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For the first time, north Indian Shudra/Dalit politicians are fighting an intellectual battle against casteist (so-called Hindu) texts, written by Brahmins in ancient and mediaeval times.

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VOICES OPINION MONDAY, FEBRUARY 06, 2023 – 14:39

Written by  Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Ramcharitamanas, written by 16th-century poet Goswami Tulasidas has now created a caste war in north India – particularly in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Brahmins and Kshatriyas of that area treat the book as their spiritual Ramayana with reverence, but Shudras and Dalits find it problematic as it has derogatory couplets against them. Two Shudra/OBC leaders Swami Prasad Maurya (UP) of Samajwadi Party and Chandra Shekhar (RJD), Education Minister of Bihar, opened a conscious debate by demanding a ban on the book, as it dehumanises Shudra, Dalits and women. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav also took a serious stand on this issue by strongly owning his Shudra background.

Though I do not support any book ban or book burning, it is necessary to critically examine the contents of books written by saints and sanyasis who hated food production as Shudra work and demeaned other artisanal tasks. Tulsidas used the words Shudra as an equivalent of an animal and condemned them to be suppressed forever. How can Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi children read this book with respect? It is good that the Shudra/Dalit political leaders have started scrutinising the books written by anti-production writers attacking and humiliating the productive masses of India and launched a literary liberation programme. It will enthuse young Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi youth in the country to fight for self-respect.

Addressing a press conference on January 29, 2023, former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said, “Am I a Shudra or not? I am not against Ram or any other Hindu divine figure, but can CM Yogi Adityanath recite those lines about Shudras from Ramcharitamanas?” When a journalist continued to pester him about the issue, he asked him to recite the lines if he knew them. The journalist recited those lines, which have this to say, “Dhōla gavāomra sūdra pasu nārī. Sakala tāḍanā kē adhikāri (a drum, an illiterate, a Shudra, a beast and a woman — all deserve punishment).” Akhilesh then asked whether it was not humiliating to Shudras, Dalits and women. He asked the journalist’s full name clearly to know his caste background, but the journalist avoided it. Akhilesh further said, “I will ask the CM (Yogi Adityanath) to recite the couplet in the Assembly, as he is a yogi.”Featured Videos from TNM

Earlier, the RSS/BJP forces tried to stop Akhilesh during his visit to a temple on the pretext that he must take action against his party leader. They were referring to Swami Prasad Maurya, who said that Ramcharitamanas insulted Shudras/Dalits and women and should be banned. The RSS/BJP forces have been behind Maurya in the name of hurting Hindu sentiments. They filed cases against him, but he stood by his stand. Replying to the attempt  to stop him at the temple, Akhilesh said, “The BJP considers all Backwards (OBCs) and Dalits as Shudras.” In essence, he was saying that Ramcharitamanas humiliated all the Shudras, Dalits and women, even those in the BJP and those who voted for that party. But both RSS/BJP dwija (twice-born) leaders do not treat them as equals. Similarly, Bihar Minister Chandra Shekhar said, “The Ramcharitmanas is “a divisive text” like the Manusmriti and A Bunch of Thoughts of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) second sarsanghchalak (chief) MS Golwalkar.”

For the first time, north Indian Shudra/Dalit politicians are fighting an intellectual battle against casteist (so-called Hindu) texts, written by Brahmins in ancient and mediaeval times. The RSS/BJP want to use similar texts to construct contemporary Hindu nationalism and establish hegemony over all educational institutions. Most of those texts used the concepts Shudra and Chandala to denote the food producers and artisans – like leather workers, carpenters, pot makers, tillers of the soil, cattle grazers, shepherds and so on, as unworthy of respect. They were considered to be unworthy of education, employment in state institutions and respect in society. They were also not allowed to enter temples where the Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas worshipped.

Contemporary categories like OBC and Dalit are used mostly for those castes and communities in post-independence India. But earlier, OBCs and Dalits did not carefully examine Brahmin books and hence never understood how they figure in them. The category Shudra, for example, is completely wrapped in book pages of ancient and mediaeval Brahmin writers without any referential understanding of the OBCs of India. During the nationalist period, the educated Shudras like Jats, Patels, Marathas, Kammas, Reddys, Lingayats, Nairs and so on thought they should claim Kshatriyahood but not Shudra status. The Shudra status was considered condescending and humiliating.

Most Brahmin writers and saints in ancient and mediaeval writings used concepts like Shudra and Chandala to portray them as unworthy people. This has happened historically from the days of the writing of Rigveda. Those writers never considered themselves Hindu. This concept of Hindu came into the Indian dictionary only after the Muslim writer Alberuni (973-1053 CE) wrote his book Al-Hind. But now, in all RSS/BJP media, Tulsidas has become a great Hindu prophet like Mohammed to Muslims. Anyone who critiques the prophet faces death. Two priests have already issued fatwas to kill Swami Maurya with financial rewards on his head. But this may not work if they do against Shudras and Dalits, who are now conscious about their status and abilities. Maurya called such seers terrorists.

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The OBC Mahasabha members publicly burnt pages of Ramcharitamanas. They say that Tulsidas was against all food producers and artisans who built this nation to the present level. The RSS/BJP forces today claim this nation as a superpower. It is the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi labour that brought the nation to this level and not because of writers like Tulsidas who abused them. But this is a new perception of India.

We know very well that book burning and banning are no solution to this negative literary heritage of India. A serious critique of them and repositioning the Shudra/Dalit position with new writing and discourse is the way forward. Mass involvement in this debate is very important. If this war escalates, the RSS/BJP division between Hindus and Muslims will be relegated to the background. The battle will be between the Shudras and Dalits on the one side and the Dwijas, who consider Tulsidas as their prophet on the other side.

After the RSS/BJP combine  has come to power, caste relations have faced serious scrutiny, because the ruling forces want to reimpose those casteist texts in the social and political discourse. The Shudra/OBCs and Dalits have slowly realised that there is a new trap to their existence and future. Earlier, the OBCs and Dalits were only fighting around the reservation issue but the RSS/BJP have almost made that issue irrelevant with the privatisation of all jobs. They wanted to bring all the Shudra/Dalits under Dwija control by fixing their gaze on the Muslim enemy image under the Dwija leadership. The RSS/BJP want to finish the regional parties.

The regional parties all over India, except in Bengal and Odisha, are headed by the Shudra leaders who emerged after the Mandal revolution. However, a new battle line of Shudra/Dalits Vs Dwijas has been drawn, and this alone can put the RSS/BJP in a new fix.

All this new discourse around Ramcharitamanas and other classical Sanskrit texts would be because of the emerging organic intellectuals from the Shudra/Dalit communities all over India. Akhilesh Yadav and the Shudras and Dalits remember how Yogi Adityanath humiliated him when he washed the UP Chief Minister’s residence with cow milk and urine after he vacated, as Akhilesh is Shudra. Will he do this if he becomes the Prime Minister of India and starts living in the PM’s residence, where Narendra Modi is living now? With the issue of Ramcharitamanas, many cultural struggles of castes will take centre stage in north India.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His book The Shudras–Vision for a New Path initiated a major discussion among the OBCs as to why they should look back to their Shudra identity. Views expressed here are the author’s own.

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/opinion-why-shudra-leaders-north-india-are-against-ramcharitamanas-172912

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

The anti-Shudra, Dalit and women language of Tulsidas in his Ramcharitamanas engendered a major controversy in North India. Its impact could also be seen in the South, which already had a strong Shudra mobilization history. He equated them with animals and drums and wanted to keep punishing them forever. The new consciousness of the Shudras, Dalits and women is not going to accept this kind of writing. They do not want their children to study these historical humiliating books in the schools, colleges and universities. It is a known fact that the RSS/BJP want to impose all such books in our educational institutions.

All over the country the Shudra consciousness is opposing such books. Regional language articles and opinions keep appearing in the South Indian languages. It will not die down soon, because the defenders of Tulsidas are not saying that such abusive sentences were interpolations, not of original writer, as they do in the case of ancient Sanskrit books that used caste cultural abusive language. They earlier were making the Muslims and colonial rulers and writers responsible for caste division among the Hindus on caste lines to sustain their political power and economic exploitation.

This line of argument was first developed by the RSS supporting Dwija writers and speakers, as there were hardly any Shudra or Dalit writers in those ranks. All the defenders of Tulsidas and his book as their spiritual grandh are Dwija RSS/BJP leaders or the saints, sadhus, who are Brahmins. No Shudra/Dalit from the RSS/BJP ranks can defend this kind of abuse of food producers, cattle grazers, pot makers, leather workers, barbers, weavers and so on. This abusive language of Tulsidas is against the nation’s wealth creators, which in essence means against the nation. The Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis working in RSS/BJP cannot defend that language, as they too have self respect.

Tulsidas wrote this book during Akbar-Jahangir rule. As information available on the internet shows that it was written in the end of 16th century. That in essence means that it was written during Akbar’s rule. Akbar died in 1605 while sitting on the throne. Tulsidas died in 1623. That was the time Shudras/Dalits were struggling with nature to bring vast areas of land under cultivation. Deforestation, agriculture expansion were the main burden of the Shudras and Dalits. The Dwijas, more particularly the Brahmins, to which community Tulsidas belonged, were not even respecting agriculture work as spiritually respectable. They designated all agricutural operations as Shudra kaam (work). It was then he was writing that “ढोल गवाँर सूद्र पसु नारी। सकल ताड़ना के अधिकारी।(ḍhōla gavāomra sūdra pasu nārī. sakala tāḍanā kē adhikārī). “A drum, an illiterate, a Shudra, a beast and a woman — all deserve punishment”.

Punishment by whom? Punishment by his God Rama and by the Mughal State, which was imposing heavy land taxes on the Shudra farmers. Agrarian masses- men and women–were starving. But the Dwijas had protective valves in Akbar’s administration.

Tulsidas knew that the Mughal state during Akbar rule was run by Birbal and Todar Mal. According to Wikipedia Birbal, was a Saraswat Bhatt Brahmin advisor and main commander (Mukhya Senapati) of the army in the court of the Mughal emperor. . He had a close association with Emperor Akbar and was one of his most important courtiers, part of a group called the navaratnas (nine jewels).

Todar Mal was the finance minister of Akbar. According to Wikpidia Todar Mal was Kayastha with a scribe background. He was the Finance Minister (Mushriff-i-Diwan) of the Mughal empire during Emperor Akbar‘s reign. He was also the Vakil-us-Sultanat (Counsellor of the Empire) and Joint Wazir. He was one of the premier nobles in the Mughal Empire and was a Mansabdar of 4000. He was one of the Navaratnas in Akbar’s court. Under Todar Mal, there were 15 other Dewans nominated for 15 Subahs of Akbar. He must have appointed many Brahmins, Rajputs and Kayasthas as wazirs, Mansabdars Navaratnas in that regime.

The Shudras, Dalit and Adivasis must have been living in the worst oppressive conditions in that Muslim-Dwija medieval state that was collecting back breaking land rents and other taxes from the peasantry. Even a very well known expert on Mughal history Irfan Habib has not told us what was the state of the Shudras/Dalits/Adivasis in such Muslim and Dwija collaborated deep state. His Marxism remained blind folded when it came to examining caste cultural and economic relations.

Tulsidas wrote his horrible casteist book in that socio political and religious milieu in Akbar’s kingdom.

If Brahmins were against Muslims and Muslim rule Tulsidas should have appealed to Ram to punish the Muslim rulers or all Muslims. But he did not do that. In his entire writing there is no single sentence against Muslim rulers or Akbar. But he was pleading with Ram, his God, to punish Shudras/Dalits and women of all castes–including the Brahmin women. This writer for the RSS/BJP forces becomes a prophet and his abusive book becomes a ‘Holy Granth’. Is it not surprising? Do they think that Shudras and Dalits are still living under the spell of their karma theory even now?

The categories of Shudra and Chandala are now designated as Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes in the constitutional scheme. They were not used just for social or work based identity purposes in Tulsidas writing. The designations were used to keep the productive masses as perpetual slaves in all Sanskrit texts. Tulsidas was not the first or last to use that language. Even later the Brahmin, Ksatriya mindset continued. The fact that Yogi Adithyanath, a Ksatriya, washed the CM house with cow milk and urine for Shuddikaran when he first occupied it, because Akhilesh Yadav was a Shudra living in that house prior to him. This is an expression of the same caste cultural arrogance. This has to be fought.

The present defense of Tulsidas’ anti-Shudra, Dalit and women heritage is part of the RSS/BJP hundred years cultural heritage. Its top leaders spoke one thing publicly and another thing in their Nagpur discourses. In public platforms the Shudra/Dalit masses are told we are all Hindus and we are one organic unit. The enemies are Muslims and Christians. Let us not forget that the RSS even now is headed by Brahmins. Most intellectuals in the country come from that community background, whether they call themselves left or liberal. They are all silent spectators of the present debate as they were during the Mandal debate in the 1990s.

However, there is no single text that the Brahmin writers wrote against Muslim rulers when they were in power. They started writing against Muslim anti-Indianness only while the British colonial rulers were in power. Savarkar or Bannkim Chandra’s writings against Muslims were written during British rule–particularly after the 1857 rebellion of soldiers. But they were continuously writing against the Shudra and Dalits.

During the Mandal movement a massive amount of literature was brought out against them in the name of merit. But the Shudras collectively never encountered them. Because they were more rigorously divided on caste lines. After the Mandal movement they were again divided as reserved and unreserved Shudras. Some Shudra castes hoped that they could join the ranks of Ksatriyas. In UP Jats went in that path with a hope they would be equal to Ksatriyas. But Yogi Adithyanath has shown their place. With the three farm laws they realized there is a deep state situation against them at Delhi.

Muslims are a global community with a population living in 56 nations with a common cultural identity and also political power. Though the RSS has been campaigning against Indian Muslims and Pakistan but they know if they continue this forever there will be a global mobilization against Hindutva and also RSS/BJP. The BBC documentary is one such global response. But the oppression or even violence against Dalits/Adivasis/Shudras will be treated as Hindu internal matter by the outside world .

And the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi historical backwardness in the backdrop of Tulsidas’ kind of violent campaigns against their education, employment kept them still backward and organizationally weak.

Not the Dwijas working around the Congress and other parties would behave differently when it comes to cultural and educational issues of the Shudras/Dalits and Adivasis. Abolition of caste cultural inequalities and oppression by disagreeing with the ancient and medieval Brahminic texts like that of Tulsidas will be seen as the beginning of erosion of their authority in the Indian civil society and the state. That is the reason why all Dwija intellectuals are silent on this issue.

However, the Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis will not tolerate such books and arguments now. They will be prepared to fight to the end of this humiliation and exploitation.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book is The Shudras–Vision For a New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja Kuruppusamy. He is now working on a book The Shudra Rebellion–History From the Field Memories

https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/why-did-tulsidas-ask-his-god-rama-to-punish-shudras-and-women-not-mughal-rulers/?swcfpc=1

How does the cow politics of the RSS/BJP or relevant theories by scholars justify the complete marginalization of the buffalo in our history, memory, consciousness and culture, asks Kancha Ilaiah

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 

Updated: 27 Jan 2023 12:54 Pm

Imagine, in an undertaking like the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra,’ a school child is taken from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Which animal would he/she see more in number and find more useful to human life: the buffalo or the cow? If the quantity of milk that restores our health and well-being were the standard by which one judged the use value of an animal, which animal produces more milk in India, not just now but historically: the buffalo or the cow? According to a report on Statista, an online provider of market and consumer data, “Indigenous non-descriptive buffaloes had the highest share of milk production in India with 45 percent in the fiscal year of 2021.” In Indian agrarian history, the male buffalo was used in more regions than the bull (male cow) to till the land and pull carts. In any Indian village, among the poor, the buffalo is seen as a source of livelihood that would make a marriage alliance acceptable. The buffalo, in the absence of landed property and guaranteed wage earning, is seen as the main source of livelihood. In Telugu, the proverb “Barre lenide batuku ledu” (No buffalo, no life) should convey the historical use value of the buffalo.

On the other hand, make a child read ancient Indian literature in Sanskrit from the Vedas to the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavatas and so on. Which animal is mentioned more times, and discussed at length in such literature: the buffalo or the cow? Or read the literature produced in any regional language or in Indian English texts; which animal is given more place in discourse? In most literary sources, the cow was and is praised as Kamadhenu (a celestial cow whose milk is life itself), Gomata (Mother Cow) and as the mother of gods and goddesses. Paintings with divine figures of the Hindu pantheon sitting in the stomach of cows are aplenty. It is these kinds of literary narratives around cows that led to the formation of the idea of the Hindi-speaking region being referred to as the ‘cow belt’ of the country. In Sanskrit literature, the male buffalo finds a place, at best, as the vahana (vehicle) of Yama, the god who escorts humans to naraka (hell). At worst, the poor animal is condemned as the demon, Mahisha.

If the Sanskrit books of ancient times and modern books in English and regional languages were the only sources of our knowledge of the animals that once existed in India, the buffalo would seem non-existent. Even in the few places that it is mentioned, it is cast as a ‘bad’ animal that should not be treated with love, for it is an agent of hell. The cow, on the other hand, is an animal that is frequently referenced, is more respectable and must be cared for.

This kind of partial treatment in favour of cows appears not only in what is now commonly known as ancient (and modern) Hindu literature but also in Islamic civilisations and in the Quran, according to which, Allah (God) approves of cows as fit for consumption. But nowhere in the Quran does the buffalo feature as a milk-producing animal or as an animal preferred for its meat. Nor are male buffaloes used as a source of labour in the Middle East. It does not exist in Europe or the Americas as a civilisational, cultural or economic symbol. But cows exist in all those countries, both as milk-producing and meat-supplying animals. When cows are so common in the world but buffalo are not, why do cows get such special treatment in Indian literature, Hindu ideology and politics? Why does the cow get treated as ‘divine’ at the cost of the reputation of the buffalo—an animal endemic to the region which also has enormous economic value?

Naturally, one would wonder at what stages in our civilisation were the buffalo and the cow domesticated. We do not have the dates or a timeline. Both species were found aplenty in ancient times. The buffalo was not ‘brought in by colonial rulers’ for it to be to be considered with disrespect. It existed in Vedic times and certainly in pre-Vedic Harappan civilisation. Why, then, has the buffalo become demonic, and the cow, divine?

The answer may be found in Brahminical philosophy that dominates religious and cultural discourse in India. As I mention in the book, From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual: My Memoirs:

‘Caste is Race in Ancient Times
Race is caste in Modern Times’

Even though the black-coloured buffalo gives white-coloured milk, it was cast as a demonic creature in Sanskrit literature, and continues to play that role in the cultural domain. This is the contribution of the Brahmins to the spiritual, social and cultural history of India. Why? Because it is a black-coloured animal. The place of the buffalo in Brahminical literature is exactly like that of the Shudras and Dalits in Sanskrit literature. Like the buffalo, they too are given no space to generate discourse and find no mention within it, even though they comprise a considerable fraction of the social mass who produce food and cultivate other resources in this country.

Nobody Is Allowed To Eat Cow Meat, But One Can Eat Buffalo Meat As Much As One Wanted To And Export It As Well.

This cultural conflict of the place of the buffalo versus that of the cow is rooted in Brahminical politics of colour, where black is considered demonic and white suggests divinity. 

The cow, which is broadly thought of as a white-coloured animal (though there are reddish-brown and black cows as well) has always been portrayed as divine, both in ancient and modern times. Like in Islamic civilisations, beef was the preferred meat presented as prasadam (ritual offering) for a long time in ancient and medieval India. Exactly along the lines of Islamic spirituality, the Brahmin rishis (sages) used cows and their products for food, milk, ghee and so on.

Why, then, is the cow seen as an ‘anti-Muslim’ animal? That is a mystery in terms of the conditioning of the consciousness of the Hindus. It is also a mystery in Indian nationalist theory. An animal consumed globally for its meat becomes a divine creature in Hinduism. 

At what stage in Brahminism was the cow spiritually constructed as sacred but unsuitable for consumption? Was it part of the Brahmin-led transformation to vegetarianism seen in many parts, if not all parts, of India? One view is that the conflict between Buddhism—that opposed ritual animal sacrifice—and the Brahminical practice of the same led to the latter being forced to give up meat-based food completely, and recasting themselves as ‘pure’ vegetarian, like the Jains.          

Neither colonialism nor modernity has changed the Brahminical construct of the cow being sacred and the buffalo being demonic. If the colour of the animal being the impetus behind this discrimination were indeed true, it does not explain why the hair on the head of Brahmin men and women is not seen as ugly or a bad omen! On the contrary, black hair on the head is seen as a symbol of beauty, both in real life and in literature.

The theory of the ‘holy’ cow is now ‘State theory’ after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-backed BJP came to power in 2014. Nobody is allowed to eat cow meat, but one can eat buffalo meat as much as one wanted to and export it as well. The taste of buffalo meat does not find a mention in any cookbook, although writing about it does not send the writer to jail. The taste of cow meat is universally written about. In India, it is part of secret cookbooks.

Although most Indian children grow up on buffalo milk, there is not much research on it. On the contrary, there is enormous Hindutva-backed research about the medicinal values of cow milk, urine and dung. But no research is done on buffalo urine and dung and how they differ in composition and possible uses. The spiritual perception of something gets to be examined in the scientific domain only in India where charlatans such as Baba Ramdev can become scientists.

How does the cow politics of the RSS/BJP or relevant theories by scholars justify the complete marginalisation of the buffalo in our history, memory, consciousness and culture? When a ruling party like the RSS/BJP aggressively campaigns for cow protection without considering the buffalo as a historic national animal, would that not reinforce the caste and racial colour discrimination even further? The very same school of Hindutva continues to claim that India will advance in science and technology to a level where it shall overtake Europe, the US and China in the next few decades. That India will be Vishvaguru (‘Teacher to the world’) in the next few decades.

But for me, as a person who grew up as a shepherd boy, God created all animals as equal to all the humans that were and are created. If North India continues to be treated as the cow belt, a day will come when South India will become a buffalo belt.

The only solution is that no region gets to control discourse about any one animal so that India remains one nation with respect for all humans, animals, colours, castes, religions and races, with women on par with the country’s men.

(This appeared in the print edition as “The DEMONIC and the DIVINE”)

(Views expressed are personal)

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and writer

https://www.outlookindia.com/national/the-dichotomy-of-discourse-on-cow-between-the-demonic-and-the-divine-magazine-256781

All Shudra and OBC leaders, in whichever political party they are, owe their political status to this great fighter.    

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Sharad Yadav. Photo: PTI

The death of Sharad Yaday at 75 on January 12, 2023, has affected many of his followers and admirers across the country.

As a young anti-Emergency student leader from Madhya Pradesh he became a national leader after winning a parliament seat when he was just 27. From the 1974 Jayprakash Narayan movement, Yadav emerged as a socialist ideologue and a representative of the the Shudra and Other Backward Class social forces much before the concept and the category of ‘OBC’ became part of the national dictionary.

Though he was part of the young Shudra and OBC leadership that emerged in north India – chiefly from the socialist camps of Rammanohar Lohia and Karpuri Thakur – he went on to become a national face while others remained confined to their own states.

As Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar went back and forth from national politics to state politics, Sharad Yadav remained in the parliament, as a seven-time Lok Sabha PM and three-time Rajya Sabha MP, often fighting pro-poor battles there. A fine speaker in Hindi and logical thinker, he was a political strategist.

It was his political strategy that forced V.P. Singh to implement the Mandal Report in the face of opposition from Devi Lal, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Jat leader.

Let me quote Sharad Yadav himself said from my book The Shudras: Vision For a New Path. Once the Janata Dal government was formed, Yadav says:

“We started mobilizing all socialist leaders and putting pressure on the Janata Dal government to fulfil its manifesto promise of implementing the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. We strongly believed that without this, no true justice would be served to Shudras. V.P. Singh’s entourage vehemently opposed the recommendations of the Mandal Commission. To overcome this, he established a committee under the chairmanship of Chaudhary Devi Lal, the deputy prime minister and a prominent Jat leader. He knew it was due to Chaudhary Charan Singh’s intervention that Mandal did not include Jats in the list of backward classes.

“However, many local Jat leaders and groups were putting pressure on their political leaders to be included in the reservation category. Taking advantage of the situation, V.P. Singh played a master stroke. He was sure that being the most prominent Jat leader, Devi Lal would not implement the Mandal recommendations without including Jats, despite the fact that he was against it. Chaudhary Ajit Singh, general secretary of the Janata Dal and minister of industry, also started campaigning for the rights of backward classes and asserted that Jats be included in the OBC list.

“Devi Lal was caught in a political dilemma: On the one hand, he did not want Ajit Singh to take credit for the inclusion of Jats as a backward class, and on the other, he could not risk the ire of his own Jat community by not including them. Therefore, V.P. Singh thought this would be the end of the discussion on the Mandal Commission.

 “On 3 August 1990, V.P Singh called me in the morning and said, ‘Brother Sharad, I can’t tolerate Chaudhary Devi Lal any more.’ I assured him that I would speak to Devi Lal and close this chapter once and for all. But I requested him not to drop Devi Lal from the cabinet. To this, Singh replied that he had already sent the order to the president. This made me discontinue the conversation.

“The next morning at 7 a.m., the prime minister sent one of his close aides to my residence to request me to come over to his office. For three long hours, we discussed Devi Lal and his political stand. He wanted to take me into confidence so that I did not jump ship with Devi Lal, which would have meant that he would not have remained prime minister any more.

“Taking advantage of the situation, I urged him to announce the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations immediately. He first agreed to make an announcement on 15 August 1990 from Red Fort. I had to tell him clearly that if he wanted to implement the recommendations, he had to do it before 9 August 1990; otherwise I would have no choice but to join Devi Lal’s rally in Delhi. As I saw it, the implementation of these recommendations would fulfil the dreams of Ambedkar, Karpoori Thakur, Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan, who believed and dreamt of an equitable society. The Janata Dal government he was leading and had emerged from socialist struggles.

“The backward classes who helped him get elected as prime minister, who were marginalized for more than thousands of years, were looking at him with just expectation to implement the recommendations submitted by the Mandal Commission. To save his government, Singh, after discussing it with a a few of his close political aides agreed to do so. On 6 August 1990, he called a cabinet meeting at his house at 6 p.m. with the main agenda of discussing the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations. Despite a warning from his close aides, the very next day, on 7 August 1990, the government accepted the Mandal Commission’s recommendations and announced that it would implement the reservation scheme under which 27 per cent jobs would be earmarked for OBCs.

“And finally, on 13 August 1990, it notified the implementation of OBC reservation. On 10 August 1990, the Dwija castes had started to protest against reservation. For about a month, students, bureaucrats and teachers participated in protests all over the country, public property was destroyed, and roads were blocked”.

But for young Sharad Yadav’s role in pushing the V.P. Singh government to implement the Mandal Commission Recommendation of 27% reservations and the pro- and anti-Mandal struggles on the streets, the Shudras and OBCs of India would not have had a crucial means to come where they have today.

But for the massive pro-Mandal social mobilisation of the Shudra and OBC population, even the Dwija-controlled Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party forces that opposed the Mandal reservations would not have allowed Narendra Modi, OBC leader, to lead them and become the prime minister of India.

All Shudra and OBC leaders, in whichever political party they are, owe their political status to this great fighter.

Kanca Ilaiah Shepherd is political theorist, social activist and writer. His books include God As Political Philosopher: Buddha’s Challenge Brahminism, Why I am Not a Hindu and Buffalo Nationalism.

https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/sharad-yadav-mandal-vp-singh-devi-lal

The RSS and BJP will turn India into an Indralok where the elites will enjoy the benefits of global education and Hindi-educated OBCs, Dalits will become its gatekeepers.

11 January, 2023 11:53 am IST

PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah | Praveen Jain | ThePrint File photo

The Narendra Modi government just opened India’s doors for foreign universities — Yale, Harvard, Princeton — to set up campuses in the country. The announcement was made at a press conference on 5 January held by University Grants Commission chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar. According to media reports, “a foreign university intending to set up its campus in India should have secured a position within the top 500 in overall/subject global rankings.” It means that all these top universities of different countries will now eye new campuses on Indian soil. Obviously, courses will be taught in English with a globally competitive syllabus.

Isn’t it surprising that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has allowed universities to teach courses of their choice in English?

The same government has been repeatedly saying that Hindi should be made the medium of instruction in higher educational institutions and the syllabus based more on India’s culture and heritage. The Centre is trying to force Vedic and Puranic studies into university syllabi.

Look at quality of education at home

The moot question is: Who will study at Indian universities in Hindi and who at foreign universities in English? Will foreign universities teach in Hindi with Vedic science, mathematics, and humanities as ‘global’ civilisational sources?

“The foreign university/HEI [higher education institution] will have to give the undertaking that the quality of education imparted by it at its Indian campus will be at par with that of the main campus in the country of origin, and the qualifications awarded to the students in the Indian campus will be recognised and treated as equivalent to the corresponding qualifications awarded by the foreign HEIs in the main campus for all purposes, including higher education and employment,” UGC chairperson Kumar added.

He also stressed on the autonomy that foreign universities would enjoy in India. “We are focusing on providing as much autonomy as possible. So there is not going to be any interference at all from the UGC from the operations point of view of setting up a campus in India, other than in terms of academic programmes and infrastructure in the campus,” Kumar said.

What about the quality of education in Indian universities and the employability of graduates? If the Modi government wants to further divide the country on caste and class lines with its ‘national’ versus global education, India will go back to a dark past. Shudras, Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Dalits, and Adivasis will be unable to access modern educational institutions. The benefits of reservation will amount to nothing. For the children of the productive classes, the Union government has Vidya Bharati — the network of schools run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). With such an education model, the RSS and BJP want Indians to become followers of the ‘great’ ancient civilisation and see advanced production, modern science, distribution of resources, and equality as ‘un-Bharatiya’. Varna-centred human relations and living in ashrams will become the ideals of society.

Meanwhile, foreign and Indian private schools and universities will educate the children of the elites and ruling class in English with Harvard, Oxford, and Yale syllabi that would connect them to the West and beyond. They will become the real vishwagurus or world leaders. Union Home Minister Amit Shah is the face of this ‘Hindutva nationalist’ education for India’s poor agrarian youth and Jagadesh Kumar that of global education for the country’s ruling class.

Not enough criticism

The secular and liberal Dvijas (twice-borns) do not lose much in this dichotomy. All of them know that their children would not be taught the Hindi-medium Vidya Bharati syllabus. Their criticism of teaching methods and pedagogy will remain vague — with no focus on the language and content — but they will talk about ‘quality’ education. What that quality would be, nobody will know.

Congress educationalists will not fight this model because they are responsible for formulating poor educational policies in the past — one reason why there are fewer English-educated intellectuals among the Shudras, OBCs, Dalits, and Adivasis.

For Muslim and Christian minority intellectuals, this educational divide may not be a bigger problem considering that a large number of Muslim students study in madrasas and Christian students in missionary schools, though they are dying. Even the Shudras and OBCs, who have been denied educational opportunities, aren’t bothered about the issue — a large number of them are hoping that Modi will deliver them from historical bondage as he is reportedly the first OBC prime minister with a Hindu samrat image.

India’s regional parties, too, do not take English-medium education for the masses seriously as that may go against their own linguistic chauvinism. OBC and Dalit organisations are more concerned about their share of reservation than the quality of education.

Equalising checkmate

The systematic backward push of the rural agrarian masses with the hypocritical education system of the RSS-BJP would have to be checkmated only by equalising school education in terms of both language and content. English-language instruction in all government schools with a superior and modern global syllabus alone will address the inequality that the Modi government’s education system will create.

The agrarian masses won a small victory by forcing the government to withdraw the draconian 2020 farm laws but never realised that their children are in greater danger with the RSS-BJP education conspiracy. Most of these foreign universities are likely to buy off the masses’ lands to set up their campuses without ensuring that their children get enrolled into them.

The ruling dispensation is planning to dismantle the educational potential of farmers’ children who would have a bleaker future due to its policies. Those from reserved categories who remain in government sector will suffer from inferiority complex once privatisation comes into full force.

The RSS and BJP will turn India into an Indralok where the elites will enjoy the benefits of global education and the Hindi-educated rural youth will become its gatekeepers.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist, and writer. He has been campaigning for English medium education in rural and urban government schools of India since the last thirty years. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

https://theprint.in/opinion/yale-oxford-in-india-is-modi-govts-way-to-wedge-divide-take-obcs-dalits-back-to-dark-past/1308622/

In India, the road towards primitive controls on the thinking mind is being cemented further with each passing day, writes Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd.

PTI

FEATURES OPINION FRIDAY, JANUARY 06, 2023 – 18:06

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Ever since the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) backed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the Union government in 2014 and subsequently came to power in several states, the conflict between science and faith has occupied central space in the national discourse. Any critique of the beliefs of those who consider themselves as seriously religious, be it Hindu or Muslim, gets politicised in no time. Litigations around issues of hurt religious sentiments have increased several fold in the country. With faith being projected as the core value of the nation, science as a process of human thinking is not taken seriously, nor is it considered nationalist. 

While this is the general atmosphere in the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on January 3 that India must produce more innovative science. He was speaking at the inauguration of the Science Congress. If he does not warn his own folks to not rush into every science vs faith conflict as agents of faith, how will innovative science develop? We have never seen RSS-BJP cadres and leaders defending science when there is a conflict between science and faith. They do not allow individual thinking in their ranks. The Arab rulers, or the rulers of Pakistan or Afghanistan, do not stand by any science-centred ideological position. If the present trend continues, India too will enter this trap of all faith and no science.

Today, there is a heightened tendency to project faith as nationalist and scientific thinking as anti-national. Ironically, the ruling BJP says that India is developing in such a way that it will be capable of challenging China and the West in the near future. They seem convinced that killing scientific thinking and the critical thinking abilities of children and adults is part of India’s civilisation and should become India’s agenda in the future. They also seem to be engaged in serious competition with far-right nations that treat scientific thought as blasphemy.Featured Videos from TNM

What is forgotten in the process is that human life takes form through a scientific process, and grows and develops with the help of scientific treatment in childhood. For example, when a child is born, feeding milk or other forms of food is a scientific process. From the breastfeeding stage to the solid-food-eating stage, faith does not enter a child’s life. Faith forms in a child’s mind either by observing a parent’s faith-related practices, or through a specific instruction process, like the schooling that the gurukulas and madrasas conventionally did. These institutions have no concept of scientific teaching. But the modern school is different.

The modern school system is meant to teach science and as part of it, some amount of faith-related subjects. If faith becomes the central theme of school learning, the human mind cannot work in scientific laboratories, because faith does not accept experimentation. The present political trend, which is heavily inclined towards faith, does not accept experimentation. If India is ruled by faith and faith remains the central theme of nationalism for long, the country is bound to retreat to the mediaeval age. The right-wing is likely to introduce laws that stop Indians from thinking scientifically, with the excuse that it is un-Indian and/or anti-national. The road towards primitive controls on the thinking mind is being cemented further with each passing day.

For the average Indian voter, a faith-based, non-scientific lifestyle will appear as the only way of life. We may use the science, engineering, medicine, or technology that emerged from the scientific thinking of the West as long as the supply chain from the West lasts, in the same way that we depend on oil pipelines from Russia or West Asia. Once their scientific thinking becomes inaccessible to us, we will start walking, return to primitive food habits, and live in old sheds, and still justify it all as our great civilisational values. This is inevitable as our own children are not allowed to think critically at home or on the streets. Once the young minds are not allowed to question their own and others’ practices, where will we as a country end up?

When our children see critical thinkers being attacked through TV channels and newspapers, they will begin to think that they should learn to not think like the ones their fathers abuse or mothers dislike. They too will surrender to faith and hate science. From such houses, one may become an engineer, a doctor, or a so-called scientist, through routine training. But there is no hope of developing a critical and creative mind in such a house that will, once put in a factory, hospital or lab, produce original innovations. Only the kind of faith-based ideological campaign promoted by the RSS-BJP will find acceptance in those spaces.

When there is only praise for the saint not for the tiller of the land; when there is only praise for the religious teacher not the teacher of science, from whom will a child want to learn? The leaders and cadres of the ruling RSS-BJP want to show the world the path of faith while other nations are busy expanding their base in science. 

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. He has been campaigning for English-medium education in government schools across the country for the last 30 years. Views expressed are the author’s own. 

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/opinion-rss-bjp-kill-scientific-thought-branding-it-anti-national-171659

Since caste was around before Islam arrived, how did Muslim clerics, scholars and rulers view it? After Islam came to India, the only writer who discussed the caste question was Alberuni in the 11th century

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

The dais at BJP’s Pasmanda Conference in Lucknow on October 16, 2022. Photo: By arrangement.

Last month, the South Asian Institute of Columbia University organised a seminar on ‘Afterlives of Babri Masjid: Thirty Years Later’. I made a presentation at that seminar on ‘Post-Babri Anti-Caste Movement: A New Awakening in India’.

In my abstract I said the following:

“The anti-caste movement of post-independent India has changed the track of Indian democratic discourse in the post-Babri context. I wroteWhy I am Not a HinduandPost-Hindu Indiain that context only. Though the anti-castemovement included the minorities in its agenda, the Muslims did not participate in that discourse. Muslim intellectuals remained caste blind, leaving the Dalit/OBC/Adivasis to defend themselves. Over a period of 30 years, the Dalit/OBC/Adivasis realised that caste and untouchability have destroyed their intellectual and organisational abilities to fight against Brahminism. Organised religions like Indian Islam and Christianity virtually left them to the mercy of highly English-educated and globalised Brahminic forces. This situation helped the post-Babri Hindutva forces attract them into their fold and gradually turn them into their vote bank. But at the same time a huge anti-caste ideology was developed by the post-Mandal Dalit/OBC/Adivasi intellectuals and political activists by foregrounding Ambedkar, Phule, Periyar and so on. Thissituation has created an anti-caste global ideological mobilisation. However, the future of Indian democracy and the question of a caste-free egalitarian India is still uncertain.”

After my presentation, some scholars questioned the relevance of discussing the role of Muslim intellectuals and Indian Islam’s history at a time when they are facing persecution in India. This concern was expressed even by American intellectuals working on India and other South Asian societies. While a Muslim scholar, Khalid Anis Ansari from Azim Premji University, made a presentation about the presence of caste among Indian Muslims and the ongoing oppression of Pasmanda Muslims by upper-caste Muslims, a few scholars expressed disappointment – arguing that this is not the time to raise caste discrimination within Indian Muslims as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party are trying to exploit that division.

However, I believe it is important – even amidst the current political atmosphere  – to discuss the role of Muslim intellectuals in Indian caste civilisation. This discussion is important to understand the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi problem as well as the Muslim minority problem, so that the Muslim intelligentsia realises what the Shudra/OBC and Dalits find problematic about their relationship and history.          

After the BJP came to power in 2014, there has been an intense debate about the relationship between the OBCs and Muslims, as the OBCs are seen supporting the BJP electorally and communally. 

There is also a view that the OBCs participated in the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. It is true that without OBC support, the BJP could not and cannot win elections as they are winning now. Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented himself as an OBC from Gujarat; perhaps that has also added to the BJP’s OBC mobilisation. Does it mean that the OBCs – as the historical Shudra agrarian and artisanal communities –  hate Muslims? There is no evidence to support the claim that the Shudras have some theoretical or cultural antipathy towards Muslims.  Whatever anti-Muslim writing there is in India has come so far from Brahmin or other Dwija writers and ideologues. The writings of V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar are evidence.  

This debate raises another question which is equally important – about the relationship between the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi and Muslim? What was the historical role of Muslim rulers, writers and civil-spiritual intellectuals on the abolition or annihilation of caste after Islam as a religion took root in India? Did Muslims scholars and writers treat caste and human untouchability – which existed much before that religion arrived in India – as a system that could not be accepted in the world Allah created? Because Islam believes that everything – good and bad – is the creation of Allah. According to their understanding, nothing comes into existence or goes out of existence without Allah’s sanction. In that case, what about the caste system and untouchability that constructed an un-universal inequality, oppression and human degradation?

Since this system was around before Islam arrived, how did Muslim clerics and scholars view it? We would have been able to understand their view if only they had written something about it during the last 1,400-odd years of Islam’s existence in India. Unless scholars express themselves, either by writing or by preaching, even rulers will not know what to do with the system. However, it is clear from known history that India’s Muslim rulers – including the greatest of all, Akbar – did not open schools for educating the Shudras/Dalits and Adivasis. Even in kingdoms like Hyderabad, where Muslim rulers held state power till 1948, there is no evidence that mass education was provided to the Shudras/Dalits/Adivasis until some social reformers demanded such education in the Urdu language for those communities. Even then, only a handful of Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis were taught basic reading and writing skills in Urdu and Persian in Hyderabad state.

Persian and Urdu education was spread more among the Dwija castes like Brahmin, Kayastha, Khatri, Bania and Ksatriya in the whole of India, who had a Sanskrit education background. Muslim rulers and scholars also maintained caste barriers. Why? Is it because the rulers and scholars came from upper caste conversion, or is it because Islam as a religion failed to understand the evolution of the caste system and refused to study its relationship with divine creation and work out a scientific ideology to abolish that system? 

In Brahminic history, caste and untouchability were practiced and written about as divinely ordained. The divine objects of the Shudra/Dalit/Adiavsis and the Dwijas differed in many aspects. But Muslims believed in one Allah. The question therefore is: what is the understanding of Muslim scholars about the relationship between Allah and caste system? Was it created by Allah as a positive and humanly necessary institution or was it created by humans?  

There is a definite understanding of the relationship between men and women in relation to Allah’s creations. There is also an understanding about slaves and masters and relations between races and Allah. At the time of Prophet Mohammad’s life, all those categories of human society were present in all countries. But caste and untouchability were not there in any other nation except in South Asia, more so in the Indian subcontinent. 

After Islam came to India, the only writer who discussed the caste question was Alberuni in the 11th century. Namit Arora writes,

“The four-fold varna system made a deep impression on Alberuni. He notes that members of each varna are forbidden to dine with members of other varnas. Below them are ‘people called Antyaja, who render various kinds of services’ and live outside the towns and villages of the four varnas. Then there are people called Hadi, Doma, Chandala and Badhatau, who ‘are not reckoned amongst any caste [and] are occupied with dirty work, like the cleansing of the villages and other services… In fact, they are considered illegitimate children; for according to general opinion they descend from a Shudra father and a Brahmin mother as the children of fornication; therefore, they are degraded outcasts’.” 

Alberuni also disagreed with the Brahmanical view of human purity and pollution, which is the key notion for sustenance of human untouchability in India. Purity and pollution had huge implications to production. Way back in the 11th century, he said that Islam does not accept such ideas of human purity and pollution. What happened to this understanding? Why did Muslim scholars fail to educate Muslim rulers on abolishing caste and untouchability through legal firmans? The abolition of caste would have been possible even without resorting to conversion. 

Many Muslim scholars are now saying that conversion did not kill caste practices within Indian Islamic society. What would have been a better way of abolishing caste practices? If such ideas were put on the record by Muslim scholars, Muslim kings may have agreed to make changes.

The fact is that Muslim scholars did not do any intellectual work to create anti-caste awareness among themselves and also among the Other – the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis. Instead, till the post-Mandal realisation that without reservation the Pasmandas too would not progress came about, they did not talk about the caste system at all.  

Unlike among the Shudra/OBC/Dalits, there was no focused spiritual denial of education for Muslim lower castes. Yet there is a caste distinction between the upper caste converts and the Shudra/Dalit converts. Where does the problem lie? In Hindu Brahminsm, there is a stated scriptural and practical forced denial of the right to education to the productive castes. The Shudra/Dalits did not fight because of divine fear, which was injected through the karma and punarjanma (rebirth cycles) theories. But what sustained caste in Indian Islam?

Among Indian Muslims, there were scores of English-educated intellectuals from the early days of the freedom struggle. Such modern English educated Shudra/Dalits were few and far between. Until Ambedkar emerged, nobody diagnosed the roots of caste from among them in a scientific manner. Muslim scholars claimed the presence of scientific enquiry in their intellectual history. The Brahminic intellectuals, whether modern English educated or classical Sanskrit or Persian educated, refused to study the roots of caste and work out abolitionist solutions because that would go against the ethics of Brahmanism.  

Among Muslims, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817–1898) promoted English education around the same time when Brahmins, Banias, Kayastas and Khatris started learning English and studying in England in the 19th century. Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal (both of whom were upper-caste converts) and many other Muslims were educated in English in England. Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia taught the Muslim youth in English medium from their early days. The Indian Muslim community had the intellectual resources to undertake studies on the caste system. Even after Ambedkar put the question of caste on the national map, not a single Muslim intellectual studied caste from the point of view their own religion and proposed a serious solution to the question. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was totally silent about it in his writings.

This historical background brings us to the question: who is at fault? How can the Shudra-OBCs/Dalits who had no educational resources like Muslim intellectuals find a solution to Muslim backwardness, poverty, unemployment and casteism among them? Even now, Muslim intellectuals do not engage themselves with the much bigger problem of caste and untouchability. Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi intellectuals need to raise these questions.                                        

Kanca Ilaiah Shepherd is political theorist, social activist and writer. His books include God As Political Philosopher: Buddha’s Challenge Brahminism, Why I am Not a Hindu and Buffalo Nationalism. 

https://m.thewire.in/article/caste/why-didnt-indias-muslim-rulers-and-thinkers-confront-the-inequities-of-the-caste-system

BY KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

DECEMBER 31, 2022

• Under the pretext of ‘saving the mother tongue,’ these NRIs are opposing English medium government schools — where Dalits and other marginalized groups get an education — even as they and their relatives in India provide their children with the best English education available. That’s hypocrisy.

“Kuvempu took the knowledge that English had to offer while also delivering a blistering critique of the language as a vehicle of colonialism. If it were not for English, he would have been condemned (as a Shudra) to clean vessels in a Brahmin’s house.”

— Rajendra Chenni, a chronicler of famous Karnataka Shudrawriter and thinker, Kuvempu (1904-1994). Deccan Herald, 12/29/2022

The Telugu Association of North America (TANA), Silicon Andhra, TANA World Literature Platform and Siddhartha Academy have jointly organized World Telugu Writers Conference in Vijayawada on 23 and 24 December. The theme of the conference was: “Let’s protect our mother tongue! Let’s build self-esteem.”

Obviously, the conference was organized mainly to oppose English medium education in government schools in Andhra Pradesh, which was decreed by Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy when he became the Chief Minister of the state in 2019. Before that, the poor Dalit/Tribal/Shudra and Other Backward Classes (OBC) children could only study in Telugu medium schools.

The chief minister, however, mandated English medium education in all government schools from the academic year 2019-20. Such a game-changing step in the school education system in India was resisted by many Telugu leaders including Chandrababu Naidu and Venkaiah Naidu. Several court cases and ideological battles had to be fought on this issue by the chief minister before he succeeded. Now his education model is influencing the whole country. Already the Telangana government which was earlier opposed had to come around and introduced English medium in all state government schools.

Andhra Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy with school teachers and children. Top photo, representative image, courtesy of the Deccan Chronicle.PIN IT

The AP state government was the first to introduce English medium school education from class 1 to class 10 on par with the private English medium schools where the children of the rich study. The AP model stabilized English medium but has kept Telugu as a subject compulsory both in government and private schools. This is a new innovative experiment to strengthen English among the poor youth and also protect their native language.

Quite strangely, TANA leaders who live in the ‘English world’ are opposing teaching in the English language in government schools in India. How can people who went away from this region, and educate their children and grandchildren in world-class government-run English medium schools in America, protect Telugu in Andhra Pradesh?

Several Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who support the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Delhi, like the American Hindu Foundation, campaign for “One Nation One Language (Hindi)” while living in the U.S. and educating their children in English which gives them access to the best of science and technology and humanities. That’s hypocrisy.

Neither TANA members nor other NRIs send their children back to India to get Telugu or Hindi medium education. Most of them invest their dollars in private English medium schools and universities in India, into which the subsistence farmers, laborers and artisans cannot even dream of getting admission.

Even though these NRIs want their relatives in India to get rich and have the best jobs that the private English education provides them, or enable them to emigrate to America or Europe, they are opposed to Dalits/tribals and OBCs studying in English.

Not a single NRI has established a quality Telugu or Hindi or any other so-called vernacular language school or college in India and educated the poor free of cost or with minimum cost. India for them is the motherland for making more dollars in education-business, that too, only in English medium. It’s not social service.

These organizations and their leaders follow a classical Indian deceptive design that the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasis should not be educated in a language that prepares them for good jobs in India or gives access to the international job markets.

In India, access to lucrative careers and professions is controlled by upper castes educated in private English medium schools. Even some of the World Bank and IMF officials of Indian origin, who mostly live in America or Europe, think that English medium education should not be given to the productive masses of India. They speciously cite the example of African countries that are getting Anglicized by leaving behind their traditional tribal cultures.

But these same officials do not follow their ancestral Brahminic culture by studying in Sanskrit and following their traditions. They have instead studied in private English medium schools, put their children in either American or British schools and enjoy Western lifestyles.

Some of them argue that poor quality schools in the government sector with untrained teachers do not suit English medium education in India. That is not true because every graduate in India studies English from grade six, hence every school teacher is proficient in English. Besides, somewhere the shift has to take place towards educational equality in language and content. The AP Government has been giving basic training to teach in English and supplied mirror-image books to students and teachers (every textbook has one side of the page in English and the opposite side in Telugu). These textbooks make the job of teacher and student easy to read in both languages. Bilingualism is protected with this method and augurs well for teaching. Despite all these efforts, why are the NRIs opposed to English medium education in government schools and joining hands with anti-poor forces in India in the name of love for the mother tongue?

It is absurd that those children whose parents speak and work in English in the U.S. pretend that Telugu remains their mother tongue and they want to protect it from the danger of poor people in India learning English! Even though these NRIs want their relatives in India to get rich and have the best jobs that the private English education provides them, or enable them to emigrate to America or Europe, they are opposed to Dalits/tribals and OBCs studying in English. Could it be that they do not want the poor to compete with their upper-caste relatives?

That is the problem. For these NRIs, the American standards of equality are not for India. The class herd and caste mentality are deeply ingrained into their psyche. They don’t understand that language and culture are not the same. And that culture changes constantly. Many unused languages die and new languages emerge. What is important is human well-being, equality and modernization of societies.

The groups that went in search of a good life in foreign lands with the help of English and visit India once in a while to teach morals to those who are living there, is immoral. This emigre immorality does not serve the national interest of India.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is an Indian author, activist and columnist. He is a retired professor of Political Science at Osmania University in Hyderabad. His well-known books include, “Why I am Not a Hindu,” “Post-Hindu India,” and “God As Political Philosopher.” He has written extensively about the relationship between Spiritual Democracy and Political Democracy. His book “Buffalo Nationalism” is a critique of cow worship and cow nationalism of the Hindutva forces. He believes that the dignity of labor must be integrative of spiritual philosophy to abolish caste and race inequalities. He has been campaigning for English medium education in government schools for the last three decades.

https://americankahani.com/perspectives/why-some-telugu-groups-in-america-are-opposed-to-providing-english-education-to-the-poor-in-andhra/

Communist leaders preach and practise exactly what the Sangh Parivar leaders do — English medium for the netas and regional language education for the masses

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

6:30 AM, 27 December, 2022

State governments should take steps to shift all government schools to English medium. Image: iStock

Rahul Gandhi’s stand on English medium education for all children on the basis of language and knowledge equality is a challenge not only to the RSS-BJP ruling class, but also to the Communist dual stand on the school education system. On the question of English-medium education for all classes, Communist leaders preached and practised exactly what the RSS-BJP leaders did — English medium for the leaders and regional language education for the masses.

Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Alwar as a part of the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul said: “BJP leaders don’t want English to be taught in schools. But the children of all their leaders go to English-medium schools. Actually, they don’t want the children of poor farmers and labourers to learn English, dream big and get out of the fields.” 

He also said that all the RSS-BJP leaders, including Amit Shah, who is spearheading the movement for anti-English and pro-Hindi school college and university education in the government sector, send their own children to high-class private English-medium schools, colleges and universities. The RSS-BJP leaders’ nation is not ‘one’ when it comes to the life of their own children and the children of the productive masses, he added.

The CPI, CPM and other small Maoist/Naxalite group leaders have never taken a stand on the potential social, political and cultural revolutionary agent, English-medium education for all. At least, not like Rahul Gandhi took during his Bharat Jodo Yatra. They know very well that education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and the state governments have full powers to implement equal language and content education for all — the working class and the bourgeoisie.  

Dual education system

The Communist leaders of India mostly are petty-bourgeoisie and upper caste. They too educate their own children in the best English-medium schools available in their respective states and also in national institutions, and leave the children of the food-producing parents to regional languages with sub-standard syllabi. 

But even in states like West Bengal and Kerala, where they were/are in power for a long time, they have followed a dual education system of private English and public Bengali/Malayalam. Their central committees and Politburos have never seriously discussed the role of English-medium education in India. After over 200 years of its existence, how can English still be called colonial? 

The Left leaders know that all the major institutions of India conduct their business in English and if the rural people do not learn that language, they will be slaves in democratic India, too.

In fact, for a long time, they propagated the same kind of mother tongue chauvinist ideology like the RSS-BJP. The believers in Communist internationalism and in the theory of ‘Workers of the World Unite’ closed a channel of international communication for the working class of India by asking them to educate themselves in regional languages. 

In what language should the working class of the world speak to each other if not in English?

English not a foreign language

Unlike the RSS-BJP leaders who read only Indian works like the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Manu Dharma in Sanskrit or in regional languages, the Communist leaders read the writings of Marx, Lenin, Mao and, of course, some Indian books, in English. But they never realised that English as an international language must also reach the children of the working class. 

After 75 years of Independence and about 100 years of existence of the Communist ideology in India, English still remains a foreign language for the working class but it remains the ‘home language’ of the top national level Communist leaders.                         

The idea that ‘English is a colonial language’ has become a tool in the hands of all political leaders to keep the working mass as modern blind followers without acquiring the ability to question them. In the RSS-BJP, at least many top leaders like Mohan Bhagwat, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah cannot speak and write good English. The situation among the Communist leaders is different. In their committee meetings, they use only English.

Rahul Gandhi comes from a family of three generations of prime ministers and the longest-serving Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi. But, unlike other leaders, he realised in the padayatra the difference between South and North, between English-medium educated youth and regional language-educated youth. He saw the difference in their dreams. He knows the opportunities in an advanced capitalist globalised and liberalised world for English-educated youth. 

That is the reason why, to counter the Modi-Shah “One Language (Hindi) One Nation” theory, he said that with Hindi they cannot dream big, cannot get out of farm labour, cannot engage with America, Europe and so on. Is it not true? 

Tool for communication

How can Communists not understand the basic truth that without English they cannot also speak to China, Russia and the whole of Africa, which was also liberated from colonialism much later than us?  What is the national language of South Africa today? Is it not English? How can a Communist’s dialectical thinking miss out this fact?

It is for MK Stalin as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and Pinarayi Vijayan, as the Chief Minister of Kerala, to take a call and introduce the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana model of English medium in government schools with one language (Tamil/Malayalam).

If the Congress comes to power in Karnataka in the next election, that government will have to follow the advice of Rahul Gandhi. Then the whole South would have shifted to English-medium education in government schools. 

The Tamil Dalits are more sentimental about their Tamil nationalism.  The Tamil Brahmins and Chettiars shifted to complete English-medium education a long time back. Gita Ramasway, in her memoir Land, Guns, Caste, Women, tells how the most conservative Brahmin families sent their girl children to Catholic Christian schools. She also tells how the children and the parents went through the trauma of confronting the cultural clash between primitive Brahmin family culture and liberating English-medium school culture. 

Path to success

English-medium education has made most conservative Brahmins global citizens and rulers now. Kamala Harris and Rishi Sunak are outstanding examples of that transformation. All other castes would have produced such global rulers if they too were given English-medium education.       

The Brahmin migrants to America are realising their American dream. US Vice-President Kamala Harris, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and former Coca-Cola CEO Indra Nooyi are known big Tamil Brahmin names that got everything in the world with English language education. 

The Dalits of Tamil Nadu and Kerala should not live in a fool’s paradise for long. The government schools currently teach only one subject in English from classes 1 to 10 in both the states. That is not going to help in the future. It should be English-medium school education for all with one subject in regional language.  

The regional political leaders are afraid of hypocritical intellectuals and media network owners, who educate their own children in English medium private schools and preach about Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada sub-nationalist pride. Such an intellectual class must be opposed with all the strength at the command of Dalit/Adivasi organic intellectuals, and English education should be pushed into their families and communities. That is the only way out of their historical enslavement.

(Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist and author. He has been campaigning for English medium education in all government schools of India for the past 30 years.)

https://thefederal.com/opinion/not-just-bjp-left-has-also-kept-masses-away-from-english-education/

From Nehru to Amit Shah, Indian leaders have been hypocrites toward English medium education. Congress must encourage all to adopt English as the national language.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

23 December, 2022 11:14 am IST

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Delhi government school student defines happiness in a class | Wikimedia Commons

Addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Alwar as a part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi said, “BJP leaders don’t want English to be taught in schools. But their children go to English medium schools. Actually, they don’t want children of poor farmers and labourers to learn English, dream big, and get out of the fields.” Having traversed through South India, where Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy introduced English medium education in government schools in 2019 and Telangana followed suit, Rahul is now in the North to speak about it.

For the first time, a national leader has taken a clear stand against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah’s push for Hindi in educational institutions — from schools to universities. The push is a part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) ‘One Nation, One Language’ agenda, which leaves English medium education to private institutions. Colleges such as Mumbai’s Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Haryana’s Ashoka University, or Noida’s Amity University would be available for the rich, but the agrarian and artisan communities living in India’s villages would be forced to learn local languages and have no global exposure.

Rahul Gandhi’s call for providing English medium education to India’s poor will generate a national debate on language politics and equality of education for all. Saying that this was the ‘Congress’ policy’, he has surprised the top RSS-BJP and Communist leaders. In whichever states the BJP has come to power, it has refrained from providing equal, English medium education for all. The Communists did not do that in West Bengal and aren’t doing it in Kerala either. The RSS and BJP are now trying to turn all government schools and colleges, including medicine and engineering in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, into Hindi medium institutions. The move has a clear direction at its core — ‘Hindi for the poor’.

75-year-old hypocrisy 

Rahul Gandhi is all set to change the private English medium and public regional language education policy adopted during Nehruvian days. As the first Prime Minister of newly independent, communal India, Nehru was very much confused over the ‘English vs Hindi’ as the national language debate.

Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar was all for English medium education in government institutions, but that resolution was defeated in Parliament by one vote — of the first Indian President Rajendra Prasad.  But, at the same time, the children and grandchildren of all the big leaders — M.K. Gandhi, Nehru, Prasad — studied in private English medium schools. The same trend was later adopted by the RSS, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, BJP, and Communist leaders. This hypocrisy kept the children of the productive masses in modern slavish conditions with poor regional language education. It was only challenged by Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2019.

Regional leaders must step forward

Now, with Rahul Gandhi taking a pro-English position alongside party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress will have to direct all its state units to work out modalities to put a new education policy in the party manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

The regional parties of the Hindi belt have to seriously think about the future of the Shudra, Dalit, and Adivasi children getting Hindi medium education. Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh and Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar have to come up with their education policy, particularly on English language instruction in government schools. Many of these regional leaders are Hindi chauvinists; their children were sent to private English medium schools. They do not spend an adequate amount of the state budget on quality English medium schools and colleges. They all prefer to keep children in rural areas either illiterate or poorly educated in regional languages. To say the least, it is an anti-constitutional education system as it keeps the poor educated in regional languages that offer little use in real life. Constitutional equality, essentially, must provide equal opportunities in the domain of education and knowledge.

Apart from political parties, there are a number of non-governmental organisations in India that practise the same hypocrisy — educating their children in private English medium schools, but remaining silent on the push toward regional language education. Unless all sections of political and civil society assert that all children, irrespective of class, caste, or region, should have the right to English language education along with a second regional language, India cannot achieve equality. Unless all people speak one language, they will not be able to communicate with people from other regions. They will not be able to speak to the world either.

Abolish the language divide

Reaching out for opportunities is every child’s right. English language education should not create a new Indian class system where the rich have access to knowledge structures and the poor remain at the margins. All these years, the Indian education system has created a class system built on language politics. Now it must be done away with. Communist leaders who organised people to abolish the class system should take up this issue instead of being silent on educational equality all these years.

And RSS-BJP leaders cannot counter Rahul Gandhi when he talked about their own children getting private education in English.

Rahul, with his unshaven face and arm-in-arm with children on his padayatra, looks less a saint than just another of India’s poor reconnecting with the country’s ground realities. He is now prepared to spread equality in education, build peace and integrate life in a modern democratic nation. A common language to communicate with each other without any inferiority complex is the first requirement. One hopes that Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra encourages India to adopt English as its national language and make it accessible to every child in the future.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist, and writer. He has been campaigning for English medium education in rural and urban government schools of India since the last thirty years. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

https://theprint.in/opinion/indian-education-wedged-a-huge-hindi-vs-english-class-system-only-rahul-gandhi-can-break-it/1278345/