In the 23rd Party Congress, the CPI-M will renew its commitment to the anti-caste struggle. In the context of the Manuvadi moorings of the Hindutva ideology being pushed aggressively by the Sangh Parivar, backed by the power wielded by the Modi-RSS regime at the centre, it is worth looking at the way the early communists had also identified the caste system as an abomination to human rights and equal citizenship and an instrument of exploitation.
The first comprehensive manifesto issued by the Communist Party in 1930 stated: "The CP of India fights for the complete abolition of slavery, caste system and caste inequality in all its forms (social, cultural etc). The CP of India fights for the complete and absolute equality of the working pariahs and all the toilers of our country."
In the decades following the adoption of 1930 Plan, Communist party leaders led struggles against untouchability, forced segregation and anti- Dalit practices. Leaders like the founding General Secretary P Sundarayya, E M S and A K G, led huge struggles against untouchability and for social reform.
What the RSS has worked for from its inception was a Manuvadi based Hindu identity keeping the caste system intact. While Dr. Ambedkar and the communists believed and fought for the abolition of the caste system, the Gandhians believed in reform and the Hindutvavadis like RSS felt that the caste system was necessary to hold Hindu society together. The caste system in India is embedded in society and production relations. As the productive forces developed into settled agriculture and the emergence of social surplus, they got ownership and control over the means of production.
The surplus and those who produced the surplus, is part of the development of studies of societies that we are all aware of. If after so many years, and more so as victims of neo- liberal economic policies, the majority of Dalits have been imprisoned at the bottom of the social and economic ladder, it is precisely because the caste system has been supported by the ruling classes, the bourgeoisie of modern India. The caste system has been co opted, adopted as an instrument for a more intensified extraction of surplus value produced by the army of Dalits and the more backward castes. It is, therefore, erroneous to see caste as only part of pre-capitalist relations. It was often said even within our movement that caste relations are part of feudal society. Implicit in this is the understanding that a modern bourgeois society will see caste disappear and class relations will predominate. But our experience itself shows this is an entirely wrong understanding.
History has shown us the limitations of social reform movements which looked only at caste based oppressions without looking at class exploitation. We have also learned from our own experiences that building class struggles without a social consciousness about the way caste oppression and exploitation operates, weakens the class struggle itself. It makes invisible the world of one big section of the proletariat which suffers the double exploitation and oppression because she belongs to a Dalit community. The only way forward is to build a combination of class struggle and anti- caste struggle and for the rights of dalits.
Let us pledge on the occasion of the 23rd party Congress, 92 years after the adoption of the 1930 Platform of Action, we will redeem the pledge to intensify the fight for the abolition of the hated caste system and all the forces that seek to perpetuate it.
