"Turning in any direction you like," B R Ambedkar once stated, "caste is the monster that crosses your path." I write about the future of caste with the determination and the desperation of a suicide bomber who has been handpicked to assassinate that monster. If you look closely at my fragile frame, you will see the belt-bomb strapped to me; you can count the hand-grenades I caress. On my mission, I turn bullet-spitting historian, I turn acid-throwing stalker. My anger is the most potent undetonated device that I carry. I write with frenzy, with blinding rage, with hatred, seeing nothing ahead of me but the obituary of the oppressor I have set out to kill. I am baying for blood. Its death dances out in front of my eyes.
Like the rest of my tribe that is indoctrinated to destroy itself in order to annihilate a cruelty whose presence makes the world a worse place, I dream of the appointed day, I rehearse scenarios. There is a smile on my lips because I am in the company of women and men, like me, who would die, if that is what it takes, to put an end to this dehumanising system. This is an obsession, a shame that spills over. We have chosen our target, and like a secret society of terrorists we work out the logistics in the belief that we will live forever, that we have the license to kill. In this macabre jihad of sorts, we are convinced that caste is a savage system that deserves to be crushed and consigned to the pages of history.
Caste has survived because of its atrocities, literally over the dead bodies of lynched lovers, over charred Dalit settlements, through the use of organised violence to enforce and maintain super-ordination and subordination. Caste is the colourful poison in syringes injected into women who elope. Caste razes a hut to ashes in Kilvenmani. Caste kills those who are defenceless and unarmed in Khairlanji. Caste is the dried excrement that finds its way into the mouths of rebellious Dalits in Thinniyam. Caste is the massacre of Dalit village headmen in Melavalavu. Caste is extrajudicial detention, torture and murder; caste is custodial gang-rape. Caste operates in consensus. Its atrocious face comes about because of collusion, and the absence of any substantial group of privileged people who are willing to turn caste-traitors.
On the other hand, the caste-Hindu backlash refuses to accept who we are when they know what we are – the result of a supremacist mindset that has the single aim of delegating Dalits to the bottom of the social hierarchy. This everyday dismissal has several facets. In my immediate, personal case, it denies me my Dalit selfhood, doubts my origins because of my way with words, my choice of clothes. This explicit project engages with me in every sphere of life. It is a dual struggle in which one has to escape pigeonholing and also affirm ones identity when on the edge of assimilation.