Emergence of an assertive, powerful Dalit middle class
The various Dalit movements across India will be a front against the imposition of hegemonic nationalism
Once again the debate on caste has collapsed into a predictable numbers game. The recent Supreme Court ruling to curb certain provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, to prevent possible misuse has elicited protests from Dalit communities. Almost all major political parties have pledged their love and loyalty to the Dalit cause by rallying against the apex court ruling construed as a dilution of the PoA safeguards.
Given that Dalit demonstrations and protests have largely happened spontaneously, without any kind of institutional party support, this post-facto waxing eloquent for Dalit interests is all the more troubling.
Political parties are scrambling to appropriate Dalit identities and their various struggles, without necessarily changing the nature of their hegemony. Liberal, Left- and Right-wing discourses have, while gesturing for nominal inclusion, remained insular to real-life Dalit practices and ideologies. These parties have historically neglected/failed to embrace ‘Dalitness’ in all its forms.
Thanks to decades of affirmative action programmes, the emergence of a significant Dalit middle class has meant that their politi- cal assertions and articulations will have a definitive impact on electoral endgames. Dalit protests against the court ruling is only the latest in a series of Dalit assertions in the past few years that include the NCERT cartoon controversy or the lynching of Dalits by cow vigilante groups in Una, the Rohith Vemula incident or the Bhima Koregaon clashes — all of which point firmly to Dalit politics and narratives coming of age.
In spite of the diversity of sites, situations and struggles, these instances reaffirm the desire for alternative pedagogies, politics and narratives that animate the many moments that characterise the Dalit movement in India. Dalit mobilisation is at an alltime spontaneous high, and this is the time to foster lateral pan-Indian networks of Dalit resistance.
Dalit identity politics is fast churning out an expansive axis of emancipatory struggle, and with all its ambiguities, perhaps the last few formidable sites that could resist and refigure the cultural hegemony on which the various edifices of Indian nationalism rests. If the diversity of Dalit movements occurring in the last few years is any indication, the emergence of an assertive and articulate Dalit middle class rallying around Ambedkar will provide a major front against the imposition of hegemonic nationalisms, and no amount of statue-breaking can take that away.