tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post1117025267831652925..comments2023-05-11T15:54:46.183+05:30Comments on Little Shop of Random Thoughts: Doubts re-surface...Krishna Kumar. Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10562252516411763929noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10951659.post-70857583417762621332007-06-08T10:33:00.000+05:302007-06-08T10:33:00.000+05:30Dear (sir) KK, I have been reading you...Dear (sir) KK,<BR/><BR/> I have been reading your posts continually, but have not left 'prints' as you would call them as I thought I was not qualified enough to comment on most of the things, which have been said. Vis-a-vis the cricket posts, I couldn't agree more... and I have nothing else to say.<BR/><BR/> I did read your post(s) on Dalit Identity and I must say, quite apart from the satirically humorous touch your words seem to wear, they do pound us with deep and disturbing queries. I may not be able to provide clarifications in this regard but coming from a campus - SUPPOSEDLY cosmopolitan - I can say that a wholly different kind of politics is at play, which needs to be ingeniously and differently deconstructed.<BR/><BR/> It seems a bit like first wave feminism to start off with (I have great regard for the feminists, mind you!) where male-bashing was in some sense an inevitable aftermath of century after century of female oppression. So, in this case, it seems to be more a question of exclusion - than inclusion. And one need not be a rocket scientist to figure who the "excluded" are! And if you think that the exclusion is based on strictly economic grounds, well, you are caught unawares - it is not as everyone seems to know anyway. What is this identity then? I have not read up literature on the subject but I think experiences and observations, at times, dispel darkness much better than reading up material. To me the Dalit identity seems to be a rather shifting phenomenon; in flux from state to state perhaps, region to region and so on and so forth: the only common denominator is the wilful and the rather furious exclusion of the upper classes, from which plenty of things follow, which I hope is understandable. The identity, therefore, is not constant but of an evolutionary sort. <BR/><BR/> There is a body representing Dalits on campus, which does plenty of good work admittedly but is also - based on secondary sources - rigid and vengeful. It has representatives who are Hindus, Christians, Moslems and for all you know perhaps agonostics and atheists as well. Perhaps, then, from a normative standpoint economic and social pointers must constitute this identity, but from my experience I think they don't, which is sad and unfortunate.<BR/>I may appear contradictory and even circular: I said that the identity seems to be temporally vacillating or changing, but then I have also said that - I believe - there must be a normative cut-off. The problem is not so much one surfacing from contradictions but from this 'what is' and 'what ought to be divide' - where flexibility and rigidity are merely delineating and defining words and little else. With the result you have rigid designators but people cannot be rigid; or people who keep their identity - to derive whatever advantages: it happens all the time in this country, at every level - in spite of clearly changing economic positions and status.<BR/>The crux of the matter then is that in trying to eradicate a caste system we find ourselves in a catch 22 situation - not having wiped out classes yet we also have the problem of class (I somehow feel, intuitively, that this identity crisis, involving various religions and their various denominations, is a question of class and not caste, which has various ramifications) to handle now. So the proverbial limbo!<BR/><BR/>Sigh... hope I have not rattled the already obfuscated realm of identity politics in this country more... Only one thing seems manifest and obvious: that for the men and women at the helm of affairs, these identity crises are again conveniences, which help them divide and rule. We live in a state noted both for its religious reverence and self-righteous irreverence!<BR/><BR/>Frankly speaking, none of this is taking us a step nearer our goal. At the end of a rather elaborate exposition, that's a pretty humble opinion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com