Cats & Dogs have a better life than Dalit students in varsity campuses!

Chembur, Mumbai— The Indian university campuses are a reflection of Indian society. Even though there is an attempt to create discourses and debates on the social evils (caste) in the campus, thus making it caste sensitive, it rarely comes into practice for students. In fact, the forces of caste structure are so strong and malleable that with changing times they stay strong and intact.

One such decoding of these casteist forces in the campus is a comparison between the lives of campus animals and the Dalits. Historically, Dalits were made the “untouchables” in the Hindu caste society, which was religiously sanctioned through the varna system given by Manusmriti.

Even today, the Dalits are brutalized and oppressed mentally, politically, and physically throughout the country through various modes of brahmanical oppression. The university campus is no exception to this.

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai has various active clubs in which students organize for different causes. One such club is the “Animal Club”, which functions for the welfare of the animals inside the campus. The campus is rich in flora and fauna, home to cats, dogs, reptiles (snakes, lizards etc), and monkeys.

The institute prides itself to co-exist with the animals in its everyday life. The classroom, canteen, hostels and every part of the university building is accessible to animals at any time of the day, especially cats and dogs. Even during the course orientation there is a special mention about the animals on campus.

With the notion of co-existence and care for the animals, there is an underlying counter-casteist force operating through the medium of animals. The animals, especially cats are given names such as Akbar, Jaggu, Silver, etc.

These names, if observed carefully, are either borrowed from popular emperors of the Indian subcontinent (‘Akbar the Great’), or denote wealth/prosperity or something auspicious. Babasaheb, in counter-revolution and the Shudras writes,

…Manu is not satisfied with this. He wants this servile status of the Shudra to be expressed in the names and surnames of persons belonging to that community.

Manu says: II. 31. Let the first part of a Brahman’s name denote something auspicious, a Kshatriya’s be connected with power and a Vaishya’s with wealth, but a Shudra’s, express something contemptible.

II. 32. The second part of a Brahman’s name shall be a word implying happiness; of a Kshatriya’s word implying protection; of a Vaishya’s a term expressive of thriving and of a Shudra’s an expression denoting services.

These cats have fixed timetables for food and have a rotating menu. The food provided to the cats includes nutritious diet such as crushed boiled eggs brought everyday by the volunteers without fail. Moreover, they also have regular check-ups and an entire team dedicated to look after illness and injured animals. Some of the volunteers are also asked to bring some food from their DH (dining hall) allowances/ membership to feed the animals.

The university students, especially Dalits in the campuses receive diametrically opposite treatment as compared to the animals. In 2022, when the campus opened for the first time after the COVID-19 lockdown, the hostel accommodation became a huge concern for the Dalit students. The criteria laid out by the university, which included income limits (<2.5 lakhs), category and distance/place of residence for providing accommodation excluded people coming from marginalized communities, especially Dalits who couldn’t fit into the criteria laid out by the university to avail hostel accommodation.

At the same time, a lot of them have to struggle persistently to request for considering their case for accommodation in the hostels. While the animals such as cats and dogs have been living free of cost in the campus for most parts of their lives, the students and scholars coming from marginalized sections have to struggle so much for their accommodation even for their course period.

The food menu of the hostel is also such that it allows a person to avail either boiled eggs or cornflakes and milk for breakfast. The dogs and cats of the university are fed meat and boiled eggs regularly, while the students availing hostels (coming from Dalit, Adivasi realities) are struggling to have nutritious and satisfying everyday meal.

Moreover, there is a strong “anti-animal'' labeling happening across the campus to those who are not “affectionate enough” towards the specific category of animals (cats and dogs).

These labelings have impacted the group formations and isolations of people on campus. Even when these animals die because of natural/unnatural causes, they are buried down ceremonially with dignity and posters of them are circulated across social media and WhatsApp groups to pay tributes, while the mere existence of the Dalits is not acknowledged in the campus.

Invisibalising Dalits and their struggle for entry and existence in the university campus has been a long practice in this country. This has been a legitimized practice by Manusmriti, the codes of which still exist in the minds of people in the modern era. In addition to this another interesting phenomenon is classroom segregation.

Though not new in Indian reality, this segregation is in the form of rows (left and right). This peculiar seating arrangement separates the Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalized sections into one row and the Savarnas into another. Gopal Guru discusses how air as an “objectionable substance” is used by upper castes to maintain their so-called purity. He explains, since the flow of air cannot be controlled, therefore the upper castes prefer to sit on the west side, while the untouchables are pushing to the other.

Moreover, there are hardly any interactions which occur between these separated rows of students. The Savarnas on the one hand maintains these classroom separation through their seating arrangement, classroom interactions, and informal social groups. At the same time the Dalits and other marginalized people also tend to not interact with these groups or submit to their ways of conduct.

Earlier in the 1970-80s, the oppression of Dalits by the so called upper caste people was done through calling them out names like “reservation”, delayed processing of scholarship, isolation from social circles and criticizing their appearances, language, and every aspect of their lives. Even today this has been the experience of the people coming from marginalized sections for higher education.

At the same time, there is also an emergence of new waves of anti-caste movement across the country and strong Dalit assertion and reaction- the oppression has also modified itself in modern form. The favoring of animals over the Dalits, in all socio-cultural aspects is a form of practicing modern untouchability. Though the animals favored have changed from cows to “cats or dogs” in the campus.

A democratic university space where a cat can eat a box full of boiled eggs (free of cost), can drink fresh drinking water and are treated with dignity and respect creates no space for even acknowledging the existence of Dalits as humans, is the modified form of practicing untouchability. And now, certain animals ( cats and dogs) have become a tool for the Brahmanical forces to enforce untouchability and remold with changing times.