Dalit, Harijan, or SC: What's behind 'renaming' former untouchables

Recently, I wrote a story titled "India's Muslim, Dalit segregation nears US Black-White levels: Chicago study", based on a working paper authored by Sam Asher, Kiritarth Jha, Paul Novosad, Anjali Adukia, and Brandon Tan. The paper documents how Scheduled Caste (SC) and Muslim communities in India are concentrated in neighborhoods with fewer schools, clinics, and basic infrastructure.

Examining 1.5 million urban and rural neighborhoods across India, the study says the scale of segregation is comparable to racial segregation in the United States.

Among the several reactions I received was one from a former Gujarat cadre IAS bureaucrat who, despite belonging to the Dalit community, insisted that the term should not be used. He sent me a message saying, "You may stop using word Dalit as it is a derogatory word. Use constitutional word, Scheduled Caste."

I wasn't surprised, as the remark came from a retired IAS bureaucrat who, even in private chat groups of IAS officials, would ask colleagues not to address him as a Dalit. Be that as it may, the ex-official was referring to my use of the word Dalit -- the working paper itself uses the term Scheduled Caste (SC), not Dalit -- in the headline instead of the "constitutional" term SC, a change the Gujarat government introduced in 2017. State officials no longer use Dalit, considering it an allegedly derogatory word.

I was left wondering why this official considered the term Dalit derogatory. There are innumerable social and political organisations across India that proudly use the term Dalit, not only in their communications but also in how they identify themselves. A Gujarat-based organisation, Dalit Shakti Kendra, situated about 20 km from Ahmedabad, for instance, provides ITI-type technical training to teenagers while also empowering them to fight caste-based discrimination.

In its circular, the state government noted that "Dalit" literally translates to "oppressed," "broken," or "crushed." The administration's perspective was that continuously using a term that explicitly means "oppressed" carries a permanent sociological stigma. It believes that the constitutional term Scheduled Caste addresses welfare, representation, and socio-economic support without continuously defining the community by historical victimization. 

Ironically, the term Dalit's political and social origin is credited to Jyotirao Phule in the late 19th century, whom Dr BR Ambedkar referred to as his guru, his "true teacher of Non-Brahmins" who taught the lessons of humanity to the oppressed and marginalized classes. ​While Ambedkar usually used terms like "Depressed Classes" or "Untouchables" in his legal and constitutional battles with the British government, sources tell me, he frequently translated "Depressed Classes" into the Marathi word Dalit in his vernacular writings and speeches.

Interestingly, earlier, the term Harijan, prominently used by Mahatma Gandhi, came to be disliked by Dalit leaders -- and now hardly anyone uses it publicly, though isolated Harijan signboards still exist. Dalits, in fact, consider the term Harijan derogatory, one reason why many among them bear a special dislike for Gandhiji.

In fact, "Harijan" was the name of Gandhiji's freedom movement mouthpiece. He even used the term for the ashram he established in Ahmedabad, which was renamed Harijan Ashram in the 1930s.

One reason Dalits rejected the term was that Dr BR Ambedkar strongly opposed Gandhi's use of it, arguing that it was a tactical move to keep untouchables within the fold of Hinduism without offering actual political and social liberation.

Another major reason was historical. In certain devotional traditions, particularly in parts of Western India, the phrase "Harijan" was sometimes used colloquially to refer to children born out of wedlock or to devadasis (women dedicated to temples) whose earthly fathers were unknown. Consequently, the term carried unintended and highly offensive undertones of illegitimacy. Hence the preference for "Dalit". A self-chosen political identity, unlike Harijan -- which implies a passive, blessed status -- Dalit is seen as an assertion of reality, a badge of pride in survival, and a political rallying cry for structural change.

While Mahatma Gandhi popularised the term Harijan globally, he was not its original creator. Gandhiji adopted the phrase in 1932 from Narsinh Mehta, the renowned 15th-century Bhakti poet-saint from Gujarat. Mehta had used the term in his devotional poetry to refer to saints and lovers of God who transcended worldly boundaries, irrespective of caste. Gandhi later repurposed it during his anti-untouchability campaigns.

A few years ago, I asked noted Gandhi scholar Tridip Suhrud why Dalits dislike Gandhi, and he told me plainly that what is often not understood is that, during the freedom movement, only Gandhi directly engaged with untouchability issues -- not Tagore, Nehru, Patel, Aurobindo, or Jinnah. In fact, Suhrud added, neither Ambedkarites nor Gandhians adequately recognise how Ambedkar influenced Gandhi, who in the later years of his life dropped his endorsement of varnashram dharma, the religious sanction for caste-based hierarchy.