Sanskritization, Anglicisation or Modernisation

I read the riddle number 1. Fortunately its available online. Itessentially means that it is difficult to define what a hindu is. Itmade me very happy that its easy to define buddhism (whatever is inpali canon of Theravada). But it did not help me understand, why abuddhist leader should not participate in a non-buddhist publicfunction conducted by his non-buddhist followers. Please send mecontact details of Mr Raja Dhale. I am eager to meet someone whom youregard as an expert in Ambedkarism and Buddhism.I have studied Anthropology. I got around 220/400 in the IAS mains init, which is considered high. I also own a many books inAnthropology, with a focus on caste related topics, collected overthe last 15 years. More over MN Srinivas worked at NIAS, which was inIISc Campus in 1995. I met him there in 1995 and argued with himabout sanskritization. I am thorough with the key concepts relevantto analysis of caste, including sanskritization.The concept of sanskritization implies that all dalits want tosanskritize and hence demeans them. MNS replied that he was reportingthings as they were and not as they should be. MNS's definitive workon sanskritization seemed to allow dalits only sanskritization andanglicization as means of upward social mobility.Sanskritization is what "dalits" do. Sanskritization by dalits doesnot change hinduism, beyond adding one "myth", at best. Theassimilative efforts that I spoke about are efforts of hinduism tomodify itself. I did not invent the idea that hinduism modifieditself to incorporate buddhist elements. Much of dalit literaturesays the same thing.Anthropological literature also talks about modernization as one moremeans of upward social mobility. It is different from Sanskritizationand Anglicization. I have already explained Sanskrization as I haveread ( an attempt to become like "Them-hindus"). Anglicization, asdefined in the literature is "killing ones past/tradition" and takingon a totally unrelated "English" (typically) life style andtradition. This means changing food habits, clothing, language, etcto become like "Them-english". In this context, Anthropologicalliterature defines "Modernization" as selecting/interpreting fromones own past and (in result) creating a present (and thereby) afuture, which ensures continuity and change. This ensuresrejevunation of traditions as well as ensures their cleanup such thatthey are not in conflict with the day to day realities (at thought,speech, action levels) of the present. Essentially Modernization isan attempt to retain ones identity (and also clean it up).To me Ambedkari Buddhism is an attempt to modernize us, the dalits.Dr. Ambedkars book essentially "modernized" buddhism by changing itsfocus from a liberator of individuals to a liberator of communities.World buddhism now has a new category of buddhist people (in andoutside India) who follow "engaged buddhism", a buddhism, which isengaged in social upliftment.

Struggle for identity: case of tribals

 

The struggle for identity of a minority is linked to the economics ofthe society that the minority is part of. It is now possible to havea purely tribal government in power over the Jharkhand area. Comingto power is the key to changing the economic structure of the societyin the Jharkhand area. Once tribals come to power, they can safeguard their identities...irrespective of the BJPs of the world.Tribals from/in Jharkhand know their problems better thananyone else. The ideology and strategy for the political quest of thetribals should ideally germinate out of the pains and problems of thetribals themselves. Only then it will have the emotional pullrequired to bring the tribals to power.

Dalit intellectuals and ideology

I observe that most Dalit intellectuals have a fixation with thepast. At best, I have seen people analysing present trends andexplaining them. I have hardly seen any relevant crystal gazing andagenda creation.As per Ambedkar (who thought far ahead of even Gramsci), ideologyformation was not relegated to intellectuals. He wanted everyone(including the last man in the queue) to educate himself ( understandthe surrounding reality) and then modify it through organisedagitation.Given that Ambedkars vision was conceived in the Nehruvian era and hedid not have enough time to detail it, it befalls us to evolve andelaborate a more detailed vision as a guideline to action. The Bhopaldeclaration and a few other similar international attempts are theonly ones that merit attention.In the absence of such action plans, the emphasis on symbolicvictories (Marathwada univ. et al) and ritualistic defiances ofbrahmanic hegemony (memorial burning of the irrelevant manusmruti)prevails. Given that Ambedkars constitution exists, manusmriti (theold constitution) is less relevant to our common future.I have read Dr. Teltumbde's analysis of relevance of Globalization toDalits. Perhaps I did not understand it adequately. But I found itjingoistic and presumptive. Nevertheless I long for similar stuff. Wehave to start somewhere. Maybe such fora exist. I wish to participatein them. Can the elders on this list assemble a list of requiredreading for people like me?We have to be able to defend ourselves in the mainstream in theirlanguage. In the academic journals and in the chat shows and in theTV serials...

Dalits - Injustice and Anger

Dalits have been wronged for centuries by Bharat. Therefore it is hardly surprising if current dalits like me have a vehement anger against this past (and measurably current injustice) in Indian social life. Caste is not vestigeal yet, it is still a living reality with a substantial hold on the minds and affairs of Indians, inside and outside India.

The horror of making unequals out of equals happened in Bharat. India has corrected this on paper in the constitution, but the concomitant change at social, economic and political level has not happened yet in measurable manner. When I ask for 5 things in Bharat that dalits can reasonably be proud of, I get no answer. When I ask for 5 public dalits at senior levels in corporate private sector India, I do not get answers. The latter reflects the reality that either there are no dalits at senior levels in corporate private sector in India, or they have to hide their identities to stay there, both of which imply that substantial change in social norms and values is yet to happen.

In the face of injustice, one can blame oneself and be quiet, like dalits did for multiple generations resulting in others blaming them resulting in a vicious circle which degraded the self-esteem of dalits and their esteem in the eyes of others. This has happened over generations and is visible even today. As the shackles of manuvad are finally broken, dalits feeling angry about injustice is a very positive emotion - they are breaking out of the vicious circle of low-esteem. It is a sign that things are improving. Of course anger which is not actualised into respective action leading to an improvement in the angry person, his surroundings, his relationships with other people is likely to lead to frustration and despair. The rising anger needs channels to meaningfully confront social norms and values, so that the latter can change, triggering large and stable social change, that is needed for India to move ahead. It is only when both parties feel "I am ok, you are ok", that they can together say "now, lets move on". Till one party genuinely feels that there is still a lot that is "not ok" with the other party, exhortations to move on are insensitive and presumptive at the least and insulting at the worst.

Forcibly erasing the anger that dalits like me feel is not possible. Social coercion on people like me to adjust to the anger at a personal level, since it is burning me sounds like good advice from well meaning friends. But "maziya sathi na maza petnya cha sohala" - a la Suresh Bhat. Burning in righteous anger (because it is against injustice) is purifying and enriching - making me virtuous. I burn so that there is light so that those close to me can see the data I show and purge their lives and circles of the vice of caste. It is the unwillingness of my so-called friends that bugs me. I am happy to be "atta deep bhav" (be an lamp of virtue to myself) or even be an island to myself. Being in a majority of one (in terms of truth and virtue) is more acceptable to me than to be in the company of huge number of so-called friends who are not understanding of truth and virtue. I am better off alone focused on my personal life on the task I have chosen for my life. No one knows whether I will succeed in my task and whether it will make a difference. But that does not bother me. I will plod on.

My School Prayer

Satya hi Jeevan Hai
Satya Hamara Dhyey Hai
Satya hai marg dhyanka
Satya hai marg gyanka
Satya me sukh aur shanti
Satya hi Jeevan hai

Hum Vidyarthi hain
Satya pe chalnewale
Satya hi marg bhaktika
Satya hi marg shaktika
Sabka satya hai sathi
Satya hi Jeevan hai

Satya pe chalna hai
Sabse yahi kahana hai
Mukti mile satyase
Sada amar ho satyase
Fatima ka...hai ye sandesh
Satya hi Jeevan hai

Humanity is digging its own hole.

Humanity (through government, public and private sectors) is making wrong developmental choices on behalf of living beings by only using financial value-add as a measure to compare between alterative ends. Such choices theoretically ought to get made based on the maximum longer term financial and non-financial value-add to the maximum number of living beings(through long term impact on living beings, their surroundings and their relationships).

Unfortunately these decisions get made more on the basis of short term tangible impact of the choice on the (sometimes sub-group of) local people, their relationships and their surroundings.

The foolish criteria of "cost of financial capital", which is used to guide investment decision making is hopelessly inadequate due to its miserable short termism and subvertibility. This measure focused only hides the selfishness in the intangible (non-financial at decision time, but strategic and financially relevant in the long term) impacts of investment decisions on living beings.

The capitalism of Adam Smith, which posits that self-interest constitutes a method of social organisation, around the current means of investment for production and the subsequent distribution of the needs of humanity is a bit flawed. Till all humans correctly understand their enlightened self-interest, Adam Smith's capitalism is vulnerable to subservsion by empire-building ignorant humans and groups of humans, who do not understand how their ignorance causes their own misery and that of the rest of humanity.

Potential solution

Trusting unenlightened humans or groups of human (without adequate education and training and sensitivity) with making choices for the best interests of humanity is dangerous. Putting too much trust in systems and procedures to guard against the risk is not the solution. Unless financial cost of capital is supplemented by adequate social and environmental cost benefit criteria at all levels of decision making, humanity is systematically digging its own hole by making seemingly good choices, which if reflected adequately may be poor choices.



There is a need to raise the purity of intentions, skill of implementing

intentions and knowledge of how actions compare in purity and skill at all

points of time.

IPR, Slavery, Emerging Value Chains

I think that way humanity defines and manages the institution of property is part of the problem and hence part of the solution.

If humans were to correctly define, separate and manage the personal from the non-personal, then many problems would go away.

The thought, speech, actions of humans impact the non-personal and the personal. The impact on the personal is change in mental and physical habits. The impact on the non-personal depends on the overall impact of all actions of individuals on humanity and environment. The impact on humanity manifests in social habits, economic habits and political habits, while the impact on environment manifests in weather and climate change.

The right way of defining personal as separate from non-personal is ensure that the group decision processes ensuer that each personal choice has the possibility of influencing the final non-personal outcome fairly. If the social, economic, political institutions through which humanity or its sub-groups make multi-level pipelined decisions resulting in the final outcome are not compliant with the values of equality, fraternity, liberty and justice, then the outcomes may be more favorable to fixed sub-groups than others. This constitutes structural barriers to the simultaneous freedom of all humans and must be dismantled. Affirmative actions to compensate for past structural unfairness, also becomes easy to understand and justify this way as needed to dismantle the structural barriers.

On an average, when the "number of levels" and "time length of pipeline" increases, structural barriers for viewpoints of subgroups of humans to propagate in pipeline creep in quickly. Whenever such a situation arises, the right way to solve the problem is to first see it clearly by seeing data for ALL the levels simultaneously to detect the location of the problem clearly. Once the problem is clearly seen, it is easy to solve by removing the barriers to smooth flow.

Based on the above and based on my own experience, I am certain that humanity is digging a hole. The creativity of hungry and naked people can be bought cheap and sold dear using IPR as a tool of exploitation. The situation whereby cheap Indian labor is overworked in poor working conditions on notional T&M basis, where the intermediaries keep telling them that their IPR is useless and worthless to force cheap sale of IPR and/or free value-add to T&M services (by "some silly offshore back-office native kid" desperate to make a mark and rise in local "hierarchies") is no different from the slavery described by Eric Williams (in Capitalism and Slavery).

But coming from poor, hungry and powerless dalit India, having been through this whole chain and having seen it all, I now see new chains being setup, which will enable the creative labor of dalit India to reach western markets without passing through non-dalit intermediaries, whose value chains too have no place for dalits, under some silly reason which they shout hoarsely, calling as merit.

Exposing Manuvadi Fraud Logic Against Reservations

My position on reservations for MBC (the lower-castes among OBCs) is similar to my position on dalits. Reservations are meant to address long term problems of dalits and MBCs because long term solutions alone are possible to these problems. Short term solutions are neither cost-effective, nor stable solutions to their large scale and scope structural problems. So just because a particular politician tried to make short term political capital by scheduling the announcement close to elections in 3 states, that
does not change this fact and does not raise any doubt in the minds of dalits and OBCs. Nevertheless it does seem correct to criticise the timing of the announcements.

An industry which has merely sat on its haunches on for so long without doing anything for dalits and MBCs will do nothing for them, unless there is a financial incentive to do and/or a financial dis-ncentive to not do. The owners/manager of private sector firms cannot be relied on at all in this regard, because they use the support of the state seek to prevent implementation of the goals of our state. If they do not yield to voluntary/mandatory affirmative actions, dalits and MBCs may need to force nationalisation of such manuvadi firms, through putting political pressure applied through elections.

India needs to take a stand. Growth without social justice increases social injustice against those kept away from the growth. This cruelty must stop immediately.

It is utter nonsense to say that foreign capital/firms will move away due to reservations. The truth is that if Indian industry is able to leverage the cheap human capital of 300 million dalits, the business case of Indias outsourcing revolution and general sustainable competitiveness can only improve. Far from reducing quality, voluntary affirmative actions without compromise on quality will further increase the perception that India provided best value by providing excellent quality at cheapest prices for a much much longer time. India should not allow entrepreneurs to make profits while destroying longer term profitability.

On the contrary if India does not harness the creative capabilities of dalits through supporting affirmative actions, not only will the cheap human capital advantage fueling Indias competitive advantage sputter and die, Indian industry would have lost the first real opportunity since Independence to REALLY solve the problems of economic and social inequalities without having to take from peter to pay paul in REAL ECONOMIC terms. The reason for this will be that the wealth re-distributed to dalits will be come more from the economic growth, than from the prior wealth of non-dalits.

The essential problem seems to lie with the poor quality of decision making by manuvadi financiers who are in control of India along with entrepreneurs, who are trying to merely make quick bucks at stock markets, but destroying long term value in the process. Clearly manuvadi Idiots who run Indias
financial institutions need to read the Mckinsey article which explains all this clearly. They are stealing from the nations future to line their pockets in the present.

Impleenting reservations for dalits properly is the only way to prevent frittering away of Indias sustainable competitive advantage in the Global economy. The dalits who become productive economic agents through education, employment, enteprise will save the money to invest in the development of
dalits. If dalits are not made productive through reservations in this way, non-dalits will need to continue to fund the investments to enable dalits to escape their enforce low-value-adding economic lives into more productive value-adding-creating lives.

India needs reservations.

We need to dump the manuvadis into the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal as appropriate and get on with implementing reservations fully. After all democracy values representativeness higher than efficiency in the functioning of its instititions for obvious economic reasons, elaborated above. And markets and related freedom of choice will ensure that the minimum standards remain high in all these institutions.

I just don't understand what the hoopla is about

Of course you will notice that I have left the argument about improving our civic and social values as a nation totally. The economic argument of sustainable development of Indias competitive advantages itself is enough to expose the manuvadi fraud logic against reservations.

Give Dalit Merit A Chance

The inappropriate allocations by the allocative forces in the Indian economy (planning commission, government executives, private sector management, private sector fund managers) are sure to be less profitable uses of Indian (and foreign money) given the evidence described in following link.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20060421005000400.htm

The reason such inappropriate allocations happen is because those in allocative roles of funds to competing uses are either not aware of or do not care about or even worse are incapable of making allocations which will be win-win for different communities, society and the environment.

The spurious "merit" of the idiots who have been allocating Indian and foreign capital to its multifarious uses in India need to be exposed as merely being a selfish cover for a 50 year conspiracy to earn unfairly high returns for the capital owned/controlled by non-dalits.

The non-dalit oligopoly which controls the allocations of Indian capital to its uses in government, public and private sector needs to be dismantled. A body truely representing the interests of the WHOLE of Indian needs to replace them.

Down with "merit", up with "dalit". Let "the elite" win.

The incompetent people who have ruled India for 50 years with only marginal change in the situation of dalits should not be allowed to rule India by merely claiming to be meritorious, when their merit just does not show.

Give true dalit merit a chance

Should there be reservations in tertiary education?

India has democracy and markets. This means that state is not merely
responsible for primary and secondary education, which the constitution
explicitly exhorts it to, but also for “equality of opportunity” in tertiary
education, employment and enterprise and generally in social life.
Presumably those who keep repeating the above argument imply that markets
can be trusted (without state intervention) to provide “equality of
opportunity”. But data shows that this is not the case. One wonders then,
what is the basis of the argument at all? Markets are embedded in societies
and merely perpetuate the omnipresent casteism exactly because of the nature
of distribution of capital and the prejudices/ignorance/entry-barriers of
capital. Else how can the human capital of 300 million dalits stay
under-priced in the global labor market over such a long horizon? If state
does not fulfil its above responsibility of providing equality of
opportunity, presumably elections are the way that the polity uses to
enforce its will on the state. Since too little dalits are able to use the
facilities provided in tertiary education, employment, enterprise et al,
presumably the remaining dalits should vote against these reservations and
in favour of the primary and secondary education. But this is not happening.
The dalit vote is not divided on this matter. Please correct me if I am
wrong. The reason for this is simple. The facilities for tertiary education,
employment, enterprise are like a window of opportunity from which dalits
expect a lot. They know that Indian society is hypocritical and will not
politically support the large scale radical reform in educational system,
enabling politicians keep giving multiple excuses while making token noises
and doing nothing in practice. But the community hopes that the
beneficiaries of the facilities of education, employment and enterprise will
expand the window further and further (not by expanding reservations, but by
feeding-back investment into dalit development), till the wall containing
the window itself crashes and all dalits can get out of the prison of
hand-to-mouth existence that they have been locked into for generations.



I have no conclusive argument to offer on the tenability of reservations
policy for OBCs, but I am firmly of the belief that the case for
reservations for dalits remains water-tight. The clear visibility and
measurability of reservations enables them to be a better measure of state
activity than the fuzzy “large scale and large scope focus” on primary and
secondary education – a project whose cost and viability lies undefined and
whose execution requires much larger effort than anyone has cared to
describe. Even the much shouted and touted project of building a ring of
highways is better defined than this much-much more mega project, no details
of which are available. But such token speak suffices for those whose kith
and kin do not suffer. The rest of us prefer the tangible security of
measurable and visible devices like reservations.



Finally reams of media arguments mean nothing in front of democratic opinion
in theory and in practice. Social values represented by media are hostage to
the elites in all societies. In democracy there-fore their social value
positions deserve no higher priority than the social values expressed by
democratic opinion. So in summary…I just don’t get what is the hoopla is
exactly about when you ask whether this is the kind of India we want. Let us
ask the polity what kind of civic society we want. People are not idiots in
the long run. Your fears are unfounded. Stop taking those outside the media
and those whose opinions are explicitly ignored by public media as idiots.
We have a democracy here. What is happening is just that the masks are all
coming off. Trust democracy and hold tight as India starts accelerating
towards actually becoming a democracy.

Dalits and Development

Eric Williams book (Capitalism and slavery) describes how low productivity levels are associated with slavery.

Labor productivity figures in Indian manufacturing are chronically lower than many other countries. Could the chronically low labor productivity of Indian labor be related to the caste-system because like slavery it restricts upward social mobility and hence the marginal utility of incremental labor units? In this context, will it be correct and/or accurate to use the difference between productivity of Indian labor and average productivity of non-Indian labor to the cost-drag caused by the caste system on the Indian economy?

In Eric Williams book, he also says that as technology changes the productivity figures and hence social pattern of production, social values and hence laws/policy-regimes change.

With liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, Indian manufacturing has grown its labor productivity using technology and needs less labor units to create the same level of output. The social pattern of production changed in both the manufacturing and services sectors to favor labor with a higher level of skills.

Due to the prior inequitous ownership of property and hand-to-mouth existences preventing surplus tradeable/investible value from labor, dalit castes have traditionally not been able to educate/skill themselves for higher skilled employment and/or fund productive enterprises as much as non-dalits were able to. The caste system created structural barriers for dalits to enter educational institutions, enter gainful employment and start productive enterprises and prevented the development of dalits in education, employment and enterprise. In fact the caste system prevent protection of even the human rights of dalits. Development remained a distant dream.

With LPG, the Indian economy has seen a lot of growth. But this growth has not trickled down to dalits due to the structural barriers mentioned above, which prevent dalits from increasing the surplus value from their labor units and trading/investing this surplus value to improve their skills, get gainful employment, create productive enterprises and eventually improve their quality of life, health and property.

On the contrary, LPG has increased the level of skills required to compete and reduced the number of labor units required thereby driving down the value of the cumulative labor units of dalits to abysmal levels. In the absence of a social security system to fund the lives of dalits who have been made redundant and/or the non-implementation of minimum wage regulations for those who have to accept lower wages due to increased competition for the reduced labor units, the conditions of dalits are worsening even while the Indian economy is growing.

Yet over the last 50 years, due to reservations a small group of dalitshas managed to improve their skills, get gainful employment and has setup productive enterprises. Due to the emergence of this category, the cumulative surplus value of the dalit labor and dalit capital has begun rising. Many of these dalits are directly and indirectly contributing to the growth of the surplus value of the labor of similar other dalits by investing in their development by launching schools, launching enterprises and employing dalits. Since the number of such dalits is very low, it is neccessary to retain the reservation policy which helps in growing the number of such people. In addition to this enabling these dalits to improve the surplus value of their labor and capital through high-end-education and training and through encouraging them differentially to launch productive enterprises focused on speeding up the process of dalit development (schools, colleges, placement agencies, dealerships, sales agencies, D2D product/services like marriage bureaus, investment bureaus, co-operatives, banks, etc) with state support in financing and preferential procurement will go a long way in leveraging the investments made by India in creating a pool of well educated and well trained dalits through the reservations policy.

This approach is justifiable because non-dalit entrepreneurs are less equipped to understand the credit risks, the product/service preferences and the cultural uniqueness of dalit customers and more important may not invest their profits in the development of dalits. So dalit entrepreneurs should be protected from non-dalit entrepreneurs who enjoy advantages in terms of capital, experience social networks in operating such business and may use these to displace dalit entrepreneurs. The nature of protection can be like the protection given by India to the Bombay club entrepreneurs against foreign entrepreneurs. This protection can be reviewed and dismantled later.

This seems to be the only comprehensive way of developing dalits without needing massive outlay of money at one shot. It is time to adapt the policy-regime to facilitate development of dalits in this way in the changed social pattern of production, which provides higher return to knowledge/skill than to manual/mechanical labor or to capital

Economic Analysis of Caste - A beginning

Caste systems effectively reserve high-value jobs/businesses for a privileged elite by preventing equal access to education, training, finance, ownership/operation of land/assets, fair-markets and/or not building mechanisms to redress the effects of past unequal access.

Typically the high value jobs/businesses will include those providing high return, low risk, prestige etc in direct or indirect ways and the lower value jobs/businesses will be those with lower return, higher risk and lower prestige.

Presently and in the future, the high value jobs/businesses are less organised around economic capital and more around human (intellectual, social and spiritual) capital. This is the reason for the prevalence of "caste" in modern societies everywhere in newer forms.

Typically the effect of the past lack of equal access is the relative imbalance of capital (social, economic, political, intellectual and even spiritual) between the privileged elite and the underprivileged "dalits".

Untouchability is an extreme form of caste whose economic sub-optimality is immediately obvious from the two-tumbler example. Extending that example, I really wonder why there is so little analysis of the annual cost-drag due to caste on the Indian economy. The subtleness of similarity with aparthied cannot be the only reason. I see the caste of those who allocated funds in India to competing priorities at macroeconomic levels as the reason for continuance of caste. The caste of Indian economists too prevented them from asking appropriate relevant questions with adequate force and evidence.

Allocating lower funds towards education of the underprivileged dalits and or ensuring that prevention from getting the best educations by non-economic means (manus-smriti equivalents) is the primary tool for sustaining caste.

This is why Dr. Ambedkars first message was "EDUCATE". Of course the education was not merely limited to vocational and "classics- centric" education, but also a "social education" - overall creation of the "right view" in buddhist tradition - indoctrination if you like. But education by itself is inadequate to remove the stranglehold on the caste system which "allocates" individuals to their "allocative" roles and to those roles which study and propose the best basis for "allocation". So he has suggested "organisation"
and "agitation" as the tools within the democratic framework to radically transform the system. There is an important secret to the "organise" word, which is reflected in a whole group of lower castes now forgetting their internal differences en-route to higher levels of aggregations of castes, finally eliminating the very system of caste itself. At each such level of organisation, there is a agitation (within democratic framework) against the proponents of caste who seek to retain caste.



 

Social discrimination in capitalism

Both, capitalism and socialism are vulnerable to social discrimination, but the operating mechanism differs. Under market economies, I have noticed that the following

1. Inefficient Markets

In inequal economies, discrimination operates through demand and supply. Essentially sellers from discriminated communities get bad pricing for their products/services. Their products/services are bought by the "market", if similar products/services are not available at good price or volume through vendors from other communities. Of course, in extreme cases in India, markets themselves can be segmented, since customers themselves are segmented. In fact, parallel economies can exist in some regions with inter-linkages controlled by the non-discriminated communities.

2. Supply chain discrimination

Supply chain units closer to the markets are hard to discriminate against, if markets are efficient. But for those further down the supply chain, dog-in-the-manger type approaches by those ahead of them in the supply chain are not uncommon. Another technique is to take innovation value and create competition through tying up with other suppliers from own community. These new suppliers are then given the the knowledge taken/stolen from the discriminated community. This is espescially true in those business areas, where the intellectual property rights are more important then the non-intellectual property rights in the generation of business value through some product/service.

3. Labour market discrimination

Labour market discrimination is too common and is reasonably well understood. Essentially those without recourse are exploited by paying them less and giving them poor working conditions by threatening them with changes in production technique and/or usage of labour from cheaper areas. Of course paying, promoting, rewarding differentially for same work is also very common.

4. Capital market discrimination

While the essential theme remains same. Access to capital still remains the source of all ills. One would expect that capital would always flow to those people, who can use it better. This is true, if such people are aware and active. But subjugated and exploited communities are structually unable to separate selves from their day to day realities and take on the risk of gestation periods in positive NPV projects. So they end up selling their thoughts, words and actions to enable their selves to survive. In fact they tend to lose shame and prefer to stay entombed in their miseries, since their histories have taught them that resistance is futile. They lose moral strength and "karma-rebirth" theory also encourages passive learned helplessness and ritual action. It is only by increasing their moral strengths, that they might be able to start with small enterprises initially. Dhamma is one tool to stop the learned helplessness and increase self-reliance.

In each of the above, the pre-existing social networks of the involved individuals is a key factor. The exact nature of a node and the exact nature of the relationship between two nodes may vary.

If political, economic and social democracy are viewed through the lens of such a social network analysis, it is easy to understand why "political democracy is a farce without social and economic democracy".

Manifesto of a common Ambedkarite

I see pain n misery

exploitation sustainin treasury
My means are pure, my end is pure
Of my success, I am sure

Harsh words ! not my way
Immoral action ! far away
Skillful action, skillful life
Are my tools in my strife

I hate not u, I fear not u
My chains undone, I see u tied
U say u tried, I know u lied
I'll set u free, I'll be ur guide

--- Pratap Tambay

About Harijans and Dalits

Even now...I cry sometimes when some of my harijan friends hide their "caste" and seek to rubbish their kinsmen in their eagerness to seek the approval of their hindu masters. The system oppresses substantially even today. Yesterday night someone who lives with a changed surname and has hidden his caste for life had come over. When I was telling him about a recent caste discrimination event in UK,... his comment was "why did he tell his caste"? This is not the India I want to live in. I want to be myself and happy. I will not hide. I will not run. I will become good in my own eyes and achieve all that is possible for a human to do through my hard work irrespective of all the discrimination, hatred and non-cooperation. Not because I want approval, but as a fight against the notions which have been burnt into the teeming millions of India as a fight for the human dignity of my own self as well as that of my kinsmen. The notions shall be confronted by sheer unignorable evidence of very very high achievements by large number of dalits. Every dalit wants to be an Ambedkar. That is why there are so many statues of him in his serene suited-booted, finger pointing pose. Dalit will become "The Elite".

Over time, Dalit and Harijan have become viewppoints about castes system, independent of religion and caste of the person. I would strongly recommend that hindu's like the present group too evaluate where they personally stand with respect to the following definitions.
1. Harijan is the viewpoint which does not have any problem with one human who accepts patronage from higher caste human.
2. Dalit is the viewpoint which encourages deserving and getting whatis deserved, irrespective of the caste of the giver and receiver.Harijans are despicable becasue "highness" of caste is not based on merit.
Most of the time, this non-merit based "highness" is the cause of their patrons positions and their control over power and resources. Harijans implicitly provides sanction to the "system"which grants the "highness" and thereby enslaves him/her. Essentially they are happy with small favors and never fight from freedom fromtheir enslavement.Dalits on the other hand, never accept any kind of patronage and will go hungry or even die, but will refrain from doing anything whatsoever which can potentially provide any type of sanction tothe "system" which parcels out "highness" without regard to merit. The target mental model of dalits about themselves is of achieveing economic, social and political independence and this gives them self-confidence to form/joining communities, which pursue their respective interests through democractic means. Harijans are happy to be servants of their upper caste patrons, who are equal citizens in their own communities and seek to become "independent" of their patrons based on slow growth through incremental patronage. Dalits insist that one can never become "independent" through patronage and that a struggle is always required to win independence from any kind of system which holds one in its thrall. Dalits seek to hence "fight" through the ballot boxes to bring about radical change, while Harijans continue to seek to garner incremental change.The problem with the current apology is that is assumes that the untouchables were never equal and that the NS group has come away and become "more equal". The apology is for not doing enough for bringing them "up" with the group. Untouchables could never have been untouchables through all past. Even if the NS group doubts the Buddhist origins of untouchables, howcan one group of Indians have been untouchable through all past. Nos ub-group of humans will willingly put themselves into the despicable category that untouchables were put into. There has to have been equality at some point in the past. The horror of making a group of peer Indians into untouchables through some kind of force has to have occurred in India. Any apology which does not address the cruelty of making "equals" into "unequal" and merely focuses on the lack of efforts to make the "unequal" into "equal", which does not talk about the transition from "equality" to "inequality" and the denial overtime of the rights of untouchables as equal human beings implicitly claims some super-natural cause for the inequality, which is clearlya socially caused malady. It is therefore implicitly supportive ofthe hierarchical beliefs present in the minds of those who wrote itand does not recognize the essential equality of all human beings. That is the reason I accused the NS group of not having imbibed the democratic values of equality, fraternity and liberty.I hope that it will be taken in the right spirit and appropriate modifications made. Better for you folks to make it. It actually might help you at some deep internal level.

Reservations and Representation

Representative institutions are better than merely efficient ones in all
ways including sustainable profitability which ought to guide private,
public and government decision makers. The buddha said so and Dr. Ambedkar
endorsed it.

Dr. Ambedkars description of democracy as a conjoint (as against disjoint)
experience is key to understanding how his pithy message of educate,
organise and agitate should mean. The agitate should mean vigorous action to
reclaim our human personality as part of this conjoint whole.

A social focus on efficiency is almost always aimed to hide the selfish
intent of a sub-groups to create and perpetuate their hegemonies in
government, public and private sectors. We must expose it for what it is.

Reservations with Zero guilt

As far as I know, reservations discount merit only at the input side and never at output side. This is true in education and employment and as we know there are no reservations in enterprise. I am not aware of dalits being allowed to pass graduation/post-graduation exams with lower marks, being allowed to perform their jobs less diligently and markets are totally unforgiving of poor performing dalit entrepreneurs and professionals anyway. In this context, I we should not let the hypocritical slogans of reservations destroying merit and hence India's competitiveness and strategic capabilities to continue unchallenged.

I think it is time to confront the hypocrisy head on. We should insist that if reservations destroy merit...so be it. We must say that we don't care. We must begin to say that we are ready to take the risk that merit may get destroyed due to reservations. In fact we must explicitly say that we want reservations to be implemented in full by relaxing standards, even if it destroys India's competitiveness. The reason for this is that I am certain that this belief is a hoax...a myth designed for a political purpose...just like the hindu law of karma. The facts are different. Dr. Ambedkar himself was a a third class graduate, who shone in later life due to preferential treatment in early life, despite his low marks.Secondly data showcased by UGC chairman, Prof. Sukhdeo Thorat shows that SC/ST students improve their academic performance as they stay longer in the academic system, while the reverse is true for the general category. Clearly then the data is in against the hypocritical slogans that merit will destroy India. More importantly it is a principle of democracy that representative institutions in social life are better than efficient institutions and hence reservations - the only direct tool to dismantle the structural impediments to making government, public and private sector insititutions really representative - needs to be weilded with full force and without guilt and without even an iota of concern for efficiency.

Democracy does not force citizens to use sub-standard services and that freedom will protect the base quality of our institutions. Market forces enforce true viability on these institutions and expose the false perceptions and prejudices against people who have got educated on reserved seats. Manuvadi fools who do not use the services of such people are free under democracy to seek costlier services from their kith-and-kin, who will need to get educated/trained at cost of non-state-supported capital to serve them. I am sure that dalits (and non-manuvadi non-dalits) will buy/sell products/services from dalits who have struggled through and qualified on merit through rigorous education and training programmes from top-tier institutions, even if they were admitted to those programmes with discounted merit.So I think we should loudly, clearly and consistently say that we don't care about reservations destroying the efficiency of government, public and private sector products and services. We should no longer accept that excuse for non-implementation ofreservations, esp. in education, esp. at all leading institutions.If there are available dalit students, they should be admitted and given special coaching if required instead of being sent home. The seats should be filled. And as a community, those of us who graduate from these institutions and do well need to provide moral and financial support to helping more people like us to derive similar benefits WITHOUT GUILT. Getting angry with those who feel guilty due to the propaganda of the manuvadis is counter-productive. We need to engage and educate them and help them come out of their guilt and use the facilities and improve their lives like us.

We need to coin political slogans to express this viewpoint crisplyand shamelessly. Samples could be ...
1. Reservations pehle, baki sab baadme
2. Rakhiv jaga bharlyach pahije, dalitala jage kelech pahije,dalitanna jaga milalych pahije
3. Reservations chalao...manuvadi hataon
4. Manuvadi merit ... hai ! hai ! Dalit merit ... high ! high !(this should be accompanied with appropriate gestures to communicate the difference...e.g. reverse thumbs-up and thumbs-up et al)
5. Tarakki Karao...Merit Dikhao, YA Reservation Dilao...YA Joote Khao

The TAO of Ambedkarite Buddhism-1

I see reality almost clearly as it really is and as it can be. I have a fair understanding of the laws of cause and effect and the role of the human mind in shaping personal, social and environmental destiny. I am a reasonably well-read, self-aware balanced individual. I have some insight into what constitutes a good human life and am quite at peace with myself as I am and the universe as it is. I am constantly trying to get rid of the bad qualities in me and to improve the good qualities in me. My thoughts have grown out of me like branches, leaves and flowers grow out of trees. As I have purified myself and continue to purify myself, my thoughts have changed and continue to change. These thoughts drive my speech and my actions.

In these pages, I seek to communicate some of my understanding of the theory and practice of the true path I consciously chose, follow and which has benefitted me immensely.

I said true path just like the chinese Tao. To me the true path is a statement of a true way of life. There may be only one true way of life or there may be many true ways of life. I see debate about whether there is one or more true ways as less important than walking on any one way. The true way of life is difficult to communicate and train someone in, since it is not codifiable enough to communicate. Such tacit knowledge and skill is useful and needs to be learnt, but they are difficult to teach. So the best that a teacher can do is to show the path and provide motivation for walking on the path. The learner has to struggle and learn the path.

The path is found by pioneers. Organized religion is a social attempt to sustain the knowledge of this true way of life found by pioneers of a particular community through codification in theories and motivation/communication to further generations through books and speeches and through providing role models in the form of a priest/bhikku-like sangha. In this sense organised religions are human attempts to create composite sustainable repository of the knowledge of the true path. I follow Ambedkarite Buddhism, but I am not specifically for or against any organized religion. Different people may find different organized religions (in the above sense) easier to understand and follow. Buddhism was a statement of a true way of life, which got codified and led to the formulation of an organized religion. Unfortunately like all compound realities, organized religions over time either hide the true way of life behind ritual and beliefs thereby obscuring its visible value to living individuals or totally lose the true way of life through incremental misunderstandings. Today there are so many versions of Buddhism, that it has become difficult to discern which is the right way. If there is a true way of life or if there are multiple true ways of life, then they are the common property of humanity.

Any partitioned true way of life which claims different means and ends for each partition of humanity and offers unverifiable reconciliation of the means and ends of the partitions is likely to be a less useful way of life, because the world is so interconnected and changes so continuously that the partitions on which such ways of life are organized may change dramatically in small periods of time. Such partitioned true ways of life may be aimed to justify partitions of humanity through creation/sustenance of beliefs and practices over time to meet selfish goals of individuals and communities. In India the common example is the case of the dalit community, which is structurally (through beliefs and practices) oppressed with religious sanction. A similar attempt was made by Nazis agains jews.

While it may be best that humans switch to religions which do not advocate partitioned true ways of life, those who choose not to do so must atleast remain constantly mindful that their religion is not used by selfish individuals and communities to justify creation and sustenance of structures of exploitation, violence and violation separating partitions of humanity. Else one day they may find themselves party to direct or indirect crimes against humanity itself.

This said, I will hereon refrain from speaking anything outside Ambedkarite buddhism unless I explicitly write a separate heading.

The role of social work and professional work in the Dalit movement

Some dalit social workers project dalit professionals as selfish people who are "running after money". They ask how and why the professionals can "run after money" sitting in their AC rooms, when most of their dalit brothers live and die in misery. These social workers want dalit professionals to "leave their AC rooms" and come and work in the fields among the poor dalits. This has caused a lot of guilt among young dalit professionals. Some dalit professionals have started personally and directly getting involved in social work putting their professional careers at risk. Their careers may not grow as well as they would have if these youngsters would have focused on their careers and merely financed and remotely guided the social work. But the youngsters and the social workers who have driven them down this path claim that these youngsters are no longer "running after money" and that makes them better Ambedkarites than those who continue to "run after money". I am going to try again to explain here, how and why young dalits should not do this and explain alternative paths ahead for young dalit professionals.

A dalit professional, who lives a balanced and morally upright life, exceling in his chosen profession, contributing more money and less time to social causes is fully in harmony with the ideal householder described by the Buddha and Dr. Ambedkar. Most dalit professionals are already making large personal, famility and community level sacrifices to prove themselves, create wealth and earn prestige for their families and community. These sacrifices are large because, in the abscence of pre-existing social and community networks in the professions, alit professionals already have to work harder than their non-dalit peers to achieve the same level of professional success. Their sacrifices are not visible and easily measurable in money terms, but this does not mean that the value of their sacrifices is low. And in particular, one has to know ones value, else like the case of the man who dropped the goat he was carrying, when convinced by four people that he was carrying a dog, our youngsters might stop believing in the transformative value of the knowledge and skills they have and satisfy themselves with a lower level of token transformation, namely social work. The han's does not need and should not seek certificates from the bagala, because the bagala just does not know, because he is not a hans. In my view as a pioneering private sector dalit professional, the value of the sacrifices of dalit professionals is atleast as much as the value of the sacrifice of full time social workers, who have sacrificed monetary pursuits for social causes. In fact, I think that because success in social work is easier for dalits today, the value of such success is low. And because there are few top level dalit professionals (in IT, Medicine, Law, Accounting, etc) and businessmen, the value of success in professions and business is higher from the dalit movements point of view.

Since talented youngsters capable of rising to the top levels are becoming partial-focus professionals, it is only fair to expect that we are now unlikely to see dalit CEO and dalit businessmen in a hurry. Despite Dr. Ambedkars advice to move towards cities, our young professionals are joining the social workers in going to villages to serve people, more like the advice of Gandhi. At a time when we need more role models of successful moneyed professionals to inspire our youngsters, our youngsters are getting convinced of a Gandhian life-style and Gandhian social service. Despite leaving a large concrete monument to his views on this topic in the form of his own house, Dr. Ambedkar is used to justify a Gandhi style social service centred movement by people claiming to be deep Ambedkarites. Coming at a time, when we badly need our professionals and businessmen to stand on their own legs, compete in the markets and create wealth for the community so that we can invest in our own destinies, it is a strategic, tragic and suicidal error for the movement. Considering the expected decline in the supply of talented dalit professionals, this error is happening at a totally inopportune time. Sadly there are points of time, where one can only let people know ones sincere views and then leave it to them to understand and modify their own views, words and actions.

The true problem of the community is that it is too poor and that investment without strings to reduce its poverty is unlikely to arrive from non-dalits or foreigners. The pune pact sealed the political path and the only paths for liberation are economic activity based on intellectual and dhamma capital. But our young dalit professionals are running away from this true challenge faced by the community, under the guise of social service. They want to run two-penny-rebellions in the villages and slums, by organising poor people ---- for what and how --- they have no answer. They claim that they are working for education of children. But why does one need to be an engineer to focus on social service is unknown. Why can't engineers and managers focus on mastering their respective professions and excel at them, while financing and guiding social service by better trained focused social work professionals. If some of these youngsters had political ambitions and that drives them, do they not know that the pune pact makes their efforts totally wasteful in terms of bringing about any meaningful change through the political mechanism?

Social service involves spending money raised through donations. It assumes that there are donors. In the absence of wealth in the community, such wealth is usual taken from outside the dalit community and is likely to have strings attached to it. So wealth creation to ensure sustenance of social workers and social service needs to happen. So successful professionals and entrepreneurs are required. So social workers must not do anything to discourage the pursuit of professional and business success by our dalit professionals and enterpreners. The continuing behaviour of dalit social workers of questioning the contribution of professionals and entrepreneurs from the dalit community is totally misguided and harmful to the dalit movement. In fact, the dog-in-the-manger behaviour of dalit social workers is the height of misguidance to young dalit professional and entrepreneurs. At a time when such youngsters should be working towards proving themselves in their professions and businesses, some youngsters are setting out on social work at the cost of their core capabilities. Ideally the social service experts should carry out the social service and the professionals and entereprenuers should only finance and provide direction/guidance for spending the money, based on their professional and business skills.

Finally social work is a token approach to social change and hardly classifies as revolution. If youngsters really want to change things in a revolutionary way, they should join the private sector and do hard work, rather than social work. They should prove themselves, earn a lot and donate a lot and have successful professional careers respected by everyone and be good role models for young dalits. Some of them like IITians have done in silicon valley, should start their own companies, compete with Tata's within the constitution and succeed.

Let us start the real revolution.

--- Edited views of Prerna Tambay, my wife

I admire and appreciate the commitment and sacrifice of people who are into social work. The chains of poverty and unemployment are still howering on our heads like vultures. It's time to break these chains. Everybody in a big or small way must try to contribute for theupliftment of our needy people. With due respect to all our social workers, social work needs money and large funds to increase "social work" and to invest in increasing the wealth of the community through building sustainable income generating assets (including companies). Those who are capable of contributing in that form should take the opportunity to contribute in that way.

I am in the profession of teaching. Is teaching not social work?Are there any set definition for social work? Let social workers not make others guilty wastefully to pamper their own egos. Do your own work. Don't spend your time finding fault/guilt with others.Our community needs to be self-reliant. Only when ones earn more than ones needs, can one donate for social good. If every one wereto seek money from others for own-need + social-good, then who will give. Currently those who get money from foreign buddhists seem to be dis-respecting the small amounts of money that our dalit community can donate. Such disrespect is harmful for the dalit movement. It will hardly make us a self-reliant community. Even in small dalit groups, we have differences on so primary things. Really are we doing the right things to strengthen the forward motion of the dalit movement? Lets try to benefit from each others strengths rather than finding fault/guiltwith each other.

My family is in the forefront of peaceful social revolution. My husband Pratap is a sincere Ambedkarite struggling hard to carve a niche in the corporate sector? Many dalits from the government and public sector as well as social workers do not even try to understand the unique perspective, predicaments and contribution of people like him, while beating their loud social contribution drums. My family's peaceful social revolution requires working daily in the company of the oppressor, mastering one's anger, taking 2 rupees and delivering 40 rupees worth of work to force the oppressor to realize the errors of his ways and to reform himself. It requires being a good employee, a good citizen, whom no one can easily find faults with. It requires accepting that others may be favored unfairly at times, because the system's legacy is currently against you. It requires not leaving ones hard work and good behavior, despite efforts of the system to discourage you. It requires behaving likethe heroes of "jo jeeta wahi sikandar" and "on the waterfront". It requires more than two-penny rebellions outside the market-place. I have worked with Shikshana Prasaraka Mandali Pune's WelingkarInstitute of Management Development and Research for a long time in this manner and through hard efforts became "head of the department of human resource management" at this institute, despite the prejudice against our folks. It is my sheer hard work and independent contribution which helped me to come to UK.

My research work on "Diversity and AffirmativeAction" is as important as the work of any social worker to the dalit movement. It is a direct emulation of Dr. Ambedkar himself. Every one has their own unique competence. I am leveraging my talents to the highest capacity for the movement in my own way. After my MBA I had very high paying job offers but I chose to be a Management teacher. I call this as proof of my socially responsible behaviour and my direct contribution to society. By being a teacher I had lot of freedom to do my social service and was not dependent on external sources of funding for my social work. I teach and groom and mentor students, who go and perform "peaceful social revolution" in the industry, because I inculcate good values in them. My special efforts and interest in grooming students of our community to become equally competent are well know and much appreciated by senior management of the Institute. I prefer to continue my social service in the way I havebeen doing it already. Nobody has any authority to certify other people's social service and contributions. Social workers should refrain from this "certification" business that they sometimes get into.

Social workers of high credentials and credibility in the community should try to understand the peaceful social revolution being carried out by families like mine. We work where there is organized oppression, in the real battle grounds of the modern world, rather than in the nooks and crannies, away from the cities, where social workers focus.