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Mikael Aktor and Robert Deliège (Eds.),
From Stigma to Assertion.
Untouchability, Identity and Politics in Early and Modern India
,
Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen,
2010, 232 pp., ISBN: 978-87-635-0775-2.
Reviewed by Mihaela GLIGOR
The Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca
When India adopted its constitution in 1950, Untouchability was officially banned. However, discrimination against Dalits remained so pervasive that in 1955 the government passed the legislation known as the Protection of Civil Rights Act, followed by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in 1989. More than 170 million people in India are still considered Untouchable, i.e. impure, less than humans.
Hindus believe a person is born into one of the four castes based on karma (and blood purity); on how he or she lived their past lives. Those born as Brahmans are priests and teachers; Kshatriyas are soldiers and rulers; Vaisyas are traders and merchants; and Sudras are laborers. Within the four castes, there are thousands of sub-castes, defined by profession, region, dialect, and other factors. Untouchables are literally outcastes; a fifth group that is so unworthy it does not fall within the caste system. Although based on religious principles practiced for some 1.500 years, the system persists today for economic as much as religious reasons.
Someone can refer to the Untouchables as Depressed Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Local names for the “untouchable communities” vary in different parts of India. Mahatma Gandhi called them Harijans or children of God. Now they are called Dalits, which means broken people.
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very important and well-written materials, in order to question the problem of untouchability, identity and politics in early and modern India.
As Mikael Aktor mentions in his Preface, “the ambition of this collection is not to encompass the total area of this vast and complicated subject. Rather, these contributions address different issues, each important in its own way for an question “Is there still untouchability in India?”, the next three articles, signed (in order) by Mikael Aktor, Eleanor Zelliot and Jocelyn Clarke analyze different historical aspects of the problem, starting from Aktor’s talking about “Untouchability in Brahminical law books. Ritual and Economic Control” to Zelliot’s “The Bhakti Saints”, an analysis about “the early voices of untouchability”, or the fate of those Untouchables who, as Untouchables, influenced their religious outlook. She talks about Ravidas, best known of the Untouchables Saint-poets, and mentions his songs, from which one can learn that “anyone who is devout and pure rises above cast” (p. 92). From here to the famous modern Dalit, Dr. Ambedkar, is just a small step and we are introduced to this subject by Jocelyn Clarke’s article, “Untouchability and the Indian nationalist movement”. Her conclusion is important because we can trace in it the importance of education: “the greatest contribution of both Gandhi and Ambedkar has been what Freire calls ‘conscientization’, education of a type which enables the learners to understand critically their own situation of oppression and to take control of their lives” (pp. 114-115).
The book continues with an article about “Dalit theology and the politics of untouchability among the Indian Christian churches”, written by Andrew Wyatt. In this he insists on ethnicity (in today’s world) as common frame for the movements articulated by Dalits. In his opinion, “Dalit is a label that warns of progressive or subversive designs and does not fit easily into the traditionally respectable vocabulary of Indian Christian theology. The term is associated with the brash polemic of a radical political movement” (p. 127).
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Untouchable label has been turned into embraceable identity”, and then seeks for the “continuing heterogeneity of the castes involved” (p. 148).
The volume is completed with two articles that describe particular instances, signed by Kathinka Frøystad, on “Relegitimizing caste discrimination in Uttar Pradesh”, and Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky, about “Caste as a political tool. The case of the Carmakars of Dharavi (Mumbai)”. Poverty and the low level of education are important factors from which both analyses (and conflicts described in them) start. The common idea extracted from these materials is that scheduled castes are able to mobilize and pursue their own interests.
