An Experience of Pain and Ignominy:

Sandip K. Dasverma E-mail : dasverma@yahoo.com

It was January 1977, in the city of Bhubaneswar, capital of Orissa. The gathering was one of the most elitist in India, the Indian Science Congress. Those were the waning years of Mrs. Gandhi’s Emergency Regime. Life was getting grudgingly normal. Mrs. Gandhi’s elite Gestapo, RAW, having reported opposition to her rule totally subjugated, she had relaxed. Many of the detainees had been released, except the hard core. Other than the Naxalites all the political forces were spent or appeared spent. The anger of the Indian people, unable to find leadership to express itself, was simmering underground like a volcano. On the surface everything looked quite calm, though not relaxed. Maybe, like the last days of Pompeii. The eruption was soon to bury Mrs. Gandhi and her lackeys for the next 2 years, till some stupid and opportunistic action by Charan Singh et al brought her back in power.

That evening I went to attend the seminar on Rural Development, presided over by one of India’s most famous scientists, Dr. Swaminathan. When I reached there, a little late. I found the seminar having started, and one very impressive lady speaking fervently holding forth on the problems of rural women of India. As I settled down and started listening to her impassioned speech I realized she was totally unaware of the rural realities, at least of Orissa. As I heard her more attentively I was convinced that the speaker, though a very learned person, did not really know her subject at all. She was haranguing about the unavailability of cooking gas, protected potable water, and basic needs of modern life for the 80% of Indians who lived in villages! If I had known who she was I would not have dared to go to the stage. But young and untamed at that time, I felt my hackles rising. I felt I must tell the people that this elite sampling of India and its thinking were a trap. Describing a rural India that did not exist, busy solving the problems which were imaginary. How could a person solve rural problems without knowing them? This was 10 years after the publication of the epochal research by Prof. Rath and Dandekar - “ Poverty in Rural India”.

So, with permission from Dr. Swaminathan, I gathered all my courage and went to the dais. This was the same place where 10,000 people were seated in the morning and Mrs. Gandhi had addressed them. My points were very simple. I minced no words, and they came from direct experience. I told the august audience that the previous expert was no expert at all. What rural women need in India was not any of the items that she spoke about. What they needed was potable water at an accessible distance. In other words, tube wells or even wells in the villages. Particularly, the Harijan quarters of the communities. Many of them walk 3 to 4 miles every morning to get potable water. This detracts from their economic activities, and keeps them perpetually poor. The biggest bang for the buck would be to provide accessible water to the rural folks. It will render the quality of their life much better.

There was an eerie silence as I left the dais, and a man passed me on his way to the dais. He introduced himself as a professor of Physics in the Bombay University. He said he was from the biggest district in India and the most backward in Maharastra State, the Chanda District. And, then to my surprise, he said, he fully and heartily agrees with me! Unfortunately, I have forgotten his name at this distance in time. But any one from Bombay would probably know him. Then he commended me for speaking out about the real situation. He emphatically repeated that what I had said was very true. I don’t know what triggered his emotions, but he slowly and surely recounted his own story. He said he had been a brilliant student, and in spite of his humble beginnings, his father taught him early that his ticket to success was to take advantage of free or almost free education in India. And he did. Then it happened.

He had topped the Bombay University’s Physics M. Sc. examination. Extremely happy, he started from Bombay for his village because the news would take inordinately long time to reach his family. His father did not buy a news paper. When he reached the railway station near his village, he got down and started walking, delighted and excited at the prospect of delivering and sharing this great news with his friends, family and relatives. He was imagining how it will light up their faces and will create a real festive occasion in those impoverished hamlets. In his excitement he forgot to take off his shoes when he passed by the houses of upper caste Hindus of his village. He off course knew the age old village custom that he was not to pass by the upper caste colony path wearing any shoes or chappals. But then, he had lived in Bombay for the last 6 years and was too excited to remember this. When he reached home and shared the news, his family was filled with joy. The whole Dalit community, on learning of it, came to his house and congratulated him, every one hugging and blessing him, and bringing whatever food they had for a community dinner in his honor.

About two hours later a crowd started moving in the direction of the Dalit colony. Soon it reached his house and someone called his father by name. When his father came out the crowd of about 100 people told him that they knew that his son came first in the Bombay University. But that was in the Mumbai, not in their village. He has grown so audacious as to walk in front of their houses, with shoes on? This blasphemy would not be tolerated. Else tomorrow when he got a job and can afford, he would drive his car in front of their houses. No way they could allow this behavior by a lowly Harijan. If he wanted his family to live in the village, he has to make penance. He must come back to the street where he walked with his shoes on and stand there with his shoes on his head in the midday sun, that day. However, he has an option. His father could substitute for him. If they didn’t comply, their house would be burnt and they would have to leave their village for ever. The Physics professor told the audience that he had no choice because they had done so to other families in their colony, earlier. He went through the painful ordeal and then the same night he left the village with his family for good. He could not have done otherwise because the only water source in the village was in the control of the upper castes.

I remember the whole audience was moved by this story but I believe nobody felt outraged enough to do anything to undo these wrongs. In fact the lady speaker, some years later, became the Chairman of India’s University Grants Commission, the agency that oversees the Universities of India, and doles out research and development grants. Reward for her good work as a scholar and policy-maker.

Today, they, the tormentors of the professor and his family, have a name: Ranvir Sena, in Bihar. In most parts of India they don’t have a name, but they exist, exploit and torment the poor Dalits, as in the above case. They have existed for ages, in comfort and assurance, as part of the “tolerant” Hindu society from the days of Shankaracharya when Buddhism was banished from India and Brahminism restored to its original glory. Or ignominy?