Scheduled Castes: It is time we changed our mindset

Image via WikipediaA few days back, I was walking along the busiest road in the city of Trivandrum. The road is named M G Road. As I reached in front of the Secretariat, a middle-aged woman approached me with a sheet of paper. There are always some strikes going on in front of the Secretariat and I realized this woman belonged to one of the striking groups. She wanted me o put my signature on that paper. I looked at it and it already contained a lot of signatures. She said they wanted to make it 1 lakh signatures and then submit it to the President of India. I was too tired to spare even a few seconds. I glanced at the banner and just walked away. As I was walking past them, I heard the lady’s comments, “He saw the banner and the photo and he is running away. The strike had something to do with dalit rights and the photograph was that of Dr. Ambedkar.

I thought of what she said and also my action. I wondered why I didn’t stop and signed on that paper. Anyway, my action was representative of the typical Indian upper caste, middle class mentality. We have no sympathy for the dalits. We feel they are unjustifiably given job reservation whereas we have to compete really hard to get a job. They can easily get in to the IITs and IIMs, which are symbols of modern Indian middle class dreams. We despise Dr. Ambedkar as a dalit icon rather than as a visionary.

Sadly, we are far away from truth. The dalits are still in a pathetic shape. Barring a limited number of dalits, most are not even aware of the opportunities available to us. The terms that we hear and use in our day to day life such as IT, globalization, BPO, Infosys, TCS, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, retail boom are all unheard of in their world.

So, what is new about all these? What am I talking about? One palpable difference between today and the past is the difference in the attitude of the upper caste, middle class urban youth of India. They are more self-centered than ever. They simply can’t accept the reality. Many factors resulted in this attitude. One among them is the reservation in jobs for OBCs introduced in 1989 by V P Singh government. That angered the upper caste youth. Many of the communities were given job reservation unjustifiably. At least the economically well off among these communities would have been excluded so that the benefits would have gone to the needy in these backward communities. Anyway, it is not the OBCs but the dalits who are blamed for the differential treatments against the forward castes and consequent opportunity losses.

It is high time we viewed the dalits from another angle. They are not benefiting greatly from any positive differential treatment extended to them by the government. Their representation is still very poor in the private companies. They don’t get any respect in our world. They are aggrieved more than ever because the urban upper caste middle class never had it so good when it comes to opportunities.

What should we do? Let us not talk about any action now. We should be first ready for a change in the mindset. We should start accepting the reality. We must realize that we can’t combat any threat the nation is facing such as terrorism or naxalism when these dalits are starving. We must welcome them in to our middle class world. They are not a burden. We should realize that people like Ambedkar were not just dalit icons but visionaries. Today we hail globalization and liberalization. Dr.Ambedkar had advocated it at the time of independence when our grandfathers and their heroes like Nehru couldn’t even imagine adopting that path. Hinduism should thank men like Ambedkar as much as we thank Swami Vivekananda. But for people like Ambedkar, the dalits would have converted to other religions in large numbers and Hindus would have been a minority. Yes, Ambedkar and his disciples converted to Buddhism, but then it was more of a protest than of a conversion in the strict sense of the term. I am not saying I agree with whatever Ambedkar said or did. All I am saying is we should consider him as a national icon rather than as a dalit leader. It is time we develop a new socio-economic philosophy which is rightist in spirit but as inclusive as the leftist ideals, and without the defects, demerits and impracticalities of leftism.