CASTE VIOLENCE AS CULTURAL REPRODUCTION AND LEGITIMIZATION: READINGS FROM AMBEDKAR VIS--VIS POSTMODERN DISCOURSE FOR A PHILOSOPHY OF DALIT

LIBERATION S. Lourdunathan [May I profoundly thank and congratulate Rev. Dr. A. Selvaraj SJ for organizing this a Regional Seminar on Dalit Movements and Violence: An Analytical-Critical Approach sponsored by IIAS, Shimla at Indian Social Institute, Bangalore. I record my sincere appreciations to the Chairman and his council/team at IIAS, Shimla, for providing this socially relevant intellectual opportunity. Thanks to the director and all the members of ISI, Banglore for this occasion] -o0oThe present paper/reflection aims at a theoretical discussion for evolving a Discourse on Dalit Emancipation from the Readings of Ambedkar vis--vis Postmodern Discourse. The paper intends to argue three vital positions with reference to caste-violence. (i) Firstly I contend that the socio-political Caste-violence deeply rooted within the cognitive structures of Indian philosophical ethos. There is specific sense of metaphysics of dominant presence that go to pattern Indian caste cultural ethos that legitimize caste-based atrocities against the Dalits. If so, the task here is to show how caste is deeply embedded in the Indian philosophical axiomatic that is projective and pro-active towards the legitimization casteism and construct it as a way of (Indian) life. (ii) The second important purpose is to show how caste-violence is acted out within in Indian society as a form of cultural reproduction as to retain self-invested high caste-supremacy over and against the downtrodden (Dalits). Hence the question is what is meant by cultural reproduction and self-legitimization. To this task, Lyotard essay on Post modern Conditions: A Report on Knowledge is situated to argue that caste-violence is continue to religiously reproduce itself (karma(Action) transmigration(reproduction) by specific modes of cultural repetitions and thereby gains a sort of cultural legitimacy hence casteism solidifies itself as the way of being social(?) in India. (iii) To confront this cognitive cum cultural violence it is imperative, I hold, that we need to intersect Ambedkar vis--vis postmodern discourse for provision of a philosophy of Dalit liberation (theoretical skill) to confront sustainable intellectual/ethical agenda for Dalit movements action-for-liberation.

Dr. S. Lourdunathan, Head, Department of Philosophy, Arul Anandar (Autnomous) College, Karumathur, Madurai 625 514 , e-mail: nathanlourdu1960@gmail.com

Caste/State Violence against Dalits Sept 11/12, 2011: Tension gripped southern districts of Tamilnadu, following the death of five Dalits in police firing in Paramakudi on Sunday when they went to pay homage to Dalit leader Immanuel Sekaran on his death anniversary. In all, police firing has been reported in three places Paramakudi in Ramanathapuram district, Ilayankudi in Sivagangai district and Chinthamani in Madurai district. While three were killed in the firing at Paramakudi, one succumbed at the government hospital in Ilayankudi. Several other Dalits were injured. In Madurai district, two Dalit youths Balakrishnan and Jayaprasath sustained injuries in the firing. ADSP V.Mylvahanan said, Police resorted to firing only in self -defence only after a woman constable was harassed and an inspector was attacked. He said about 50 persons have been detained in the district. Third firing occurred in Ilayankudi when the people of Keelaiyur and neighbouring Dalit-dominant villages blocked a police vehicle A police source said, The villagers rounded up his vehicle forcing the police to open fire at them. Dinesh, 17, a Plus Two student suffered pellet injuries in the incident. The news of the untimely arrest of Dalit leader John Pandian in Thoothukudi on the day when Dalits were flocking towards Paramakudi from various southern districts to pay homage at the memorial of Immanuel Sekaran sparked tension among the members of the community. Several Dalit outfit leaders including Krishnasamy of Pudhiya Tamizhagam, Murugavelrajan of Makkal Viduthalai Katchi and Suba Annamalai of Mallar Kazhagam and MDMK general secretary Vaiko called on the injured at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai. Vaiko demanded a judicial enquiry into the firing at Paramakudi. Madurai collector U.Sagayam also visited the injured at the hospital. Earlier, their relatives blocked his vehicle condemning police firing. He has ordered an RDO inquiry into the Madurai firing. Meanwhile, Ramanathapuram district remains totally cut off. Bus services have been suspended in the district and buses proceeding from other districts to Ramanathapuram, Paramakudi, Rameswaram and Ilayankudi have been halted. Trains running between Madurai-Rameswaram-Madurai and Karaikudi-Manamadurai have been cancelled while Rameswaram-Tiruchy passenger is partially cancelled between Ramanathapuram and Tiruchy. Lathicharge was reported in a few places including Madurai. Several buses and police vehicles were damaged. Police prevented the reporters and photographers from covering the violence in Paramakudi. Almost all top police officials remained incommunicado to the press. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/tension-grips-south-districts-105

Issues Is Caste/State Violence against Dalits incidental or a way of cultural reproduction and Legitimization Caste power relations? How or in what manner we need to re-look at the Dalit Problematic? What are the Approaches to Dalit search for emancipation in Indian Social History and what is the approach that Ambedkar envisaged for Dalit Movements? Is there any intellectual agenda for the Dalit Movements that can be debated and cultivated by interesting the postmodern/postcolonial and Ambedkars discourse for Liberation?

Focusing the Trinitarian Dalit Problem The Dalit problem, namely the practice of disabled sociability, a specific kind of t hrownaway-ness (The idea of Thrownawayness refers to the out-caste-experience of Dalits due to the totalization of Caste totality) is increasingly recognized as a universal affliction that is hazardous to human autonomy and identity. In its cognitive and cultural totality, the Dalit problem is a totalization of alienation, resulting from/by the specific ontologism of the orthodoxy of Indian philosophical culture. The Dalit within the pan-Indian caste culture is historically reduced extent of deeming the Dalits sub-humans or no-humans. To the Dalits, to be (what is) social is denied by means of the Caste-cultural violence which in turn finds its rootedness, strength and expression in/through Indian social cum philosophical categories or structures. Within such patterns there is the ontological locus of a specific sense of denial of the vulnerable Other namely the Dalits, within which there is a sentience of precariousness, fragility, broken-ness, an experience of out-caste-ness, oppressed-ness and contingency of ones separated-ness from ones own cultural and social home. The practices of discrimination or deprivation and subtle forms of ill-treatment meted out to Dalits enforces a sense of epistemological vacuum structured through by Indian Cultural Cognitive patterns, which in turn constructs a sense of loss of identity for Dalits as People. The life-experience of every Dalit perceived through the caste mind-set is a (sad) shared-story of such sense of a loss or denial of identity and meaningfulness (epistemological vacuum).

The life of Ambedkar is a phenomenal illustration of this epistemological vacuum (a sense of worthlessness) but against which he crusaded throughout his life. Ambedkar observes that the gradation of the polarities within Casteism is the pre-condition or the prism in/through

which most dominant Indian cultural/religious philosophies have been constructed that continuously reinforce social separatism between any individuals in the Indian society. Caste for Ambedkar is a mind-set, a cultural lens that constructs any Indian social self. Evolving a philosophy and practice of Dalit liberation importantly cognizes and contextualizes this prism that produces social outcastenss or thrown-away-ness within the dominant ethos of Indian culture. Ambedkars engagement of the Philosophy of Hinduism, the Riddles of Hinduism, Annihilation of Casteism, etc are analytical works that are set in this direction only. The social and psychological disintegration that a Dalit is made to experience in the context of the dehumanizing caste-world is to be exchanged for a new philosophy of liberation against the onto-locus and onto-logos of Casteism.

The Dalit problematic is trinitarian. The Dalits (inclusive of the Dalit Christian & Muslims) more specifically are faced with (i) Caste as Cultural Reproduction for Domination

Discourse leading to Social Subjugation, Osterization of Dalits (ii) Existential Deprivation consolidated and perpetuated by specific Ideological (Philosophic-theological) sanctifications both within ideological presuppositions/premises which cumulatively reduce the Dalit Subject/Person as No-Person (iii) Caste as Radically Interiorized and Subjectivised entity that result in an Ambivalence of Dalit Identity. [The claims of cultural domination and the practices of existential deprivations against the Dalits are historically and socially innumerable in continuum and hence for specific reasons I may be permitted not to instantiate the same in recurring evidences, however we need to theoretically clarify the principles the construe radical interiorization and subjectivisation that propel the ambivalence of Dalit Identity].

Caste as a Cultural Discourse Constituting Cultural Power Structures in Continuum The use of the term discourse here needs some preliminary clarification. A discourse is a social language created by particular cultural conditions, and it expresses a particular way of understanding human experience.1 For Foucault, discourse operates in four basic ways: (i) Discourse is a socially constructed perceptual reality that influences our ideas and life-world marked by a chain of linguistic, cultural and ideological (philosophical) signifiers; (ii) Discourse generates knowledge and truth. Discourse constitutes not only the world that we live in, but also all forms of knowledge and truth-effects. And knowledge for Foucault is not
1

Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1999), p. 281

something value-neutral, that exists independently of language and culture but intimately produced by structures and interconnections of social structures and language. Thus Discourse operates, by being intimately involved with socially embedded networks of power. (iii) Discourse is not only a structural system of knowledge but it does inform the person who speaks the discourse, of his power-positions within the construed worldview and thereby a discourse is interactively connected with power and knowledge. (iv) Discourse is multiple and operates in multiple ways. (v) Cultures are constructed out of numerous competing discourses shaping the cultural perceptions infiltrating into different levels of life. Discourses too are modules of rules that are designed to spread from mind to mind and take over key operations.2

Clarifying Diverse Approaches to Caste Question The trajectory towards the rejection of casteism, implicitly implying issue of Dalit Liberation within the Indian social history need to be exposed. The historical attempts against casteism, accompanied violence and by its implication to the practices of social

discriminations/exclusions for reasons of clarity may be classified into three major approaches They are the (i) Reformists, (ii) Rationalists, and (iii) the Radicalists approaches against forms of caste discriminations. However, the underlying query is what is the theoretical/practical position that Ambedkar while projecting the annihilation of Caste embarked upon in order to protest against Caste Violence.

Rationalist Approach: Attempts of exclusive rejection to the dehumanising social practices of casteism and its allied forms of untouchability purely from secular or non-religious or atheistic platforms. Such an attempt conceives annihilation of poverty through economic modes of development as the basis of eradication of social discriminations. The attempts of some of the rationalists like Nehru, M.N. Roy, EVR Periyar and Marxian(s) might fall within this category.

Reformist Approach: Attempts of against casteism with the pretexts of winning and occupying social & political and cultural space for Religions (such as Hinduism and Christianity) without radically questioning the ideological foundations of their ideological and social hierarchy. The attempts of some of the reformists thinkers like Rajaram Mohan
2

Such a comparison is made by the philosopher Daniel Dennet in his book Consciousness Explained (Back Bay Books, 1992), pp. 187-226.

Roy, Gandhi, Vivekananda and the many of the Christian Churchs attempts perhaps may be said employ this approach to the question of casteism. Within the reformist types of approach there are specific varieties could be identified in terms of the purpose of this paper. (a) The early Christian missionary Christianity in India to a large extent employed the conversionstrategy without questioning caste hierarchy on the contrary retaining the samehowever for reasons of evangelization. (b) In the recent past some Christian preachers employ these reformist scriptural approaches by way of biblically signifying the Dalits context with reference to Biblical Narratives like Exodus of Israelites and Gospel ethics enabling scriptural narrative space for Dalit Liberation discourse within the Church. (c) Establishing the plight of Dalit on par with that of the so called scheduled caste within the Hindu social structure and embarking upon either/or or both charity or developmental approaches to the question Dalit Liberation. (d) Perceiving and placing, lobbying Dalit Liberation as a legal issue to be contested with, proved against/for and protected in favour of, simultaneously placing the Dalit Liberation issue as a Human Rights Programme of Action accompanied by Reservationism as a remedial measure in terms of Dalit Development on the touchstone of Social Justice.

Dr. Ambedkar against mere Reformation: [1:] But there is a set of reformers who hold out a different ideal. They go by the name of the Arya Samajists, and their ideal of social organization is what is called Chaturvarnya, or the division of society into four classes instead of the four thousand castes that we have in India. To make it more attractive and to disarm opposition, the protagonists of Chaturvarnya take great care to point out that their Chaturvarnya is based not on birth but on guna (worth). At the outset, I must confess that notwithstanding the worth-basis of this Chaturvarnya, it is an ideal to which I cannot reconcile myself.

Radical Approach: Attempts towards radical annihilation of caste by critiquing ideological underpinnings of casteism within the roots of cultural and religious roots of Hinduism and alternatively suggesting counter ideological and social praxis based on the philosophical principles of justice, equality and social change. The forerunner of such an attempt is traceable to the contribution of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. It is a dialectical engagement on the patterns of knowledge that structure Dalit giveness in terms of exclusion or inclusion employing specific modes of Deconstructing and Reconstructing for Dalit Discourse of liberation from the clutches of casteism. Within this paradigm the emerging paradigms

includes reconstruction of Dalit History, Dalit Sociology, Dalit Social Dynamics, Dalit Politics, Dalit Philosophy, Religion & Theology, Dalit Arts & Aesthetics, Dalit Feminism Dalit Social Engineering, Dalit literature etc,.

However we need to be aware of the fact that these attempts do overlap and not exclusive of each other but only conceptual categories of understanding. Moreover we need to critically evaluate of the fact to what extent these approaches radically address the problem of Caste Discrimination and by extension the social deprivation of Dalits. To what extent these abovementioned approaches to Dalit Liberation is foundationally radically capable to address the problem of discrimination and oppression both within the Social hierarchy itself is an ongoing contested issue. What is the intellectual/theoretical ground that Dr. Ambedkar envisages for Dalit Movements to warfare against Caste Violence - is the fundamental issue I would like to discuss in this paper. Allied with this issue is the necessity of analysis of Caste Violence as cultural reproduction and legitimization from the point of view of Dr. Ambedkar cumulatively what is the ethical cum metaphysical ground of Dalit Movements that Ambedkar visualized, in other words, what is the intellectual agenda from the stand point of Ambedkar to annihilate caste violence Rejection of metanarrative and Ambedkars Annihilation of Caste metanarrative Jean-Francois Lyotards postmodern writings are often summed up to the idea of incredulity toward metanarratives, (Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984, xxiv). Lyotards statement meant that postmodern thought would reject any sort of grand narrative that claims to make sense out of any and all life using universal reason. He specifically focused on the Idea of emancipation (Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Explained. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992, 24). Lyotard put everything from Christianity, to Marxism, Nazism, and Capitalism in the same metanarrative bucket and kicked it out the window. He said that in all of them, [the] end, even if it remains beyond reach, is called universal freedom, the fulfillment of all humanity (Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Explained. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992. P.25). These metanarratives are all trying to universally fulfil humanitys desires. Like Marx, Lyotard was concerned with those who were oppressed, the disadvantaged of society. Lyotard felt that metanarratives that claimed to explain everything created a society that listened to some people and ignored others. Gaston says this, Lyotards point was to critique all grand narratives that c laim too

much and therefore potentially hamper political and social justice (Gaston, Ray. Re-reading Babel and PentecostA Postmodern Polemic. Modern Believing. 40.2 (Ap 1999): 36-41). Lyotard thought that these metanarratives silenced the stories of the disadvantaged of society. They prize unity and sameness over plurality and difference (Macquarrie, 18). This unity and sameness is based in knowledge, which has become a commodity in the enlightenment.

Cultural Reproduction through Self Legitimization of Caste metanarrative For Lyotard, metanarratives are a distinctly modern phenomenon: they are stories that not only tell a grand story but also claim to be able to legitimate or prove the storys claim by an appeal to universal reason. It is this legitimation that allows the myth of progress to become a metanarrative. Science, the age of discovery and explanation is all based on reason. Smith says, modern legitimation has recourse to a universal criterion: reason-a (supposedly) universal stamp of legitimation. Lyotard says that reason itself is a narrative. A good example of this that Lyotard had issues with is that of the universal rights of man. Lyotard explains that these rights are themselves relative (Macquarrie, John. Postmodernism in philosophy of religion and theology. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. 50.1-3 (D 2001): 9-27. He would question how one group of people were able to say what the universal rights of all were. Lyotard asks, how could the grand narratives of legitimation still have credibility in the face of something like Auschwitz? (Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Explained. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992. P. 19). (omsherwood.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/lyotards-postmodern-critique-of-metanarratives) Ambedkar perceives that the caste worldview (like that of a metanarrative) as both selfalienating and other-alienating; as subjectifying vs. objectifying; as sanctifying and reifying; such polarities, need to be erased or resisted with Dalit collective consciousness and

wisdom. Ambedkar in the Annihilation Caste says:

One caste enjoys singing a hymn of hate against another caste as much as the Germans enjoyed singing their hymn of hate against the English during the World War I]. The literature of the Hindus is full of caste genealogies in which an attempt is made to give a noble origin to one caste and an ignoble origin to other castes. But the present-day non-Brahmins cannot forgive the present-day Brahmins The presentday Kayasthas will not forgive the present-day Brahmins for the infamy cast upon their forefathers by the forefathers of the latter. To what is this difference due? Obviously to the Caste System. The

existence of Caste and Caste Consciousness has served to keep the memory of past feuds between castes green, and has prevented solidarity. Hindu Society as such does not exist. It is only a collection of castes. Each caste is conscious of its existence. Its survival is the be-all and end-all of its existence. Castes do not even form a federation. A caste has no feeling that it is affiliated to other castes, except when there is a Hindu-Muslim riot. .. caste endeavours to segregate itself and to distinguish itself from other castes. Caste has however done one thing. It has completely disorganized and demoralized.. This anti-social spirit is not confined to caste alone. It has gone deeper and has poisoned the mutual relations of the sub-castes as well. This anti-social spirit, this spirit of protecting its own interests, is as much a marked feature of the different castes in their isolation from one another as it is of nations in their isolation. The primary concern is to protect their (caste) interests against those of the Brahmins. The Hindus, therefore, are not merely an assortment of castes, but are so many warring groups, each living for itself and for its selfish ideal. (Annihilation of Caste)

Value Dichotomy as the Principle of Categorical Violence for Social Exclusion A dichotomy is a hierarchical opposition, characterised of four features: (i) Opposition between two identities alienated form of differentiation antimony - dichotomy is a polarization of with discontinuity where in differences are seen to be more interesting than similarities and there is a tendency to see the differences as absolute. (ii) A hierarchical ordering of the pair (iii) The idea that between them this pair sum up and define a whole (iv) The notion of transcendence (achieved by set of category by the denial of other category transcendence implies both an overcoming of self that is detachment and the achievement of an abstract and universal impartiality by the denial of the Other, the world or woman as corrupting.3

Within the Indian culture one can situate foundations of metaphysics of violence that form the basis of a discourse of exclusion, the centrality against which Ambedkars attempts to codify The Philosophy of Hinduism and to embark upon Annihilation of Caste stems from these vantage points. The practical violence against the socially excluded, (namely the Dalits and the Other deprived sections of Indian society do not need any evidence as to prove the factuality of the practices of exclusion) at the social, political and cultural facets do have philosophical sanctification and how they are construed as our perspectives remains to be one of the basic areas of research and critique in Ambedkar. His critique of Indian caste culture, points out that a discourse for power domination is deeply structured within the metaphysical
3

Raia Prokhovnik, Rational Women: A Feminist Critique of Dichotomy (Manchester University Press, New York 2002.

and epistemological fabrics of Indian philosophical traditions. It is through constructing dichotomies or value-hierarchical dualities as philosophical lenses, a majority of Indian Philosophical traditions construe a culture of domination and subjugation to be perceived normal. These philosophical lenses form the basis of perceiving Indian social reality which simultaneously go to provide legitimization of/or the practice of exclusion in terms of Casteism. There exist a multiple sets of dichotomies within the Indian philosophical constructs which in turn constitute an overarching binary way of perceptions. Exclusively oppositional categories are theoretically loaded as to construct a society based of oppositional or mutually exclusive cum inclusive relations. To begin with, to position the Vedic texts within the realm of revealed truth inherently veils and excludes any other texts as either not-revealed or notsufficiently-revealed which in turn consolidate the primacy of Vedic supremacy in comparison or contrast with the non-Vedic texts or Contexts4 of other cultural traditions. Such Vedic and non-Vedic classification as revealed vs. not revealed primarily purports a kind of class division between those who adhere to the teachings of Vedas and those who are not in a manner of antagonistic relations.

The metaphysical exclusivism(s) such as

Brahman vs. World, Being vs. Non-being,

Purusha vs. Prakriti, the Ontological vs. cosmological, the Transcendental vs. nontranscendental, Soul vs. body, Rational vs. non-rational, Prohita vs. the lay, Male vs. the female, the classical elite vs. the laity, the Caste Touchable vs. the outcaste untouchable, and so on cumulatively merge together towards the propelling of the principle of exclusion as foundational categories of our understanding. Within this dichotomy the former is politically spaced to endorse a sense of privileged presence over or against the latter to endure a sense of differentiation. These apriori categories of understanding, treated as not posterior implicitly and succinctly construe an onto-locus-logos, a philosophy of domination of what is construed as the primary as against the hierarchical secondary. The cultural externalization of this philosophical construction is but the hierarchical value division between high-caste vs. low- caste.
4

The term of context is used here with the sensibility of Derridas use of the term. For him, It's the assertion that "there is nothing outside the text" (il n'y a pas de hors-texte), which means that there is no such a thing as out-of-the-text, in other words, "there is nothing outside context. We can call "context" the entire "realhistory-of-the-world," if you like, in which this value of objectivity and, even more broadly, that of truth (etc.) have taken on meaning and imposed themselves. That does not in the slightest discredit them. It's the assertion that "there is nothing outside the text" (Derrida (1988) Afterword, p. 136) which means that there is no such a thing as out-of-the-text, in other words, "there is nothing outside context".

Given to these structures of thought, the subjugation of the excluded people, the Dalits, is fundamentally /theoretically grounded and historically expressed through social and culturalinstitutional forms of violence through violations, practices, ritualism and symbolism.

Defining Self for the practice of the Social Exclusion of the Dalit Generally stated the notion of Self within the broader frame work of orthodoxy of Indian philosophy is defined as diametrically opposed to what is relegated as non-self and by extension, the realm of non-self theoretically and geo-politically includes the locus of an excluded realm. Among the broad philosophical categories of what is deemed Self (atman) and non-self (Anatma) in most orthodox and heterodox Indian philosophies, is there a space for the selves of the excluded or in what manner the excluded realm is devoid of having any Self-worth and how the realm of non-self is systematically construed as to fall outside the political borders of what is deemed as self is the persistent issue here. The Vedantic concept of self is the very foundation, the centrality and the basis of which most philosophical perceptions are constituted. According to the scholars of the tradition, Advaita speaks about the nature and existence of Self in exclusive categories as against the not-self, namely the perceptual world of illusion. The Advaita of Sankara, (comments S. Radhkrishnan) insists on the transcendent nature of ultimate reality of the non-dual Brahman and duality of the world including Iswara who presides over it. Reality is Brahman or Atman. No predication is possible of Brahman as predication involves duality and the Brahman [self] is free from duality 5 According to Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad, That Self is not this, not this. It is indestructible, incomprehensible, unfettered. Brahman is incomprehensible because it goes beyond the attributes of effects. (sarva-karya-dharmatitah)6 Sankara himself points out, that the ultimate reality is the Brahman, which is Sat (Pure Existence), Cit (Pure Consciousness) and Ananda (Pure Bliss).7 Such defining claims regarding the nature of self as non-dual, different from the Other etc are placed to enunciate specific modes of perceptions namely the famous classificatory pattern of the transcendental (paramarthika) from the empirical (vyavaharthika), the really real and the unreal.

The denial of the world or the treatment of it as illusion or maya is made possible only from the point of view of the transcendental and therefore Brahman as only transcendental reality
5 6

Radhakirishnan. S (ed.), The Principal Upanisads,(George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1953) pp.25-26. Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad III.9.26. 7 Sankara, Brahmasutra Bhasya, I.

is non-dual and the rest of the reality is either no-reality or not sufficiently real. Though the Vedantic claim is non-dualistic, but regarding the perception of reality of world as illusory conceives the political possibility of constructing dualistic perception. The Vedantic and pro Vedantic claims regarding the nature of self is quite enveloping and one can evolve a spiritual speculations like cosmic unity, cosmic consciousness of the unity between the individual self with the social and cosmic self, realization of the Atman-Brahman nature as the Indian way to self realization etc, however a Dalit reading/rendering of such a positions in fact problematizes the very notion of what is deemed as Self. Even if the metaphysical oneness of the transcendental reality does not deny the possibility of an empirical world per se, but perceived as appearance from the paramarthika standpoint 8 in no way escapes any binary constructions or perceptions. This amounts to position that the transcendental reality because it is defined transcendental, is conveniently placed in the realm of the primary and there by excluding what is deemed as non-transcendental as secondary and by application such a perception go concretely contribute the idea that ones perception about reality ought to be dualistic and to be dualistic is the one and only way of acclaiming the higher reality. This means that exclusion seems to be way the reality of the world has to be perceived and conceived and thereby the question of addressing the social exclusion is conveniently escaped within the philosophical frontiers of the notion of Self. If exclusion is the theoretical ground of ones perception, where then is the possibility of addressing social exclusion and hence the question of the empirical, the social etc remains to silent, and a culture of silence seems to be the only possible way of being towards the being of the really-real-self. The Dalit issue of exclusion is expediently escaped in such philosophical frames. Hence the problem social exclusion of Casteism finds no serious attention in the axiological foundations of Indian philosophies. Moreover the Vedantas do claim that the world is an appearance from the stand point of the transcendental but real from an empirical standpoint. The question is whether there is any philosophical space in such empirical space reduced to the dimension of not-sufficiently-real.

The argument is that the Vedantin by elevating the nature of Self, as transcendental simultaneously forecloses any possibility or sensitivity to social-empirical problems and after all the empirical or social space for an him is something to be denied or negated in
8

Pradhan.R.C, Professor Balasubramanian on the Advaita Vaedanta of Sankara and the Philosophy of Wittgensteing in the Tractatus: The Search for a Metaphysics of Being, (National Seminar Paper on the Thought Works of Prof. R. Balasubramanian, March 223, 2001) p.2

continuum through specific mode of neti neit to the attainment of Brahman nature. Therefore it is not only a truism that the non-dualistic position is incapable of addressing the question of exclusion rather it forecloses the possibility of addressing it. When perceptual optical is (pan-optican) is optimized in terms of discrimination or binary ways of perception, where there is the possibility to address the problem of discrimination. This is the sole reason, Ambedkar finds himself stating that he will not die within the folds of Hinduism. The orthodox position thus tactically construed as to avoid any issue discussion regarding problems concerned with dehumanization for de-humanization (denial of the human-world in order project the Brahman-world) seems to be the very foundation on the basis of which the entire edifice is built upon. The metaphysical oneness of the transcendental reality, amounts to the exclusion of the social and the exclusion of the Social amounts to the denial of the least ones, the Dalits, in subtle sophisticated manner. Hence what is philosophical here is but a politics/tactics of evading the social particular. Such philosophical position

This means that the majority of Indian Philosophical positions deprive themselves to address the problem of exclusion for reasons of emancipation and hence Dalit liberation hence is not only far cry in Indian philosophy but an illusion in Indian philosophical constructs. The very mental constructs needs to resurrect is a way towards emancipatory project while addressing the problem of exclusion. The Vedic Claim that Ekam Sat if/when interpretatively rendered it would also imply the Brahman/Self as Ekam and it is Sat (the really real) and by its enclosure and extension, the realities of the world, is deemed Asat, un real. The cognitive space between Sat and Asat is the cultural/social space between the High Caste and low caste, having the intermediary territories of upper caste groupings. Dalits occupy the territory of non-real, an illusion to be detested with, yet such an illusion is needed to maintain the very notion called Sat or the really real. There are two things happening here. (i) First, Such a philosophy of the Hindu orthodoxy reifies the Dalit into a realm of absolute condemnation, robbing of Self-worthiness to the Dalit-self. (ii) And secondly, the enclosed-self of the HighCaste loses any sense of consciousness or awareness to the sensibility of human rights, libertarian ethics, and existential values. As a result both the in-caste-self (non Dalits) and the out caste self (Dalits) imbibe a culture of negation of each other or a culture of resignation to each other (termed as tolerance) and renunciation. The women or the Dalit (body-symbol), though a speaking body, connote a culture of a culture of silence abnegated of its capacity to affirmation and self-expression. Re-reading Indian philosophical culture from the

perspective of Ambedkar and the question of Dalit emancipation, it can be emphasized that the Being (?) of a Dalit is always treated as insufficient being, that which cannot exist in itself (in-substantial) therefore, an entity-for-exploitation. Thus exploitation is philosophical (Knowledge-Structured), unfortunately epitomized as spiritual. The Dalit-Self, though a constructed on is always constructed in-dependency off or antagonistic to what has been construed as the categories of Self with in this predominant philosophical traditions. The Dalit-Self is within this construct, is a sort of non-self or sub-self, to be appropriated or if needed, to be annihilated.

Derrida refers the primacy or domination of the rational or spirit category, embedded in the history of western philosophical thinking, as metaphysics of presence 9 that serve as the basis or principle of exclusion of the Other. The conceptual subtleties ingrained within these theoretical bearings tint the Indian cultural perceptive world(s) whose consolidate social reality is Casteism. These dichotomies have dominated our thinking, perceptions, language, culture and social relations. These dichotomise define the universe through the lens provided by their pair. These dichotomies contain a set of implicit assumptions that assign a prominence and a dominant value to the term in the position of A at the expense of not-A (Gatens 1991:93). The assumption is that there are two distinct realities mutually exclusive and incompatible with primary secondary positions, each of which occupy self-contained and self-enclosed spheres. [A is defined as only A; as being not-B; as the negation of B]. Such difference according to both Sassure and Derrida, are mass thoughts that engenders a system of values as he says, In language there are only differences.[...] without positive terms. Whether we take the signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed before the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic differences that have issued from the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is of less importance than the other signs that surround it. [...] A linguistic system is a series of differences of sound combined with a series of differences of ideas; but the pairing of a certain number of acoustical signs with as many cuts made from the mass thought engenders a system of values10 Ambedkar writings needs to relocated within such theoretical contexts of categorical oppositions that exclude each other but intact by ways of inclusive logic for a
9

The concept of the metaphysics of presence is an important consideration within the area of deconstruction. The deconstructive interpretation holds that the entire history of Western philosophy and its language and traditions has emphasized the desire for immediate access to meaning, and thus built a metaphysics or ontotheology around the privileging of presence over absence 10 Saussure, Ferdinand de (1916 [trans. 1959]). Course in General Linguistics. New York: New York Philosophical Library. pp. 12122.

continued discourse of exclusion. The Dalit or the socially excluded here according to Ambedkar exist as that-by-which-the dominant-define-themselves-as-beings (sue generis) in opposition of the not-sufficiently-being, namely the excluded people]. Such dichotomisation categorically and necessarily involve both domination and suppression of what is culturally perceived and placed as secondary or inferior. These binaries are but the radical dichotomy pervasively and persuasively function as metaphysics of presence to maintain the imposed or assumed order; there are latent

conceptual connections in the dominant Indian cultural traditions which can be explored between reason, masculinity, truth and intellect on the one hand and sense, untochability, femininity, error and emotion on the other. The binaries positioned as eternal truths/logos promote a persistent discourse of exclusion by which what is relegated as outcaste has to be epistemologically and morally reduced to the realm of continuous negation. No wonder Casteism as a socio-cultural order is but the social signification of the philosophical eidos, the supremacy of A-category at the expense or in relation to the inferiority of B-category, thus forming a categorical opposition relation of both domination and repression. These horizons inevitably influence the way we live in the moment. Ideas arent always present either; they take shape from prior ideas and memories, work themselves out, come to fruition, and become transformed into different ideas. Ideas have history and trajectory just like human lives. The present moment is only a trace of temporal duration as it moves from the past into future.11 To define ones conceptions, oneself, ones position, and ones community (caste) in opposition to, in rejection of, and in a hierarchy with something else, rather than in connection or relation to it, entrenches a politics of social exclusion. It is a Berlin Wall Mentality. It has a repressive effect on our modes of thinking and socially behaving through specific modes of speech-acts.

The western modern progressive notions such as autonomy, reason, science, freewill etc is absent in such enclosures. In that place, memory, repetition, ritual and cultural practices, caste-dharma etc are replaced and deemed superior value here. This is the reason why, the notion of freedom, equality, fraternity, though enshrined in Indian constitution (thanks to the efforts of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar) is absent in the very ethos of Casteism. Instead it revolves

11

http://ktismatics.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/derrida-on-the-metaphysics-of-presence/

around a morality of caste-grounded dharma, purusarthas

12

where in caste-duty is a

categorical imperative of the people of Indian culture. By the stretch of the same logic, Ambedkar argues that a Caste-Hindu is bound to remain to be a closed totality. The Caste Hindu totality is a totality devoid of any social relation. It does not possess the capacity to relate, to face the face of the other, and to look at the speaking eyes of the other, whether the other is female or Dalit or any one for that matter. If it does, it can only do so, by a practice of exploitation and reduction of the-other. A philosophy of Dalit liberation is an expression of resistance to such exploitative looks and world-outlook. Within this structure of thought and culture, violence, hatred, denials or subjugation etc is deep-rooted. Since the high caste self is a closed totality, the sensibility of the social is alarmingly absent in the caste-mind-set and its world. Since the very logical construct of caste-pattern is constituted of I-(despised)It relation, it could only regulate a relation of categorical hierarchy, by which it justifies the acts of violence, subordination and manipulation of the untouchables.

Most Indian philosophical cultural trends, language and social systems are characterised by a whole set of hierarchical oppositions, all allied to a primary elevation of privileged presence at the expense of, and by excluding unprivileged need to be eroded. Such dichotomies are not only inherited constructions but quite operative within symbiosis of caste endogamous social relations. Ambedkar evaluates anthropology of Casteism within the parameters of endogamy is but a clear-cut explosion of the incoherency of these inherited value-dualistic and hierarchical conceptualities. A definitive epistemological foundation of such rationalities entails not only the omission of the untouchables or the out castes but all the socially excluded sections by way of expulsion, banishment and exile of them relegated to the realm of the material, the earthly, the dirtily, the sinful, the natural, emotional, passionate, bodily, disorderly, formless, subordinate, passive, sometimes dangerours, and therefore the Other, whose otherness needs to be consciously, culturally, socially and of course religiously be abnegated. Ambedkars contributions have to be situated as a call for an end to the repression of pluridimensional systemic cum symbolic thought-violences. For Ambedkar, all such conceivable (conceptual) ways of thinking and communicating should be explored as to evolve a
12

Prurusarthas literally means the ends that are sought after by the Self, that constitutes the meaing of life of the individual. Indian orthodoxy treats this concept as fundamental moral to Indian culture, but the notion is questionable.

meaningful engagement in terms of emancipation of those who are deemed secondary and therefore excluded. Dichotomous thinking in which the excluded is seen as subordinate is not only conceptual or logical constructions, but also historical, social, political and cultural. The untouchables in favour of whom Ambedkar crusaded, held that they are historically relegated to the realm of a domesticity (domestic unpaid servants) as that of the feminine reduced to the realm of private such as family, reproduction and sexuality. These relegations are seen and are philosophically perceived as if they are governed by natural rhythms, social norms, morality (varnasharma dharma) rather than subjects for a discourse and reclamation of emancipation in terms of their own identity and social justice. These philosophical dichotomies are but socially construed truth-claims that are functional to reproduce caste society as normative social order. This seems to be strongest argument that runs through the writings of Ambedkar.

Theory and practice are integrated, in a culture, by the presuppositions involved in a dominant metaphor, through which ideas, actions and practices are seen as meaningful and understood and coherent. Mind and Body is such metaphor instrumental in setting out the conditions and structure of thinking, and of possible thoughts. Such metaphors contains inherent explanatory force, if naturalized and used unselfconsciously, can operate to predetermine the meaning of A and not-A. We experience the world, in a default mode, through an implicit habitual understanding. We are socialised in such default world. Such perception is conflated as self-evidence. It is a sort of a mapping process of exclusion creating mind set to consider that caste is morally right and a cultural privilege and social identification. Derrida considered that when encountering what he called a "classical philosophical opposition", one never encounters "peaceful coexistence" of the two opposing concepts, but rather a "violent hierarchy", where one of the two dominates over the other. "In a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful coexistence of a vis-vis, but rather with a violent hierarchy. One of the two terms governs the other (axiological and logical) or has the upper hand." 13 The problem with Dichotomy as a constituent category is both instability and internal irreconcilability. It stabilizes hegemonic convention. It leads to the denigration and disintegration of human existence as excluded vs. included in continuous opposition.

13

Jacques Derrida, "Interview with Julia Kristeva" in "Positions" (The University of Chicago Press, 1981, p.41.

The dualistic categories patterned within philosophical trends provide the basis for caste cultural hegemony. The term hegemony employed by Gramsci is of some importance here. The hegemony of the dominant class for Gramsci is achieved not by force but be getting the concern of the dominated class through cultural modes such as religion, education and allied social political practices by projecting a monolithic frame. Ambedkar held that the major problem of Indian society is the system of caste and it is a dominant structure that shapes the perception of the individual in the Indian society. Caste system according to Ambedkar is perpetuated by the cultural modes of religion and other social practices. Both Ambedkar and Antonio Gramsci converge on the issue that domination is achieved by a system of cultural practice which enjoys a social concern both by the oppressor and the oppressed. They hold that cultural hegemony serves as a means of maintaining the power of politics of the ruling/dominant class. For Gramsci fascism and capitalism remain to the ruling cultural hegemony against which the working class have to promote a counter cultural hegemony to pave way for the establishment of civil society. For Ambedkar Casteism with its social practice of high and low caste division is the cultural hegemony that operates in the Indian society. Both Ambedkar and Antonio Gramsci stressed the need for emancipatory education which promotes socially engaged intellectual to strive towards social transformation. For both these thinkers, hegemony or social supremacy is both ideological and socially structural. Gramsci holds that hegemony of the dominant class is achieved by specific ideological apparatus. Drawing from Machiavelli, Gramsci argues that 'The Modern Prince' the revolutionary party is the force that will allow the working-class to develop organic intellectuals and an alternative hegemony within civil society. Ambedkar identified that Brahmanism as an ideological apparatus operates within caste social structure to maintain the supremacy of upper castes against which a discourse of emancipation is a necessary predicament which has to be constituted on the principle of fraternity, secularism, democracy, equality and justice.

It is interesting note that both Ambedkar and Antonio Gramsci are strong of critique of economism of the capitalism. Economism is mode of economic structure designed to serve the profit interests of the capitalists which in turn is achieved by the exploitation of the working class. Ambedkar holds that capitalism and Casteism are the twin evils that structure Indian society and hence they are antithetical to equality and justice. Antonio Gramsci highlights the notion of historicism. In Gramsci's view, (historicism) all meaning derives from the relation between human practical activity (or praxis) and the objective historical

and social processes of which it is a part. Ideas cannot be understood outside their social and historical context, apart from their function and origin. Ambedkar analysis of Indian society is not merely a criticism alone; rather it is a critique of Indian society from a philosophical cum historical perspective. His writings such as Annihilation of Caste, State and Minorities, The Problem of the Rupee, its Origin and its Solution etc deeply reflect the historical sensibility with which Ambedkar engaged an analysis of Indian Society.

Within the philosophical patterns of Indian culture and its cultural/institutional patternCasteism, a specific logic of domination is veiled and hidden. Outcasteness is the social expression of logic of domination and exclusion stems from the ontologism of Indian orthodoxy. The construction of the Brahman-Self as the Primary alternatively structures the secondary-ness of the matter (prakriti), and by extension the Non-Self, namely the Dalit. The Brahman-Self is symbolic of the High Caste Self in upper gradation in thought and action. The high caste if and when s/he is placed as primary self, over and against the low caste or outcaste person (the-Other), implicitly construes a graded oppositional relation of domination for subordination and subjugation. To put it logically, it is this: Between X and Y if and when X is placed superior to Y, then X by the virtue of having its higher locus, is justified in subordinating Y 14. Between the high and low caste persons, there is a gradation of low caste persons, each occupying a territory of his own in antagonism to and subjugation of who is deemed as lower caste, the Other. This construction of a logic of domination attributes outcasteness and treated as a necessary precondition of incasteness of the same caste (Caste groupings), like that of the political territory of a ruler(s) is preconditioned by the political periphery of the ruled people. The totality of such onto-logical is levied heavily on to the shoulders of Dalit person. Given to this depth grammatology of domination, to Ambedkar, the perception of the removal of the problem of casteism and its alleged untouchability or disabled sociability within the parameter of Caste functional structuralism is a categorical contradiction. Therefore the logic of liberation lies outside the parameters of orthodox Indian philosophies.

Between and Beyond Tradition and Modernity and the Emancipatory Discourse of Ambedkar
14

Enrique Dussell employs this concept of logic of domination, in his work, Philosophy of Liberation, (Orbis Books) to argue that western philosophical structures implicitly construe such domination whose practical expression is colonialism and economic and political exploitation.

The emancipatory discourse that Ambedkar engage can be summarised as a Discourse ofBetween and Beyond Tradition and Modernity. The type of modernity discourse that Ambedkar entertains in his writings though one could find influence of western modernism, it is not exclusively western modernist, in the sense that he deconstructed the modernism of the west as to suit Indian society. For instance the western modernity discourse propel a sort of dominant secular rationality, whereas Ambedkar projects a sense of Indian modernity, meaning that to be secular in Indian culture is to do away with the dominant religious and cultural ethos. The tradition of Casteism and its ideological bearings, namely the dichotomous cultural lens, while radically eroded by Ambedkar, he as well engaged a

serious sense of returning to the tradition, in the sense of hermeneutically rendering Renewed Buddhism as a possible mediation to pro-act emancipatory project without losing the progressive sight of modernity. This is why i do contend that Ambedkars emancipatory discourse to be captured with in the boundaries of tradition and modernity and beyond modernity with a serious sense of transcendence and yet rooted to Indian cultural ethos.

By embarking upon a philosophy of emancipation foregrounding between and beyond tradition and modernity, Ambedkar evolves a discourse of emancipation. For him, this is a conscious and perspective-attempt to destabilize what has been construed as knowledge and cultural power. Organically it is an intellectual attempt to inroad into cognitive constructions of domination and it proclaims the death of super-self paving way for the birth of plurality of Selves in-simultaneous-presence of the Other
15

. Ambedkars emancipatory project is not

again a cognitive totality that totalizes the Dalit world as the self-same centre. Rather it is an attempt to de-write the written text, a political attempt depoliticize the cultural power of the privileged self. Socially it is both a destruction of the old order by strategic interventions for the emergence of the proximate speaking face of persons as persons in relation. To this, we need to wage a war against cultural dominations by mode of mediation (intellectual agenda) for emancipation. The platforms of such war against war are multiple the intellectual, the cultural, the economic, the religious, the political and even the spiritual. The politics of such realms needs to be exposed if we really mean a discourse of liberation, a sense of liberation not only of Dalits, primarily of them, but the liberation from of any cultural forms of totalities. For Paulo Friere, it is specific a pedagogy of the oppressed for liberation. In the language of Ambedkar, Dalit liberation is praxis of resistance to isolation, to discrimination,
15

Refer the writings of post structuralism, according to which meaning is neither a matter of representation (repression) nor essence-centre (cognitive), but a matter of simultaneity in mutuality.

to subjugation, to subordination, to exploitation etc, is foundationally a socio-spiritual action. Given to the ontological ground, the fore-ground of Indian caste cultural violence, the Dalit struggle for liberation, I believe, is both intellectual and social. We need to re-search and reread Ambedkar vis--vis the recent trends of empancipatory discourse at the international level. Thank you