Global Phenomenon Addressed: Satya Narayan on Caste question debate

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Satya Narayan on Caste question debate

11:05am Apr 19

After a long debate on Caste Question in and following the Chandigarh Seminar on 'Caste Question and Marxism', the Republican Panthers, having failed miserably to respond to any criticism of Ambedkar and Dewey's Pragmatism, has issued a statement in a Marathi newspaper 'Mahanayak', which claims that we invited Mr. Anand Teltumbde by deceit and trickery and then criticized his views!
This shows the true character of these so-called psuedo trail-blazers and self-proclaimed spokespersons of dalit movement. First of all, we had been in touch with Mr. Teltumbde for more than a month and he himself agreed to come to the seminar for 4-5 hours, on the condition that we will bring him from Jalandhar by our own car and then escort him back to Jalandhar the same day. We agreed because we wanted to listen to Mr. Teltumbde and have a critical dialog with him. He came and spoke at the seminar. He was criticized severely on a number of questions after which he performed a volte-face, retracting most of his statements and also expressed his agreement with much of what was written in our key paper and what was said by us in our statements. During this debate, 5 people from Republican Panthers were present, but they didn't utter a single word. However, when they returned to Maharashtra, all of them again made a u-turn and claimed that it was Mr. Teltumbde who subjected us to severe criticism and didn't even mention a thing about the retreat made by Mr. Teltumbde. When most of the people in country who had been following this debate saw the complete video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYZPrNd4kDQ) of the debate and read our reply to a statement issued by Mr. Teltumbde after returning from Seminar (http://redpolemique.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/response-to-anand-teltumbde-to-the-self-proclaimed-teachers-and-preachers/), they were clear about the truth. Now, finding themselves at a dead-end, the Republican Panthers has issued a statement in Marathi newspaper 'Mahanayak' that we did all this through deceit!!
We have responded to this charge in 'Mahanayak' (http://ucde-mu.blogspot.in/2013/04/blog-post.html). However, this is a very interesting charge. Even if we assume for a second that we called all of these so-called dalit intellectuals to the seminar by deceit, how does it matter, as far as a political debate is concerned? They could have responded to our critique anyway, which they utterly failed to do!
However, we can understand such a ridiculous stand of Republican Panthers. Following their participation in Chandigarh seminar, it has become difficult for them to run their politics in Maharashtra. As a result, they have no other option, but to put such bizarre charges ("Anand Teltumbde ko dhokhe se bulaya"!) and label us as "brahmanical", "casteist", etc. That is what most of the sham dalit intellectuals had been doing right since the Chandigarh seminar. We are not bothered about it. This only shows that the petty bourgeois dalit intellectuals of Republican Panthers and their ilk have no serious concern about a true revolutionary struggle for dalit liberation. Ambedkar has been made sacrosanct because it suits their politics and any reasonable critique of Ambedkar is labeled as "brahmanical", "casteist", etc in no time! This only shows the dishonesty and hollowness of such politics. Everyone concerned with the cause of dalit liberation must understand the true character of such politics.