Prasad Mathew Chacko is the Regional Manager of Action Aid in Gujarat. He has been working with various peoples’ movements in Gujarat for almost two decades. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he speaks about the challenge of Hindutva in Gujarat and about his views on how to counter it.
Q: How did you get involved with different peoples’ struggles in Gujarat?
A: I did my Master’s in Social Work in Kerala. I wasn’t too happy with the course because it didn’t have a proper theoretical or ideological perspective. I then decided to enroll for a course in Social Management at the Behavioural Science Centre (BSC) in Ahmedabad in 1985. It was an intensive course, with a lot of exposure to social reality involving working with social activists engaged in different issues. After finishing the course I began working at the BSC till the middle of this year, when I joined Action Aid.
The BSC helped train a number of development workers and social activists, many of whom are now working in Gujarat and elsewhere. It was set up in 1978 by Feroz Contractor, Burhan Siddiqui and Fr. Heredero, who were then teaching at St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad. They were strongly influenced by Liberation Theology, Marx and the pedagogical approach of Paulo Freire. The BSC began working in a feudal and backward part of Anand district, in villages along with the Gulf of Cambay, among Dalit bonded labourers, who were paid a miserable two or three rupees a day by their ‘upper’ caste employers. Our focus later expanded to also include Tribal and Backward Caste groups, promoting awareness through educational programmes, setting up development projects and cooperatives and trying to organise them. In 1986 four Dalit youth who were working with us were killed by Rajput landlords for having demanded land which the government had allotted them. This is when the BSC began shifting from a purely developmental approach to a more activist approach, based on the understanding that simple economic development cannot take the place of peoples’ struggles for their rights.
Q: Fighting against communalism has never been a major priority for many NGOs in Gujarat, or, for that matter, elsewhere in India. Do you see any change happening in this regard now in Gujarat, after the state-sponsored genocidal attacks on Muslims of 2002?
A: Yes, I agree with you that, unfortunately, communalism was not taken very seriously by most NGOs. At most some NGOs would distribute relief to riot victims and then forget about it. Few, if any NGOs, took religion seriously or challenged the politics of Hindutva fascism. Furthermore, Muslims were not a major priority in terms of direct intervention for almost all NGOs. While Muslims are as deprived and marginalised as Dalits and Tribals, they received little attention from most NGOs.
The genocide of 2002 has not made much of a difference in this regard. Unfortunately, not many NGOs even now are taking the issue of communalism and Hindutva seriously. During the carnage several NGOs did help out in providing relief to the Muslims, but slowly they began withdrawing from the field, working on different issues instead. In early 2002 Around 40 NGOs in Gujarat got together to set up the Citizens’ Initiative that took an openly anti-Modi stance and clearly stated that the violence was state-sponsored. This is when some NGOs reduced their active involvement, withdrew their support, perhaps scared of state repression or fearful that if they came out openly against the government they would lose their license to receive foreign funds. At the same time, the events of 2002 did also lead to at least some NGOs taking the issue of communalism more seriously and to integrate the issue of communal harmony into their projects. For instance, Behavioural Science Centre, Action Aid, Jan Sangharsh Manch (a political organization) and Janvikas, all based in Ahmedabad, have taken up several cases of innocent Muslims who were arrested on false charges, raped or killed. Other groups have taken up the issue of housing and rehabilitation. Action Aid and a few other groups have also started programmes involving Dalit, Tribal and Muslim youth, mobilising them to work for common issues, thereby helping to promote a broader alliance of various marginalised communities to struggle for their rights.
Q: In the recent carnage, Dalits are said to have been used by Hindutva groups to attack Muslims. In this context, are there any efforts being made in Gujarat to promote Dalit-Muslim solidarity to jointly counter ‘upper’ caste hegemony and the Hindutva forces?
A: In the 1980s, when ‘upper’ caste, including Hindutva, groups launched a violent agitation against reservations for the Backward Castes, there was considerable Dalit-Muslim unity at the political level in Gujarat. ‘Dalit-Muslim Bhai Bhai’ was a major slogan during the 1980s, when Hindutva forces began making strenuous efforts to woo the Dalits and Hinduise them. Dalits and Muslims were together in the trade unions in the Ahmedabad textile mills, but after most of the mills closed down and the workers were thrown onto the streets this solidarity rapidly declined.
Another reason why the Dalit-Muslim unity project could not really take off was because of the weakness of the Dalit movement in Gujarat, which allowed Hindutva groups to make inroads among the Dalits. The Dalit-Muslim unity plank received a major jolt with the fracturing of the Dalit Panthers’ movement, which had made Dalit-Muslim unity one of its central concerns, seeing both Dalits and Muslims as victims of ‘upper’ caste Hindu hegemony. The Dalit movement was largely urban, particularly Ahmedabad based, led by government officers, and so was unable to mobilise most Dalits living in the villages. It was led predominantly led by Vankars, belonging to the weaver caste, and was unable to develop a strong base among the other Dalit castes. The Dalit movement also did not take the issue of popular culture and anti-Brahminical cultural mobilisation seriously, treating Ambedkar simply as an icon, rather than understanding the essence of his anti-Brahminical position and building a critical consciousness and counter-culture based on that. This, in turn, allowed Hindutva forces to seek to co-opt Ambedkar, and so today Hindutva leaders, with much ritualistic fanfare, garland Ambedkar’s statues and claim that he was a Hindu nationalist. Another major issue leading to the decline of the Dalit movement is that fact that many Dalit elites, largely government employees, have, over the years, sought to Brahminise their lifestyles, presenting themselves as Hindus, in the hope that this would help them improve their own social position. Of course, this does not necessarily translate into actual acceptance of the Dalit elites as equals by ‘upper’ caste Hindus. Even today it is almost impossible for even an educated, well-off Dalit to be allowed to rent or buy a flat in many Hindu housing societies in Ahmedabad.
I also tend to agree with some critics who argue that the activities of certain NGOs working among the Dalits have had a seriously negative impact on the Dalit struggle. Sudden access to international funding for a host of projects related to Dalits has meant a decline of the radicalism of Dalit struggles as potential activists have been led to focus on simply developmental issues, or national/international advocacy without the participation of the grassroots/community leadership. Because of this, there is now little talk of mass movements to counter caste oppression, and even when this referred to it is often in terms of another funded project. I strongly believe that a peoples’ struggle can never be a NGO-funded movement. NGOs should not attempt to control peoples’ struggles. The best they can do is simply to help facilitate movement leadership through wise deployment of their resources, not by doling out money or simply through small development projects. Unfortunately, however, very few NGOs are using their money to do this, to develop a strong, empowered and self-reliant Dalit leadership.
Q: NGOs like Action Aid in Gujarat are now making efforts to work among Muslims as well. Some are working through Muslim religious leaders in order to reach the wider community. What do you feel about this approach?
A: Personally, I don’t think we should privilege the religious leaders of any community. Yes, we might need to interact with the maulvis, there can be dialogue with them, but we should primarily work with ‘ordinary’ Muslims, particularly the youth, in other to promote leadership within the community that is centred on bread-and-butter issues, human rights violations by the state and Hindutva forces, the marginalisation of women and so on. Often, religious leaders are more concerned to protect their own authority than the interests of the wider community, particularly the poor and women, so there is a limit to the sort of collaboration that NGOs can envisage with them. But, of course, there are exceptions. For instance, we have found it quite useful to work here in Gujarat with the Jamiat ul-Ulama-i Hind, which has a long history of working for the rights of Muslims and for inter-community harmony. This does not, of course, mean that we agree with them on everything, but there are broad areas of consensus that we can take as a starting point to begin working with them.
That said, I must also say that the development of a leadership among the Muslims that seriously takes up the secular concerns of the community, as distinct from religious issues, has been very limited and halting in Gujarat. In the wake of the genocide there has been a considerable churning within the Muslim community here, with efforts being made to promote modern education, based on a growing realisation that this is essential if the community is to fight for its rights and against its systematic marginalisation. This process needs to be further encouraged, and so must be the effort to draw more Muslims to participate in larger struggles that relate to wider civil society issues that concern all marginalised groups irrespective of religion. Today I see an increasing readiness on the part of many Muslim groups in Gujarat, even religious groups, to engage with NGOs and other civil society actors who are working for social justice and communal harmony. We really need to make NGOs and other such groups more sensitive to Muslim issues and concerns, and encourage them to include more Muslims in their programmes.
Q: You seem to be arguing that mobilising marginalized communities, such as Dalits, Muslims, Tribals and Backward Castes, on economic and socio-political issues is important not only in itself but also in order to counter Hindutva. What about working among ‘upper’ caste Hindus, many of whom are Hindutva supporters? Isn’t that also important?
A: Yes, I agree that is important. While I believe that a broad alliance of marginalised groups is essential, that does not mean closing doors to dialogue and working with well-meaning ‘upper’ caste Hindus. Many ‘upper’ caste Hindus are Hindutva supporters, here in Gujarat and elsewhere. But many of them are not hardcore communalists and may support the Hindutva agenda only because they do not have access to the right sources of information. By refusing to dialogue with or reach out to them and by branding all of them as irredeemably communal, we are closing our doors on them, forcing them even more into the embrace of Hindutva. I think we need to approach them sensitively while at the same time remaining firm on our position on communalism and Hindutva fascism. We need to understand the ideological and political vacuum that they face, their unaddressed frustrations that have made them to turn to Hindutva as a way out. It is important to reach out to the humanistic part of their consciousness. We need to develop ways to work with middle-class fence-sitters who haven’t seen the other side of the story, maybe because their only sources of information about Muslims are communal newspapers or television channels or whatever, and who may never have had the opportunity to interact socially with Muslims because now the forced ghettoisation of the Muslims in Gujarat is almost complete.
Q: In combating communalism in Gujarat, what possibilities do you see for inter-religious dialogue?
A: Communalism is essentially a political phenomenon, not a religious phenomenon as such. Hence, the struggle against communalism necessarily has to be political as well. Of course, in this wider struggle inter-religious dialogue has its importance, but it must not remain limited, as it often is, to exchange of views on doctrinal or religious questions. The most fruitful and meaningful form of inter-faith dialogue, which urgently needs to be developed, is for people of different religious backgrounds, inspired by their own faiths, to come together to work for common social purposes, such as struggling for social justice and communal harmony. That, of course, is not really happening in Gujarat, besides the few local efforts to bring Dalits and Muslims together. Inter-faith dialogue also needs to be broadened in terms of who participates in it. It should not remain confined to professional religious specialists such as pundits, maulvis and priests, who get together in a seminar hall once in a while and praise each other’s religion and call for peace and love. In the wake of the carnage in Gujarat there were some such meetings, but I don’t see that as having had much of an impact.
Inter-faith dialogue needs to come out of the seminar rooms and become part of peoples’ struggles for social justice. Gujarat has had a number of Dalit, Bhakti and Sufi saints, who boldly spoke out against caste and gender oppression and communal strife. However, their legacy is fast being forgotten or else being completely Brahminised. How to retrieve these traditions and weave them into the broader struggle for peace and justice is an important task before those who trying to promote inter-faith dialogue in Gujarat today. Unfortunately, however, few people who are working for communal harmony are taking the question of religion and popular culture seriously, partly because many of us with some sort of leftist background have almost completely ignored the continued salience of religion in people’s lives and consciousness.