Panther Paw
Lagaan is a film which gave me two firsts. One is that it made cricket mildly interesting – apologies to the diehard cricket lovers out there. The other first was seeing caste confrontation or even direct acknowledgement of the existence of caste discrimination. Of course there are others that address caste in a similarly tone deaf way, but it just happened to be the first one I saw. Before that, the lower caste characters I saw in films were written as outside of ‘the norm’ whether that meant being impoverished, having visible disabilities, or just being the low-intelligence comic relief.
Lagaan takes place in 1893, a time when the sun is blazing mightily over the British empire, in the village of Champaner (located in modern day Gujarat). We meet our Hindu upper caste hero Bhuvan, crouched in the trees, trying to interfere with a hunting party headed by the leader of the local British cantonment, Captain Andrew Russell. The film doesn’t shy away from dipping into that beloved cache of Hindu mythological references to present a very black and white picture of a holy and virtuous India battling the colonisers/demons.
The lines of battle are drawn after Russell – just because he can – declares a double lagaan (tax) on the whole province, knowing full well that the farmers won’t be able to pay because of the prolonged drought. Desperate, a contingent of villagers go to the Raja to beg him to intervene on their behalf. Before they can speak to him, a scuffle ensues between Bhuvan and a British soldier while the soldiers are having a cricket match. Bhuvan mocks their game as just a version of the Indian children’s game, gillidanda which doesn’t quite endear him to Captain Russell.
The direct hit to Russell’s manhood prompts him to offer up a bargain: he will cancel the lagaan for the entire province for the next three years if the villagers beat the officers in the cantonment in a cricket match. So the villagers assemble a team and with Bhuvan as de facto leader and the surprising help of Elizabeth Russell, Captain Russell’s sister, they prepare to fight for their livelihood.
As the match draws closer the team reaches a critical moment. They are one player short and hoping for a big, strong man. Instead, an errant pitch rolls towards the literal fringes of the village and stops at Kachra (whose name means ‘trash’) seemingly the only Dalit of Champaner, crouched in the sand with a small broom. When Bhuvan tells him to throw back the ball, an understandably petrified Kachra obeys, using his left hand which is disabled and therefore has a unique ability to spin a cricket ball.
Inspired by this ‘skill’ Bhuvan insists he join the team. Naturally the village is aghast. It’s one thing to fight the big, bad, British (minus Elizabeth) but damn anyone who dares to violate sacred caste laws. Undeterred, Bhuvan drives the shock home by laying his hand on Kachra’s back i.e. polluting himself. There’s not much time to explore this topic with…well, nuance. Not with the match so close. So Bhuvan’s impassioned speech goes for the clincher – reminding them that Lord Ram also ate the half bitten fruits of a tribal woman in the forest. Ashamed, the villagers are able to put aside centuries of religiously sanctioned discrimination and agree to let Kachra play. Keep in mind that his name never changes.
The whole interplay between Bhuvan and Kachra is dripping with the kind of Gandhian benevolence in which the upper caste character speaks for the Dalit who has no voice. Kachra is on the team not through his own assertion but because Bhuvan’s fight for inclusion extends no farther than the one aspect of Kachra – his disabled hand – he finds valuable. It’s not even clear if Kachra actually knows about the match and frankly his situation won’t be affected much by either outcome.
In the Hindu caste system, there are four categories: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras. But within each of the categories are sub-castes and sub-castes within that – quite complex in other words. Those born so low that they are entirely outside the caste system are often collectively referred to as ‘Untouchables.’ These aren’t arbitrary titles. In Indian society, caste rules every facet of a person’s life from jobs, homes, what they can wear, and whom they are allowed to touch.
But it’s this sort of lip-service activism like what is portrayed in Lagaan which swallows the fact that anti-caste activism was certainly thriving in 1893. The term ‘Dalit’ is a direct response to these presumptions of ‘untouchability.’ First coined in 1880 by anti-caste activist, Joytirao Phule, Dalit means ‘oppressed,’ ‘crushed,’ or ‘broken’ to the point that the original identity no longer exists. In pivoting away from a term which deems people tainted by birth it signals a clear intention to break free from centuries of oppression.
Watching Lagaan as a kid for the first time, it’s not as if Bhuvan’s speech moved me to tears, but neither did I have access to films which could counter this type of Dalit portrayal. In my family, caste was mostly a far away concept. After all, we lived in America where such an antiquated social structure which divides and sub-divides people within a hierarchical class structure doesn’t exist, right? (*insert cricket chirping sound*) This isn’t about denouncing my entire upbringing – or Lagaan for that matter, as much as it’s heavily sprinkled with Oscar catnip. I like to think that sometimes it’s not a straight road from love to hate when expressions of culture and arts turn out to be problematic.
As an adult, I am trying to constantly interrogate my positionality within my Indian identity and that includes acknowledging the privileged aspects. Because it is crucial to see expressions of culture within art and ourselves for all of their sides. An ugly reality is that my experience of growing up Indian was undeniably linked to aspirations of pale-skinned privilege and I know I’m not alone in that.
Although I’m giving you a very South Asian-specific perspective, casteism isn’t geographically confined to one part of the world even if the Hindu caste structure is particularly unique in its constellations of hierarchies and oppression. As seems to be the case with some of the worst parts of humanity, caste-basted discrimination is one of those phenomena that is welcomed across borderlines.
In India it was Joytirao Phule who first drew parallels to the struggles of the lower castes and the racism against Black people in the US in his book Gulamgiri, or, Slavery. It wouldn’t be until the 1970s when the Dalit Panther movement emerged, their name an echo of solidarity with the Black Panthers. There’s no doubt that the Dalit Panthers hugely influenced anti-caste activism and for good reason. They utilized their education not in the service of individualistic goals, but to expand their communities and provide spaces of art and creative expression.
The arts are a crucial conduit for activism and as someone who is struggling for a way to support themselves as a writer, their writings are inspiring. They are a reminder that writing as a craft isn’t just valuable, it’s an essential tool for the health and development of a society. Any time is the perfect time to be emulating these principles of community and creativity and my hope is that this small contribution might inspire others.
You cannot understand the Dalit Panthers, nor anti-caste activism in general without talking about Dr. Bhimarao Ambedkar. His life and legacy coined the term ‘Ambedkarite,’ someone who follows the philosophy of Dr. Ambedkar. Of the key figures to emerge from twentieth century India, your first thought is probably Mohandas Gandhi and the Gandhian principles of non-violence.
But, whereas Gandhi’s vision for India’s future was one apparently free from caste – sort of in the way that you have that one friend who says they don’t see color – Ambedkar’s vision of India wanted to shift the focus on uplifting the most downtrodden populations. He understood that simply eliminating caste on a superficial level would not be enough to loosen the stranglehold of the deeply rooted Hindu caste system.
Among other things, Dr. Ambedkar was a jurist, social reformer, and politician who defied the confines of his Dalit status and eventually became Law Minister in Nehru’s cabinet. His life’s work was to protect and empower the most disenfranchised of Indian society, not just those of his caste. Ambedkar played a major role in drafting the Indian Constitution and fought to include provisions which would protect marginalized groups, including women’s rights to education and voting.
While he succeeded in putting in a number of safeguards that would benefit the lower castes, Ambedkar felt, by his own admission, that he had failed in trying to create a just and inclusive document. Still, he was not initially deterred, treating the constitution as something still in the works. After his work on the Constitution, he spent months drafting the Hindu Code Bill which would have granted women among other things, the right to divorce as well as more expansive property rights for widows. He believed that one way the caste system held its firm grip was through its control of women.
After four years of glacial decision-making followed by roaring protests from the wealthy male elite population (surprise surprise) the bill was blocked. Ambedkar resigned his post soon after, fed up with his seemingly ineffectual role. In his resignation speech he said “To leave inequality between class and class, between sex and sex, which is the soul of Hindu society, and to go on passing legislation relating to economic problems is to make a farce of our Constitution and to build a palace on a dung heap.”
In the last years of his life, he converted to Buddhism, a significant move in its rejection of caste and sparked the mass conversion of thousands of other Dalits. Although Ambedkar passed away in 1956, his legacy and his impressive body of work, including the monumental Annihilation of Caste, is still relevant today.
Sometime around 1972, the Dalit Panther movement was formed though in its infancy, it was fundamentally a literary movement. The original founders, Namdeo Dhasal, Raja Dhale, and J.V. Pawar were part of a time when the educated Dalit youth of Mumbai were responding with growing fervor to poetry, literature, and the arts as a way to not only to give themselves a voice, but as a place to pour their frustrations. Not only were they influenced by the richness of Dalit culture, but by resistance literature around the world including African American and Afro-Caribbean.
Firmly Ambedkarite in their values at the start, their anti-establishment writings inspired the formation of other chapters of the DPM. But, in a society where Dalits are constantly at risk of institutionalized violence and lack of access to even the most basic necessities, the founders were also drawn to the Black Panthers’ tactics of militant self-defence. They chose their name after the founders read an article about the Panthers in Time magazine.
I read the 1969 article in question with a sense of disgust though not surprise. The BPP’s community service projects and focus on self-determination are throwaway comments buried in a discomforting war correspondent-like narrative in which the Panthers are on a mission to destroy all state institutions, especially the police. But, and of course the DPM members would approach any major publication with a critical eye, I do wonder what it must have been like to read that article coming from a caste where touching weapons is forbidden.
In his essay ‘Black Independence Day’ Raja Dhale denounces a warped society in which disrespecting the national flag carries a heavier punishment than sexually assaulting a Dalit woman. Therefore, it’s no surprise that typical DPM tactics included self-defense, election boycotts and demonstrations against the Congress Party.
1973 was another significant chapter for the original Dalit Panthers with the publication of their manifesto. A powerful piece of literature integrating Buddhist (Ambedkarite) and Marxist ideologies. They decried the ruling Congress Party as an extension of ‘old Hindu feudalism’ and called not just for the abolition of caste, but also the redistribution of land and social organisations. They credited Dr. Ambedkar with helping them find their sense of humanity “even in our state of beast-like exploitation” and for their emphasis on careful study rather than being reactionaries. Also, the term ‘Dalit’ was expanded to include oppressed communities everywhere.
While the original DPM only lasted five years – they split in 1977 due to growing ideological rifts and external pressures from Indira Gandhi’s government – there are offshoot groups active in parts of India today. In 2022, the DPM celebrated fifty years with an event in Maharashtra where they were joined by former Black Panther members. Their continued, shared fight for just and inclusive societies is an enduring solidarity. As India and the US respectively are experiencing some truly horrifying attempts to rewrite policies, this union of Panthers will hopefully be a pillar against an incoming swell of regressive garbage.
But this is also why the works of Ambedkar and the DPM members are so important. Both groups understood that the path to meaningful change isn’t linear. Even as a lawyer, Ambedkar understood the limits of the law just as the DPM understood that there had to be balance between defensive and creative action. In trying to do justice to these topics, I sway between wanting to write about all of the injustices which are still taking place, unchecked and not wanting to discredit the voices within a growing movement in Dalit literature and art. Right off the bat, Tilted Axis Press is one example of a well-known publisher giving space to powerful Dalit voices in fiction and poetry. Since I’m not an expert I would rather offer you an abridged list of works with a depth of knowledge, expressiveness, and eloquence that inspire me.
The dangers of casteism go beyond vague cliches of a spiritually homogeneous India that collectively worships cows and is represented by skin-bleached Bollywood stars. Reread history in the context of caste and it’s easier to see that freedom, justice, and self-determination have consistently been quashed by those who stand to benefit from the oppression of others.
That can be in the form of discrimination in the workplace based on gender, appearance, name or all of the above. It’s the unchecked nature of people being attacked in public because those in power can turn entire groups into pariahs with hate speech like “infiltrators” and “kung-flu.” It’s justifying violence, displacement, and murder through the distortion of historical narratives. It’s an attitude of anti-Blackness, a stain on South Asian communities that in many instances, has ended in utter tragedy. It’s feeling enraged and powerless to fight against a leadership who only fights for the interests of the elite.
In the last couple of weeks my digital sphere has been bombarded more than usual with reminders not to give in to complacency. To stand up, organize, and fight. Strong, relevant words that still don’t offer enough direction as to how that can be done. What I know as of right now is that I’m going to write my power into my words. That’s where I feel that my panther paw, my source of strength, truly lies. I hope you can find your own panther’s paw too because there’s a lot to fight for.
Literature:
‘Father May Be An Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But…’ by Gogu Shyamala
‘I Belong to Nowhere: Poems of Hope and Resistance’ by Kalyani Thakur Charal
‘Untouchable’ by Mulk Raj Anand
Non-fiction:
‘The Annihilation of Caste’ by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
‘Caste Matters’ by Suraj Yengde
‘When I Hid my Caste’ by Baburao Bagul
‘The Doctor and the Saint: Caste, Race, and Annihilation of Caste, the Debate Between B.R. Ambedkar and M.K. Gandhi’ by Arundhati Roy