Anand Teltumbde - Dalits: Past, Present and Future

This book may serve as an introduction to a mass of people in India who until a century before lived at a subhuman level as untouchables, unapproachables and even unseeables. They were victims of the caste system, which has the veritable distinction of being the longest-surviving man-made system in the world. Although one finds remnants of caste-like stratifications in some parts of the world, they are not quite the same. The very fact that they died leaving just some reminders of their existence, pales before the caste system in India, which not only survives but also threatens the present. Indeed, it remains unique to India.

There have been a plethora of studies which have tried to describe, at times theorise and still less, think of dealing with castes. But there is not much that has been said of a unified theory of castes. This book is an addition to a long list. While dealing with the Dalits, its core subject, it inevitably deals with castes too. Where it distinguishes itself from many of them is in its comprehensive coverage right from the origin of castes to their contemporary state and in providing at places critical insights to provoke readers into thinking for themselves. I do not know of any book that does it. It should provide a platform for readers to take off from. Readers can then think through the issues and develop their own insights in due course. As such, I hope it will be quite helpful to the researchers besides being a repertoire of information on caste and the Dalits.

Therefore, this is not an inert study. Such an exercise cannot be attempted absolutely dispassionately. Although I have tried to be as academic as possible, cross-referencing the information sources at questionable nodes, the activist in me overwhelms the academic often, blurring the boundaries between the two. In reality, I do not believe that the author can really keep himself aloof from his writing. Even the dead facts of history do not escape the perspective of their presenter. When one writes about live contemporary subjects such as the Dalits, and has some way been a part of them, as an activist, an observer and a commentator, the subjective coating may not be entirely avoidable. I have tried to separate pure information and my views as far as possible in the text in order to facilitate readers to have their own perspective. I leave the rest to readers judgement.

My thanks are due to my young friend Devendra Ingle, who provided me referencing assistance whenever I sought it, to my old colleague Arvind Krishnaswamy, who went through the entire manuscript and suggested important changes, to my nephews Swapnil and Vishal Bhele for their assistance in indexing and to my wife Rama who assisted me in various personal tasks.

I hope the readers will benefit from this labour of love.

Kanshi Rams plunge into electoral politics unduly surprised many of his comrades. They did not know that Bamcef was just a strategic first step to launch a full-fledged political party. Without resources men, money and organisation the task of creating a winning constituency would be impossible. The example of disintegration of the RPI had provided him ample amount of learning as he would say in terms of how not to do the things. In the strategic sense, Bamcef was meant to mobilise resources and overcome weaknesses in terms of the lack of self-confidence in Dalits. He was the first one to realise that there were significant numbers of resources that could be marshaled for Dalit politics but they lay untapped in the supposedly apolitical mass of Dalit employees of the government/public sector undertakings (PSUs). These people represented the entire investment of the community. With their education, secure jobs, capacity to pay and network they could together constitute a huge resource base. With this vision Kanshi Ram had launched the Bamcef. Once he created a formidable organisation, accumulated financial and people resources, he naturally plunged into active politics to make a bid for power. The DS4 was just a short-lived intermediate step before he would launch a full-fledged political party Bahujan Samaj Party which would stun people with its astute electoral strategies.