Review of Chandra Bhan Prasad's book
Harsh Sethi
Seminar, # 539, July 2004

DALIT DIARY 1999-2003: Reflections on Apartheid in India
by Chandra Bhan Prasad.
Navyana Publishing, Pondicherry, 2004.

UNAPOLOGETIC ideologues for a (literally) sectarian cause generate immense unease, and nowhere more so than in the upper caste/class liberal/progressive/secular circles. In part, this reflects a stylistic/aesthetic divide; since 'people like us' have abrogated to ourselves the privilege to define what is proper/correct, we rarely appreciate an 'outsider' seeking to break into our ranks. More so when the terms of exchange are not being defined by us. An Uncle Tom is acceptable, a Michael X is not.

The actual divide is deeper for, despite our claiming the 'dalit cause' and railing against the iniquitous Hindu (read Indian) social order, most of us continue to cling to the 'myth' of a plural and permeable civilizational ethos wherein markers of birth, while discriminatory, do not bind us to a fixed social position. This is why the term 'apartheid' to describe the social position of Indian dalits finds limited favour, as do attempts to equate race to caste.

Chandra Bhan Prasad occupies an unusual position in the Indian social/intellectual discourse. Despite there being a number of prominent dalit intellectuals, Prasad, as the introduction to this collection of column pieces by Robin Jeffrey underscores, remains the first dalit commentator to have won regular column space in a 'significant daily newspaper'. Without quibbling over the description of The Pioneer as 'significant', the column did mark a welcome rupture in our news media. It is shocking, though never admitted, that in 1999 there was not a single dalit in the newsrooms of India's media. For all our claims to affirmative action and reservation, the sheer injustice of this fact has still to be admitted by either our media or educational establishments. Many of the articles in this collection point out how the leading intellectual centres and newspapers in the country's capital - Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, and others - have continued over the years to flout constitutional obligations towards representation for dalits, despite public funding.

If such is the situation in our leading academic institutions, this when many of their faculty claim to be progressive and argue for reservation, should we be surprised at the rage suffusing dalit writing and commentary? Or the commonly used epithets of manuvad and brahmanvaad? Equally, if our state and society continue to stonewall all legitimate demands for representation and justice, why is it illegitimate for spokespersons and leaders of the dalit cause to seek redressal elsewhere - be it the British Raj earlier or the United Nations now? Hiding behind concerns of aesthetics or nationalism will not suffice.

There is more to Chandra Bhan's writing. It is instructive that despite persistent focus on the exclusion of the dalits from all spheres and attention, his columns are not a litany of oppression stories. Taking his cue from the US experience of affirmative action - both to correct historical wrongs and ensure representational diversity - his advocacy to the state and political parties is to take seriously their constitutional commitments, if not extend them. Like Ambedkar, the most quoted thinker in the collection, he argues against the impossibility of a civil society unless a sufficient number of dalits get due place in all sectors of society. He is a votary of extending reservation by caste into the private sector, of helping create a strata of significant dalit entrepreneurs, favours Digvijay Singh's Dalit Agenda and is willing to speak positively of all individuals/groups/parties/and enterprises agreeable to move in this direction.
In doing so he directly challenges the votaries of merit and efficiency, pointing out the caste-biased nature of their arguments. Once again, drawing from the experience of the US media, he demonstrates that once an enterprise is committed to diversity, it will redeploy resources and training to meet quality standards. In brief, what he is most opposed to is tokenism and rhetoric, the unwillingness to put one's money where one's mouth is.

What has most riled the progressives, one suspects, is his tendency to club together the secularists and communalists when it comes to the dalit question. He also gets irritatingly personal - asking individuals as to the number of their dalit friends, whether they eat in dalit houses, hire dalit employees, and so on. Since many of us belonging to a certain social strata are likely to fail such tests, we prefer to ignore him. His article 'Welcome to a food festival' extolling the uniqueness (and virtues) of dalit food, listing at some length the 'guest list', invites sociological scrutiny and provides a rare look at Delhi's 'correct' progressive circle. Surprisingly, one missed Chandan Mitra, the 'supportive' editor of The Pioneer.

The downside of Chandra Bhan Prasad's framework is that since the gross truth that he foregrounds is undeniable, it is difficult to discuss the implications of his policy recommendations without encountering the charge of caste bias. In the hands of a less skilful practitioner, the caste first framework can and does become totalizing, the only litmus test of 'correctness'. Take his discussion on criminalisation of politics (p. 211-213) where he ascribes 'a spirit of de-democratization to shudra consciousness. Criminalization among dalits is thus explained away as an inevitable consequence. 'Since a shudra-led society restricts the space for democratic methods, even dalit parties can be no exception.' Evidently, Mayawati for all her ill-gotten gains, scams, and opportunistic politics has to be contextually understood even as the Mulayam Singh's stand condemned. One wonders what Chandra Bhan would make of the ongoing fracas between Mayawati and members of her mentor, Kanshi Ram's family, ostensibly over control of trust funds and properties created by the now incapacitated leader. Is pointing to similar depredations by other (upper caste) leaders and parties an acceptable response?

There is also some doubt over CBP's reading of Babasaheb Ambedkar, in particular his understanding of the role of caste-based reservations as part of a larger affirmative action programme. In one column piece, Prasad castigates Jagjivan Ram for not walking out of the Congress when Ambedkar submitted his resignation from the cabinet, claiming that had he (Ram) done so, the trajectory of dalit politics would have been different. Later, he praises Jagjivan Babu for most ensuring that dalits break into the otherwise restricted job and education market. But is that not because he sought to 'fight from within' and follow somewhat flexible principles, much like what CBP himself seems to be doing.

In the same vein, take the discussion over US attempts to respond to the race question. It is undeniable that the various civil liberties unions and the National Council for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples lobbied over years (successfully) to incorporate diversity in all spheres as a foundational principle. This led to the government adopting policies in awarding contracts, jobs and education which enhanced the proportion of coloured people in different sectors, both public and private. So far commendable. It is equally true that coloured people are overwhelmingly represented in prisons, get disenfranchised and remain confined to the underclass. Why does CBP not even mention this?

Readers of V.T. Rajshekhar's Dalit Voice will be familiar with the polemic between Prasad and the editor of the magazine with CBP charged with being soft on brahmanvaad. There are also significant differences between the positions and analysis advanced by Prasad and other thinkers like Kancha Ilaiah and Gopal Guru. Hopefully, this is reflective less of egotist turf battles and more a search for autonomous dalit voices and politics.

Finally, a collection of column pieces does not always make for a good book, unless effort is expended to remove repetition and iron out the contradictions. Quibbling apart, Dalit Diary demands a serious engagement.


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'Michael X, the Desperate Sectarian'
S. Anand
Navayana Publishing
11 July 2004

When most magazines, journals and newspapers in India that carry a book reviews column maintain a calculated indifference towards a book titled 'Dalit Diary 1999-2003: Reflections on Apartheid in India', more so when such a title comes from a publisher exclusively devoted to exploring caste-related issues, it was heartening to see Seminar feature a prompt review of the book, that too written by the journal's consulting editor (Seminar 539, July 2004). That said, as the publisher of the book, and as someone who engages with issues of caste politics, it becomes necessary for me to take issue with certain points the review raises.

Harsh Sethi begins his review by calling the author Chandra Bhan Prasad an 'unapologetic sectarian ideologue'. So someone who exclusively and stridently articulates a dalit perspective on issues of culture, society and politics in a context of stringent and systematic dalit exclusion in a majority of urban and rural spaces in India gets labeled 'sectarian' in a patronising tone. While appearing to appreciate and tolerate an 'outsider' breaking into 'their ranks', Sethi puts Chandra Bhan firmly 'in his place' by labelling him a sectarian. He goes on to call Chandra Bhan a Michael X and not an Uncle Tom. Michael X? Sethi obviously meant Malcolm X, and the error presumably is inadvertent. However, postponing judgment on whether the error was inadvertent or was born out of ignorance, readers must reflect upon the copy-edited, proofed, printed word for what it means in a journal meant for the serious, reflective reader. Suppose, just suppose, a dalit, say Chandra Bhan, had made the mistake of referring to Malcolm X as Michael X. What would the brahmanical upholders of meritocracy say in the context of serious opposition to dalits seeking their share in various privately-held centres of mediocrity?

To move on, Sethi writes at one point: 'He is a votary of extending reservation by caste into the private sector, of helping create a strata of significant dalit entrepreneurs, favours Digvijay Singh's Dalit Agenda and is willing to speak positively of all individuals/groups/parties/and enterprises agreeable to move in this direction.'

Sethi does not seem to have read the book carefully, nor does he seem familiar with the Bhopal Conference of January 12-13, 2002 when the Bhopal Document was issued. At no point does Chandra Bhan Prasad talk simplistically of 'extending reservation by caste into the private sector' as Sethi puts it. On the contrary, Chandra Bhan's framework, which found expression in the Bhopal Document, recognises the need for dalits, the state and civil society to go beyond the framework of reservation, and usher in a new agenda that would ensure dalit presence in public institutions without talking the language of reservation. For this Chandra Bhan draws from the policy of 'diversity', as followed by federal institutions and the private sector in the US, and discusses its implementation in India.

The foundations for the Bhopal Document lay in a series of articles carried under the Dalit Diary column in The Pioneer between 4 February 2001 and 8 April 2001, when Chandra Bhan compared the situation that obtains in racism-torn US and casteism-ridden India in terms of representation of social minorities in various public institutions (reproduced in the book, pp. 100-125). This series impressed the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh and led to the Bhopal Conference. There was nothing called 'Digvijay Singh's Dalit Agenda' as Sethi terms it. After Chandra Bhan takes pains to demonstrate how IBM, Microsoft and Hollywood have ensured a significant presence of blacks and other social minorities without invoking the term affirmative action or reservation, it is sad that even an apparently sympathetic reader like Sethi willfully misunderstands and misrepresents Chandra Bhan as 'a votary of extending reservation by caste into the private sector'. Then the final nail from Sethi: Chandra Bhan 'is willing to speak positively of all individuals/groups/parties/and enterprises agreeable to move in this direction'. Chandra Bhan is projected as so indiscriminate and desperate that he will go along with anyone who agrees to his agenda. Even if we presume that Chandra Bhan, and symptomatically a large section of excluded and misrepresented dalits, are indeed that desperate, what role do the ostensibly sympathetic pro-dalit observers like Sethi have in driving them towards this desperation?

Sethi, who seems to have reservations over the use of the term apartheid to charatcterise the invisibilised discrimination against dalits, remarks that from the perspective of 'progressives', Chandra Bhan 'gets irritatingly personal - asking individuals as to the number of their dalit friends, whether they eat in dalit houses, hire dalit employees, and so on.' Not ever having dalit friends nor having dalits on your dinner guest list is reflective of the apartheid that prevails in urban India. Practitioners of untouchability might find it 'irritatingly personal', but those at the receiving end would simply see it as extremely political, and just call it 'apartheid', not a question of dalits not belonging to certain 'social strata'.

Towards the end of the review, Sethi collapses a set of writers under one presumed category of 'dalit'-V.T.Rajshekar, Kancha Ilaiah, Gopal Guru and Chandra Bhan Prasad. Sethi and his readers must note that V.T. Rajshekar, editor of Dalit Voice, is not a dalit. He is an OBC of the powerful Shetty caste though he edits a fortnightly that claims to be the voice of dalits. As for Kancha Ilaiah, he has always openly stated his non-dalit OBC identity. In fact, his powerful book Why I am Not a Hindu is subtitled 'A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy'. To not know that VTR and Ilaiah are not dalits, and that this is the cause for the essential rupture between Chandra Bhan's and their positions-reflective of the larger contradictions and turf wars between dalits who suffer at the hands of OBCs in rural India-is on a par with the reference to 'Michael X' early on.

Drawing the attention of readers to the fact that there are differences between Chandra Bhan's position and arguments and those of VTR, Ilaiah and Gopal Guru, Sethi notes: 'Hopefully, this is reflective less of egotist turf battles and more a search for autonomous dalit voices and politics.' Why should he make such a comment? Why should he even suggest that these could be egotistic turf battles? Would he suggest that of the differences Partha Chatterjee has with Ashis Nandy? Why such patronising condescension when it comes to these 'outsiders'?

Finally, the book under review is subtitled 'Reflections on Apartheid in India' and not 'Reflection on Apartheid in India'.

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