“Assault on any Dalit is almost never an attack on individual but targeted towards entire Dalit community”

An interview with Ram Kumar

By Gomathi Kumar & Sanjay Kabir

Ram Kumar (b. 1963) is UP based Dalit activist with 30 years long experience of grassroots activism. Born in a poor family, he lost his father at the age of five. His father, a communist activist, was brutally murdered by brahmin landlords for raising voice against them. Ram Kumar grew up at his maternal uncle’s home at Kanpur. After his graduation, he started working full time with communist groups and later joined Vinod Mishra led CPI (ML). He worked with Kisan Mazdoor Sangh and led many struggles.  As a result he was put behind bars for quite some time under false charges. However, in 1984, he was thrown out of CPI (ML) together with another prominent Dalit leader Lakhpat for challenging the party leadership on  the question of caste and the problems of Dalits. Since then, he has been in forefront of many grassroot struggles and has led various campaigns to secure forest rights, land rights, labour wages and Dalit rights . At present, he is the coordiantor of state level network of Dalit organisations called Dynamic Action Group (DAG) and is one of the leading voices of Dalit movement in North India.

There has been a new wave of Dalit assertion that is now visible across the country and is manifested through different forms of mobilization. What are the important incidents happened in last 20-30 years that according to you had an impact on contemporary Dalit movement?

I start with 1970s’ Dalit Panthers movement in Maharashtra. It provided a new direction to the entire Dalit movement of the country as it took up issues of Dalit identity and Dalit pride together with the questions of economic and land rights of the marginalised. For me, it is one of the major landmarks despite its very short life span.

After that, for quite some time, we did not see any autonomous Dalit movement. There were smaller, localised Ambedkarite movements here and there and some organising happening within Dalit employees but we did not witness any mass-based people’s movement or collective struggle. Then Kanshiram ji came in the scene and DS4 emerged.

Meanwhile with the death of Babu Jagjivan Ram in 1986, a sense of helplessness emerged among Dalit employees. They started thinking about who would now defend their rights, take care of the community. You would see massive growth in SC/ST employees associations in this period, which actually contributed in the growth of BSP (that was formed after DS4 by Kanshiram ji).

However, it is the decade of 1990s that is very significant for contemporary Dalit movement. Janta Dal, under the leadership of V.P. Singh, came in power at Delhi and introduced the recommendations of Mandal Commission. It was for OBCs, for their rights in education and government jobs but once it was announced, you would find that there were attacks on Dalits all around, many of their bastis were ransacked, Ambedkar statues were desecrated and an environment was created where an average person felt as if Mandal commission recommendations were for the benefits of Dalits or they were somehow solely responsible for it. In the same period BSP became an important political player and formed coalition government in Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1993.

Thanks for providing a brief overview. 1990s was indeed a tumultuous period in the history of our country. What were the reasons behind the formation of Dynamic Action Group (DAG) as a network of Dalit organisations and NGOs in Uttar Pradesh?

During this period, some of us were fighting for the Dalit rights by involving ourselves with people’s movements at grassroots. We were also concerned with the rising brahmanism in the state under the disguise of hindutva.  As a response towards this and demolition of Babri mosque, we started a state level campaign against communalism in Uttar Pradesh. Being the coordinator, I got an opportunity to traverse the entire state, interacting with many organisations and individuals engaged in various progressive movements.

During this campaign, some of us realised that almost all NGOs and social organisations talk about Dalit rights and got big projects in the name of Dalit development but in all these projects Dalits were seen nowhere except at the bottom level. These organisations did find some Dalits as their local activists to work among the Dalit masses but in their policy and decision making processes you won’t find even a single Dalit. These organisations work for the development of  Dalits, but provide no chance for them to have any say on how this would take place. It is just another form of untouchability against Dalits.

Some of us, then, got together and started interacting with Dalit activists and organisations across the state and in 1996-97 a state-level discussion was initiated on the politics, aims and activities of the Dalit organisations and NGOs. During the discussion, each one of us felt the need of a strong platform/network where all Dalit activists and organisations could come together on some common issues and concerns. Then the process of forming a state-level platform/network was initiated and, in 1998, it was formally named as DAG with the membership of around 70 Dalit NGO’s and people’s organisations from across the state.

How do you define Dalit organisation?

People interpret the meaning of Dalit in their own ways. Every one has their own Dalits (laughs). Political parties have their own Dalits, NGOs have their own Dalits and social organisations have their own. All depends on how you perceive and look at the problem. Many believe that only SCs are Dalits, some include tribals and minorities too. But at DAG, we believe that Dalits are all those who are on the margins of the society due to their social, economic, political or religious background. If I say explicitly, for us Dalit means ex-untouchables, tribals and socio-economically backward sections from religious minorities and OBCs as all these share almost similar conditions in the Indian villages.

DAG is an issue based state-level network of Dalit organisations. What are these issues around which DAG was created?

We formed DAG with a consensus that it would not be a registered organisation and rather should become a centre for issue based grass-root movements. With this approach, we chose five core issues to focus on. The first issue, and by far the most important one, is atrocities on Dalits in rural areas. We monitor all types of caste atrocities and try to provide legal assistance to the victims. Then, we organise Dalits there and try to create a movement around that incident so that no upper/dominant caste people dare to touch the Dalits again.

The second issue is about land rights- be it forest land or allotment of pattas or illegal possessions by dominant castes or wastelands – we are committed to fight for the rights of landless Dalits.

Women rights are our third issue and we have a state-level network of Dalit women leaders from local communities.

Our fourth core issue is to bring unity among Dalit sub-castes. Babasaheb had said, “till there are castes, we can’t create a new society”. Let us forget about others for the time being and try first to remove casteism among ourselves. For that we need to have ‘roti aur beti ka sambandh’ (interdining and intermarriage) among different Dalit sub-castes.

Finally we decided that DAG must become carrier of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s philosophy and make efforts for its propagation.

These are the issues around which DAG was formed. In our annual conventions, we focus on these five issues  with an understanding that new issues can be added but none from the five core issues will be discarded. Among our member groups, many carry out other activities independently like running schools, forming self-help groups, engaging in development activities etc. But all of us have agreed to be part of state-level campaigns on these five core issues under the umbrella of DAG.

One of the core issues you mentioned about is atrocities. How do you mobilise Dalit community on this issue? How do you instil confidence in the community that has been brutalised so consistently?

We have two-pronged strategy to deal with atrocity cases. As soon as we get the information, we take legal recourse and help the victim’s family to start police proceedings like lodging the proper FIR etc. After that we need to delve into the reasons for that particular incident. Otherwise that reason could always lead to more atrocities on other Dalits living in that area because my experience says that assault on any Dalit is almost never an attack on individual but is always targeted towards the entire Dalit community living there. It is not one person’s honour, dignity that has been taken away, the target is the whole community.

Similar is with rape cases. The amount of rapes committed on Dalit women will shock you for your entire life, I can bet. The enormity of problem would depress you. These happen due to the brahminical mindset of treating Dalit woman as an object of lust and this has become part of their culture. Rape on Dalit women is not at all considered as a crime in Indian villages, it is justifiable norm there. Rape is also a big tool to bring the whole Dalit community into submission. The abuses against Dalit women are a process of abusing the whole community.

Therefore for all cases of caste atrocities, after initiating the legal process we try to organise the local Dalit community against that particular incident. To prevent further atrocities you have to make the whole Dalit community aware about why that happened and more importantly what is their responsibility towards the victim and his /her family. We have done this in many cases in places like Chitrakoot, Robertsganj and Saharanpur. This process is easier in places where there is already some movement for Dalit rights.

We have this process running right now in one village of Ambedkar Nagar. Our 12 activists got falsely implicated in court cases while fighting for the land rights of the Dalits there. On each court hearing, 97 Dalit families of that village contribute Rs. 5 each so that these activists could go to the district court without bothering about their financial expenditures. These 12 activists forego their daily wages on the hearing day and that is their contribution towards the community. Wherever there is a movement, we try to run this process. Without depending on external sources, we try to build inherent support system for our activists. This is the same process through which we mobilise local Dalit communities.

What are the dangers for the Dalit activists working at grassroots and how do you deal with these?

We have gone through some very bad experiences. As I am speaking to you today, three of our activists are in jail. They have been falsely implicated in one murder case. I have been behind bars many a times under different criminal cases. But all this is pretty much expected.

If you want to see the real face of feudal and brahminical system, you have to visit the villages. These elements rule over villages. If you are a Dalit there, you will not be able to survive unless you sit on the ground of a brahmin’s chaupal with folded hands and wish him ‘pai lagi panditji’.

The entire village economy is controlled by feudal-brahminical class and every resource is under their control. And if you raise your voice then definitely you have to pay for this. You cannot just escape. You would be beaten, you might even get killed or get implicated in false cases and put behind bars with the help of local administration. If the Dalit activist is a woman, she would be victimised through abuses and rapes. They would threaten assertive Dalits with economic sanctions and disallow them to earn their livelihoods in the village.

This is the trajectory that I have witnessed through out my activist life. These tactics have often been used to prevent our movement to hold ground. But we have to take such risks and prepare ourselves. There is no other way. We are sure that we will succeed in getting our three activists out of jail. Once they come out, they will again join the struggle. This is the only way of struggle we know.

What are the other kinds of challenges you face while working on Dalit issues?

First of all, Dalit issues are very difficult to work on. For example, take land issues. People believe that this is just a matter of gramsabha and Dalits having pattas but are not able to occupy that. I want to say that this is not the battle of pattas and their occupations. It is battle against a system that is heavily staked against Dalits. You give pattas to the Dalits but never allow them to occupy it. They are kept fighting for that their whole lives. This is not the issue of one village, the whole state apparatus and law is geared towards that only.

The same goes with cases of Dalit atrocities. When you go to the police to lodge a complaint, the first thing they would do is to force you for a compromise. I have seen IPS officers, in Dalit women rape cases, saying that, “Arey yeh to hota hi aaya hai, isme kaun si badi baat hai ” (All this keeps happening, what is the big deal?).

The presence of laws is one thing and getting those laws implemented is completely different. You must get land this is the law but you would never be allowed to occupy. In atrocity cases, the provision says that SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocity) Act must be used but for that to happen Dalits have to fight local administration. Without that kind of pressure the local police would never use the Act. This you have to do every time, in each case and every where. You have to put up a fight in each case even to lodge an FIR.

How do you recruit activists/workers for your organisation?

We don’t do recruitments as such. To find activists, you don’t put advertisements in news papers (laughs). That is not the way to run a movement. We choose people during our campaigns or when we go and support other struggles. There we identify potential Dalit youth and enquire if they are willing to work and are committed to the cause. Then we try to give them political orientation. We try to inculcate both Marxist and Ambedkarite perspectives in our activists. If he/she is an Ambedkarite, we try to orient her in little bit of Marxism and if he/she is a Marxist we provide some orientation in Ambedkarism.

Then we see what all are the requirements. What minimum support he/she needs to start working full time in the movement? On that basis we try to support our full time activists. We are very particular about the need of identifying more Dalit women activists. Wherever we have found any vocal Dalit woman in the rural areas, we have tried to bring her up on the platform. Many times males would say, “These women are not educated, what is their use?” But we don’t listen to them.

How do you mobilise financial resources for your activities? What are your experiences with different kinds of funding agencies?

The funding avenues for our kind of work are very few. In addition to that we have been very strict about funding sources for our campaigns and therefore most of the time we function without much resources. However, our plus point is that we never created a big organisational structure and kept our involvement limited to movements/campaigns. Otherwise we would have been crushed under that structure by now or would have been kept running around the funding agencies in Delhi.

As a matter of principle, we never took funds from the government agencies. But some of our friends and fellow activists did take state funds and their experiences have been horrible. The babu who sits at the government office takes huge bribes and thinks all NGO people to be corrupt and thieves. We will never be able to take this.

We take funds from non-state agencies that do movement/campaign related funding. We don’t take funds for just any purpose and are very particular about our core issues and work on that only. There are more funding opportunities  for development issues than for fighting against caste discrimination. Many a times, people would tell us that there is funding on health or environment or development, go and apply. We refuse as we never go into development works.

Why this is so?

We firmly believe that NGOs cannot carry developmental works. For that we need large amount of resources. Also development is the responsibility of state and it must perform its responsibilities. By working for development in one or two villages, we can never empower our community. Rather we will like to engage ourselves in orienting our community politically by making them aware of their rights and supporting their initiatives in fighting against caste discrimination. This is our responsibility.

For almost three decades now you have been working on the Dalit issues at grassroots, how do you see the present Dalit movement?

Unfortunately Dalit movement appears to be in great crisis and somewhat directionless to me. In UP, Behenji’s slogan of Sarvjan and talks of brahmin-Dalit alliance are making rounds. But there cannot be friendship between a snake and mongoose. I have many good friends from brahmin community but I firmly believe that brahminical mindset can never be pro-Dalit. These trends in UP politics are of much concern for all of us.

Can’t Dalit movement run without including the brahmins? Is it possible for us to go for creation of new society with an independent mindset/ideology? How relevant are Babasaheb’s writings in contemporary times? I feel all these questions must be debated and discussed.

According to Babasaheb, there are three enemies towards the creation of new society, not only for Dalits but for entire society: brahmanism, feudalism and capitalism. Now if you talk about brahmanism, it has already reached its zenith with Atal Bihari Bajpayi becoming the prime minister by chanting the name of Lord Rama. RSS has spread its tentacles across the country and in all institutions. Feudalism has morphed into corporate farming. Capitalism has become globalised today and has become borderless and limitless.

Now who is your real enemy? Where should you hit? What are your issues?  We are fighting and shooting in the dark. This is the biggest crisis of our times.

We can only overcome this by initiating various debates on our economic policies, on our social and political systems etc among ourselves and later in the whole society. Till we don’t talk about these issues we cannot build an ideology for contemporary times and never a strong Dalit movement. I am greatly miffed at those Dalits who call themselves Ambedkarites but talk only about past and on the same old parameters.

Do you believe that the problems of Dalits can only be understood by Dalits?

A lot of people think that way. I also feel that the pains of Dalits could be best understood by Dalits themselves. I have seen this happening in many cases personally. ‘Upper’ caste people can become your good friends and sympathisers. But there are many issues where you keep on explaining to them but they are unable to comprehend.

They have never faced caste-discrimination and therefore lack the insight on that. For example, in any village of north India if a brahmin goes to a thakur household, the most-aged one would welcome him with utmost humility and offer him his own bed to sit. But if any Dalit or OBC, even well educated one, goes to that household he would never dare to sit on thakur’s bed. If he did so he would be abused and might get beaten.

If you tell this phenomenon to any progressive brahmin, he would never believe it or try to understand it even if it is being practised right in front of him. He would keep repeating, “No, no, this is not true, how can this happen”.

So what I am trying to say is that there are various types of atrocities that can only be understood by the victims not by others.

Take the example of a woman travelling in a bus. She alone can understand which touch on her body was unintentional and which was to harass her. She would immediately understand. The same thing is with the Dalits. There are many issues which only Dalits can understand.

So you believe that the battle for Dalit rights can only be fought by Dalits and Dalit organisations?

I don’t believe that this struggle can only be fought by Dalit themselves. We need to build a broader front. You have to take different people along but keep the Dalit issues in prominence. If these issues are put in the back burner then the struggle for our emancipation is not possible. Our problems are not just ours only but are of entire civil society. Therefore, they have to come forward.

If they don’t, then we will be forced to say, “Tilak taraju aur talwar inko maaro joote chaar.” This would be our frustration. So, you come forward, talk about the issue, be sensitive and let us fight together against caste system otherwise we have no options other than to raise this slogan. We know such slogans are not good for the creation of new society but we are helpless.

Also I don’t think that the battle would only be fought through Dalit organisations. However, it is unfortunate but true that if you take any ‘upper’ caste headed organisation, they would indeed talk about Dalits but at very superficial level. These organisations are simply incapable of talking about the pains of Dalits in depth as they are not sensitive towards the sophistication that is happening vis-à-vis caste discrimination against the Dalits.

So, I think to discuss all these we need our own platforms. Principally, I am against caste-based organisations. I am completely a follower of Babasaheb on this. Like him I also believe that there is no end to caste-politics. But, in the given context, it is also true that to raise questions based on caste you need caste-based platforms.

May be it is a new type of democratic process needed for the smooth functioning of the democracy where it is important that the anger and resentment of marginalised section of society is allowed to come out in open, on the surface, through their own medium. After that there might be a possibility of some new kind of social or caste coalitions to emerge that could create a common understanding on different issues and lead the fight against the entire exploitative system.

[Gomathi Kumar and Sanjay Kabir did their Masters of Social Work (MSW) from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai in the session 2007-09]