Education must to break caste shackles
Most of the jobs in the country where tools, implements and machines are not required, are low paying. They also have a low social marker. For thousands of years, Dalits have been forced to do jobs that do not require tools or machines. In other words, they were forced into doing work with their hands. A caveat would in order to explain certain jobs that did require tools but the job essentially remained manual. For instance, sickle is a hand-held tool used in harvesting wheat, paddy, pulses etc. Similarly, a plough, too, is a tool used in tilling farmland.
Tractors do the same job as the bullock cart-driven ploughs did. But the man handling the plough was invariably bare-foot. Most often their upper body was also bare. The tractor driver on the other hand was dressed well, wore shoes and was seated.
The sickle has the similar narrative. The harvester called the combine machine is an advanced version of the tractor. Tractors are needed before the actual transplantation. The combine machines are needed once the crop is ripe and ready for cutting. But a farmer who works with a sickle on the farmland is always paid lesser than the person who drives the tractor. So is the case with combine machines. Hence, my question to the community is why do they take jobs that are poorly paidIJ
Also, manual worker is a low social marker. Never will a person from the upper caste take a job that requires harvesting crops using hand tools even if it means wages hundred times more than the wage a combine machine driver gets. So, is the case with tilling farmland with ploughs drawn by bullock carts.
Take the case of the man who cleans streets using a large sized broom. Streets and roads can be cleaned by these broom or by the latest trucks with machines attached at the bottom that sucks up all the dust and dirt on the roads. The truck is then driven outside the city limits and the waste so collected is emptied out. Not once is the driver required to use his hands at any point of time. The driver of this truck is paid higher than the worker cleaning streets using the broom even though the man on the street is doing a much tougher job — it requires a lot of physical strength to sweep the roads under the scorching sun.
Tools and machines are anti-caste as well. Ploughing a farmland driven by bullocks was prohibited to the upper caste men. In fact, touching the handle of the plough by the upper caste was considered a social blunder. But when the tractors came into use, many upper caste men were and are prepared to even plough the farmland owned by Dalits.
Another example is how upper caste women never thought of using a sterlised sickle to cut the umbilical cord. But, with modern medical tools like scissors, surgical instruments and nurses in uniform, upper caste women are going in for caesarean.
It was unthinkable for Dalits and upper caste to sit on cots, but both communities don’t have a problem owning bicycles and bikes. But both ride them without attracting any social penalty. In that sense, the Indian Railways has been one of the greatest anti-caste crusaders.
To all Dalits, machines are one of the greatest social equalisers. Dalits and upper caste can’t be seen working on farmland using bare hands. But they can easily be seen working together in factories.
There are studies that show how upper caste youth are working in shopping malls, hotels and hospitals as housekeeping staff. The housekeeping staff does the same job as safai karmacharies do. But with uniforms, boots, gloves and modern cleaning kits, these karmacharies get a new designation of ‘housekeeping staff’ that becomes caste neutral.
Think of the traditional palki and the men who carried themIJ Has any one seen upper caste men carrying itIJ Today, there are many upper caste men driving taxis and tractors.
Dalits therefore, need to find newer ways of getting out of the shackles put by the caste system. Civil rights movements are necessary. Political empowerment is important. But, there are areas where movements have no role to play. By choosing other routes of empowerment — migration to cities, embracing English, and choosing machines over manual work, Dalits can free themselves from the caste order.
In other words, anything that is traditional, anything that is local, and anything that prevents globalisation is anti-Dalit. Dalits should therefore, prepare themselves to the new emerging realities where machines will forever replace manual jobs.
For this to happen, machines that are entering the productive process will require education and basic knowledge of English. To that end, Dalit parents must ensure that there children study up to Class XII in an English medium school.