Q+A: KANCHA ILAIAH
Dismissing a petition to ban a short book by the scholar Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd, a Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud observed that the right to free speech has been“put on the highest pedestal by this court”. The book is a Telugu translation from English of a chapter from Ilaiah Shepherd’s 2009 book Post-Hindu India that describes the Arya Vysya caste as “social smugglers”, a term he coined. Last month, a mob attacked his car. A member of Parliament from the Telugu Desam Party has said Ilaiah Shepherd should be publicly hanged for his views. He defends those views in a conversation with Amarnath K. Menon.
Q. Why was this chapter from PostHindu India published as a separate book, when a Telugu translation of the whole book has existed since 2011?
A small-time printer got permission from the Telugu publisher to bring out select chapters as individual booklets. I did not imagine any repercussions because the book has been out there for a long time. The only addition was a brief introduction I wrote, updating the context. Even if the Vysyas, or Banias as they are more widely known, disagree with my characterisation of them, they can’t threaten me, burn effigies and urinate on photographs of me. But the BJP is with them. Is this lynchmob culture part of the ‘new India’ we were promised?
Q. Do you believe that caste revenge is the counter to archaic social practices? The unequal relationships among castes must end. But caste revenge is not the answer. In America, they share two per cent of their profits. In Islam, there is zakat. Here [among Hindus] there is nothing. We need to create a national social fund to protect farmers, for instance, and provide two per cent reservation in private sector jobs.
Q. Critics argue that your work lacks academic rigour...
I did not quote anyone because there has been no authoritative work on the social relations of the Vysya community. When I studied them, I did so from a Dalit perspective. What is wrong with that approach? The problem is that those who criticise have not read my book in full. It is an anthropological and ethnographic work. They are welcome to write and counter it. I am an indigenous scholar, writing about and from the point of view of my people. I have not plagiarised anyone and my research is done on the ground. That is my strength.
Q. What has your stridency, over four decades, achieved for your cause? Students learn from my books. Songs based on my work are sung in villages. Is that not enough? I am happy with it. I completed 65 on October 6 and what I wish to see, and will work towards, is all government schools using English as the medium of instruction. And all pupils finishing Class 12. If we can do that, there may be no need for reservation in 25 years. For the moment, though, I will fight for two per cent reservation in the private sector, controlled for the most part by my Arya Vysya friends.
“Unequal relationships among castes must end. But caste revenge is not the answer... we need a national social fund” KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD Writer and activist