Corruption Rooted in Our Culture What about honest leaders of Bahujan communities?

Astatement made by sociologist Ashis Nandy at Jaipur Literature Festival has generated a lot of  heat. In the course of a discussion, answering a question of journalist Tarun Tejpal, Nandy remarked that most of the corrupt came from OBCs, SCs and STs s. Nandy later clarified that he never intended to humiliate these classes and thathe actually wanted to say something else. I hold no brief for Nandy but I would like to believe him when he says that he did not intend to say this. I will not join the crowd baying for Nandy’s blood. I would not have demanded that Nandy be punished even if he had stood by his statement or would have said that his statement had been interpreted rightly. The French philosopher Voltaire had said, “I may disapprove of what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.” Nandy has the natural, unalienable and constitutional right to say what he wants to. Kicking up a storm on the issue is meaningless. Yes, but I would like to use Nandy’s statement as a launching pad for a debate. Those who filed cases against Nandy or demanded that he be punished should have put forth facts and arguments to prove him wrong. It is unfortunate that very few cared to do so. Corruption is not a new issue for Indian society. Our history and, even more so, our mythology, brims with instances of corruption. Of late, it has become a trend to link corruption only with money-making. If only those amassing ill-gotten wealth are corrupt then where would you slot the Clinton–Lewinsky case? Then, what name would you give to the phone-tapping case? May be, those who are of humble means have an attraction for earning money by hook or by crook. After all, a starving person will steal
bread and a seeker of knowledge will steal books. Whenever there is talk of economic offences, the names of Bangaru Laxman, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mayawati and Madhu Koda invariably crop up. But is
economic corruption in the country only limited to corruption allegedly indulged in by these leaders? (Allegedly, because barring the Bangaru Laxman case, the charges against all others are yet to be
proved). How many Bahujans are the owners of the tonnes of money stashed away in palace-like houses in the country and abroad (for instance, in Swiss bank accounts). In the executive and the judiciary, the Bahujans still have only a marginal presence. Their representation in the legislature has gone up but they are yet to get their fair share in the cabinets – whether at the centre or in the states.
Even if a majority of Bahujans is corrupt, still, India would have been a sacred land of the honest because they simply do not have a sizeable presence in the top echelons. In the central government
services, their share is barely 7 per cent; in the judiciary, their numbers are negligible. But these sectors are a beehive of corruption. Then, who is indulging in corruption? Nandy is a sociologist well versed in social psychology. What is our social psychology? Who are our ideals? Our ideals are Raja Ram and Dwarikadheesh Krishna. Even Mahatma Gandhi had included “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram” in his daily prayer. When Raja Ram and Raja Krishna are our ideals, our objects of worship, then why
would the Bahujan leaders not want to become like them? The saints and mahatmas of the Bahujans had dismissed the symbols of Raja Ram and Dwarikadheesh Krishna. The Ram and Krishna of whom
Kabir and Raskhan were diehard fans were not the sons of Dashrath and Vasudev respectively. They were entirely different Ram and Krishna. Raskhan’s Krishna was the one whose object of desire was
as simple as a fistful of buttermilk. But once we start worshipping and idolising kings and emperors then the ordinary folk would also desire to join their ranks. When buffalo-grazer Lalu tries to become
Dwarikadheesh (the King of Dwarika), corruption becomes the inevitable outcome.The symbols of Raja Ram and Dwarikadheesh are not the contribution of Kabir and Raskhan. They have been projected by the upper castes. So, unless the very definition of success is changed, we cannot hope for any fundamental social reform. Even today, success means a big house, a luxury car, fat bank balance and an army of lackeys. It is natural for everyone to strive for success. The Bahujan chief minister knows that once he loses his office, he would have to go back to his hut. The chief ministers of upper castes also lose their offices but they go back to the mansions of their forefathers. They arlandlords.Whenever there is a demand for land reforms, the big landowners talk of their natural rights. The wellestablished elite class, which mostly comprises members of the upper castes, is not interested in land reforms. The Bahujan leaders do not own properties. But they do have an opportunity to build their properties. For this, they have to just ignore their conscience. And they do it once in a while. Still, we never talk of the honest Bahujan leaders. We must talk about them also. I will like to give only one example – of Nehru and Ambedkar. Both were widowers and both were scholar-politicians. But if one takes into account what all has been written about Nehru's relationships with women, what idea does one form about his personality. Ambedkar, on the other hand, never indulged in these kinds ofactivities. A woman came into his life. He married her, made her his wife publicly. Periyar Ramasamy Naicker did the same. Why Nehru, Vajpayee or Narayan Dutt Tiwari could not display such courage? Would Nandy like to respond? Nandy can see Lalu, Mulayam,  Mayawati and Koda. But why can’t he see Karpoori Thakur,  Chaudhary Charan Singh, Bhola Paswan, Jaglal Chaudhary, Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar, Shivraj Singh Chauhan and dozens of others? About 20 years back, Bihar witnessed a
scam - the Fodder Scam. Nitish Kumar and the BJP posed a political challenge to Lalu Prasadprimarily on the basis of this scam. Today, Nitish Kumar and BJP are in power in Bihar. But barring Lalu and some other small-time Bahujan leaders, all those involved in the Fodder Scam were from the
upper castes. Former chief minister Jagannath Mishra was one of them. Today, Jagannath Mishra, Jagdish Sharma and other savarna leaders are in top positions in Nitish Kumar’s party and government. Since Lalu Prasad is an OBC, he continues to be the villain of the piece. This is the way we look at corruption. The sages used to say, “Vaidiki Hinsa, Hinsa Na Bhavti” (Violence approved by Vedas is not violence). We seem to be saying that the corruption by the upper castes is no corruption. There is a Sanskrit maxim which says “Mahajano Yen Gatah; Sa Panthah” (The way on which great men tread, is the right way). Our social path has been paved by the upper castes. Eklavya was deprived of his thumb through deceit. Bali was murdered hiding behind seven trees. Sita was turned out of her home through deception. Such stories abound in our history. What kind of society can we hope to build with this kind of background?

                                                            (Published in  Forward Press,  March, 2013 Issue)
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Journalist Kanshi Ram: Addressing One’s Own People

The writings of its founder or leader are one of the best means to understand a movement or ideology. Besides, speeches and interviews given by him to the media can also tell us a lot in this respect. In this context, this compilation of the editorials writtenby the founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Bahujan leader Kanshi Ram is an important publication. It has been edited by AR Akela and translated by Vijendra Singh Vikram. Few are aware that besides Bahujan politics, Kanshi Ram was also the pioneer of Bahujan journalism. In the 1980s, Kanshi Ram began publishing the weekly Bahujan Sangathak in Hindi and the monthly The Oppressed Indian in English. He was the editor of both. This book contains the Hindi translation of the editorials written by Kanshi Ram in English and has been published under the title Manniya Kanshi Ram Saheb Ke Sampadakiya Lekh (Editorial Articles of the Honourable Kanshi Ram Saheb). The preface of this book is written by formar cabinet minister Daddu Prasad. Seventy-seven editorial pieces of Kanshi Ram have been compiled in the book. The first is on Samachar sevaon kee awashakta (Need for news services) in which Kanshiram has raised a valid point that the casteist brahmanical press blacks out the news pertaining to Dalits and exploited classes. He writes that Ambedkar started Mooknayak(The voiceless hero), in 1920, Bahishkrit Bharat (Boycotted India) in 1927, Janata (The people) in 1930 and Prabhuddha Bharat (Englightened India) in 1955 because Ambedkar realized the importance of having one’s own news media. Talking about the launching of The Oppressed Indian, he writes that “the need and opportunity have inspired us to accept the challenge and take a plunge in the field of news”. At the end, he expresses his determination to
ensure that the publication reaches every nook and corner of the country within the next two years. Though both journals ceased publication in Kanshi Ram’s lifetime, today newspapers and magazines of Dalits and the exploited classes are being published from all parts of the country. In the April 1979 issue, he shed light on Ambedkarite ideology. In the article entitled Kya Ambedkarvad punarjivit
aur dirgajeevi hoga? (Will Ambekdarite ideology revive and be durable?) he writes, “The mission which was respectable in Baba Saheb’s times is the subject of ridicule today”?. Explaining the reason thereof, he writes that the RPI founded by Baba Saheb was divided into eight groups and there
were six factions of Dalit Panthers. In these circumstances,he asks, how can Ambedkarite ideology be revived. When Kanshi Ram wrote this article, he was the leader of BAMCEF; before the Bahujan Samaj Party was yet to be formed. He says that BAMCEF had taken up the responsibility of fulfilling Ambedkar’s mission on itself. In the same issue, Kanshi Ram had also commented on the anti-Conversion bill, which was moved in Parliament in 1979 by OP Tyagi. The objective of the bill was to bar the Christian missionaries from converting Dalits and tribals. Kanshi Ram writes that the Buddhists should have opposed the bill tooth and nail because, according to him, “the bill would hurt the Buddhists more than the Christians because the Christians never resorted to mass conversions”. He says “The abject failure of Ambedkarite ideology had also adversely impacted conversions. The deadlock is such that the so-called supporters of Ambedkar did not oppose the Tyagi legislation”.
Although almost all editorial articles of The Oppressed Indian basically talk about the programmes, policies and activities of BAMCEF they also show how Kanshi Ram was drawing up the contours of his future politics in consonance with Ambedkar’s political movement. To begin with, he talked
of the need for arranging funds with reference to Ambedkar’s mission. In his April 1979 editorial he wrote, “Crores of rupees must have been spent on running the (Ambedkar) movement for 40 years. Dr. Ambedkar arranged this huge fund without loosening his grip on the movement even a bit and ensuring
that the missionary character of the movement remained intact. But his followers could not collect even a fraction of that amount and in the process, from missionaries they turned into mercenaries. The need for money is too important to be ignored and so, those who want to revive Ambedkarite ideology would have to arrange crores of rupees using their own resources.” And it is well-known that Kanshi
Ram did arrange crores of rupees for his movement. BAMCEF was a non-confrontationist organization because it was an organization of government employees. But without confrontation, without struggle, Kanshi Ram could not have built a support base for himself at the ground level. That is why, in 1981, he constituted the “Dalit, Shoshit Sangharsh Samiti” (DS-4). Haryana was the first state where DS-4 made its foray into the field of politics. In his June 1982 editorial he writes, “The Haryana experiment gave us an opportunity to put our theories to practice. After the Haryana experiment, we are quite optimistic and confident that DS-4 will be able to give the Dalit-exploited class its own national political party before 30 June 1983.” In his editorials, Kanshi Ram has also talked of the history
of the Dalits and their present condition. In the July 1982 editorial, he has referred to the Namasudra movement of West Bengal, which became a people’s movement in the beginning of the 20th century. He makes a very significant observation. He writes that when the British quit India, the Namasudra
movement was at its zenith. The movement was so powerful that the Namasudras of Bengal, by sending Baba Saheb Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly, proved their commitment towards the oppressed and exploited classes. Kanshi Ram goes on to make a precise analysis of their present condition. “The division of Bengal also divided the Namasudra movement so that today they are rootless. Their roots are in Bangladesh while their branches are in India.” Raising a very pertinent question he says that “the division has indeed dealt a deathly blow to the movement but how long will they cry over their loss?” Then, answering the question himself, he says that the Namasudras should rebuild their movement.
“This issue is devoted to the problems of the Namasudras and their movement and is thus very important.” In the October 1982 issue, Kanshi Ram bitterly criticized Maharashtra’s Dalit Panthers describing them as “male prostitutes”. What he reveals next is an eye-opener. “In Pune, I was
shocked to see that after the failure of the movement, some of  them have started brewing country liquor. Others have opened gambling dens.” So much so that in some places “they have turned pimps and by paying a regular tribute to the policemen have started sending prostitutes to other areas. Thus, they are now under the thumb of the police. Now, it is the responsibility of the community to deal with
such Panthers. As far as my opinion goes, I would say that one should be cautious of these male prostitutes, who call themselves Dalit Panthers.” The bitterness of Kanshi Ram  shows that Dalit Panthers had become a stumbling block for him in Maharashtra. In March 1982, writing about Babu Jagjivanram, he says that Jagjivan Ram had no objective in life barring contesting
elections. In the November 1983 issue, he tries to raise the political awareness of the backward classes. On 6 December 1983, Kanshi Ram launched “Samajik Karyavahi Yatra” (Social action yatra), which began from Kanyakumari touched Kargil, Kohima, Puri and Porbandar and culminated into a huge rally at the Boat Club in New Delhi. He has written special editorials in the March and April 1984 issues, which help us understand his political growth. It was after this yatra that Kanshi Ram founded the Bahujan Samaj party on 14 April 1984. For the next five months, the publication of The Oppressed Indian remained suspended. In the October 1984 issue, he wrote an editorial on the suspension under the heading “We apologise”. In the editorial, he presents an account of his social activities from the beginning till date. The book contains editorials written up to June 1986, which can be considered the last issue of the journal. In one of the write-ups in July 1985 issue, he talks about his visit to England. The article contains a very frank description of what he went through during his visit. This book is an important document in as much as it helps one understand the times of Kanshi Ram and his socio-political activities. The book is a readable and collectable compilation to get introduced to
Kanshi Ram’s journalism.
                                                      (Published in  Forward Press,  March, 2013 Issue)

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Kanshi Ram – A Failed Messiah?

In early 1982 a quiet and hesitant government employee came to me in Chhatarpur (MP) and asked: “Could a group of us visit you next Sunday morning?” Eight of them cycled 13 km to meet with me. They had been tracking my activities since 1980, when I was thrown into Tikamgarh Jail for serving the victims of a hailstorm. They introduced themselves as members of BAMCEF (Backwards and Minority
Community Employees Federation). I had never heard of a trade union whose primary purpose was
to change their world, rather than get favours for its members. The dream to change the world, however, was in the air. I had seen radical slogans painted everywhere in the city by an unknown group called DS4 (Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti, Dalit and Exploited People’s Struggle Committee). My visitors told me that they were the ideological force behind the boys who were painting the city blue. Their objective was to awaken a sleeping giant – the victims of an oppressive social system
labelled “feudalism” by my socialist friends, and “Manuwad” by these new friends. The visitors described their Sahab in Delhi. He used to be an officer in the Ministry of Defence; but he gave up his secure job andrenounced marriage to be free to  serve the victims of the Hindu caste-system; he had cycled from Kanyakumari to Delhi with a group of young people to educate the Dalit (SC/ST) and Shoshit (Backward Castes and Minorities) communities. He was uniting and organizing them to become the Bahujan – the democratic majority. BAMCEF, they said, was Sahab’s intellectual and financial bank. It grew his ideas and funded them. They learned Ambedkarism from Sahab and taught it to their communities. The Sahab was out to build a cadre-based movement, financed by the Dalits and ‘shoshits’ themselves. Like most Indians I had experienced and come to believe that government employees were out to extract bribes from everyone. Therefore, it was astonishing to hear about an Indian officer who was determined to give up his office and mobilize ordinary clerks to give their time, talents, and money to change society. It is true that – if unaccompanied by moral regeneration – any large-scale political awakening of the downtrodden of the sort that Kanshi Ram intended, could end up destroying democracy itself – as had happened in France. It had happened also in every South and
Central American nation and Caribbean that followed the French Revolution. And it could happen in India. Yet, even if that became the final upshot from Kanshi Ram’s efforts, his worst critics will have to concede that awakening the oppressed is his successfuland enduring legacy. “So, do you teach Buddhism?” I asked my visitors. “No, we are non-religious. Sahab did start a Buddhist Research
Foundation, but he realized that Buddhism is about inner, religious peace – not social liberation. Therefore, his philosophy was never intended to be an agent of socio-political change. Politics, not religion, the Sahab says, is the key that will open every lock.” As it turned out, exclusive reliance on politics became the crucial factor behind Kanshi Ram’s ultimate failure. The visitors became my friends. They invited me into their homes, and initiated me into the underground Ambedkarite literature.
The mainstream media never reviews this literature; therefore, it does not comprehend why Ambedkar’s name moves more people than Gandhi’s. This literature generated the intellectual awakening that Kanshi Ram and Mayawati harnessed so effectively. Unexpected twists and turns in my life did not allow me to meet Kanshi Ram until 1987, until after I was thrown in jail in an attempt
to rescue a Scheduled Caste doctor from unjust imprisonment. His appointment as the head of a government hospital in a small town in Bundelkhand had triggered a volcanic eruption of caste prejudices. The upper castes could not tolerate the fact that an untouchable – a chamar – had acquired the right to examine upper-caste women! Normally no Hindu would confess that dark casteist predispositions simmer in his heart. It is so much a part of our cultural consciousness that we do not own personal responsibility for the evil within us. I was drawn into the caste-conflict because, in order to retain her vote bank, an upper-caste Congress Member of Parliament had the doctor beaten up and thrown in jail on a fabricated charge of rape. A Muslim member of the BJP urged me to do something
for the poor doctor, who had been locked up in a non-bailable case. His promising career ruined at a time when his wife was expecting their first baby. My DS4 friends agreed that something ought to be done. When I called for a public meeting in the doctor’s defence, he was moved to another jail and I was thrown into his cell in his place! Kanshi Ram heard about the episode and invited me to meet
with him. We met in Banda and Jhansi in BSP rallies, where he was preparing his cadre-based army for the Allahabad by-election. He had decided to fight against the media’s darling, India’s future prime minister, V. P. Singh. I was impressed by this, then unknown, “Sahab’s” unusual organizational skills. He displayed an amazing ability to come up with detailed plans to mobilize thousands of highly motivated and well-informed workers from all the districts around Allahabad. Equally impressive was the sheer brilliance of his strategic audacity to take on the combined opposition’s candidate, who had
embroiled Rajiv Gandhi – up to then regarded as Mr Clean – in the Bofor scandal. A few months before the by-election, Kanshi Ram and I met for lunch in a five-star hotel in New Delhi. He explained that the upper castes were only 15 per cent of India. They were ruling and exploiting the 85 per cent because the democratic majority, the ‘Bahujan’, was divided into thousands of sub-castes. His mission
was to unite them into one party, so that they could acquire political power which was, in fact, theirs for the taking. Kanshi Ram finished third in Allahabad, but the dedication of his followers amazed the media. The downtrodden saw him as their hope, their messiah. It became obvious to me that he, in fact,
had the message and the ability to win UP, if not India. So, for the sake of my friends, for the sake of people like that doctor abused by a Congress MP, I accepted Kanshi Ram’s invitation to serve in
his headquarters in Delhi and to organize the BSP in Khajuraho constituency. Soon after that, in 1989 the BSP won 13 MLA seats in UP, but far from uniting the Bahujan, Kanshi Ram could not keep
his elected leaders together. His rivals found it easy to buy his lieutenants who knew him well. Eventually, the BSP did win UP, first by forging an alliance with a backward-caste leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and then by making peace with the very upper-caste brahmanical forces Kanshi Ram had portrayed as the villains of Indian history and society. An alliance with Brahmins can be accepted as political realism or pragmatism, yet, it is sadly true that Kanshi Ram’s political success came at the expense of the failure of his social vision. Instead of joining hands with each other, each backward caste in North India began to organize itself as separate party. My father’s caste – the Kushwahas – who had followed Kanshi Ram, began using a new dictum, “Jiske pas dal nahin, uske pas bal nahin”
(The caste without a political party is without power.) His lofty vision of uniting
SC/ST/OBCs/minorities into one political force failed. This, I believe, was partly because his
theory did not match ground realities. It has been hard for the 75 per cent Shudras (OBCs and SCs) to unite because in daily life they oppress each other, perhaps even more so than the Brahmins do. It is true that Brahmins were never Kanshi Ram’s enemies. His enemy, he said, was Brahminism. Yet, the idea that the Shudras, (OBCs and SCs) hate and oppress each other because Brahminism has corrupted them all is simplistic and false. That argument exposes the heart of Kanshi Ram’s problem: Babasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar may have made a mistake in embracing Buddhism, but Kanshi Ram’s decision to ignore religious/philosophical issues prevented him from coming to terms with the evil in every human being’s heart – Brahmin or non-Brahmin. If the root of our problems is religious – Brahmanism – then how can politics be the solution? Ambedkar’s mission was annihilation of caste. Using caste to capture power became Kanshi Ram’s mission. Politics could not unite the Bahujan because Kanshi Ram’s experience had taught him that he should not trust his own followers. What makes us so untrustworthy? How can a messiah save us, unless he saves us from the sin in our hearts? Kanshi Ram attacked inequality, but his refusal to explore the spiritual dimension of reality prevented him from explaining why caste hierarchy is false – or indeed whether human beings are equal. Should Chamars in UP love Yadavs? Why? Why do we despise and oppress each other? Is politics really the key that can change our hearts? Kanshi Ram was a great politician. He could not offer a realistic solution for India’s deep social problems, because he did not care to think about serious philosophical and spiritual issues raised by our social reality.
                                                (Published in  Forward Press,  March, 2013 Issue)

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