Dalit Challenges and Disciplinary Practices

The interface between dalit activism and academia in the last two decades has given way to a growing body of work on Dalit Studies. It is essentially inter/multi-disciplinary in character and explores new questions, methods, and paradigms. The political and cultural overtones of the term and concept of dalit have opened up new possibilities of critical engagement with conceptual categories of exclusion and marginality for disciplinary practices. Posing a challenge to the existing disciplines, it propels the initiative for the creation of an alternative paradigm as well as reconfiguring the contours of everyday life in Indian society in general and academia in particular. Caste, religion and land as determinants of relations of power and subordination, as sources of oppression and humiliation are central to the understanding of dalit life-worlds.

Long waves of egalitarian challenges posed by bhakti and sufi movements to the hierarchical ideology of Brahmanism in the pre-colonial times were fractured by the pro-Brahmanical colonial intervention that left the task of building India modern for the self-proclaimed modernists highly complex and difficult. It is best exemplified in the fall of the Hindu Code Bill in 1951 that Dr Ambedkar had introduced as Law Minister to empower women of India as equal citizens. Nehru as archetypal modernist failed miserably to exert his weight as the Prime Minister of India to carry along the conservatives with the reformist agenda for a free India. Quite ironically even Sarojini Naidu had threatened to go on a hunger strike if the Bill was not dropped. While the orthodox majority basked in their triumphal sun the real modernist Ambedkar resigned from the Cabinet in utter disgust.  The nation is still struggling to wriggle out of the stranglehold of brahmanical ideology and the colonial legacy of the British. Dalits have been trying from time to time to escape this suffocation by converting to egalitarian religions such as Islam, Christianity and Buddhism with varying degree of success and satisfaction. The strategy of conversion was also stamped by Ambedkar and it needs to be seen how far it has helped dalits improve their life conditions.

Over the last few decades the debate around who speaks for the subaltern? has raised questions of representation and authenticity. Suspicions have been expressed by internal voices against non-Dalits writings; not even sparing the genuine and sympathetic thinkers. There has also been the conventional mode of patronage and an attitude of condescension on the part of the other side. Even though serious academic work has been undertaken in the past, however, there has also been a spurt in the production of knowledge for the sake of promotions as also for the market. A balanced approach demands an open-minded/ended and inclusive reception and participation for a progressive onward journey. The exclusions cannot be countered by exclusions; organic dalit intellectuals should be more aware of the dangers of exclusionary practices. Dalit studies cannot but consciously address the unconscious of not only the oppressed but the oppressor as well.

The establishment of Dr. Ambedkar Chairs and UGC sponsored Centres for Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy in different universities and educational institutions have played its role in sensitising the academics toward Dalit Studies. But even after two decades of Dalit Studies existence in the academia, it is still in an amorphous state, and is at cross-roads. The rethinking and reimagining seem already in place and a weeks meeting-of-minds is bound to trigger new ideas for charting this new road. It is important that stocktaking be done, reviews made and a roadmap sketched for the future of Dalit Studies. A week of intensive presentations, discussions, and reflections by a small group of 20 dedicated scholars is called for that purpose. The invited participants cover a broad range of scholars from different disciplines including public intellectuals who have already contributed in the field of Dalit Studies. Each day of the Study Week would take up not more than 4 papers with ample time for presentation and discussion to finally lead the scholars toward publication of its proceedings by the Institute.

Themes:

• Dalit activism, dalit studies and academia: impact of dalit consciousness and assertion
• Who speaks for the Subaltern?: The questions of representation and authenticity
• Pragmatics of knowledge production
• Dialectics of the oppressed and oppressor: relationship between dalits and swarnas
• Dalits in literary and historiographical praxis
• Dalits and modernity project: religion, caste and state through
• Colonial and postcolonial times