A community caught between Manu and Adam Smith

There is no consensus among Dalits about how to measure the community’s development. Neither academia, nor the state has come out with any tool to do this. What all of us — Dalit intellectuals, academics and the state — have been doing is to count the number of jobs Dalits hold in government, and, of course, a headcount of Dalits in educational institutions.

Thanks to affirmative action policies for Dalits authored by Dr BR Ambedkar, the community has become visible in government offices, college campuses and legislative houses, and a tiny Dalit middle class has emerged. But Dalits in state employment would be around 3.4 million. This, in a population of over 160 million, cannot make them happy.

On another note, the state-produced Dalit middle class can work as a catalyst for the emancipation of the entire community.

What will ‘emancipation’ mean? There is very little debate on this all-important question. More often than not, we speak in a vague language. “Casteless society,” we say. Are we, by implication, asking for a “class society”?

Let us discuss ‘caste society’. By all accounts, India’s caste order rests on the twin principle of ‘occupational purity’ and ‘blood purity’. The Manusmriti speaks of preserving this. If we read the book and look at Indian society, the Manusmriti looks like a script, and the society a film based on the script.

Dr Ambedkar rejected and critiqued the Dharma-shastras — from the Rig Veda to the Ramayana — but burnt only the Manusmriti on December 25, 1927. That event is celebrated by Dalits every year as Manusmriti Dahan Divas.

Historically, there has been no caste without clear occupation identity and vice versa. If a casteless India is our goal, then all caste-based occupations must either wither away or be made caste-neutral. That would mean a complete revamp of India’s production system and production relations.

Since caste order evolved in an agrarian setup, to make India casteless, we need to completely destroy agrarianism and its economic foundations. That would mean India going for complete industrialisation and by implication, the creation of an urban society.

But our drive for a casteless India pushes the entire Dalit intelligentsia into a web of dilemmas. The world over, the task of industrialisation and urbanisation was accomplished by capitalism. It was capitalism which defeated feudalism. The dilemma before Dalit thought leaders is about whether to support capitalism. To a non-intellectual underclass Dalit, working for Ratan Tata — the poster boy of Indian capitalism — is better than working for Raja Bhaiya — poster boy of caste feudalism.

It is a dilemma with no parallel. Here is a situation where we are witnessing an intense battle between Manu and Adam Smith. By implication, unintended though, most Dalit intellectuals are cheering Manu by questioning capitalism and globalisation.

By World War II, almost half the globe had gone communist. The Chinese revolution of 1949 threatened the very existence of capitalism. Even Jawaharlal Nehru had begun admiring Karl Marx and communism. Around that time, 1952 to be precise, Dr Ambedkar wrote the manifesto for his political party, the All India Scheduled Caste Federation. In it he promised the start of agriculture on large farms, mechanised farming, and the use of fertilisers and pesticides. He was arguing for industrialisation of agriculture along the Western pattern. He made the argument contrary to socialism at the height of the ideology because he knew that agrarianism is the mother of Manudharma.

Today, 60% Indians are involved in agriculture and over one-third Dalits are landless agricultural labourers. Now, is there any way to map Dalit development unless we know what percentage has entered caste-neutral occupations? At Mumbai’s roadside, do we know what caste the cobbler belongs to and what caste the sweeper belongs to?

The author is an independent researcher and writer