S. V. Rajadurai
Progressive – Critical writer
Many an eyebrow may be raised in the academia – in utter disbelief and discomfort – if an attempt is made to cast Periyar E.V.Ramasami in the role of an educationist, a pedagogue of some worth. The uneasiness this attempt causes can be attributed to more than one reason: firstly, the space available within the academia for making education an area of enquiry is very scant, if not totally absent; secondly, the ‘commonsense’ understanding of Periyar, even while reverential towards that Great Man and conceding a social reformist role for him, considers the notion of Periyar as an Educationist as something far-fetched, since this understanding restricts the concept of education to its formal, institutional structure and content and technical forms – how come, a person, however great he may be, with only a few years of schooling , that too marked by more of abstention than by attendance, can by any means be considered an ‘educationist’?; and thirdly, even in instances where educational models are subject to reviews and reappraisals, such enquiry is invariably be underlined by instrumentalist notions of education and behaviourist model of learning and/or teaching, a model with positivist logic targeting the young people for socialization, for moulding their basic needs and expectations and for obtaining their consent to hegemonising ideology and the material life forms and styles of dominant sections. The world has seen and is still seeing through the role of education in the game plan of constructing a civil society where the hegemonic elements remain either totally invisible or partially in sight. In Indian context, it has been the Fascist forces that blatantly seek to manipulate the educational system for constructing a religiously bigoted civil society and it would take years to remove the cultural landmines it has planted in textbooks, curricula and the rest of the structure of learning. Unfortunately the political and social forces involved in emancipatory projects are yet to take up adequate and bold measures to remedy the immense damage the communal forces have caused to the entire pedagogic system in our nation. Caught in the greatest crisis of our era- the Covid-19 pandemic – even the States under the rule of secular, democratic and left forces are struggling to see the thorough overhauling of their educational systems and institutions poisoned with irrational , religious and casteist characters.
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In a society that has developed an indigenous Eugenics with a claim that intelligence and proclivity to learning inhere only in a certain caste or a group of castes and that the rest of the society is fit only for ‘hewing the wood and drawing the water’, whatever educational models designed in the past had been the prerogatives and privileges of the few. The large chunk of the society was fated to wallow in the mire of illiteracy and superstition. It is a paradox that while other countries of the world suffered economic exploitation and cultural domination by the aliens, particularly the white colonialists who intervened in every aspect of their subjects’ life forcing them yield to the imposed rule, in our country, the letters and words of the languages spoken by the vast majority of the populace that constituted the productive classes (or castes) reached them only through the measures (‘benign’ or ‘malign’, according to the perspectives of each one concerned) introduced by the alien masters.
To speak of the much derided and condemned educational policy of Lord Macaulay – it may sound blasphemous to those schooled in unadulterated patriotism – , it was indeed as one of the unconscious tools of the history to usher those condemned to mental darkness unto the threshold of modernity and enlightenment. Despite the conscious and unconscious prejudices a white liberal had against the native race and an uninformed assessment of the intellectual, particularly the literary achievements of the Orient, Lord Macaulay was however the first to liberate the educational system from the clutches of obscurantism which was continued to be defended by the social orthodoxy by invoking Queen Victoria’s declaration assuring neutrality on all religious matters. It was only from the days of Macaulay, the Indians received “a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy and other useful sciences” as desired by the great social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy. In his famous (or infamous) minutes Macaulay wrote:
Assuredly, it is the British Government in India to be not only tolerant, but neutral in all religious questions. But to encourage the study of a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic value only because that literature inculcates the most serious errors on the most important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality, or even with the very neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be sacredly preserved. It is confessed that a language is barren of useful knowledge. We are told to teach it because it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company with a false religion. We abstain and trust we shall always abstain from giving public encouragement to those who are engaged in the work converting natives to Christianity. And while we act thus, can we reasonably and decently bribe men out of the revenues of the state to waste their youth in learning how they are to purify themselves after touching an ass, or what text of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the crime of killing a goat ?
The subsequent educational policies of the British Indian Government drew liberally from the one elucidated by Macaulay, eventually shedding much of its elitist character and making it possible for a larger populace to profit from the modern education which was preceded or followed by the new and western discourses on rights that made the colonial subjects at least formally equal before law. It is no wonder then, the great anti-caste movements of nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their leaders had quite a few things positive to say about the advent of British rule. The modern education and the discourses on rights of the people introduced by the British also brought into being the bi-lingual nationalist intelligentia which, combining the notion of western democracy with the invocation of the Indian (Hindu) past set about imagining and then actually realizing an Indian Nation. Periyar with his characteristic sarcasm commented on the patriotism of the Nationalist Brahmins who were the greatest beneficiaries of modern educational system introduced by the ‘mlechchas’:
Let us examine the present condition of politics in our country. Today in the political world there are two sets of people that are making much noise, viz the Congressmen and the Independents. What are their qualifications? Let us examine their “deeds” and “sacrifices” in the name of politics. On the Congress platform they would declare that the “Satanic” British Government should be swept off at once. People would also applaud them. But their sons, brothers and relations would be earning Rs. 500, 1000, 2000 & 3000 a month as Munsiffs and Judges under the same Government. Their heroic declarations would but serve to strengthen the positions of their relations in the various professions and yet they will be masquerading in the name of the country.
The Secretary of the Congress, Mr. Rangasami Iyengar would roar, “we must obstruct the Government form functioning and beard the lion in its own den.” But his brother would crawl into the den of Government, bow low to the Britisher, lick at his feet and hold the banner of the Bureaucracy. Mr.S. Srinivasa Iyengar, the Independent-wallah would ask others to do away with the British connection, but, every morning he would unconsciously find himself at the feet of the judges addressing the representatives of the “satanic” government as “Your Lordship, Your Honour” etc. and would coolly pocket a few thousands. His creed of independence would also help him in securing fresh appointments for his kith and kin.
And there are other political magnates who are said to be intoxicated with too much of patriotism. Messrs. Srinivasa Sastri T. Rangachari, Mani Iyer, V. Krishnasami Iyer, C.P. Ramasami Iyer, C. Vijayaraghavachari are names to be conjured with. And surely their sons, nephews, brothers, brothers-in-law and other relations are reaping the fruits of these “patriotic” brains. Those that are unfit for Government services and those that are retired from service have come out as patriots, but their sons, and relations are in the service of the “Satanic” Government.
It was these Nationalists who were crying hoarse against the social justice the Non Brahmin movement wanted to introduce dubbing it as communalism! The idea of Nationhood was a contested territory; for the Nationalists, ‘Swaraj’ was a birthright; for the anti-caste leaders like Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Periyar, ‘Self-Respect’ was the birthright, which, they never believed would accrue to the down-trodden masses represented by them either by the good will of the British or by the Nationalists. They did not believe that a mere transfer of power, or the political democracy based on ‘one man-one vote’ would ensure the liberty, fraternity and equality of their women and men in India, unless the social democracy based on ‘one man-one value’ is rendered tangible. But this was not an easy task. All the mucks of the past and present in the form of hierarchical caste system was weighing like an incubus on the civil society whose political expression, according to Periyar is the Indian state. For Ambedkar and Periyar, every aspect of Indian life was informed and guided by the code of Manu and Varnashrama which fed on Vedas, Smritis, Shastras and Puranas . However, like Ambedkar, Periyar exhorted the Ad-Dravidas to free themselves of their internalized oppression and made it clear that they had been condemned to a life of un-cleanliness and were not allowed to be blamed for the excreable conditions in which they lived.:
Why must you unnecessarily address other castemen as Swami? The sense of being a low caste person seems to have mingled completely with your blood. But you must endeavour to change this. Whenever you see a person—of another caste—you must ask yourselves, if in reality there exists any difference between him and you. One cannot help a caste that is not concerned about its own self-respect to progress. Each one of you must recognise and be conscious of the fact that you are human …If your clothes are dirty and you appear unwashed, who is responsible for this state of affairs? When you do not have access to drinking water, how can you possibly bathe? It is not as if you were born smelly and dirty . . . If mahants and Shankaracharyas were denied access to water to bathe, wash their clothes and brush their teeth and were to be locked up in a house for days, would their clothes remain spotless? Would their bodies smell fragrant?
To Periyar, caste was, simultaneously, a system and ideology; it comprised a complex set of social relations, as well as those principles which informed, sustained and justified these relations. As a system, caste served the interests of Brahmins who were its favoured agents and existed chiefly to gratify and perpetrate their sense of their own superiority. As an ideology, caste worked to ensure the notions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ birth were accepted as given by the peoples who were marked thus. The ideology of caste-referred to by Periyar as Brahminism, Varnadharma and Hindusim – held that society could not have been divided otherwise; and offered a range of explanations and arguments as to why this hierarchy had to be and why it was desirable. He and other Self-Respecters considered the abolition of untouchability and emancipation of Non-Brahmin Shudras were absolutely indispensable for the destruction of caste, but also insisted that these two differently oppressed segments come together into a new relationship of mutuality and reciprocity. Untouchability was understood, both as an instance of a general inhumanity and arrogance derived from the notions of ‘high’ birth, and a condition that was fundamental to the very existence of caste society. In their view, all imprecations to freedom, equality and justice were in vain, if they did not address this extremely crucial problem, and not merely from a religious and moral point of view. Untouchables were, first and foremost, workers whose labour through the centuries had made possible and ensured the wealth and welfare of caste society as a whole. Unless untouchables were freed from servitude and fear, all talk of freedom and self-rule of the Indians could only be construed as partisan and narrow in its concerns.
(to be continued)
