12.05.24.UNTOUCHABLES NEWS.CHENNAI.BY TEAM SIVAJI.
In Maharashtra, amid disquiet over ‘threat’ to Constitution, Dalits invoke Ambedkar, close ranks
At Chaitya Bhoomi near Dadar Chowpatty in Mumbai, overlooking the Arabian Sea, there is a continuous stream of visitors in and out of the B R Ambedkar memorial on a bright summer day earlier this week. Holding colourful flowers topped with blue candles, men, women and children kneel before Ambedkar’s bust with folded hands, each lighting a candle as a mark of respect to the architect of the Indian Constitution.
Story by Shubhangi Khapre
A visit to Chaitya Bhoomi – where Ambedkar’s last rites were performed after his death in 1956 – is incomplete without a halt at the makeshift stalls packed with books written by Ambedkar.
Harshala Sakhre, a 15-year-old who completed her Class 10 board exam this year, stopped at one such stall to buy a copy of the Constitution. Presenting a copy of the Constitution on occasions like weddings or birthdays is becoming a trend among the Dalit community in Maharashtra.
Accompanied by her parents, who chose to celebrate their wedding anniversary by paying a visit to Chaitya Bhoomi, Harshala’s father Ganesh, a self-employed decorator, says, “The current debate on the Constitution has triggered greater curiosity and awareness among the generation next. They want to read and know the laws.”
Chaitya Bhoomi, where Dr Ambedkar’s last rites were performed after his death in 1956. (Express)
While acknowledging apprehensions in the Dalit community over the “threat” to the Constitution, Ganesh says, “Is it so easy to replace the Constitution? Will they be able to justify the changes?”
He is referring to the heat being generated over the Constitution in the campaigning by the ruling BJP as well as the Opposition INDIA alliance for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in the country.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained in his speeches at poll rallies that the Constitution is sacrosanct and will not be changed, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other Opposition leaders have claimed that the BJP with a large majority in Parliament would be a “threat” to the Constitution.
With both camps engaged in a heated debate, Dalits across Maharashtra are reaffirming their resolve to safeguard the Constitution by paying their tributes at the Ambedkar memorials among other things. In Ambedkar, they see an icon who gave them their identity and dignity.
Karan Kedar, who inherited a five-decade-old book stall from his family, says, “The Constitution is the soul of democracy.” He says he fears those trying to undermine the Constitution and replace it with Manusmriti are “pushing India 1,000 years back”.
The ongoing debate, along with instances of atrocities against Dalits across the country, has not gone unnoticed. But with Dalit organisations fragmented, the community has been facing a leadership challenge for several decades.
According to the 2011 Census, Scheduled Castes (SCs) constitute 13% of the population in Maharashtra. The community is broadly divided into Mahars (neo-Buddhists), who account for 57% of all Dalits, Matangs (20%) and Chamars (17%).
The Neerja Chowdhury Column | ‘Regional parties coming closer to Congress’: Why Sharad Pawar said what he did
Dalits are represented in the state mainly by two parties – the Republican Party of India (Athawale) or RPI(A) led by Union minister Ramdas Athawale, and the Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi (VBA) led by Ambedkar’s grandson Prakash Ambedkar.
While Athawale claims to have the support of over 50% of Dalits, the VBA claims to represent large sections of Dalits, tribals and OBCs. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the VBA polled 6.75% of the state’s total votes, which cut into the Congress-NCP combine’s vote share.
In 2014, when the RPI(A) allied with the BJP, the move took many within the party by surprise. At the time, Athawale had argued that the new generation of Dalits were open to political experimentation. Ten years on, Athawale has been tasked by the BJP-led NDA with holding public meetings and rallies to assuage Dalits over the Constitution issue. On Wednesday, he lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against Rahul Gandhi over his attack on the BJP in the row.
Arjun Dangle, a prominent Dalit writer, says while Dalits are united on the Constitution issue, other factors like unemployment could also lead to a consolidation against the ruling party. “Dalits have a strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to their core agenda. There is a strong undercurrent within the community against the BJP. There is anger and a sense of betrayal,” Dangle said.
Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, one of the oldest slums in Mumbai and largest Dalit colonies in Maharashtra, in Ghatkopar. (Express)
In Ghatkopar’s Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, one of Mumbai’s oldest slums and the largest Dalit colonies in Maharashtra, veteran Ambedkarites prepare for a door-to-door campaign to keep Dalits under one umbrella.
Hiraman Gaikwad, 64, standing near the life-size statue of Ambedkar in the colony, says, “For us, Ambedkar is everything. How can we compromise on his Constitution?” Gaikwad was among 26 people who were injured in the 1997 police firing, in which 10 people were also killed, following protests over the desecration of an Ambedkar statue then.
Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar was once a hub for the Dalit migrants who came to the metropolis in search of livelihoods, starting from the 1960s. Back then, it was a swamp with no roads and electricity. Today, there are pucca houses and well-lit roads criss-crossing the colony, says Shantaram Shukdeo Patole, a cobbler.
A statue of Dr Ambedkar at Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar. (Express)
“I came from Nashik at the age of 18. It’s been 35 years. At that time, even one person’s earnings helped a family of four survive. Now, it is impossible to cope with inflation despite daily earnings of Rs 250,” Patole said. Though the colony has come a long way, a redevelopment project promised in 2005 remains on paper only, says Amol Sonawne, a member of the Panchsheel Kruti Samiti.
Sonawne says that over the years, Dalit karyakartas have multiplied manifold but its leadership has not broadbased. “The followers of Athawale see in him a representative at the Centre. Similarly, there are those affiliated to Prakash Ambedkar, who is the grandson of B R Ambedkar,” he says.
However, Ambedkarite leader Shyam Gaikwad charged that Dalits have realised that “Athawale and Prakash Ambedkar are pursuing politics that goes against Dalit welfare”. “The 2024 Lok Sabha polls will see Dalits collectively standing up for their rights without any leader. The Dalit movement is never imprisoned by individual leaders or partisan politics,” he said.
MSN
Latest News | Dalit Girl Rescued in UP over One Month After She Went Missing
Get latest articles and stories on Latest News at LatestLY. A 17-year-old Dalit girl was rescued by the police here after she was allegedly kidnapped over a month ago and her obscene videos surfaced online, police said on Saturday.
Bhadohi (UP), (PTI) A 17-year-old Dalit girl was rescued by the police here after she was allegedly kidnapped over a month ago and her obscene videos surfaced online, police said on Saturday. Talking to the media, the victim’s family alleged that despite making efforts, the police lodged an FIR on May 9 after several obscene videos of the victim surfaced online.
According to police, the girl went missing on March 22. “The girl was recovered safely from a house on Saturday and was sent for a medical examination,” said the Station House Officer (SHO) Santosh Kumar Singh.
The victim’s family filed a complaint against Ajit, a rickshaw driver. He is currently absconding, Singh said, A case was registered against Ajit under section 363 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code. Efforts are also being made to arrest those involved in circulating and posting the victim’s videos and pictures online, he said.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
LatestLY
NGO demands strict action against perpetrators of Deevattipatti attack on Dalit community members
Condemning the ‘inaction’ of police department against the perpetrators belonging to caste Hindu community who attacked the members of the Dalit community during a temple festival at Deevattipatti village in Salem district, Kathir of ‘Evidence,’ organisation based in Madurai, has released a press statement demanding strict action against those who were responsible for the violence.
THE HINDU BUREAU
In his statement, he said that it was revealed during his visit to the village that the Dalit community villagers were attacked by the members of the intermediary castes. He said that even police personnel, in the name of investigation, had entered houses of Dalit community and attacked them.
False cases had also been foisted against the Dalit community members with vested interests, he added.
Government officials held talks with the intermediary caste members who prevented Dalit community members from entering the temple and attacked them but did not initiate action against them. Hence, they should be subjected to departmental action.
Pointing out Pattali Makkal Katchi functionary Venkatesan’s alleged role in the attack, he said, he was not arrested yet. “He should be arrested and remanded immediately,” he added.
He added that the National Human Rights Commission should take cognisance of the issue and investigate the matter. Above all, he said, officials of the Mariyamman Temple, which is under the control of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, should ensure that Dalit community members are allowed entry into the temple. Those who act against their rights should be immediately arrested and punished, he demanded.
The Hindu
Muslim quota row deepening fault lines among Dalits
With parliamentary elections underway, BJP’s invoking of the familiar Muslim appeasement charges against Congress has reopened the Muslim quota debate. In this complex debate, some prominent anti-caste voices have opposed the inclusion of Muslims and Christians of Dalit origins in the Scheduled Caste (SC) category.
Khalid Anis Ansari
Their core argument is that excluding non-Indic faiths, particularly Islam and Christianity, from the SC category was settled in the Constitution through the Constitutional (SC) Order 1950, notified by the ministry of law when B R Ambedkar was the law minister. I will contend that this is a half-truth, and the argument on the authority of the Constitution and Babasaheb Ambedkar does not sustain a deeper investigation.
At the onset, Article 341 (1) of the Constitution does not advance any religion-based restriction in the SC list. Further, Article 13 (1 and 2) pronounces any law made before the commencement of the Constitution that is inconsistent with or in derogation of the fundamental rights to be void. The religion-based restriction in the SC list, i.e., the exclusion of non-Hindu Dalits, does not have the backing of the Constitution but was introduced by Para 3 of the Constitution (SC) Order 1950 passed by the President. Since the President is bound by the advice of the council of ministers headed by the Prime Minister as per Article 74, the 1950 Order reflects the will of the incumbent government and not the Constitution per se.
Para 3 had excluded all non-Hindu groups with the proviso of four Sikh castes of the Punjab region (out of 34 listed in the schedule). Subsequently, the SC net was expanded through amendments, and the remaining Sikh and all Buddhist castes of Dalit origin were included in the SC list in 1956 and 1990, practically excluding Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians. Muslims and Christians of Dalit origin have been mobilising to lift the religious ban. Since 2004, several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court for the scrapping of Para 3. The matter has been pending for over two decades.
If, as per the Constitution, religion alone cannot be used as a principle for granting reservations, it cannot also be used for purposes of exclusion from reservations. That is precisely what the Presidential Order 1950 does by excluding Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians from the SC category on the sole criterion of religion. This violates their fundamental rights, primarily Article 14 (equality) but also Articles 15 (non-discrimination), 16 (non-discrimination in employment), and 25 (freedom of conscience).
Did Ambedkar endorse the 1950 Order merely because the law ministry notified it? Under regular administrative business, any concerned ministry can notify presidential orders, and one may not get to know Ambedkar’s position on the matter as the advice of the council of ministers is protected by Article 74 (2). While the onus of any Presidential Order falls primarily on the PM — Jawaharlal Nehru, at that point —one may speculate about Ambedkar’s agency through a set of further questions. Why did Ambedkar fail to include Buddhism in the SC list through the Presidential Order 1950 even when he was the law minister? In an inspiring speech, ‘Why Was Nagpur Chosen?’ delivered on October 15, 1956 —a day after he converted to Buddhism—Ambedkar acknowledged that his followers would lose SC entitlements due to conversion to Buddhism. Also, he explicitly favoured sociology over theology and practice over principles in analysing religious collectivities. In ‘Pakistan or the Partition of India’, he notes categorically that “…the Mahomedans observe not only caste but also untouchability”. In ‘The Condition of the Convert’, Ambedkar states that “…conversion has not brought about any change in the status of the untouchable convert…the untouchable remains an untouchable even though he becomes a Christian.”
Moreover, explanation II of Article 25 (b) renders Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists as ‘legal’ Hindus only for purposes of social welfare, reform, and public access to religious institutions. If Sikhism and Buddhism were a Hindu branch according to the Constitution, why did most Dalit Sikhs have to wait till 1956 and Dalit Buddhists till 1990 to be enlisted as SCs? If Islam and Christianity are egalitarian traditions, then so are Sikhism and Buddhism. If Muslim and Christian castes can avail of religiously neutral OBC, ST, and EWS reservations along with minority preferences, so could Sikhs and Buddhists, who are construed as religious minorities.
The shrill opposition of a few anti-caste voices to the inclusion of Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians in the SC category has very little to do with the Constitution or Babasaheb’s vision. It is animated by the punyabhumi/pitrabhumi (holyland/fatherland) logic of V D Savarkar. The new consensus that a few Ambedkarites are forging to invalidate non-Indic Dalits from being recognised as SCs is aimed at sharpening the religion-based fault lines within the Dalit community. It is neither just nor democratic
: TOI.
Kolkata play about Dalit student suicide calls out Bhadralok hypocrisy on casteless Bengal
‘Oboyob’ offers no easy solutions. It prompts so-called Bengali liberals to accept their role in perpetuating caste atrocities.
DEEP HALDER, (Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Kolkata: In the setting of a posh Bengali drawing room, an ‘upper-caste’ couple grapples with the complexities of a Dalit student’s suicide. In the play, Oboyob – Silhouette – staged on 5 May at Kolkata’s Proscenium Art Centre, the wife, a journalist enmeshed in researching student suicides for her book, begins to wonder if caste plays a role in such tragedies. She and her husband have so far believed that caste is played up for effect and that economic realities shape people’s life choices. However, a visit from their Dalit professor friend forces the couple to question their preconceived notions.
It’s a Kolkata play that calls out casteism and Bengali Bhadralok hypocrisy in the middle of a bitterly fought election.
Oboyob didn’t mention Rohith Vemula, but his shadow loomed large on the stage. It came, after all, just two days after Telangana Police filed a closure report in the Hyderabad University research scholar’s 2016 suicide case, determining that he wasn’t Dalit.
Vemula died by suicide on 17 January 2016 after the university stopped his monthly stipend due to what it called “delay in paperwork”. His death was termed ‘political discrimination against Dalits in universities’ and sparked nationwide protests.
But Vemula’s suicide wasn’t the only issue that inspired the play’s writer and director, Debasish. He was also moved by the story of Chuni Kotal, a Dalit Adivasi student who succumbed to alleged caste discrimination by her university administrators in 1992. She was the first woman from the Lodha Shabar tribe to graduate.
“The play is not just about a Dalit student’s suicide but about the Bhadralok, mainly of the Kolkata variety, who continue to create a binary between casteist ‘Hindi-belt states’ and ‘casteless Bengal’. Oboyob tries to peel back the layers of the seemingly progressive metropolitan elite to expose the casteism deeply ingrained within them,” he says.
Bhadralok and chotolok
Caste bias creeps in casually in the play, during an animated conversation between the Dutta Gupta couple (Kalyan Sinha Roy and Samriddhi Banerjee). The wife, Shalini Dutta Gupta, says she has done enough research to establish that economic factors are often the underlying cause of student suicides and that reservation, thus, should be based on economic background and not caste. The Dalit professor, Arpan Da (played by Debasish himself), vehemently disagrees. “Don’t say general caste. Say ‘upper caste’,” he thunders, as Shalini’s publisher husband, Dibyendu warns him to remain civil.
As Dibyendu comes to Shalini’s defence, the professor probes the couple about the lack of Dalit nameplates in their upscale neighbourhood. He also wonders about the upper caste composition of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo. “Remember Chuni Kotal? Remember Marichjhapi? Remember how a young man lost his leg to police firing while trying to swim to safety from Marichjhapi to the next island…”
Then, when it is time for him to leave, Shalini appears surprised that he owns a car. Arpan Da takes the opportunity to drive home the point that caste and class are almost inextricably linked. He questions Dibyendu’s pride in his “educated, zamindari” heritage. “What zamindari heritage are you talking about? The one that became the Swadeshi heritage? And the Congress heritage later or the heritage of Lenin and Stalin? And kept the Dalit invisible all through?”
Caste-based social capital allows a Bhadralok like Dibyendu to change his identity as many times as he wants, Debasish tells ThePrint while explaining the professor’s argument. “This perpetuates his dominance in all socio-political spheres while shamelessly denying the existence of caste.”
In another scene, the professor instructs the couple’s housekeeper to keep his empty dinner plate with hers, on the floor. With this statement, he openly emphasises that, while the Bhadralok might seat people like him on their table, he would always remain a chotolok (a person of low birth) for them.
But it is the other chotolok, the housekeeper Chobi Rani Mandal (Tiyasa Chattopadhyay), who truly represents the invisible subaltern in Oboyob despite minimal dialogue.
“Chobi Rani Mandal answers the question that Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak had asked in the title of her seminal essay ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’. The answer is no, she cannot. Yes, there are Ambedkarites, like the Dalit professor in my play, who are vocal against deeply entrenched caste bias even within the so-called liberals but they are still too few in number and the Chobi Rani Mandals do not have the agency to speak up for themselves,” Debasish stresses.
Chattopadhyay says that, in the play, Mandal is thrice as oppressed. “Chobi Rani Mandal is pushed to the margins by her caste, her class and her gender. She works silently in an upper caste household and is constantly being spoken down to not just by her employers but even by the Dalit professor even though she belongs to his own caste,” she tells ThePrint.
At the end of the play, Mandal sits quietly in a corner, smoking Shalini’s leftover cigarette. For Debasish, the half-burnt cigarette is a metaphor for the Dalit’s half-life, even in liberal spaces.
“She speaks with the audience through her silence [and] irritates the other characters in the play while they are having an animated debate through her abrupt questions about seemingly unimportant daily chores. To me, she is the most important character of the play,” says Chattopadhyay.
‘No space free of caste bias’
Debasish, 28, is a research scholar at the School of Drama and Fine Arts, University of Calicut. He has not used his surname in the play’s poster because he does not wish to identify with any caste. “In the last 10 years, I must have written at least 20 plays and acted in more than 50. No space is free of caste bias, not even Kolkata’s theatre space. If it is a play on Dalits, almost invariably it would be written and directed by an upper-caste playwright. The gaze is never the subaltern’s,” Debasish says.
After the play, Debasish and his theatre group Bally, Oglam, invites academics and authors specialising in Dalit issues, such as playwrights Samudra Biswas and Asit Kumar Biswas, on stage for a 40-minute forum discussion.
The Chobi Rani Mandals of Oboyob always go to work for the Dutta Guptas and never the other way round, says academic and author Debi Chatterjee, who has translated many Bengali Dalit plays into English.
Debasish then asserts the relevance of his play in post-modern times, even though he is aware that staging it during the national elections will invite questions about his political leanings. “All political parties are vying for the Dalit vote, be it BJP with subaltern Hindutva, Trinamool Congress with its slogan for Ma, Mati, Manush [Mother, Motherland and People] or the Left with its stated aim for a class, casteless society. I am not anti-anyone. I am for the Dalit speaking up for herself,” Debasish says.
Bibhas Chattopadhyay, a member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association, Bankura, came to watch Oboyob from outside Kolkata. The long journey did not go unrewarded, he says. “The play offered no easy solutions which I liked. And also threw at us, the audience, a demand. That we, the so-called Bengali liberals, should accept that we are guilty of caste atrocities against the Dalits, overtly or otherwise.”
The Print
TAMILNADU.
Pallikaranai caste killing case: Lawyer says police wantonly delaying probe
Praveen was murdered on February 24 allegedly by a gang, which included his brother-in-law, after he married Sharmila, a woman from OBC (Yadava) community in October 2023.
CHENNAI: Senior advocate Bhavani Mohan, who has appeared for victims in several cases related to caste atrocities, has alleged that the Pallikaranai police was “purposefully” going slow in its investigation into the alleged caste killing of SC youth Praveen in February and also claimed the hand of some ruling party leaders in this .
Mohan, who is counsel for the victim’s family, demanded the case be transferred to an investigating agency like the CB-CID or the CBI.
Praveen was murdered on February 24 allegedly by a gang, which included his brother-in-law, after he married Sharmila, a woman from OBC (Yadava) community in October 2023. A case under Sections including the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act has been filed against them. Sharmila died by suicide on April 22.
“The police is deliberately going slow so that the accused can get statutory bail if the chargesheet is not filed after 90 days. They did not provide protection to the couple or to the family after Praveen’s death. Some DMK leaders are supporting the accused,” Mohan said, adding that Sharmila’s father Durai Kumar is a DMK functionary. Calling the police investigation tardy, he said the cops had just recorded statements and not conducted a probe as per the SC/ST PoA Act. He charged the police had intimidated Sharmila while recording her statement.
DMK spokesperson R S Bharathi denied the allegations and said action would be taken against any wrong-doer irrespective of party affiliation.
: TNIE.
- Kharge sharpens his attack on PM Modi, Amit Shah, says 'Dalits, tribals to become slaves again if...'
Kharge sharpens his attack on PM Modi, Amit Shah, says 'Dalits, tribals to become slaves again if...'
Ahead of the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge intensified his attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his fresh attack, he claimed if PM Modi returns to power again the Dalit and Tribals will be treated like slaves.
Image Source : PTICongress president Mallikarjun Kharge
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, while addressing a rally in Maharashtra’s Dhule constituency on Sunday, continued his attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah ahead of the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections. The Congress leader asked people to vote for his party, claiming that a third term for PM Modi and Shah would mean that the poor, Dalits and tribals would be “treated like slaves”.
The Congress fielded former MLA Shobha Bachhav in Maharashtra’s Dhule constituency. Bachhav will face BJP nominee and former Union minister Subhash Bhamre. Dhule in north Maharashtra will go to polls in the fifth phase of the general elections on May 20.
He appealed to voters to choose his party to save democracy and the Constitution.
“Before Independence, the poor, Dalits and tribals were treated like slaves. If you give a third term to Modi and Shah, the same situation will repeat. We will become slaves again,” he said.
“You have to vote for your own sake and your own people. We need to save the Constitution. This election will shape the future of the country, thus it is an important election,” he said.
If there is no Constitution, there will be “no one to save you”, he said, claiming that “RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had said in 2015 that the Constitution should be changed”.
Later, many BJP MPs and saffron party leaders also made similar statements, he said.
Kharge also accused PM Modi of “spreading lies”. Modi chest-thumped about bringing back black money from abroad but never delivered on that promise, said Kharge.
“He claimed to provide two crore jobs every year but never did. Instead of increasing farmers’ income, as per his claims, his wrong policies increased the production cost for growers. That is why Modi should be removed from power,” Kharge added.
(With PTI inputs).
KOLKATA- ‘Literature is a weapon to liberate Dalits’: Kapil Krishna Thakur
Bengali writer-activist Kapil Krishna Thakur.Sourced by the Telegraph
Earlier this year, when the central government issued the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) rules, Bengali writer-activist Kapil Krishna Thakur was in Agartala attending a literary meet. He recalls how his phone kept buzzing with distress calls, “Most of them were Dalits who had migrated from East Pakistan after Partition, utterly confused about the fate of their citizenship.”
Thakur’s worst fears over the citizenship conundrum have come true, or appear to have. He says, “It all began in 2003 when the Citizenship Amendment Bill was tabled by the NDA government. We failed to convince parliamentarians of its far-reaching implications and the bill was passed without any hitch.” Thakur, along with some fellow activists, had lodged a strong protest in New Delhi against the “kala kanoon”. They could sense, he says, that millions of victims of Partition would come to be branded “illegal immigrants”.
After several botched attempts, I managed to catch up with Thakur at his home in Bamangachi, 40 kilometres north of Sealdah. The CAA notification has wreaked havoc with his usual routine; he has to meet and address more and more people apprehending loss of citizenship.
Thakur’s study overlooks pretty houses in a lush co-operative society. It is late afternoon and the golden glow of the sun lights up the room with all its books and magazines, trophies and framed certificates. His son comes into the room and turns on an audio-recording phone app. I am the second journalist who has arrived since morning. Thakur explains, “The nuances of the new law are quite complicated. It is meant to confuse and inject fear in people.”
Thakur was born in Saatpar village in Faridpur district of East Pakistan in 1956. Five months after his birth, his parents were forced to cross the international border and take refuge in the Kanksa Transit Camp in Burdwan. Soon after, he lost his elder brother and mother. Growing up in abject poverty, his childhood was nomadic, shifting homes, changing schools, sometimes living on this side of the border and sometimes that — there was no barbed fencing those days.
The memory of those trials and tribulations as a Dalit migrant has left a deep imprint on Thakur’s literary creations. “My lived experience and the sufferings of people around me fuel my literature,” he says. His novel Ujaantalir Upakatha narrates the saga of the Namasudras, who have traditionally worked as farmhands, boatmen and fisherfolk. “The characters in the novel are all from real life; in many cases I’ve even retained their original names,” he says.
The writing is replete with vivid images of riverine eastern Bengal, much of it now part of Bangladesh. “The seed of the novel was there in my short story Madhumati Onek Dur,” says Thakur. The story begins and ends at a ferry ghat by the Madhumati river when the protagonist visits his birthplace as a foreigner after Partition.
Notwithstanding the tumultuous childhood, Thakur continued with his education. He did his master’s in Bengali from Calcutta University, and thereafter, he joined the Reserve Bank of India’s Calcutta office as a coin and notes examiner. In the meantime, he co-founded some little magazines, including Nikhil Bharat and Chaturtha Duniya to groom Dalit writers. Along with his literary activities, he carried on his social activism to support the cause of Dalit refugees across India.
His activism had always been Left-leaning. “I joined the Leftist student movement during my college days,” says Thakur. He continues, “I got drawn to politics inspired by Jogendranath Mandal, the icon of Dalit politics.” He remembers accompanying Mandal during his political campaign as a candidate of the Republican Party of India, supported by the Left parties. Thakur was a school student at that time.
The Citizenship Bill of 2003 pushed Thakur into active politics. “To raise mass awareness, I involved the leaders of the Matua sect, which included Boroma Binapani Devi. We also sensitised many Left Front leaders about the dangerous design of the bill,” he says. Thakur has been closely associated with the Matua Mahasangha of Thakurnagar for decades. His book Matua Andolan O Banglar Anunnata Samaj is well regarded by the leadership as well as the followers of the sect.
In 2016, to strengthen his effort to turn the Citizenship Amendment issue into a political campaign, he fought elections as a CPI candidate from the Gaighata Assembly seat. Although he couldn’t win, he spread his message on the dangers of getting misled on citizenship issues by his political opponents.
Now, when notification of CAA is fomenting anxiety and uncertainty among people, Thakur is back in his activist mode. In 2018, he wrote a poem titled Chhinnomul or The Rootless. It ends thus: Ekdin amrao chhinnomul hoye jaabo/Biswas koro, sekotha bhabini kokhono... Some day we shall all be rootless/Believe me, I never thought this was possible.”
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