are doing to them. The entire community had plenty of time at their dispose to correct their religious attitudes and behaviours, and take a close look at themselves and their religion. These dalits have been not only economically exploited, but also socially, culturally and educationally by all the segments of people who belong to the same Hindu religion. The dalits will never sit idle and watch that. In the false name of ‘merit’ this community of 80 million people is deprived of its doctors, engineers, lawyers. teachers, scientists, and the others. They will fight back and gain their lost status.