INTRODUCTION

India’s knowledge infrastructure is experiencing a deep crisis with the shutting of primary schools and fund shortages in higher education. The state’s stringent control on the education sector is not bereft of conservative forces inimical to the project of social equality and political inclusion, institutionalizing in its stead, forms and means of alienating marginalized communities from acquiring education and a secured livelihood. Even if now, as we observe, there are attempts to loosen state control over education, the sector is falling trapped to another more vicious force we know as neoliberalism.

Education offers aspiration to youths to build one’s future and elevate the society they live in; the state instead of working towards greater degrees of inclusion, is divesting women, Dalit, Adivasis and marginalized communities of the same. This paper is an attempt to engage with this crisis in education, sourced from a case study of public libraries near Dalit bastis (slums) of Nagpur city in Maharashtra. It elaborates on the ways these libraries have created a “culture” of education and facilitated the securing of government jobs in spite of prevailing brute forms of exclusion on caste and gender lines. Public Libraries have become a major source and reason for the youth from these bastis to create an Ambedkarite¹ niche of solidarity and cooperation and not acquiesce to brahmanical² control on education. Drawing from the theoretical position of Bourdieu³, the paper intends to analyse the role of public libraries to rupture the politico-social reproduction of cultural capital determining educational outcomes.

The public libraries also serve as an alternative space to the cultural and ideological hegemony of “upper caste” teachers and fellow students. These libraries operate on ideas formulated around Phule and Ambedkar’s thoughts of self respect, non-discrimination and justice. The reading material and resources made available, and the platform it provides to youths to theoretically and practically engage and address complex issues of poverty and unemployment prevailing among them, is fundamentally grounded on such ideological underpinnings.

EDUCATION AND DALIT

As Guru (2002) explains, Dalits’ moral choice in education should be their commitment to theorize and contribute to the social cause, away from the self-triumphing individualist modern thinkers. As Dalit-Bahujan scholars, it becomes imperative to engage in academics through praxis and through free engagement in academia with the goal of contributing to the social cause of transformation and emancipation. Dalit families even though not literate, understood the value of education because of the Ambedkarite movement. After Ambedkar, the Dalit movement in Nagpur became widespread as the Republican Party of India and the Dalit families constitutes its faithful core. The slogan of educating, organizing and agitating is symbolic to Dalit life, with scarce resources to sustain and no accountable property; the only asset left for Dalits were their children, and holding steadfast to the educational philosophy and educational spaces created by the Phule couple and Ambedkar.

Students coming from marginalised communities, specially Dalits, not only lack access to education but are also engaged in physical manual labour at a very young age. This was and remains a major impediment towards them accessing education. According to the 2011 Educational Statistics of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, the education index of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes reveals marginal growth in education enrollment. The role of formal education is viewed as “empowering” to historically and socially excluded communities of India. However in education, there are scholars affirming (Jeffery. et.al, 2004) and negating (Chomsky, 2003) and even substantiating it as a disciplining project for the marginalized, shifting them away from education with its embedded exclusionary policies (Levinson & Holland, 1996).

Thirty-eight percent of the Scheduled caste living in urban areas of the country live under the poverty line, the National average being 27% (Frisancho, V., & Krishna, K., 2016). The social structure in India is ridden with caste, gender, economic discrimination, fostering inequality and manifesting in institutionalized discrimination. The statistical indicators denotes the marginality of the scheduled caste, but there are prominent discrepancies in analysis. The interpretation of Schedule caste students lagging behind in education performance is determined by economic parameters (Frisancho, V., & Krishna, K., 2016).

The lived realities of students from marginalized community is a major struggle because of the economic crisis they overwhelmed by. The Brahmanical perspectives on education eulogize the idea of ‘merit’ and laments its sacrifice, manifesting in the process a force that pushes marginalized students into government-aided schools and colleges that has now become, by a historical accident, one major sector for such students to access educational infrastructure. The private schools and colleges, with their corporal material leverage, however, have a multistage of access, learning opportunities and exposure. In this regard, Bourdieu aptly points out that those ‘social and structural functions’ needs to be reintroduced with the capital in all its forms and not just economic. Discrimination against Dalit students also fragments Dalit faculty who are systematically sidelined from both learning and building processes in both primary and secondary education (Thiagarajan, 1981). It is important here to note as a case in point, that after the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad Central University, it was the Dalit teachers who stood in protest and resigned from their posts (Shukla, 2016). Solidarity shown towards Dalit students from Dalit faculties, however, displayed the vulnerability that both teachers and students are subjected to in a brahmanical education system. The relentless emphasis on modern education by Dr. Ambedkar provided the basis for an early realization of the possibilities in which education can play an emancipatory role in a caste-ridden society. In response to such a problematic, Ambedkar posits:

“The backward classes have come to realize that after all education is the greatest material benefit for which they can fight. We may forgo material benefits, we may forgo material benefits of civilization, but we cannot forgo our right and opportunities to reap the benefit of the highest education to the fullest extent. That is the importance of this question from the backward classes who have just realized that without education their existence is not safe.” Ambedkar had suggested the way of upliftment of depressed classes was through schooling. Consolidating views in a letter to the Anti-Untouchability League and stated the upliftment of depressed classes depends on educating the community as a whole (Chatterji, 2008).

DALIT LIBRARY AND ASSERTING PUBLIC SPACE IN NAGPUR

Nagpur is a city of ironies with polar ideologies of Hindu fascism and Ambedkarite pluralism. Within these binaries, the Dalits have fought to keep Ambedkar’s vision of justice and equity alive. Now it has become a hub for educational movement towards emancipation by Dalit themselves. Here students prepare for competitive exams and also develop a peculiar “culture of learning”, benefiting Dalit students in multiple ways in their pursuit of social and economic development. The library; in which this paper is base upon, is a big hall with seating for 150–200 students; the main entrance has an overwhelming portrait of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia covering the sidewalls of the hall and lined with portraits of Savitribai Phule along with Bhagat Singh. The huge portraits and occasional quotes of these individuals on the walls are simple yet powerful, communicating and creating an Ambedkarite ideology and space (Waghmore, 2013). Newcomers are greeted with ‘Jai Bhim‘, most of whom are familiar faces from ones own Basti attempting to continue late night studies and theoretical reflections with an equally engaging ‘other’.

The librarians, mostly Dalit, were appointed in the library because majority of the students were Dalits (Buddhist Mahar and Matang), Other backward Class (OBC) and other minority students. The membership fee to the library was Rs.20/- per student, and most of the Dalit students held permanent membership and had built a good rapport with the librarian. The students preparing for competitive exams constituted fifty percent users of the library, twenty percent were those pursuing studies in engineering, ten percent pursuing the Bachelor of Commerce and the remaining twenty percent were school and graduate students of Nagpur. These social practices were fundamental in developing a culture for approximately 100 to 150 students to pass various competitive exams. From the same library, annually we observe many competing for Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC), Railway, Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Banking and other government jobs. Interestingly, in the past five years, the target for these students has shifted from third-fourth grade government jobs to first-grade vacancies. This “culture” has also created a vibrant peer-based standard among the users of the library to maintain the number of students clearing the government exams through the motivation of a strong network of library alumni. These Alumni groups provide financial support and buy magazines and books to morally support aspirant government employees. The achievers are celebrated in full view of other aspiring students and felicitated in the library, giving motivational speeches especially on the celebration of Ambedkar’s birth anniversary. The slogan – Jai Bhim, raised in the library, make for lively performance by young students, asserting in myriad ways one’s Dalit identity. This, one could probably argue, are the first step towards free thinking, reclamation of self respect and articulation, towards breaking barriers of poverty, towards challenging discrimination and finally towards a historical hope of achieving the means to provide comforts to parents, whose lives are trapped in daily wage work.

The Public Library in the Dalit Basti is affirmed by Foucault’s (2008) conception of heterotopia; a state of contradiction in which the Dalit students who least benefit from the formal education in government schools or colleges have created an alternative Ambedkarite space in a government-aided public library. Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ has also become a leading sociological and conceptual framework of human action as practice explaining the phenomena, and Dr. Ambedkar’s understanding on caste and its annihilation come from the two-fold medium of education and abandoning Hinduism. Both education and conversion movements of Dalits and Buddhists have stimulated a collective consciousness of building an alternate space and framework of society from the organic and lived experience of the marginalized.

The students developed their own discipline based system, by tagging tables inside the library for students studying for different competitive exams; making small groups according to the exams they want to prepare for. Their tables are divided by the job/posts they are applying for, this envisaged as helping them to prepare for the exam. With the increase in student users, the library also has expanded in the last ten years, equipped with amenities like fans and water coolers.

The students preparing for higher government posts conduct mock tests for other aspiring students which otherwise is a costly affair. With their meager savings from daily wage some have initiated their own coaching – “Liberty coaching center” free of cost and taught by senior students from the Dalit community who are proficient in different subjects. Buddha Viharas (Stupa) also are a substitute to library space and have become a place to conduct mock tests for other competitive exams.

The student community became stronger with cooperation from different libraries, allowing members of other nearby libraries to utilize library space in case of any shortage of space. Close to the Ram Manohar Lohia library, there are other similar libraries- the Siddharth, Panchsheel library and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Library. Many of the students of these Ambedkarite spaces also become part of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) campaigns and engage in political analysis and socio-political scholarship. The youths from these libraries are a major grouping in augmenting the BSP’s rise as the second largest political party in vote share in North Nagpur constituency.

The case of public libraries in Dalit bastis of Nagpur city, is a living example of an open, free thinking and public Ambedkarite space, instilling values of education among Dalit students to aspire and gain power. In this context the proposition of Habermas about the public sphere are important to recall. Where there are rigid binary of public vs. private, gender binary and caste vs. class, the intersectionality of space gives rise to “a non-coercive and secular space” with people abandoning their private, disregarding their status, come together for a common concern and become inclusive (Waghmore, 2013; Butler, 2011; Spivak, 1994). A slight deviation from Habermas’s “public sphere”, grounded on the utopian imagination of individual shedding one’s identity to engage in a fruitful discussion, we have these Ambedkarite public libraries, where young students are socialized to carry their Dalit identity and experience with pride.

CONCLUSION

In India, access to public spheres are defined by one’s caste, religion and gender. This is whether it is access to basic amenities or political participation. However in the case that I have described above, it has been observed that economically poor Dalit youths who accessed the library and secure a livelihood with jobs in the public and private sectors is an achievement for Dalit youths in general, but more specifically to break these historically constituted and religiously guarded social spaces.

The library culture and welfare policies have opened the doors to access public spaces where upper castes have dominated since colonial to post-independent India. After independence, the affirmative action and welfare policy like reservations have also opened up these bounded spaces and helped Dalits manifest their agency and empower themselves economically (Jodhka, 2012). Reservation in employment has assisted Dalits to acquire government jobs from the fourth to first grade. As observed, when they become part of the formal working force, they also contribute to ongoing Dalit movement for transformation(Srinivas, 2004).

The upcoming generation supported by middle-class Dalits, also financially and morally support Dalit activism on the ground. The library in north Nagpur is an example of these transformative processes, giving insights into the existing struggles in the Dalit movement. Nevertheless, it is often noted by scholars, that the emerging burgeoning middle class in India is the most insecure working class, however the Dalit middle class have emerged as an active aid to Dalit masses and activism in the national Dalit movement (Srinivas, 2004).

The All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) is one such example were Dalit labourers (both organized and unorganized sectors) are running the movement and spreading consciousness towards empowerment. In a neo-liberal economic situation where the private sector is taking over government sectors, creating further competition among Dalit students to compete, this process is forcing Dalit students to excel. The library culture in Nagpur is a unique urban example of releasing an active emancipatory agency among Dalits in search of a life out of discrimination and humiliation through education and development. However in any project of justice, it is imperative that the libraries must further encourage and embrace girl students and religious minorities in its fold for an inclusive community development, but nonetheless, although the public libraries cater to only urban students, these libraries remain an exception in the mainstreamed pedagogical practice.

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