A mural on ‘Manjarpat’

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I've been battling a flu, but had to go to Shivaji Park on December 6 for Mahaparinirvan Diwas, that commemorates the death anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar, who despite being born a "low" caste Mahar, rose to be chief architect of the Constitution of India, and passed away in 1956. An estimated 5,00,000 followers came to Shivaji Park and Chaityabhoomi, where Dr Babasaheb is cremated, to celebrate the life of a remarkable man, who was also a legal luminary, economist, journalist, social reformer, and dedicated his life to the annihilation of caste.

I've been following the art, culture and history of the Dalit/Bahujan/Adivasi community all over India since eight years, and December 6 is also a fertile meeting ground to connect with Ambedkarites and others from all walks of life, watch street plays and buy books. At the Secular Art Movement Maharashtra (SAM) and many other stalls, I met many stalwarts of the movement, participants and supporters, including Secular Art Movement Founder Gautamiputra Kamble (who has been very generously mentoring me), senior art curator Girish Shahane, brilliant artist Vikrant Bhise, superb curator and Convenor of the Secular Art Movement, Prabhakar Kamble; Founder-President of the All India Independent Scheduled Castes Association (AIISCA), Rahul Sonpimple; filmmaker-activist Somnath Waghmare, Yalgaar singer Dhammarakshit Randive; Shameebha Patil, the thoughtful, poised trans candidate of the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi from the Raver constituency, and activists Shubhkaramdeep Singh and Sagar Sakhare.

At the Secular Art Movement stall, I saw stimulating art, including three powerful early paintings of Vikrant Bhise, Nibbana, Past-Present 2020 and Way to Chaityabhoomi; and a "mural" on Ambedkarite thought painted on "Manjarpat" as "Manchester cloth" or industrial cotton linen, often used as canvas, is colloquially called in Maharashtra. There was Rajyashri Goody's work, a food-themed necklace; a powerful bronze; a ‘mural' painting of the Mahad satyagraha, jointly painted by the community; and a large cloth ‘mural' outside, painted in Mauritania by African artists from the D'Art space and artist Saleh Lo, on a cotton cloth carried by artist Mukhtar Kazi to the capital Nouakchott, that comments on the impact of colonisation on the cotton trade, underlining the artistic and socio-political connections between the Indian anti-caste and Black Consciousness Movements.

Rahul Sonpimple of AIISCA, who also has an academic background, reveals something startling: "Dalits in Vidarbha were better off than Blacks in the US," he says. "Marathwada was under the Nizam's rule; Pune was under the Peshwas; but Vidarbha was a Gondi kingdom, neither under the Peshwas nor the Bhonsles. And when the British colonisers came, they were commercially interested in the cotton grown in Vidarbha, so they started a network of railways in Vidarbha to transport the cotton. So British colonialism was good for us (Dalit/Bahujan communities) because for the first time, labour got paid, and was not considered a ritual duty (under the caste system)." I'm reminded yet again of the deep roots and tentacles of caste, that continue to flourish today; education, wealth and overseas travel have done little to dim the future of caste, whose stranglehold remains as suffocating as ever.

I also meet filmmaker-activist Somnath Waghmare, who runs Begumpura Productions, whose documentary Chaityabhumi, presented by filmmaker Pa Ranjith, has screened at Columbia University, New York, University of California, Santa Cruz, in Berlin, and throughout India, and he has visited the US a couple of times as well. Filmmaker Omey Anand dropped his 32min documentary Kadubai, on YouTube on December 6. It is on Kadubai Kharat, feisty woman singer of Bhimgeet (songs of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, a music genre by itself) from Aurangabad. "My birth was considered kadu (bitter), so I was called Kadubai Kharat," she says matter-of-factly. Rarely do we pause to reflect on the life of a woman going through life with the name Kadubai (Bitter Woman). After her husband and both her parents passed away, she has been left to alone to fend for her two children. We see her home - a few tin sheets, bricks for a stove, a few vessels, a bag, a string to dry clothes outside - the barest existence; and she goes from door to door singing Bhimgeet, to feed her children. From the depths of deprivation, drought and grief, comes her powerful singing voice. I hope the Maharashtra government will provide a home and basic sustenance for her and her children, so she can continue to sing.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com