The   Bhoomi   Sena

Resurgence and development 
…(The) central leadership or the ‘Vanguard Group’ (of the Bhoomi Sena)… encouraged the Adivasis to take local action in their own villages according to their own priorities and collective deliberations. Not only were outsiders not allowed to dictate what should be done, Bhoomi Sena itself shunned ‘centralism’ of any sort. The role of the ‘centre’ – i.e. the ‘ Vanguard Group’ that developed, consisted of 

•  catalytic, supportive, co-ordinating and synthesising tasks;
•  learning from local (village-level) struggle and disseminating their experiences and methods;
•  coming to the assistance of local struggle when this was needed; w organising mass demonstrations in support of local struggles and co-ordinating wider struggles on specific issues;
•  representing local grievances in government offices, courts, etc;
•  conducting investigations to identify the nature and causes of injustice and exploitation;
•  developing selective external contacts for obtaining support and assistance for the movement; and
•  organising ‘conscientization camps’ called shibirs for collective analysis by the Adivasis of the experiences of their struggles, from which the meaning of their struggle is being progressively conceptualised to give the movement an increasingly autonomous direction.

A brief sketch of the movement with extract from a dialogue with the Vanguard Group. 

Also see 
GVS de Silva and others, Bhoomi Sena: A struggle for People’s Power. NIBM, Mumbai. A mimeograph. August, 1978. [R.L12a.601]. 

Some interesting chapters: ‘A Decade of Struggle’, ‘The Method of Bhoomi Sena (mobilisation through conscientisation to organisation)’, ‘Bhoomi Sena within a Perspective of Social Change’. 

From the `achhut' (untouchable) and `atisudra' of the turn of the twentieth century, the large majority in the community initially accpeted with gratitude Gandhiji's new  coinage `harijan' (children of god) to escape the indignity of their earlier appellation. However, in the decades after independence, the term appeared to many within the community as patronising condescension. They preffered the neutral `Scheduled Castes' found in the Indian Constitution. 

It was in 1972 that a radical group in Maharashtra constituted the Dalit Panthers, patterned after black groups in America. The emphasis was on cultural assertion, pride and self-respect, with a central role for portest dalit literature. 

`There is in the word itself an inherent denial of pollution, Karma and caste hierarchy'. and more recently, the ambit of the term `Dalit' has been widened to embrace other oppressed categories, possibly as part of the growing consciousness to build a larger alliance of all disenfranchised and exploited groups. 

Organised political assertion by dalits as a separate group in North India is a comparaticely recent phenomenon. This was symbolised by the Bahujan Samaj Party which came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 1993. The new assertion of the dalits, as a separate self-conscious political entity, is in some ways parallel to classical Marxist `class consciousness' because it signifies an awareness of suppression and consequent organised mass action tofith this oppression. But it simultaneously runs fundamentally counter to Marxiam class consciouness, because the basis of a shared identity is not one's posiiton in the mode of production but in ritual caste hierachy. 

What has to be seen is to what extent this new dalit political assertion will address the problems of the `lower depths' of the dalits, ile. the scavengers and others in traditional `unclean' occupations, dalit women, landless labourers, bonded labourers, unorganised unskilled workers in urban slums, etc. This experience will have important implications not only for future modes of political organisation and assertion of the dalits, but also for the nature of effective state intervention for dalits. 
 

Taken from: 
Harsh Mander, Dalit Status and An Agenda for State Intervention. Anubhav, March 1997. [J.L16.0397ANU4]/ 
 
 

Speaking for Themselves   Gopal Guru, Dalit Cultural Movement and Dialetics of Dalit Politics in Maharashtra. Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, Mumbai. November, 1997. [Available at CED Rs. 30/-].  The Mudhouse writers (Subaltern) used cultural forms to radicalise Dalit politics. However most of it was colonised by the State and dominant forces like the Congress. A few Dalit women did resist the domination and tried to articulate the aspiration of the Dalit. But the Dalit literary establishment resisted this. The Subaltern writers must tackle the Dalit literacy establishment on the one hand and the colonising State on the other.   Gopal Guru, Human Rights and the Dalits: The Great Concern. IGSSS, Delhi. August, 2000. [C.LI8.010800GC].  The Dalit perspective does not take a voluntarist view that Human Rights are bestowed for all people to enjoy. It assumes that the right to be human is not State constituted, but is historically constituted through the constant struggle for ‘Manuski’.   Smita Namla, Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s ‘Untouchables’. Human Rights Watch, New York. March, 1999. [B.L11b.H1].  National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), Charter of Dalit Human Rights. NCDHR [C.L18.010399HRT].  NCDHR, Dalit Womens’ Charter of Rights and Demands. NCDHR. [C.L18.011299HRT].  Chandra Bhan Prasad and SS Bechain, When non-Dalit commentators err. Hindu, Chennai. January, 2000. [C.R17.040100HIN].  There is a growing tendency among non-Dalit scholars to talk of Dalit Rights passionately, but at the same time, debunk their Movement and Leadership.   Daya Pawar and Sambhaji Bhagat, We are not your Monkeys. A video film by Anant Patwardhan (5 minutes). A Dalit Critique of the Ramayana Legend, presented through a song. [V.L11.236].  BR Ambedkar, ‘Riddle of Rama and Krishna’, Appendix No.1 of Part III of the Book Riddles of Hinduism. Dalit Sahitya Akademy, Bangalore. 1995. [R.L40a.7].  VT Rajshekar, A Recipe for Revolution: A Humanist and Marxist Interpretation of the Grand Alliance of the Sufferers and Co-Sufferers. Dalit Sahitya Akademy, Bangalore. 1985. [R.Q31.18].  MC Raj, From Periphery to Centre: Analysis of the Paradigm of Globalization, Casteism and Dalitism. Ambedkar Resource Centre, Tumkur. 1998. [B.U00.R5].  BN Sharada, Some notes on the emergence of the Dalit Sangharsh Samithi in Karnataka. Unpublished. December, 1999. [C.L17a.011299].  Some websites:   www.ambedkar.org   www.dalit.org   www.dalitindia.com   www.dalitchristians.com