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Law alone may not help take Dalits into the mainstream

Had it been for the law alone, Dalits would have, by now, made a much acceptable lot in the qualifying quotient of the upper stratum today, but sadly it isn’t so on the ground.

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Rajesh Kumar

Had it been for the law alone, Dalits would have, by now, made a much acceptable lot in the qualifying quotient of the upper stratum today, but sadly it isn’t so on the ground. 

Despite a plethora of laws already in place to safeguarding their interests and rights, the hard fact that Dalits are still at the receiving end in social hierarchy, should coax us, therefore, to brood as to what else, if not for the law, is needed to building a positive construct about their righteous cause – their assimilation into the mainstream.

Law cannot be a panacea to rooting out all evils afflicting the Dalit narrative today, as ‘legal assemblage’ may, at the most, only embalm their blood oozing wounds inflicted on their psyche by an unaccommodating upper elite not necessarily help inject ‘real-term compassion’ into its ossified mindset, required otherwise to bridging up the disconnect between them. It becomes profusely redundant in matters where emotional bonding and sacrosanct human affinities tend to define societal norms and social imperatives. Dalit narrative perhaps bears semblance to such quintessential percepts, only which if tended to succinctly by forging inter-sectional social bonding through coherence – an aspect that harps unilaterally on the fairer understanding of enigmatic vividness of human behaviour and interaction inherent to it – may warm up hitherto frigid relations between two strands and melt the ice cogently.

Nothing done by successive political regimes

Unfortunately, due to lack of political will, no substantive social endeavour in the direction, based on above lines, has ever been undertaken by successive political regimes primarily because the humungous task entails enduring tremendous amount of pain with judicious patience and perseverance on part of a person, essentially a connoisseur, who could successfully mobilise the masses into a concerted movement to bringing about desired social change on the ground. The traits are, however, eluding in present day political leadership, which, in this fast-paced world, craves only for instantaneity of results and recognition and certainly not something that may not fetch them prompt political fortunes. To them, Dalit cause is just like any other electoral issue to be raked up only to garner votes, not otherwise.

With a dithery elected leadership at the helm, it becomes imperative that we, as a society, who can’t afford to remain immune to the pain and agony of fellow brethren from lower sections, did enough in the direction entirely on our own and salvage them from becoming perpetual victims of social discrimination and antipathy in our villages.

One such most debilitating aspect of Dalit narrative, where law is of no help is the one that debars them socially from solemnising the obsequies of their community members in common village crematorium. Though there is no ‘open denial’ nor could there be any for understandable reasons, yet an ever-exerting social pressure at work owing to recalcitrance on the part of upper sections, is always palpable cueing them to make an ignominious exit from the site even if they happen to enter it instinctively, social strictures notwithstanding. Could anything on earth be more dehumanising than such a regressive act? More brazen is the fact that upper sections don’t partake in the rituals many a time, neither within the crematorium nor outside it, where they finally take place then. Though many societies are evolving from such social evils there are many still which haven’t. Till not eradicated fully, Dalit assimilation into the mainstream would remain an incomplete task.

Unfortunately, the issue is not just Himachal-specific, but stretches much beyond state boundaries. Being victimised on a daily basis, Dalits have to die-out an unnatural death every day at village crematoria – places as sacred as godliness – where extraneous differences based on caste lines or otherwise generally cease to matter once the mortal remains are laid onto the pyre and consigned to flames. This is the travesty of our social justice system that Dalits are ostracised even at such places.

Years of unrelenting social subjugation and dejection have made them forget their true identity and rightful place in society. Ingrained deeply in their DNA, their somewhat self-imposed inhibitions have been persistently dissuading them from exercising their social and civil rights more assertively or sharing common eligible space more authoritatively as privileged sections do. It is time these ‘legally empowered’ children of lesser god – which our polity has made them to be – are empowered socially in the first place, in essence, to helping them break open the cocoon of their own inhibitions and come alive to the aspirations of modern times promissory of imparting egalitarian outlook to society, beyond caste differentiations.

Victimised on a daily basis

Being victimised on a daily basis, Dalits have to die unnatural death every day at village crematoria, where extraneous differences based on caste lines cease to matter once the mortal remains are consigned to flames

Ingrained deeply in their DNA, their somewhat self-imposed inhibitions have been persistently dissuading them from exercising their social and civil rights more assertively or sharing common eligible space more authoritatively as privileged sections do

It is time these ‘legally empowered’ children of lesser god – which our polity has made them to be – are empowered socially in the first place, in essence, to helping them break open the cocoon of their own inhibitions and come alive to the aspirations of modern times promissory of imparting egalitarian outlook to society, beyond caste differentiations

Steps towards salvation

Bestowing upon them an equivalency vis-à-vis their social rights and privileges exercisable on a par with privileged sections coupled with much-needed attitudinal change towards them which ought to have its provenance in the sublimity of our inner conscience from where should ooze truthful affection towards them, could form the first step towards their salvation from age-old social discrimination.

Let our villages become the formal foreground for the emergence of divine notion and social awakening and we, the people, a medium. 

A magnanimous gesture of allowing them an equal space in a village crematorium, with open arms, may make a benign beginning in the direction of their assimilation into the main fold at the grassroots. A separate crematorium for them may instead ostracise them more.

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