YouTube is fabulous. It lets one actually see events about which one has only heard about and that too vaguely.
“I have a dream” for me was one such event I knew about but had no real idea of how it unfolded or what it consisted of. Then I saw this clipping on the YouTube, to be totally swept off my feet. This legendary speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr from the Lincoln Memorial is a masterpiece of courage of its conviction and the manner of oratory. It arouses an indescribable feeling even 47 years later, knowing fully well about the impact it had on the American mindscapes then. I have since watched this video clipping many times and even used it for teaching in my Humanities class.
During the very first viewing, I found two things particularly striking. The first was that several of the volunteers of the civil rights movement seen on the dias with Dr. King were wearing Gandhi caps. Although Dr. King never met Gandhi, he acknowledged the influence of Gandhi’s ideas and methods of civil disobedience on the struggle of Black population in America (children of former slaves) for equal rights.
The other striking thing was to see so many white folks among the multitudes who had thronged the Mall in Washington DC to listen to Dr. King. Several of them had brought their kids along and can be seen as hoisting the little ones on their shoulders so that they can have a better view. This is very significant as the Civil Rights Movement was not just fought by the aggrieved but also supported by the civil society at large that stood for justice.
I could not help drawing parallels with the struggle for Dalit rights in our country. In many ways the lot of Dalits in Indian society was far worse that of the Blacks in America. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes consist of appx. 24% of our population. They have been historically excluded from Indian society for centuries. The struggle for Independence brought their plight in the foreground because of leaders like Gandhi and Ambedkar. In the ensuing free republic, their plight was formally recognized and measures of alleviation incorporated. Yet, in the advantaged civil society of our country, it is rare to find any empathy for this group. We even use the term SC/ST as an expression of derision. How many of us will ever attend a rally in support of the rights of some other section of our own society, let alone sensitizing our children to their plight?
It is not enough to have rights enshrined in the constitution. They are meaningless if there is lack of justice on ground. A civil society is one where the majority in mainstream stands up for the demand of justice for the minorities and marginalized.
I do not know whether we are there yet.
nice read mam!
ReplyDeletegandhiji ne henry david thoreau se civil disobedience ki method seekhi thi!
circle complete!!
about dalit and tribal rights, as a todays youth(!), i realy cant comment or cant dare to comment!as never worked on grassroot lvl.
i'm unable to understand the layers of socio-cultural-economical-environmental struggle going in my country or even in my backyard!! dr. Ambedkars questions are still unanswered, and getting more complicated, heres what he says ....
"ON 26th january (1950), we are going to enter a life of contradictions.
IN politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality.
IN politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote value.
IN our social and economic structure, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny this principle of one man one value.
HOW long shall we live this life of contradictions?
HOW long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?
IF we continue to deny it for long, we do so only by putting our political democracy in peril"
Yogesh,
ReplyDeleteI also don't claim to have done any grass root level work. Being hard core urban people we have little empathy for the heartland. And I agree that the questions raised by Dr. Ambedkar are still unanswered. Maybe the first step toward finding answers is to acknowledge the questions themselves.
and then we have our politicians....
ReplyDeletemusti, have you read 'the autobiography of malcolm x'?
Chanced upon this blog searching for baida-pav of all things !
ReplyDeleteIt is both strange and fascinating that you speak of the 24% of Dalits as if they truly are the deprived sections of society. I will submit to you they are not.
It is patently true that the plight of the SC/ST is far worse than blacks in America even today. Yet, if 6 decades of "aarakshan" (reservations) have not improved their plight, don't know what will.
Now, for the real reason I disagree with your point - Why the elevated sections of Indian society do not sympathize with the lower castes ? Two main reasons
- The separation of castes is ordained via religion. A somewhat hazy parallel is religious divides between sects. It can take violent forms like Shia/Sunni violence or relatively benign distrust like the Catholic/Protestant divides. Both have persisted for centuries and will continue into the distant futures. It is disgusting but it is what it is.
- Reservations, handouts and stronger political roots have made sure that the weaker sections of society are not so far left behind. Hence, there is a lot of reverse discrimination going on. I, personally have faced this along with a lot of people who have been denied opportunities in higher education because sometimes even 60-70% of seats are distributed amongst these classes of people. How can I sympathize with such people even though it is only in urban settings that these happen ?
- Lastly, decades after the "I have a dream" speech, blacks, apart from have freedom are not truly liberated. The percentage of African-Americans below the poverty line far exceeds that of whites. Blacks are about 70% more liely to be killed by other blacks. About 60 - 70% pf black babies are born out of wedlock. Why ? because blacks exchanges one set of chains (discrimination based on skin color) for another (government welfare). The EXACT same thing can be said of the deprived backward classes in India. From Gandhi (an upper-caste Indian) to pretty much every Congress upper-caste netas, to leaders from within the community (from the corrupt and despicable Laloo to the revered Ambedkar) all have sought to provide handouts and political favors to the Dalits and backward classes, yet they have been stuck in the quagmire.
I would encourage you to read works by Thomas Sowell. See http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/video-podcast-media/video-thomas-sowell-welfare (Note the irony that the white lady is the one arguing for "Affirmative action and welfare while Mr. Sowell is arguing against it !)
Is there such honest debate IN India ? I seriously doubt it. Any lower class intellectual arguing against the welfare state in India will be not run out of town, he will probably be stabbed or shot to death.