Status Updates From Hatred in the Belly: Politi...

As the AoC controversy gained in strength, some wondered whether an
international celebrity like Arundhati Roy discussing Dr Ambedkar couldn’t
be viewed as opening up of new possibilities. What should be noted here is that the politics of representation is an important and necessary part of not just the anti-caste struggles and debates, but also those of women and other minorities as well.

“It is usual to hear all those who feel moved by the deplorable condition of
the Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering the cry “We must do
something for the Untouchables”. One seldom hears any of the persons
interested in the problem saying ‘Let us do something to change the
Touchable Hindu’. It is invariably assumed that the object to be reclaimed is
the Untouchables.

In Tiru Kochi, until the early decades of 20th century, if grains
& oil were to be brought to a Namboothiri household by the lower castes, it had to travel through the Syrian Christian household.The traditional role of purification continues in the case of this introduction. An upper caste audience can consume a self-sufficient radical text only when a Syrian Christian performs the caste ordained purification ritual.

Caste promotes things like social boycott and excommunication. Ambedkar considered such measures as equivalent to death as there is no point living in a society without communication. Such a society can’t be called a democratic society.

We live in a nation ruled by dominant caste-and upper class leaders. We
watch television channels owned by dominant caste tycoons, watch debates anchored by dominant caste anchors. We read books written, published, sold by dominant caste and class writers and publishers. We are a nation for the privileged castes and classes.

Annihilation of Caste is available online for free downloads..... Ambedkar’s writings are also available online for free download at the Columbia University website. Whereas none of the Indian universities have touched Ambedkar’s writings; they do not even think of hosting them on their websites. Ambedkar is still an untouchable for Indian universities and academicians.

Maoists are working there because they consider it as a laboratory of Maoism to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Adivasi issue is just an immediate problem to be confronted as far as they are concerned. There are statements in the book which deliberately overlook the fact that Maoism is not a movement oriented towards solving the Adivasi problems in India.

The current scenario in Central India proves that contemporary Maoism leaves these segments of the population not just groundless, but also pushes them to commit fratricide and self-destructive mass murders.

Taking example of Kabir, we must bear in mind that he was a
revolutionary poet. The tampering and appropriation of his works
transformed him into a spineless mystic: a Bhakta (devotee). The Brahminist forces falsely reduced him to someone contemplating vacuous and obtuse rubbish on Brahma. The social resistance and struggle offered by the poet revolutionary was erased from the collective memory of his caste peers

‘if a man who becomes a Pope has no wish to become a revolutionary, a man who is born a Brahmin has much less desire to become a revolutionary’

Beginning of vibrant and diverse anti-caste discourse..