Author: Kancha Ilaiah
Publisher: Samya
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 206
ISBN/UPC (if available): 818560469X
Description
O Mother Lackumamma, Your blouse is torn, Your hair is soiled, your sari in rags, You have no money to buy new ones. Even in that condition what have you done? You planted saplings, walking backwards like a bull, In order to produce food from the mud.
Kancha Ilaiah translates these words of the Telugu poet, singer, activist Gaddar to emphasize the productivity of the ordinary people, the Dalit-Bahujans of India, who receive so little in return, deprived of the gains of development and globalization but not of the losses in their wake. Arguing forcefully for social justice, this book contains a selection from Kancha Ilaiah’s columns in popular newspapers like the Hindu, the Deccan Herald, the Deccan Chronicle, the Hindustan Times among others, and journals like Mainstream and the Economic and Political weekly.
Strongly advocating the Dalitization of Indian society that will undo its moorings in spiritual fascism, which refuses equality or freedom to the majority, he commends the positive values of the buffalo as a productive animal that epitomizes the qualities of the Dalit-Bahujans. Among the many issues he tackles are the right to conversion, the role of the OBCs as providing muscle power to the Hindutva forces, the imperative need for the spread of English amongst all castes and for reservation quotas in education and employment, on globalization and gender. Combative, heartfelt, intellectually rigorous, these pieces present his vision of a more just society.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE
Ayodhya: What Stake Do OBCs Have?
Consequences of the Call for Epic War
Dalit, OBC and Muslim Relations
The Rise of Modi
ON CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
A Case of Slipping Morality
A Lesson to Be Learnt
The Invisible Country
Heroes Who Made the World Rock and Roll
ON SOCIAL JUSTICE
A Paradigm Shift
Attacks on Ambedkar
The Bard Whose Song Is His Weapon
Countering the Counter-Revolution
Hindutva and the War-Loving Self
Spiritual Fascism and Civil Society
Freedom Unattained
ON CASTE
The Buffalo’s Unholy Milk
Durban, Caste and Indian Democracy
Secularism: The Predicament of the OBCs
Caste and Women’s Sexuality
Caste Shadows in London
Caste in a New Mould
ON THE RIGHT TO RELIGION
Hinduism and the Right to Religion
Reject the Oppressor
Religion and Democracy
Spiritual Democracy
Where Should the Reform Begin?
ON ELECTORAL POLITICS
Sonia, Swadeshi and Videshi
The End of Dalit Ideology?
Major Priorities
ON CULTURE
Cow and Culture
Cows, Buffaloes and Nationalism
Hinduism and Capitalist Ethics
The Buddha Smiles in Afghanistan
ON GLOBALIZATION
Cultural Globalization
Dalits and Globalization
Death Wish?
ON EDUCATION
A Lesson from African English
Caste, Clinton and the IT Revolution
Through Books, Ships and Sea
Blacks, Science and National Pride
Education and the Dignity of Labour
Reservations: Experience as Framework of Debate
INDEX