Of wolves, sheep and wolves in sheep's clothing: The secular liberal in the emerging Hindu Raj

I was, apparently, not the only one to be perplexed by Jagdish Bhagwati’s denouncement of the insecurity expressed by Christians in India. This widespread bemusement should not come as a surprise; after all, Bhagwati did expend three of the eleven paragraphs of his article protesting his fides. He assures us that despite the crude manner in which he dismisses the concerns of a community that has faced not merely arson attacks against its religious structures and institutions, but rape, desecration, and belligerent rhetoric, his arguments are not antagonistic, or communal, but secular, and rational. This is because he comes from a “from a family that is impressively pro-Indian-minorities”, some of his dearest friends are non-Hindu, and he himself earned his basic degrees from a Christian institution.

Many who read his offensive dismissal, and call for strict action, wondered if Bhagwati had lost his marbles. After all, did not the argument “I have many left handed friends, hence I speak for left-handed people”, or “I’m not Islamophobic! Some of my best friends are Muslim!” run out of credibility in the 70s? I would argue, however, that Bhagwati’s protestations are not the sign of a feeble mind, nor of a man out of step with contemporary reality, but rather a strikingly clear indication of a variety of political equations in contemporary India. In this response, I would like to highlight and protest against Bhagwati’s callous attitude, as well as point to the manner in which his position is in fact indicative of the manner in which Nehurvian secularism is being bridged with Modi’s Hindtuva regime.

What is striking about the first of Bhagwati’s reasons for his secular location is the fact that he has placed his familial connections up front and centre. However, this is not an average family; Bhagwati has gone through some pain to demonstrate that his friends and family are all either extremely powerful, highly qualified professionals, or come from dominant caste groups. While Bhagwati would prefer that we focus on the fact that all of these individuals hail from different religions I would rather point to the fact of their location within networks of privilege. Marriage between people from elite backgrounds, no matter what their caste, or confessional backgrounds is not necessarily a mark of secularism in contemporary India. It is primarily a mark of the desire to maintain privilege. Marital liaisons across sectarian differences are the hallmark of dynastic marriages across the world, whether ancien régime Europe, pre or early modern India.

The fact that he chooses to highlight these marital connections demonstrates facts about how power was wielded, as well as how secularism was understood, in Nehruvian India. Power was structured dynastically. This meant that while the Nehru-Gandhi presided at the top, the pyramid of power was structured by a variety of families in alliance and allegiance to this family, while these families maintained the structure of power downwards, from Delhi toward every federating region in India. As Bhagwati demonstrates, it was not necessary that these alliances be rooted in marriage alone. On the contrary, one could also establish familial friendships. These friendships were often engendered through education in Christian institutions which introduced these native elites to a more universal language of privilege embodied in Euro-American, i.e. ‘Western’, forms. To enter into the structures of power of Nehruvian India, one had to belong either via blood, or through participation in culture. The sad truth, however, is that access to this culture, was possible largely through belonging to existing structures of privilege, most often belonging to a dominant caste.

Bhagwati’s articulation also demonstrates that the locus of secularism in Nehruvian India was these educated and ‘cultured’ elites. It was their practices that were assumed to embody secularism. The question was not of the fact of the entire gamut of their practices, but a selective reading of some of their practices. These practices included the fact of their marriages across caste and religion, their gustatory practices where they ate food at the home of privileged friends from other confessional groups, but especially Ashraf Muslims, and the affective links with Christian institutions that gave them the veneer of being Christianised.

On reading earlier opinions on the state of secularism and fascist violence in India, many have inquired of me, why instead of making strident condemnations of Prime Minister Modi I choose to “attack” secular liberals, and Nehruvian secularism. The logic for this critique is revealed in Bhagwati’s article given how his statements demonstrate the continuum between the apparently secular liberal, and the outright Hindu nationalist. Reflecting on the practice of Indian secularism, Paul Brass observed that there were many similarities in the way secular nationalists and Hindu nationalists crafted an Indian history: “first, that Indian history has displayed a striving for unity of the subcontinent and its peoples that has persisted through time; second, that unity must never again be compromised; third, that unity is essential to achieve India's rightful place in the world as a great power; fourth, that any threat to that unity must be squashed by the utmost force, should any group be recalcitrant enough to resist. In all these respects, secular and Hindu nationalists agree, as they do on the great goal that inspires it, namely, that of transforming India into a great, modern state.” So many of the elements outlined by Brass are so obviously present in Bhagwati’s text, not least in his assertion that there is a need to “forcefully” expose the apparently false claims made by Julio Ribeiro, as well as his plea to the latter to “join those of us who would like to see religious harmony, not the religious discord that can only subtract from our humanity.” This “humanity”, if of course best captured in the slogan so dear to Nehruvian secularism “unity in diversity”.

Underneath its façade of unity in diversity practiced by groups of elite families, Nehruvian secularism hid the fact that upper-caste Hindu culture was the de facto logic of Indian-ness. As long as things were hunky dory the façade remained in place. No sooner was non-Hindu difference asserted than the fangs were bared, the assertions dismissed and Hindu supremacy asserted. In his interesting study of the Doon School, Sanjay Srivastava calls this politics “Hindu contextualism”. Srivastava explains that Indian nationalism resolved the religious question—at least at the Doon School— through “the establishment of a supra-context which was Hindu” i.e. upper-caste Hindu. It was only within this context of “hierarchised encompassment” that religious pluralism was allowed. This hierarchy is evidenced in the manner in which Bhagwati references non-Hindu religious groups in India, in the condescending terms of “another minority much loved in India”. Condescension, it must be remembered, is only capable from a location of privilege and power. What Bhagwati seems to not realise is that majorities and minorities do not exist normally, but are actively constituted.

This distinction of citizens into majority and minorities is the legacy of the anti-colonial nationalist movement, but the condescension that allows Bhagwati to reference Christians and Sikhs as much loved minorities is a legacy of Nehruvian secularism. This patronising position also enables Bhagwati’s dismissal of Christian concerns when he says “So, if there was anything to the Christian fears today, I should be the first to join the protests. But the truth is that these fears are totally groundless and are, at best, a product of a fevered imagination.” Not only does Bhagwati dismiss the concerns raised by Christian groups, he also displaces their right to air their concerns by claiming that they need not speak at all, since given his location, he can speak just as effectively for them. His statements are a demonstration of the practices of Nehruvian secularism that continue, though in more frightening proportions, into Modi Hindutva.

Bhagwati’s text goes on to demonstrate that problems that both secular nationalists and Hindu nationalists have with Christians in India, namely conversion. One icon for this problematic relation with Christians in India is Mother Theresa who is celebrated as long as she offers service to the Republic of Dominant Caste Indians, and reviled if she asserts her desire to attract people to Christianity. It must be underlined that conversion is a problem largely because Hinduism is imagined as the defining marker of Indian-ness, and conversion to a religion deemed foreign is seen as the colonization of consciousness and the route to denationalisation. But Bhagwati’s fear goes beyond an apparently harmless ideological desire to maintain Hindu culture as dominant. His is also a fear of numbers indicated so clearly when he says, “In fact, [Hinduism] being a religion that does not normally convert, only a minuscule number of Hindus will do this [convert] whereas a far higher proportion of Christians and Muslims will.” In other words, not only are we back to the poppycock of a non-aggressive Hinduism, but also the majoritarian fears that Hindus will be reduced to a minority if Muslim and Christian groups are allowed to persist with their right to conversion.

It needs to be emphasized that fear is not restricted to Bhagwati and the largely upper-caste members of the Hindu Right alone, but was shared by Gandhi as well. It was to ensure that a Hindu majority was produced that he insisted against the provisions of the Ramsay Macdonald Award in August 1932 that granted separate electorates to minorities in the dominion of India. To impose his will, Gandhi went on a hunger strike that forced Dr. Ambedkar to agree that Untouchables abandon the demand for a separate electorate and be included as Hindus. In other words, Gandhi was responsible for producing India as a Hindu majority state, against the wishes of the untouchables.

Bhagwati imagines his trump card is the argument that if conversion is allowed for Christians and Muslims it must be allowed to Hindus as well. No person committed to an egalitarian legal regime would have any disagreement with such a proposition. What he does not seem to recognise, is that the Indian state, does not provide, and indeed, has almost never provided, a level playing ground for the freedom of religion. Where Hindu nationalism and its associated form of Hinduism are the privileged ideology and religion one must recognise that if there is any coercion involved with conversion, it comes into play when persons are forced to convert to Hinduism. Failing any state support, it is difficult to imagine coercion when persons choose to align with Christianity, Islam or Buddhism. Indeed, conversions to these latter faith practices are signs of protest against the brahmanical order that the Indian state upholds. Any shift away from Hinduism is filled with the threat of statal and extra-statal violence.

Bhagwati’s article may demonstrate the problems with Nehurvian secularism, but his assertion at this point in time also highlights the continuing, and growing, problems with the Indian republic. Additionally it also focuses attention on the manner in which these groups and families who formerly pledged allegiance to the Nehru-Gandhi family are now coalescing around the Sangh Parivar. This shift of elite groups towards the BJP should be read as a matter of great concern, given that it demonstrates how consent is being manufactured for the deeply troubling acts of the BJP regime both at the Centre, as well as in states where they hold sway.

This response to Bhagwati would not be complete without one final argument. It would be wrong and irresponsible to suggest that there is no difference between Nehruvian secularism and Modi’s Hindutva regime. The former allowed for a modicum of participation to dominant caste elites among minority groups, and the exercise of power was veiled. In the case of the Modi led state all pretence has been dropped, and the space for non-Hindu elites is also shrinking. This was perhaps abundantly clear with Julio Ribeiro’s recent cry of anguish. While Ribeiro’s cry does capture the sense many Christians in India feel, as was recently pointed out, it should also be seen as a cry from the tribe of elite Christians who had pledged their life in service to the Indian state. That Bhagwati fails to read this demand for continued inclusion but brushes it off as mischievous says a lot about the climate in the country.

(A version of this post was first published in DNA India on 1 April 2015)

Gandhi and Hazare: Two peas in a pod?

Subsequent to Anna Hazare’s ‘endorsement’ of Narendra Modi, a number of persons, who formerly supported Hazare and his Gandhian method, found themselves angry and confused. They could not understand how Hazare, a Gandhian could make such an endorsement.

We should perhaps give thanks to Hazare for his entire intervention, right from his decision to fast unto death. It has allowed for a number of revelations about the peculiar nuances of the Indian political system. In particular it allows us a position from which we can evaluate Gandhi himself, and see him as a man, not as the god he has been converted into. Indeed, it is precisely because we have deified Gandhi, that we have ignored the problems that are a part of Gandhianism.

In his argument against Hazare’s fast, Pratap Bhanu Mehta argued that ‘The morality of fasting unto death for a political cause in a constitutional democracy has always been a tricky issue.’ He further argued that a fast to persuade the Government to adopt one’s own formula for institutional change was a rather perverse utilisation of this method and amounted to arm-twisting. Mehta however understates the problem. The morality of a fast to death has always been a tricky issue. Gandhi himself was aware of the problem, arguing that ‘A Satyagrahi should fast only as a last resort when all other avenues of redress have been explored and have failed.’ But Gandhi was not without his contradictions, and also used fasts to arm-twist people to meeting the goals he had set out for the ‘nation’.

Take for example Gandhi’s indefinite fast in the face of the Communal Award of 1932. The Communal Award was granted to ensure separate electorates and hence separate representation to the various minorities in the British Raj, including the Muslims, Sikhs, Anglo-Indians, and Dalits. Gandhi agreed with this award for most of these electorates but drew the line at a separate electorate for the Dalits. He would have none of it. Such a separation would threaten the unity of the ‘Hindu community’ he argued. Clearly, the Dalits, under the leadership of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, did not see themselves as Hindus and feared an eclipse of their interests by the ‘upper’ castes if not provided an electoral mechanism to safeguard these. When Ambedkar refused to give up on this assurance for Dalit interests, Gandhi began his indefinite fast. Sure enough, pressure mounted on Dr. Ambedkar, who realised that should Gandhi die as a result of the fast, Ambedkar and the Dalits would be held responsible for Gandhi’s death. Succumbing to the pressure, Ambedkar gave up his demand for separate electorates, agreeing to the provisions of the Poona Pact.

The use of the fast in this context was to effectively bully one’s way to success. It follows therefore, that when Hazare opted to fast unto death to get his way with the Jan Lokpal Bill, he was acting in Gandhi’s not so ethical foot-steps.

These same events that led to the Poona Pact, also point to the manner in which Gandhi, despite his much professed, and no doubt genuine, horror against ethnic violence, also worked to consolidate the construction of a homogenous Hindu community that would lead the Indian nation. Gandhi’s refusal to see Ambedkar’s rather valid point of a need for separate electorates was not surprising. Gandhi saw the end of the caste system not through the recognition and assertion of Dalit rights, but through the melting of ‘upper’ caste hearts against such atrocities. When Dalit activists today reject the Gandhian neologism ‘Harijans’ as condescending, they are rejecting Gandhi’s concept of a Hindu fold, where ‘upper’ castes were firmly seated at the top. Take for example as well, the terminology Gandhi used, such as ‘Ram Rajya’, a term deeply rooted in the Vaishnava tradition, to signify the political structure post-Independence. Gandhi was, we have to admit, rooted in an ‘upper’ caste Hindu vision of India.

As if this were not enough, we should also have a look at the manner in which a number of Gandhians, subsequent to the passing of the freedom struggle seem to have found their place within a distinctly saffron order of things. One does not have to look far. Within Goa itself, those who gained fame as Gandhians, were in fact bitterly opposed to the recognition of difference (in this case that of the additional recognition of the Roman script for Konkani) and insisted on the brahmanical script of Devanagari. Indian-ness to these Gandhians, was located in an ‘upper’ caste Hindu view of the subcontinent.

We should therefore once more not be surprised that Anna Hazare sat underneath an image of a ‘Bharath Matha’. Many groups in India have a problem with the depiction and deification of India as a Hindu goddess. Even more unfortunate was the fact that the depiction that Hazare sat underneath was to a remarkable extent the image of the RSS Bharath Matha. All that was missing was the Lion the RSS Matha leans against, and a replacement of the saffron flag with the Indian tricolour. If you were intimate with the RSS image however, you knew that the lady up there was the RSS Matha. Add to this the songs sung at the Hazare protest that were markedly Hindu and upper-caste, and anti-reservation in tone. . It is also no surprise that Hazare seemed able to make a distinction between Modi’s ‘governance’ and his ‘communalism’, for Gandhianism is infact strongly marked by the presence of ‘upper’ caste (largely Hindu) values and perspectives.

Hazare’s meet was marked also by the presence of Archbishop Vincent Concesso and Maulana Madani. This is not a mark of secularism, but a problematic entangling of faith and religion. Gandhi himself laid the foundations for this with the religious imagery he used, recognising people as members of religious groups with distinct religious interests. The Khilafat movement, which he used as a way to unite Muslims and Hindus against the British, is one pertinent example.

We should recognise then, that the Gandhian project, for all its contribution to the Indian freedom struggle, and global struggles (and these are many and substantial) is filled with contradictions. We need to recognise that Gandhi was actively deified by the national movement, a process that Gandhi played along with. This deification masks the fact that Gandhi contradicted his high moral codes, and periodically engaged in arm-twisting. After all, he was primarily a political leader. Secondly, his project, though not rabidly right-wing, was nevertheless imbued with shades of Hindu nationalism. When Anna Hazare then claims to be a Gandhian, we must recognise that the contradictions that we see in him are not contradictions that he personally brings, but part of the contradictions that were present even within Gandhi, often faithfully carried forward by contemporary Gandhians.

(A version first published in the Gomantak Times 27 April 2011)

Opening up or Ushering in?: The Panchayati Raj amendments, Activists, and Public participation

Over the 25th and the 26th of July I was in Pondicherry, to participate in a workshop around the theme of public consultation and citizen participation in urban governance. ‘Opening Up or Ushering In’ was the rather enigmatic name for the workshop that mystified most of the participants. It was only later that we got an inkling into this framing of the workshop. Given that public consultation and citizen participation that have become rather fashionable catchwords; are these processes being used to open up spaces for citizens to participate in the articulation of plans and projects in their cities and neighbourhoods, or usher in technocrats and their consultancies under the guise of public consultation and participation? You have to admit with me that the organizers were more than clever in their framing of the workshop title, as well as placing on the agenda, an interesting issue for debate.

I would like to reflect on this idea within the Goan context, returning in the process, to a theme that I have not taken up for some time, that of the frustrated moment of the Goan revolution. What has not ceased to amaze is the manner in which, despite constantly brandishing the issue of public participation and decentralization, most of the groups in the fray have been singularly unable to actually realize the objective. All of this despite the fact that the GBA, at that time the more powerful among these groups, held the trumps at a crucial moment in the struggle.

Trying to understand why they failed to seize the moment, two options emerged. One, because of the conviction by some of the more prominent Margao activists that decentralization was a bad thing, the average citizen would make a mess of the powers they were given. The second, because for the architects and urban planners involved in the movement, participation and consultation began and ended when they were ushered into the planning process. In their well-intentioned estimation, this was also participation and consultation, so at least they were taking the process somewhere. As the recent ‘stepping down’ of Edgar Rebeiro has shown us, this assumption was not just terribly naïve, but eventually impotent as well. Participation is not achieved until the entire body of citizenry is enabled to participate in planning. The question that needs to be seriously posed is if this association with the State executive, right from the time the GBA joined the Task Force, an association entirely outside of a legal process, was useful or not.

The reason for distinguishing between the two reasons stated above, is because I would like to distinguish between a conscious option to prevent genuine and large-scale participation (in the first case), and a misunderstanding as to what participation and consultation actually means. In the second case, the error is possibly unconscious, the result of a blinkered vision engendered by one’s professional training. It is a different matter that this professional training is rooted in the same fear of the ‘ignorant masses’ held by our Margao activists. When imbibed through education however, it gets internalized unconsciously. That these professionals belong to a class that in any case has a tendency against mass participation and towards a surprisingly firm belief in its own capacities does not help them in thinking out these biases that are educated into them.

To be sure, these biases have a longer history, as displayed in the history of the anti-colonial struggle in British-India. The early forms of the ‘national struggle’, in particular the demands of the liberals and Swarajists, was not for ‘freedom’. Whenever this potentially explosive term was used, it was in fact rather ambivalently articulated. Their aspiration was in fact for a greater ‘share’ in the governance of the country, as reflected in the demands for greater opportunities in participation in central and provincial legislatures and executive councils. There was no contemplation of universal participation for all Indians, the attempt was to only share the pie of governance with the white man. It was only later, in the event of the failed expectations of the Indian National Congress on most offers of constitutional ‘reforms’ that the discourse and practice got radicalized to lead to the situation of a robust non-cooperation against the British Raj. Popular support was garnered through the eventually unrealized promise to the unwashed masses of their having a say in the future, in matters of governance.

What we must not forget is that there existed right from the very beginning a tension between the freedom struggle led by Gandhi, to whom we can trace this liberative notion of local self governance, and the representative ‘consultative’ democracy that eventually triumphed. This latter form took for its inspiration the structures of the colonial State, and this is why today, we experience nothing less than a colonial violence, as demonstrated by the recent changes effected to the Goa Panchayati Raj Act by the representatives in the legislative house. The fight in Goa, for greater transparency and more participation in governance is in fact a continuation of this unresolved fight against colonialism, and one can see uncanny resemblances. The State apparatus in Goa is that inherited from the Raj, the GBA-mobilization was led by elites for whom sharing of power is sufficient.

It now looks as if this earlier history from British-India is repeating itself. The failed expectations of the leadership of the GBA are prompting queries if we should not now push forward into more radical measures against the Government. As suggested on numerous occasions, that may not be such a bad idea. However, this radical action CANNOT be the goal of the movement. Any action (radical or otherwise) has to necessarily acknowledge that the goal of the movement is nothing less than a legally recognized system of meaningful consultation with the citizens in their wards, and an effective system of participation in village-level and city-level meetings. It is because of our longer history, where colonial institutions and logics have prevailed over the genuinely participatory logics that we have to make sure that in the next mobilization that seems to be imminent, we ensure that the lessons from the history of both the Indian anti-colonial struggle (popularly called the freedom struggle) and the ‘Save Goa’ campaign are not forgotten.

What we need is an opening up, not an ushering in.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 12 Aug 2009)

Taking Caste Seriously: Why the Goan Fitna needs a rigorous caste-based analysis

Subsequent to the conclusion of the public meeting held on the 13th of March at the Clube National against the Ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act, a little group gathered to catch up with each other and throw around a few ideas. In the midst of this camaraderie, one of the colleagues, no doubt charged with emotion after the meeting, proposed a route to mobilizing against the Ordinance. “Why don’t we mobilize on the basis of caste” she said. “The situation on hand is clearly about caste” she continued. “The Ordinance benefits hotels (Marriot and Cidade) owned by the Saraswats, while on the other hand the fisherfolk loosing their homes to the CRZ, the village groups to mining are all clearly from ‘lower’ caste backgrounds.” If there was any levity in the group it all melted away with that statement. They looked at her in shocked silence for a while, and then threw up their hands! “Oh no! We don’t believe in caste! We can’t do that!”

Now I don’t as yet want to explore the possibilities as to whether there is in fact a Saraswat versus the rest divide in our society that is at the root of the troubles that Goa is facing. What I would like to take up however is the response of the group to this suggestion. “We don’t believe in caste” and therefore we cannot mobilize on the basis of caste. One very often runs into this sort of response, especially when it is so clearly evident that the battles that are being fought are in fact being fought by ‘lower caste’ groups struggling for recognition, livelihood or access to justice. The very simple question that I would like to ask these touch-me-nots therefore is the following. Does the acknowledgement of racial discrimination make us racist?

It shouldn’t be difficult for Indians to answer this question. Most Indians who have gone abroad, and more recently almost any Indian, after such fiascos as Harbhajan’s “Teri maa ki/ you monkey’ escapade, will vociferously claim that they are racially discriminated against by white people. If they then recognize that they are being racially discriminated against, does this now mean that all of us Indians are racist? Clearly not! If therefore we can admit the fact that the mere recognition of discrimination on the basis of race does not make us racist; then similarly the recognition of discrimination on the basis of caste does not make us casteist. To what then can we attribute our hesitation to discuss caste based discrimination?


In 1932 in the course of the Second Round Table, Dr. Ambedkar raised the issue of separate electorates for the Untouchables. The concept of separate electorates had already been extended to other minority groups, including the Sikhs and the Muslims. Gandhi however would have none of this. Arguing that this would result in the disintegration of the Hindu community, he took to his favourite method of protest, the fast. As his health worsened, Ambedkar was forced to give up his demand for separate electorates and settled for reservations, while the Untouchables were included, against their will, into a combined Hindu electorate.

I raise this fact of history to argue that the suppression of caste questions has been a fundamental feature of Indian political mobilization, especially that of the national struggle. The issue of caste-based discrimination was just not seen to be as important as that of the larger objectives of independence. Since the questions of upper-caste dominance were not effectively addressed prior to Independence, the departure of the British resulted in the upper-caste dominance of the country that we are witness to today.

It is my belief, that no issue of justice in this country can be effectively addressed, unless we also seriously address the issue of caste-based discrimination. Our failure to do so is ultimately based on our own membership within dominant caste groups that benefit from the status-quo that result from not addressing caste-based inequalities. Our discomfort with discussing the inequalities born of caste is not because we don’t believe in caste. On the contrary, it is because we know that once we open that Pandora’s box, the benefits that have accrued to us, and not to others will become so blatantly obvious.

We may not believe in caste, and yet we practice it on a daily basis, through the minor inflections of our speech, by how seriously we take people, by what we consider beautiful and what ugly. We practice caste-based discrimination when we recognize that some people have fallen on bad times, and other people are just poor, when we recognize some people as coming from ‘old families’ and others as having ‘no culture’.

Taking caste seriously would allow us to rupture the communal divides of Catholic, Muslim and Hindu along which we tend to break society down into. Inquire into caste, and you will see how groups mobilize not necessarily across religious lines, but definitely along caste lines. When they do mobilize along religious lines, it would be interesting to see whose interests are being served by this mobilization. Is it merely that of the upper-caste groups within the religious fold, or is it the interests of all of the caste-groups? Surprisingly, it is an emphasis on caste in such states as Bihar that has curbed the growth of both Hindutva, as well as Muslim fundamentalism. It is in light of these arguments that I am personally convinced that an emphasis on caste would in fact help the ongoing Goan upheaval (fitna) take up the essential justice questions that must be addressed if the so-called ‘Goan negativity’ has to end.

Having said so, there is a need for us to subsequently articulate the learning from caste-based analysis sensitively. Our caste locations provide us with a predilection for certain positions. These positions may not be shared by all persons, based on their own caste locations. It is true that not everyone within a dominant caste will give up their unequal privileges without a fight. However there will be those from such a caste, who will see the point, and lend support to the fight for equality. To argue that one’s mere location in a caste makes one anti-egalitarian is to fall right back into the casteist trap. Thus what one will eventually fight are the monsters of Brahmanism, rather than Brahmins themselves. Having said this however, alliances need to necessarily be forged among the Dalit groups in the Goa. There is really no alternative before us. Such an alliance will help us curb the evils that Brahmanism has bred in our State and country; that of Hindutva, the accompanying ills of minority (Muslim, Sikh, Christian) fundamentalisms in the country, as well as the orgy of consumerism that is pushing many in this country and also in Goa, into the arms of a slow, shameful and miserable death.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 17 March 2009)