User:Susmitha Ann/sandbox

This essay gives us an insight on the various forms in which Dalitbahujans have been suppressed in the field of education, politics, the civil society and market. Although in the recent years these marginalized groups have been given some importance and recognition, it is hard to ignore the fact that they are still, in some way or the other, judged because of their caste. If a person from the Dalit community attains a high position, everyone looks up at him in awe because of their caste and not their achievements and accolades. For example, when Ram NathKovind got nominated for Presidential Election, the media concentrated on the fact that he is a Dalit and his achievements were side-lined. So, it becomes a matter of surprise when a Dalitbahujan achieves something big as for years everyone thought that they don’t have the potential to do something big and that they should look up to the people who belong to the ‘upper-caste’. KanchaIlaiah captures all the facets of this oppression through this essay. KanchiIlaiah says that Brahminical and anglicized version of education only gave out the truth about the Brahminical and Ksatriya traditions. There were hardly any mentions of the Dalitbahujans in the textbooks. Be it school education that was disseminated in Telegu or higher education where English was the common language, no one wanted to address the past of the Dalit community. This type of blind eye towards the community from the educational institutions was one of the main reasons of the disparity between the upper and the lower caste people. A person from the Dalit background must have faced situations that were different from the situations that a person from the upper caste might have faced. Thus, even the second generation learner of a Dalitbahujan community may not relate to the ways of the upper caste community through the textbooks that they read. A classroom is a place where one can find students from different communities studying the same thing. Thus it is always possible that certain number of students don’t relate to the other students or what they are being taught. The disparity between the upper caste and the Dalitbahujans does not only stop at the level of education. KanchaIlaiah, through this essay, also brings out the other ways in which Dalits are marginalized. Although these ways seem very trivial, they play a big part in creating these differences. The food served at the hotels are often made according to taste of the Brahmins and this taste is said to be the standard taste. Thus, a Dalit, who has experienced a different taste for food all his life, has a hard time accepting the taste of the upper caste. If the food mostly enjoyed by the Dalit community is not served in hotels and restaurants, then their culture is further sidelined and ignored. Same goes with the names of the hotels, as Ilaiah notes, they mostly had names of the upper caste and not Dalit names. The market places were filled with hotels with upper caste names and they were more popular than the others. Due to the hegemony of the upper caste, most of the top-most job positions are filled by them. There is a constant suppression of the people from the Dalit community as they never get the opportunity to reach the top. They are always forced to work under a person from the upper caste who probably earned their position through illegal measures. Caste politics within political parties is a major part of this this essay. Ilaiah gives the example of the Congress party which always claimed to be the most Democratic Party and yet all the major works were done by the Upper caste party members and the people from the Dalit community got negligible amount of importance. This way, the Dalitbahujan community got little or no representation during the elections. He also gives the example of the Ramayana where he says that Hanuman was the south Indian Dalit who was just a supporting character whereas Rama is portrayed as the warrior and a hero. This parallel between the composition of the Congress party and the characters in Ramayana somewhat seems like KanchaIlaiah is critiquing the Hindu scriptures as being a reason for this inequality between the Hindus and them. The fear of the production based culture of the Dalitbahujans, as the author says, seems to be another reason why there is no equality when it comes to power relation between the two communities. Thus, the Dalitbahujans are not given the opportunity to go up the ladder or stand at the equal height as the upper caste politicians. The exploitation of the working class can be considered as a result of the difference between the Dalitbahujans and the Brahmins. As it has already been established by the author, the higher positions in various work fields are always taken up by the Brahmins and the other upper caste people. Therefore, there is a gap between the managerial class which consists of the upper caste people and the working class Dalit people which gives rise to the exploitation of the working class. Also, this was easier to do as the Dalitbahujans were not allowed to open up their own businesses because that would’ve meant that they will get the agency of deciding. Also, as the author earlier said, the upper caste people feared the fact that the Dalitbahujans had a production based culture and they could not risk losing their position. All this discrimination is almost not possible to get rid of. No matter however Dalitbahujans try to copy the Brahminical ways, they send their children to English Medium schools so that they can have a better chance at life, the discriminations thrown at them stop them from succeeding. When the author says, “Sanskritization is no solution to Hindu barbarity”, it is safe to think that he means that Hinduism even in the contemporary world is so barbaric that it doesn’t want the Dalits to come up and establish themselves. They want to be on the top of the ladder and don’t want to share the position with anyone.