When I was a child, my neighbour used to feed my brother and me whenever my parents went to the village. She would invite me home for food. I would sit on the floor; her entire family would sit at the table.
Bahujan scholar and poet Omprakash Valmiki described in his biography, his father’s insistence on him pursuing a higher education, despite knowing fully well of the discrimination that his son would inevitably face. A child who had already faced such discrimination from primary school, was hence burdened with the expectation of a higher education, with the belief that it was the only route to ridding himself of caste.
I am a Chamaar. This is not an identity that I have ever shied away from. While some of you would expect me to identify as a ‘human’ first, I want to assure you that the society at large has made sure that I don’t forget which caste I belong to. In my time at Law School, as I have gone from identifying as a Chamaar to identifying as a Dalit-Bahujan, I have always embraced the one part of my identity meant to keep me down. As I write today, however, I offer a small glimpse into a journey, familiar to some and incomprehensibly unfamiliar to others.
Much like Omprakash Valmiki, my parents too, harboured dreams of escaping caste. Escaping, however, comes at a price. The price of an education, was sacrificing a house. To send your son to the best possible school, you had to sacrifice the down payment that you could have made on a home. With each tier of education coming at a greater cost, the sacrifices would mount and my parents would make them; because at the heart of hearts they shared the same vision of Dr BR Ambedkar and Omprakash Valmiki. They (and I) genuinely believe that a higher education is the only avenue for one to rid themselves of caste.
I joined Law School in 2015 but my journey began 2 years prior, when I prepared and wrote the CLAT in 2014. Back then, I had gotten a score which would have seen me enter RMLNLU. Determined to improve and make it to the best possible Law School, I rewrote in 2015 and sat stunned as I checked my results at 2AM in the morning. I had secured an AIR of 333. I was dejected. I really thought I could have done better.
In the morning I rang up one of my closest teachers who had helped me with my preparation and informed him that I had gotten an AIR of 333. Being the supportive man that he is, he was delighted. He congratulated me on my effort and told me it was a result of my hard work. Almost as an afterthought, I informed him of my AIR SC Rank 2. He was ecstatic. He yelled in joy and said my entry into NLS was certain. Here is when I was caught in my first dilemma. I expressed to him my doubts about joining a college based on my SC Rank and instead simply accepting a college as per my General ranking. The words he said then fuel me to this day. He said “If you don’t go, the seat will be offered to a child who might not be able to bear that pressure and drop out. Remember, you don’t go there for yourself, you go there for your people; as a guiding light for those students who can look up to you and follow you in the same footsteps.”
Truth be told, these footsteps haven’t been easy. Each step through Law School has thrown up challenges reminiscent of the inequities that exist outside. But after an unlucky streak of two year losses, it is these words which prevent me from dropping out like so many other Dalit-Bahujans, and kindle my hope of graduating from this institution with all the knowledge that I came to gather.
The pursuit of knowledge here, however, seems particularly strange through the lens of a Dalit-Bahujan man. On a campus that boasts equality campaigners in all corners of its settlement, I continue to witness, with each new batch of students, similar incidents of caste-based slurs, “debates” on why “economic reservations are the solution” (this from those joining our LLM and MPP programs) and a culture of discrimination that only serves to remind individuals of their place in the socio-economic hierarchy.
When Valmiki’s father insisted on his pursuit of higher education, the forms of discrimination that he feared may have been different. But in the second decade of the 21st century one can be certain that the perpetrators, then and now, draw from the very same well. Incidents of discrimination, against an individual, only hasten the collective reliving of a community’s historical inferiority complex – of not speaking good enough English, of not being able to understand complex concepts in one go, of not “fitting in” to elite cliques, of not knowing how to compile presentable projects, of not clearing exams.
In the initial days of college, a group of students sitting in their hostel rooms were discussing the marks of the first test of Legal Methods. In the course of the conversation one of my batch mates very casually remarked “Yaar, yeh SC kaise aajate hain iss college mein?” (“Dude, how do these SCs come into this college?”). One hopes that the men present have changed their views over the years, however, the impact that one such statement has on its listeners can persist for years. After all, we were all just first years who wanted to hang out, but from that moment on we would always be reminded that in their eyes our existence would simply never measure up. One day you are a proud member of India’s premier law school, and the other you are just another Dalit who got in through reservation.
The way higher education is portrayed as a route to salvation, one often forgets that those they meet on this journey are a product of the same patriarchal, brahmanical caste-based society that exists outside. For all those who forget, however, incidents like these serve as a reminder.
When I came here, education was my primary aim. I started to participate in practice debates because I wanted to speak in English and make sense at the same time. I wanted to participate in class so I tried to contribute. Prof. Elizabeth (aka Lizzie) encouraged everyone to engage and debate in class. Even though the first 3 weeks of History were Latin to me, I started to relate heavily to the lecture on “Society and the Individual” from the “What is History” component. It was here when I first tried to speak in class a few times while seated at the back of the side rows, all the while anxious of being made fun of. Over time, I slowly gained in confidence and my engagement in class increased, till one fine day, I got stuck trying to formulate a sentence and a batchmate of mine looked at me and smirked. That was it. All that effort into building myself up, deflated. The said person later joined the Law and Society Committee. Little did I know that in my second year, I would face the same kind of deflation, only this time it would be at the hands of a Professor, who would use his privileged position, to mock me for the class’s entertainment.
Trust me. It breaks you. Being made fun of for struggling with a language you weren’t exposed to because your parents only spoke to you in either Bhojpuri or Hindi. It cuts at your self-esteem and stabs at your confidence. It effectively kills your sense of curiosity and robs you of your ability to participate. And yet. And yet, it doesn’t break you like you may think it does. It may break your heart, but it does not break your spine. One keeps marching forward towards that goal that is graduation, because one does not walk this path for the benefit of caste perpetrators but towards their direct detriment. Once again, one hopes these people have changed, but the fact that the said Professor continues his antics, doesn’t leave me feeling very optimistic. The certainty with which people say “Arey, people develop sense while they stay here” can only emerge from those unaware or intentionally blind to how deeply ingrained this mentality is in our institutions.
Academic achievers, and discourse creators keep discussing how caste-based discrimination has either vanished or radically reduced with the onset of education. As someone who studies at the premier centre for legal instruction in the country, I would like to categorically disagree. Caste discrimination has merely evolved into discrimination by other means. Language, clothing, taste in music or your consumption of pop culture, each act as a proxy for your socio-economic location. While the cliques that form around these may seem banal, they represent a much deeper divide.
When you enter they ask you your rank, and then look at you with pity. When you speak English they mock and they jeer. Little do they know that their “merit” is bought by money and their rank by a historic access to resources. Their spoken English reeks of condescension and their debates uplift none. Their pretence of inclusivity dies when they shoot down someone for speaking Hindi, and again, when their moot courts “groom” and “polish” the pre-polished selected for “grooming” and “polishing”.
The table from my childhood seems to have persisted to my present.
Distant. Intimidating. Unattainable.
The only difference is,
When I was a child, I ate on the floor.
I will sit on the floor no longer.
]]>I have often been subject to subtle discrimination and derogation. I have not been able to fully comprehend and delineate what consists of an actual joke and what power those “words” have on me. Very often, the locus is on me to stand my ground and convince myself that I am more than the words which label me.
I do not fully know why I feel put down when someone makes a “joke” based on the way I look, the place I’m from and the sex I represent. Is it because society has led me to believe that such words are offensive and that I am reacting in a predetermined manner? In other words, am I overreacting? After all, the other person finds it funny.
I have not experienced the full brunt of sexism, racism and xenophobia that my ancestors did. I am allowed to go to college and I study with people I might have been prohibited to talking to in the past. Are my experiences purely ‘imaginary’ as I am led to believe? That every time someone calls me a “chink” it does not mean what it means – a derogatory word used to express distaste for Chinese workers in the U.S.A. It is now colloquially used to refer to “a person with small eyes” and because I have small eyes, I must laugh because it is funny.
But if it was just physical would people use it anytime I expressed a fondness for a particular song or did a particular activity? Is the continuous repetitive use of it to encapsulate everything I do justifiable? If it was just something private and individual, like that person who has a lopsided grin and is teased for it, would it be used to describe every other person with physical features similar to mine, irrespective of background, nationality, interest, whether I identify with them? Can the underlying negative undertones be ignored? Are they determining what I represent, not on grounds based on what I stand for, but what I look like?
I realized too late that it is not okay to group people based on their features and decide it is enterprising and fun to deride it. That is something only the majority can afford to do. Unfortunate retribution by the minority does not have the same effect. It has to be “derogatory” to be effective and what is “derogatory” is often determined by the dominant/majority. There is no equal playfield when racism takes the field. It is not funny to use words loaded with a history of discrimination and hate on the same minority that was subject to it in the past and still continues to be subject to it. You cannot expect me to laugh at your well intentioned joke when the random person on the street shouted out the same racial slur to me a few days ago, when the guy at the bar asked my friend how much she charges a night because she’s a c***k, and when someone tells me that I’m not as dumb as the other c***ks. You must realize that you assert your privilege at the expense of the discriminated.
Additionally, I am fully aware of the multifaceted implications of these jokes. Conventional beauty standards decided by the dominant class dictate that small eyes are less preferred. Racially, it is a common feature of people of Mongoloid, Tibetan, Chinese, the list goes on, descent. Etymologically, it originated in the USA as an expression of distaste and disgust, in India, to refer to “the dudes who are trying to take Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh from us”, and additionally, anyone who looks like them. Numerically, we are a minority in this country. Biologically, it is natural. Naturally, I am different. Does anyone like being reminded that they are treated as the ‘other’ in the narrative? These are words loaded with a history that you cannot erase or ignore when you use them and decide to normalize and trivialize an issue that permeates through the lives of a people.
It took me quite a while to realize that my feelings of doubt were unfounded. That I am not an uncool and unfunny person who cannot take a joke. If someone reading this has experienced similar moments of confusion, you are not a prude. This is random, but I recently stumbled across a speech that (the best person ever) Lin Manuel Miranda (who was of Puerto Rican descent but born in New York City) gave way back before Hamilton in the 2009 NAHJ Scholarship banquet. It says:
“I grew up with the central question which I think a lot of us grew up with, which is, where exactly do we belong? Where is home and if we are Puerto Rican why don’t we live on the island, and are we meant to live on the island, and if we are from New York, but Puerto Rican or New Yorkans what traditions do we carry with us? Do we speak Spanish, do we eat *Rican dish can’t figure out* even though we may prefer pasta?”
He continues:
“I remember the first time I went to Puerto Rico for summer vacation. Prior to that the way I saw Hispanics on TV were as janitors, criminals and talking Chihuahuas. That’s pretty much it. And I remember being struck even at that age, being in Puerto Rico and realizing, ‘Oh, the doctors here are Puerto Rican. Oh, the lawyers here are Puerto Rican. Oh, the journalists here are Puerto Rican and here we can belong and here is where we belong and we can do anything we want. Back in New York, we are janitors, we are criminals and we are talking Chihuahuas. I was really struck by this.”
He goes on to say that he wrote his first musical In the Heights when he realized that no one would change the trope for him and that he had to change it himself. I realize that the second half sounds like I’m selling Lin, but I hope that it inspires someone just as it inspired me. It might get hard because of all the negativity that surrounds it, but to all the people who have felt like Lin has and like I have (OTP), please love your heritage, your identity, your culture and what you are. And if anyone has decided to be a kinder person after reading this, I thank you for reading it and for understanding.
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