Xri Datuk JKF, Since reading your interesting stories, one wonders if the post 61 MG were afraid of the consequences of equality of the Bahujan via the Portuguese Republic, therefore tried their best to cause sectarian split and called for the Opinion Poll in an attempt to salvage the upper caste power! BC This suggestion is a precise and wonderful example of how the experiences and assertions of the marginalized are held to be incapable of being the basis for any serious intellectual thought. In the south-Asian continent, we have our own peculiar way of ensuring marginalization through the caste system. Interestingly and not unsurprisingly, in the course of the session where our Bahujan activist made this link between his freedom experience and the Portuguese Republic, a prominent Goan freedom-fighter, stood up, livid with rage and shouted in that public assembly ?*arrey makdan, thum amkam ved shikoitai?*? (You damn monkey, are you trying to teach us the Vedas?) It is not coincidental that this activist was referred to as a monkey. An animal, the monkey is commonly understood to be able to only imitate humans, but is incapable of knowing why he does so. Even if it does, it is unable take the intellectual impulse further. That it was a freedom-fighter, a nationalist who shouted out this slur is also a pertinent fact. Bahujan and Dalit assertions invariably stand against nationalist assertions, particularly in the Indian context, where Indian national values are formulated on the basis of upper-caste (whether Hindu or otherwise) experiences and interests.
