Dalit Identity & Politics of Access to Land: Will It Really Help Dalit Liberation?

IN INDIA, dalits and adivasis are on struggle, mainly for right to land. The adivasi, dalit land question today is one of most critical issues in the country. From Singur to Chengara, the anti-globalization campaigners to Gandhian satyagrahis to cause junkies to causeless politicians looking for a saleable slogan, are now speaking about dalits, adivasis and their right to land.

No doubt, adivasis and dalits were denied access to land and their lands were alienated treacherously by the vested interests and crooks. In Kerala, the Adivasi Land Alienation (Prevention) Act which sought to stop this trend and restore the land to the original owners) was watered down to such an extent that the adivasis who were owners of huge chunks of forest lands are now left with nothing.

Still, the present struggles raise some other questions relating to the strategy and slogans of these struggles. Here is a post I made to a discussion groups on the issue:

Will access to land help dalits and the other most disadvantaged sections in our society liberate themselves really from their slavery and poverty? In reality, how far these struggles like Chengara where access to land is made the central point will help dalits?

I am really confused here because I do have a sneaking doubt that for all practical purposes, the projection of land and land alone as the central feature of dalit life and identity would only help perpetuate their past and present miserable state of affairs. In fact, when they agitate for land and land alone and not for anything else, they are accepting an asset that had always been a curse, keeping them in the social position that they found themselves in, all these years, all these generations.

I am extremely doubtful whether those anti-globalization movements, those romantics who are convinced industries are bad and must be kept out at whatever cost, who now come to the aid of dalits and landless, would really help dalits. They are opposed to globalization because they are disturbed about the familiar, laid back idyllic life going for ever. They now enlist dalits only because they are suitable allies for the time being. Look at their priorities: They do not want manufacturing industries that will pollute (but will ensure more jobs to unskilled and semi-skilled people from dalits and adivasis) and they are fine with high-tech industries like information technology that would not pollute and would ensure good jobs for their kids …

I think Chandra Bhan Prasad and Sree Narayana Guru were right. Prasad says globalization and industrialization would help dalits lose for ever their segregated existence, will take them into a kind of existence that will make them part of a global work force with no name, no caste, and no discrimination on the basis of mere birth.

Guru said, for him what was important was fighting this segregation than the fight against British colonialism, whom some Chalappuram-based lawyers were waging hammer and tongs in their own drawing rooms, which at a later stage Muhammed Abdurahman called Sunday Congress. Still, people even today are asking where had been the Guru and his people when "we" were fighting for freedom! Well, those tapping toddy at tree tops never knew they had lost freedom in the first place because they never had any freedom to speak of.

So I wonder, perhaps this dalit identity that non- dalits are quite vocal of these days can be the most dangerous trap the dalits are falling into in their current social and economic plight? Why not at least think of a subaltern identity?