Women Respect Day: Savitri Bai Phule's birthday

IN REMEMBRANCE
National Women Respect Day

Savitri Bai Phule

Krantijyoti Savitri Bai Phule was born on 3rd January 1831 in OBC Mali (gardener) caste in Pune (Maharashtra). She was the real ideal of liberation for Indian women. She was the first female teacher, educationist, poet and the foremost emancipator of women in Indian History. She had written five books which reflected her humanitarian approach against patriarchal caste system. She was the first modern Indian woman who destroyed traditional and patriarchal brahminical social-order.

Adopting teaching as a social duty, the champion Krantijyoti Savitri Bai Phule continued to impart education not only to attract us towards rational education but also to emancipate from brahminical mental slavery. As we know that Indian society has been governed for hundred years ago by Manusmiriti, Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagwad Geeta etc. The so called scriptures which consider women as outcaste, source of sorrow, disgusted, as a selling-goods, and gateway of hell. In Rig-Veda, woman is considered as dukh ki khaan (source of sorrow), in Mahabharata women were used to keep as a stake in gamble as Pandva’s did their wife Dhropdi, in Ramayana the so called Maryada Purshyottam Ram kicked out his pregnant wife Sita from his palace, and in Bhagwad Geeta, self claimed God Krishna comments on women as calling them narak ka dwar (gateway of hell). Thus, these brahmanical texts made the women condition worst than Shudras. According to Manusmiriti, when women began to pursue education by breaking brahmnical social order (Caste System) that would be Kaliyuga (the Degraded Era)

First, in the mid 19th century Savitri Bai Phule implicit this conspiracy of suppression and politics of sidelining women from the education that was in reality to continue their mental slavery. Against hosts of odds she boldly attacked the stronghold of the so called brahmins, who prevented others from having access to all the avenues of knowledge. She denounced them as cheats and hypocrites. She organized the untouchables and women to lead the Anti-caste movement with the help of her husband Rastrapita Jotirao Phule. In 1851, she opened a first school for the untouchables and women in Indian history with the principle to educate all of them. Getting annoyed from her efforts for women liberation, so called high caste Hindus ostracized and demolished her house at once. With her husband, she revolted against the priesthood hegemony and brahmanical system (Caste System) of supremacy with a deep sense of commitment in all spheres of life. Her activities were not confined to education alone; she also strived to emancipate women from the evils of the society like satipratha, child marriage etc and supported widow remarriages and inter-caste marriages. At that time, these all women problems were facing by upper caste women. Even it was problem of Brahmin women, Savitri Bai Phule fought for their liberation. Moreover, on that time Brahmin widow’s pregnancy became the major problem in Brahmin community itself which was against caste system, therefore she established “the House for Illegitimate Children and their Mothers” which shows her humanitarian approach towards all human beings.

Distortion of Real History by Manuvadi Writers: On this memorable Women Respect Day which is celebrated in memory of Savitri Bai Phule’s birthday is not recognized by patriarchal mind set people and its government in India. This insincerity is not odd for Bahujan masses as we know that history is always written by them who are in power; the real players are kept always as subject of darkness and un-recognition in the ruling literature. It is ironical that this Manuvadi society never accepts the contribution of backward class women in Indian society. It can be said that all literature and history is nothing but documents of so called heroic saga of patriarchal greed and brahmanical values because there has not been mentioned the contribution of Backward Class Women like Savitribai Phule, Jhalkaribai, Ahilyabai Holkar and Uda Devi etc. These reactionaries never remember revolutionary role of Savitri Bai Phule who dared to break patriarchal caste system. In this Manuvadi society, the history of Bahujans (who are real claimant of power in democracy) is being shadowed deliberately. This is all well planned to suppress women and backward communities to prevent any awareness of education among them and make them hegemonies easily in absence of power of knowledge. Here, it is our duty to follow our greatest ancestor Babasaheb Dr. Ambedkar’s guideline in which he said "those who forget history, they cannot create history." So, for us the clear guideline is to dig out hidden history to debunk the face of Manuvadi writers in general and historians in particular of ruling class to build the confidence and self respect among the Bahujan masses.

In Indian history, Savitri Bai Phule is the biggest ideal female character to be followed by the Bahujan. It is the conspiracy of Manuvadi ideal to keep the contribution of Savitri Bai Phule under the carpet so that the Bahujan masses should not get enlightened and remain as mental slaves by worshipping unqualified Saraswati as a source of education. If it is not so, where she had studied? Why did Saraswati never speak even about the need to give education to women? How is it that the so called source of education is she an illiterate woman! In real sense, the contribution of Saraswati vidhya ki devi (goddess of education) is nothing, and what an unfortunate! That our educated student community follows it blindly!!! Even in last year so called Leftist, Rightist and other brahmnical organization celebrated 1857 mutiny on grand level and they focused on Jhashiki Lakshimibai because she was so called upper caste but they don’t want to remember Savitri Bai Phule. As well as they used to celebrate Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan’s birth day as ‘Teachers Day’ who favored Varna and Caste system but these so called progressive ideologists don’t celebrate Savitribai’s birth day who was the first female teacher and opened first women school.

Krantijyoti Savitri Bai Phule understood well the importance of education, usually stressed priority of the women education (including Brahmin women) rather than others because women can liberate two families firstly in which she is brought up and secondly, after marriage in the family she goes to. From her work, one can comprehend that she was true and practical in her deeds, not merely rhetoric like present chatter box feminist intellectuals who speak a lot but do nothing. Her husband Jotirao Phule created an example at his home by educating her and opened a girls' school in August 1848. Due to his revolutionary step, no teacher dared to work in this school. In such circumstance, Rastrapita Phule asked his wife to teach the girls in this school. Many times stones, brickbats, and dungs were thrown at her but she kept on teaching them. She used to carry two Saris with her, when she was on her way to teach in the school because people used to throw dung on her. Seeing the growing awareness among Bahujans, reactionary Brahmin leaders like B G Tilak, Vishnushastri Chiplunkar, and other so called nationalist leaders became angry and began a vicious campaign against them, but Savitri Bai and Jotirao Phule damned it and continued with their work to achieve the goal of casteless society.

Thus, Savitri Bai and Jotirao Phule’s caravan was later run by their great successor Babasaheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar. His efforts to liberate women can be seen in many provisions incorporated in Indian Constitution and his struggle to pass Hindu Code Bill in 1951 in Indian parliament to bring women in the various fields which were shattered by the Congress Party’s manuwadi parliamentarians and other manuvadi mindset citizens.

It was the efforts of Savitri Bai Phule, the women are now getting opportunity to participate in various field. Even in 21st century women are still struggling against patriarchical caste system to achieve their natural rights. Thus, it is need of modern era to follow the path of Savitri Bai to create a casteless society where men and women would be equal.

Thus, with this message we salute the greatest Krantijyoti!

Sikhs, Swamis, Students and Spies
The India lobby in the United States, 1900-1946.

By Harold A. Gould
460 pp. Sage Publications.

Book Review by


Dr. Amrik Singh (Sacramento California)

Harold A Gould’s book, Sikhs, Swamis, Students, And Spies: The India Lobby in the United States 1900-1946 is a landmark study of pioneers’ quest for freedom, love and justice both in lands of their birth and the lands they bowed to make green. Their contribution, according to Gould, will remain exceptional in the annals of history. Their dream of undivided India, though, could not become a reality due to the inept handling, yet their extraordinary role in becoming catalytic agent of change would alter our perception. Gould focuses on 1900-1946 period to dig out the truth behind the British’s eviction from India. His narrative flows uninterrupted through out 460 pages, mainly because he avoids hot spots of controversies for a more authentic account. Unlike most post-independence Indian historians, Gould constructs a comprehensive image of Ghadrites in championing the cause of freedom. Obstacles in the way to attain citizenship roused their ire creating a response that ironically advanced the cause of civil rights on both sides of the globe.

The author clearly explains how a small community of not more than 5000-6000 in 1910-20, had originally conceived a dream of claiming their country from clutches of the colonialists. In their monumental efforts, they struggled on behalf of then 260 million Indians who were being magnetized and mesmerized with glamour and glitz of colonial lifestyles. Pioneers’ lobbying efforts promoted the cause of freedom in American media, academia, and the society. The armed incursion of revolutionaries, though, suffered many jolts as British intelligence had made deep inroads into the very heart of Ghadr, however, it fueled the imagination of Indians to explore possibilities of free India. The title of the book, in fact, is a quip of Lala Hardyal who used it to categorize Indians in America as Sikhs, Swamis, Students and spies; it is so apt and apposite to the subject matter that it holds readers’ interest until the end.

The main plot revolves round Ambassador William Phillips’s assignment to India and his highly confidential report on British Raj’s hollowness and callousness in suppressing the voice of freedom and jeopardizing ongoing war efforts. Through his private report, Phillips urged the President Franklin D. Roosevelt to take action against the British in view of the common agenda adopted by allies in World War II. Since the lobbyists had sympathizers in the US state department, the confidential letter to the President found its way in the most popular column of the Washington Post. Drew Pearson’s “The Washington Merry-Go-Round” created a rift right in the middle of World War II. Who had leaked the information to the press? Gould reveals the name for the first time in the book under review.

The book has been dedicated to Professor I. Crane (1922-97) whose name is linked for the first time to the greatest mystery in the state department leakage case of 1943 to one of the columnists of the Washington Post. This disclosure hit hard at the British’s orchestrated campaign of constructing myths in America about benevolence of the British Raj. J.J. Singh, who was known as ‘one-man lobby’ and a genius of public relations among his American sympathizers, had worked hard to advertise Indian freedom movement. The author comments that firebrand leader like Lala Har Dyal though provided organizational support initially, yet could not manage to run the affairs for long due to British operatives’ threat. However the recruits mostly Sikhs, some Hindus and Muslims as well stood trial and some achieved martyrdom as wages for their allegiance. Professor Crane says about Sikhs: “They were all patriots and wanted India to be free, but they also wanted American citizenship.”

The intertwined motif of ending discrimination on the basis of race made pioneers willing partners in fight to the finish. The struggle for freedom starting in 1900 in North America continued with the same fervor though different routes had to be followed for achieving results. After the First World War, Punjabi pioneers’ influence looked unstoppable as they had 122,000 acreage in their possessions. Immigration & Naturalization Services’ decision to challenge the verdict of a district court in the US Supreme Court won support of Anglo Americans as a deterrent measure. Their main angst was pioneers’ unquenchable thirst for agricultural lands. The British Raj succeeded in convincing US government to try in court of law all revolutionaries for conspiring an armed incursion with money pumped by imperial Germany. The trials, according to Gould, were a media circus. “It lasted 155 days; cost the US government $450, 000 and the British government 2.5 million. The amount the British spent is obviously a measure of how threatening they believed Ghadr, in concert with the German enemy, had become.” In trials, the British had a motive for using American media for stereotyping ‘Hindoos’ as people of violent and criminal bent of mind. The phenomenal amount of dollar spending to suppress a small group of radicals through infiltration on the one hand and to egg on non-violent movement involving a larger population was the only course left to sidetrack barrels of guns from faces of Raj’s custodians.

In the 47 years of journey, Ghadr pioneers and their friends continued financial, moral and nationalistic support to the lobbyists. The median income of Indian Americans in 2005 is over $60.000 per annum, according to Gould, higher than any other minority group. Sufferings and energies of Sohan Singh Bhakna, Har Dayal, Taraknath Das, Syud Hossain, Anup Singh, Sridharani, JJ Singh, the Sikh leaders on the Pacific Coast, and so many others like Professor Robert Crane made it possible. The tenacity of their purpose and steady financial support won a badge of American citizenship when President Harry S. Truman signed ‘Celler-Luce Bill’ on July 2, 1946. The relief applied to all people of the Indian subcontinent. Gould emphasizes that isolating Ghadr from the latter-day campaigns will result in belittling its historical role. Gould opines, “The intellectuals were especially crucial in developing the various organizations that promoted political awareness and provided framework for collective action. Ghadr was a classic manifestation of this fateful conjecture, as were the organizations that followed, such as the Friends for Freedom of India, the India League of America, the Indian Chamber of Commerce of America, and the National Committee for Indian Freedom, the India Welfare League, etc.”

The armed invasion for liberation fantasized by Ghadrites may look a mere figment of imagination today, but for British intelligence it was a big plot to single out and dispatch white people from India. The interception of a ship, Henry S loaded with 5000 pistols at the sea was though a major success of the British intelligence, yet it spread panic among whites. The great enthusiasm of revolutionaries had stunned the ruling minority of India. The intelligence planned to create a counter political movement that might be not only culturally savvy and socially well-liked, but also damaging to the radicals. The double edged sword fashioned by master minds of the British intelligence both worked to decimate the influence of radicals in India as well as in the US. The main goal of underground operatives was to send early signals of an impending uprising.
Lobbyists’ efforts definitely increased American intervention in forcing the British to leave India. The President Harry S. Truman’s declaration of citizenship to Indians in 1946, in fact, was the precursor to India’s liberation in 1947. It is a different matter though colonialism continued in post-independent era in different indigenous forms. This could have been the only reason that Indian successive governments became apathetic to the demand of erecting a commemorative structure for Ghadr martyrs.

Sage Publication has done a good job except for errors in Professor l. Crane’s year of birth. Readers won’t know which one is right— 1920, 1922 and 1927.

AAJA SOCHLE…

Nageswara Rao Thamanam
Chittibabu Padavala

Media representations and intellectual responses to the controversy around a line in the title track of movie Aaja Nachle have been short-sighted and narrow-minded. The haste with which the Media hushed up the matter and precluded the possible and necessary discussion was partly due to its inability to differentiate this particular dispute from the generalized atmosphere of intolerance ever since Hindutva turned main stream in Indian politics. Media chose to consider the matter closed as soon as the filmmakers apologized and offered to remove the objected stanza and the UP government lifted the ban on the movie. None of the notorious faults of Media - sensationalism, superficiality, preference to profit over ethics, unprofessionalism etc - seem to have influenced the Media's unanimous abortive act of silencing. It is also surprising that none of the TV channels used the opportunity to show the much hyped re-appearance of Madhuri Dixit ad nauseam - the way it exploited the controversies involving Rakhi Sawant or Shilpa Shetty for prurient ends. None of the mainstream English dailies deemed it worth publishing an editorial or analytical essay on this matter. No other usual arguments we are accustomed to hear and read whenever claims are made about the hurt feelings, sentiments or sensibilities of a section or a community appeared either on TV or in news papers. None defended the freedom of artistic expression of the lyricist nor did anybody denounce the objected lines. Apologies rendered by the individuals responsible for the line or by the censor board are also vague to say the least, yet further questioning is not allowed in the media. The apologies simply said that they did not mean to hurt anybody and if anybody's feelings were hurt they would apologize for 'it.' It appears as though they were apologizing for somebody else getting hurt and not because they were in anyway responsible for that. It is an absurd gesture of apologizing for somebody else's actions or feelings. It is not a simple case of a clueless fumbling of the responsible persons in the face of an unexpected crisis. They were apologizing for their lines being objected not because they agree that they were objectionable. The inability or unwillingness to address the agitators as Dalits or Dalit organizations is noteworthy. Even when Dalit organizations could succeed in making their objections heard and responded to, they could not be spoken to in their specificity. The Dalits were, once again, reduced to a faceless "anybody." Anyway, everybody including Mayawati appeared to be in a hurry to silence the matter.

What is surprising in this is the complete lack of interest on everybody's part in the content and meaning of the disputed lines, except, of course, agitating Dalit organizations. Not even the Mayawati's government and a handful of state governments that followed her example said anything about the meaning of the disputed lines of the lyric. It is not that the meaning or depiction of a disputed artwork is important to understand the conflict; quite the contrary is true in most of the cases. The lyric says that there was anarchy because even a person of cobbler-caste origin was claiming that he was from goldsmith-caste. Insult is obvious enough. You don't have to be a mochi to see the indecency or at least bad taste in this attempted native humor. We all have seen how TV channels thoughtlessly showed the paintings by Chandra Mohan and earlier M.F. Hussein and how such presentation of "facts" or "causes" actually strengthened the case of the Hindutva goons rather than exposing them. Inexplicably, in this case, Media behaved differently. Ironically enough, both Mayawati and the other state governments that banned the film echoed what the lyric- though in a different register- said: it was a question of 'order,' they were banning the movie, the state governments claimed, to prevent 'law and order' problem. Perhaps, Mayawati government was sensible or shrewd enough to say only this much to avoid legal complications or prevent moviemaker to move the court. But nothing should have stopped Media from analyzing this dispute. Usual assertions like: 'I don't like that particular writer's or painter's work but I defend his or her right to write or paint' were simply not heard in this dispute. On the contrary, what happened was: I don't know nor I want to know what wrong I have done but I apologize for it. It is not just because a business of millions was at stake. One way of reading the quickness and thoughtlessness with which apologies were offered was to see it as a result of correct appreciation of the intolerant atmosphere in which if the grievance-claims are allowed to be baseless, so be apologies to them. We argue that our public sphere does not have to be seen as a jungle raj yet and in fact we have a very promising antidote in the form of lower-caste assertion. The culture of subjectivization, privatization and fragmentation of sensibilities could that renders the need for public debate, objective verification and contestation unnecessary could be defeated by a new cultural revolution whose seeds could be found in the aborted discussion on the lines of film song in a commercial movie.

First, we need to de-contextualize the controversy and then re-contextualize it. The immediate precedents to the controversy around Aaaja Nachle, the repeated attacks and persecution of Tasleema Nasrin and Hindutva's attacks on various forms of free speech and expression are neither similar nor connected to the objection Dalit organizations raised against a line in this song. While the other cases of purported wounded feelings were claims based on religion, Dalits' objection is self-evidently secular and in fact, anti-religious. What Piyush Misra wrote is well within the framework of Hinduism and actually it mildly, humorously mentions what Gita and other sacred texts insist on much more blatantly. In protesting the lyric, Dalits are fighting against the dogmas of both religion and caste. It should have been seen as a great opportunity for enlightenment but was suppressed by media and intelligentsia as an embarrassment.

This may raise the objection that giving enough or excessive importance to the Dalit objection, however justified it may be, only adds to the list of alarmingly proliferating claims of hurt sensibilities and thus constitute a danger to free thought and expression. It is our contention that the opposite is true and that this controversy opens up a new potential and possibility for permanently silencing some of the most successful techniques of Hindutva and greatly enriches our unfinished project of enlightenment. One of them is the seemingly invincible strategy of Hindutva (and other communalist) propaganda and attention-grabbing through a collapse of fields. They expose a secluded sphere like art-world with its protected codes and values of acceptability to the public gaze and force a public comment building on thus generated shock among the public. Whenever they argue against an artwork (avant-garde art or some passages from a novel) they are bound to win the sympathy of the people. Governments are not only accepting such arguments but also making such claims themselves- Narendra Modi and Buddhadeb being recent examples. How to fight such (none) argument? Definitely not by counter-arguments alone!

Imagine a situation where Dalits agitating against public celebration of Rama on the grounds that the killer of Shambuka can't be venerable or opposing any act of veneration of gita because it humiliates the "lower" castes. Such a situation would surely increase tensions and conflicts. But it seems to us that our society needs to painstakingly go through the whole process of reestablishing the principle of co-existence of multiple, incompatible and conflicting beliefs- including their expression. It is only in this way the all too frequently forgotten fact that we are all legally bound by the constitution and not by any other texts, however sacred believers may deem them to be and should a conflict arise the constitution must have the final say.
Similar counter-move could be discerned in the lower-caste assertion against the communal claims about the past injustices. It is only with Dalits talking about the injustices they suffered, the Hindutva would be forced to shun another of its standard technique of collapsing the past and present. If media unilaterally and unanimously did not suppress the debate on the disputed song it would have started a veritable cultural revolution in our public sphere. It would have encouraged Dalits and other victims of Hinduism to point many more insults and exclusions naturalized in our language, symbols, traditions and even our ideals. It would have forced the entire public discourse to unlearn most of it and rebuild a new public language. This might at first glance appear like a recipe for multiplication of violence rather than a way to mitigate the "competing intolerances." But, is there any better alternative to defeat the potential formation of a Hindutva majority, which alone could perpetrate genocides and probably unleash a nuclear war.

Given the near inevitable Lower-Caste march to political power across many parts of the country, we require a viable and sensible cultural counter-part to such a political change. This alone could allow us confront the unavoidable emporia of lower-caste capture of political power and emerge from it with least damage and sacrifices: a sad truth of our default democracy is an inverted political culture where stable access to rights is available only to those who enjoy them as privileges or in a limited way, by virtue of being unavailable to or outside of the infrastructural or bio-political reach of the state. Not placing or developing a cultural apparatus to symbolically enact the already-started transfer, transformation and take-over of political power is left with only one means to convince itself and others of its empowerment: violence. It is here we could sense two dangers of most potent kind. A new gulf between powers is emerging instead of a separation of powers between the political and cultural, with the attending mutual suspicion. With the cultural and representational realms refusing to come out of their self-righteous solipsism and newly empowering sections suspecting the cultural and representational spheres as something to be defeated or neglected rather than won over, this mutual distrust may lead to a reciprocal impoverishment resulting in conflicting infirmities of a powerless culture and cultureless power. One desirable solution to this impending crisis is the emergence of a plethora of alternatives and a corresponding revamp of our cultural and representational sphere. But what is being attempted by the timed out but not yet abdicated or dethroned cultural forces is suicidal. They are evermore frantically holding fast to their old ways. It could safeguard its decencies only by purging itself of some of the inhuman suppressions it is based on. The death warrant to dialogue is to refuse to listen to the hitherto silenced suffering and grievances in the initial phase of their assertion of empowerment. Those not tasted the fruits of dialogue and argument may not continue to valorize the communicative rationality even after assuming the power. Second danger is the over use of a peripheral form of power, media, to ethno-centric propaganda. It is going to backfire in unpredictable ways. Power is not just functional or rather it has cultural functions too. If the only option for the lower castes to assert themselves in the representational and cultural fields is to translate everything into the prevailing dominant code, it surely fails for the simple reason that self-negation can't be a workable mode of assertion. Media utterly failed to see all of it if it bothered to reflect on what kinds of changes are necessary in the wake of ongoing restructuring the political power. Instead, the Media Dalitized the caste, communalized the idea of Dalit, ignored or suppressed a budding cultural criticism, viewed it as a problem and not as a potential solution, privatized and subjectivized the very issue of dignity.

It did not occur to any channel or news paper to ask the filmmakers or intellectuals what they thought about the controversial stanza. Much deeper malady that made all of these omissions or diversions possible was the dominant and Left-sponsored conception of the communal. It typically sees both religion and caste as essentially similar. To be sure, they have identical features but not functions are potentials. Religion and caste could both turn fascist. But, Hindu religion alone could be mobilized to establish a fascist system in India, as Nehru clearly saw it. So far the most recalcitrant hurdle to Hindutuva has been the so-called casteist forces in India. To be sure, both forms of social bonding- caste and religion- are essentially irrational and therefore similar. But, only religion could forge a majority in our polity while caste is inherently immune from that danger.

The reality of caste is to be honestly recognized, acknowledged and squarely confronted rather than continuing with hypocritical denial or naïvely believing in 'disappearing' the caste by not seeing it. We further argue that we should blunt the deadly force of caste by trivializing it through overuse. However, it is likely that the media and film industry would draw the wrong conclusion from this controversy with its spill-over effects on the whole of public discourse: avoiding any mention of caste at all. This only helps support or fail to critique the perpetuation of caste based oppression, atrocities, discrimination and exclusion. What is needed is a sensitization towards caste not the sanitization of it from popular culture. Confronting an issue involves the risk of erring by and in handling it. Unwillingness to take the risk of talking about caste and also being open to criticism and correction is surely cowardice at best and arrogance at worst. Unless the cultural and intellectual corollary to the process of 'the mochis coming to power' is systematically organized, the reversals in the political field are not going to mark much civilization advance.

So far, the attitude towards Dalit expression on the part of the state, media and intelligentsia is one of what we call, a "stigmatizing concession." If at all the dominant cultural and political forces are willing to accept or allow something to what Dalits want or do, they do it by naming and framing it in a demeaning way. We have seen the sleight of hand by which rights of Dalits were degraded as acts and policies of charity through the mediating term of Welfare even before much comprehensive attack on all forms of welfare began with the Liberalization. Similarly, when Dalits (shamefully, only Dalits) object to an insult it is reduced to a concession in the face of threats of violence. Here is a curious reversal: the very act of conceding is simultaneously a degradation of the same. Allowing and granting a state of affairs is deprived here the dignity of becoming reality and acquire naturality but permanently locked up in the framework of an oddity or a compulsion.

In this case, listening to Dalit organizations effectively reduced to appeasing a claimed hurt of a perceived insult. With these double disclaimers, the possibility of opposing an act of insult without being hurt is criminally lost. You can oppose an act of public insult without being hurt because you believe that there is certain decorum to public discourse. Not many actions and expressions are worthy of our emotional responses. We deem them beneath our dignity to feel insulted by them but still we must oppose them. Nearly every atheist outraged when Babri Masjid was brought down and argues for restoring it not because her religious sentiments were hurt. We do so not on the grounds of our wounded feelings or sentiments but to sustain the decency of the public sphere. Getting hurt at somebody's gestures still constitutes certain granting of seriousness to their acts or words. Not all of them deserve this dignity yet we can and must oppose when they vitiate the public domain. This crucial distinction is necessary to de-psychologies the grievances and put them back to the scrutiny of public reason through dialogic procedure. This is why Dalits and the Left should take up the critique of the scandalous lines in this film song this issue as part of larger cultural agenda. Otherwise, it would look odd that in a country where an atrocity against Dalits is perpetrated for every 18 minutes and 3 Dalit women are raped every day, we are writing an article on a deleted line in a film song!

Posted on www.ambedkartimes.com (December 13, 2007)