Nayonika Sen Week 2

Contested Citizenship, Caste, and the Politics of Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’

            The CAA-NRC agitations have perhaps reached a tipping point in mainland India. Yet, the contention and agitation has been brewing in Assam for a while now. Until the threat of a nation-wide NRC, it wasn’t even a peripheral topic of discussion. ‘We people’ were largely unfazed by it. However, a brief reading of the recommended articles and a short explanatory video with Ms. Bina Pallical reaffirms my continuous contention with the NRC. Even the ‘Liberals’ comprising mainly of upper-caste educated persons have bought the narrative of it being an exclusively Hindu-Muslim problem. Yet, how is it going to affect the people who have historically never been considered Hindu? The current political narrative is trying to homogenise the ‘Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan’ identity. The BJP has repeatedly issued statements about how the CAA is pro-Dalit and yet refuses to acknowledge the attempts at massive disenfranchisement of the community. The CAA will increase the competition for already minimal resources that will undoubtedly, first affect the communities availing protective legislations.

The article on The Wire, ‘From Protesting the CAA to Embracing the Dalit-Bahujan Position on Citizenship’ is an interesting reading. It articulates the truth of the ‘false majority’; the truth being that the citizens of our country must be upper-caste Hindus. The upper-class in India, is the upper-caste. And they are the only ones who can afford to pursue their contested citizenship in higher courts. The Government is very aware of the fact that Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasis along with the minority community of Muslims will not be able to afford the meagre recourse offered by the legal system. It is a deliberate and scathing attempt to maintain the caste order through brutal repression. It reads to me as an attempt to establish a new social order in the form of neo-slavery. For all that one can get out of detention centres is a lot of free labour. Eerie similarity to the Nazis.

The politics of Chandrashekhar Azad is peculiar (And welcomed one, according to me). A rebel to the bones, he’s been one of the massive leaders who’ve emerged from this movement, bringing for a Dalit-Muslim unity unlike any other. The incident at Jama Masjid is testament to it. He’s of the ‘Hum cheen ke lenge Azadi’ school, where he doesn’t engage in polite conversation and negotiation with parties that refuse to acknowledge the humanity of Dalits. Considered ‘rough around the edges’, he has gone on to defy several things from Dalit Masculinity to polite politics. He too has warned us not to be fooled by the ‘inclusive’ Hindu identity of the BJP. It is non-existent.

Nayonika Sen