10-21-2005, 07:01 AM
There is no question about it. Udit and Kancha are traitors !!
http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&...&RF=DefaultMain
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A faultline of Dalit politics
- By Amulya Ganguli
The Indian propensity to seek help from abroad for our domestic problems has a long history. The Communists routinely ran to their masters in Moscow and Beijing to ask for guidance in the conduct of their revolution. There were apparently more Khalistanis in the US, Canada and Britain than in Punjab.
The Nagas seem to prefer foreign locations for both running their insurgency and conducting their negotiations with the Centre. Other northeastern rebels have their bases in Burma or Bangladesh. Now, a section of the Dalits has taken their grouses to the US. In this group are an aspiring politician, Udit Raj, and an academic, Kancha Ilaiah. Not surprisingly, their endeavour has met with a measure of success.
Forever eager to poke their noses into the affairs of others, some American Congressmen have evinced an interest in taking up the causes of the "depressed classes," as the "untouchables" were earlier known. A resolution, prepared by the US house committee on international relations and the US human rights committee, has highlighted the continuing "atrocities" against the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and has promised to end the "discriminations" against them. "It is in the interest of the United States," the resolution says, "to address the problem of the treatment of the groups outside the caste system � in order to better meet our mutual economic and security goals."
Needless to say, much of this is simply hot air, which will be quietly dissipated without making an impact either in India or in the US. As the other ideological or community-based groups have found to their dismay, both overt and covert assistance from abroad is more a disadvantage than of any genuine value.
It can help to sustain an odd outfit or two, but the main drawback is that links of this nature, as in the case of the Communists and the Khalistanis, tend to create a gulf between the champions of a cause and their popular base. Help from America can prove to be particularly disadvantageous because its motives are almost always suspect.
As the linkage between America�s and the Dalits� "economic and security goals" suggests, sections in the Washington establishment may be looking for an opportunity to flaunt its concerns for the plight of the "untouchables" to wheedle its way into the Indian social and political system. That any such attempt will not make the US a favourite of either the Indian government or the Indian intelligentsia is patent enough.
It has been a feature of Dalit politics that the community has not always been served well by its leaders. One reason was their excessive preoccupation with their own community to the exclusion of everyone else. Evidence of this attitude could be seen in the offensively-worded slogan of the Bahujan Samaj Party: Tilak, tarazu aur talwar; inko maro joote char, meaning beat the Brahmins, Banias and Thakurs with shoes. As a result of such exclusivity, the distance between the Dalits and the mainstream public opinion was evident even in Ambedkar�s time.
Ambedkar had no compunctions, for instance, in being a member of the Viceroy�s advisory council in 1941, having joined Jinnah earlier in hailing the resignation of the Congress ministries after the outbreak of World War II as a "day of deliverance." Although Gandhi admitted that Ambedkar had "every right to be bitter � that he does not break our heads is an act of self-restraint on his part," the intense preoccupation of the Dalit leaders with their own community has made them adopt distinctive positions which few other religious or linguistic groups have done.
An evidence of this mentality can be discerned in Ambedkar�s assertion that "I have another loyalty to which I am bound and which I can never forsake. That loyalty is (to) the community of untouchables, in which I am born, to which I belong, and which I hope I shall never desert. And I say this � as strongly as I possibly can, that whenever there is any conflict of interests between the country and the untouchables, so far as I am concerned, the untouchables� interests will take precedence over the interests of the country. I am not going to support a tyrannising majority simply because it happens to speak in the name of the country."
Ambedkar�s fears about a "tyrannising majority" were the same as Jinnah�s. The concept of democratic governance may have also been unclear to them since their political instincts had been shaped by the long years under a "tyrannising" colonial rule and the rise and rise of a single party, the Congress, which unquestionably displayed authoritarian tendencies. But whatever the mitigating factors, the placement of the interests of his community above those of the country is not something which can be easily endorsed.
But what is distressing is that a new generation of Dalit leaders � self-appointed or otherwise � has revealed the same mindset because of their obsession with their community. True, there are other community-based parties in India, notably the Muslim League and the Akali Dal, as also caste-based parties like the RJD and the Samajwadi Party.
Then, there are parties like the BJP and the Shiv Sena which mainly represent a religious community, as well as parties like the two Dravida Kazhagams and the Telugu Desam which represent certain regions. But they are unlikely to take their problems abroad.
Aware that a democracy does not allow a "tyrannising majority," they are intent on battling their political adversaries within India and would be deeply embarrassed if any of their members sought help from a foreign power. Even among the Dalits, their topmost leaders like Mayawati, who likes to describe herself as a "living goddess," and Ram Vilas Paswan have kept their activities confined to India. Mayawati has also virtually disowned her party�s slogan quoted above, having realised that to make headway in a democracy, one cannot alienate anyone. But an even greater sin than sectarianism is to run abroad for help.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&...&RF=DefaultMain
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A faultline of Dalit politics
- By Amulya Ganguli
The Indian propensity to seek help from abroad for our domestic problems has a long history. The Communists routinely ran to their masters in Moscow and Beijing to ask for guidance in the conduct of their revolution. There were apparently more Khalistanis in the US, Canada and Britain than in Punjab.
The Nagas seem to prefer foreign locations for both running their insurgency and conducting their negotiations with the Centre. Other northeastern rebels have their bases in Burma or Bangladesh. Now, a section of the Dalits has taken their grouses to the US. In this group are an aspiring politician, Udit Raj, and an academic, Kancha Ilaiah. Not surprisingly, their endeavour has met with a measure of success.
Forever eager to poke their noses into the affairs of others, some American Congressmen have evinced an interest in taking up the causes of the "depressed classes," as the "untouchables" were earlier known. A resolution, prepared by the US house committee on international relations and the US human rights committee, has highlighted the continuing "atrocities" against the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and has promised to end the "discriminations" against them. "It is in the interest of the United States," the resolution says, "to address the problem of the treatment of the groups outside the caste system � in order to better meet our mutual economic and security goals."
Needless to say, much of this is simply hot air, which will be quietly dissipated without making an impact either in India or in the US. As the other ideological or community-based groups have found to their dismay, both overt and covert assistance from abroad is more a disadvantage than of any genuine value.
It can help to sustain an odd outfit or two, but the main drawback is that links of this nature, as in the case of the Communists and the Khalistanis, tend to create a gulf between the champions of a cause and their popular base. Help from America can prove to be particularly disadvantageous because its motives are almost always suspect.
As the linkage between America�s and the Dalits� "economic and security goals" suggests, sections in the Washington establishment may be looking for an opportunity to flaunt its concerns for the plight of the "untouchables" to wheedle its way into the Indian social and political system. That any such attempt will not make the US a favourite of either the Indian government or the Indian intelligentsia is patent enough.
It has been a feature of Dalit politics that the community has not always been served well by its leaders. One reason was their excessive preoccupation with their own community to the exclusion of everyone else. Evidence of this attitude could be seen in the offensively-worded slogan of the Bahujan Samaj Party: Tilak, tarazu aur talwar; inko maro joote char, meaning beat the Brahmins, Banias and Thakurs with shoes. As a result of such exclusivity, the distance between the Dalits and the mainstream public opinion was evident even in Ambedkar�s time.
Ambedkar had no compunctions, for instance, in being a member of the Viceroy�s advisory council in 1941, having joined Jinnah earlier in hailing the resignation of the Congress ministries after the outbreak of World War II as a "day of deliverance." Although Gandhi admitted that Ambedkar had "every right to be bitter � that he does not break our heads is an act of self-restraint on his part," the intense preoccupation of the Dalit leaders with their own community has made them adopt distinctive positions which few other religious or linguistic groups have done.
An evidence of this mentality can be discerned in Ambedkar�s assertion that "I have another loyalty to which I am bound and which I can never forsake. That loyalty is (to) the community of untouchables, in which I am born, to which I belong, and which I hope I shall never desert. And I say this � as strongly as I possibly can, that whenever there is any conflict of interests between the country and the untouchables, so far as I am concerned, the untouchables� interests will take precedence over the interests of the country. I am not going to support a tyrannising majority simply because it happens to speak in the name of the country."
Ambedkar�s fears about a "tyrannising majority" were the same as Jinnah�s. The concept of democratic governance may have also been unclear to them since their political instincts had been shaped by the long years under a "tyrannising" colonial rule and the rise and rise of a single party, the Congress, which unquestionably displayed authoritarian tendencies. But whatever the mitigating factors, the placement of the interests of his community above those of the country is not something which can be easily endorsed.
But what is distressing is that a new generation of Dalit leaders � self-appointed or otherwise � has revealed the same mindset because of their obsession with their community. True, there are other community-based parties in India, notably the Muslim League and the Akali Dal, as also caste-based parties like the RJD and the Samajwadi Party.
Then, there are parties like the BJP and the Shiv Sena which mainly represent a religious community, as well as parties like the two Dravida Kazhagams and the Telugu Desam which represent certain regions. But they are unlikely to take their problems abroad.
Aware that a democracy does not allow a "tyrannising majority," they are intent on battling their political adversaries within India and would be deeply embarrassed if any of their members sought help from a foreign power. Even among the Dalits, their topmost leaders like Mayawati, who likes to describe herself as a "living goddess," and Ram Vilas Paswan have kept their activities confined to India. Mayawati has also virtually disowned her party�s slogan quoted above, having realised that to make headway in a democracy, one cannot alienate anyone. But an even greater sin than sectarianism is to run abroad for help.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->