My first exchange with her left me with a sense of pleasance and an attraction yet to be understood, however, it was enough to thrill me to explore the depth of her persona and not let the opportunity slip away. Subsequently, I proposed her for an interview with me.  She was [...]]]>



My first exchange with her left me with a sense of pleasance and an attraction yet to be understood, however, it was enough to thrill me to explore the depth of her persona and not let the opportunity slip away. Subsequently, I proposed her for an interview with me.  She was Dr. Kaushal Panwar, an emerging Dalit thinker and intellectual. Before I begin unveiling my understanding of her, I shall explain that though I had decided to structure the interview in formal question and answer fashion, but during the interaction I lost my track and just flowed with unfoldings and decided to give it a biographical touch while setting down. There is a deliberate attempt to not let it appear as merely a dialogue between two individuals but a textured narrative account.

What led Kaushal Panwar – a girl born in the most marginalised caste of ‘Valmiki’ among the subaltern Dalit castes of a village ‘Rajoud’, Kaithal District, Haryana, to become Dr. Kaushal Panwar – a Sanskrit Scholar? The journey in itself is a saga of uprising for liberation from bondage. Kaushal as a child was closest to her father in the family and youngest of the three siblings. She learnt the ways of being a rebel in the early age and the course is continuing. Brothers who could not leap beyond high school were never treated specially against her. Father, who was a daily wage labourer, taught her early in life not to compromise upon the consciousness of righteousness.

History is witness to numerous instances, when oppression meets rebellious character; it had been the oppression mostly that had to retreat finally. In Kaushal’s case too, history was willing to absorb one more incident. In sixth standard, yet a child, Kaushal had to opt between Home Science and Sanskrit. She never wanted to study Home Science, background for which was nurtured by the non-liking for the daily household chores. Playing, studying and roaming around with her father used to consume her everyday life.  Nevertheless, she had hunch that her decision to opt for Sanskrit would be meeting such an outrageous reaction. Her desire to study Sanskrit instead of Home Science caused enough heartburn to the subject teacher Surender Shastri – a Brahmin. Initially he tried to dissuade her by passing abhorring comments like “What use do studies have for you? After some years you have to do cleaning in our houses only”, “What a corrupt time is it, even Dalits can dare to study Sanskrit?” All kinds of humiliating passive tactics when did not pay well, then one day Surender Shastri resorted to thrash her before the entire class to break her determination. He was perhaps unaware that his vengeful and biased discharge was deciding the course of life for Kaushal. It was then, that Kaushal took resolution of becoming atleast a bigger scholar of Sanskrit than him, while another fact is that she never liked Sanskrit as a subject for which she even earned her doctorate from Jawahar Lal Nehru University. In her words, “I have gone through dilemma in my life because of Sanskrit. It was a subject whose literature and text is awfully rich with brahminical idea of hierarchical and unjust society, full of discriminatory and exploitive illustrations against Shudras and Ashudras – Dalits of contemporary times. However, I had no option but to face that text on everyday basis which loathed my own identity and origin. Since, my consciousness had pledged to study that only, I had to sacrifice my favourite subject of History.”

On being quizzed about the worth of Sanskrit Literature and its contribution in the development of the language, she explained that worth and progression of any language in the contemporary times can be evaluated by the positive contribution of its literature in the progression of social-political and philosophical systems. In that context, Sanskrit literature is in catch-22 situation. While on one hand it has rich text available on medical sciences and environment, poetry, drama in its archaic literature; the other hand it is a rigid language. Literature favours exclusiveness, Vedic deliberations and fortification of belief system without reasoning. It is this inflexible nature of Sanskrit that it is not able to communicate with the advancements in other branches of learning, be it Humanities or Basic Sciences.

Being a Sanskrit academician, she knows in and out of the literature that juxtaposes with her identity of being a Dalit woman and that cauldron is producing a fierce campaigner for Dalit rights, culture and identity out of her. The bitter truth of untouchability and humiliation as by-product of her identity became apparent to her in tender age when she started noticing that the colour of school uniform for Dalit and general caste students was different. Since, it was obvious to people outside the premises of school, hence for her, colour of school uniform joined the league of many other symbols of repression. The rebellious tender soul however was restless and the rules of the society were not acceptable to her as this example overtly expressed, “Once I was very thirsty and therefore drank water from the pitcher in school, which I generally did not do. That matter was sent to the notice of class teacher who was from general caste, by my classmates. Teacher scolded me badly and warned for drinking in future. It infuriated me and I shot at the pitcher of water to crack it. In that juvenile age fissuring of the pitcher felt like a win.”

At one level is the pain of prejudice that she endured while even more concerning is that society still conditions or rather forcefully indoctrinates the individuals to become oppressors and take part in discriminatory activities either by reward or by punishment. Such a situation exposes the bigoted mask of the social system which is harbingering to become out and out modern. “An incident I remember starkly, made clear to me that my every successful and assured move would be counted as failure of my fellow living beings who ‘fortunately’ but by chance are carrying titles from general castes. My all classmates, once were punished because I learnt a lesson by heart given as a part of home assignment, while none of them could. General caste students were beaten, scolded and sarcastic comments indirectly hinting towards me were made by the teacher to make them realise that a ‘Valmiki’ girl who on first account should not be sitting in that classroom itself could do her work properly but ‘they’ who the society considers by default to be the ‘productive and meritorious’ could not.”

Listening to her anecdotes of discrimination and hardships was sending chill down my spine and she was a living spirit sitting before me, forcing me to acknowledge that there is no end to endurance of human spirit. At the same time, it was making me caustic towards entire system of repression of which I am myself a part. This system of tyranny, prejudices is so deeply ingrained and systemically constructed no matter how educated, well travelled, read, at good socio-political standing one is. From her case, I understood that oppressive actions of the system were intensifying, evolving with her evolvement as an individual as if something was at stake, which could be gathered only by downing her.  After completing her schooling, she used to commute 60 kms to and fro by bus from village to Kaithal town for graduate studies. The financial situation at home was too bad to encourage her for further studies. Yet, while simultaneously working as a daily wage labourer right outside the college campus she laboriously earned her graduate degree. For pursuing Post-Graduate studies she took admission in Kurukshetra University. She had struggled hard to get to that spot and yet in her heart of hearts she knew, her exertion was going to prolong and intensify with financial-social bottlenecks. She could not afford to get herself a place in university hostel and completed her post-graduation while renting a ‘jhuggi’ in the slum which was in the backyards of boys’ hostel. Every day for two years she was subjected to derogatory remarks. To make her ends meet and continue studies she worked part-time. All father could afford in such a situation was to give his daughter the much needed moral support and value system. During those days she joined Ambedker Students Union in KUK University. From Kurukshetra University only she did her B.Ed. During that time she opted to rent out a place with other classmates on sharing basis. But it was she who had to move herself from one place to another atleast 10 times during one year, owing to preconceived notions of people about her identity. She said, “There was a general tendency among people to ask me directly or indirectly to do cleaning in their houses. Since, I never entertained all such moves, hence I paid price in the form of inviting their hostility.”

Afterwards, for her M.Phill she went to Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak where again accommodation was a riddle for her to solve. Persons at reputed positions in the department, to her dismay, upon knowing about her caste explicitly or implicitly tried to take advantage of her situation. They expected her to do the same job for them as most of the people from her caste were ascertained to do historically, in lieu of helping for accommodation crisis. Finally, she decided to stay off campus on sharing basis. How vengeful attitude is structured as a product of prejudices and frustrations of not being able to stop the progression of someone from Dalit castes is beautifully presented in her effortful life. Her dissertation topic was completely changed by the advisor just a day before final viva. A student having undergone such a process in any given normal circumstances knows the extent of anxiety at that time but there Kaushal was forced to walk on the edge of the sword that had numbing effect. Not only did she complete M.Phil, but also got admitted to JNU for doctorate.

JNU – Jawaharlal Nehru University – a dreamland for student life with its liberal ambience, culture which makes learning experience even more bountiful had a distinct truth for her in its clasp. A Brahmin classmate upon knowing her caste “Valmiki” which is at the lowest rung among the Dalit sub-castes, used it as a pretext to isolate her in the class. Kaushal who had seen enough farce in her life, still had real difficulty in ramming a bigoted facet of the university life of JNU down her throat.  Proceeding further in the story, she was mentally tortured by her room-mate who was a doctorate student of Japanese language and had travelled a lot, seen the world outside while for Kaushal a routine commutation was an affair to be thoughtfully settled on every day basis. The uneasiness and hatred which was woven by room-mate around the presence of Kaushal went to the extent of usage of some witchcraft to harm her.

All instances gave a glimpse of never ending tale of despotism, one by one pointing towards intensification of chauvinism in the form of institutionalised structure. In order to safeguard this biased fortification only, ‘fortunately privileged castes’ whip up question of merit recurrently which is nothing but an attempt to maintain the exclusive purity of the institutional discrimination and consequently utilization of those structures for gross tortures. In the face of such systematic repression, where one is being socially, mentally, economically, historically lashed out regularly, how little is being done and even meagre is accomplished through affirmative action. Hah!! And then policy of reservations is also considered as some sort of charity by many so called benevolent and progressive people.

After coming to JNU, Kaushal got associated with SFI and after the completion of Ph.D, she joined Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and worked as an active member till one day when she had to resign since the allegation levied was a direct assault on her dignity. Her notion about the party which means Communist Party of India (Marxist) is both critical and favourable. She said, “Casteism is tacitly prevalent in the party, however party may deny it. Outside, in the society caste discrimination is right in your face, you can pin point the incidents what is what. Due to insinuating presence of caste discrimination in the party, it becomes difficult or rather impossible to point out. Further, sense of being discriminated has subjective appeal. What I may find as intimidating or discriminating, a progressive person in all his good intentions might not be able to comprehend. It requires right amount of sensitivity along with progressive thoughts, consistent efforts to understand the situation of a discriminated caste/ class/ gender or any other category. In that light, just see, it is easy and fashionable to deliver discourses on the rights of subalterns but empowering them down right with in the circle of your social and political existence generally takes diversion. It is here the structure of the party hierarchy crumbles in ensuring adequate representation of Women and Dalits at every level of its functioning across India. Although, it is better off among all the other political parties in India”

When I asked Dr. Kaushal, about her own take on her identity and the facets it disposes before her. She said that she identified herself as a woman from the most marginalised sub-caste of Dalits. And owing to it she felt that her every move should be directed towards the liberation of Women and Dalits from the shackles of discrimination, oppression and superstitions. Her knowledge of holy texts and scriptures of Hinduism written in Sanskrit has made it clear to her that casteism, spiritualism and superstitions are the pillars holding this faith and have created a fallacy around it.

Being Dalit is a humiliation, it was made vivid to her by the society quite early in childhood. To be born as a female, the first sign of embarrassment, remorse is generally felt within the family, which fortunately did not become part of her experience. Neither did her immediate social system consisting of Dalit households give any sickening expression. Quite strangely, however it is true that families bearing daughters were always held with regard in any congregation of Dalits. Opinion of families bearing daughters mattered more in case of civil disputes. How humiliating being a woman can be that realisation was granted to her by the feudal-patriarchal nexus existing just outside her Dalit hamlet.

Summing up her life’s learning and remembering her father with tears in her eyes, philosophically she said, “When I received my first salary being an Assistant Professor in Delhi University, which was a good sum, I could not believe myself that there were those days also of abject poverty which we as a family survived. Now, when I could buy few moments of happiness which had been eluded due to poverty, my father was not with me to share them. Sometimes, I am not able to understand if this life is an illusion or was it then.”

When interview was over, I kept seated in the couch for sometime in anaesthetic state where body doesn’t move but a chain of reactions leading to big collision was taking place inside the head. Will we be able to subvert the historical cruel order sitting with in and reflect it beyond our own personal spaces? Despite all the scientific advancements, talks of human evolution, how much are we conscious in fighting the prejudices with ourselves, in families, in the immediate social networking?

It is not possible for me to fight and write at the same time. While I try to deal with the issues of politics in my personal surroundings, I end [...]]]>

Image Credit: Ryoko Suzuki (Japanese, b. 1970). Bind, 2001. Lambda print. Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. (Photo: Courtesy of Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo)

It is not possible for me to fight and write at the same time. While I try to deal with the issues of politics in my personal surroundings, I end up thinking and thinking. All my creativity is expressed in creating the environment which of course will carry something to be changed. My life has been in the same pace creating myself and the immediate surroundings. In order to write, and get paid, I felt I should stop fighting. I felt I should relax. And that was the phase when I started realizing that I’m left with no choice than to be politically incorrect. That being politically correct was an occupation, demanding fulltime and energy. When I’m hungry I go mad. When my sleep is affected, I go mad. This is different from the madness I had when I suffered a claustrophobic existence in the patriarchal society. This is not a creative madness.

I started identifying myself as more incorrect politically than correct.

I am confused about the concept of self and self building that is in the centre of our feminism. There are people who cannot afford to create themselves. There are life situations where democracy is bullshit. I began to incorporate a different aspect to my life. I started entertaining dependency. When I look back, I can find exactly where I started shedding the helping nature in the name of constructing self by oneself. It was the lived experiences of upper caste feminists. It was their convictions that I lived. It is their idea of feminism to which individualism is the core. When one is tired of fighting and of thinking one has to take up what is in the dominant culture. At all the phases when I was tired I took up the positions of upper caste feminists. All the politics I stood for is infected by certain logic based on unreality- or mis reality.

Why am I writing this here?

There must be authors that you can suggest which if I had vast reading to claim , I would have quoted here. People can suggest big names that go with this writing. And I welcome any attempt to reconstruct this piece of writing into any other form which would make it more like an article.

This is a fragmentary writing.