Ambedkar’s Assertion Still Rings True: What is a Village but a Sink of Localism, a Den of Ignorance and Narrow Mindedness
Located in Varuna Hobli, 25 kilometres away from Mysuru city in Karnataka, Kuppegala is a village that, at a cursory glance, has nothing to distinguish it from most other villages. With a population of 2,865 people, including 1,054 Dalits, its sole identifier not too long ago was that it fell under Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah’s constituency. In recent times, however, the village has been under constant scrutiny due to sustained episodes of caste-related clashes that flared up for the first time in August last year.
A month back, on 19 March 2015, I went to Kuppegala for two days upon hearing of a spate of fresh tensions. Upon reaching the village, at 11 am, I made my way to the Dalit colony near the its entrance. Both the Dalits and the Savarnas—those belonging to a caste that is not Dalit, and whom Ambedkar referred to as caste Hindus—I spoke to seemed to agree, albeit for different reasons, that the current state of polarisation in the village had been catalysed by the incident in August.
The source of this row was the Dalits’ demand that a woman from their community be appointed for the vacant position of an assistant cook at the midday-meal programme in Kuppegala Government Higher Primary School. The demand stemmed from the fact that, despite the provision for the reservation for a person belonging to the Scheduled Castes among the three cooks in the school, all of those employed for the post had been from upper castes until the vacancy came up. As VD Manjunath, the leader of the Dalit Jagruti Samiti in Kuppegala and a member of the School Development and Monitoring Committee, told me, “We petitioned the tehsildar [revenue administrative officer] and the district administration. Earlier, all three working—at the school—under the scheme were Lingayats [a distinct sect that worships only Shiva in the linga form]. All we asked was that even if they don't want the Dalit appointee to cook, they could at least let them do the cleaning.” While this petition was being considered by the district administration, reports also surfaced of a confrontation between the residents over Dalits offering prayers at the Anjaneya Swamy temple in the village, due to which the Savarnas had decided to boycott the place of worship.
In October, the school authorities conceded, and hired a Dalit woman as the third cook. By the end of November, the simmering conflict had reached the surface once again as the Savarnas started withdrawing their children from the school because their meals were being cooked by a Dalit. Siddaiah, a sixty-one-year-old Dalit farmer I met said, “There had been opposition to this suggestion even earlier. We knew that they would not be very happy if the demand was met.” Out of the 150 students at the school, 37 skipped classes for over a week. A public outcry followed, leading to interventions by religious leaders—who partook in a meal at the school—and the chief minister. Their efforts appeared to have helped, reflected through the attendance in the school that had improved in December.
However, this respite was temporary. On 16 March 2015, Dalits in Kuppegala were reportedly denied entry into a new burial ground to conduct the funeral of a woman who had passed away on the same day. Although the land for the burial ground had previously been identified by Naveen Joseph—the tehsildar—and other officials, the five upper caste owners of the land refused to let the Dalits use it for the burial, claiming that they had not received the promised compensation from the authorities. The Dalits decided to go ahead and bury the woman on the land regardless of the hostility, sparking off another round of polarisation.
Manjunath and K Umashankar, an agricultural labourer, both of whom were present during the altercation, told me that Joseph, the tehsildar, came to Kuppegala the next day and attempted to resolve the matter by marking out and segregating the piece of land that would be used as a burial site, but to no avail, as tensions in the village continued to persist. The administration’s lackadaisical response in making the payment for a new burial ground, appeared to have only worsened what had been an old problem. Siddaiah, the Dalit famer, asserted that the community had raised issues relating to the old graveyard last year. According to him, the erstwhile graveyard, located on the banks of the river Kabini, used to get flooded during the monsoon, making it unusable for at least four months at a stretch. Manjunath confirmed this to me and added that the Deputy Commissioner, C Shikha, of the district had assured him in late August that a site for a new graveyard would be identified.
Manjunath did not seem to think that these owners had a right to the land. He told me that the land was supposed to be a graveyard and that those cultivating on the land had encroached upon it. Rajappa, a farmer who owns a portion of the land identified for the graveyard, told to me in response, “It does not say anywhere in the documents that the land was meant for a burial ground.”
K Puttuswamy, another owner, told me, “We are the rightful owners of that land, we have documents to prove it.” He went on to say, that he had in fact, been eager for part of the land to be allotted since it was being used as a burial ground by the Dalits anyway: “The officials have marked out the land, but they haven't yet paid us the money for it. How can we give it up without the officials paying us? We too asked the tehsildar and district administration to survey the land. It is a big problem for us to stop the Dalits from burying their dead there. We want an end to that."
But this has not been the only issue. Siddaiah pointed out to me that the quantity of the land that had been allotted, one-and-a-half acres, seemed to suggest that the authorities based their decision on data from the Census of 2001 instead of 2011.. This, he told me, caused the community to fear that the unaccounted increase in population would mean that they would need more land, which would subsequently act as a potential trigger to similar clashes. When I contacted Joseph on 20 March, he confirmed that money had not been paid, but staunchly refuted the allegation that data from the census of 2001 had been used to decide the allocation of land for the graveyard. “It is not true that we have used data from the 2001 census. We have identified the land keeping in mind the current population of the village. We have allotted one-and-a-half acres, which is quite a big plot of land.”
There were signs of similar fault lines elsewhere in Kuppegala. For over a year now, the only barber shop in the village has been closed because the barber, Mallikarjun, was injured. Intrigued, I went to the upper caste area of the village to visit him. On reaching his house, I saw Mallikarjun offering his services to the Lingayat residents of the village. I approached him for a conversation, but was met with resilient silence. When I asked Kenchegowda, a sixty-one-year-old farmer who belongs to an upper caste, about this state of affairs, he told me that the barber shop had been closed because Mallikarjun underwent surgery. “He gives haircuts only if he feels like it, that’s all. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
However, according to Manjunath, Mallikarjun had been denying only the Dalits of his services. Curiously, Manjunath did not believe that this qualified as discrimination since Mallikarjun did not deny them access to the barber shop, he only appeared to be selective about whom he felt like rendering his services to at home. The law, too, makes this clear. According to The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, only those who deny a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe communities access to “a place of public resort or obstructs such member so as to prevent him from using or having access to a place of public resort to which other members of public or any section thereof have a right to use or access to” can be punished.
Specific instances of clashes are nearly routine to Kuppegala and have been assuaged in the past, but the emerging and sustained polarisation on the basis of caste is perhaps a more complicated issue to tackle. At the heart of these tensions, it seemed to me, was a long standing animosity towards reservations for the oppressed castes.
As Kenchegowda, the farmer, opined, “Things were going on in a certain way, why try and change that?”
“We are not against reservations,” he said to me, “but what is this reservation that the authorities practice when it comes to police complaints? Only their complaints get recorded. When we complain against them no cases are recorded. If we are against the Dalits coming up, then how is it that the state has so many Dalit leaders?”
Shivabasappa, a Lingayat farmer and the only member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the village, told me that he believed the only solution to this problem was following in the footsteps of the Kannadiga reformers of the Bhakti movement, such as Basavaveshawara and Kanakadasa, who had rejected caste. K Mahadevaswamy, a Dalit who runs a van in the village, was critical of any attempts to reach into the past for solutions. “We have to resolve these issues, because whether we like it or not we have to live in the same village. Our village has gained such notoriety over the past eight months, we have no option but to look past our differences now,” he said.
In order to overcome this polarisation, Manjunath said that the Dalit community had suggested to Joseph and other officials from the district administration that a peace meeting be held at the earliest. The biggest challenge, he told me, was the upper castes’ refusal to entertain even the suggestion of such a meeting. When I attempted to ask Joseph for his perspective on a potential solution, he refused to comment on the matter. But Puttuswamy, the land owner, was clear: “When there is no problem, why should there be a peace meeting? We have even let them have exclusive access to the Anjaneya Swamy temple, shouldn't they be happy?”
Kenchegowda echoed Puttaswamy’s thoughts: “If there was a problem, could you tell me if a case has been registered?” It may have been a flawed metric to judge the environment, but Kenchegowda was not wrong. Indeed, Mysuru district police officials confirmed to me that no cases had been registered in any of the incidents.
“There are many other problems that we haven’t complained to the officials about, because we want to live in peace,” Siddaiah, the Dalit farmer, told me by way of justification. “We can’t guarantee that the youth will tolerate what we have put up with. They are rash and this might lead to problems in the future, which is why we are insisting on a peace meeting.”