Dalit Panthers : An Authoritative History -Book
Review
J
V Pawar, Dalit Panthers : An
Authoritative History ,Translated from Marathi by Rakshit Sonawane, Forward Press / The
Marginalised, IGNOU Road, New Delhi-110068, ISBN 978-93-87441-0(Paperback);
978-93-87441-05-7(Hardback), pp 246,
Price Rs. 500
Harnam
Singh Verma
Arranged
in very short 50 chapters, this is a book that tells the tale of Dalit Panthers by J V Pawar, someone who was
its General Secretary and pivotal
organizer of all Dalit Panther actions, and who kept meticulous records
of Dalit Panther events. These 50 chapters are also not vey long as is the case
with the celebrated historical treatises
of noted Indian and foreign historians.
As
is well –known, the Dalit Panthers was formed by Raja
Dhale, Namdev Dhasal and J V Pawar on 29 May,1972 and just after its national attention –catching
tumultuous journey in Mahashtra,it was
disbanded on 7 March,1977. It was a militant Dalit movement that attracted
world-wide attention and carried the
erstwhile Ambedkarite movement from
passive resistance to inequality, atrocities, violence and exploitation of the
Dalits to a new militant level where they
began taking appropriate
corrective actions without
waiting for the unwilling government
machinery to redress them . The
sub-title of the book deems it as an
‘authoritative history’ of Dalit Panther movement. However, Pawar himself states in the Preface that it is a ‘sketchy
history’. On the basis of an objective assessment, Pawar’s account is both
‘sketchy’ as well as ‘authoritative’ ! It is authoritative in terms of details
of events, specific participants in them and the elaborate description of nuts
and bolts of their organization and outcomes, changing configurations of its
organizational journey. Dhale and Dhasal have also written their versions of Dalit Panthers’ history but
they lack objective descriptions of the
organization as well as its programmes during its short-lived existence. Pawar
is dead right when he states that only
three Dalit Panthers , Raja Dhale, Namdev
Dhasal, and he himself, could have written its history. It so happens that all
three have written this tumultuous history, and their accounts , but when
compared , are found to be often at
variance with each other. I would agree with Pawar that he has the best
credentials to claim the adjective
“authoritative” for his history of the Dalit Panthers since he was its
Secretary, kept all the records, was organizing most of the consequential
events, and compared to highly
emotional and often irresponsible Dhale and Dhasal ,was the
more down to earth operative of the
Dalit Panthers.
The
back page jacket of the book has assessments of Anand Teltumbde, Bhau Torsekar,
Shahir Sambhaji Bhagat, Yogesh Maitreya. Neelkanth Khadilkar, Avinash Dolas,
and Raja Dhale, and each one of them attests the credentials of Pawar to write
Dalit Panther history authoritatively. However,
my review is my own assessment that is unaffected by these opinions.
After reading the book carefully, I would say that the book is “authoritative”
in detailing –not analyzing--what it
covers but there are obvious and far too
many gaping holes. I would not enumerate
them all but give example of one
significant one. One such gaping hole for example does not cover one of the
significant contributions of the Dalit Panthers, namely starting and developing
a Dalit tradition of literature in Marathi in Maharaashtra which rubbed off its
sheen on literary Dalits active in languages such as Hindi to produce an
alternate view of the Dalits and their socio-economic-cultural- political
existence! In Pawar’s personal and Dalit Pathers’ context ,this is all the more
galling omission since apart from Raja
Dhale and Namdev Dhasal, Pawar himself was a leading
Dalit literary figure who brought out outstanding Dalit literary output that debunked the mainstream Marathi literary view of the
empirical reality in Maharashtra. That
this is indeed so is very competently
analyzed by Eleanor Zilliot in her book, From the Untouchable to the Dalit,
especially when juxtaposed with
mainstream Marathi literature, how Dalit literary view depicts an altogether
new and far more truer perspective
of Dalit literature, culture, art
and history! Pawar mentions Eleaner
Zilliot in his narrative all right but conveniently
forgets to record the conclusions of her analysis dealing with the contribution
of Dalit Panther literature in developing a Dalit view of social
reality of Dalits in Maharashtra and how
it is different from the mainstream Marathi literary works!
Pawar’s history of Dalit Panthers is detailed descriptive account of the post-Ambedkar context in which the movement burst
on the political turf of Maharashtra.
Pawar identifies two major causes of the birth of the Dalit Panthers as an
organization: the unwillingness of the Government of Maharashtra to take any
concrete steps to redress the grievances of the Dalits, and no
decisive attempt by the Republican Party of India to fight for Dalit causes due to its split in
to various factions to enjoy the crumbs
of power conferred by the Congress
rulers. Informed readers know that in spite of the foregoing, unlike the ground
reality of the Dalits in most other
states, Maharashtra’s society possessed
what Harish Wankhede( Return to a Radical Past : Bhima-Koregaon Protests
Reflected Acts that Define Dalit Consciousness And Its Agenda, The Indian
Express, 17 January,2018 ) calls Ambedkar Civil Society consisting of numerous NGOs, cultural fronts,
social cooperatives, Buddhist faith- based organizations and other self
motivated groups, which functioned along
with many intellectual forums, social activists and students’ organizations to
propagate the ideas of Ambedkar. Even Wankhede does not label it
correctly. In fact Maharashtra possessed
Bahujan Civil Society and-not only Dalit Civil Society- that included the other
deprived sections of the society like
the OBCs and the Scheduled Tribes. Pawar
certainly refers to them in his 50 short chapters of history of Dalit Panthers but appears to
downplay their contributory role in the success of the Dalit Panthers. In fact,
as Wankhede states this Ambedkar Civil
Society has continued to function effectively even after the
disbanding of the Dalit Panthers
in 1975 as for example seen in
2017 episode at Bhima Koregaon . It has carved an independent space in the
socio-cultural domain without directly attaching itself to political fronts.
These engage in independent acts of Dalit/ Bahujan resistance in the social
sphere in an arena of conflict between
the proponents of the Brahminical Hindu social order and defenders of social
equality. Thus, the Dalit civil society was present in the post –split period of the
Republican Party of India as it is today in the post- Dalit Panthers era and
subsequent to its disintegration in 1975 :
it had distanced itself from
the political milieu and is
engages in transformative social change periodically . Pawar mentions their contribution
in his narrative throughout but does not prominently acknowledge their role in contributing
to the success of the Dalit
Panthers. As Harish Wankhede argues, it
is these everyday social ,cultural and intellectual activisms that define Dalit
consciousness and its agenda today. The Dalit protests on the streets of
Maharashtra testify that the Dalit movement has retained its radical and
progressive character against all odds (and despite absence of militant
organizations like the Dalit Panthers of the mid 1970s).
Pawar’s
history of Dalit Panthers has elaborate detailing of important Dalit Panther
events but not necessarily in either logical or historical sequence. However,it
is honest, fairly self-critical participative account outlining of birth and
development, functioning of the Dalit Panthers movement, its inherent
organisational, and operational weaknesses including individual whims and
fancies of its important pall bearers. What comes out of his account is the
repetitive, and painful story of very strong , potent ,and pulsating movements succeeding in the
shortest possible term but also disintegrating in short time span. The Dalit
Panthers movement had all elements of empowerment and yet did not sustain
itself despite enormous goodwill even from segments such as the OBCs and the tribal deprived . It shows the contrasts of short –period success of a militant
outfit like Dalit Panther in the socio-political terrain of Maharashtra
and that
of a far more politically broad-based movement of BSP on one hand in the 1990s and the still birth of Bhim Army in UP in 2017 where a civil society of all three
deprived sections of the society is still non-existent!
Pawar’s
Dalit Panthers history, although decidedly authoritative looked at from one
viewpoint, is incomplete once a comprehensive overall view of Dalit Panther
movement is taken, and the book must be read
in conjunction with the similar accounts
separately brought out by Pawar as well as other Dalit Panther notables. Pawar
himself has authored some aspects of
accounts of the Dalit Panthers movement like the contribution of Dalit Panthers literary output in separate writings . Since these are not
included in this book, it must be read
along with writings of Pawar, and fellow Dalit Panther notables like Raja Dhale and Namdev Dhashal on the one hand and
analyses of noted researchers like Eleanor Zilliot, Gail Omvedt, and
Anupama Rao.
Pawar’s
book is an honest, fairly self-critical participative account outlining of
birth and development, functioning of the Dalit Panthers movement, its inherent
structural, and operational weaknesses including individual whims and fancies
of its important pall bearers. Raja Dhale and Namdev Dhasal in their accounts
of Dalit Panther movement have shown excessive emphasis on their own role; they
have even not been truthful in some of their descriptions. Pawar is just the
opposite: unlike Dhale and Dhasal, he has
been self critical and has acknowledged his mistakes! And it goes
without saying that no one—including
Anupma Rao, Gail Omvedt and
Eleanor Zealot-- has Pawar’s depth and specification.
Pawar’s
book is not analytical : it is descriptive, episode by episode, quite often not
arranged in sequential in its narrative : it is not history in the styles of say
historians like BB Mishra. However, I am not inclined to term his book lacking
analytical rigour. It is deliberately written in a very simple language. I know that Pawar has been a notable literary figure in Marathi
literature whose poetry has been
outstanding exhibit of rich Marathi
literary expression. This book does not reflect that literary genre. It is
written in low key language that a
typical Maharashtrian uses in his day-to-day life! What he has done is writing people’s history
for people’s consumption! However, this
history, although decidedly authoritative looked at from one viewpoint, is incomplete
once a comprehensive overall view of Dalit Panther movement is taken ,and must
be read in conjunction with the similar
accounts separately brought out by other Dalit Panther notables. Raja Dhale and Namdev Dhashal on the one hand and
analyses of noted researchers like Ellinear Zilliot, Gail Omvedt,
Anupama Rao and Shoorykaant Waghmore on the Dalit Panther movement.
Given the detailed auto-ethnographic character
of Pawar’s history of Dalit Panthers, its price tag of Rs 500 for a 246 page
book fixed by the Forward Press/ The Marginalised is surely is
very reasonable. Had it been published by upstream publishers like international
publishing firms such as Holt Rhinehart,
OUP, Sage , and McMillans it would have been not
less than Rs. 1000! This is my sincere hope that the Forward Press/The Maginalised
would also bring out its Hindi version shortly.
(Posted on the FB on 21 January,2018)
{
Copy Right: 2018: Harnam Singh Verma, C/O Neeta Verma, Piaggio Residential
Colony, R-2, MIDC, Baramati-413133(Pune): Email: vhsbbk42@gmail.com: phone: 08756894213 }
(After
reading the Book review, the author,JV Pawar spoke to the reviewer personally on 23 January ,2018)
