When you read Ambedkar’s comments below, please substitute the Left for the Congress or any individual or organization that takes it upon itself to say who should speak for the Dalits. Always know this, every time a Dalit speaks (literate or unlettered) he/she fully represents themselves and their communities. Plural.
Here is what Ambedkar said:
“What disturbs me, after hearing Mr. Gandhi, is that instead of confining himself to his proposition, namely, that the Minorities Committee should be adjourned sine die, he started casting reflections upon the representatives of the different communities sitting around this Table. He said the delegates were the nominees of Government, and that they did not represent the views of their communities for whom they stood. We cannot deny the allegation that we are nominees of the Government, but speaking for myself, I have not the slightest doubt that even if the Depressed Classes of India were given the chance of electing their representatives to this conference, I would all the same, find a place here. I say, therefore, that whether I am a nominee or not, I fully represent the claims of my community. Let no man be under any mistaken impression as regards that.”
Further he says:
“The Mahatma has been claiming, that the Congress stands for the Depressed Classes, and that the Congress represents the Depressed Classes more than I or my colleagues can do. To that claim I can only say that it is one of many false claims which irresponsible people keep on making”
And when you are confronted by non-Dalits smothering your expression by pointing to divisions among the Dalit communities, remind yourself of what Ambedkar had to say on Gandhi playing one community against the other. Here is that part of Ambedkar’s letter written from London to Times of India:
“We are, however, reliably informed that in carrying his negotiations with our Muslim friends, Mr Gandhi demanded that as one of the conditions for his accepting the fourteen points, they should oppose the claims of the Depressed Classes. To say in public ‘I will agree if all others agree’, then set out to work in private to prevent others from agreeing by buying off those who are willing to agree, is in our opinion,a piece of conduct unbecoming a Mahatma and to be expected only from an inveterate opponent of the Depressed Classes. Mr. Gandhi is not only not playing the part of a friend of the Depressed Classes, but he is not even playing the part of an honest foe.”
When an unlettered Dalit speaks up, protests, or organizes, the entire Indian establishment has ways of ignoring and subjugating him/her. So complete is this process from their side, it would seem as though there are no protests at all from the Dalits in the basti, in the cheri, in the offices, in the colleges, universities, hostels, on the construction site, in the quarries, and in all other places they labor and live in. Every democratic and undemocratic institution aligns itself seamlessly to suffocate their protesting voice.
In contrast, when literate Dalits speak up, they are aggressively told that they are ‘elite’, ‘products of affirmative action’, and do not and cannot represent the larger community interests. This is a petty ploy to dislodge Dalits by asking us to see logic in the Left as being the better and more genuine articulators of all Dalit communities. Much like Gandhi asserting that Congress was the better care- taker of the Untouchables. It is not just silly but it is essentially bullying by upper castes Marxists -overloaded on caste privileges and masquerading as class warriors. A child can see through this. We want every Dalit child to know how Ambedkar had worded this ploy of the upper castes and be able to recognize it in whatever garb they do it in. Therefore this note. A note with love for the Dalit Child.
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ref: Proceedings of Federal Structure Committee and Minorities Committee, P 534.