BENGALURU: Commenting on issues of gender and caste inequality in India, historian and writer Ramachandra Guha lauded the #MeToo movement. Guha said the movement for dalit equality has progressed further than that of gender equality.
“I completely salute the #MeToo movement. I honour the courage of the women who have spoken out against the horrific violence they have faced from male bosses and colleagues. Reform must come from both above and below. Upper-caste Hindus and men must also recognise the struggle for equality of caste and gender,” Guha told the gathering at the 7th edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival on Saturday.
While equality in the eyes of law has been achieved by the Indian constitution, Guha said, “Women still don’t have equality before God. We are in the midst of an intense controversy at Sabarimala. Some people say it is a matter of custom and tradition. Ninety years ago, 99% of high-caste Hindus said dalits cannot enter temples. Eighty per cent of Hindus thought untouchability, sati and child marriage was fine once upon a time. The idea that you cannot interfere with religion is absurd.”
“Of course, you reform slowly and persuasively without violence. The problem in contemporary India is everything is connected to vote-bank poltiics. It is clear what is happening in Sabarimala... The BJP wants to gets its vote share in Kerala,” he asserted.
During his talk titled ‘Is There an Indian Road to Equality?’, he said, “Treatment of women and dalits in 2018 fell shockingly short of what our constitution makers and patriots such as Ambedkar, Gandhi, Gokhale and others hoped for.”
“While the dalit movement has made intense progress in the nation, the movement for equality of women still falls behind. You must compare the Sabarimala issue with the Vaikom Satyagraha that happened in mid-1920s in Kerala. Lower-caste people were not allowed inside temples. It started with three people entering the temple — a brahmin, OBC and dalit,” he said, further adding, “They were beaten up. Three other people entered. There eventually came a time when you could not stop dalits from entering temples. This was the kind of struggle people waged.”
He urged people to press for entry of women to places of worship and for them to also become priests, bishops and mullas.
“Dalit equality is yet to be achieved in everyday social life. I used to think cities were free of caste discrimination but consider the incident of Rohit Vemula. Caste discrimination and humiliation in a city, in a prestigious science college, caused him to take his own life,” Guha said.