Other Side Of Silence

by Urvashi Butalia

  The month of November 1946 saw the founding of the All India Achhutistan movement. Mr Beah Lall, its founder, issued the following statement in the same month:

  It is justifiable to observe that India was the place of Achhut Masses and it must be handed over to them. The Achhutistan is derived from the word ‘Achhut’, the literal meaning of which in India is ‘Not impure’. But it was made impure by the mixture of Hindustan, Pakistan and Englishstan. It is foolishness on the part of Mr. Jinnah who demands Pakistan only and does not remember Achhutistan. The problem of Achhutistan is the first than that of Hindustan, Pakistan and Englishstan. The latter three Thans have tried and tried their best to crush the people of the former Than, by making their power strong and utilising guns and instruments of fighting ... What are the conditions of Mehtars, sweepers and Chamars? They are being compelled by the organisations of Municipality and District Boards ... in the towns, and the Chamars in the villages, to take away their latrines from houses and dead bodies of their animals. Begaris are being taken by the landlords who are generally the people of Hindustan, Pakistan and Englishstan. The existence of power awakens by different organisations of the people of Achhutistan in shape of schedule caste, depressed class and Harijans but their power is always tried to be usurped by the above three powers. The Hindustan people want to emerge (sic) them by calling them Harijans, the Pakistan people by calling them schedule caste and converting into Islam and the Englishtan people by making them depressed classes ...8

  The concerns voiced above were not uncommon as the following (undated) letter to the Governor of Punjab, in Lahore shows. This goes a bit further than simply demanding an independent state and actually gives it a geography.

  Your Excellency,

  The Punjab Provincial Scheduled Castes Federation begs to submit the following ‘memorandum’ on behalf of the Scheduled Castes of the Province in connection with the proposed partition of Punjab:

  1. That the proposed partition of the Punjab is entirely against the interests of the Scheduled Castes who are a separate community from Hindus and an important minority of the province.

  2. That the scheduled castes are living in almost all corners of the province and not in one or two particular districts. They will be left entirely at the mercy of other communities if partition is accepted.

  3. That the scheduled castes are likely to suffer with the change of population from one area to another and any compulsory change will materially affect the economical social and political life of the Scheduled Castes.

  4. That the Scheduled castes are no longer Hindus as has been definitely proved from the recent communal disturbances. The Scheduled Castes cannot expect better treatment from Hindus who being in majority in Eastern Punjab will suppress their voice and injure their noble cause for which they have been struggling hard for the last two decades. The Hindus have already deprived them of their legitimate rights. The proposed partition will further close the doors of uplift of the Scheduled Castes on them.

  5. That the Scheduled Castes are already oppressed and aggrieved. The partition of Punjab will divide them into two groups and thus shatter their strength and unity. It is apprehended that the Scheduled Castes will not be able to maintain their honour, civilization and culture under pure majority of other religions in their respective areas.

  6. That the scheduled castes of Punjab will prefer death rather than be governed or ruled by any other pure majority of one religion in the divided Punjab. The scheduled castes will not accept or yield to any decision concerning partition which will be forcibly imposed upon them against their wishes.

  7. That the British Government should first fulfil her promises with the scheduled castes of the country before power is transferred to Indians and especially the proposed partition of Punjab is accepted.

  8. That if at all the partition of Punjab is the only solution at present the following genuine demands of the scheduled castes may not be ignored:

  (a) The problem of partition may be decided by the real representatives of all communities of the province in the Punjab Legislative Assembly which can be done in this way that the present assembly may be forthwith dissolved and fresh elections held for the selection of real representatives. The scheduled castes could not elect their real representatives in the last elections on account of joint elections with Hindus. The present Congress ‘Harijan’ M.L.As are in fact the representatives of Hindus and not the Scheduled Castes for they have been returned to the assembly with the majority of Hindu votes. The Scheduled Castes have no faith in Congress and as such the present congressite Harijan M.L.As can no longer speak on behalf of the Scheduled Castes.

  (b) The Scheduled Castes may be given a separate independent state consisting of Jullundur and Ambala Divisions which are mostly inhabited by the Scheduled Castes people. The Government should bear the expenses for the transmigration of Scheduled Castes people to their ‘independent state’ from different parts of the province and provide protection, board and lodging till they are satisfactorily established. (my italics) The Government should also compensate the loss undergone by the Scheduled Castes people during transmigration.9

  As the time for Partition drew closer, both the Congress and the Muslim League, the two key players in the game, realized the importance of winning the Harijans over to their side — for adding their numbers could help to alter their own. A process of wooing then began. Political alliances are expedient at the best of times, and these were no exception. On March 6, 1947, J.N. Mandal, Law Member of the Interim Government had said at the UP Scheduled Caste Federation Conference that he had little faith in Gandhi because all Gandhi wanted was to open temples for the scheduled castes. ‘I have joined hands with the League,’ he said, ‘because Muslims and Scheduled Castes are both poor and backward. They are mostly labourers and agriculturists, at least in Bengal, and need immense relief. So no law will be made for the good of Muslims which will not be beneficial to the Scheduled Castes.’10

  Once again, the lines of difference were being drawn, and once again, they proved intractable and elusive. Where did Harijanness begin and Hinduness end? How were minorities defined — in numeric terms? (in which case the Muslims were actually a majority in Punjab). Or in terms of economic and social disadvantage — in which case the Harijans and Christians should have been among the first to be considered. More than anything else, what this revealed for me was how much of the drawing and redrawing of boundaries and borders found an internal reflection in ourselves. Scheduled caste groups, for example, wanted to assert difference. Yet, as with all underprivileged groups, part of the assertion of difference, of otherness, is a wish for parity, equality, sameness — call it what you like — with the majority, or the dominant group. Depending on where history placed them, this group could have claimed allegiance with Hindus or Muslims. Both, therefore, had to be juggled with — attacked, criticized, allied with, opposed — until something was decided, and the opportunity used to put forward one’s own demands. Thus Harijan leaders asserted their difference and independence, and yet dealt with both the Congress and the Muslim League, finding ways of rationalizing how they were closer to the religion or culture of one or the other. Knowing the importance of seizing the political moment, Harijan groups played now with one and now with the other.

  Dominant groups were not unaware of this either, for they too needed to win the Harijans over, not only for their political presence but for the more basic need of the services they provided. This became especially clear after Partition. Anxious to win Harijans over to its side, the Indian government set up a number of institutions for their rehabilitation — a Harijan housing board was to make loans available to Harijans for building houses. The Harijan Sewak Sangh was to coordinate relief and rehabilitation, ‘to look after the interests of displaced Harijans in this country’. The tragic irony that underlay this particular form of attention was that it reinforced the very basis of the discrimination the Harijans were attempting to fight. And yet, while they foug
ht such discrimination at the ‘political’ level, there was also, at the level of everyday reality and everyday needs, a very real need for relief, for housing, for resettlement. Thus housing, even if based on a differential identity, could not be rejected.

  There is another bizarre twist to this tale. For many people, the creation of Pakistan opened up a number of opportunities in terms of jobs. Groups and individuals who did not necessarily have a religious stake in the process of nation-making, moved to both countries in search of a better life. Dalits were no exception. In the initial stages, considerable numbers moved from India to Pakistan, in the hope of finding a better life there. But for many, this did not happen. While it was still possible to return, hundreds of them attempted to do so. In addition, there were Harijans living in the territories that now came under Pakistan who wished to move to India. India tried to lure them away with offers of relief, housing, loans, jobs, while Pakistan tried to prevent them from going with stories of how difficult things were in India: starving people, food shortages, widespread poverty, skyrocketing prices. Many Harijans were in Sind from where the most convenient mode of departure was by sea. Ships and carriers were in short supply, added to which the government of Sind insisted, for a while at least, that people needed permits to leave and only a limited number of permits were issued each day. Large numbers of Harijans, then, remained in transit camps, waiting to leave. Their absence resulted in a breakdown of the Karachi’s sanitation and cleaning system. Under pressure, the Government of Sind passed a legislation, the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), which disallowed Harijans from leaving the country. Indian political leaders were enraged by this: there was an uproar in the assembly. What, asked the leaders, was the government doing about this? The government, however, could do little.

  They could only negotiate. Perhaps the most moving statement here came from Ambedkar when he said, during an election tour of Punjab in 1952:

  Immediately after Partition, Pakistan Government issued orders prohibiting the Scheduled Caste people from leaving Pakistan for India. Pakistan did not bother so much if the Hindus left, but who would do the dirty work of the scavengers, sweepers, the Bhangis and other despised castes if the untouchables left Pakistan. I requested Pt Nehru to take immediate action and strive for the removal of this ban on their migration. He did not do anything at all. He slept over this issue and did not even casually mention it during the course of various discussions with the Pakistanis. None of the Congress Harijans raised a finger at this persecution of their bretheren in Pakistan.11

  Questions had been raised in the Legislative Assembly about displaced Harijans. Was it true, the minister of state for Rehabilitation, Shri Mohan Lal Saxena was asked, that the Pakistan government was not allowing Harijans to leave. Yes, he said, some 35,000 were still in Pakistan, prevented from leaving because of the Essential Services Act. Ambedkar himself had, since 1947, been fighting consistently to ensure that Harijans were treated fairly. He pointed out to Jawaharlal Nehru in December 1947 that the Pakistan government were preventing ‘in every possible way the evacuation of the Scheduled Castes from their territory.’ The reason, he felt, was that they were needed to do menial jobs and serve as landless labourers for the land holding population of the country. There was also a particular desire, he pointed out, to hold on to sweepers who had been declared as persons belonging to Essential Services.12 The discrimination was not only at the hands of Pakistan: in Indian refugee camps, scheduled castes were not being allowed to seek shelter; also, they did not qualify under the definition of agricultural communities, because such communities were only those who were declared thus by the government. In some places scheduled caste communities who had been living in eastern Punjab were being forced to give up their lands by rich Sikhs and Jats who wished to take these over. Ambedkar’s complaint to Nehru then was that ‘So far, all care and attention has been bestowed by the Government of India on the problem of Muslims. The problem of Scheduled Castes has either been supposed not to exist, or deemed to be so small as not to require special attention.’13 Ambedkar was right in this respect, that in the privileging of Hindu-Sikh and Muslim identities, the problems of scheduled castes had been eclipsed. Except of course that the scheduled castes could not be entirely invisibilized — they performed important, if menial, tasks. The duality was summed up by a refugee from Lahore writing to the Hindu Mahasabha, endorsing their vision of an Akhand Hindustan. ‘If we scratch an Indian Muslim (or a Christian)’ he said, ‘we find that he has got intact his ancient Hindu castes and sub-castes; it is only the crust of his foreign culture and religion that distinguishes him from a Hindu and the Mahasabha should seek to remove this crust.’ But, he cautioned, ‘while we should reclaim non-Hindus living in India, we should not exterminate them physically (as Muslims were exterminated in Spain by the Christians) because such extermination will destroy our community of skilled artisans and thus further accentuate the economic crisis confronting India.’14 (my italics) Extermination was perhaps an extreme step, likely to be considered only by someone dyed in the colours of organizations such as the Hindu Mahasabha. But the cautious balancing of scheduled castes — who after all, were part of the community of skilled artisans — rejecting their personhood but claiming their labour, was what the Congress and Muslim League had both been doing.

  As I listened to these stories, I was reminded of Manto’s by now famous story, ‘Toba Tek Singh’, in which the hero, a mental patient, asked to choose his country on the basis of his religion, chooses to die in the space between the two borders, in No Man’s Land. It was almost as if, in the histories of Partition that we know, the twilight world of blurred identities, of the permeability of some communal boundaries, had no place. It had ceased to exist. Your identity was fixed: it could become a stick with which you could be beaten, but equally, it could become a stick which you could use to fight for certain concessions, and privileges.

  Yet, identities do not easily fall within such boundaries. They are fluid, changing, often expedient. Harijans saw themselves as separate from Hindus and Muslims, but there were times when they felt they were closer, culturally, to one or other of those groups. Hindus, a majority in India, were a minority in Punjab, yet, in relative terms, it was the Sikhs who were, if anything, more of a minority than the Hindus. Hindus from the North West Frontier Province saw themselves further as minorities, beleagured, surrounded by unfriendly groups, abandoned and deserted by the Congress. Harijans did not see themselves as a religious group, thus they could envisage being under the Hindu fold, or indeed, allying with the Muslims. And these alliances were not on a religous basis but rather on a cultural basis or on the basis of what was seen as a shared oppression.

  In the stories that I heard about Partition, and from Partition survivors, one of the things that began to fascinate me was what this event had meant to people whom society had marginalized. What, for example, did violence such as the violence of Partition do to such people? The received wisdom on violence and on traumatic events such as Partition is that they are great equalizers. Violence, it is assumed, does not recognize caste and class differences when it is on such a large scale. Equally, the fact that dislocation was an experience common across class seems to suggest that some kind of equalization did take place. In some respects, this is not incorrect. The rape of women for example, did not, at the time of Partition, seem to have recognized class differences. Nonetheless, inasmuch as the journeys undertaken by upper class women were often safer (for example, they travelled by air, by car, under escort, seldom on foot like poorer women), in relative terms, the majority of those who were subjected to rape were women of the lower classes. Or, where homelessness was concerned, the experience was again a common one across class. But compensation for homes or land left behind or lost, had to take account of the original class of the claimant, as we have seen in the case of Harijans who did not qualify for grants of agricultural land.

  Unlike women and children, Dalits had a sense of themselves as
a group. This is not to say that the grouping was simplistic or homogenous — within Dalit groups there were differences: those who felt closer to the Muslims, those who saw themselves as separate from the Hindus or the Muslims, those who felt closer to the Hindus All of these differences emerge quite clearly at the time of Partition. But while Christians and Harijans may have had communities and organizations to represent them, to attempt to make their voices heard, for many others this was not possible. Who could have represented the many prisoners who were divided up on the basis of religion, or indeed the real-life mental patients who had to ‘choose’ or even people who truly live on the borders of society, the eunuchs and lepers? All of them had to declare their religious affiliation, their identity at the time of Partition. And if they were unable to declare it, the choice was made for them.

  In many ways the experiences of scheduled castes paralleled those of women. Both groups were marginalized by society, and were yet so essential to its functioning. Their importance lay squarely, but differently, in the material realm. Scheduled castes were essential because of their material location in both the production (i.e. agriculture) and sanitation systems, and indeed in the realm of ritual and custom. Women were equally materially important for the role they played as producers and reproducers of society. But women also inhabited a more nebulous, but equally important, realm: that of honour, of glory, of the protection of the mother and hence the motherland, and thereby of the affirmation of the manhood of their men. Yet, as a group, women had no one to represent them, nor had they been able to collectively mobilize to represent themselves. While the experience of violence and dislocation was common, yet it also remained individual. And more, its very nature ensured that women could not, would not, speak about it. By contrast, because Dalits were organized — even though their organizations may have had differences — they were able at least to name their interests. No such avenue was open to women. It is perhaps for this reason that whatever resistance women were able to muster up, remained at an individual level. The individual — and in the case of women, dispersed — voice then, could barely be heard, and could therefore not insert itself into the official discourse, or into history. This, then is also why it is relatively easier to locate material on the Dalit experience at Partition — for the historian has access to a rich archive of documents, speeches, representations and so on, which so far have remained relatively untouched — than it is to locate material on women. This is also why much material on the Dalit experience is in the voice of Dalits themselves, individually or through their organizations. Women’s voices, on the other hand, are hardly heard in the archive we do have; instead, it is the voices of those who purport to speak for women, and within this broad group are included Dalit women, whose voices are equally absent from the archive of Dalit voices. For women as a group, then, their only collectivity lay in silence.