CONCEPT  NOTE  ON  ADIVASI  QUESTIONS

TOWARDS (TRANS) LOCATING THE ADIVASIS IN THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY JUNK SPACES (MALLS) 
GLOBALIZED (POST) MODERN WORLD OF JUNK SPACES (MALLS)

(This was written for Sangharsh 2007 – a platform of various tribal mass movements)

Asit Das *

If we look at the media headlines today, the following spectacles and phenomena dominate the information barrage:

·        Bullish stock exchanges

·        Crowded McDonalds and swarming beach resorts

·        Swinging discotheques

·        Sparkling Queen's Necklace (Marine Drive, Mumbai)

·        Malls, multiplexes, software parks, 'smart cities', swanky emporia, towers with all          their glass and glitter.

Against this backdrop, we have the sweeping gentrification of slums, burgeoning suburbia with their pools, golf courses, custom-built vehicles, luxury condominiums, etc. The banner headlines bombard us with the news of India's arrival as an economic superpower with a phenomenal 8-9% growth of the GDP.

Before we point out the impact of this much-flaunted economic achievement on vulnerable segments like women, Dalits, ethnic and religious minorities, Adivasis, peasants and workers, etc., we would like to deconstruct the myth of 8% growth and the stock exchange boom. This economic turning point is a bloody pointer of early 21st century imperialism - with a century-long bloodthirsty trajectory of eliminating the peasantry from the face of the earth, extermination of the indigenous people from most parts of the globe - is the long tiring story of capital's insatiable hunger for profit. This 8% growth has been achieved after the ruling classes of India and their political parties ruthlessly administered the shock therapy known as structural adjustments - liberalisation packaged in the neoliberal paradigm, whose master narrative is known as 'Globalization'.

Globalization - which was capital's response to its own contradictions and cyclical structural crises after the end of the post-war boom, after the “Petroleum crisis”, global economic recession, the Vietnam War etc., the world economic relations were restructured according to the neoliberal ideology. The dollar was de-linked from gold, and then “social democracy”, “Keynesian demand management” and the chimera of the “welfare state”, “import substitution” were given up. Washington consensus was adopted to bail out global capitalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The comprador rulers of the third world gave up their shallow rhetoric of socialism, self-reliance, and the whole discourse of decolonisation was reduced to the desensitized moribund terrain of history textbooks and development studies.

In the 1980s, as a direct fallout of the debt crisis, structural adjustment policies of globalization were ruthlessly imposed by the Brettonwoods institutions, at the behest of the imperialist masters - especially American imperialism on Latin America (which it considered its own fiefdom). These policies devastated and pauperised the entire working masses and indigenous people of Latin America - while the local elites and the multinational corporations made money, there was 'boom'. A radical economist of Latin America had then remarked, "The economy is doing fine, but the people are not”. Then there was the crash, now the word globalization invites a hostile reaction from the common people of Latin America, and this situation led to the formation of popularly elected left-wing governments. China and India are having the present economic boom because capital has found new virgin areas to exploit. Most of the sensex leaps are results of foreign institutional investment of speculative finance capital coming in to make a fast buck, and will withdraw at the first signs of the crisis. Then the entire edifice of aspiring Asian economic superpowers will collapse like a house of cards. One should not forget the meltdown of the economy of the so-called 'Tigers of South-east Asia'. On one side the depoliticized academia, and the culture-vultures who romanticize tribal culture and their way of life, the governments objectify and museumize them, and the government of India showcases tribal culture in state-sponsored official APNAUTSAVS in London and Paris, while on the other hand shocking news of starvation deaths of Adivasis pours in from different parts of the country every day.

Adivasis - native people, indigenous people - were condescendingly called 'tribals' by the colonial masters, while the anthropologists made lucrative academic careers by objectifying them through their studies, as if they are a different species to be showcased in the museums. There was decimation in the name of the white man's burden, arrogantly portrayed as the civilizing mission of the imperialist west. Human beings without private property or power hierarchies had existed for millennia, time immemorial. We started our journey from the caves, hunting, gathering, and struggling to save ourselves from the forces of nature. We were originally a part of nature, coexisting with it in a mutually liberating symphony - without polluting and devastating the environment like the present day multi-national corporations, in their relentless drive for profit maximization and commodification.

After learning agriculture, class societies emerged with enslavement of women, and feudalism became the dominant social structure based on exploitative agrarian relations between the 'Lord of the manor' and the peasants. Many parts were still left out, and there were the remnants of democracy and collectivism known as Adivasis or indigenous people, with their sustainable lifestyles and production process. At this point, the historical watershed called capitalism emerged from the interstices of feudalism. This new economy and social relation wanted colonies for raw materials and natives as slaves. This is the ruthless story of global capitalism. Continents were colonized in search of raw materials and markets. This story of primitive accumulation or forced imposition of capitalist relations, violently dispossessing and displacing peasants and Adivasis was repeated in India by British colonialism through the East India Company. India was a multi-ethnic, diverse society. It contained rich natural resources, hundreds of languages/castes and different Adivasi people were sucked into global capitalism by the guns of British Imperial invaders. Adivasis, who were 8.08% of Indian population, are classified into 500 scheduled communities. Administrators, law-makers, anthropologists and constitution give various definitions of the Adivasis. The constitution lists these communities to be:

a.       A traditional occupation in a definite geographical area.

b.      A distinctive culture, which includes the whole spectrum of a tribal way of life, i.e.,  language, customs, traditions, religious beliefs, arts & crafts, etc.

c.       Primitive traits depicted in their occupational pattern, economy, etc.

d.      Lack of educational and technological development (Rahul Sen, Tribal Movements During the Colonial Period: 1770-1947, pp. 206).

On the other hand, anthropologists in India are still to come to an agreement on a definition of the term. G.S. Ghurge made a distinction between tribals and non-tribals on the basis of religion, occupation and radical elements (1962). Desai elaborated on this by listing the following general characteristics:

·        They live in unapproachable places, away from civilised people.

·        They belong to one of the following groups – Negroid, Austriloid or Mongloids.

·        They use a tribal language.

·        They follow a primitive religion, which is based on principles of animalism.

·        Their economy is of a primitive nature, such as collection, hunting, etc.

·        They are mostly non-vegetarian.

·        They have nomadic habits and have a special interest in dance and wine.

(Rahul Sen)

According to S.C. Dube, a tribe is:

"an ethnic category defined by real or putative descent, characterized by a corporate self-identity and a wide range of commonly shared traits of culture... they believe they have a common descent, consciously hold a collective self-image, and possess a distinctive cultural ethos, many elements of which are shared by the collectivity".

(See S.C. Dube - Tribal Heritage in India, Vol. 1 - Ethnicity, Identity and Interaction, Vikas Publishing House, Delhi, 1977).

Majumdar, in his definition of a tribe, incorporated such traits as territorial affiliation, endogamous, ruled by tribal officers, common language or dialect, following tribal traditions, beliefs, customs, etc. (See D.N. Majumdar and Madan, An Introduction to Social Anthropology, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1956.)

The legendary Dutch anthropologist Haimendorf, who sympathetically studied the Adivasi communities in India, especially in Andhra Pradesh for more than four decades, defined Adivasis as: "authochtonous societies which persisted until recently in an archaic and in many respects primitive lifestyle", characterized as hunters and gatherers or rudimentary agriculturalists, using the slash-and-burn method of cultivation, and distinguished by their isolation in hills and forests and their separation from the wider civilization of India. (See C. Von Furer-Haimendorf - Aboriginal Rebellions in the Deccan 'Man in India' (Rebellion Number) Vol. 25: 208-218.)

That none of these definitions, including the constitutional one, fit all communities identified as tribal is well-recognised (Hardiman, 1987:11-14; Beteille, 1896). Both Hardiman and Beteille have emphasized the trait-listing nature of all these definitions as their main shortcoming, and argued for a more historical and ethnic basis for identifying a tribal community. Yet, both have failed to propose a convincing historical definition themselves. (D. Hardiman, Coming of Devi: Adivasi Assertion in Colonial India, Oxford University Press, Delhi. A. Betelle - The Concept of Tribe with Special Reference to India - European Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27: 297-318 - as quoted by Rahul Sen.)

In view of the multiple definitions, one can safely concur with Rahul Sen that 'tribals' are those communities that historically possessed a communal, social and corporate order and lacked any concept of individual and private property ownership. This is coupled with the fact that these communities were the original inhabitants of the land they lived on, which they made habitable, before being disposed by aliens through conquests and assimilation at later times (R. Sen - Structure and History: The Mundwari Synthesis. Unpublished M. Phil. dissertation submitted to Department of Anthropology, Delhi University, 1991- as quoted in 'Tribal Movements During the Colonial Period'.)

The Adivasis were the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent, with their sustainable agriculture, fairly gender-just democratic egalitarian social order with equality and collectivism as principles governing social life. They reared animals, had subsistence agriculture and were dependent on the forest for fuel, fodder, medicines and other products known today as 'minor forest produce'. Commodification of the commons, and forests were unknown concepts for the Adivasis, until the advent of class society known as the caste Hindu social structure with graded inequality and vertical power structure as its constitutive principles, which is otherwise known as Indian feudalism.

As the exemplary revolutionary and socialist thinker, Rosa Luxemburg had taught us years ago, global capitalism needs a core and a periphery for extraction of raw materials, and colonialism is a natural corollary for capital's greed. (See Rosa Luxemburg - Accumulation of Capital, Rosa Luxemburg Reader Monthly Review Books, New York.)

Colonies like India were the jewel in the crown for the growth of British capitalism, and the ushering in of bourgeois modernity in British politics and social life. Indian agriculture had to be restructured to supply cotton for the cotton mills of Manchester. Forests and tribal habitats (including their commons) were commodified for the insatiable hunger of British industrial capitalism. Large-scale commercial felling of forests was undertaken by the British rulers to build sleepers for the railways, to extract cheap raw materials, minerals and other natural resources - most of which were in the tribal areas. For a permanent reserve, colonial industrial growth, draconian acts like the Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act were enacted by the British rulers to grab the forests, mines, commons and other natural resources. Adivasis were further pauperised, criminalized, marginalized and pushed to the fringes by the imperialists. The permanent settlement, Ryotbari and other forms of land tenure, created a legal structure for the Britishers to maintain a complex, exploitative order vis-a-vis the Adivasis. Their customary rights were infringed upon. This predatory encroachment on their habitat and livelihood created widespread discontentment amongst the Adivasis - there were rebellions all over the country, which are one of the most glorious chapters of the anti-colonial struggles of India and the third world.

The eminent tribal historian and anthropologist K.S. Singh captures the mood of the time in his work on the Santhal rebellion and other tribal uprisings, and explains that:
“Vested with such revolutionary intent, all these movements, inspite of their diverse context, territory and actions, possessed one unitary objective - the re-establishment of the indigenous order with the concurrent rolling-back of the alien system. The essence of these movements is clearly delineated by Singh in his description of the Birsa Ulgulan as "...agrarian in root... and in its end. Birsa in his speeches, emphasized the agrarian factor and sought a political solution to the problems facing his people, i.e., the establishment of a Birsaite Raj..." (See K.S. Singh - The Dust-Storm and the Hanging Mist: A Study of Birsa Munda and his Movement in Chotanagpur.)

According to Rahul Sen, "The indigenous communal social order of the tribes was in conflict with the private proprietary land tenurial system introduced by the colonial administration. This was the root cause of the repeated insurrection by the tribals. Consequently, the political solution invariably arrived at by the insurgents was reversion to the indigenous system, whether through rebellion or revivalism."

(Rahul Sen, Tribal Movements During the Colonial Period: 1770-1947)

There were hundreds of revolts and uprisings against the British all over India - where the tribal concentration was more there were protracted battles. K.S. Singh broadly outlines three regions of India where these struggles went on. They are:

a.       Chotanagpur-Santhal Pargana and the adjoining areas of West Bengal and Orissa, peopled by Chotanagpur tribals;

b.      Bhil-Koli-Ramoshi belt of South Rajasthan, North Gujarat, West Madhya Pradesh and North Maharashtra; and

c.       South Orissa-Andhra-Bastar region

One of the main historical reasons for the tribal uprising in Chotanagpur was explained by Rahul Sen as follows:

In 1765, the then Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam II, granted the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company. With this, Chotanagpur, a part of the subah of Bihar, passed into the hands of company administration.

Although Chotanagpur came under company administration in 1765 itself, company officers first entered this region in 1770, when a troop of soldiers led by Captain Camac came to Chotanagpur to suppress some local zamindars who were fighting each other. Captain Camac, thereupon, went on to reduce both Palamau and Chotanagpur Raj to tributaries of the company. As mentioned earlier, the administration of the region during this period was left in the hands of the Raja and his zamindars under a military collectorate set up in 1771 and later under the supervision of a joint Judge-Magistrate-Collector, with the constitution of the Ramgarh Regulation District in 1780.

The Mundas, Hos, Oraons, Santhals, Mal Pahariyas (Malers) were some of the tribal groups who lived in this region. (Rahul Sen, Tribal Movements During the Colonial Period: 1770-1947)

The other important tribal rebellions of this region were: Maler Revolt, Ho rebellion, the great Kol insurrection, the Santhal Hul, the Kharwar movement, the Sardar larai, the Birsa ulgulan, the Tana Bhagat movement.

The tribal uprisings in the south-west Orissa-Andhra-Bastar region were: the Kandh rebellion of western Orissa, Gond rebellion of Adilabad, etc.

The tribal movements in Rajasthan-Gujarat-Maharashtra region were: Bhil revolts of Rajasthan, the armed uprisings in Khandesh, Bhil revolts in western Madhya Pradesh, the struggle of Gond in central Madhya Pradesh and present day Chattisgarh, the Devi movement of Surat, etc.

These uprisings produced inspiring martyrs like Birsa Munda, Sidhu and Kano, Rani Durgavati, Tantya Bhil, Khajya Nayak, Motia Bhil, Chhitu Kirad and many others.

This fierce resistance of the Adivasis from Rajmahal hills in the east to Khandesh in the west against the predatory encroachment of their habitat and the commons led to various compromises of the British colonial administration. To strike up different compromising arrangements with them, including some nascent tribal land protection acts, various administrative arrangements like 'The light areas act' and agency area administration in Andhra Pradesh were the results of tribal revolt against colonial depredations.

When the power was transferred formally from the British imperialists to the Indian rulers, almost all the colonial laws were kept intact. Draconian acts like the Indian Forest Act, the Land Acquisition Act, etc., stayed on in the statute book. The Indian constitution recognized the pretentious autonomy conferred by the British by incorporating them into the fifth and sixth schedule of the constitution, and acts like Chotanagpur Santhal Pargana Land Protection Act, and Agency Area Acts, continued in post-colonial India. This was the contradiction of the new Indian rulers’ commitment to the marginalized social and ethnic groups.

The biggest betrayal of the 20th century was the shameless burial of the democratic aspirations of national liberation movement by the third world rulers at the behest of world imperialism, led by the Britishers, and now succeeded by the USA, which is the current leader of the imperialist camp. Decolonization was the biggest joke of the 20th century. Under the structural relations of the neocolonial arrangements, presided over by the Brettonwood institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to perpetuate the imperialist order, this was necessary for the continued exploitation of natural resources of the third world by the core capitalist countries.

Export of primary commodities like cheap minerals and agricultural products were the main income of the newly liberated countries in the post-WWII world. This was the material basis for the continuation of the colonial laws like the Indian Forest Act and the Land Acquisition Act in post-colonial India, and this suited the imperialist masters and their agents in the third world. This neocolonial arrangement was necessary for the continuation of global capitalism. This betrayal led to the renewed struggle of the oppressed masses in the third world, in the much talked-about, post-colonial era.

The Adivasis who faced this new exploitative structure and continued intrusion into their customary social and natural rights, continued their struggle against the new Indian ruling classes for political autonomy rights over natural resources, commodification of commons, etc., while the rulers kept on subverting the autonomy provisions of fifth and sixth schedules of the constitution.

As a result of the cold-war polarization, Indian rulers maneuvered their way through the superpower rivalry to build what can be called 'India-specific capitalism'. To divert the subaltern masses' discontent against this post-colonial exploitative order, the Indian ruling classes used various populist socialist rhetorics while giving half-hearted concessions to the struggling masses, including the Adivasis.

Jawaharlal Nehru formulated the famous Panchsheel policies of non-interference for the tribal masses, which were shamelessly subverted by the post-colonial political class and the bureaucratic apparatus. Schemes like the 'Integrated Tribal Development Programme' and various land protection acts were used to co-opt the political aspirations of the Adivasis. Due to the structural logic and bureaucratic apathy of the Indian state, all these pretentious, ameliorative measures were a total failure.

Reservations in the legislature, academia and the bureaucracy were used cleverly to indoctrinate and co-opt the emerging post-colonial tribal leadership, to get assimilated and support the new colonial order and the semi-feudal social structure. However, this does not mean the wholesale rejection of the idea of reservation. In a semi-feudal society where democratic tasks are incomplete, the progressive and democratic forces should support all the struggles for reservation and positive affirmation. In a brahminical order, where the Adivasis, Dalits and majorities of OBCs are left out, the struggle for reservation has a democratic content and has to be supported while demanding to fill up all the backlog of the SC/ST posts. The reservations and other rights did not come as a charity from the so-called liberal capitalist order of the West or third world regimes. They were achieved after what Ralph Milliband had written that these are the products of centuries of unremitting struggles of the underdogs against the ruling classes. (For a detailed theoretical analysis of various peasant and other subaltern revolts in Medieval England and India, see 'Customs and Commons' and 'Whigs and Hunters' by E.P. Thompson and 'Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India', by Ranajit Guha in Subaltern Studies, Vol. 1, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.) Construction of this neocolonial and semi-feudal socio-economic order is one of the main causes of tribal land alienation and commodification of Adivasi culture and ways of life. Most of the Adivasis were pauperised, driven into debt and bondage due to ruthless usury, rack-renting and cheating; were used by money lenders, dishonest merchants and landlords to usurp tribal land with active connivance of the corrupt politician bureaucracy, police and forest officers’ nexus. All this happened in spite of the land protection laws, constitutional provisions of autonomy, and pro-tribal rhetoric of the post-colonial state and the political class.

The developmental trajectory of the post-colonial state was nothing too different from their colonial masters. Tribal habitats were considered lucrative sites for natural resources, commercial forestry, cheap labour for the new capitalist path of development, masquerading as the development path of a welfare state. This neocolonial order further reinforced the extractive economy, squeezing the tribal areas of their lifeblood.

This path of capitalist development displaced millions of Adivasis by mega-dams, factories, mines, industrial townships, etc. Millions were displaced by national parks, sanctuaries and reserve forests. A substantial number of displaced tribals are forced to migrate due to the loss of livelihood, and ruthlessly cut off from their cultural moorings and sense of security, and become part of the urban underclass squeezed into the slums, swelling the ranks of the urban unemployed and underemployed, a totally brutalized and dehumanized existence, and treated like doormats by the depoliticized right wing metropolitan elite. This process leads to a precarious existence - to be ruthlessly displaced again through the gentrification drive of municipal corporations and the builder mafia. (Sympathetic scholars like Dr. Walter Fernandez, Enaksi Ganguli Thukral and others have meticulously documented the displacement and other effects on Adivasis from different mega-projects.) There are more than forty million people, including vast majorities of Adivasis and Dalits displaced by mega-dams and mines, and other industrial projects. (See the report of the World Commission on Dams, and Greater Common Good by Arundhati Roy.)

As a reaction to this usurpation of habitat and livelihood, and the shrinkage of their commons, tribal people have been offering resistance in the Narmada valley, Koael Karo, Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Hoshangabad, western MP and all over tribal areas in India. The tribal resistance movements of post-colonial India are also phenomenal. In the early decades after independence, tribal mobilisations and uprisings took off in several parts of India. One of the prominent movements was the struggle of the Adivasis in Dahanu and other areas of Thane district of Maharashtra. Here the Adivasis built up a strong resistance against local money-lenders, merchants and landlords against usury and other forms of bondage. The eminent radical leader of Maharashtra, the late Godavari Parulekar played a prominent part in the tribal movements of Thane.

All these movements were met by heavy police brutalities. This unleashment of state terror led to the death of thousands of tribal activists by police firing - thousands were put behind bars. The state oppression of tribal movements is a daily experience in post-colonial India. There have been massive and gross human rights violations of Adivasis and other ethnic communities from the north-east, Jammu and Kashmir to other struggling tribal communities. The Indian state has been enacting draconian repressive laws like Armed Forces Special Power Act, National Security Act, and a host of other black laws to trample the democratic aspirations of the indigenous people and ethnic minorities all over the country. There have been thousands of fake-encounter deaths, torture, rape and custodial deaths by the army and the paramilitary forces and the local police. There is a thriving human rights movement in the north-east, resisting state terror and further repeal of black laws like the Armed Forces Special Power Act. Sharmila Irom's great hunger strike is a signal event in the human rights struggle of the oppressed ethnic cultural/religious minorities within India. The massacre of Adivasis by police firing in Kashipur, Dewas and Kalinganagar, are serious pointers of the state of human rights in tribal areas. We call upon all the progressive and democratic forces to struggle for abolition of all the anti-people black laws. We appeal to all the radical and democratic movements to unanimously demand immediate withdrawal of barbaric medieval white terror called SALWA JUDUM by the Hindu Fascist Government of Chhatishgarh and supported by the Congress.

The rulers did all this under the pretence of upholding liberal discourse of political modernity, while medieval, inhuman exploitation of the tribal areas was intact. (The Indian state is signatory to the UN and international covenants and charters, including the ILO declaration on the rights of indigenous people, and other human rights charters.) In this context, we would like to expose the pseudo-liberal rhetoric of the Indian state, ruling-class political parties, and establishment intellectuals.

At the time of writing this note, the news of the gory incidents in Nandigram poured in as one of the bloodiest markers of human rights violation in India in the name of industrialization and growth. This bloody trail from Kalinganagar to Nandigram explains the elimination war of the Indian state and the State Governments against the Adivasis and peasants on behalf of international and Indian big business. We call upon all the progressive and democratic forces to protest against the state sponsored carnage in Nandigram. The cold-blooded massacre of farmers in Nandigram by West Bengal police is a stark indicator of state terror and the state which is the sole repository of violence, and has monopolized violence - both judicial and extra judicial; it is the ugly symbol of organized violence for ruthless perusal of capitalist development on behalf of its imperialist masters. We appeal to all the progressive and democratic forces to rise up unitedly against state violence and abolition of all the laws which make the state as the sole repository and of all powers with monopoly inflicting violence and murder.

The betrayal of the Indian rulers of the democratic and political aspiration of Adivasis and other ethnic groups of large tracts of the country led to the movements of separate states and autonomous regions in the tribal dominated area. Some of the important movements are the Jharkhand movement, the Gorkha land movement, struggle for Gondwana state, Karbi Anglog, and Bodoland, among many others. The tribals are playing an important role in the struggles led by different organized left parties and movements, without forgetting their heroic role in the historic Telengana uprising, which will inspire generations. We call upon all the progressive and democratic movements to support the Adivasi people's struggle for a separate state, political power and autonomy to decide their own path of development and social structure. There are many autonomous tribal movements like the Kastakari Sanghatana, Adivasi Mukti Sanghatan, Shoshit San Andolan, Kisan Adivasi Sanghatan, Khedut Mazdoor, Chetna Sangath, Waynad tribal struggle for land, Jagrit Dalit Adivasi Sanghatan, Ekta Parishad, Prakrutik Sampada, Parishad Kashipur, Bisthapan Bhirodi Janmanch in Kalinagar, etc. These struggles are for the rights of the land, forests, natural resources and commons - against eviction from dams, mines and sanctuaries - now the Special Economic Zones and Special Tourist Zones.

The Indian state conceded some of the demands to legitimize itself to maintain an inclusive democratic facade. It half-heartedly enacted some acts like the PESA Act (under the 89th amendment of the Constitution) and the recent bill on the tribal forestland rights. All these acts were mostly watered down versions of the various charters of demands presented by the tribal movements. A renewed battle on this front is necessary to make these laws effective. The most horrifying aspect of the Adivasi social life in modern India is the saffronisation of tribals of Gujarat and other places, especially western M.P. The participation of tribals in the ghastly communal carnage under the direction of the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat in the year 2002 is the most disturbing factor for democratic politics. The fascist Sangh Parivar and the other revivalist organisations through liberal funding for the VHP by equally right-wing communal NRIs from abroad, have worked over time to communalize the Adivasis through various programmes like the Hindu Sangam. These funds for saffronisation of the Adivasis are channeled through equally shady NGOs like Banvasi Kalyan Kendra. (For the retrograde role of state-sponsored apolitical NGOs in indigenous communities, see the chapter "NGOs in Service of Imperialism" in The Globalization Unmasked – Imperialism in 21st Century by James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Madhyam Books, New Delhi; and The Funding of Hindu Fascist NGOs in India by IDRF, published by Communalism Combat, Bombay.) The Adivasis of entire India are struggling to preserve their way of life, and cultural identity. During the 1991 census, a vast majority of Adivasis in the present day Jharkand registered themselves as followers of 'SARNA religion'. This was an important method of struggle against offensive fascist homogenizing designs of the Hindu right. In the age of late imperial culture, manifested through the 'Disneyfication' and 'McDonaldisation' of third world societies, we call upon the progressive and democratic forces to firmly support the struggle for assertion of cultural identities by the Adivasi people, which is an important site of resistance against the culture of globalization and revivalist cultural offensive of the fascist Sangh Parivar.

Under the rubric of globalization, when neoliberal offensive is devastating the culture and commons of the indigenous people of India, thousands of acres of the land from Adivasis and farmers are taken away for attracting foreign direct investment and forcibly acquiring cheap lands for the Indian big business. The accelerated phase of neoliberal economic policies is the present phase of forcible acquisition of land from both farmers and Adivasis for SEZs. What we are witnessing today in the SEZs is the ruthless early 21st century primitive accumulation through violent dispossession and intense commodification of the commons. The SEZs and those deemed to be foreign territories where no laws of the land will apply, this shameless surrender of sovereignty is nothing else but recolonisation of Indian territories for super profits making mockery of all the claims of being the largest independent democracy in the world. SEZs are grim reminders of the primitive accumulation process which happened during the consolidation of industrial capitalism in the colonial era, the creation of SEZs are similar to the dispossession of the peasantry, decimation of the indigenous people and grabbing of the resources of the third world, so vividly described by Marx in Vol. 1 of Capital which in the Marxist discourse is known as primitive accumulation. (See Hobbswam, Maurice Dobb, Robert Brenner, Polyani and Marx, Vol. 1, Chapter 26, Capital now lucidly explained in John Bellamy Foster’s “Naked Imperialism - The US Pursuit of Global Dominance, Aakar Books, New Delhi.)

In the proposed SEZs in India, the various state governments propose to acquire around 1.35 lakh acres of land with a total revenue loss of around Rs. 1 lakh crores in tax concessions as said by the Finance Minister. All the pro-labour laws, which were achieved after relentless battles of the working class, will no longer apply in SEZs. This shrinkage of arable land, apart from seriously jeopardizing the country’s food security, will severely pollute the environment. This forced de-peasantisation will drastically swell the growing number of the unemployed, creating a huge reserve army of labour for capital who can be exploited as cheap labour. All these are results of SEZs where land is being forcibly acquired through violence and sexual assault on women for the private profit of multinational corporations and Indian big business, ostensibly in the name of public interest as mentioned in the Land Acquisition Act. When the Indian state is boasting of transparency through the Right to Information Act, the million-dollar question is, where is the public interest in the SEZs? This is absolutely and patently an act of fraudulence by the Indian state. There is a resistance going on by the local Adivasis and farmers against the forcible acquisition of their lands, which has led to struggles in Bajera Khurd, Singur, Nandigram and Pen Tehsil in Maharashtra. These are the frontier battle lines and important sites of resistance against imperialism and Indian big business. We call upon all the radical democratic forces to rally behind these struggles. The grim episodes of state sponsored massacre and violence at Nandigram mandates for the creation of an all-India joint struggle by all the Adivasi progressive and democratic movements for scrapping the SEZ Act and halting all the processes of land acquisition for SEZs all over India.

The recent incidents of violence in Nandigram are the symptoms of the sharpening of contradiction between the peasants and world imperialism, where on behalf of the Salim group of Indonesia the West Bengal police massacred the resisting peasants; this was a shameless act of violence on toiling peasantry by a state government to forcibly acquire land for a foreign multinational corporation by a state government led by the left front. This forces us to sit up and rethink the meaning of the word “left”. This sheer capitulation to imperialist interests shamelessly exposes the contradictions of the discourse of left parties running the West Bengal Government, who protest against globalization and SEZs at the centre. The violence unleashed by the West Bengal police on the resisting people of Nandigram is a stark indicator of class violence where the state forces massacre the peasantry on behalf of a foreign multinational company, this exposes the class character of the left front government of West Bengal, which declares itself to be the guardian of workers and peasants. This government murders and dispossesses the same rural under class whose interest it is supposed to safeguard. This shows the betrayal of the interests of the bargadars and the peasants by the left front government. We call upon all the progressive and democratic forces to firmly rally behind the struggling peasantry of Nandigram. We should also expose the hypocrisy and class character of the ruling class parties like the Congress, BJP, Trinamool Congress and Samajvadi Party, who are dispossessing the peasantry in the governments led by them in the centre and state. The time has come for all of us to seriously formulate a strategy for a non-invasive participatory and democratic industrialisation process.

Not withstanding the pro-Adivasi rhetoric of the post-colonial Indian state for six decades, the socio-economic indices and the morbidity pattern of Adivasis are quite depressing. The Adivasis are the most dispossessed, exploited, and marginalized social groups in India. More than 75% of Adivasis are below the official poverty line, with lowest per capita income, which is less than a dollar per day. The infant mortality rate and pre- and post-natal deaths are highest in tribal areas, with lowest life expectancy and literacy rate. Every year thousands die from diseases like gastro-enteritis in the monsoon. The incidence of tuberculosis, polio and blindness is quite high. Thousands migrate to the cities due to displacement caused by mega-projects, famines, drought, indebtedness, etc. Official schemes like the ITDP, Antyodaya and public distribution systems are total failures due to lack of political will and bureaucratic apathy. After a long struggle by the Adivasi movements and the left and democratic movements, the government was forced to enact the Employment Guarantee Act, which is quite inadequate seeing the high incidence of unemployment and under-employment. The tribal and other democratic movements should continue the struggle for the transparent, sincere implementation and social audit of the present Employment Guarantee Act, for the whole year - 365 days, covering all the districts of India. We should demand that an expenditure of 20% of the GDP be spent on the social sectors like socialized medicine & community health care, education, maternal & infant care, pensions, housing and the provision of entertainment infrastructures, healthy and clean landscape, and other forms of social wage. The struggle for forests and land rights, usury money lending, slavery, bondage and different forms of feudal exploitations, radical land reforms, political autonomy, resistance to imperialist and Hindu fascist attacks on Adivasi cultural identity and way of life, against human rights violation, displacement, and rolling-back of the neoliberal offensive, should be strengthened with renewed vigour.

In the post-Iraq world, under the hegemony of the frightening political project of "Pax Americana", in an era where under the neoliberal economic regime the contradictions between the world imperialism led by the USA and the oppressed masses and nations of the third world is sharpening, we appeal to all the Adivasi movements to firmly ally with the struggles of the other oppressed entities and identities like workers, peasants, Dalits, women, unemployed youth, and oppressed ethnic, national, religious and sexual minorities and take concrete steps for the formation of a broadest possible left and democratic united front, to struggle against imperialism, feudalism, and patriarchy. Our ultimate objective should be the creation of a society without the exploitation of man by man, by man of woman, and human beings of nature. We should all strive for a radical democratic social order, where the associated producers decide their own destiny, where the development of each is the condition for the development of all.
Long live the struggle for human emancipation.

[NOTE:  This was drafted in February 2007.]

MARXISM AND THE CASTE QUESTION

REVIEW OF COM. ANURADHA GHANDY’S

“CASTE QUESTION IN INDIA”

~ Asit Das

In this putatively postMarxist (postmodernist) epoch, where history has ended decisively in favour of capitalist liberal democracy, class has been given up as an analytical category and socialism as the historical destiny of the oppressed. Multiculturalism is the dominant political theme in the metropolitan academies where volumes are written on the hardening cultural boundaries and the carnivalesque play of identity. Therefore the ‘subaltern’ and ‘postcolonial’ political subject’s consciousness has nothing to do with the totalizing the Soviet era mode of production narrative. Caste has become a very important subject, both for the metropolitan and Indian universities; book-shelves are packed with latest publications on caste.

In Indian politics, caste has emerged as one of the most important issues after the Mandal/Kamandal controversies. All the ruling class political parties carefully cultivate vote banks based on caste. In the postMandal Indian political reality where social justice has replaced social revolution, even the parliamentary left both the neo-revisionist and social democratic type have fallen into the trap of identity politics, whereas the gruesome massacres and atrocities on Dalits is a daily affair. Not a single day passes without newspapers not reporting various outrageous acts of atrocities on Dalits in India. On the other hand,  contineous ‘deconstruction’ and ‘fragmentation’ of social reality, constant  ‘decentering’ of the ‘self’ and creation of the ‘other’ , micro-narratives replacing meta-narratives is the fashion, where any kind of talk about ‘liberation’ and ‘emancipation’ are quickly reduced to linguistic mysticism. In the academic jargon, caste as a cultural identity has resurfaced with renewed vigour. However, for some of us who still call ourselves an old-fashioned fossilized tribe, who still believe in revolutionary left praxis and the grand narrative of emancipation and ultimate transcendence of capitalism, caste and caste oppression is a serious issue because as Ambedkar has said, caste system is not only a division of labour, but also a division of labourers. Hence, understanding caste and working a strategy is extremely essential for the politics of social transformation. Marxists and revolutionary left forces have been derided for not understanding the caste question in India. On the contrary, Marxist authors like D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma and Suvira Jaiswal have produced outstanding works on developing a theoretical understanding of caste system in India.

It is here that the writings on caste question in India by late Comrades Anuradha Ghandy and Com. Y. Naveen Babu assume extreme importance because they developed a framework for revolutionaries for dealing with the caste system for the achievement of democratic revolution in India. It is important to highlight that both Comrades Anuradha Ghandy and Naveen Babu were no armchair theoreticians, but active participants in the revolutionary left politics in India. Com. Naveen Babu was martyred in the year 2000 at Visakhapatnam. For anyone who is serious about radical social transformation, caste is an important issue because the caste system, apart from structuring exploitative relations of production, essentially forms a social hierarchy. Caste status is acquired by birth and castes are maintained as endogamous groups. There are more than 2000 such castes in contemporary Indian society. Modern 21^stcentury India still embraces caste and it forms the basis or is part of the cultural, political and social events across India.

In fact, caste has reinvented itself and is very much part of the consciousness of all the Indian classes. It will not be an exaggeration to say that no conversation or discussion in everyday life of an average Indian goes beyond the second sentence without the phrase ‘which caste is she/he from?’ In a sense, perpetuation of the caste system is promoted by the upper echelons of the Indian society to bring order and to directly or indirectly control it. (Reinterpreting Caste and Social Change: A Review In: From Varna to Jati Political Economy of Caste in Indian Social Formation; Y. Naveen Babu. Daanish Books, Delhi.) The abolition of the caste system has to be a fundamental goal of the Indian democratic revolution. Any mass movement to abolish classes, which does not engage in a direct fight against the caste system, will not achieve its objective. The reverse is also true. Only identity-based caste struggle without challenging the exploitative relations of production cannot create a social system without exploitation.

Com. Anuradha Ghandy’s writing on caste question is an extremely valuable contribution in dealing with the caste question in India and its relation with the politics of radical social transformation. Com. Anuradha’s “Caste Question In India” is a seminal text in understanding the origin of caste/class, relations of production in agriculture, state, social hierarchy and formulating a political programme for the abolition of caste system and its relation with the democratic revolution in India. She wades through history explaining the origin of the caste system, tribal class society rise of the state in India and scripting a specific set of demands for struggle to abolish caste system and its relation with the democratic revolution in India. Explaining the theoretical framework, she writes, “The caste system has been one of the specific problems of the Indian democratic revolution. It is linked to the specific nature of the evolution of Indian society and has been one of the most important means for the exploitation of the labouring masses. Sanction by the Brahminical Hindu religion, Varnashra-Dharma legitimized the oppression of the working people, and the enslavement and degradation of one section of the masses, reducing them to near animal existence. For the ruling classes in India, from the ancient to the modern period, the caste system served both as an ideology as well as a social system that enabled them to repress and exploit the majority of toilers.

Invaders from other lands who came to rule over India, adjusted with this system, as it suited their class interest; religions like Islam and Christianity, which profess the equality of all men, adjusted with it, allowing its believers to be divided on the basis of caste, because they did not interfere with this system of exploitation. Today, caste ideology is still an important part of the reactionary ruling class ideological package, and it serves to divide the working masses, hampering the development of class consciousness and a unified revolutionary struggle. At the same time, caste based occupations and relations of production, caste based inequalities and discrimination, the practice of untouchability and the belief in Brahminical superiority, are still as much part of the socio-economic life of the country. Caste is being used in the corrupt electoral politics of the ruling classes. To root out the caste system we must first understand its origin and development and evaluate the successes and failures of the various struggles against the caste system and Brahminical ideology (see “Caste Question In India”; Anuradha Ghandy In: Scripting The Change: Selected Writings of Anuradha Ghandy, edited by Anand Teltumbde and Shoma Sen. Daanish Books, Delhi, 2011).

As I have explained earlier, Com. Anuradha was no ivory tower intellectual detached from the vagaries of everyday struggles of the oppressed, so she wrote with lucidity and without any academic jargon for grassroots activists involved in the day-to-day struggles of the underdog. She explains the origin of the caste system for people who are not formally trained in history or any other branch of social science. Writing about the origin of the caste system, she traces its history back to 3,000 years linking it up with the development of class society, emergence of the state, the development of the feudal mode of production and the continuous but often forcible assimilation of tribal groups, with their own customs and practices, into the exploitative agrarian economy (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

She explains three distinct periods of the origin and development of the caste system:

1.      Vedic period: The period from 1500 BC, when Aryan pastoral tribes and non-agricultural tribal communities took to agriculture, the emergence of agriculture as the dominant production system, to the rise of the state around 500 BC.

2.      The period from 500 BC to the 4^th century AD – the period of the expansion of agriculture based on Shudra labour, the growth of trade and its decline; the rise of small kingdoms to the emergence of feudalism.

3.      The period from the 4^th century AD onwards – when the development of feudalism took place, and Brahminical Hinduism and the jati system acquired their complex and rigid form (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

Explaining the emergence of class society from the tribal society, she says class societies emerged from the clashes of the various pastoral Aryan tribes and the indigenous tribes and the development of agriculture with the widespread use of iron, which took the shape of the Varnas, hence the four Varnas were the form of class society which took place in the later Vedic and Upanishad period.

Giving the details of the process, she writes, “As the Vedic Aryans entered from the Punjab area and spread towards the Gangetic Plain from around 1500 BC, they were already divided into an aristocracy (Rajanya) and priests (Brahmins) and the ordinary clansmen (vis) In the incessant conflicts and wars that were associated with their spread eastwards, conflicts among the various pastoral Aryan tribes and with local tribes for cattle, water resources, land and then also for slaves, sections of tribes that were defeated began to be enslaved, known as dasas. The wars increased the importance of the chieftains. They relied on ritualism to enhance their prestige and consolidate it, and to appropriate the surplus through these rituals. Tributes of cattle and slaves were given by the ordinary vis to the rajanyas. Major and minor yagnas were increasingly performed by the rajanyas, in alliance with the Brahmins. The ruling elite and the priests live off the gifts (dand/bali) given to them by the vis at these yagna. At this stage, the tribunal organizations based on clan and kin were still dominant. The emergence of the Brahmin and Kshatriya Varnas was a process of the breaking down of the kin-based relations among these ruling elites and the creation of a broader class – the Varna – which lived off the tributes and gifts from the vis and subjugated the tribes. The pastoral tribes had adopted agriculture, and from the local tribes, the chieftain clans and the priestly clans were being incorporated into the Kshatriya and Brahmin Varnas, respectively.

The subjugated tribals, both Aryan and non-Aryan, gradually came to form the Shudra Varna. All of them were not slaves. While domestic slavery existed, it was basically the Vaishya peasants (from the vis the broader Vaishya Varna emerged) and the Shudras, who reared cattle, tilled the soil.

The widespread use of iron not only for weapons but also for agricultural purposes, from around 800 BC, marked a qualitative change in the production system of the ancient tribal societies. Plough-based agriculture could generate considerable surplus on a regular basis. Dense forests could be cut down and land cleared for cultivation. Thus, iron enabled the agrarian economy to become the prominent production system in this ancient period. The spread of agriculture was achieved at the cost of the non-agricultural tribes. They were either subjugated or displaced from the forests and their traditional means of livelihood. The conquest of new territories and the possibility of regular settlements further enhanced the importance of chieftains. Tribals’ oligarchies emerged. Many of the chieftains turned into kings who needed grander yagnas to consolidate their rule not only over their own clans and tribes, but also over the territories they commanded the janapada.

The Varnashrama-Dharma was already being developed by the Brahmin priestly class. The rituals became more complex, elaborate and wealth consuming. These rituals were the means by which the surplus could be distributed. The surplus, appropriated in the form of gifts, was shared by the ruling Kshatriyas and the Brahmin priests. Gifts were no longer voluntary. They were forced. The Arya dharma and Varna ideology legitimized the increasing power of the kings and priests and the absorption of the subjugated tribals into the lower Varnas. It became the ideological expression of the classes that had emerged from the womb of the various tribes. Those groups that did not accept the rituals and forced tributes were considered anarya or mlechha.

Development of agriculture, including paddy cultivation in the Gangetic Plains, was accompanied by the increasing division of labour and growth of trade. Private property in land emerged; towns developed; few classes came into existence - the Vaishya traders and the gahapatis, the landowners. The gahapatis did not themselves till the land, but got slaves or Shudras to till it. Tensions between upper two Varnas and the lower Varnas, and between those who owned and those who laboured, emerged. This led to the emergence of the ancient state. The first states emerged in the Gangetic Plains in Bihar (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

She explains the emergence of the state in India and its relations with the Varna order and how Brahminical rituals were used to legitimize the rule of the kings. The emergence of the Kosala and Magadha monarchies around the 6^th century BC was the form in which the state developed in ancient India. The ruling class in the proto states and these early states relied on yagnas and rituals to buttress and legitimize their rule. The early states had the explicit function of upholding the Varna order and private property. Gifts were replaced by taxes. A standing army came into existence. The Varnashrama ideology reflected and buttressed this class situation in the interests of the ruling Kshatriyas and Brahmins. The Brahmins and Kshatriyas enclose the Vaishyas and Shudras, the servants of another, to be removed at will, to be slain at will. In the context of the differences between the classes becoming sharp, the Varna divisions had become rigid. Social distance and endogamy came to be emphasized.

But the newly emerged classes, the lower two Varnas and the non-subjugated tribal communities did not accept this ideology and the Varna hierarchy with Brahminical superiority. The rise of “Lokayata”, “Mahavir”, Buddha and other opposing sects and philosophical systems was a challenge to this Vedic yagna-based Brahminism and Varna-based hierarchy. These sects gained the support of traders, and artisans organized into guilds and semi-tribal kings and chieftains. Later, with the consolidation of the state formation with Mauryan rule (4^th-3^rd centuries BC), the reduction in the importance of yagnas and borrowing certain principles from Buddhism, Brahminism tried to reassert its ideological role. Yet, it had to contend with Buddhism and Jainism for commercial and royal patronage and for social domination. This reflects the struggles put up by the various classes and peoples to the consolidation of the caste system based on Brahmin-Kshatriya superiority. Yet Brahminism played a key role in the development and consolidation on the state in ancient India and the development and formalization of a class society in the form of Varnas.

The Mauryan Empire, which rose in the Magadha region in the 3^rd century BC, was the first major fully formed stake in India after the Indus Valley civilization. It was an ancient communal and state ownership type of state with Shudra-based production. The origins of the Mauryas themselves are obscure, but the state was guided by the famous Brahmin Kautilya, also known as Chanakya. Chanakya Arthashastra was the first and hence a frank account of how to rule. It laid down the principles of state craft without any ideological and religious cover up. The Mauryan state was a centralized state which took the responsibility for the extension of agriculture and trade. This arthashastra state settled groups of Shudras where lands could be cleared and brought under the plough. The sita lands were farmed directly by the state with the help of Shudras (serf) labour, under the autocratic regime, while rashtra lands were farmed by the free peasantry (Vaishyas). These rashtra lands were taxed on various counts. The state took taxes from the Vaishyas and labour from the Shudras, providing them with the necessities of cultivation.

While slavery also existed, slaves were used primarily by landowners for domestic work and by the state for processing the grain collected in the form of taxes and for the production of some commodities. The state also monopolized the mining and minerals. By this period, a class of dependent peasants and labourers (helots) – Shudras by Varna, had been consolidated. But the Vaishyas who carried out trade and settled in urban areas began to distinguish themselves from their peasant brethren. In latter centuries, peasant cultivation became the hallmark of the Shudras. The ordinary, free peasantry was pushed down into the Shudra Varna, while the Vaishya Varna became the monopoly of the traders and merchants. At the same time, the class of Kshetraswamis, those who got their lands cultivated by sharecroppers and dependent labourers, came to become the norm.

In the Mauryan period and upto the 3^rd century AD, trade was an important aspect of the economy. While trade along with the dakshina pantha and to the north along the uttar pantha grew in the Mauryan period, in later centuries trade with the Roman Empire (1^st and 2^ndcenturies AD) also became important. In the south, trade links with the South-East Asian societies, including China, also existed. Thus, the class of artisans and merchants who were linked to the market were socially and economically important. Artisans and merchant guilds were powerful. Also, during this period artisan guilds were strictly not hereditary.

The restrictions on the marriage part of the tribal endogamous practices were adopted by Brahmins, though their social purpose became different. In the early Vedic period, tribal endogamy was not strictly followed in the assimilation of groups. But as class differences started to emerge and the need for a large number of labourers grew, the two upper Varnas enforced strict rules regarding the form of marriage, a method of distancing themselves from the lower two Varnas, while at the same time sanctioning hypergamy. Hypergamy allowed converted Brahmins and Kshatriyas to seek partners from among their own tribe’s folk, absorbed as Vaishyas or Shudras. It allowed political alliances with non-Kshatriya chieftains and kings. At the same time, marriage rules for the two Varnas were not restrictive allowing for the rapid increase in population of the labouring people.

In a primitive economy, human labour is the main productive asset. Hence, even marriage rules developed according to the interests of the ruling classes and gained ideological legitimacy through the rigid Varna divisions (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

Explaining the popularity of Buddhism and Jainism, she says the toiling people like Shudras and traders like Vaishyas had to pay high taxes, but had to be content with lower social status. Expensive rituals based on sacrifice of animals created difficulties for agriculture. Explaining the process of creation of jatis, she says with the decline of yagnas, a transformation in the social role of the Brahmins took place and with that Brahminism also underwent a transformation. Brahmins, encouraged and protected by kings, brought the borders of the kingdom under agriculture, in the process ‘aryanizing’ the tribals in the region. From Ashoka’s time, the free peasants and the Brahmins migrated in search of fresh lands to bring it under agriculture. The ashrams set up by the Brahmins in the forests were the pioneer settlements that developed contacts with the tribes in the area, and brought them under the command of the plough and the Vedas. The local tribals were incorporated almost wholly as jatis of the Shudra Varna, and retained their tribal customs and became the labourers on the land carrying out the various tasks necessary for agricultural operations.

The tribal elite were incorporated into the Brahmin Varna. The Brahmins changed the form of their religion. Sacrificial yagnas became symbolic. The principle of ahimsa was adopted from Buddhism. The older Vedic codes, which were glorifications of pastoral life and wars, gave way to newer Gods, like the cult of Krishna, and also Shiva and later Vishnu. Tribal rituals were adopted, for instance the agni rituals, performed only by the Brahmins in South Indian temples, were non-Vedic in origin. Tribal worship of Mother Goddesses was also incorporated into the Hindu religion. In fact, with the development of feudalism, the feminine names of certain tribes, etc., Matangi, Chandali, Kaivarti and their tribal totems, were also incorporated into the Hindu fold. Gods and Goddesses were incorporated into the Hindu pantheon asavatars of the main God, Vishnu. This was the ideological manifestation of the social process of the absorption of tribes and semi-tribes into the spreading agrarian economy at the lower levels of social hierarchy. The significance of the Varnashrama-Dharma in this process, the importance and social base. In the king’s court, they provided the genealogy that proved the Kshatriya/Brahmin status of the ruler’s family; hence Brahminism was supported by the rulers. Yet, in the period upto the 6^th century AD, at least, Brahminism and the caste system could not gain hegemony in invasion of foreign groups like Kushans and Shakas, which ruled over large territories, the strength of artisan and trade guilds, as also the influence of Buddhism and Jainism (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

She explains how this Aryan system of caste and social organisations spread with iron to the south. And the patronage extended by the Satvanas, which were one of the first state formations in the 2^nd century AD, consolidated the Brahminical caste system in South India.

The basic difference of Marxism and left politics with identity politics and ruling class politics vis-à-vis caste is that the Marxist approach sees caste oppression in India in the dominant feudal social relations and the liberation of oppressed castes including the Dalits intrinsically linked with the struggle against feudalism. Com. Anuradha explains the rise and consolidation of feudalism in the following lines:

“From around 6^th century AD in the early medieval period the caste system, based on jatis, began to consolidate in most parts of India. It is clearly linked to the rise of feudalism all over India, when a class of intermediaries was created which expropriated the surplus in the form of revenue or share of the produce from the labouring masses. This was accompanied by the development of the self-sufficient village economy. The decline of trade and artisan guilds, primarily due to the collapse of the Roman Empire after the 3^rdcentury AD, the contraction of money circulation, the settling down of artisans in the villages, created the conditions for the rise of feudalism. Land grants began to be given to Brahmins, Buddhist monasteries and to army officials. Though this process began in the Satvahana rule in the 2^nd century AD, and with the Guptas in the 4^th century AD, it became widespread from the 5^thcentury onwards. From the 7^th century onwards appointing feudal intermediaries who collected revenue and food on administrative tasks became common. The distribution of land grants to Brahmins, in the period of rising feudalism, meant that from the beginning they constituted a part of feudal class. This process essentially took place between the 5^th and 7^thcenturies, especially in the parts that were colonized by the migrating peasant settlers – in Bengal, Orissa, Gujarat and central and western Madhya Pradesh, in the Deccan. It began under the Pallava rule in the 6^thcentury in the South, but reached its peak during the Chola rule from the 9^thcentury onwards in Tamil Nadu, parts of Karnataka and the Kerala regions.

In this period the proliferation of jatis also began. Jati, originally a term used for a tribe with its own distinct customs, coming into a Varna, gradually replaced Varna since it became the main organization in which people were bound together. The original peasant settlers emerged as specific peasant jatis in particular regions. In the South the dominant peasant land owning jatis were considered as Satvik Shudras, ranked only next to the Brahmins. A number of jatis and upa jatis, each with an occupational specialization necessary for agriculture, or for social life in the village also developed. The carpenter, blacksmith, potter, tanner, skinner of dead cattle were available in the bigger villages. As also the barber, the washerman and the priest. They provided their skills to the peasant and other families including the families of the feudal intermediaries. In return they began to be given a share of village produce. Initially the share was decided by nattar, the association of the dominant peasant community. In later times the shares became more formal, they were also given the right to till a part of the village lands. The jagmani system, the balutedari or ayagari system emerged within the new arrangement of the village structure. Money was not needed for daily exchange. This arrangement greatly aided the Brahmins and the other upper castes from the land owning, feudal intermediaries to raise their ritual status and social prestige, since the lower castes were available in full complement to do all the various types of physical and menial labor. The upper caste did not have to soil their hands. The jati system was suitable for the feudal mode of production and it would not be wrong to call it jati feudalism.

It is in this period that the number of untouchable castes swelled greatly. From the 4^th century BC itself, these are references to the untouchables, in Patanjali, who mentions two types of Shudras, the Nirashrit (excluded) and the Ashrit. But their numbers were restricted. Gradually newer tribal groups began to be included. But it is in the feudal period that their numbers went up greatly, the Chamars and Rajaks, for example, were reduced to the untouchable status of an untouchable. Tribal groups, subjugated by force after being dispossessed of their forests/lands, mans of livelihood and freedom were relegated to an untouchable status. Some artisan groups too were pushed down from Shudra to the ati Shudra ranks. They were in the main bonded agricultural labourers who were denied by religious injunctions any right to own wealth (gold, etc.) and land. Their only dharma was to labour for the entire village at a distance, polluting even by their shadow. Maximum surplus could be extracted from the untouchable labourers, forced into a low level of material existence and perpetual servitude.

Brahmins, both as individuals and as groups, were granted lands and a share of the revenue from the villages. They lived off the surplus created by the villagers. The Brahmadeva villages in South India became the centres for Brahminical culture and learning. In these villages and the surrounding region, Brahmins were allowed to keep the revenue of the villages, or the larger share (melavarm) of the total produce, they got their own lands cultivated through tenants or sharecroppers. The Dharma allowed them the right to own land, they could supervise cultivation, but they could not cultivate it themselves. A section of the Brahmin castes were closely associated with the rulers. Apart from providing fictitious genealogies to prove Kshatriya status of the ruling groups, they were the royal purohits and in many kingdoms they held administrative posts. These Brahmins, who helped to generate the surplus, gained the highest social era.

As land owners and revenue collectors, closely associated with the rule of the kingdom, the Brahmins held wide authority in the political, social and religious life. They were active members of the feudal ruling class, and its ideologies as well.” (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

She succinctly explains the impact of Muslim rule on the feudal mode of production beginning with the Turkish rule. The establishment of Turkish power in North India, through the slave dynasty in the 13^th century, marked an important phase in the feudal mode of production. They centralized the administration and introduced a systematic system of revenue collection. The composition of the ruling class underwent a change. Initially, it was the Turk slave families and their relatives that ruled, they were successively replaced by ex-slaves of Indian origin, Indianized Turks and foreign immigrants, to be replaced by even foreigners. The most important changes related to the methods in which the rights to revenue collection (iqta) were assigned. Originally restricted only for life, on the decision of the king, by the end of the 15^thcentury they were made hereditary. The Turks were urban-based, and favoured Islam. Thus, Turkish rulers displaced the original feudatories and created new ones over a period of time.

The administrative changes induced by the Turks, and adopted in the Deccan too, introduced changes in the powers of revenue collection and administration, affecting military service holders, administrators, village headmen and the priestly clans, the office holders came to be called inamdars, watandars, iqtadars, deshmukhs-desais, and later as jagirdars, during the Mughal rule.

Although some of the earlier intermediaries who had lost their posts regained them during the later part of the Turk rule, yet in this period the composition of the feudal classes in north India was not stable. However, this did not affect the structure of the village economy. The Turks introduced new techniques in the science of war. They also gave a fillip to trade, commerce and artisan production in the urban areas. Hence, this period saw the development of the productive forces in Indian society (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

By the 17^th and 18^th centuries when Moghuls consolidated their rule by associating with the Rajput chiefs and other upper caste intermediaries and the ruling groups of kingdoms annexed in north India and in the Deccan. This throughout the early period, though the Mughals monetized the collection of revenue to some extent, and also increased the exploitation of the peasantry, yet, they did not basically affect the social structure of the agrarian village economy as it had evolved over the previous centuries. It consisted of the intermediaries at the top of the rural structure, who were also invariably large landlords themselves. Often they held a post from the ruler, which gave administrative responsibilities and powers. These were also village chiefs and village level officials like accountants. These office holders and feudatories lived off the revenue collected from the peasants. They also controlled lands which they got tilled by either tenants or sharecroppers.

In some areas, they used the bonded labourers from tribal or untouchable castes. Most of these feudal intermediaries were from the uppermost castes – Brahmins, Rajputs and even if they originally came from the Shudra cultivating castes, they had elevated themselves to Kshatriya or to a high non-Brahmin status.

The control of temples had given the Brahmins wide control over the resources of the agrarian economy in the south. The appointment of Brahmins to high administrative and military posts during the Vijaynagara rule further concentrated power and resources under their control. In western Maharashtra too, the Maratha rule concentrated economic and political power in the hands of the Brahmins. The main cultivating castes were exploited for revenue and innumerable taxes. Yet their rights to the land had evolved over the centuries, even if they were under feudatories. The jagmani/balutedari system institutionalized the system of exchange between the services of the various castes – the peasants and the landlord. On the one hand, it formalized the share of the various castes to the produce, but on the other, it increased the power and prestige of feudatories and Brahmins, and formalized the system of beggar (forced free labour). Higher caste landowning sections could withdraw from all manual work, especially work connected with agriculture. The other castes served as their jajmans. It involved free labour for a number of artisans and service castes, who served various families at the same time, but the untouchable castes, were in many areas attached to a particular family (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

Writing about the colonial period, she says that the British did not touch or tamper with the Brahminical system. By passing local customary and caste practices, they upheld the Dharamshastras, appointing Brahmin pundits to advise the British judges in interpreting the shastras in disputes relating to family and marriage, property and inheritance, and religious rights, including the status of specific castes. Hence, the British legal system upheld the entry into the temples to the untouchable castes in the name of protecting the established rights of other castes. The British courts entertained caste claims regarding privileges and precedence of exclusiveness in respect to religious rituals as well.

In the name of respecting the autonomy of castes, they upheld the disciplinary power of castes against violators of caste norms, even in inter-caste disputes. Thus, they upheld caste although in a much more restricted sphere than in the feudal period.

The economic changes introduced by the colonial rulers in the 19^th century in order to consolidate their rule and intensify the exploitation of India, had an impact on the relations of production in the rural areas and created new classes from among the various castes, the various revenue settlements – the zamindari, rayatwari, etc., the introduction of railways, defence works, the colonial education system, the uniform criminal and civil law and colonial bureaucracy affected the caste system and modified its role in society.

In the land settlements, the British ignored the inalienable rights of the actual cultivators, in many areas made the intermediaries, the non-cultivating sections that only had a share in the produce traditionally, become the sole proprietors of the land.

In the zamindari settlement areas, the Shudra peasants became tenants at the mercy of the landlords; in other areas a class of peasant proprietors arose, but even in this the larger peasants gained while the actual cultivators became tenants or sharecroppers. The Shudra peasantry was divided into an upper section of the rich; intensified exploitation coupled with famines and other crises, indebted peasants of all the cultivating castes who were pushed into the ranks of the landless.

A section of artisans became landless labourers. A class of rural poor, landless or poor peasants, emerged from the ranks of most of the middle and lower castes in the 19^th century (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”). She gives a brilliant account of the Bhakti and non-Brahmin Movement in the pre-British and colonial period. She gives an excellent account of the dynamics of caste system after the transfer of power, including Dalit politics and caste atrocities.

The most significant changes have been in the countryside. The close correspondence between caste and class no longer exists in most parts of the country. The old upper castezamindars and other big feudal landlords have, to some extent, been weakened and feudal authority is, to a large extent, asserted by smaller landlords, the former big tenants of thezamindars and the large peasant proprietors. While the position of the upper castes has weakened the most, the new landlords are from the middle castes. The middle castes are, today, significantly divided along class lines. The landlords and the rich peasants are a small group from the traditionally cultivating castes, and these castes are also found in large numbers among middle and poor peasants and even among the landless.

The lower section of the middle castes, i.e., the artisan castes are primarily middle, poor or landless and some are continuing their traditional occupations. Therefore, today, the main exploiting class in the rural areas consists of the earlier upper caste elements, i.e., the Brahmins, the Rajputs, the Brahmins, together with the upper stratum of the middle castes, such as the Patidars, the Marathas, the Jats, the Yadavs, the Vellars, the Lingayats, the Reddys, the Kammas, the Nairs, etc.

The middle peasants, comprising about 25 percent of the rural households, largely come from the major cultivating castes and from other lower castes, as well as a small section of Dalits. This section has contradictions with upper sections of the rural elite, but due to the caste relations and low class consciousness in areas of low class struggle, they are trailing behind the elite landlord sections of the other castes.

The poor and the landless, who consist of 60% of the rural households, have the greatest number of caste divisions, including a large number of small artisan and service jatis, and even Muslims. This class consists also of a large number of households from Dalits and Adivasis. Of the rural agricultural labour families, 37% are Dalits and 10% Adivasis, while the remaining half are drawn from the cultivating castes and other lower castes. Here, caste divisions among the exploited is the greatest. The caste-class relationship in the present period is indeed complex (Anuradha Ghandy: “Caste Question In India”).

Marxism, above all, is a philosophy of praxis and Com. Anuradha was a revolutionary who dedicated her entire life for the emancipation of the underdog. Therefore, as a mark of respect to her, underlining the seriousness of her praxis, I would conclude by quoting her programmatic agenda for the Dalit liberation struggle, which is intrinsically linked with the question of democratic revolution in India.

The following is the agenda she has systematically laid out for the struggle:

1.      The proletariat must direct the class struggle against the caste system as an integral part of the struggle to accomplish the New Democratic Revolution. 

2.      For this, mobilize all the exploited classes in the struggle against caste oppression, exploitation and discrimination. 

3.      Smash caste-linked feudal authority in the villages and place political power in the hands of the oppressed classes, led by the landless and poor peasants. 

4.      Struggle to implement land to the tiller, keeping the interests of landless peasantry and poor peasantry at the forefront.

 5.      Wage an ideological struggle against Brahminical casteist ideology and all other forms of casteist thinking. Expose the casteist ideology in the scriptures like Manusmriti, the Gita and the Vedas, etc. 

6.      While upholding the right of the individual to pursue his or her faith, conduct a relentless ideological struggle against all forms of caste rituals and practices, like thread ceremony, etc. 

7.      Fight against propagation of vegetarianism, based on its link with ‘purity’ and other forms of superstition regarding ‘pollution’. Oppose ‘gohatya bandi’. 

8.      Fight social stigma against certain occupations and customs of lower castes, like beef eating or pork eating. 

9.      Fight against symbols of caste identity and degradation, and the culture having a caste slang. 

10.  Defend and actively support the struggle of the Dalit masses for self-respect. Defend the right of the Dalits to enter temples and convert. 

11.  Struggle for the civic and social rights of the Dalits and other lower castes, and oppose discrimination, e.g., use of common wells, hotels, toilets, hostels, etc. 

12.  Struggle for equal participation of lower castes in social functions. Try to establish social intercourse between the people belonging to various castes participating in the class struggle. Encourage inter-dining among different castes. 

13.  Oppose housing schemes based on caste segregation. 

14.  Defend and encourage inter-caste marriages. Demand incentives for all inter-caste marriages. Children of inter-caste marriages should get facilities as accorded to either parent. 

15.  End use of caste names in official records. 

16.  Encourage trade unions to take initiative in the implementation of reservation policy. Fight reservations in private sector. 

17.  Fight bureaucratic delays and corruption in loans and subsidies for Dalits and OBCs. 

18.  Demand special schemes to upgrade technology and the skills of lower castes and artisan groups. 

19.  Demand increase in scholarship amount and improved facilities in hostels for Dalits and Adivasis. 

20.  Expose the reactionary nature of caste associations, especially upper caste associations. 

21.  Fight against and expose the casteist leadership within the oppressed castes, who prevent the class unity of the toiling masses. There is a false consciousness among the poor people belonging to the upper castes that they are socially equal with the rich people of their castes. We have to expose this myth and make them understand that their real comrades-in-arms are the oppressed people of other castes. We should never put caste before class. 

22.  Fight and expose the opportunistic and reformist trends within the leadership of the oppressed castes. Fight bourgeois democratic illusions among oppressed castes. 

23.  Struggle against caste prejudices and caste beliefs within the ranks of the proletariat and other sections of the toiling masses, and build up a struggling unity among the exploited classes. 

24.  The communists should be one among the oppressed people of all castes and be with them in words and deeds. At the same time we should expose the pseudo communists who are rank casteists in practice. 

25.  Educate and struggle against casteist beliefs of activists of mass organizations. 

26.  Form special platforms of democratic sections to fight caste discrimination and programs against lower castes. 

27.  Form anti-riot squads in defence of lower castes in areas of caste tensions. 

28.  Propagate materialist scientific ideology, promote atheism. 

29.  Struggle to create a democratic culture, based on equality of all irrespective of caste and gender.

-         From “Caste Question In India”, by Anuradha Ghandy.

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Reflections on ‘Aam Aadmi’ (Mango People) at Jantar Mantar on 26.11.2012

- Asit

Discovering the tragedy and farce of ‘aam aadmi’ at Jantar Mantar on 26.11.2012.

In the campaign for 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Congress coined the term ‘aam aadmi’ to garner votes, and hoodwink the people for another five-year term to faithfully serve international finance capital through their most loyal puppet Manmohan Singh. After that over the years, the term ‘aam aadmi’ is projected by every party and aspiring politicians like Arvind Kejriwal. Like the term professional revolutionary, the term ‘aam aadmi’ has become a football for political ambition. Anyone can kick it for media bytes; while on the other hand the ‘aam aadmi’ is minute by minute crushed by the neoliberal offensive.

Jantar Mantar in Delhi is witness to many protests - both fake and genuine, for different causes of the ‘aam aadmi’. Jantar Mantar is also the exhibition ground for NGO( read  civil society)activism. Their ambience, style and politics is not much different from a corporate sector gathering. The class three and four NGO employees come to the venue an hour earlier to distribute parchas, and put up the pandal. The NGO bosses arrive late due to their packed schedule, which is only understood by the donor agencies.

Also at Jantar Mantar, star struck, MSW-trained (development professionals) middle level late teen and early middle age functionaries get their PR and socialising spot, they gossip a little bit about the government, politics, adivasis, maoism and interpersonal problems, then crowd around the tea shops. After that, they go back to their well-furnished offices along with their laptops. Their offices work day and night for the marginalised dishing out reports, press releases, etc., thanks to liberal funding in the name of ‘for marginalised Aam aadmi’. Hot topics for funding are displacement, human rights, adivasis, farmer, women and dalits. Long live the ‘aam aadmi’.

Today is an interesting day at Jantar Mantar because Arvind Kejriwal his launching is Aam Aadmi Party. There is a strange twist into the name of Aam Aadmi Party. Yesterday Congress Gen. secretary Digvijay Singh alleged that Arvind Kejriwal stole the name ‘Aam Aadmi’ from Congress. Today, at the Dr Sunilam protest venue, I read the document from an activist’s group that they have already registered a party with the election commission, I don’t know whethe Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party will land up in copyrights violation litigation. Personally, I feel the name ‘Aam Aadmi’ Party is gender biased because it names only the ‘Aam Aadmi’ (man) not Aurat (woman). Today the term ‘aam aadmi’ has Made Jantar Mantar into a colorful carnival. As soon as I entered Jantar Mantar from the south (women press corps) side, first I saw a massive rally of project workers by the left trade union CITU. After that, I saw a large tent of Indian justice party led or Uditraj demanding reservation for SC/ST employees. Right in front of our protest tent where we were protesting against the arrest of Dayamni Barala and Dr Sunilam, I saw a well-furnished tent of executives (owners of security equipment supplied the Government). They were demanding tax exemption from the procurement security equipment such that they  make more profits. They were all in three-piece suits, finding it difficult to formulate and shout slogans. Then I finally encountered the  (Arvind Kejriwal) ‘aam aadmi’ at Parliament Street where he was launching his new Aam Aadmi Party.

In the era of “patent wars”, Arvind Kejriwal is smart enough to snatch the term ‘aam aadmi’ for himself and launch his party - thanks to the liberal funding by Ford Foundation for the Kabir foundation’. I am still confused how to differentiate between Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘aam aadmi’ and Robert Vadra’s ‘mango people’, I am so confused that personally feel myself that I can at best be a mango pickle!

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