Analysis Of The Schedulet Panther Manifesto

As per the 15th Indian Census conducted in 2011, 201 million people belonging to various Dalit communities were recorded, forming 16.6% of the total Indian population of approximately 1.2 billion. Dalits are officially known as Scheduled Castes and popularly known as ‘former untouchables’. Caste is birth-based, ‘constructed by religion and divided by occupation’. Even though independent India in 1949, gave full citizenship to Dalits and abolished the practice of untouchability, Dalits still face exclusion, widespread discrimination, and extreme poverty in modern India. Rising atrocities against Dalits incited Dalit activism. In Bombay 1972, the Dalit Panther movement was founded by Namdeo Dhasal. The Dalit Panthers were inspired by the Black Panther movement that rose in America in 1960s and 1970s against the exploitation of the Black community. Even though the Dalit Panther Manifesto was published in 1973, it is the most popular document by the Panthers that lay out their mission and demands for the entire Dalit community. The demands stated in the Manifesto correspond to the immediate needs of Dalits, even today. So, this essay includes a textual analysis
There were misconceptions and misunderstandings of the activities of the Dalit Panthers. So, the Manifesto was written and published as a way to clarify the Panthers’ revolutionary position as a ‘political organisation’ (iv) rather than just an ‘emotional outburst of the dalits’ (iv). The Manifesto is anti-caste and anti-capitalism. The Manifesto addresses ‘the fire’ (viii) of the Black Panther struggle that had caused sparks in America, from which ‘Black Power emerged’(viii). Dalit Panthers ‘claim a close relationship with this struggle’(viii). Thus, Panthers decided to speak for all oppressed communities and the name of ‘Dalit’, expanded over to ‘a worker, a landless labourer, a proletarian’