This lecture was delivered at the Idea of Belonging Conference held in Coimbatore

on 5, 6 October 2024.

I will begin by thanking Bela ji for her insightful talk. It reveals the courage one requires to survive in situations that may seem dismal, yet keep hope alive. She sets a paradigm for us––that we should endeavour to be humane. It is perhaps the most difficult endeavour to aspire to. That being humane is an insurmountable task exposes the fault lines that have existed in our past and the fissures that continue to plague us in contemporary times.

I was heartened to see students raise fundamental questions about the origins of a sense of belonging and biases associated with it. As a cultural historian who works on subjects related to art, caste and cultural modernity, I was especially fascinated by the students’ use of the parai. The parai (an instrument) is usually associated with lower-caste communities. The parai has a long history. The Sangam texts reflect how certain communities who were inventors of the parai were also part of a heroic culture. The parai was marked by its use during wars and celebrations of a religious nature in the Sangam period. This is clearly different from the preconceived notion we may have of the instrument, having seen it in the hands of a lower-caste person. This tells us that history is not constant, rather it is subject to changes as relationships, identities, senses of belonging etc. change.

Preparing for this lecture, I found myself asking questions––what is the sense of belonging of an untouchable child in a school? What is the sense of belonging we develop during our childhood? How important is it to develop that sense of belonging? And how is it developed? To find an answer to this, I went back to certain sources and was inspired by three in particular: The first is a documentary by K. Stalin, India Untouched: Stories of a People Apart (2007) and the second was Bhanwar Meghwanshi’s biography. The title of the book is fascinating as well as revealing: Why I Could Not Be A Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS (translated by Nivedita Menon, Navayana Publishers, 2020). The third source to impress me was an academic book by Geetha Nambissan.

Meghwanshi worked in the right-wing RSS, wanted to be considered a Hindu and serve as a real foot soldier in the Karsevak movement during the Ram Janmabhoomi Andolan. And despite all the sacrifice and struggle that he gave to the movement, he was driven to a moment of despair that forced him to contemplate committing suicide. Meghwanshi questioned the sense of belonging he felt.

Geetha Nambissan worked on discrimination against Dalit children in schools. This is something we should engage with, not just for pedagogy but also to study what a sense of belonging means from the perspective of an untouchable child in school. Belonging is not a natural or given conditional quality, except at some basic level—like within a family. Living in complex and evolved organizations—social, political, cultural—requires fulfilment of certain conditions and demands are made on all of us as individuals. Thus, it has an intersubjective character. It has to be cultivated in a conversation, through an encounter and blossom into an intersubjective relationship. It is constructivist in nature; it is not an inherent quality of a human being.

The evolution of a sense of belonging requires cultivation. The term immediately implies a sense of care and protection mediated through channels of association. It could be kinship associations, civic associations or communal associations. The sense of belonging is an intersubjective relationship. Society, from the perspective of belonging, means mutual possession. There is no autonomous individual with divine agency within themselves. Belonging emerges through interaction with society. Through such enactments of mutual belonging, as members of larger social collectives, we attain moral positions as members and make claims on others––we expect care and support. Demands made on members could be equally hierarchical or negative as well. According to the human rights discourse, they could be oppressive also. Belonging fulfils the important human need through moral obligations of members.

Artists are suffused with emotions—both positive and negative—and a morality: a sense of duty, solidarity, reciprocity and loyalty. It is through these positions, claims, moral obligations and enactments that one enacts one’s being and sense of belonging. This is how  individuals come into being. Thus the demands and moral obligations in a traditional order tend to be different from that of a modern order. In traditional hierarchical societies with caste and racial segregations, the sense of belonging varies greatly between hierarchical societies and modern democratic traditions. However, in both these traditional and modern contexts, belonging is not a given but constructed through labour, commitments and is subject to change historically.

For example, the one-child policy of China in a communist regime indicated that reproductive norms meant––despite the personal suffering it caused––cultivation of a new ethos of reproductive health that was harmonious with the nation's view of producing healthy citizens. Similarly, in Nazi Germany, the Nuremberg Laws enforced anti-Semitic and racist policies that divided society into ‘pure’ Aryan Germans and non-Aryan Jews. This legal segregation shaped a sense of belonging among Aryans while systematically alienating Jews, ultimately leading to the Holocaust and the massacre of approximately six million Jewish people.

In traditional society myths serve an important function in producing a sense of belonging primarily to justify the distinctiveness and moral binding force of a community. The use of Kula Puranas can be seen in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu. Each caste community could have a Kula Purana, which explains how that community came into existence, what the obligations are that bind the community together and what demands are made on an individual to belong to that community. The tradition of Kula Puranas is practised in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana too, regardless of caste.

In traditional societies myth functioned as a source for harnessing a sense of belonging. In modern times history has taken over the role of myth and has become a force that serves as the functional tool to legitimize a sense of belonging and that is why history becomes very important. In the nineteenth century, when India was forging the idea of one nation or national community, many intellectuals––from Gokhale to Tilak to Gandhi––invented the idea or doctrine of unity in diversity.

The most important of these ideologues was perhaps Jawaharlal Nehru. Historians argue that his unity in diversity doctrine required an amnesia towards differences. One has to suspend the differences in imagining that sense of unity within that framework of belonging. The idea of unity was stressed to imply that unity was a self-born quality that India had in its anti-colonial struggle. The unity was seen, unfortunately, as an essence or an inherent quality, rather than part of a historic process whereby ‘India’ came into being.

Indeed, today Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) is mobilized at the global level. These are ideas and doctrines that evolved in certain periods and served a function of uniting but they're equally repressive. In a sense, certain voices, histories and processes could be easily invisibilized in the ways in which these ideas mobilized, not just in India but abroad as well. Ethnic differences, differences with foreign invaders like the Muslims, Huns and many others, racial differences, Adivasi and caste differences remained and out of this heterogeneity emerged the imagination of the past, which has seemed to be a commonality––a common history, common heroes, literature, art and law––which does not withstand empirical scrutiny. The richness in which it precludes the formation of this commonality does not allow for that singularity to overtake a rich, pluralistic tradition in India. This diversity is the saving grace for India.

In significant ways, it suppresses the issues surrounding heterogeneity, marginalization of certain ethnic groups and marginalized communities. These issues emerge in historiography. These tensions and ambivalences continue to pervade contemporary life, for example, North Easterners face racial discrimination in most metropolitan cities across India. Research studies were conducted in Tamil Nadu, from Jamia and JNU, to understand the nature of racial discrimination against those from the North East. Most of the states reported that these people were seen as the other, were derogatorily labelled Chinkis (referring to Chinese origin), humiliated and bullied, even violently, on a daily basis. The marginalization of Adivasis and untouchable communities too is something which is common.

The issue of understanding sense of belonging is beset with complexities and has to attend to the widespread bias and violence against these communities. As mentioned earlier, history has taken over the role of myths in inculcating a sense of belonging and thus has a crucial function. History would be better when approached in a comparative mode. When we talk about histories of oppression, we should not only reference India but demonstrate awareness of larger movements against racial discrimination or transformatory movements campaigning for civil rights. That kind of broad understanding would cultivate a kind of sensibility against parochialization of a particular issue. It is better to deal with these problems in history in a comparative mode to cultivate empathy. This is not a problem that only Indians deal with. It is a general human trait to wish to break out of a certain exclusivist parochial understanding of human existence.

To gain a broader perspective of this global phenomenon, it is important to grasp the patterns and manifestations of othering and to foster a collective memory that is attentive to both local and global histories. History or education itself is not neutral but is a common truism. It can either serve the agenda of a pre-existing power structure or become a philosophical tool for transformation of society as Paulo Freire wanted it to be. Freire believed that pedagogy could reclaim the humanity of the oppressed and in doing so even transform the oppressor. Education in Paulo Freire's work becomes a collective reflective praxis.

History has a descriptive function–– it describes events of the past. It also has a prescriptive function––based on the ways in which history depicts agency of particular communities and their contributions to the nation, they claim entitlement to this historic agency to make decisions on behalf of the nation. Thus there is an association between visible and active subjects of history with claims to share a nation's power. Invisible subjects are  relegated to the margins of history and absent in dominant mainstream accounts. This is why historical representation in terms of inclusion and exclusion has real political and cultural implications. Till recently, marginalized communities like Dalits and Adivasis were invisibilized in official textbooks and this reflected their inadequate representation and share of power in the nation at large. The implications of pedagogy are self-evident as textbooks are examples of homogenic narratives supported by the state. Thus there is a need to instil a revisionist approach to history for students in the classrooms to emerge as critical and reflective citizens so that pedagogy is not reduced to simply ensuring students attain or achieve successful careers.

Studies demonstrate how school textbooks or curriculum tends to amplify exclusivist histories––focusing on particulars and excluding others; erasing marginalized histories in a very significant scale; enhancing social divisions; and promoting violence. This is true of religious minorities like Muslims, Adivasis and ex-untouchables. In this context, my interest would be to ask what could be the sense of belonging outcastes may have had in the habitation/village/city and importantly in this context, the school. Goodenow and Gradey define school belonging as  the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included and supported by others in the school social environment. The opposite of belonging is exclusion and alienation. School belonging depends on pedagogic care by teachers and instructors, acceptance and support from peers and the ability to manage both academic and social aspects of the school environment. Studies have pointed out the negative consequences of unsuccessful interpersonal relationships in college, that is often underestimated and leads to depression, anxiety, suicide and even criminality.

The constant attempt to denigrate students admitted via reservation quotas and the opposition to reservation policies makes for a discriminatory environment in school. Discrimination against children from these categories and an accompanying sense of alienation and non-belonging damages students’ cognitive abilities, their ability to study and  develop skills. It's not just a social consequence. A constant practice of discrimination and normalization by school teachers and staff in crucial ways justifies such discriminatory culture at schools and in a certain sense validates the behaviour of students who discriminate against other students.

A parallel example comes from American history. Right after the Civil War (1861–1865), America had  inscribed in her constitution a law for equal rights of whites and blacks (the former slaves). The racial segregation laws, however, persisted, denying them rights to use the same barge or even the same tap water. One very important practice was regulations to maintain separate schools for blacks and whites. In order to understand the civil rights movement in America, it is crucial to lay emphasis on schooling––separate but equal schools for whites and blacks. White Americans argued that equal opportunities were provided in spite of having separate schools. There were earlier models of parochial and segregated schooling like Jewish schools that provided equal facilities. But the black civil rights activists maintained that separate schools were a part of a racist culture which encouraged racial prejudice and stereotyping.

This survived until the 1950s. A challenge to separate education was placed before public eyes in Brown vs Board of Education (1954) which was not only based on interpretation of legal doctrines but for the first time psychologists were invited to hold forth on how separate education encouraged racial discrimination which was especially damaging in schools. These psychologists and social scientists testified that separation was in fact segregation.  

Kenneth Clark’s ‘Doll’s Test’ was a test conducted with school children to understand the psychological consequences of racial discrimination. The students were presented with four dolls: two girl-dolls and two boy-dolls, identical to each other except for the colour––each doll had a white and black version––and a black child was asked to choose the most beautiful toy among the four. The black child inevitably pointed to the white doll as the beautiful one. Further questions asked them to choose the ugly doll among the four and the doll they wanted to be friends with. Evidently the child chose a black doll as ugly and wanted to be friends with a white doll. This demonstrated that discrimination instils self-hatred among black children. The children refuse to accept that they may have any positive qualities damaging them psychologically, often to irreparable extents. The racial lens that black children were subjected to hurt their cognitive abilities. A student who experiences discrimination day in and day out, who is humiliated and jeered at in school, cannot be expected to concentrate and perform well in class. Even as adults, coping with humiliation on a daily basis is an impossible task.

Similar to racial discrimination, untouchability is overtly practiced in rural areas. Students are not allowed to touch the water pot and are supposed to sit separately from other upper-caste classmates.  They are not included adequately or even meaningfully in extracurricular activities. Cases of Dalit students being bullied horrendously by upper-caste boys in school was witnessed in Nangeneiru village in Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu. The principal of the school reprimanded the upper-caste bullies. Then the Tamil Nadu government instituted a one-man committee known as the Justice Chandru Committee which took on a study and submitted its report. This incident is a part of a wider pervasive phenomenon where discrimination in schools is either covert or in other cases most blatant. To understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to know that caste-based discrimination is rampant and so is caste violence.

In parts of the country, the  ex-untouchables enjoy no civil or religious rights as Hindus do, so in many cases they still cannot enter temples.  Reports of suicides by untouchable students has only recently been acknowledged. The effects on children are documented in India Untouched.

[A clip is played from K. Stalin’s documentary.]

The discrimination is evident in schools, though not explicitly expressed in cities, it still exists through identities such as Thakur, Brahmin, Dalit or other caste biases. Caste biases are also repressed among teachers in cities due to the fear of law. A history textbook by Dr. N. Rajendran  and other authors, published by the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation, reads ‘Untouchability is a sin and crime’ on the first page but it talks about caste reforms in a rather fleeting manner. The subject matter is ultimately reduced to a matter of answering objective questions in an examination. No substantive education is provided.

Apart from structural reasons, the fact is that caste is a reality and is a fundamental element that goes into constituting a sense of belonging or un-belonging. The education system and pedagogic practices seem to have failed because they have barred this consciousness from having a role in school atmospheres or centres of learning.

Education, as specialists in education have argued, has become an avenue for personal growth, career-oriented and is not the transformative force to convert masses into intelligent, reflective, responsible citizens. This was the vision of Gandhi. This was the vision of the educationist, Aurobindo or even ideologues of nationalist education. Education has failed to create creative, critical, reflective students and has become detached from the larger nationalist vision and goal of the nation. There is a terrifying indifference in schools and an equally terrifying responsibility on teachers in terms of the pedagogic care demanded on them.

Questions arise like, what pedagogic practices can be evolved to cultivate a moral sense, woven into historical sense, to foster a sense of belonging amongst all its wards or students? Given that studies also indicate that resentment, hostility, friction are also the by-products of  discrimination. Why don't the students resist and revolt? In Rajasthan, a study conducted reported that the students also started revolting against this discrimination. They started replicating the actions of the upper-caste students, being equally discriminatory, thus fuelling animosity.

The problem is––where does the school administration stand in this? This is a collective failure and a challenge that will be confronted by learning from the experiences of multicultural societies abroad. Multiculturalism has become a huge problem in Europe and America which teachers continue to grapple with. It is important to learn from those experiences of inclusive practices and being in touch with reality and the great responsibility that schools are entrusted with. This is actually terrifying––to reckon the power of transforming hearts and minds with small changes in pedagogic practices and pedagogic caring, to keep alive the hope of a nation, redeeming its pledge to build an egalitarian society.

I hope that there's some thinking that goes on in schools to reach out to create space for inter-school dialogues or student bodies to start conversing with themselves or some program to be aware and sensitize on these matters.

Question and Answer Session

Audience Member 1: You happened to mention that a change in pedagogic practices would result in an egalitarian society. Could you give us an example?

Priyadarshini Vijaisri: Pedagogic practices and pedagogic caring are different things according to experts. Pedagogic practice would be the typical learning mechanism about how  to make history more inclusive as a discipline. It involves finding ways to infuse sensitivity of revisionist history and adapting measures to broaden the vision of students through workshops or other platforms because usually textbooks are very circumcised. Pedagogic caring would not be just about teaching methods but also about a certain care or support that you render to the child and take into cognizance the atmosphere for the child in school. It ensures that it doesn't cross the limit of breaking out in violence or bullying which are negative for the students. It's about caring but also about a certain spirit that needs to be  infused among the students, a certain mutuality and respect.

Audience Member 2: Earlier in the presentation, you had mentioned the ‘Doll’ Test.In the study, they had asked a black child which doll is prettier, which doll is uglier and which doll the child would rather be friends with. I'm just curious, did they also ask a white child what his thoughts would have been?

PV: The society is such where racism and segregation is very evident and the continuous practice of apartheidism has led to an obvious kind of reproduction of the idea that blacks are menial beings. That is precisely why the black child imbibes in him the view of the master and the ways in which the master represents him. It is necessary for the legal experts to make a case for inclusion in a school. The case has to be to prove that segregation is damaging the child, not just psychologically but also cognitively, in terms of learning abilities. There was enough self-evident data, already, which showed that there was widespread bias and discrimination, thus, it didn't actually necessitate any further evidence.

Audience Member 2: In the documentary, the Dalit kid refused to eat lunch because he wasn't being treated well and he didn't want to be set apart from the other students. I don't exactly get why you would call him a rebel because he was smiling throughout the video. So it feels like he's being taught: You are an untouchable and you should be treated like this.

PV: Take the example of Gandhi who refused to complain when he was thrown out of a train in South Africa. Gandhi wanted to bring about a change of heart prior to a legal change that is simply imposed onto people. Gandhi considered the use of moral force to be superior to other measures. Similarly, it is this moral force that was used by the Dalit kid who refused to accept the meal where he was humiliated. The idea is to let the moral force work on people who are perpetuating untouchability and to make them repent their actions.

Audience Member 3: When we speak of caste marginalization, we only speak of studies about what happens to the psyche of the Dalit or the minority student and not the psyche of the caste-privileged student. The fact that caste marginalization exists and it impacts the psyche of the caste marginalized is not debatable. But why don't we focus on what happens to the humanity of the upper-caste students?   We are not allowing caste-privileged children to get back in touch with their humanity but  expect leadership—political leadership, social leadership, artistic leadership––from them. How can we bring this element into the classroom?

PV: The amount of work done in the field of psychological case studies on caste bias in India is significantly less. Studies in the field are  nurtured in such a way so as to not disclose that psyche. But there are scholars who are turning the anthropological gaze, to understand the oppressor and not just the victim.  It has to be done in an intersubjective way considering what happens when the two scenarios meet. As teachers we should be learning––how do we become self-introspective? What is the breaking point? When will we do that? What does it take for us to do that? These are questions that we really have to ask because it's not just about our salaries or our families but it is about the stake of communities to whom we promise a share in the nation.

Audience Member 4: I wanted to add that you asked a very relevant question: what about the white child?

In American culture, as a counter to mainstream white culture, hip-hop culture came into use. In hip-hop, the black community used the English language very differently to mark themselves apart from mainstream culture. It was again a very brave move to stay within the system and voice your opinion that the system wasn't being fair to you. But this hip-hop culture, which was predominantly associated with the black community, was later adopted by the white community and the white working class because they felt closer to the black community than they did to the white community. Sometimes it's not only about colour. It's multiple realities and multiple identities that are forming our identity when we are dealing with the social reality.

PV: When we say touchable, untouchable, these are not straight categories. K. Balagopalan from Andhra was once a towering figure who invested all his life and career in civil rights movements and Dalit movements. There is no neat division between castes and classes.

Audience Member 5: You said that history could be studied from two perspectives. The first one is a philosophical perspective which can transform human beings and the second one is the perspective of  powerful groups. We have seen that our textbooks have been transformed every time and have become marks oriented. According to you what are the changes that can be implemented?

PV: Education has its authority at the central level, as well as the state level, which has its own benefits as it can include several regional histories. It is important to let the students learn history without restrictions. The evaluation system today has narrowed the space for historical imagination. History is changing and so we have to bring in other inputs into it to make it more relevant to our times. It's very interesting that even while there are Dalit studies or historical studies on the Adivasis, they still do not enter our textbooks. To compensate for these, students can be asked about their interests and allowed to research on topics of their choosing. Once I asked teachers about unions or student bodies. We have the Indian History Congress or South Indian History Congresses and I was told that there's no such possibility because the government does not want to unionize these teachers. My sense was idealistic that the teacher should have a journal or a magazine wherein they can air their views and the changes that they want. They should have a certain congress or association which can build certain bonds beyond the state or just one certain region having a more powerful domination over the others.

As a teacher it is important to have imagination, especially when there are social issues also involved in it. If there is some point of debating, conversing, a body of teachers or association and a journal could really help to improve the ways you teach or cover aspects that may not be covered in textbooks or even a dialogue between teachers as a community.

Audience Member 6: In the beginning you were talking about unity; having a united nation was an essence during the Independence movement. Yet many states wanted to separate from India and the India-Pakistan partition was a tragedy for us. But at the same time, Bela ma'am said that Nagaland wanted to separate—they were given a choice but later forcefully made to stay with us and then they were unhappy in that condition. So did unity play a good role or a bad role? Even when we talk about communities like religious communities or even the caste system, some people force others to beat or kill those belonging to lower castes or other communities. People who disagree with such practices often face similar consequences––killed or beaten up. Is this unity or membership of a cult?

PV: That's a very philosophical question. It is a cult for sure because during the anti-colonial struggle, there was a kind of unity––one which happens during  certain critical moments––where  people do come together. But is there harmony in that coming together? In India, there was a real danger and the potential of fragmentation. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel played an important role in this scenario. The princely states, the North-eastern states and Kashmir and even of course Pakistan had one. Dalits––for a long period of time during the 40s––refused to be a part of India and demanded separate settlements citing reasons like lack of trust and hope.

Our nation is hinged on a very fragile kind of unity and to keep that we have to be tolerant to different sensibilities and demands. That is perhaps what is lacking and that is a real threat. We have to look back at the flaws and ask ourselves if we have overcome them. The threat of fragmentation was real and that is why Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is called the Iron Man of India; there was also force used. Hyderabad, for example, the Nizam state, was brought into India by police action, where thousands of people were killed by the Indian army. This act of unification is not a dialogic or a peaceful kind of process. It involves a lot of tension. That is why I say when you want to learn how to deal with the present we have to go back to history and learn lessons from it.