Thursday, August 4, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Slide show: "Dalits still live as the wretched of the earth"

 

http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-part-2-of-interview-with-dalit-activist-anand-teltumbde/20110803.htm

'Media pays little attention to the issues of rural Dalits'
Last updated on: August 3, 2011 15:28 IST

Mumbai-based Anand Teltumbde is a leading scholar-activist who has
written extensively on issues related to caste, class, imperialism and
globalisation.

In the second part of an interview with Yoginder Sikand, he talks
about the Dalit media, the influx of NGOs and the impact of Dalit
capitalism on the movement.

Read Part I: 'Most Dalit groups remain fixated on reservations'

How do you assess the role of the Dalit media in raising and
communicating these issues which you feel Dalit groups have failed to
take up?

There is not much of a Dalit media actually. There are several small
magazines and periodicals run by Dalits all over the country. Some of
them do raise valid issues faced by Dalits, but many others are simply
tails of this or that political group. This connection may not be
always visible but it does exist in terms of direct or indirect
support coming from these sources.

During the last decade, a curious development took place in
Maharashtra in this regard. Some Dalits started daily papers, one
after another. Today, there are at least half a dozen full-sheet daily
papers run by Dalits in Maharashtra. They do satisfy rhetorical need
of having our own media. One does not know how their economics is
managed, however, given that newspapers basically run on advertisement
revenue, which is largely absent in their case. The content analysis
of these newspapers does not indicate that they have significantly
contributed raising the live questions of Dalits or catalysed any
movement around it. They just meet the identitarian need of having
'our' own media.

I do not know whether a media owned and operated by Dalits could
really be called a 'Dalit media'. Most Dalit papers reflect the
concerns and interests of their readership -- the 'reservationist'
middle-class -- and that is why they deal mainly with religio-cultural
issues, besides, of course, reservations. They pay little attention to
the issues of rural Dalits. Many of them are averse to taking up
economic issues or to considering the need for a contextually-rooted
class-cum-caste analysis of Indian society. Basically premised on the
identity of Dalits, they often ignore other issues.

The media reflects to some degree the state of our intellectual
activism. The tragedy is that we have few organic intellectuals who
can articulate the concerns and interests of the Dalit masses.
Instead, we have a whole lot of cut-and-paste intellectuals whose only
task, it seems, is to rehash what others have written before them,
refusing to engage in any creative intellectual work. The Dalit media
eventually mirrors it.

***

'Influx of NGOs complicated the matter'
Last updated on: August 3, 2011 15:28 IST

In recent decades, a number of NGOs have taken up Dalit issues and
concerns, and Dalits are one of their major 'target' groups. How do
you see the impact of this NGO-isation process on the Dalit movement
in terms of highlighting Dalit issues and empowering the Dalits?

In terms of highlighting and even internationalising Dalit issues, I
think many NGOs have played an important role. Even documenting Dalit
problems and issues I think is a major contribution, given that little
of this sort was being done by others. But, beyond that, especially in
political terms, I think that, barring some cases, the role of NGOs
has been problematic. At a fundamental level, NGOs depend upon donors,
and, according to the dictum 'He who pays the piper calls the tune',
they have to eventually conform to the agenda of their donors.

And the fact of the matter is that NGOs have been deliberately
promoted as a vehicle of 'globalisation' in the context of the
declining role of the State in the social sector. Naturally then, NGOs
work, by and large, to depoliticise radical people's movements.

They work in a fragmentary manner, taking up discrete issues, and this
promotes fragmentary consciousness in people around them, which is
what neo-liberalism wants. By remaining confined to funded projects,
they inherently lack a macro political-economic perspective, which
again serves the interests of global capital.

Moreover, they also attract youths who might otherwise have gone into
people's movements or radical politics, by providing them salaries and
job security, and in this way also work as agents of depoliticisation.
You are right in terming this the NGO-isation of the Dalit movement.
Before the Dalit movement could introspect on its degeneration, the
influx of NGOs complicated the matter and made any such review
extremely difficult.

***

'Dalit capitalism is sponsored by Western organisations'
Last updated on: August 3, 2011 15:28 IST

In your writings, you argue that globalisation spells doom for Dalits.
In this context, how do you see the argument, made by a group of Dalit
'intellectuals' who have been much highlighted in the mainstream
media, of the need for the State and multi-national corporations to
promote what they term as 'Dalit capitalism'?

I think this argument is completely fallacious and dangerous. It buys
into the imperialist logic, and is geared to serving the interests of
foreign capital and the Indian ruling classes, who are well aware of
the pauperisation of the Dalits and their mounting opposition to the
system that is destroying their already shattered lives in the name of
'development'. This slogan of Dalit capitalism is being actually
sponsored by some Western organisations linked to global capital.
There is not much of guess work needed to see who the sponsors and
supporters of this idea are.

As a matter of fact, the idea has been floated by a bunch of
individuals who are projecting some Dalit entrepreneurs as though they
were the new breed produced by globalisation. And this is being
propped up by the mainstream media, which is otherwise shy of touching
anything Dalit.

As for the Indian State, the Planning Commission, which otherwise
refuses to move on the continued stealing of special component monies
meant for Dalits, has been enthusiastically considering how to channel
the public funds to these Dalit capitalists. It is a pity that Dalits
do not see through the game and, instead, are getting enamoured with
the idea because of their identitarian fixation.

***

'Majority of Dalits still live in horrendous conditions'
Last updated on: August 3, 2011 15:28 IST

I do not think there is anything intellectually appealing about the
notion of Dalit capitalism. I would rather say that this notion is
itself a contradiction in terms and smacks of ignorance of both Dalits
as well as capitalism. The Dalit entrepreneur is not a new species.
Dalits have historically been entrepreneurs, grabbing whatever
opportunities that came their way and made progress. Rich Dalits are
also not a new phenomenon. There have been many rich Dalit individuals
since colonial times. So, to claim that Dalits have only started
progressing now as a result of supposedly benefitting from
globalisation is a simple and pure falsehood. To impute the progress
that a small number of Dalits have made in recent years to Dalit
capitalism is fallacious.

Although, knowing the systemic character of capitalism, I would never
be a votary of capitalism, I am not so dogmatic as to discard it
either merely for ideological reasons. After all, there is a
dialectics that will determine the time of its death. I do not have
any quarrel, therefore, about Dalits becoming big capitalists and
amassing their billions. But what irks me is this motivated attempt by
the proponents of the notion of Dalit capitalism to create a patently
false impression that Dalits have benefitted by globalisation, that
Dalits have now 'arrived', that Dalits have abandoned socialism and
have embraced capitalism.

The vast majority of Dalits still live in horrendous conditions in
villages and urban slums as the wretched of the earth, and their
conditions are, as I said earlier, going from bad to worse, rather
than improving, as a result of the ravages of capitalism and
globalisation.

The relative distance between Dalits and others on most developmental
dimensions was reducing until the 1990s but the recent trends clearly
show that the gaps are widening. By the World Health Organisation's
standards of body-mass index, Dalits would be a famine-stricken
community. To speak about such people in terms of Dalit capitalism is
nothing but an unpardonable, cruel joke.

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