Dalit Movement

Dalit Movement

After Independence, the Dalit Movement sought social justice and dignity and they attempted to build electoral majorities on a certain type of caste mobilization.

Effective implementation of reservations and other such policies of social justice was one of their prominent demands.

The term “Dalit” encompasses the communities known as ex-untouchables and tribals who are officially termed Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes respectively.

Ghanshyam Shah classified Dalit Movement into:

• Reformative

• Alternative Movement

Reformative: It tries to reform the caste system to solve the problem of untouchability.

Alternative: it attempts to create an alternative socio- cultural structure by conversion to some other religion or by acquiring education, economic status and political power.

In almost all Dalit movements, the issue of reservations has been an overriding phenomenon and is seen as the most decisive tool of progress.

The Bhopal Declaration (2002) adopted unanimously a new 21-point Action Agenda for Dalits for the 21st century: Some of the important points are:

• Recognize SC & ST women as a distinct category of women.

• Make the reservation quota applicable in all public & private educational institutions from primary to technological, and professional levels.

• Implement effectively in letter and spirit the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989.

• Implement the policy of reservation to SC & STs at all levels of the Judiciary and the Defence forces.

• The 1980s saw the rise of the political organisation of the Dalits. In 1978, the Backward and Minority Classes Employees Federation (BAMCEF) was formed. It took a strong position in favour of

political power to the Bahujan – the SC, ST and OBC, minorities. The prominent face of this movement and its subsequent outfit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti was Kanshi Ram.

Dalit Panthers

By the early nineteen seventies, the first-generation Dalit graduates, especially those living in city slums began to assert themselves from various platforms. Dalit Panthers, a militant organisation of the Dalit youth, was formed in Maharashtra in 1972 as a part of these assertions.

Activities of Dalit Panthers mostly centred around fighting increasing atrocities on Dalits in various parts of the State. As a result of sustained agitations on the part of Dalit Panthers along with other like-minded organisations over the issue of atrocities against Dalits, the government passed a comprehensive law in 1989 that provided for rigorous punishment for such acts.

The larger ideological agenda of the Panthers was to destroy the caste system and to build an organisation of all oppressed sections like the landless poor peasants and urban industrial workers along with Dalits.

The movement provided a platform for Dalit-educated youth to use their creativity as a protest activity. Dalit writers protested against the brutalities of the caste system in their numerous autobiographies and other literary works published during this period.

These works portraying the life experiences of the most downtrodden social sections of Indian society sent shock waves in the Marathi literary world, made literature more broad-based and representative of different social sections and initiated contestations in the cultural realm.

In the post Emergency period, Dalit Panthers got involved in electoral compromises; it also underwent many splits, which led to its decline. Organisations like the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) took over this space.