★ …Salman Khan with Vivek Kumar and Tarush (VKR Group) at Salman Khan’s Residence in Dubai!

In this episode of the Ambedkar Age series, Round Table India talks to Prof Vivek Kumar, Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.  

Question: We were talking about social consciousness, you know, the foundation of the Congress which was missing. But it was very evident in academia in some instances. Because most of the academia was filled with brahmins and other upper castes, who were actually posing as certain kind of left or alternative and they gave legitimacy to Congress. It’s own brand of socialism. Now you see these central universities, which are totally occupied by them. Even the state universities, they are also dominated by the upper castes, especially of the Congressi variety. Now the BJP and the Sangh plan to displace this older order and that's how Rohith Vemula happened. I am coming to the current situation now. This is one reading of it. How do you think about this structure being occupied by the Sangh which earlier was all a Congress/Left bastion?

Vivek Kumar: One thing is for sure that when we started with this democracy, Babasaheb very rightly argued that it's only a political democracy which meant one man one vote, one vote one value, and that social and economic democracy has to be brought in, but that has not happened. Gradually, the Institutions which were supposed to be functioning on universalistic principles with universal values of achievement orientation -- I'm talking about the judiciary, I am taking of bureaucracy, universities, industry, civil society, media as an industry and so on. All these Institutions were supposed to work on universalistic principles of achievement. So anybody who has the required qualification, with the (backing of) legislations, could achieve it. But what has happened?  

If you read Babasaheb Ambedkar, and Perry Anderson also wrote recently that the way Nehru came to power, I don't think it was a democratic way that he came. He was declared a King and for the first time (in history) a brahmin became an all India level king after 1947. Never in the history of India was a brahmin ever an all India level ruler. It is for the first time that in 1947, that he was nominated. He was nominated as the Prime Minister of the country and what had happened was that the brahmins of Varanasi gave him a Rajdand and there was a sacrificial thing which was actually acquired. Now, this is basically an example of how the consolidation of the brahminical rule started in India, and after that what has happened? So many institutions were occupied. It appeared as if they were all democratic institutions, whether it was bureaucracy or other institutions, who were the people to come and occupy?

Even the welfare state which was trying to create residences, residents' quarters, colonies: who were the people who occupied those facilities? It was basically brahmins who occupied the institutions of universities, civil society, bureaucracy, judiciary, everywhere. I think that the consolidation started after 1947. We see today the SC/ST commission's fourth report - the Hanumanthappa report. These provide data that in 1935, the brahmin population was 5% and their representation in Class A coveted services was roughly to their percentage of the population which was 5%. But in 1979 this percentage rose to 78%. So this colossal and parallel rise is not out of place, it is not by accident. It is by design, that how one by one, with your own cultural capital, with your own people, with the nepotism how you started bringing your own people -Haksars, Dhars etc. They were everywhere. So in that sense, I think the monopolization of university is a handiwork of an ideology, which is the brahminical Ideology and these were the people to fit the bill. And once they got that head start they have multiplied it and they are multiplying it further, and despite legislations, reservations everywhere I don't think that the things have changed.

In this episode of the Ambedkar Age series, Round Table India talks to Prof Vivek Kumar, Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.  

Question: [...] The historic background to this is the fact that Bahujan movement had also been building up throughout the 1980s and 70s. So could you talk about your views on this?

Vivek Kumar:  I think we are socialized in this ideology because Kanshiram had arrived on the scene and all of a sudden Bahujan Samaj Party had come to power, in 1995. BAMCEF (All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation) had established itself. The whole mobilization in Uttar Pradesh was a totally different atmosphere with an ideological tinge of Phule on one hand and Babasaheb Ambedkar was already there. But Phule, Sahu, Narayana Guru, Periyar then Savitribai Phule: all were all of a sudden there and people started recognising that look there is a parallel line, and at a time when Jai Shri Ram was also there. So Jai Shri Ram and Jai Bhim were being pitched together. That was a really new experience. Buddhism at that time was also taking its shape. Ambedkar Mahasabha had also come up in Lucknow. They used to organise seminars and conferences led by Bahujan Samaj Party’s ideology of Bahujan movement.

So, we in the 1990s were a different youth. Before that, there used to be this NSUI (National Students Union of India), of Congress. Our Dalit students were much more in the Congress regime. So this was a very new experience of Ambedkarite movement, Phule movement and Bahujans also started tasting power. All of a sudden they said that, OK why can't we be a part of this movement and they started (joining it). So, my writing of that column was coterminous with the emergence of the Bahujan intelligentsia, Bahujan gentry (and consciousness) who would read it, and Pioneer was swift enough to understand that there was a market. So, on the one hand, there was a rising consciousness, there was a rising political party movement and that somebody was there to write something and that was Vivek Kumar.

Question: Yes. You talked about Jai Bhim and Jai Shri Ram being pitched together while Bahujan consciousness was building up and as you pointed out, these two have to be understood parallelly. This new Jai Shri Ram consciousness of Hindutva centered around a militant projection of Hindu symbols. It had begun in the 1980s, starting with the Ram Mandir issue and this is building up even now, resulting eventually over the years and decades in the Modi Rule. So how do you see this progress -- as the Bahujan movement has been building up, parallelly, this (Hindutva) movement has also been building up. What is your perspective on this?

Vivek Kumar: You know, one thing is for sure that for Indian society at that time when Bahujan movement was building up, it was a very new experiential reality because that was the time when Bahujan movement incorporated not only scheduled castes for the first time… Even though Republican Party of India (RPI) was there, it was mostly confined to Dalits. Kanshi Ram was trying to appeal to all the backward classes. He was trying to appeal to minorities, Dalits, Adivasis. So this experience involved a new iconography altogether. People were ready to identify with them. This created lot of fear among the other side and I am specifically talking about Congress.  Congress was decimated and there was a new force which was emerging. But by nature, Indian society is a religious society and the way Bharatiya Janata Party started appealing along religious lines...

It can be a difficult fight if you really do not have a counter ideology or a counter hegemony to decimate or stop it. Nobody could stop it because of that feeling, that emotion erupted from everywhere and I will hold the socialist lobby responsible for it. They did so by giving space to the Left and legitimacy to the Rightist forces. Advani or Vajpayee - they were all in the Janata Party and they got elected. Jan Sangh was a failure. Jan Sangh was nowhere.  A new lease of life was given by Jayaprakash Narayan who was leading a ’total revolution’. Whereas this was meant to be a ‘total confusion’, because it was neither this nor that: Right, Centre, Left, everybody was there. It was anti-Congressism.

But the legitimacy which Vajpayee and Advani got in 1975, it kept them, it gave them further oxygen. And there in the 1980s, they formed a new political party that was Bharatiya Janata Party. Now again if you take Bhartiya Janata Party: it was only 2 people, but who gave them legitimacy? It was Vishwanath Pratap Singh, in the name of anti-Congressism they came together and they contested. Even Mulayam Singh Yadav contested along with them. Janata Dal and BJP were contesting elections together. They gave another lease of life and after that when Vishwanath Pratap Singh formed the government, on one hand, the Left led by Harkishan Singh Surjeet and the right wing (on the other hand) who supported them. So the type of legitimacy which was granted to them, that made them a more credible force. After that it was free for all - Mamata, Samata, Jayalalithaa - they were all actually, you know, combining and contesting elections. Mind you, BSP formed a government (with BJP) but never contested election along with BJP. They were finding a coalition, a government. People said it was an alliance. It was not an alliance. Alliance is a different ball game from a coalition government.

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