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A word that has many ramifications

The last column on writing-cum-editing errors (“Style and substance …”, June 23, 2008) had an unexpected and surprising reaction. Dr. Y.P. Joshi (Varanasi) termed as over-expectation, the expectation that writings should be totally error-free grammatically. “I have been a scientist-cum-teacher by profession … [But] I cannot be sure of my English … What matters most is the message to be conveyed … Most of the time the message gets conveyed reasonably well despite grammatical errors,” was Dr. Joshi’s contention.

I told the retired BHU professor that this was a view no newspaper could or would accept. Language is the tool of trade for journalists and it has to be so used that the paper is totally error-free. Faults in a teacher’s style will be seen or heard by a few; what is printed in the newspaper will be seen by millions. Readers frequently tell me how they developed their English skills by reading The Hindu from an early age (at the instance of their father or teacher) and how that no longer is the case. Occasional slips are there in all newspapers, but the aim is and has to be producing a blemishless product.

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The intensity of reader scrutiny was again brought out in a communication from Hemant Kumar (Ambala, Haryana) posing the question: should the press continue using the word Dalit? The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), he pointed out, instructed in January 2008 that the word should not be used as it did not find mention in the Constitution or any statute. Haryana and the Union Territory (Chandigarh) had decided that the word should find no place in official communications, he said.

This was the first time I was coming across such an objection. The brief news item had escaped my notice. Now frequently used, Dalit had displaced expressions like “Harijan” (objected to by Dalits as condescending and insulting), “non-caste Hindus,” and “depressed classes” (used by the British). Scheduled Castes is too long for regular use in newspapers, especially in headlines (the contraction S.C. has other connotations).

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The word Dalit (meaning “oppressed” or “broken” in Marathi and Hindi) seems to have been first used by Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, the social reformer (1827 – 1890). Dr. B.R. Ambedkar used the term in some of his speeches. It was given a fresh lease of life by the Dalit Panthers in 1973. They expanded its ambit to include Scheduled Tribes, neo-Buddhists, working people, the landless, and all those being exploited politically, economically, and socially by those “above them” in the social hierarchy.

For the media, it was a compact word, easy to use, especially in the rigid confines of headlines. Human rights organisations the world over have adopted it and scores of websites have it in their ID. The NCSC directive was issued at the instance of its chairman Buta Singh; its instructions can apply to official communications but it cannot bind others.

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There is a similar instance in Tamil Nadu. In March 2007 the State Government banned the expression Dalit, replacing it with “Adi Dravidar.” A Chennai-based magazine, Dalit Murasu, wrote an editorial criticising the order, saying the Government could not deny Dalits the right to use the word, which denoted their status.

The NCSC’s order was welcomed by the RSS mouthpiece Organiser. It said the delegitimisation of the word was a blow to the West-funded evangelical industry, which had long promoted it to forge separatism among the Scheduled Castes.

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I sought the comments of V. Ravikumar, writer-publisher, Dalit activist, general secretary of the Viduthalai Ciruthaikal Katchi, and MLA (Tamil Nadu). Opposing any attempt to ban the word Dalit, he said: “It is a subjectivity chosen by those who want to annihilate the caste system … But the Hindu caste system wants to reduce the subjectivity into an identity by making the word a mere replacement for Scheduled Caste or Untouchable.”

Ravikumar adds: “A well-known scholar of the Dalit movement and literature Eleanor Zelliott has stated in her introduction to Vasant Moon’s autobiography Growing up Untouchable in India: ‘The most recent nomenclature for ex-untouchables is Dalit, a term meaning downtrodden or broken down but used with pride as self-chosen name that reflects no idea of pollution and can include all who identify themselves as oppressed by the caste-system … [It] now is the preferred name for those who want to free themselves from the concept of pollution and from the patronage of Gandhian ideology.’”

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It comes as no surprise when any report about Dalits becomes polemical. One such was the story in The Hindu, with a photograph, about electrification of a wall that isolated Dalits in Uthapuram, a village in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. The news created strong reactions in the area with posters and meetings denouncing the paper. I am dealing with the issue because of queries raised by readers. One of them referred to a story in a Tamil journal insinuating that the photograph was from a misleading angle and that the report too was misleading. Another reader asked why the paper focussed now on a wall that was there for nearly two decades and whether it would have received the same coverage had any other political party raised it.

In the normal course I would not have reacted to these messages but at issue here was the paper’s credibility. So I referred the questions to the Madurai reporter for a clarification. He said the problem was highlighted recently by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF). That it is a CPI(M) organisation in no way influenced the coverage — a justified contention if one considers the consistent and regular way the Madurai bureau has been highlighting untouchability issues, which flare up quite often in southern Tamil Nadu.

The reporter and photographer visited the village following reports of communal tension (the village has a long history of it, the wall being its evidence) during a temple festival on April 10. They were taken by Dalits to three spots where they alleged electrification was done at night using iron rods, to prevent Dalit attempts to cross over. They were also shown dead hens electrocuted, the residents said, when they came in contact with the wall. Following the publication of the news in The Hindu, the wires were removed to the other side of the street, the reporter said.

There was only one deficiency in the story. The reporter had gone by what he had been told; he did not witness the electrification. The published version should have made it clear that it was an allegation made by the residents.

readerseditor@thehindu.co.in

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A word that has many ramifications

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