Sorry BR Ambedkar, modern India has let Dalits down

On April 14, every political party in town, from the Shiv Sena to the BJP, made a huge show of putting BR Ambedkar's photo on their posters to show their respect for a man who was a political outcast during his lifetime. They celebrate Ambedkar’s legacy as if they’re doing everything in their power to uphold his values. Even the PM went big. Modi visited Mhow in Madhya Pradesh, Ambedkar’s birthplace, and spoke about how Congress had let Ambedkar down as he launched the Gramodaya Se Bharatodaya Abhiyan (Development of the Nation through Development of the Village).

The sad truth is that we’ve made little inroads as a nation against caste oppression, despite the lip-service that we continue to pay to this Dalit icon. Most of you reading this can’t imagine what caste oppression stands for because by the virtue of our privilege we’ve never experienced it. Our closest call with caste probably comes when people pick partners or fill up exam forms and lament how life is terrible for general students.

While I’ve been one of those complaining about it, only in later life does one realise that a few engineering seats hardly make up for years of oppression, which continues in this day and age. The only reason we don’t see it is because the urban Indian has become insulated from the harsh reality that most people in our nation face.

Real life isn’t like quantum mechanics and just because you didn’t observe the event doesn’t mean it didn’t occur. In fact, most people’s upbringing is such that we don’t even notice the oppression, as if a certain class of society doesn’t exist at all.

The chase for a couple of engineering seats doesn’t begin to make up for the years of atrocities that we have heaped on our Dalit brethren simply by the virtue of their birth.

Ambedkar's journey against untouchability

As a youngster, Ambedkar was segregated in school and not allowed to sit with the rest of the children. When they needed water, someone from a higher caste would pour it for them from a height so that they didn’t ‘contaminate’ the water by touching it. This was usually done by the school peon and they would have to forgo the element of life if the peon was absent. Ambedkar would later write about this calling it “No peon, no water”.

If we think this is an incident that’s unthinkable in modern-day India, then we need to step out of our comfortable arm-chairs. Dalits, even today, continue to experience caste oppression that existed during Ambedkar’s time.

In October 2015, a Dalit student was thrashed by his teacher for touching the mid-day meal plates by his teacher. His father was also thrashed when he came to pick up his son. 

In November 2015, around 100 children left a school in Kolar in Karnataka, refusing to eat the food dished out by a Dalit cook. The cook, Radhamma, broke down while talking to NDTV and said, “It has been like this since the day I joined in February 2014. The children would not drink the milk I gave them or eat the food I cooked. What can I tell the children? Their parents are telling them not to eat.”

In February, at the height of the agitation against Rohith Vemula’s death, a Congress leader wrote to Sonia Gandhi about how he was thrown out of a party meet in Ghaziabad by the party’s district president Om Prakash Sharma. In his letter, he quoted Sharma as saying, “How come you are in this meeting? Your meeting is at 3 pm. This meeting is for big people. Small people like you have no role in this meeting.” Sharma allegedly added, “If people from a Dhobi caste will sit with us, what would be left of our status? We don’t need you here. Your place is under our feet.”

In March, a 17-year-old Dalit girl in Rajasthan’s Bikaner district was raped and murdered by her PT teacher in college. Similarly, in April, three young boys from the Kanjar community were thrashed by a mob for stealing a motorcycle in Chittorgarh district.

Despite 69 years of independence, the caste system remains strong in both rural or urban India. If you think urban India is free from the spectre of caste, all you have to do is look at the matrimonials in your daily newspaper.  

Of the 1.72 lakh crimes against SC/STs on trial in 2014, only 13% trials were completed. Reports suggest that crimes against Dalits have increased in 2014. The number of cases registered under the SC/ST atrocities act against Dalits in 2013 was 39,000 while the number rose to 47,000 in 2014.

A survey by the NCAER, India's oldest and largest independent non-profit economic policy research institute, found that one of every four Indian still practised some form of untouchability. Here are some findings from the survey:

— 27% admitted to practising some form of untouchability

— 52% Brahmins admitted to still practicing it.

— State-wise, untouchability is most widespread in Madhya Pradesh (53%), Himachal Pradesh (50%), Chhattisgarh (48%), Rajasthan and Bihar (47%), UP (43%) and Uttarakhand (40%).

— West Bengal proved to be the most progressive state with only 1% of the respondents claiming they practised untouchability.

In his suicide note, Rohith Vemula had called his birth a fatal accident. He had written: “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.”

Rohith’s suicide note, more than anything, sums up how we continue to oppress. It’s sad that in 2016, this is still an issue. If the political parties really wish to show their support for our Dalit brethren, it's time they started walking the talk.