Preeti Chandrakumar Patil
In one of the chapters of her book, ‘The Dalit Movement in India: Local Practices, Global Connections’, Eva Maria Hardtmann, offers new insights into the Dalit movement as she has used networks and linkages beyond geography and territory to dig deep into how the Dalit movement spread across India and the world with time. She has observed how the Buddha Viharas, both in Lucknow and Britain, act as a forum of debates and discussions among the Dalit activists and also give them a place to assert and practice their identity away from the rest of the population. And how through these discussions and debates, new discourses are born which take the movement further. She observes that the networks here are more of kinship and friendship and also how these are fused to form political linkages. The reason I could relate to this particular chapter is that I have observed the same networks and linkages beautifully operate around me in the city of Nagpur since my childhood, through the yearly celebrations of the historic conversion in 1956 that is called the Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Din, the day of ‘setting in motion the wheel of Dhamma’.
On October 13, 1935, Dr B. R. Ambedkar declared his intention to leave the Hindu fold and 21 years later his struggles to emancipate his people from the caste-dominated, Brahmanical, oppressive system was to bear fruit. With more than 6 lakhs of his followers, on 14th October 1956, Babasaheb broke away from the shackles of the Hindu religion that denied his people even the basic human right to live with dignity, and embraced the ideals of Buddhism. He along with the Bhimsagar that was out on the grounds of Diksha Bhoomi in Nagpur recited the Trisharan Panchsheel and took the 22 pratidnyas (vows). With these vows each one of them proclaimed to the Brahmin-dominated Hindu society, their idea of assertion of their identity, claiming their own spaces, freeing themselves from the chains of generational slavery in the form of untouchability that Hindu religion had tied them into. Babasaheb’s words, “I was born a Hindu but I would not die as a Hindu,” seemed to have been painted on the skies above his followers like an umbrella that protected them from the generation-long humiliations that they havd suffered. Since that day, every year, millions of Ambedkarites from every part of Maharashtra as well the country gather there to celebrate their emancipation and their journey towards a free and dignified life.
My grandfather used to tell me that he was very young at the time when the conversion took place and since then he made sure that his family follows the path that Babasaheb had shown and that Buddha taught. In 1956, Babasaheb chose this day as it was the day to commemorate Ashoka Vijaya Dashami as it was through the efforts of Ashoka that Buddhism spread across the Indian subcontinent. The celebrations start on the same day and continue till the 14th of October.
The roads around Diksha Bhoomi are turned into small settlements where people from the community and Ambedkarite associations put their stalls and pandals offering food and shelter to the people coming from distant places. Along with this, there are free medical camps, book stalls, career counselling and stalls where free education counselling is offered. Samata Sainik Dal’s (a social organisation founded by Babasaheb on September 24, 1924 to safeguard the rights of all oppressed sections) volunteers take care of the security and facilitate the celebrations every year with a little cooperation from the administration. The festivities get executed through community networks just like the ones that Hardtmann mentioned in her book, operating through love, equality and fraternity. The pandals are places where members of the the community come together and help each other. The book stalls are a way of fostering new ideas, new discourses through Dalit literature to fuel the cultural protest that these places symbolize. The atmosphere here in Nagpur during these two days of the Dhamma Chakra Pravartan is a treat to watch. This is a cultural movement that supplements the political struggles of the Bahujan community.
The celebrations happen here around the same time when the whole country is celebrating Navratri, Durga Pooja and Dusshera. Even in Nagpur in some localities, the stalls of both Durga Pooja and Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Din are set up side by side. There has never been any incidence of stampede or accidents here despite such huge crowds, but still, sometimes there comes a voice of resistance from some factions who find no faults with Durga puja pandals but for them the stalls erected by the Bahujan community cause discomfort. They complain about the trash that happens around the food stalls. As if Hindu festivities do not create trash! Here the problem is not with the trash but with the community claiming its own space, asserting its identity.
I would like to highlight another incident that gained the nation’s attention on the occasion of Vijaya Dashami this year right in the capital city of Delhi, when Rajendra Pal Gautam, an advocate, a Dalit leader, a two-time Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Seemapuri in North-east Delhi and the Minister for Social Welfare SC and ST, and Registrar of Cooperative Societies and Gurudwara Elections in the Delhi government had to resign from the cabinet because of the outrage over hurting Hindu sentiments. And how did he hurt the Hindu sentiments? By reciting a vow that Babasaheb himself had proclaimed with lakhs of his followers during the conversion ceremony at Nagpur in 1956. The outrage from sections of the BJP, which is a bastion of the Brahmanical dominance in the politics of the country was expected, also exposed the appropriation that it does of Babasaheb’s ideals for its vote bank. But the fact that a party like AAP, that claims to be operating on a model of good governance, had to remain silent and accept the resignation of their own man, shows a great deal to what extent the name-sake appropriation of Babasaheb takes place in this country merely to fulfil one’s political ambitions. The big men of Indian politics can only resort to tokenism when it comes to Dalits, or for that sake the tribals, as it benefits their vote bank politics. But anything that demands substantial effort in terms of the Dalit, Bahujan and tribal communities asserting their spaces in public becomes an act of outrage for the ruling political, social strata of this country.
The lines that the BJP claims has hurt the Hindu sentiments are as follows: I shall have no faith in Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh neither shall I worship them. But these are the lines that generations of people like me and others of the Bahujan community have been reciting and reminding ourselves every year. These lines, for us, hold the remembrance of the generational oppression that the Hindu fold has thrown upon us. For reciting these lines which are not obscene in any way we have to give up our hard-earned positions and face public discrimination and outrage. But what about the oppression that our generations faced and that which we are still facing? Just like the public outrage will there ever be a public apology from the state which is still dominated by the majority Hindu-fold? The answer is a clear no. The conversion ceremonies keep happening across the country every year during the time of Ashok Vijaya Dashami. And the 22 vows that Babasaheb recited are an integral part of them. It is not at all criminal or obscene or illegal to repeat the same by anybody. The reason that Rajendra Pal Gautam had to resign is a way of denying a whole community its right to claim its own space through their own means.
The celebration of the 1956 conversion in the form of Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Day is a manifestation of a scientifically educated society, which through the teachings of Buddha and Babasaheb has carved out its niche in this caste dominated Indian society. For Brahmanism, and for the ones who hold the values of Brahmanism behind the veil of tokenism in Indian politics, any such attempt of the Bahujan community to assert its identity in the public sphere seems intolerable.
JAI BHIM!
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Preeti Chandrakumar Patil has done her MA in Politics with Specialization in International Studies, from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
