Manual Scavenging is manifestation of Untouchability
Article 15 states that The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of
religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. Article 17 mentioned about Abolition of Untouchability. "Untouchability" is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of "Untouchability" shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law. Many caste Hindus tend to ask where is untouchability in practice. Dr. B.R Ambedkar, “Those who raise this point do not seem to make a distinction between Untouchability as a touch-me- not-ism and Untouchability as a mental attitude manifesting itself in social discrimination. . . You cannot untwist a two-thousand-year-twist of the human mind and turn it in the opposite direction.”
The problem of untouchability what we are dealing now is ‘a mental attitude manifesting itself in social discrimination’. Wouldn’t be insane NOT see manual scavenging is a caste problem where 98% of the people doing this are Dalits. Last April we have organized a hall meeting to deliberate on suicides taking place in higher educational institutes followed by Muthukrishnan’s suicide in JNU. We’ve learned that out of 25 students committed suicides since 2007 23 are Adivasis and Dalits. Will it be fair NOT to see caste as a reason for such suicides where SCs represent 13.5% in the higher education and STs with 4%, together 17.5% and suicide rate is 90%!
This documentary has shown that how sanitation workers got some of their demands met by hitting the streets. In such situation, the general public like us should stand with the them with the right understanding that it’s predominantly a caste issue. Without such understanding the seriousness of this issue can’t be manifested. Despite this is a caste issue it can be eradicated by uniting the people across the castes. Ambedkar in his very famous speech in Mar 1956 make a call, “It is your duty to carry on a united struggle for removal of educational, economic and social inequality.”
Proportional Representation is a Fair Representation
Bhasha Singh has rightly defined the problem of manual scavenging as ‘the most distorted form of untouchability’ and it’s still continuing thanks to lack of political will of the Indian politicians. She has gone a step further and argued that even Dalit representatives are helpless in this issue.
The important question is who has elected these Dalit representatives and importantly how. They are elected in the joint electorates by the-first-past-the-post method. Main demand of Dr. Ambedkar to free the Dalits and Adivasis from the caste discrimination is by winning them the political power. Working on this agenda Dr. Ambedkar is able to win separate electorates as part of communal award from the British on 17th August 1932. Round tables conference that took place between 1930 and 1932 led to such award. Mahathma Gandhi agitated by this award went for fast, in fact fast-unto-death that resulted in Poona Pack signed on 24th September 1932. The hard won political right of separate electorate is betrayed by Gandhi. Ambedkar regretted for the same and tried to push it through the Constituent assembly without success. As a compromise , primary elections were introduced in the reserved constituencies where SCs will vote for the SC candidates and elect the top 4, these top 4 will contest in the joint elections. Candidates from the Ambedkar’s party came 1st overwhelmingly in the primary BUT defeated in the main election. Reason is obvious that non Dalits are NOT ready to vote for more assertive Dalit candidates. How unfair it’s to give the power to the non Dalits to elect a Dalit representative! which Ambedkar deals with an example from Greek’s Plebian consul in the annihilation of caste. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu terrorist on Jan 30th, 1948. If we only blame Mahathma Gandhi for this it’d be a mistake because he died in 1948 and if the congress had a political will it’d have abolished the pact and granted separate electorates. Now things are different after 85 years.
The question is whether the-first-the-past method itself a fair representation? Is it a good method for democratic representation? There are oppositions from the different political parties. To study this matter, the government of India set up a commission and the commission submitted a report on Reform of the Electoral Laws.
Excerpt From the report:
1.3.2.1. Another consideration in this behalf was that the first-past-the-post (FPP) system now in vogue is not yielding a correct picture of the voter preferences. In other words, there is no commensurability between the total votes cast in a State or in the country, as the case may be, and the seats obtained by the parties. To be more precise, what is happening is that a political party which has received, say, 32% of the total votes case in the country is obtaining 70% of the seats in Parliament, whereas another political party which has polled, say, 29% of the votes, is getting 25% of the seats in Parliament. A `swing' of 2 to 3 per cent votes is resulting in a huge difference in the number of seats won.
1.3.3.2. There was yet another situation where a political party is polling a substantial chunk of votes cast in a given State in parliamentary elections but is not able to get a single seat in the Parliament from that State.
After a, thorough analysis it’s recommended for the proportional representation and recommend the GoI to start with 25% additional seats to the parliament and the state assemblies for proportional representation. Such representation will send some assertive Dalit representatives to the legislatives unlike now they are defeated by non-Dalit votes.
Summary
To sum up , we all have to come forward to carry on a united struggle for removal of educational, economic and social inequality. Also, we have to propagate the argument of proportional representation for fair representation of all the sections of society. Such electoral reforms will pave the way for assertive Dalits and Adivasis to get elected to the legislatives rather the Chamcha(stooges) to represent them from the reserved seats. Progressive and Democratic section among the Non Dalits/Adivasis have to seriously take up such debates to build the demand for proportional representation to ensure fair representation of all the ideologies in the legislatives.
