From plus c to partition Chapter 7, many voices of a nation Or 2?

42:35
Non Brahmin and Dalit protest. The other important social groups in India, who also
expressed their dissent from this Congress version of nationalism were the
nonbrahmin castes and their untouchable groups. The latter from around 1913, began
to call themselves the lid all oppressed.

42:55
The term would appropriately signified their socio-economic position in Hindu India
than the colonial terms, depressed classes replaced after 19:36 by scheduled casts
or the Gandhian term harijan, meaning gods people as the term does it indicates any
understanding of their protest needs to begin from a discussion of the evolution of
caste system as a mode of social stratification and operation in India.
Anthropologists and social historians have considered it to be the most unique
feature of Indian social organisation expressed into paralleled concepts of Varna
and jati.

43:34
The forehand division of Varna was the ancient most social formation dating back to
about 10:00 BC when the lion society was divided into Brahmins or priests,
kshatriyas, oberois vashes of farmers, traders and producers of wealth and the
sugars who serve these 3 higher groups. On toucability, as a fully developed
institution appeared sometime between the third and sixth centuries ad, when the
untouchables came to constitute a fifth category known variously by terms like
panchumas, artisugras or journalists.

44:10
However, this Verna division had little relevance to subsequent social realities,
providing nothing more than a fundamental template within which social ranks were
conceptualised across regions. For actual social organisation more important were
the numerous justice that were vaguely referred to as cascades, a term derived from
the Portuguese world, custars. John to Sahas occupational groups, which number more
than 3000 in modern India were emerging side by side with the oneness.

44:41
And often, they were, again further subdivided, on the basis of professional
specialisation. Some anthropologists would call those smaller group substas, while
Iravati cave 1977 would consider them as castes, and the larger groups as
cascacles. Without going further into this debate over normal creature, we may
identify jottis or castes as occupational groups whose membership was determined by
birth and whose exclusiveness was maintained by stringent rules of endogenic and
commonsalty restrictions.

45:16
Each and every caste, was described the ritual rank, which located its members in
an elaborate hierarchy that encompassed the entire society, was determined. This
rank is again a subject of intense controversy. Structural anthropologists, like
Louis Dumont 1970, believed that this ranking system was essentially religious, as
in Indian society, the sacred encompassed the secular, making the Brahmin priest
more powerful than the Kshatriya King.

45:47
In this cultural environment, social rank was determined by a purity pollution
scale, the Brahmin being the embodiment of purity was located at the top of the
scale and the untouchables being impure were at the bottom while in the middle,
there were various groups with varying raids of purity impunity. However, later
social historians have argued that Richard rank was never unconnected with the
power structure. The ground was never that hollow, as it was made out to be by some
colonial ethnographers.

46:20
In this situation, factors like nature of occupation and distance from the centre
of power, etc. Determine the ritual rank. In other words, there was close positive
correlation between power wealth and rank.

46:33
This was a social organisation which Gale omit has described as the caste feudal
society marked by cast class confusion. However, it was not exactly a class system
in disguise. It was not a DIY goomous system, but a system of gradation with a
great deal of ambiguity in the middle region, where various peasant castes competed
with each other for superiority of status within the scheme of things, members of
each caste were assigned a moral code of conduct their Dharma, the performance or
non performance of which or their karma, determine their location caste hierarchy
in next life.

47:13
Although this implies a rigid social order enjoined by scriptures, the reality of
caste society differs significantly from this ideal for Dharma was not always
universally accepted and its ecgamy was from time to time contested from within
most significantly in the medieval Bhakti movement, which question the ritualistic
foundation. Of religious and social life and emphasised simple devotion in its
place. Apart from that, opportunities for limited, social mobility, often lead to
positional changes and readjustments.

47:48
Colonisation of wasteland rise of Warrior groups, emergence of new technology, or
new opportunities of trade at various stages of history, help groups of people to
improve their economic and political status and to translate that into higher
virtual ranks in the caste hierarchy. Indeed, the system could survive for so many
centuries because it could maintain such a dynamic, equilibrium and absorb shocks
from below colonial rule, disengaged caste system from its precolonial political
context, but gave it a new lease of life by redefining and revitalising it within
its new structures of knowledge.

48:28
Institutions and policies. First of all, during its non interventionalist phase, it
created opportunities which were in theory castray. Land became a marketable
commodity equality before law became an established principle of judicial
administration, educational institutions and public employment were thrown open to
talent irrespective of caste and creed, yet the very principle of non intervention
help maintain the pre-existing social order and reinforce the position of the
privileged groups.

49:03
Only the higher castes, with previous literary traditions and surplus resources
could go for English education and new professions and could take advantage of the
new judicial system. Moreover, in matters of personal law, the Hindus were governed
by the dharmashissa, which upheld the privileges of caste order. As the orientalist
scholars immersed in classical textual studies discovered in the caste system, the
most essential form of Hindu social organisation, more and more information was
collected through official ethnographic surveys, which gave further currency to the
notions of caste hierarchy.

49:41
Furthermore, the foremost of such colonial etnographers, habutlessly, following
Alfred Lyon and the French racial theorist poll topionart, now provided a racial
dimension to the concept of caste, arguing that the face can higher costs
represented the invading irons, while the darker low casts were the nonanile
authorns of the land. This racial stereotype and the scriptural view of cast were
gradually given enumerated shape and above all, an official legitimacy through the
decennial census classification of castes, which Susan daily, has described as the
single master exercise of tabulation of the entire colonial subject society.

50:23
When rusley became the census commissioner in 1901, he proposed not only to
enumerate all tasks but also to determine and record their location in the
hierarchy of castes. Did the Indian public disappear to be an official attempt to
freeze the hierarchy, which had been constantly though, imperceptively changing
over time. This redefined cost now became what Nicholas dx has called the Indian
colonial form of civil society, voluntary caste associations emerged as a new
phenomenon in Indian public life, engaging in census based caste movements, making
petitions to census commissioners in support of their claims for higher virtual
ranks in the official classification scheme.

51:08
Ironically, Cass thus became a legitimate site for defining social identities
within a more institutionalised, and apparently secularised public space. These
caste associations where membership was not just a scriptive, but voluntary
gradually evolved into tools of modernization in colonial India. Their goals
shifted from sacred to secular ones, and as Lloyd and Susan rhdonl have Put it,
they trying to educate There members in the methods and values of political
democracy.

51:43
What contributed to this development was another set of colonial policies that
imposed a particular pattern on political modernization in India. Initially, it was
some princely states like Mysore of Kolhapur, which in the late 19 and early 20th
centuries, introduced the system of caste-based reservation of certain proportions
of public employment for people of non Brahmin birth in order to compensate them
for their past losses. Gradually, the colonial administration to discover the gap
between the high caste Hindus and others, particularly the untouchables, now
described as the depressed classes.

52:22
It took on the latter, as its special ward and initiated a policy of protective
discrimination in their favour. It meant provision of special schools for their
education and reservation of a share of public employment for such candidates and
finally provision for special representation of these classes in a legislative
councils. This profession was initially through nomination in the act of 1919, and
then through the announcement of separate electorate, in the communal award of
1932, what all these measures resulted in was a relatively greater disbursal of
wealth and power across caste lines.

53:01
There were now larger discrepancies between caste prescribed status and caste,
irrelevant roles, and this limited social mobility led to several contradictory
responses. First of all, there were signs of westernisation. Because of improved
communications, there was greater horizontal solidarity among the cast members who
formed regional caste associations.

53:25
There was also a growing realisation of the significance of the new sources of
status eye education. Jobs and political representation and awareness that those
new sinuse of power were monopolised by the Brahmins and the upper castes. This led
to organise demands for more special privileges and reservation from the colonial
state.

53:46
This involved conflict and congestion, particularly when the education of the Dalit
groups, was concerned as the colonial bureaucracy, despite the much publicised
policy of supporting the lid education, often showed ambivalence in the face of
caste Hindu opposition. It required the Dalit groups to protest, like the Maha
students in Dapoli in Maharashtra, sitting on the veranda of the local municipal
school to actually induce the colonial civil servants, to take measures to ensure
their educational rights.

54:19
In this particular case, however, they were ultimately allowed to sit in a
classroom but at a distance from the caste, Hindu students These efforts at
westernisation were not therefore just attempts at imaging themselves in the light
of their colonial masters, but to claim their legitimate rights to education and
other opportunities from a reluctant state bureaucracy. On the other hand these
upwardly, mobile groups also engaged in a cultural movement, which noticed
sociologist M Srinivas, 1966, has called the process of sanskritization.

54:55
Our status was still being defined and expressed in the language of caste, which
enjoyed both official legitimacy and social currency, the upperly mobile groups,
sought to legitimise their new status by emulating the cultural and ritual
practices of the upper castes. This was one of the reasons why customs like city
prohibition of widow, remarriage Child marriage, the performance of which was
regarded as hallmarks of high caste status were in the 19th century being more
widely, practiced by the upwardly mobile, lower peasant groups, ironically what
this behaviour signified was an endorsement of the caste system.

55:35
I am seeking a positional reajustment within the existing ritual hierarchy.
However, not all castes at all times followed the same behavioural trajectory.
There were movements, which instead of seeking positional changes within the caste
system question the fundamentals of this social organisation, the most notable of
them being the non Brahmin movements in Western and southern India, and some of the
more radical movements among the ballot groups.

56:03
The non Brahman movement started in Maharashtra under the leadership of an
outstanding leader of the Mali Gardner cast jyotirao Phule, who started his Satya
sudak samaj truthkers society in 1873. Fulley argued that it was Brahma and
domination and their monopoly overpower and opportunities that lay at the root of
the predicament of the sutra and Ati sutra casts. So he turned the orienteless
theory of organisation of India upside down.

56:34
The Brahmins, he argued, were the progeny of the alien irons who had subjugated the
authorns of the land and therefore the balance now needed to be redressed and for
achieving that social revolution, he sought to unite both the nonbrahmin and
peasant castes as well. As the lit groups in a common movement But in the 1880s and
1890, as there were certain subtle shifts in the Lon Brahmin ideology as fully
focused more on mobilising the kumbhipi's entry. There was now more emphasis on the
unity of those for labour on the land and the contestation of the claim by the
Brahman, dominated Puna, sarvajnik Sabha, that they represented the Pizza tree.

57:16
This shift to focus on the Kunbi peaceans also led to the privileging of the
Maratha identity, which was dear to them and an assertion of their shakrihood,
which, as roslye o'handu, has argued, seemed at times perilously close to a simple
Sanskrit easing claim. Fully try to overcome this problem by claiming that these
kshatrious Pogo, the ancestors of the marathas, lived harmoniously with the sugars
and assisted them in resisting iron assaults. But this synthesis on shakrihort,
also lead to devolution of interest in the mobilisation of the rich In other words,
while the Kshatriya identity was constructed to contest the Brahmanical discourse
that ascribed to them and inferior caste status, it also inculcated an exclusivist
ethos that separated them from the Dalit groups who were once treated as brothers
in arms in a previous tradition, inspired by fully's own inclusive message.

58:13
Ironically, such in business constructions of identity, also impacted on colonial
stereotyping as the Dalit mahals, and man's were no longer treated as martial
races. I of shantiler, lineage and therefore were excluded from military service
from 1892. The non Brahmin movement in Maharashtra, as gaylong, with 1976, has
shown developed at a turn off the century to Paris tendencies.

58:42
One was conservative, led by Richard non Brahmins, repose their faith in the
British government for their salvation, and after the munda bhojan's Ford reforms
of 1919 organised, a separate and loyalist political party, the nonbrahmin
association, which hoped to prosper under the benevolent pattern rule of the
British But the movement also had a radical trend represented by the Satya sudak
samaj, which developed a class content by articulating the social dichotomy between
the bahujan samaj, or the majority community of the masses and the shejji Bhajji,
the merchants and Brahmins.

59:20
Although opposed initially to the Brahman dominated Congress nationalism by the
1930s, the non Brahmin movement in Maharashtra was gradually drawing into the
Gandhian Congress. The power of nationalism, the growing willingness of the
Congress to accommodate non Brahmin aspirations, the leadership of the young
punabased, non Brahmin leader, kesavrao jdede and his alliance with n dot v Gargi
representing a new brand of younger Brahman, Congress leadership. In Maharashtra
brought about this significant shift In 1938A villa, the londrahamed movement of
the Bombay presidency formally decided to merge into Congress, providing it with a
broad mass base.

01:00:04
If in Western India, the non Brahmin movement was associated with the kumbbis and
the Maratha identity in Madras presidency, it was associated with the velanas and a
Dravidian identity. It arose in a late 19th century context, where the Brahmins,
constituting less than 3% of the population, monopolised, 42% of government jobs.
Advanced, in their English education, they value Sanskrit as a language of a
classical past.

01:00:32
And showed a public disdain for Tamil, the language of the ordinary people, this
motivated the velanna, Ellie to uphold their Dravidian identity for some time, the
Christian missionaries like red Robert colvill and g, Poe were talking about the
antiquity of Dravidian culture. Tamil language, they argued, did not know its
origin to Sanskrit, which had been brought to the south by the colonising iron
Brahmins, while the velanas and other non Brahmins, could not be described as
subrass as this was a status imposed on them.

01:01:07
By the Brahmin colonists trying to thrust of them, their idolators, religions The
non Brahmin elite appropriated some of these ideas and began to talk about their
Tamil language literature and culture, as an empowering discourse, and to assert
that caste system was not in the minist of Tamil culture. This cultural movement to
construct a nonvement identity, which began like its Western Indian counterpart
with an inversion of the Aayan theory of Indian civilization, always had as its
Central theme and emotional devotion, to Tamil language, which could bring
disparate groups of people into a devotional community.

01:01:45
On the political front, the movement followed a familiar trajectory that began with
the publication of a non Brahmin, manifesto, and the formation of the justice party
in 1916 as a formal political party of the non Brahmins. It opposed the Congress as
a Brahmin and dominated organisation and claimed separate communal representation
for the non Brahmins, as had been granted to the Muslims in a mole winter reform.
This demand supported by the colonial bureaucracy, was granted in the monta
Buchan's hold reform of 1990 as it allocated 28 reserved seats to the non Brahmins
in the Madras, legislative council opposed to the Congress and to its program of
non cooperation.

01:02:30
The justice party had no qualm, in contesting the election in 1920, which the
Congress had given a call for boycott. As a result, the council Bogot out movement
had no chance of success in Madras, where the justice party won 63 of the 98
elected seats, and eventually came to form a government under the new reforms. The
formation of a ministry in 1920 was the high point in the career of the justice
party and also the beginning of its decline.

01:03:01
It was a movement patternized, mainly by Richard landoning and urban middle class
lorn Brahmins, like the vellas in the Tamil districts, the vatis of kapoors and
Kamas in the Telugu districts, the males in Malabar and the trading dairy chetts.
And Balija Naidu scattered all over south India. Soon after assumption of office,
these alleged members of the justice party became engrossed in using and abusing
their newly gained power, gave up their reformist agenda and became less interested
in the plight of the untouchables.

01:03:34
The latter, as a result, under the leadership of MC Raja, left the party in
disgust. The decline in popular base, which thus began ultimately culminated in
their electoral defeat in 1926 at the hands of the swarajis. Many Ron Brahmins
thereafter, left the party and join the Congress, which regained its power.

01:03:57
This was reflected adequately in the success of the civil disobedience campaign in
19:29 to 19:30. The Quit India Movement of 1940 to finally took the wind out of its
sales in the election of 1946. The justice party did not even feel the candidate,
but if the justice party gradually paled into political insignificance, another
more radical and populist trend within the non Brahmin movement emerged in south
India, around this time in the self-respect movement under the leadership of e.li.

01:04:31
Ramaswamy, Neta Periyar. Once an enthusiastic campaigner for the non cooperation
program, he left the Congress in 1925, believing that it was neither able nor
willing to offer substantive citizenship to the non Brahmins. He was incensed by
Gandhi's programme and pravanasham Dharma utances during his tour of Madras in 1927
and constructed a trenching critique of auranism, ramanism and Hinduism, which he
thought created multiple structures of subjection for subras.

01:05:04
Aditra vidas, untouchables and women. So before cell rule what was needed was self-
respect, and its ideology was predicated upon a sense of pride in, though not an
uncritical valization of the Dravidian, antiquity and Tamil culture and language.
Indeed, Ramaswamy had reservations about privileging Tamil as this could eliminate
the other nonthine speaking dravidians of south India.

01:05:31
Yet Tamil language remained at the centre of the movement, sometimes creating
tension between and Dravidian identities. The movement, however, was more clear in
identifying its oppositional other, as it mounted scathing attacks on the Sanskrit,
language and literature being the cultural symbols of iron colonisation of the
south. The story of the Ramayana was invented to make ravana, an ideal Dravidian
and Rama, and even iron.

01:06:00
Unlike justi's party, this ideology was more inclusive in its appeal. What is
significant? The self-respect movement also drew its inspiration from and gave more
currency to the earlier writings of the Adi Dravida, intellectuals like yoti Das
and m masala.

01:06:18
Both were publishing since the first decade of the 20th century, numerous articles
against the caste system, Brahman, domination and Indian nationalism. During the
1930, as the Congress gradually became more powerful, the non Brahmin movement
became more radical and populist in its appeal, with more emphasis on the walkout
of Brahman priests, more and more incidents of public burning of manusmriti, and
attempts to forcibly enter temples, which denied access to low caste people.
YouTube nishik, 1969 has shown how the Lon Brahmin movement in Madras, gradually
took the shape of an articulate Tamil regional separatism, particularly when in
1937, the Congress government undersea rajagopallachari proposed to introduce Hindi
as a compulsory school.

01:07:09
Subject in the province. There were huge demonstrations in the city of Madras,
identifying Hindi as an evil force, trying to destroy Tamil language and its
speakers and with this, the Tamil language movement spread from 8 circles into the
masses. This political campaign slowly propelled into a demand for a separate land
or gravita land.

01:07:31
In August 1944, the justice party of which Ramaswamy, was now the President changed
its name into Dravida kazgam decay, with its primary objective supposedly being the
realisation of a separate non Brahman or Dravidian land. But in its essence, EV
ramasway's concept of nation as a Mrs. Pandian has recently claimed was not
constrained by the rigid territority of the nation space.

01:07:59
He visualised equal and free citizenship for the oppressed in the anticipatory mode
in a relentless struggle, and for him, Dravidian was an inclusive probe for all the
oppressed people living across the territorial and linguistic boundaries. In other
words, the social equality movement nurtured, a millennial hope of a society that
would be free of caste, domination, untouctability or gender discrimination. Tests
in India in the late 19 and early 20th centuries followed somewhat different, but
not entirely dissimilar trajectories.

01:08:35
As the Christian missionary started working among the dalits and the colonial
government sponsored special institutions for the spread of education among them,
not only was a small educated elite group created among these classes, but in
general, a new consciousness was visible among the masses as well. However, it
should be emphasise here that the colonial bureaucracy, as we have noted earlier,
often vaciated in implementing the professed public policies on valid education and
it required the Dalit groups to protest and assert themselves to get their rights
to education protected.

01:09:12
Similarly, the Christian missionaries were not always the aggressive agents of
improvement among the dalits, as they too often succumbed to the pressures of an
intolerant, traditional society and an ambivalent bureaucracy. It is often believed
that one way of protesting against the caste system was conversion to Christianity.
As the lips took recourse to this method in large numbers in some parts of south
India.

01:09:37
But conversion itself was not a signifier of liberation. As often the converted,
the lids were appropriated back into the existing structures of local society. What
was really significant, was the message of self-respect that the missionaries and
the new education inculcated in these groups.

01:09:56
Some of the articulated sections among them successfully integrated that message
into their own local tradition of bhakti, and constructed an ideology or protest
against the degradations of caste. This led to the emergence of organise caste
movements among various delek groups all over India, such as the age was or iraqs
and vilaiyars of Kerala, nadas of tamilnar maharaz of Maharashtra Chama's of
Punjab, up and Chhattisgarh in Central India, boldives of Delhi and the nams of
Bengal to name only a few.

01:10:30
Without denying the distinctiveness of each movement, we may discuss here, some of
the shared features of these Dalit, protests. What some of these organised groups
not all tried first of all, was to appropriate collectively some visible symbols of
high ritual status, such as bearing of sacred thread, participation in ritual
ceremonies, such as community pujas, and entering temples from where they were
historically barred by the Hindu priests. A number of organised tempentry movements
took place in the early 20th century, the most important of them being the vacuums
at the other in 19:24 to 19:25, and the guruvayu satyagraha in 19:31 to 19:33 in
malabad, the munshiganj Gandhi temple satyagraha in Bengal in 1929 and the kaldam
temple satyagra in Nashik in Western India in 19:30 to 19:35.

01:11:26
Apart from such religious rights, they organised the groups also demanded social
rights from high caste, Hindus, and when denied, they took recouse to various forms
of direct action. For example, when the higher costs resisted the Nadal woman's
attempt to cover their breasts like high cast women. This resulted in writing in
travancouver in 1859.

01:11:50
The issue remained irritant in the relationship between the age boss and nees, and
again led to disturbances in 19 0 5 and Q. Ylan. In Bengal, when the high cost
gayastas refused to attend the funeral ceremony of a namsudah in 1872, the latter
for 6 months refused to work in their land in a vast track covering 4 Eastern
districts.

01:12:14
In Maharashtra, the celebrated Mahal leader Dr. B Ambedkar organised in 19, 27A
massive satyagraha, with 10 to 15000 dilists, to claim the right to use water from
a public tank in Mahat under the control of the local municipality. This social
solidarity and the spirit of protest were to a large extent, the result of a
resurgence of akhti among the untouchables during this period A number of
protestant religious sects, like the Shri Narayana Dharma parivanana yogam among
the edge vas or the mathiya sector among the namsances, inculcated the message of
simple devotion and social equality and thus interrogated the fundamentals of Hindu
social hierarchy.

01:12:59
A few religious sects emphasised the fact that the lets were indeed the original
inhabitants of the land subjugated by the intruding irons. So now they had to be
accepted as they were, without requiring any changes in their culture or way of
life, be compensated for their past losses and be given back all their social
rights. This self-assertion or endeavour, to reclaim lost social grounds, was quite
evident in the adharm movement among the chamas of Punjab, or the Adi Hindu
movement among the jamaas and other urbanised the lives of the up.

01:13:34
On the other hand some religious movements went even further. Is Satnam Pand among
the jamaas of Chhattisgarh, manipulated ritual symbols to construct their
superiority over the Brahmins, while the balhali sector among the untouchable
hardest of Bengal went on to imagine an inverted ritual hierarchy where the
Brahmins were located. At the bottom and the hardest at the top.

01:13:58
Although many of these movements did not last long, their implications were quite
supersive for Hindu society, as not only did they unite the lyrics around the
message of a commonly shared brotherhood, they also indicated the defines of the
Hindu notions of hierarchy and untouchability. This tendency to reputate Hindu
theology as a disempowering and subordinating ideology for the dalits, came to an
explosive high point when in December 1927 Dr. Ambedkar in a public ceremony,
burned the copy of Manas mitti, the most authentic discussed texting.

01:14:33
Untouchability. In 1934, he wrote to temple satyagrahis and Nashik about the
futility of temple entry or seeking redress for their grievances within a Hindu
religious solution, what he suggested instead was a complete overhauling of Hindu
society and Hindu theology and advise the dalits to concentrate. Their energy and
resources on politics and education.

01:14:58
This tendency to seek a secular or political solution to the problems of their
social and religious disability was indeed a prominent feature of the movement of
the backward castes during the early decades of the 20th century. For many of these
Dalit, associations, not just integration of public institutions but caste-based
reservation in education, employment and legislatures, as a compensation for
historical injustices, became a non-negotiable minimum demand. And in this they
found patronage from the colonial state since protective discrimination became a
regular feature of colonial public policy since the 1920 from the official
standpoint, this was partly to redress social imbalances, but partly also to divide
and rule At the actual field level, it is true.

01:15:50
The colonial bureaucracy often did not implement this policy, and in the name of
maintaining social equilibrium, supported the local conservative elites opposition
to the entry of the lit students into public schools. Yet for the first time, there
was in place such a public policy to promote their education, and there were always
some bureaucrats who would be prepared to lend them a sympathetic year. This
brought the litres closer to the government and estranged them from the Congress.

01:16:20
The final solution of their problem, many of the dalits, now believed lay in the
provision for separate electorate, for them, which the Congress opposed to an name.
This direct alienation from Congress politics was also to a large extent the result
of Congress approach to the question of caste untouchability it is eagerness to
avoid socially sensitive issues, it ignored the question till 1917 and then took it
up only when delhid leaders had organised themselves and were about to steal the
initiative from the Congress.

01:16:53
Graham and domination and social conservatism of the early Congress, which we have
discussed earlier, were much to blame for this in action. But other than this, the
mental gap with the untouchables, also widened as many of the Hindu nationalist
groups, unlike the earlier reformists. Now openly try to glorify and rationalise
caste system as a unique social institution of ancient India that united the spirit
groups of Indians inharmonious solidarity.

01:17:23
For the gulleeks, however, this solidarity meant is subdiffuse for ensuring
subordination. This attempts to define Indian national identity in terms of Hindu
tradition, isolated them as they had developed a different perspective about Indian
history. If the Hindu nationalists imagined a golden past for the dalitz, was a
dark age marked by untouchability and cast discrimination, in contrast to the
golden present, when the British made no distinction of caste and had thrown away
the rules of Manu that sanction cast disabilities.

01:17:58
Gandhi, for the first time had made untouchability, an issue of public concern and
the 1920 non cooperation resolution mentioned the removal of untouchability as a
necessary precondition for attaining Faraz. But his subsequent campaign for the
welfare of the horizons, after the withdrawal of the Non-cooperation movement,
could neither arouse much caste Hindu interest in the reformist agenda nor could
satisfy the dalits. He condemned on touchability as a distortion, but until then,
940 upheld bhamasham Dharma of caste system, as an ideal, non-competitive economic
system of social division of labour, as opposed to the class system of the west.

01:18:39
This theory could not satisfy the socially ambitious groups among the untouchables,
as it denied them the chances of achieving social mobility for the eradication of
untouchability too, Gandhi took essentially a religious approach temple entry
movement initiated by cast Hindus as an act of penance and the idealisation of
Mandi, the self-sacrificing domestic sweeper, were his answers to the problem. This
campaign significantly undermined the moral and religious basis of untouchability,
but as bku Parekh has argued, failed to deal with its economic and political
routes.

01:19:17
It dignified the untouchables, but failed to empower them. The delhiite leaders
argued that if they were given proper share of economic and political power, the
gates of temples would automatically open for them. The Gandhian approach, in other
words, failed to satisfy the with leaders like Ambedkar, who preferred a political
solution for guaranteed access to education, employment, and political
representation.

01:19:45
Ambedkar 1945 later, charged Gandhi and Congress for obfuscating the real issue,
and the demand for a separate political identity for the dalits, became a sticky
point in the relationship between the Dalit, political groups and the Congress.
Although the first meeting of the Akhil Bharatiya mahishkarit parishad or all
India, the press classes conference held at Nagpur in May 19:20 under the
presidency of the maharaja of Kolhapur was the modest beginning the actual Canadian
ballet movement at an organised level started at the all India depressed classes.

01:20:21
Leaders conference held at the same city in 1926. Yodi, all India depressed classes
association was formed with MC Raja of Madras as its first elected President. Dr.

01:20:34
Ambedkar who did not attend the conference, was elected, one of its vice
presidents. Ambedkar later resigned from his association and in 1930, at a
conference in Nagpur, found that his own, all all India depressed classes, Congress
As for its political philosophy, it is inaugural address. Ambedkar took a very
clear anticonus and a mildly anti-British position, thus setting the tone for the
future course of history.

01:21:01
It was in his evidence before the Simone commission in 19, 28 that American had
first demanded separate electorate in the absence of universal adult franchise, as
he only means to secure adequate representation for the dalits. During the first
session of the round table conference, he moved further towards this position as
many of his comrades were in its favour following this on 19th, May 1931 and all
India depressed classes, leaders conference in Bombay firmly resolved that the
depressed classes must be guarantee their right as a minority to separate
electorate.

01:21:41
It was on this point that Ambedkar had a major showdown with Gandhi at the second
session of round table conference in 1931 as the latter opposed it for fear of
permanently splitting the Hindu society, nor was there a consensus among the dalits
over this issue. The MC Raja group was launched in favour of joint electorate and a
working committee of their all India depress classes association in February 1930
to depload updates, demand for separate electorate and unanimously supported joint
electorate, with the Hindus with provision of reservation of seats on the basis of
population.

01:22:20
An agreement known as the Raza munje Pat, was also reached this effect between Raza
and Dr. BS munje, the President of the all India Hindu mahaspa. The Dalit
leadership in other words, was divided down the middle over the electorate issue.

01:22:37
The differences persisted when the communal award in September 1930 to recognise
the right to separate electorate for the untouchables, now called the scheduled
casts and Gandhi, embarked on his epic fast unto death to get it revoked Ambedkar
now had little choice but to succumb to the moral pressure to save Mahatma's life
and accepted a compromise known as the Puna Pat, which provided for 151 reserved
seats for the scheduled casts and joint the electorate. For the time being, it
seemed as if all conflicts had been resolved.

01:23:13
There was a nationwide interest in templately movement and Gandhi's harijan
campaign. He were there was cooperation between Gandhi and abated, in relation to
the activities of the newly founded Harijan Sevak Sangh. The provisions of the pact
were later incorporated into the Government of India act of 1935.

01:23:35
Although there were many critics of the fact at that time, Ravinder Kumar has
argued that it represented a triumph for Gandhi who prevented a rift in India's
body politic and offered a nationalist's solution to the untouchability problem.
But the unity reappeared, very soon as Congress and American again began to drift
apart. While Gandhi's Harijan Sevak Sangh was involved in social issues, the other
Congress leaders had little interest in his mission.

01:24:04
They needed a political front to mobilise the lit voters to win the reserved seats
in the coming election. For this purpose, they founded in March 1935. The all India
depressed classes league with Jagjivan Ram, a nationalist Dalit leader from Bihar
as the President.

01:24:23
But still, in the election of 1937, the Congress won only 73 out of 151 reserved
seats all over India. Subsequently, situations changed in different areas in
different ways, depending on the nature of commitment, the local Congress leaders
had towards the Gandhian creed of eliminating untouchability. In the non Congress,
provinces like Bengal, the leaders were more sensitive to electoral archmetic and
assadously cultivated the friendship of the ballet leaders, but in the 8 provinces
where the Congress formed ministries and remained in power for nearly 2 years, they
performed in such a way that not just critics like Ambedkar were unintered, but
even those Dalit, leaders like mc Raja of Madras, who once sympathised with the
Congress were gradually alienated.

01:25:14
Ambedkar in 1936, founded his independent Labour Party in a bid to mobilise the
poor and the untouchables, on a broader basis than cast alone on a programme that
proposed to advance the welfare of the neighbouring classes. In the election of
1937, his party won spectacular victory in Bombay winning 11 of the 15 reserved
seats. The ambedkarites also did well in the Central provinces and banar, but from
this broadcast politics of caste, last cluster, Ambedkar gradually moved towards
the more exclusive Constituency of the dalits.

01:25:52
He also became a bitter critic of the Congress as in the 1930, the secularist
approach of leaders like Nehru and their persistent refusal to recognise caste as a
political problem, most solely alienated the Dalit leadership. The difference
between the 2 groups now rested on a contradiction between 2 approaches to
nationalism the Congress being preoccupied with transfer of power and independence
and the Donetsk, being more concerned with the conditions of citizenship in a
future nation state Ambedkar, was prepared to join the struggle for Swaraj, he told
the Congress.

01:26:28
But he made one condition. Tell me what share I am to have in the swath. Since he
could not get any guarantee, he preferred to steer clear of the Congress movement.

01:26:39
In July 1942, he was appointed the labour member in the viceroys council at a
conference from 18 to 20th, July 1942 in Nagpur. He started his all India scheduled
caste federation with its constitution, claiming the dalits to be distinct and
separate from the Hindus. Leaders like Raja were now only too happy to join this
new exclusive Dalit organisation.

01:27:05
This statement of the dissent and the claim of a separate identity came just a few
days before the beginning of the Quit India Movement 8 to 9 August, which the
Muslims had also decided to stay away from But unlike Muslim breakaway politics,
then itself assertion did not go very far. And their politics was soon appropriated
by the Congress in the late 1914 This happen due to various reasons. First of all,
not all, the little believed in this politics, particularly at a period when
Gandhian mass nationalism, had acquired an unprecedented public legitimacy.
01:27:44
The scheduled caste federation leader had the opportunity, no time or resources to
build up a mass organisation that could match that of the Congress at a time when
the Gandhian reformist agenda and later the revolutionary programme of the
communists were constantly corruding its support base. Finally, the imperatives of
the transfer of power process left very little elbow room for the Dalit, leadership
to manoeuvre compelling them to join hands with the Congress. In the election of
1946, like all other minor political parties, including the Hindu mahasba and the
Communist party, the scheduled caste federation, was practically wiped off whining,
only 2 of the 151 reserved seats for the dalits.

01:28:30
The overwhelming majority of these seats went to the Congress, which was at that
time, riding on the crest of a popularity wave generated by the Quit India Movement
and later the antina trial agitation C chapter 8. On the basis of the election
results, the cabinet mission that visited India in 1946 to negotiate the modalities
of transfer of power came to a conclusion that it was Congress, which truly
represented the dalits, and would continue to do so in all official Fora. Ambedkar
responded furiously to this crisis of representation and staged mass satyagra to
prove his popular support, but the agitation did not last long due to lack of
organisation.

01:29:13
So with official patronage withdrawn and the direct action failing, he was left
with no political space, where he could project the separate identity of the dalits
or fight for their citizenship. At this historic juncture, just on the eve of
independence, the Congress endeavoured to absorb the lit protest by offering
nomination to Ambedkar for a seat in the constituent assembly and then by choosing
him for the chairmanship of the Constitution drafting committee. Under his
studship, the new Indian Constitution declared unbeatability illegal and he became
after independence.

01:29:50
The new law minister in the Nehru cabinet. Thus, as lineana zeleti describes the
scenario AL the wedding straits of Gandhi Congress in touchable situation seem to
come together. But this moment of integration was also fraught with possibilities
of rupture.

01:30:08
Soon Ambedkar realised the futility of his association with the Congress as its
stalwarts, refused to support him on the Hindu code bill. He resigned from the
cabinet in 19, 51 and then on 15th October 19, 56, barely a month and a 1/2 before
his death, he converted to Buddhism along with 380000 of his followers. This event
is often celebrated as an ultimate public act of dissent against a Hinduism that
was beyond reform.

01:30:39
But what needs to be remembered here is that American actually redefine Buddhism
criticised its canonical dogmast and foregrounded its radical social message so
that it could fit into the moral role, which he envisaged for religion in Indian
society. It is, for this reason that his particular reading of Buddhism could be
seen by the dalits as the basis of a new world view and a socio political ideology,
which contested the dominant religious idioms of the society and the power
structure that continually reinforced and reproduce them if you like this video, so
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01:31:16
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