A South Asian Movement's Social

Justpeace Prospects for Peace-building and Worldview Tolerance: A South Asian Movement’s Social Construction of Justice A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University By Jeremy A. Rinker Master of Arts University of Hawaii, 2001 Bachelor of Arts University of Pittsburgh, 1995 Director: Dr. Daniel Rothbart, Professor of Conflict Resolution Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution Spring Semester 2009 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright: 2009 Jeremy A. Rinker All Rights Reserved ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the many named and unnamed dalits who have endured the suffering and humiliation of centuries of social ostracism, discrimination, and structural violence. Their stories, though largely unheard, provide both an inspiration and foundation for creating social justice. It is my hope that in telling and analyzing the stories of dalit friends associated with the Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha, Sahayak Gana (TBMSG), both new perspectives and a sense of hope about the ideal of justpeace will be fostered. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all those that provided material, emotional, and spiritual support to me during the many stages of this dissertation work (from conceptualization to completion). The writing of a dissertation is a lonely process and those that suffer most during such a solitary process are invariably the writer’s family. Therefore, special thanks are in order for my wife Stephanie and son Kylor. Thank you for your devotion, understanding, and encouragement throughout what was often a very difficult process. I will always regret the many Saturday trips to the park that I missed, but I promise to make them up as best I can as I begin my new life as Dr. Daddy. To my parents: your inspiration goes much deeper than the financial support that you have provided me throughout this long journey. Your lives serve as an inspiration to me and I remain thankful that I have been blessed with such caring, supportive, and dedicated activist parents. While it goes without saying that my dissertation committee has been a driving force behind the successful completion of this document, many others have also played important roles in the intellectual and spiritual development necessary for the completion of the following work. To the late Dr. David Chappell, thank you for your friendship, inspiration, and introduction to both engaged Buddhism and the work of TBMSG. To Mangesh Dahiwale and all those at the Manuski Center, thank you for your spiritual friendship along the way, without it I am not sure that this work could have been completed. To all those that I met through the TBMSG movement, thank you for your patience, eagerness, openness, and dedication to assist in collecting the data needed to complete this work. To many unnamed colleagues at GMU (you know who you are), thank you for the comments, guidance, and sense of community that you provided. Finally, I also wish to thank my brother Matthew and his family (Stacy, Paige and Garrett), as well as, my sister Natalie and her family (Harry and Liam) for their support and encouragement along the way. Undoubtedly I have forgotten many important individuals, but in asking that you forgive this oversight I rest assured that your collective hurt does not compare to the continued suffering of the many dalits living under oppression today. I ask that you please forgive any oversights and keep those less fortunate in your hearts and minds. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………vi List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………..vii Chapter 1: Introduction.................................................................................................…1 Chapter 2: Literature Review..........................................................................................67 Chapter 3: Research Methodology................................................................................115 Chapter 4: Exposing the Reality – Preliminary Analysis of Leaders’ Narratives .......163 Chapter 5: Working the Ideal – Preliminary Analysis of Activists’ Narratives ...........244 Chapter 6: Making the Ideal Real – Comparative Analysis of Chosen Narratives ......311 Chapter 7: Implications and Conclusions .....................................................................362 Appendices …………….……………………………………………………………..397 References...……..……………………………………………………………………439 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 1: Broad Assumptions and Key Assumptive Postulates………………………...64 Table 2: Stages of Research Design......................................................................……131 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Figure 1: Basic Taxonomy of Justice..........................................................................…82 Figure 2: Levels of Analysis .........................................................................................152 vii ABSTRACT JUSTPEACE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE-BUILDING AND WORLDVIEW TOLERANCE: A SOUTH ASIAN MOVEMENT’S SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE Jeremy A. Rinker, PhD George Mason University, 2009 Dissertation Director: Dr. Daniel Rothbart This dissertation is an attempt to understand the meta-narratives of justice operating within the Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha, Sahayak Gana (TBMSG), a dalit Buddhist social movement active in Maharashtra, India. The movement, a vestige of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s 1956 conversion to Buddhism, is actively fighting for dalits rights by exposing atrocities and rights abuses against dalits, as well as, advocating an identity for dalits as newly self-aware Buddhists. Such a social action approach has supported both inclusive and exclusive conceptions of social justice, and this dissertation is intended to develop an understanding of the dialectics involved in the various conceptions of social justice within the movement. With the broader aim of explaining how such understanding can inform conflict resolution practitioners engaged in peace-building practice among marginalized populations, this dissertation is based on a social constructionist epistemology. In analyzing the justice/injustice narratives routinely produced by movement activists and leaders, this dissertation takes an action science approach of helping the group make better use of the deployment, limitations, and contradictions of the narratives it weaves. The aim of the present work is to build upon theories that address the nexus between conflict resolution and social justice in developing an epistemological framework for understanding, in theory and use, actors’ normative commitments to justice. By unpacking the social justice commitments of TBMSG members, this dissertation exposes the rationale for understanding how, in practice, narratives are produced and deployed, as well as, constructive of movement members’ conceptions of social change. In short, this dissertation is a peeling away of layers of reality inherent in movement members’ justice/injustice narratives in order to begin to understand the implementation of social justice as an ideal. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The teaching of the Buddha is through and through goal-oriented (teleological). It is entirely dependent upon its goal of freedom from suffering and ultimate frustration. And the Buddha’s concern is not discussion. It is not pondering or mulling things over. It is action.1 Sameer Taware, an energetic young dalit2 (ex-‘untouchable’) activist, is quite comfortable expressing his emotions. If asked his identity, he will readily express himself as a dalit, while more reservedly proclaiming himself a Buddhist. Both engaging and deliberative in character, Sameer exemplifies the thoughtful and astute fruit of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s historic movement to uplift and educate dalit communities in India. In his mid-to-late-twenties, Sameer is an Ambedkar Buddhist activist working in the “inter- related projects”3 that are implemented from the Manuski Center, a program of the Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana (the TBMSG), the Indian wing of a worldwide Buddhist sangha (community) aimed at creating a “Dhamma revolution.”4 In June 2008, Sameer had just been hired by the Manuski Center to utilize his education and experience as a Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS) Masters of Social Work graduate. 1 Williams (2000), 36. 2 The word ‘Dalit’ means ‘broken’ or ‘downtrodden’ in Sanskrit and was “used as far back as 1931 in journalistic writing” [Michael (1999), 99]. 3 http://www.manuski.net/ 4 Sponberg. A. (1996) “A Dhamma Revolution in Contemporary India” in Queen, C. and King, S. eds. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. New York: SUNY Press. Dhamma is the Pali equivalent of Dharma in the Sanskrit and in Buddhism has many meanings, the most common of which is a referent for the Buddhist teaching or tradition. 1 This chapter will, through both recounting and analyzing the stories of activists like Sameer, as well as, providing some historical background to the Ambedkar Buddhist movement in Maharashtra, highlight the critical features of the modern Indian caste system5 by underscoring the work that a particular movement of Ambedkar Buddhists, the TBMSG, is doing to recreate low-castes’ place in both history and modern society. In turn, this introductory chapter begins to reveal TBMSG’s on-going struggle to construct a pragmatic vision of Indian society that is guided by a commitment to social justice,6 both in its attention to a myriad of problems that face Indian

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