It is India’s most shameful paradox — this country has made almost unimaginable progress in nearly every sphere of human life, but the one thing unchanged is the condition of its dalits and backward communities. I am a microsurgeon specialising in hand and spinal reconstruction, and am an mla from Bihar, but I still remain very much a dalit — a dhobi, to be precise — open to routine humiliation from the upper castes.
When I was a student at the Motihari Zilla School, I was not allowed to eat with my fellow students in the hostel for all the three years I was there. While the hostel peons washed the used dishes of all the other students, I was the only one who had to clean his own utensils. This made me feel like I was some sort of beast, but I held my ground.
The worst cruelty of my schooldays, though, was over a poem I once wrote. It drew high praise from my teachers, but was ultimately passed off as the work of a high-caste classmate who had never had anything to do with poetry. My only satisfaction was that the teachers still knew I was the writer of that poem.
When I joined the government health service in the 1970s, there were several occasions when I was barred from performing major surgeries, even though I was the only one at hand with the requisite skills. I was also subjected to arbitrary transfers and postings. I contemplated resigning many times but the smiles on the faces of my patients, many of whom had lost all hope before coming under my care, kept me going at my job.
I went on to take my PhD from Japan’s Hiroshima University and to work as a visiting professor with the who in various Western countries. Back home, however, while the flawless surgeries of a dalit, foreign-educated doctor were acknowledged, I kept on being made a victim of the caste-jaundiced decisions of my upper-caste bosses and their political masters. I was instrumental in setting up the hands and spine reconstructive microsurgery unit at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (pmch) in 1989, a first for eastern India. I helped tens of housands of agricultural and factory workers, most of them dalits, to remain in possession of their limbs, which would otherwise have been amputated because of grievous injuries sustained at work. After I resigned from government service as the professor and head of the pmch’s Orthopaedics Department in sheer frustration at being always labelled dalit and inferior, I joined politics at age 58 and won an election to the Bihar Assembly from Barbigha in Shekhpura district, a constituency that is 39 percent dalit.
Unless dalits find honest voices in a big way in politics, it will be next to impossible for them to progress in contemporary India. That and education — these are the only paths to dalit empowerment.
Kanaujia is an activist, microsurgeon and a jd(u) mla from Bihar
When I was a student at the Motihari Zilla School, I was not allowed to eat with my fellow students in the hostel for all the three years I was there. While the hostel peons washed the used dishes of all the other students, I was the only one who had to clean his own utensils. This made me feel like I was some sort of beast, but I held my ground.
The worst cruelty of my schooldays, though, was over a poem I once wrote. It drew high praise from my teachers, but was ultimately passed off as the work of a high-caste classmate who had never had anything to do with poetry. My only satisfaction was that the teachers still knew I was the writer of that poem.
When I joined the government health service in the 1970s, there were several occasions when I was barred from performing major surgeries, even though I was the only one at hand with the requisite skills. I was also subjected to arbitrary transfers and postings. I contemplated resigning many times but the smiles on the faces of my patients, many of whom had lost all hope before coming under my care, kept me going at my job.
I went on to take my PhD from Japan’s Hiroshima University and to work as a visiting professor with the who in various Western countries. Back home, however, while the flawless surgeries of a dalit, foreign-educated doctor were acknowledged, I kept on being made a victim of the caste-jaundiced decisions of my upper-caste bosses and their political masters. I was instrumental in setting up the hands and spine reconstructive microsurgery unit at the Patna Medical College and Hospital (pmch) in 1989, a first for eastern India. I helped tens of housands of agricultural and factory workers, most of them dalits, to remain in possession of their limbs, which would otherwise have been amputated because of grievous injuries sustained at work. After I resigned from government service as the professor and head of the pmch’s Orthopaedics Department in sheer frustration at being always labelled dalit and inferior, I joined politics at age 58 and won an election to the Bihar Assembly from Barbigha in Shekhpura district, a constituency that is 39 percent dalit.
Unless dalits find honest voices in a big way in politics, it will be next to impossible for them to progress in contemporary India. That and education — these are the only paths to dalit empowerment.
Kanaujia is an activist, microsurgeon and a jd(u) mla from Bihar
3 comments:
Caste system has already done much damage to society but i can assure u that talent has absolutely no caste.
Dr. Dukhan Ram, u must be knowing; is an example. He had thousands of upper caste followers.
The reseravtion policy indeed has done far more damage. if u attain excellence by your merit, the society will say ; arey quota wala hai , tarakki to milegi hi". You lose your contribution, what counts is , reservation.
So i would suggest people like u to leave benefit of reservation aside and climb up on your own. You see many talented people in meadia and art are from lower caste and are follwed by all. Akshay Kumar is a Gujjar but many Brhmin Girls die for him!!!
Caste system has already done much damage to society but i can assure u that talent has absolutely no caste.
Dr. Dukhan Ram, u must be knowing; is an example. He had thousands of upper caste followers.
The reseravtion policy indeed has done far more damage. if u attain excellence by your merit, the society will say ; arey quota wala hai , tarakki to milegi hi". You lose your contribution, what counts is , reservation.
So i would suggest people like u to leave benefit of reservation aside and climb up on your own. You see many talented people in meadia and art are from lower caste and are follwed by all. Akshay Kumar is a Gujjar but many Brhmin Girld die for him!!!
@ sanjay
akshay kumar is not a gujjar.. his real name is rajiv hari om bhatia .. which makes him a sikh ....thanks for spreading misinformation as always ...
Post a Comment