Dalit Camera

1. Try to understand, brother. She is a Savarna proletarian exposing the Dalit bourgeoisie. 😂😂 Thanks, @Prashant_mohann, @deepali_writes and @Sonpimplerahul, @subhajit_n for exposing these contradictions so well. 2. Selective outrage against the bourgeoisie She can conveniently identify the bourgeoisie within the Bahujan parties but somehow fails to see it in the Congress, a party with whose leaders she shares the stage. If the BSP (let's take Bsp) is a party of the Dalit elite, then tell me, who is more elite than Rahul Gandhi in the Congress? Under Congress rule, Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims have also been subjected to brutal state violence and killings. If she is so ideologically uncompromising, why does she share a political platform with them? Does her ideological scrutiny suddenly disappear when it comes to political convenience? 3. Our lived experience versus your so-called "solidarity" "We don't go to jhuggis." 😂😂 We don't need to visit them to understand what life in a slum looks like. We have lived that reality. We were born there. There is a fundamental difference between your performative solidarity and our lived experience. Your solidarity, presented as an 'ehsaan', cannot be placed above the experiences of those who have actually lived through poverty, humiliation and exclusion. You visit "jhuggis" like they are museum or like people visit the zoo to see the animals and have petty on them , feed them and feel sorry for them. We don't need poverty tourism. 4. The Ambedkar-Gandhi comparison This reminds me of an incident in which someone questioned why Dr Ambedkar wore suits instead of dressing like Gandhi, who was perceived as representing the poor. The rest of that incident is well known. The point is simple: why must a person belonging to an oppressed community conform to someone else's aesthetic expectations of poverty to be considered authentic or deserving of solidarity? Why is a Dalit wearing a suit seen as an elite, while a Savarna intellectual romanticising poverty gets celebrated as a revolutionary? 5. A question about representation Kindly tell us how inclusive your politburo is. How many Dalits occupy positions of actual decision-making power? How many are represented in the party's highest organisational structures? It is easy to speak on behalf of the oppressed. It is considerably harder to share power with them. 6. Where were the communists during the Mandal movement? What about the infamous "No Mandal, No Kamandal" slogan during the Mandal Commission protests? Where were the communists when the anti-Mandal agitation was taking place? What was their position on the assertion of backward castes and their demand for representation? You cannot selectively invoke class solidarity while remaining evasive about caste-based power and representation. 7. Resistance is not always a staged protest My dear friend, 😂 holding cardboard placards during protests and shouting slogans like "Jana Hoga" are not the only forms of resistance in Dalit lives. For someone like me, the very act of entering a college, occupying a space historically denied to people like us, and asserting my right to belong was itself an act of resistance. The resistance began long before I ever held a placard. Since svarana seem to need an example of the west to understand Dalits in india , let me cite Rosa Parks. Her refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus became a defining act of resistance. It demonstrated that refusing to submit to an unjust social order can be as politically consequential as organised demonstrations. Resistance does not always need a stage, a microphone, a placard or a camera to validate it. Sometimes, simply refusing to surrender your rightful place is resistance. Perhaps this is something our self-appointed saviours need to understand: we do not need your permission, validation or certificate of solidarity to recognise our own resistance.