We rained on Mahad, equally
When water is brought to despair
A desperate life-or-death struggle reaches its critical point
And the folk-song withers away
Ninety-eight years ago, on this day, 20 March 1927, the small flood-prone market-town of Mahad, situated at the southern end of the Kolaba district (now Raigad) along the foothills of the Sahyadri Mountains, became the site of a world-historic revolutionary event. In 1923, the Bombay legislature had passed the Bole Resolution, which granted Dalits the right to access all publicly funded resources including schools, wells, tanks and courts. Despite the law, Dalits continued to be denied access to such amenities. After four years of planning this campaign, on 20 March 1927, Ambedkar declared at the Mahad Conference that they had assembled to assert the ‘norm of equality’. He said this event was comparable to the fall of Bastille in 1789. Along with about 3000 people who had gathered, Ambedkar marched to the Chavdar Tank. He declared: ‘We are going to the tank to assert that we too are human beings.’ He then cupped his hands, drank water from the tank, and everyone followed suit. Later during the conference, a copy of the Manusmriti was ritually burnt; it was the code which had sanctioned the oppression of Dalits and women for centuries.
Upstream, the water is all for you to take
Downstream, the water is for us to get
Bravo! Bravo! How even water is taught the caste system
The Mahad satyagraha was a public act of civil disobedience, not against the law, but against the unwritten constitution of an inegalitarian public. The shockwaves of that event continue into the present. Every assertion against caste oppression is a continuation of this declaration of equality.
Remember, shit does not altogether disappear in water
Nor does unparalleled slaughter vanish
On this anniversary of the Mahad Day, here is a selection of books from Navayana that partake in this thirst for equality:
- Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability by Durgabai Vyam, Subhash Vyam et al
This graphic reworking of Ambedkar’s autobiographical tract Waiting for a Visa, weaves in some key events from his life and the Dalit movement, including a fascinating account of the events at Mahad, including the ‘cleaning’ of the tank with cow’s urine and dung by the brahmans. Images from this episode adorn this blog. - A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar by Ashok Gopal
This sprawling biography of Ambedkar traces the evolution of his thought alongside the events in his life. The planning and preparation that went into conducting the two conferences in Mahad, the stories of all the people involved in making it possible, and its aftermath, are all discussed in detail. - I Could Not Be Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS by Bhanwar Meghwanshi
The revolutionary spirit of the Mahad satyagraha found expression in the acts of a young activist in faraway Rajasthan in the 1990s. Bhanwar joined the RSS as a young school-going student. His break from the hate-spewing organisation was a Mahad-like assertion of equality. His story shows the return we need to keep making to that moment in 1927 until the annihilation of caste. - Ambedkar and Other Immortals: An Untouchable Research Programme by Soumyabrata Choudhury
For a philosophical enquiry into the events at Mahad, read this treatise by Shomo, professor of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU. Shomo helps us navigate the theoretical underpinnings of Ambedkar’s declarations, and helps us understand the universalist dimensions of Ambedkar-thought. - The Fragile Life of the Atrocities Act: Seeking Justice Against Caste Crimes by Sandhya Fuchs
The Mahad satyagraha was a public exercise of a law already in place but not part of common morality. A similar situation exists in India today with the Prevention of Atrocities Act. Sandhya Fuchs’s book stories the struggles Dalit individuals and families undergo in trying to seek justice against the caste crimes they face. - Don’t Want Caste: Malayalam Stories by Dalit Writers; edited by M.R. Renukumar
This anthology of twenty-three stories are farcical and magical, terse and baroque, domestic and picaresque. Their often-experimental form complements the horrors of caste and life within its grip. Collected from six decades of Dalit writing in Malayalam, the experiences that create revolutions like Mahad are powerfully on display in this masterful work of fiction. - Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition by B.R. Ambedkar
Babasaheb Ambedkar’s most famous work. This speech ‘written but not delivered’ at the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal’s Conference in 1936 signalled Babasaheb’s exit from Hinduism and his break with its reformers. This was a demand for the end of caste altogether. Annihilation of Caste is the most succinct critique of caste, and it presents a framework for a truly democratic and associative society. - A Current of Blood by Namdeo Dhasal, translated by Dilip Chitre
The poetry fragments used here are from the poem “Water” by Namdeo Dhasal, the Dalit Panther, and one of the foremost poets of this land.