The Odisha Dalit Adhikar Manch convened a meeting recently to take stock of the rights scenario of the SC population of Odisha, on the occasion of the first death anniversary of late Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student, who committed suicide last year in a south Indian university campus, raising many eyebrows on the university environment in India.
A case of social ostracisation of a Dalit hamlet of Badachana Assembly constituency was shared by a Dalit youth of the village. He narrated how certain group of high caste community had insulted and prevented them from dining in a local mass feast to which they were invited by the host and how the local police did not play active role in registering the case. As Jajpur Parliament constituency is a SC-reserved one, the caste oppressions in that constituency is startling.
It was observed by the participants that discrimination against the Dalit community members is manifested in many villages, AWCs, schools and colleges in Odisha, in spite of the industrial progress of the State. It is a worrying phenomenon in different parts of India as well on which Prime Minister had to appeal to the public. Often police fail to protect the SCs due to the caste prejudice of their own personnel, pressure of the majority and bias of the politicians. It is the responsibility of the State to protect the socially disadvantaged groups as per the Constitutional and legal provisions. Does the State fail at timesIJ
Traditional Indian societies were run by religious Hindu faith which has theories of origin of Dalit groups. The traditional economic system, which is agriculture, was built on the foundation of caste stratification, bestowing land and capital with the high caste groups and labour with the Dalit groups. Those who glorify village life are oblivious to the situation of untouchability in the villages. The so-called farmers’ welfare spokespersons do not raise the issues of agricultural labourers and the sharecroppers. Though the high caste groups are not voracious readers of religious scriptures to indoctrinate themselves as caste-hardliners, the village tradition and the family rituals perpetuated the untouchability practices. The institution of marriage on caste lines is protected by the rural caste panchayats who admonish any social deviation. There is no united Dalit front to confront the high caste atrocities in villages.
Villages are known as conservative system. The function of the religious institution is to promote the stratified caste social order. The change was expected to be initiated by the State, the political parties and the social agencies but they did not effectively intervene. The State has organs of rapid change like the legislature, the police and the judiciary. It has also an organ to introduce slow change in society like the Education department.
But what is the role of the education systemIJ It is the biggest State-sponsored ideology indoctrination system of the society in any nation.
It can’t remain value -neutral. Either it works as generator of social conformists or works as change agent, promoting free thought and encouraging questioning of unjust social values. Here comes the role of the Constitution of the country. In some Muslim countries where the State is Islamic, education plays the role of a conformist, promoting thought which will conserve social values, including legitimacy of discriminatory practices.
Indian Constitution is secular and democratic one. In accordance with the Constitutional mandate, the role of the Indian educational institutions is to promote secular, non-caste discriminatory, egalitarian social values and liberal thoughts within the framework of nationalism and federalism. One role of the education institution is to deliver knowledge on different subjects so as to make students employable in economic system. But they have the other role of bringing in social change. As colleges and universities are places of Assembly of youths, these youths bring different value systems along with them to the campus. In this situation, if a college or a university says that it is value neutral, then it is assumed that it
really stands with the values of the mainstream, supporting status quoism.
After India became independent, the Government’s twin priority was food production and economic development. Though economic scarcity and social inequality did figure as two major socio-economic issues during the freedom struggle, the issue of social inequality was left behind while the economic system took the center stage. Instead of taking up the challenge to mitigate the caste inequality of Indian society, the Government got satisfied with untouchability prevention law and the reservation policy. Thus caste inequality perpetuated in India.
Poverty was not accepted as an issue of national importance until the 70s. Who are these poor peopleIJ They are mostly from the Dalit and tribal communities.
What has happened after the society changed to industrial economyIJ In Odisha, industries and mining activities were carried out in forest areas where tribals and Dalits live. Poverty, lack of education and migration help the industrial groups to mechanise production and loot mineral resources. Political parties did not like to break the social inequality as there is a risk. Social agencies worked in programmes, abdicating their social change agent role. In coastal areas, high caste people got jobs, leaving their farm fields to be cultivated by the Dalits. Had any of the powerful stakeholders suffered loss due to the caste system, they would have forced the system to change. But that was not the case. When OBC and high caste people of Odisha are beginning to feel the heat of deprivation now, they are reacting against the powerful but that struggle is not becoming impactful as they cannot join hands with the Dalits.
In case Rohith Vemula, it was found that he fought successfully the rough weathers of the conservative village environment to complete his school studies with a quality performance. But what happened when he was in universityIJ He could not overcome the hostile environment and decided to commit suicide. University which is supposed to be a land of freethinking, perhaps behaved like a worst conservative village. It is not due to a sudden failure of system but a slow erosion of values in Indian universities including that of teaching personnel, administration, classroom teaching-learning system, hostel environment, research, student union and so on.
Unless the educational institutions play the role of social change agents, propagating caste equality values and practices in universities, colleges and schools, atrocities against Dalit students will continue in academic places and push them out of system. May be the National Education Policy will address the role and value issues of the educational institutions, instead of getting confined to remodeling of syllabus. A set of enforceable administrative practices should be issued to the universities by the Union Government and to the colleges by the State Government to ensure caste equality and an evaluation of universities/colleges on caste-tolerance should be done annually , linking the evaluation result to grants and punishment of administrators and professors. Rohith Vemula appears to be a victim of role distortion of universities.