ABSTRACT
It has long been argued that any socio-economic relationship configured under the organised political power of the upper castes reinforces the ‘traditional marginality’ of Dalits. In this essay, the question whether this process persists to this day and applies to owners of capital (not simply to the labour force) will be explored. In the late nineteenth century, Jotirao Phule (1881) argued that the predominant control of the day-to-day running of all types of government institutions by ‘Bhat-Brahmans’ resulted in the pauperisation of peasants and farmers as well as rampant social discrimination and the economic exclusion of Dalits. Further, reacting to the Swadeshi movement, Phule (ibid.) noted that economic nationalism had become a smoke screen to conceal and preserve the socio-economic and religious superiority of the upper castes. Accordingly, the discourse of Dalits draws our attention to two kinds of colonialism: British colonialism and ‘Brahminical colonialism’, the latter preceding the former. The latter has its roots in Hindu scriptures which provide divine justification for caste-based discrimination and domination – both economic and social. British colonialism, in spite of its negative features, made available certain normative and cognitive tools to fight Brahminical colonialism. The ideas of the enlightenment provided a reason to believe that inter-and intra-social group relationships can be configured on an egalitarian basis. These very ideas also led to the demise of the colonial empire and the development of political democracy. Political democracy, henceforth, became the basis of political equality (one person one vote irrespective of social location) and also galvanised hopes for economic prosperity.
