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Loaded on
GUEST COLUMN
DALIT
ENTREPRENURESHIP*
in Business Industries and Trade
some Warnings and Steps that must be taken
Ladies and Gentlemen, Call me a
Pessimist or a Cynic if you must! I am
used to it, hence let that be so! But please Think-over what I have to say! I have the right to say what I want to
say! And you have every Right to Reject
and Dismiss them.
But mind, what I say contain many things, for anyone to ponder
about!
I only want to add that, we should
not Curse the Red Light when speeding up on the Road! That Red Light is a Warning. That is in fact for our Good! We must Stop and Relax a while, till the
Light Turns Green. That is sure, being
nice and indeed wise! Similarly any
intelligent must listen to learn and think what others say! One can reject them summarily or even out
rightly, but only after listening and considering their views, unless it is
only a repetition!
Sadly many of us SC&ST Dalits,
seldom heed any advice or words of caution!
That is one of the important reason, why We SC&ST Dalits are still backward, sixty years after 1947. Others may also not bother about warning
signals. But, we need not either bother
or worry about others, or think about what they do or don’t, or copy them in
any way.
Here, I may appear to be
highlighting only the Hurdles, or be accused of sermonising. But they are no doubt all real Red
Lights! That won’t Turn Green ever on their own! We
have to find Solutions and alternate Paths, to move ahead! Only that will Lead
us and our Communities, to Economic and Social Prosperity, with better
Standards of Living!
We SC&ST Dalit
Communities have been historically Oppressed Discriminated Sidelined Neglected Marginalised and Exploited.
In addition, We SC&ST Dalit
Communities, have been Specifically Denied every
The prejudices against us are massive, unending, and
severe. They are all always based on Racial Ethnic Colour and Cultural
Antagonisms, which prevail even today, specifically to continue them in the
future also! Every excuse ruse and
reason were used, to justify perpetrate and perpetuate these cruelly inhuman injustices.
Those, oftentimes could not
even be described or documented, in Words and on Paper, by anyone in any
language, being too indecent. More
criminal and inhuman, even for imagination! The Injustices
and Oppressions, by the so called elitist or educated or established
communities, and educated people in power position and authority, are difficult
to be explained or understood. That
is the extent and real Reason why this Nation, appears to be mystic and very confusing. The direct Fallout is that, this Country continues
to be, and remains as an highly unjust unfair
dishonest and backward Nation. It continues
to Struggle to Develop. Instead of
Progressing, the Nation is only inching forward, even Sixty Years after
Those of us, who sincerely talk, or genuinely believe
in utilising the big Opportunities, new Openings and Emerging Businesses, must
carefully look back as to where China, Soviet Russia the erstwhile USSR and USA
were, just Fifty Years after their Liberation, and Declaration of Freedom and Independence! By then, they had established themselves as
Super Powers. But even after sixty
years, this Nation is nowhere near where those others were after only fifty
years!
Those who believe in Emerging Opportunities, may Repose Great Faith in LPG – the Liberalisation
Privatisation and Globalisation. They
sadly seem to not see, observe, monitor and forget or bothered about, the rapidly
narrowing and fast Closing Jaws of Structural Adjustments,
and at the same time the Opening of the Economy in Stages. They are Closing
specifically to Keep us Out of Reckoning. They have been carefully structured and
regulated to prevent us from Developing, and at the same time push us down to
be and remain only at the bottom, and serve others who don’t work, don’t want
to work, and in fact, don’t know how to work!
The Future of this Nation, minus SC&ST Dalits, many Minorities and most of the MBCs,
is being Underwritten by the Govt, only and exclusively for the benefit of the Powerful
Business Industrialist and Trading Communities.
The Economy is Opening in Stages.
That is a calculated Strategy, to ensure that the Powerful Business
Industrialist and Trading Communities grow, moving up Step by Step in Stages,
and go Forward, and that they are not washed out by the oncoming rush of the
businesses trades industries, and the goods and services of the Western and Eastern
Economic Giants.
The Carefully controlled new LPG Powered Economic Dawn,
is being regulated by the Govt, not because of any concern expressed by We
SC&ST Dalits and others like us, but because of
the Warnings and Oppositions of the Powerful Business Industrialist and Trading
Communities themselves! They don’t
want any abrupt or sudden Opening of the Gates. The Govts are very
sensitive to the Fears the Powerful Business Industrialist and Trading
Communities Express to any uncontrolled unregulated sudden and full opening of
the Doors, any where. But the same Govts are not bothered about our losses and sufferings!
The Govts are actually, but in
fact openly and publicly, Transferring the Resources
of the Nation to the Powerful Business Industrialist and Trading Communities. That they do, very Steadily
and Slowly, in a planned systematic sly manner.
Most of the Water, Power,
Who are all these Powerful Business Industrialist and
Trading Communities? In fact one can boldly and
fearlessly say, they are not part of the Indian
Society! If they are really part of the
Indian Society, they won’t so easily turn out to be Comprador agents of many
exploitative Foreign Multi-National Companies on the one hand, and extremely
inhuman criminal oppressors of Majority Communities and the Indigenous People
of this Nation. In fact as the Father of
the Indian Constitution, Baba Saheb Dr Ambedkar often had Observed, this
Nation does not treat us as Citizens of this Country, but Worse than Cats and
Dogs or other Animals! And he had observed
that, there is no Society at all in this Country. Baba Saheb had also
said that, this Country never thought of and never felt the need for building a
Society. Why did he Say this, and what
are the implications? When there is No
Society, there is neither any Brotherhood and Cooperation, nor there be any Consensus! Only Anger Antagonism Enmity Jealousy and Intolerance between
various Communities, and against other Groups.
Who really are these Powerful Business Industrialist
and Trading Communities? Let us really
try to find out. In any other Country,
Nation and Society, any one or the other small or big Powerful Businesses
Industrialists and Traders are neither separate nor exclusive Communities? They are all, in fact every one of them is
related to someone else or other in the larger Society, whatever be their
avocations! Hence, they are part and
parcel of the larger Society of the Nation State in those Countries. That is not so in this Country! None of the Powerful Businesses Industrialists
and Trading Communities, ever belonged to We SC&ST Dalits
in anyway, and never were they related to us.
And most of the mental backwardness and ideological blocks are to be
found only with these Powerful Business Industrialist and Trading Communities?
As Ambedkar had said, this
is a Fractured Nation – split and scattered as separate, often antagonistic
mutually suspicious and intolerant Castes. In real terms, Castes are dead decayed frozen
small social Groups and Communities.
Most of the Times, the Castes are actually interned in
watertight, hermitically sealed separate exclusive and isolated compartments. Thus, the Castes, each one of them is separate
and totally different. And on the
same lines, it is a reality that all the Powerful Business Industrialist and
Trading Communities are totally different from Us –
the SC&ST Dalits!
As a Community, we are really different from all those Powerful Business
Industrialist and Trading Communities.
I would like to retreat once
again, in spite of being repetitive; really all these business class owned Powerful
Business Industrialist and Trading Communities are not part of our
Society. At least, in any case, we are
not part of their Society! For, hey are
separate People, belonging to exclusive Castes.
Hence, they are of altogether different communities, ranged against all
other people, and out to grab others money, assets, riches wealth, and spare
surplus, and even very essential badly needed money for food, medicine, health
care, children’s education, dress, marriage etc.
As a Nation and an heterogeneous
conglomeration of different Communities, this Country always believed and still
believes in Apartheid – the combination of two Dutch Words – Aparth and Hood, which mean Separate and Housing or Living. And, we have really mastered and perfected
this Art. That is very different and totally
unlike the too Crude and relatively short-lived Western
Experiment, that evolved in a big way in
The Western Liberal Education transplanted rather
reasonably in a successful way in this Country, had built almost every Indian
Elite from their Indian Cultural Moorings in Village Communities, into multi-millionaires
of modern India, and some have even grow-up to be World Class Citizens and
mega-Billionaires. That was and still is, the beauty of Western Liberal Education.
What had this
Nation, after 1947, Done to Us?
Today, this Nation, produces
many Graduates and even Post-Graduates, who it is openly said by many
Authorities Officials and Employers to be Unemployable! That, generally, when it comes to employing
and appointing Us SC&ST Dalits
anywhere! But, We SC&ST Dalits, also see by ourselves, those with 95 plus scoring elitist
Children and other Individual Scholars, said to be very brilliant ‘first-class
first’ or ‘gold-medallists’ often can’t even write a leave Letter Correctly,
without any Structural Spelling Grammatical and Composition Mistakes. And that, most of today’s Graduates
can’t even make, or write any Application without Copying.
Why had the Education System
Collapsed so, and Failed in spite of the Great
Expansion? It did not Fail? But it was Failed! It did not Collapse? It was made to Collapse! That, only to keep We SC&ST
Dalits out of the System, throw out most of
those who manage to get into the system, and even Fail those who somehow stay on
inside the System till the last, or turn them into unfit useless poor graduates.
We must Realise that, amongst all things done so far,
under the Frame Work of the Democratic and Republican Structures of Govts, built on the Govt of India Acts of the British, the
Communal Award and the Solemn Agreement and Pact signed at Yerawada
Jail in Poona in 1932, White Paper on Indian Independence, and various
Constitutional Promises, Legal Guarantees, and other Govt Provisions and Acts,
We SC&ST Dalits had really benefited from only –
· Freeships and Scholarships
· SC&ST Hostels
· Reservations in
Admissions, especially in
· Reservations in Jobs,
at the Time of Recruitments and Appointments either by way of Direct
Recruitment, or Promotion etc
· Employment
Opportunities Generated by various Govts – inside the
Govts, under the Govts,
within the Control of the Govts, Autonomous Bodies etc funded and supported by
the Govts, and in the Govt PSUs
As we were and are slowly growing up through
Education, Employment – Direct Recruitments and Promotions, had come the LPG in a very big way. And the LPG, actually Attempts to
systematically block undo and dismantle whatever benefits the above Schemes
have Achieved. We must realise these,
instead of getting carried away or enamoured by the so called Emerging
Opportunities and Openings of the LPG.
In fact we must open our eyes, see and remember as to what these LPGs had done elsewhere.
We can crystal clearly see, what had happened to the other mighty Super
Power of the World –
Yes, LPG may generate many temptations and
offerings. That is for you me and
perhaps some of us who are better placed, not for the millions and millions of
our poor SC&ST Dalits! I had talked about the splintering and
scattering of the World’s Mighty Super Power of yesteryears. Yes, We SC&ST Dalits
are by ourselves a big Nation. We are the Third Largest People in the World,
nearly 300 plus Million if We take all SC&ST Dalits
inclusively, accounting for SC&ST Dalits in
Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism etc.
We Come, next only to
Are We SC&ST Dalits, to just
remain believing and keep on waiting, when the various Govts
say that –
·
the Nation will be a Super-Power, by
2020?
·
there will be Self-Sufficiency
in Food, in another Ten Years?
·
and many such tall loud and bold but
most of the times hollow and only very misleading or Diversionary Claims?
Will these Satisfy
us? Will these tall Promises and
Declarations ever Develop us?
Are we to Remain Satisfied with
Central Planning? And, are We also at the same time, be happy now, with LPG?
What will Deliver Us, as a Community?
Yes, What
will Deliver Us, as a Community?
Should We Believe, or at least try
to Look into the Communist Oppositions to LPG, and try
to understand why they do so? Or should
we simply go by the Way LPG goes? Should
we toy with the Idea and Hope, and look for the ways and means of Re-Nationalising
the Sold-Out and Privatised PSUs, and also Nationalise
all the new and glittering Private Sector Industries, Institutions and
Businesses?
What should We Do in the
meantime? This Question opens up many an
unexplainable, not understandable, and unexpected Pandora Boxes!
How are We SC&ST Dalits, going to make
use of the so-called Opportunities Emerging due to LPG?
Yes, How
are We SC&ST Dalits, going to make use of the
so-called Opportunities Emerging due to LPG? Before popping up and trying to answer this,
we must realise that the Post-LPG Scenario is Ruthless! There is no more any Protected Fields, in
which the elite Business Houses and Industrialists of this Country Grew Up all
these Decades!
The elite Business Houses and Industrialists we see
around, are the same ones who had always been against us, and intolerant to our
presence anywhere near by! And, they are
the ones, who had been intolerantly closing down all the post-1932 Windows of
Developments.
Will those who were and still are intolerant to even
any of our small Developments in Education Employment and Promotions, allow us
to enter in their fields of Business Industry and Trade? And that has to be carefully watched, especially
in the light of the fact that, we do not even know what Businesses actually
are, and are unable to understand their Strange Ethics, close-knit internal
business-bondages, rather wild Mannerisms, funny techniques in different
spheres, quirk ways of cutting corners, crooked methods of finding many new underground
paths and burrows!
There is nobody to teach these, to any of us! And nowhere to go! And no place to learn them! No uncle or aunt, no grandfather or family
friend or even any distant relative to give us useful exposures, the valuable
insights, and also to properly prop us up as Entrepreneurs, Industrialists,
Business People, or even as simple Traders.
Hence we have to struggle all the way, groping as blind deaf and dumb people
in a sea of desert sands!
We have no Culture of Business and Trade in our Surroundings,
Community and in our Blood! Where can We Learn these? No
School, no College, no Training Institute for these! And on the Top of it, there are many upstarts
and false ones amongst us, who will always rush up, and take or block whatever
opportunities emerge, and the openings that may appear in the horizon! Furthermore, we are short of Projects! And, No
Capital, No Funds, No Money, and No Sponsors, or anyone to Underwrite
Us! We don’t even have any seed
money, no cash for working expenses, nor any operating outlays! Then, we don’t have any Financial Discipline!
We generally, are unable to separate the Business
Funds, from our personal money! We can’t
segregate the Funds flowing in and out, or circulating within the business, and
the actual thin layer of small profits, accruing in the early years of any
business or trade or industry.
We can’t sadly see the dangers of looses. It is exactly due to the lack of Financial
Discipline that we often loose even the Capital Invested, taken as Loans or
raised through pledging whatever small assets our parents
families, or we have built up! As a
result, most of even the very few odd SC&ST Dalits
venturing out, to become Entrepreneurs had collapsed very badly, loosing many many millions.
There is a severe shortage of Capital amidst us. Banks have Failed
us! Worse, our own People in the Banks had
let us down. State Financial
Institutions don’t want to look at us!
Special Funding Agencies like SIDBI and NABARD don’t help us. We are too small to go anywhere near IDBI,
EXIM and other Specialised Institutions.
And
many State SC&ST Finance and Development Corporations are already
tottering.
NSFDC is busy in splitting itself
into Separate SC and ST Corporations, or in taking Commissions. Individual SCs and STs have spent a lifetime and fortune in coming to these,
and going back with only increasing disappointments. Every time they came to the erstwhile NSFDC,
or come to the now partitioned separate SC, ST Corporations at
The
What have We got to do we do to make SC&ST Dalits
Entrepreneurs?
Talking, exhorting, emotional
appeals don’t help or serve any purpose.
Only useless crowds come up. That had been the experience of the few
good officers in even the failing and failed NSFDC, and most State Corporations.
Some Samaritans and committed Officials have tried, a
step by step Approach. First hold a general
informative Camp! Select those who show some
positive interests potential and perseverance.
Select them for more intensive Exposures. Then pick up those who have potentials and
real commitments, for systematic entrepreneurship training. Then take only those who are really Promising and Capable.
Take up their cases with the Govts, Banks,
Funding Agencies and Specialised Units like SSI etc, to Promote them
further. Arrange Seed Capital if need
be, and the necessary Fundings and Loans. Generally avoid subsidies. That
is where the problems and real corruptions are.
They had proved to be big pitfalls!
What New should
We Do?
We will have to, at some stage, establish a Pool of
retired but committed administrators, bankers, financial experts, mangers,
technical people, to guide the struggling new and fledgling SC&ST Dalit business industrial manufacturing service and trading
Units, to make a determined and concentrated effort to make them a lasting
success! No other way will help.
There is one Alternative!
That Alternative is, to take the very risky and also difficult, not that
easy proposition of encouraging young SC&ST Dalit
Boys to marry Girls from baniya communities and
households, actually involved in business industrial manufacturing service and
trading. See if such SC&ST Dalit Boys can learn, and come back to hep other SC&ST Dalit Boys and Families Communities enter into business
industrial manufacturing service and trading.
One more real Practical Alternative is to Organise
Groups of
Finally are the Real Dramas in Life, and the Dilemmas
–
1.
Have We Prepared or Preparing our Children, particularly our Daughters
Sisters Wives, even Mothers, other Women Girls and Children of our SC&ST
Communities, to Face and Adjust themselves to the Culture of the fast moving heartless
highly exploitative Private Sector?
2.
Are We Prepared to the Unfriendly
Takeovers of our Well Educated Boys and Girls, being deliberately and
systematically poached and hijacked by the other Communities, who are otherwise
still antagonistic and opposed to Us belonging to SC&ST Dalit
Communities?
3.
Are We Guarding against the takeover of the hard-built SC&ST Dalit Businesses, Industries and Wealth, easily by Cheap
Girls and Bad Boys, who Trap and Marry our well educated and better placed
smart Boys, and in many ways simple stupid Girls and Women?
Before I retire and rest, I would like to say –
1.
Working for SC&ST Dalit Development is
really a big arduous long Struggle!
2.
Talking and Working about SC&ST Dalits has
now become a Fashion for many!
3.
The Sphere of SC&ST Dalits is now a gold
Mine, as there is some National Focus, World Attention, and hence easy good
money and big platforms are there!
4.
Please don’t get carried away by all those who make tall claims, big
speeches, deliver forceful oratories, and in short try to establish themselves
as reincarnations of none other than Baba Saheb
himself, or worse more than him! There are
many such elements
5.
Never go away either disillusioned or with overconfidence
6.
Don’t be carried away by all those who make many false easy and wrong
Assumptions and build big Castles in the Air, or weaves many Patterns of their
own Dream World
7.
Never believe in all those who talk big, offer magic wands, and boast
about having advised our leaders, taught others, and moved heaven and earth
during their lifetimes or tenures in Service
8.
Believe not in the newly emerging many Merchants of over-confidence, out
to make money, and set on jet-set lives based on our sufferings and struggles
9.
Beware of all those who make a living, lead a life of Comforts, and are
building huge palaces for themselves and their Families with Public Collections
in the name of poor SC&ST Dalits
10. Be careful about the
International Beggars, collecting money in the name of SC&ST Welfare and
Development, but spending their time in their own promotions, and building
Web-Sites to Post the Pictures of their Wives Children Husbands Baby and Family
Members as if they belong to admired adored and much revered Royal Families
Finally, I would like to add these –
1.
We have a long way to go!
2.
Big Struggles await Us!
3.
Many small but successful experiments had taken place, and are still on!
4.
We have to learn a lot!
5.
We have to prepare and harness ourselves to face many more challenges!
6.
We are not really poor and weak.
We are a massive powerful Political Force! Our Strength lies in our Numbers. That is in Our Unity, Determined Struggles, Concerted Fight for the Future of our Lives and Children,
and Collective Actions!
We have before us the Struggles and Remarkable Works
of many great SC&ST Dalits in this Country. They are all very valuable useful good great and
nice Examples, for all of us anytime anywhere, to emulate and get Inspirations.
They offer us, certain types of
lessons and models – both good and bad. Listed
here are just few, which in many ways are very illustrative and actually are
rightly representative.–
1.
Internationally Trading Venkatachalams of PV
Sauce and Seven-Seven Condiments of the erstwhile Madras Presidency
2.
The Visakha Industries, promoted by Hon’ble Shri G Venkatswamy & Sons
3.
The huge Struggles of Sardar Buta Singh and Family
4.
Padma Shree
Krishnammaal Jagannathan of
LAFTI – Land For the Tillers in the Rice-Bowl of Tamil Nadu
at Tanjore, now in the new Nagapattnam
District of Tamil Nadu.
5.
The Life of Babuji Jagjivan
Ram of
6.
The Lessons we can learn from the unsinkable Baba Saheb
N Manohara Prasad**
* This is a
Paper Presented in NDF – the National Dalit Forum
Meeting in
** Mr Prasad
was the only General Manager – Planning Evaluation and Co-ordination 1990-91, who
ever was in the National Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Finance and
Development Corporation, NSFDC, New Delhi, had.
Amongst other Positions under GoI, in the year
1992 he was called upon to establish Dr Ambedkar
Foundation, GoI,
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