‘EN’COUNTER THE HIGH
SWAY OF CASTEIST MURDERERS!
While the tale of violence
and oppression against Dalits is historical, and as students across the country
are fighting to provide justice to Rohit Vemula and against the violence
perpetrated by burning their huts in Nawada in Bihar, another incident of
violence against Dalit boy is in front of us. We strongly condemn the public
hacking of V.Sankar and the gruesome attack on his wife S.Kausalya, on 13th March 2016,
by the Thevar (a Shudra caste) gang at Udumalpet near Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu,
as it happened in broad daylight and in front of the criminally “silent public”. It is the marriage between Sankar and Kausalya few months
back that led to this heinous attack by the self-proclaimed protectors of the caste system. Here,
the boy happened to be a dalit and the girl is from a Shudra caste group. It is
not an isolated incident in Tamilnadu, but in line with the murders of
Illavarasan, Gokulraj, institutional murder of a dalit engineering student Ajit
and many other cases which were not reported. Slaughtering of dalits who choose
their partners outside their caste, mainly from the Shudra and upper caste
groups, had become the important agenda of the brahminical fascists throughout
the country. Intermarriage remains the socially forbidden in this environment
of caste oppression and these murders are again indication of “honour killing‟ nothing but caste arrogant killing, to
maintain the status quo of the caste system.
Whether it is the concept of
'bahujan' or the 'non-brahmin', it
has very limited validity for their extended applicability in the historical
time and that too with many constraints and restrictions. For example, the term 'non-brahmin' in itself does not go into the inner
contradictions that existed within the social grouping. Situations have changed
since Periyar’s time and the inner contradictions were not like today. Now,
with the lopsided capitalist development few in the Shudra caste groups
differentiated themselves from the rest of their caste-group and the entire society, and became the
employers of their own caste group labourers and dalits. For the former any
unity within the later working class groups will be a real danger. So, they use
every possible means from the old social order, i.e., the caste system, to stop
the workers from the Shudra caste groups from realising their chains. To
achieve the later and thereby to keep the power relations intact the people
from working class in the dominant castes were also forced to perpetuate acts
like murders on their fellow dalit proletariats in the veiled names like
'honour', 'valour'. Instead of fighting against the brahminical caste system
with a class unity and the caste system as a whole, the Tamil nationalists and
the others who make their career out of identity politics are only shedding
crocodile tears. While the state machinery acts with impunity when it
suppresses the dissent, it chooses to remain silent and thereby complicit in
the crime when it comes to the ruling castes who take the 'law' into their
hands. The Indian state, time and again, has showed in the past that its 'laws'
are not equally applicable to Dalits and lower castes. The perpetrators of this
crime should not be spared and punished soon.
Tiruppur city was also in
news for another reason which is for having the highest proportion of workers
belonging to main worker category (44%) according to Census India in the
country. Tiruppur, a global knitwear nod, is a highly industrialised district
in the country in terms of its demography and economic output. But it is not
without it being part of the imperialist global production networks which
exploit the workers in the developing countries through their cheap sweat-shop based production process and thereby
earn huge profits to the multinational corporations located in the developed
part of the world. It also benefits the local shop owners who mostly belong to
the Shudra caste groups of the region, who on the one hand act as a prop to the
recolonisation process and on the other exploit all possible means from the pre-capitalist old society for blocking any real
social change to happen towards new democracy. It is in this context the
murders and various other atrocities against dalits have to be looked at.
As we know, the majority of Dalits in this country are
landless labourers and workers in rural and urban areas, working and living in
informal sectors and slums. Therefore, it is the historical necessity to build
class unity of workers who can fight against the onslaught of hindutva comprador
capitalism in the Modi regime. The government is crushing every movement, be it
students movement emerged from University of Hyderabad against the
institutional murder of Rohit or targeting the students of FTII, or the
movement of Honda workers in Gurgaon or JNU movement by students and faculties.
This government is hell-bent on slaughtering democracy from all
these places. Without understanding the brahmanical communal rage and dominant
caste rage - politically and organizing ground level movement - there is no use
of crying about the land of Periyar! When begging for reservation the dominant
caste claims that they are oppressed but while doing these murders they claim
Kshatriyas! Shame! Cancel reservation for the caste which propagates and
encourages such murders! Ban all the dominant caste based Political parties and
organisations! Punish the culprits in
lynching of Sankar ! Annihilate Caste!
