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No national political party – be it the BJP or the Congress – could support English medium education in government schools because of the regional language bias they themselves constructed.

FB/CMOVOICES OPINION FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2022 – 13:17Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

The cabinet decision of the Telangana TRS government to introduce English medium in all the government schools from 2022-23 academic year is a masterstroke to stop the expansion of the BJP in the state. English medium education along with Amma Vodi programme (a flagship scheme whereby every mother or a recognised guardian in the absence of the mother is entitled to financial assistance for her child/children’s education from class 1 to class 12) in the neighboring Andhra Pradesh has become so popular among the rural and urban poor that the demand for the same in Telangana has become quite strong. The programme might even set the wheels turning for a third-time victory for Telangana CM KCR, just as the Rythubandhu (a scheme whereby the government provided aid during the Kharif season to farmers, to take care of their investment needs), helped him in the 2018 elections. 

No national political party – be it the BJP or the Congress – could support English medium education in government schools because of the regional language bias they themselves constructed over a period of 70 years all over the country. I had a discussion about the possibility of English medium education in Karnataka’s government schools with the then chief minister Siddaramaiah (2013-2018). He told me the Kannada intellectuals would oppose this move. Even CPI(M)’s dynamic Chief Minister in Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, also told me that the Kerala intellectual class would oppose such a move in the state. But let us not forget that all such intellectuals educated their own children in private English medium schools.

The BJP for instance, whether at the state or national level, opposes introducing English medium education in government schools, but at the same time, gives a free run to the private sector to have entirely English medium schools for the rich. After the BJP came to power in 2014, on one hand, there was massive privatisation of school and university education, and on the other, the party stressed on regional language medium education in government schools. In all the states where it is in power, government school education remains in a poor condition. Meanwhile, the industrialists and feudal rich who support the BJP financially and in vote mobilization have started private English medium institutions all over the country to make easy money.

In no state can the local unit of the BJP promise English medium education in all government schools. Its aggressive agendas are around religion and communalism. But the people in the villages find no use of such agendas beyond a point. People need education that equalizes the rich and poor. English medium education with good infrastructure in government schools that can compete with the best of the private schools is only the way forward for the Indian poor.

Good infrastructure does not mean air-conditioned classrooms, but basic facilities where there are good classrooms with seating arrangement that allow children to sit through the day comfortably. By good infrastructure, we mean clean water and toilet facilities. More than anything, we need teachers who can teach with commitment and necessary knowledge from not just textbooks but also the surroundings, state, nation, and the world with conscious learning habits. Supply of books and other learning teaching material is also crucial.

For the last 73 years, the education system has contributed to making the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer. English medium education for the rich and regional language instruction for the poor along with sub-standard facilities has forced the children from villages to suffer in every sphere of life. Till the YS Jaganmohan Reddy government took a bold step of transforming the school education system, no chief minister ventured such a step. The Telangana government told the people in 2014 that there will be free education from KG to PG, and KCR did not dare to initiate a complete shift of the medium of education for the last seven years. Though the government has initiated improving the residential schools and making them English medium, the vast village level school education both in quality and quantity remained very underdeveloped, that too, with Telugu medium teaching.

It has reached a point where the Telangana education system has become significantly weak and most graduates and postgraduates are not competent enough to get relevant jobs in the national and international markets. School and inter-education across the state have been sending ill-equipped students to higher education. The educational standards of Telangana have become as good as any BJP-ruled states’ educational standards. The quality of English communication and writing of the school and university teachers has become dismally poor. This situation requires systemic and massive change in the school education system.

Shifting all the government schools to English medium with a focus on improving the basic infrastructure is the first step. It is good that the government has initiated that. But there is much more to do. The general perception about teaching in the state seems to be that it is “easy” – a downfall of the prestige and seriousness that the teaching profession had during the Telangana agitation days. To overturn this declining quality, training school teachers both in language and content is one aspect, and disciplining the whole teaching community to be in the school, college and university around the academic work is another. The government has to send a strong message that work discipline cannot be compromised by any means while respecting their democratic rights.null

The BJP, at national level, has no seriousness on quality education. The National Education Policy in itself does not bring radical changes in the education system. Its main discourse and ideology is around religion and marginalizing minorities. The previous Congress governments also did not make the education system world class with focus on the rural school system. Neither party took India toward universal and quality education like the Chinese did.

Hence the regional parties have to show the way. The Andhra Pradesh Government began that new way and the Telangana government is moving in the same direction. By initiating this system educational reform agenda, KCR is likely to win the election for the third time in 2023.

(Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is political theorist, social activist and author. He has been fighting for the introduction of the English medium in the government schools for three decades.)

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/opinion-english-govt-schools-masterstroke-trs-check-bjp-160101

Until this point, the Congress has not allowed many leaders with mass appeal to emerge from within party ranks in the states. However, this needs to change for the sake of the party’s future.19 hours ago | Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi along with Deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and PPCC President Navjot Singh Sidhu pay tribute at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. Photo: PTIADVERTISEMENT

The Congress has been in a deep crisis ever since it lost power in 2014 and one of the main reasons for this crisis is that the party has not had a single young leader to fight the BJP at the state level, wherever it was in power. This situation has been created by the Congress high command in New Delhi sending its own nominees to challenge its opponents in different parts of the country, overlooking the many talented young leaders who emerged from within party ranks and prompting them to leave for greener pastures.

Leader after leader was thrown out while they were still young, even as they began to garner mass appeal within their respective electorates. Some of them have even gone on to form their own regional parties; Mamata Banerjee and Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy being the best examples of the same. Yet the party’s Delhi high command still mostly works on the guidance of non-vote pullers.   

The Nehru/Gandhi family, which formed the party’s national-level core, has not produced a single leader with ground-level experience since Indira Gandhi. Rajiv, Sanjay, Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka, though all backed by lineage and familial ties, never acquired the ground-level political, social or ideological experience required to take on and defeat the dangerous yet experienced foes from the RSS/BJP.

Congress leaders following Indira Gandhi were raised in a sanitised, closely-guarded and protected environment without ever being exposed to the knowledge and experiences from the village, field and town levels while they were still young. At the same time, a bunch of foreign-educated Dwija (Brahmin, Bania, Kayastha, Khatri and Kshatriya) intellectuals entered the party, under whose guidance the power structure in Delhi still remains.More in Politics :

These intellectuals enter the driving seat through the Rajya Sabha and depend on their proximity to the Gandhi family to gain votes and seats before eventually heading ministries and ruling thusly. Even today, the Congress’s Delhi high command consists of these leaders.

As these leaders continue to cook up theories of the dangers posed by serious, ground-level contenders, the party lacks vote-pulling leaders in many Indian states.

Ground level leaders mostly come from the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi communities. For example, Y.S.Rajasekahar Reddy and Vilasrao Deshmukh emerged as mass leaders from an agrarian background. But the Congress never allowed these strong state-level leaders to play a critical role in Delhi and they were kept from emerging as national-level leaders.

Nowadays, well-educated leaders from agrarian backgrounds are emerging in various states; Akhilesh Yadav in UP and Tejaswi Yadav in Bihar are fighting the BJP with tact. If the Congress was to allow such leaders to emerge from within its own ranks, the long-standing issue of politics centred around one family could perhaps, finally be overcome.

But the coterie around the party’s high command mostly sustains itself by constructing conspiracy theories rather than making any real changes. This has created the severe problem which the Congress faces today. The BJP is now definitively the most powerful national party and the Congress’s dominion has been reduced to only a handful of pockets scattered around the country.

From the Adivasi background, P.A. Sangma did emerge from the Congress but from the Dalit background, no leader from any state has emerged so far. That is until the introduction of Charanjit Singh Channi.

For the situation in which the Congress currently finds itself, Channi, a young Dalit leader recently elevated to the post of chief minister of Punjab, perhaps shows a way out.

Channi, who has been educated in Punjab’s finest universities; has a degree in law, an MBA and is currently pursuing a Ph.D, succeeded a feudal raja in Amarinder Singh and edged out an arrogant cricket player in Navjot Singh Siddhu to win the post. By selecting Channi, Rahul Gandhi took a recognised risk, but the new Punjab chief minister is proving himself to be not just a capable leader but a shrewd politician as well; one who could handle Prime Minister Modi’s pre-election tricks in that state.null

Punjab police personnel on the flyover in Ferozpur where Prime Minister Modi’s convoy was stuck on January 5. Photo: PTI.

The Modi government had tried to seriously politicise the January 5 security issue in Punjab, directly attacking Channi by reportedly telling state government officials, “Apne CM ko thanks kehna, ki mein Bhatinda airport tak zinda laut paaya (Convey my thanks to your CM for my being able to reach Bhatinda airport alive)” when he was departing for Delhi.

This remark was heavily political, intended, no doubt, to malign the young Dalit chief minister and bring his political career to an end. But Channi handled the charged atmosphere well, saying, “I express regret that Prime Minister Modi had to return during his visit to Ferozepur district today. We respect our PM.” He also said he couldn’t personally receive the Prime Minister as one of his companions had tested positive for COVID.

Channi proved that a Dalit could handle the prime minister unlike anyone else so far.

Even then, the Modi administration were after Channi, driving the discourse towards the dismissal of his government. But Channi came out stronger, raising the question of ‘Punjabiyat‘ (the self respect and identity of Punjabis) and defending the long-standing, peaceful protests from his state’s farmers.

The BJP’s top brass were projecting the incident as if Modi had escaped a major threat to his life, even though no such signals had come from the Prime Minister’s security personnel who were with him on the day. Channi silenced all overzealous ‘life threat’ propaganda with a single quote from Sardar Patel, tweeting: “One who cares for his life more than duty, he should not take big responsibilities in a country like India.”

This quote took the steam out of the BJP’s campaign to malign Channi. While it is true that the Prime Minister was stopped from reaching his destination that day, there was no violence or attack on his life.

Channi further said,  “… the life threat gimmick was aimed at toppling a democratically elected government,” further adding, “…there were no slogans against him, no stone throwing or no firing or anything, why such ‘cheap theatrics’?”

Channi’s handling of a problem of this magnitude demonstrated courage on the part of the young leader, that too when his party’s Delhi leadership was asking him not to make any statements since the Prime Minister’s security was in question. All the while, the party’s Punjab chief was not cooperating with him either.

Now that the security risk issue is being investigated by a committee constituted by the Supreme Court, Channi’s stature in Punjab and in the country as a whole has gone up significantly. The Congress party must understand that such young, educated, able leaders from Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis backgrounds should be promoted in every state so that any one of them could become the Prime Minister of the country in the future.

Leaders with good modern educations, records of ground-level party work and administrative experience should be allowed to emerge. The Congress’s aforementioned elite Delhi leaders, whatever their education and community background may be, will not be able win elections. Channi’s selection as chief minister of Punjab certainly shows that the party is moving in a new direction.  

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His well known books are God As Political Philosopher: Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism, Buffalo Nationalism: A critique of Spiritual Fascism and The Weapon of the Other.

https://m.thewire.in/article/politics/the-congress-is-heading-in-the-right-direction-by-highlighting-a-dalit-leader

Many Shudra, OBC, Dalit, and Adivasi people have seen through the false RSS-BJP claims to unite Hindus. Leaders like SP’s Akhilesh Yadav need to convert this dissent into votes.

kancha Ilaiah Shepherd11 Jan 2022

The Assembly election schedule of five states is out now. It is a known fact that the result of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election will provide the direction of the 2024 parliamentary polls. After his loss of face with the farmers, the Uttar Pradesh and Punjab elections will be a significant challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The farmers successfully agitated against the three draconian farm laws, and the Modi government faced moral and political defeat with their unconditional withdrawal.

In the future, the historical fight of farmers and peasants that lasted about 14 months, and the death of around 750 farmers during their agitation, can potentially write off any positive things—if any—done during the Modi rule. Recently, Meghalaya Governor Satyapal Malik, a Jat from western Uttar Pradesh, signalled a significant crack in Modi’s authority after seven years in power.

The election to the electorally important province of Uttar Pradesh is being projected as one between Modi and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. Suppose the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Modi loses the election; in that case, a young but experienced and skilful leader will emerge on the national scene, and India will progress in a new direction after that.

The food-producing forces, historically known as the Shudras in the Varna system, are now feeling rebellious against Modi. They have realised that his 2014 slogan, ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas—With Everybody, Development for All,’ is no longer trustworthy. They proved during the farm agitation that the RSS or Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the progenitor of the BJP, is against the interests of the food producers. Their movement demonstrated that the RSS and BJP repeatedly insist that the food producers fall under an umbrella Hindu identity, while they actually represent forces that work against the interests of farmers.

The farmers’ fight against the RSS-BJP government has firmly shown that the idea of majoritarianism propounded by these outfits and propagated by several writers and mainstream media outlets is meaningless. Remember that it is primarily Shudra or Other Backward Classes (OBC) food producers of India who forced Modi to withdraw the farm laws.

Indian farmers have demonstrated to the world that the RSS and BJP rulers favour two or three monopolistic business houses, which emerged from the Gujarati Bania community from where Modi and his second-in-command, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, also come. They showed that the top RSS leaders Mohan Bhagwat and Dattatreya Hosabale come from the Brahminical priestly class and that their organisations still represents those Brahmanical interests. This realisation among the conscious forces of the Shudra, OBC, Dalit, and Adivasi peoples holds great significance for future political developments. It is a realisation that has to sink into the voting consciousness too. These sections should overcome the money power, state power and muscle power that the RSS-BJP rulers are letting loose against every Opposition party—particularly against the Samajwadi ranks now.

The RSS/BJP forces are dead scared of the rise of a skilful young Shudra leader like Akhilesh Yadav from Uttar Pradesh. They have tried to inject sentimentalism into voters with the Ram temple and ‘Ram Rajya’ issues. But Akhilesh skilfully started invoking Sri Krishna, who is likely to be more acceptable to the Shudra-OBCs. The present situation is different from the pre-Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court. The anti-Muslim steam has been taken out of the Ayodhya temple issue now. The most serious problem is the livelihood of masses, particularly the farmers who do not believe in the RSS-BJP’s “Ham Sab Hindu Hain—We are all Hindus’ slogan any longer. The RSS/BJP leaders saw the dying farmers protesting on the borders of Delhi as their worst enemies, even worse than their earlier so-called Muslim enemies. They have shown how their idea of ‘Ram Rajya’ works against the food producers of India with its Sanathan Varna Dharma mindset.

Earlier, the Shudra-OBCs did not realise that going against the interests of labourers, tillers, and artisans was the core ideology of the RSS. But the farm laws made them understand their ultimate direction. Akhilesh Yadav’s slogan that ‘Krishna Rajya’ is Samajwadi (Socialist) rajya is likely to galvanise Shudra/OBCs with much stronger emotions than Ram Rajya. There is no doubt that mythological narratives invoke sentiments among the masses, and such feelings have been used for political purposes from the freedom movement onwards. As Bheenaveni Ram Shepherd wrote, “Krishna never worked as a follower of Brahmin gurus, he declared himself God of Gods and showed his Viswarupam to put Brahmins gurus in their place in the Mahabharatam story”. So we can understand why the RSS did not promote the image of Krishna because of his Gopalaka assertion and remaining above Brahmins. If only the Shudra-OBCs realised the autonomous spiritual agency of Sri Krishna, they would flock around him and go with the new Krishna Rajya slogan of Akhilesh Yadav.

Suppose Yadav deploys the symbol of a flute-bearing Sri Krishna, known as Gopalaka or cattle herder. In that case, people are more likely to believe his ‘Krishna Rajya’ idea than the BJP’s ‘Rama Rajya’ idea, which enacted the farm laws against cattle herders and food producers.

The seven years of BJP rule at the Centre has shown people a taste of ‘Rama Rajya’, which systematically goes against the interests of the rural poor, farmers, and students. They have been transferring public wealth to big business houses and start-ups owned by non-food producers. The present government has not promoted a single Shudra, OBC, Dalit or Adivasi into a big-business network. Their design is to rob the wealth creators and make the robbers the owners of wealth.

To support the very unpopular Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath, the Modi government is deploying all its central machinery from the CBI and Income Tax officials to police to raid the houses of Samajwadi Party supporters. So far, we have never heard that Modi and Shah went after Jain business forces, as mostly they are BJP supporters. But in Uttar Pradesh, they attacked a Jain business family head who supports Akhilesh Yadav. By mistake, they also ended up raiding their own supporter, who, it turned out, had a lot of cash in his house. They do not know how to return his money now! The attempt is that there should not be any opposition to the BJP-RSS in any state, and they muster up a financial backup to win elections.

How can the world trust that such a party or organisation believes in democracy? They are displaying, day after day, that democracy as a system as instituted in India with a detailed Constitution, is not acceptable to them. They are trying to compete with Pakistan in theory and practice! Hence, democracy remained undefinable there. The RSS-BJP want the Indian democracy also to become undefinable. In other words, they want to conveniently use all rules of democratic elections to their sole advantage. However, that will subvert the entire social and political system. What message does the democratic world get when the government ruling over the country from Delhi raids the homes and offices of Opposition-party leaders and activists just before a crucial election? This method has to be fought by all Opposition parties, collectively and on a national scale.

The author is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book is The Shudras—Vision For a New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy. The views are personal.

https://www.newsclick.in/uttar-pradesh-polls-encouraging-new-signals

As Modi’s OBC background grew more and more in public discourse, Mohan Bhagwat started spelling out his anti-reservation, anti-minority agendas.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD4 January, 2022 09:02 am IST

Representational image | PM Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat | ANIText Size: A- A+

The Haridwar ‘Dharam Sansad’ organised by Yati Narsinghanand and others poses a serious threat to the social harmony of India. It is highly unlikely that such a conclave would take place without the Uttarakhand government’s permission. The question is: Was it organised without the approval or knowledge of at least a section of the top Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders? The open call to kill Muslims by speakers is not just an  issue of the minority community’s survival. Repeated invoking of Nathuram Godse’s name and making former prime minister Manmohan Singh a ‘target’ shows the brazenness with which they issued a threat to Narendra Modi’s authority.

The organisers know that they cannot wipe out Islam from this land as Indian Muslims are not isolated. The Islamic world is too big to be handled by such forces, even with the RSS/Bharatiya Janata Party’s power and command. The ‘sadhu samaj’ is getting more and more involved in national issues but in terms of caste ideology they are Brahminical. So far, not many Shudras, who accept that they are part of Hinduism, have become sadhus. Historically, they were not allowed to be.https://c2366de3c7d3d01b7f7b056e5d854afb.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Narendra Modi is a self-proclaimed Other Backward Class (OBC) prime minister, and in his second term after the 2019 Lok Sabha election, things seem to have gone out of his hands. The RSS has started executing its agendas through his government. His image as a ‘strong PM’ seems to have worked only during the first term. In the second term, his attempts to reassert that image in certain spheres is facing resistance, with a counter activity launched by his detractors within the Sangh.

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RSS’ exclusion of Shudra/OBC

The RSS agenda consists of many Muslim-related issues that were kept completely out in Modi’s first five years. He was seen as a man in full command of the central government machinery, despite being new to Delhi.

The 2019 election, unlike the 2014, was fought by the BJP with an anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim rhetoric. With the new government in place, Amit Shah put out a future roadmap. They went one after the other — abrogation of Article 370, triple talaq law, Citizenship (Amendment) Act, and marginalising Muslim presence in all the State institutions. Some of these issues had the support of a section of the Shudra/OBCs because they thought that it might benefit them.

However, the RSS has not evolved any agenda related to Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi forces except repeatedly defining them as ‘Hindu’. No Shudra/OBC was allowed to emerge as theoretician even in the Sangh system. Most social and political agendas related to Shudra/OBCs were evolved outside the Sangh system — be it reservations, share in political power, or education. There is not a single issue that pertains to Shudra/OBCs that the RSS broached when the Congress and other parties were in power and fought to achieve it at the national or state level. 

This has been a challenge for the RSS throughout its history. The Shudra/OBCs are mainly farmers and tasted their first attack through the enactment of the farm laws. For such a large Sangh network to not anticipate farmers’ backlash is unthinkable. They wanted to bulldoze them. But it did not work.https://c2366de3c7d3d01b7f7b056e5d854afb.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

If Modi hadn’t said he is for ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ as Prime Minister, I don’t think the Shudra/OBCs would have ever believed him. If we carefully examine the language of RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, he never said that he or his organisation would implement or work towards achieving the idea ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. In fact, throughout the 2014 election campaign, Bhagwat remained totally silent  and also invisible. It appeared as if there was no RSS in that election scene.

As Modi’s OBC background grew more and more in public discourse, Bhagwat started appearing on the national scene, speaking on various forums by spelling out his anti-reservation, anti-minority agendas. His call for a debate  on reservation and attack on Mother Teresa institutions are cases in point. The strategy in the 2014 election appeared to be — ‘let Modi promise anything he wants and get votes and power’. During Modi’s second term, a section of the top RSS leadership sprung into action. 

Now it appears that even the most powerful Modi government team has no control over the system. The recent developments clearly show where things are headed: To boost his international image, particularly in the Western Christian world, Modi met the Pope and invited him to India. Many in the RSS leadership obviously disliked that because they were opposing the Pope’s Christian agenda for India. However, just before Christmas, attacks on churches in different parts of India started. It is important to note that most of the instigators come from ‘upper’ castes. On 16 December, at the Hindu Mahakumbh in Chitrakoot, Mohan Bhagwat gave a call for ‘Ghar Wapsi’ (homecoming) of Christians back into Hindu fold.

While the whole country was worried about such attacks, the Ministry of Home Affairs rejected the FCRA renewal application to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, quite shockingly on Christmas Day itself. This can be seen in the light of what Mohan Bhagwat said about the saint’s work a few years back: “There was a motive behind the service that Mother Teresa provided to the poor — to convert them to Christianity”.

Modi has never spoken about Christianity in that tone. The Western democracies, by and large, are Christian. Modi must have thought of repairing his image by inviting the Pope. But the Sangh network at the ground level has shown its opposition. Now, nobody believes in his slogan: ‘SabkaSaath, Sabka Vikas’.

Haridwar offenders haven’t been booked yet. Modi himself remains silent on all these planned offences. His silence is a major setback for his government, especially in the aftermath of the farmers’ agitation. All this is not an accident. Something certainly seems to be brewing within the Sangh, while the nation continues to suffer on all fronts.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His most known books are Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Shudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy, and Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution. Views are personal.

(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)

https://theprint.in/opinion/haridwar-dharam-sansad-shows-modi-is-facing-an-internal-threat-from-sangh-parivar/794505/

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD | 28 DECEMBER, 2021

The Delhi Declaration

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 On December 21 2021 a major National Shudra/OBC conclave took place in Delhi Talkatora stadium with hundreds of activists, intellectuals and political leaders across parties, different universities and civil societal organizations. They brought out the first ever Shudra/OBC declaration, which has a historical significance for the nation .

After the historic farmers struggle, which essentially was a Shudra/OBC fight against the privatization of Indian agrarian markets, this marked the emergence of another major Shudra/OBC movement for caste census and against the privatisation of employment. Those representing the ruling castes and class conspire even now to weaken the Shudra/OBC forces and make them slaves as they were in ancient India. This is clear also from the unending speeches and writing of the Hindutva religious unproductive forces in every sphere of national life. They have deployed negative preachers in all spheres of Indian life.

The organizing committee of the conclave was headed by Mandal hero, Sharad Yadav, while Chhagan Bhujbal( Nationalist Congress Party Cabinet Minister, Maharashtra), Tejashwi Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal president), Kanimozhi Karunanidhi (MP, DMK) Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd (Editor, The Shudras–Vision for a New Path) and Sunil Sardar (President, Satya Shodhak Samaj) were members. The conclave was organized by Samruddha Bharat Foundation, Delhi and Mahatma Phule Samata Parishad, Maharashtra.

Several scholars, political leaders and activists spoke and discussed the Delhi Declaration at length and also worked out a future programme in different states in coming months. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who led several post-Mandal battles in the country, spoke on screen and made it very clear that caste census is the only way forward for achieving social justice. His party will take up the matter in every possible way.

D.Raja (CPI General Secretary) Chhhagan Bhujbal, TKS Elangovan (MP DMK) Madhu Yaski Goud ( Former MP Congress) Ajay Yadav (Former Haryana Minister, Congress) and many other leaders of different parties, intellectuals spoke and set out a political and intellectual agenda for organizing the Shudra/OBC forces across the country to achieve the set goals in the declaration. Well known writer Arundhati Roy sent a powerful message that caste census is a common cause of every socially responsible intellectual of India.

The battle for caste census and protection of state properties will become a life and death struggle of the food producers and artisans.

The movement has and will take its inspiration from the farmers who have fought a life and death battle for more than 13 months. 750 farmers laid their life at the altar of the Hindutva and monopoly exploiters. The Shudra/OBCs, who voted for Modi and the RSS, believing that they would treat them as children of Bharata Mata, have shown their anti-farmer and anti-OBC colors within just seven years of their rule.

The Delhi declaration promised the nation that the fight for social justice did not end with the Mandal movement in the 1990s, but is an ongoing battle.

It is time that in every state the Shudras who are within the Mandal reservation and those castes that are now seeking reservation–like Maratha, Jat, Patel, Kapu and so on–must pull all the resources to fight the present dangers and challenges. Even castes like Reddys, Kammas, Velamas (of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) , Nairs of Kerala, Mahishyas of Bengal thought that under a BJP government the agrarian economies will prosper and corruption will come down. But instead lakhs of crores are shifted into monopoly houses by writing off loans. Now they are thinking of privatizing all state owned banks, railways, Airways.

The Shudra/OBCs/Dalits/Adivasis are not going to get any jobs in the privatized institutions. Their children will be pushed into a wealthless agrarian sector. Hunger will increase. They do not want the poor to eat protein meat foods. They are now making every Shudra/OBC believe pure vegetarianism is parampara. Food and religion are being linked to power. This is the biggest trap that Shudra/OBCs have got into. Those in power love their ignorance not their knowledge. Unless high class global class educated intellectuals, thinkers, writers and fighters emerge from within these communities their children will be made slaves again.

Work will not be available to millions of people both in villages and privatized industry. Already millions of Shudra/OBC/Dalits/Adivasis are joining the security staff squads in companies owned and run by companies of the few rich, where they get less than ten thousand rupees a month. These companies are private companies. They are run in collusion with the establishment’s business families.

The Shudra/OBC Delhi conclave realized this process. Let the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasi peoples be ready for a second freedom struggle, following the path of our farmer heroes.This is the message of Delhi Shudra/OBC conclave.

https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/newsdetail/index/4/21267/the-message-from-the-shudraobc-conclave

Whenever India’s farm sector was in jeopardy, Sikh-Punjabi farmers fought for their rights. The BJP underestimated them.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

Sikhs in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh (representational image) | Photo: Praveen Jain | ThePrintText Size: A- A+

The Sikh-Punjabi farmers are akin to the Tamil backward classes, who fought for OBC rights by bending the Delhi anti-reservation trends many times. When it comes to Dalit rights, it is the Maharastra Dalit forces who showed the way. Guru Nanak, Periyar Ramasamy, and Dr B.R Ambedkar thus created forces that are protecting our Constitution, democracy, and pluralism today.

The movement that spelt victory

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Guru Nanak’s birthday, 19 November, and said that his government was withdrawing the three farm laws that it had enacted a year ago in Parliament. The Punjabi Sikh farmers declared a war against the laws in the thick of the second wave of Covid-19 and moved the farming fraternity to the borders of Delhi NCR. Their victory came after more than 700 farmers died since the start of the protests and several others were put in jail with all kinds of cases against them. A militant section of the Sikh farmers and the Nirankaris climbed the Red Fort in Delhi and declared an immature victory. Journalists and writers faced several cases and police beatings. Yet, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the PM, appeared unmoved.null

The RSS-BJP underestimated the Sikh conviction to fight for the rights of food-producing farmers. They seemed to have thought that the Sikhs would not understand what was happening. Agricultural produce was being handed over to the monopoly capitalists of India, who want to make immoral money in every sector of the economy and remain indifferent to poverty and suffering.

The anger against the government spread to the villages of Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Subsequently, under the leadership of Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Rakesh Tikait, a massive non-Sikh farmer movement also came up. Villages in UP got drawn into the fight for survival in a big way. Finally, victory arrived. The PM had to bow before the annadata (food providers) with a big apology and repeal of the laws. However, there is a moral lesson for the Hindutva forces from Guru Nanak and the Sikh community that follows his teachings in the Guru Granth Sahib.

Also read: 5 reasons why farmers won the farm laws battle against Modi govt

Farming is God’s lifeblood: Guru Nanak

Guru Nanak’s teachings are different from that of the other guru who established the RSS in 1925, K.B. Hedgewar. The former formulated his spiritual ideas in a complex Hindu-Varna society under oppressive Muslim rule. Though he was born into the Hindu Bedi Khatri clan, in a Patwari family in 1469, he soon realised that agrarian production is the lifeblood of human survival, and God—he believed in one God—is the director of productive labour. God was not a war hero for him. A nation was not an arresting land unit of human narrowness. That is the reason why Guru Nanak’s followers went all over the world with labouring hands and worked in the fields and survived. They not only made Indian agriculture productive, but also made the same effort in countries such as Canada, the UK, and Australia. They never made their nationalism ‘anti-somebody.’

Though the Sikh farmers have 10 Gurus, Guru Nanak, the first, is the main guiding force of Sikhism. Whenever the nation’s farm sector was put in jeopardy by the Union government, Sikh-Punjabi farmers fought for their rights. Of course, this time they saved the nation and the Constitutional principle of federal democracy, which was being destroyed by the misuse of parliamentary majority to undermine Indian agriculture. But for their quick realisation of the danger, the country would have drifted from its constitutional path.

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Also read: BJP leaders call farm laws repeal ‘bitter pill’ but foresee better prospects in UP, Punjab

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The ‘anti-anything’ ideology of the RSS

Hedgewar, on the other hand, built an organisation that wants to be seen agreeing with the Constitution, democracy, and pluralism, but in practice, goes in the opposite direction. Guru Nanak never set a spiritual or social ideology of anti-anything, whereas Hedgewar set ‘anti-Muslim,’ ‘anti-beef and meat,’ and ‘anti-equality’ ideologies in the name of Hindu dharma and parampara (tradition). Now, farmers have stopped the Hindutva juggernaut. The nation will salute the Sikh farmers who resisted the might of the government, and saved the agrarian sector of India.https://5bf7726b3107d8a1a9558d793053c504.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Sikhs in India also have a religion-centred political party, the Akali Dal. It works on the ideological principles that the Sikh Gurus put in place. But in its known history, it never went against other religious communities in Punjab. It never interfered with the food rights of any community in the state. It never stopped women between the ages of 12 and 50 from entering gurdwaras, unlike the RSS, who in 2018 asked the temple authorities to ‘respect the tradition’ that banned the entry of women into the Ayyappa temple in Kerala. On the question of human rights, the people of Punjab never felt the difference between the Congress and the Akali Dal, despite the differences in their economic and administrative agendas. Such differences are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.

But now, not just India, but the whole world sees the difference between Congress and BJP rules when it comes to human rights despite their pledge to the same Constitution. Not that I have forgotten the Emergency of Indira Gandhi’s time. But that was fought by all of us and the Punjabi Sikh farmers did not spare their might in fighting it.

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Also read: Why the farmers’ protest is led by Sikhs of Punjab

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Sikhism has a lesson to teach every religion

Spiritual morality must move through politics to establish an egalitarian society and not a divisive one. The farmers’ movement and its victory gave new confidence to the nation in a depressive situation. For the last one year, the whole world was watching the unending movement. At last, the RSS and the BJP realised that this movement would continue till its victory.

The Sikh farmers’ movement in Delhi showed the world how peaceful the Sikhs were, how they fed every hungry person in their gurdwaras, including the police personnel who beat them on the roads. That is the grace they acquired from Guru Nanak. Within India, the Sikh farmers have shown that each religion must respect other religions and ways of living. More than anything, they showed that religion is meant to increase production through labour in the fields. This is a lesson that all other religions of India must learn from Sikhs and their Gurus. No food producer should be judged by one who does not produce. The farmers, who fought this battle and won, have written history.

Kancha Ilaiah is an academic, writer, social scientist, and Dalit rights activist. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

https://theprint.in/opinion/guru-nanak-vs-rss-guru-hedgewar-farmer-protests-showed-how-sikhs-have-a-lesson-for-india/770085/

Caste What is the use of a new theory, if within it, the present status of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis will not change?Nov 16, 2021 | Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Intellectuals of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party are foregrounding the theory of integral humanism that Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916-1968) is said to have propounded.null

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale and secretary Ram Madhav have been repeatedly talking about Upadhyaya’s integral humanism, defining it as the core philosophy which will guide their future in power.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also occasionally talks about this philosophy as his government’s beacon. The latest invocation of this theory was at the book launch of Ram Madhav’s The Hindutva Paradigm: Integral Humanism and Quest for a Non-Western Worldview. At the launch, Hosabale said, “Hindutva is neither left nor right, integral humanism is its essence.”

The question, however, is how this philosophy of integral humanism makes the RSS and its ideologues different from what they were earlier, as followers of the likes of V.D. Savarkar, K.B. Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar. It is important to examine this philosophy not only for the interest of India’s minorities – whom the RSS has traditionally reviled – but especially for the interest of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis, whom they use as muscle power against Muslims and Christians without giving them equal status in the varna dharma parampara (the tradition of caste-based religion) that the Brahminic Hindutva philosophers so far have been following.

From left to right: RSS ideologues K.B. Hedgewar, M.S. Golwalkar, Deendayal Upadhyaya

Deendayal Upadhyaya was an RSS worker, who later in life became the second president of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the political wing of the RSS. He was a Brahmin from Uttar Pradesh, brought up in the same environment that Bhagwat, Hosabale and Ram Madhav spent their childhood in, as all of them come from the same caste background, though born in different states.null

The growth of caste culture that takes place in an Indian’s personality in childhood remains with her or him for the rest of their life.

There are many traits of Brahminism that go against human equality, even within the scope of Hindutva, and which are a byproduct of the varna dharma casteism of the Brahminic tradition. In many of its earlier theoretical writings, particularly of Golwalkar, the RSS elaborated a whole system of Hindutva parampara. Both Golwalkar and Hedgewar had a Brahmin background, and so far, there is no Shudra, Dalit or Adivasi theoretician from among the Sangh’s ranks.

An upbringing within the caste culture eschews any integral co-existence with other caste beings. Caste divisions are enforced more rigidly than divisions with persons born and brought up in different religious cultures. Can integral humanism serve the purpose of making India an individually equalised cultural nation? Only if it incorporates the goal of making Hinduism a democratic religion.

Upadhyaya was opposed to both western capitalist individualism and Marxist socialism, though he supported western science selectively.

Any science – western or eastern – is rooted in the dignity of labour and production of goods and commodities without involving purity and pollution principles around human production, including agrarian and artisanal activity.

As an organisation deeply rooted in Brahminism, the RSS’s notion of Indian tradition is constructed around the Brahminical values of purity, pollution and the graded inequality of caste and gender, along with human untouchability.

Upadhyaya has not problematised the question of caste in the same manner as Marxist and liberal intellectuals from Brahmanic backgrounds did. Nor do the contemporary RSS or BJP intellectuals problematise caste culture by integrating the ideology of Mahatma Phule and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, in which abolition of caste and human untouchability in all spheres of human life is a cardinal principle.

What Upadhyaya tries to do is combine Mahatma Gandhi’s sarvodaya and gram swaraj. Why Gandhi and not, say, Phule or Ambedkar? Because Gandhi too was a supporter of Hindu varna dharma, if not human untouchability.

According to one critique, the integral humanism theory of Upadhyaya followed the tradition of advaita developed by Adi Sankara. Though the advaita school talks about non-dualism of the divine essence, it did not go against the worshiping of deities that have Kshatriya (Vishnu, Sri Rama and so on) and Brahmin (Parashurama) roots in the Puranic and Ramayana mythological tradition. The Ram temple movement – with its ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan and  violence against minorities as an acceptable norm – was the RSS’s creation itself. RSS intellectuals know that Ram came from a Kshatriya dynasty which did not believe in the abolition of caste but in the perpetuation of it.

A statue of Ram in Ayodhya. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

How does the idea of integral humanism become possible when the divine deities they promote and institutionalise have roots in caste spirituality? The idea of non-dualism should operate, at least, in the principle that there is only one god and that god created all human beings – men and women – equal. The major challenge before the Shudra, Dalit and Adivasis working in the Hindutva school – even with the newly emphasised ideology of integral humanism – would be in negotiating their place in that spiritual and cultural nationalism.

As the integral humanist philosophy being propagated by RSS and BJP intellectuals does not have an agenda for abolition of caste, gender inequality and untouchability as part of its core ideology, what will happen to the unequal status of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis in the Indian system and also within the Hindutva organisations?

It is not a coincidence that within their networks, they did not allow any Shudra, Dalit or Adivasi intellectual to emerge and offer a reflection of their own self-status.

The RSS and BJP have so far not accepted that dignity of labour, even in the Hindu spiritual domain, is part of their ideological agenda. Even if you ignore caste language, a Hindu shoe maker, pot maker, sweeper, scavenger or shepherd cannot become a priest in a Hindu temple even if the person is qualified. How does integral humanism overcome this historical problem? Without a theory of human equality what does integral humanism mean?

Upadhyaya’s integral humanism theoretically talks about the organised attributes of body, mind, intellect and soul. Does it include the mind, intellect and soul of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis, who are organised into the Hindutva organisations? As of now, they do not have equal spiritual rights in Hinduism and equal intellectual status to that of Brahmins who are propounding these theories.null

Also, how does integral humanism deal with the food culture of all Indians?

Both modern Brahminism and Hindutva organisations believe in vegetarianism.

Universal humanism, a known philosophical postulate, does not discriminate against human beings based on their food culture, whether in civil society or in spiritual society. If the RSS’s integral humanism is like universal humanism, what will it do to its long history of (about 96 years in the present form) stressing about vegetarianism?

Upadhyaya’s integral humanism opposes individualism, thinking that it is of Western origin. It appears that its opposition to individualism is based on its belief in casteism or communalism. But the Indian constitution itself functions based on individual rights as every individual is a citizen with one vote and one value. Is not, then, the RSS’s integral humanism opposed to the present constitution?

Representative image of protesters holding up a picture of B.R. Ambedkar. Photo: PTI/File

Herein lies the threat to Shudra, Dalit and Adivasi rights, apart from minority rights, in this philosophy.

Look at the paradox of Hindu society. Except for Brahmins and other Dwijas, both theoretically and practically, Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis are considered to be people of only body but not of mind, intellect and soul.null

In the Rig Vedic theory of four varnas – Shudra, Vaisya, Kshatriya and Brahmin – the Shudras were assigned the role of slavery (what was called ‘service’ to other three varnas) without allowing them to use their mind or intellect. They were denied their spiritual soul. The notion of the soul is that it is a separate entity within the human and is supposed to exist independent of the body.

The Hindutva school that believes in religious dogmatism and wants to use it in political domain as well, still does not believe in promoting Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis as priests in Hindu temples. Thus, they are still being treated as soulless beings.

Again, how does integral humanism generate a Soul among the productive masses who constitute the food producing farmers of India? They are the vast majority and the Brahminic integral humanism of the RSS does not show them any new path of liberation.

Kautilya’s Arthshastra, Manu’s Dharmashastra, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata have all affirmed the status of castes. These books are being promoted in schools, colleges and universities under the present regime.

What kind of integral humanism will be taught in our educational institutions where there is no syllabus that teaches castelessness and dignity of labour? Silence about the systemically institutionalised caste and deeply entrenched indignity of labour that promotes human untouchability does not serve any purpose of transformation.

I am of the strong view that the RSS and BJP are anti-transformational structures. How does this theory of integral humanism make them transformational if within it, the present status of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis will not change?

If Mohan Bhagwat, Dattatreya Hosbale and Ram Madhav let the nation know how this theory of integral humanism which is being newly propagated is different from Hindutva Brahminism and how it solves some of the major issues raised here, the nation will be certainly thankful to them.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His books God As Political Philosopher, Buffalo NationalismandPost-Hindu India have dealt with the philosophy of spiritual democracy in detail.

https://m.thewire.in/article/caste/rss-may-want-to-peddle-integral-humanism-now-but-its-core-is-devoted-to-brahminism

  Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

The Idea of The God

The idea of God even in the twenty first century rules the global human mind more than the state, and the constitutional laws. There is also fear and reverence of God more than just the idea of God. Though rationalism, secularism and liberalism emerged as a powerful alternative to human consciousness, the broad spectrum of human ideas still dominantly operate around the notion of God more than anti-God or out of the domain of the God. Four major religions of the world–Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism–have varied visions of the God. Though the idea of the God existed for several millennia ever since that vision of the God was written into spiritual books, by and large, it is the book view of the God that governs human consciousness as of now, as human knowledge level has grown into written discourse. And that will be around for several centuries to come. However, I would like to look at the vision of the God that Jews of Israel institutionalized and also the vision of the God that the Brahmins of India institutionalized.

How Does The Jewish and Brahmin Ideas of The God Clash?

The Jewish vision was constructed in the Old Testament to start with and expanded into an advanced form in the New Testament. The Brahmin vision got constructed in the Rigveda to start with, and expanded in the Puranas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita. The first difference is that Jews visualized God in an abstract mode, without any form, without human relationship, as a creator of the entire universe, including Adam and Eve as first humans. God was neither Jew nor Israelite. Also the first Man and Woman that the God created were not created in any modern nation state. They were created in the universal garden. They were created neither as Jew, nor were they created white or black; nor were they created in any caste or creed. They were created as Man and Woman, as universal beings.

The Brahmins’ first idea of God was that of Brahma and his wife Saraswati as man and woman, as  God/Goddess themselves. They have names and human form. There is no God above them. It could be easily traceable that Brahma is an Indian Aryan. They called India Bharata Khanda or Bharata Varsha in their Sanskrit books. It was from the mouth of this Brahma—the Purush, (man)- Brahmins were created, not from his wife’s womb. So the first God that they visualized was from their own Brahmin caste. Colour wise, in all portraits and also in statue forms, both Brahma and Saraswati are shown as brown in colour, or what is known as Aryan racial colour. He has three heads and four hands. There are temples for Brahma with a statue of this image inside the temple, the most famous being Pushkar temple, Rajasthan.

Racism and Casteism

Racism and casteism were written into the very origin of the creator God, Brahma. This was the beginning of the caste system in India. God himself belonged to a caste. India became a country with a caste system thereafter. Even in our times, such a caste based human society does not exist in other countries in the world. The Brahmin God exempted the Brahmins from physical labour. Brahma’s story also does not talk about his involvement in physical work.

The God of Jews worked for six days to create the universe including all life on the earth. And on the seventh day the God took rest, guiding humanity that they should live by working and also resting. If God worked to create the universe and life, the humans have to work on the land and in the nature that God created to eat, drink and live. Human body, according to the Jewish divine imagination, is meant to work and at the same time it needs rest in the nights as well as one full day in a week. This process is to recreate energy in the human body as long as he/she lives. In the case of the Brahmin God, there is no notion of working or resting. Rigveda is silent about Brahma’s own work culture. Once work culture is not part of the creation, only the culture of resting remains as a divine method of living. This process of living without working goes against the very philosophical foundation of spirituality and also religion.

But this very Brahma was said to have created a separate varna–Shudra– (varna in Sanskrit, in which the Rigveda was written, means colour) maybe in black or dark colour to be different from Brahmins. It appears that the pre-Aryan Harappans who built the Indus Valley Civilization were described as Shudras, as their colour was darker than Aryans. They were also said to have been born from the feet of Brahma. They were condemned to be the slave/labour force by the Brahmin divinity. There were two other groups called Ksatriyas and Vaisyas in the very creation story, whose colour in some narrations comes out as blue. Later on, Vishnu was created in blue colour in the Ksatriya caste. In a series, other God-Heads were added up to the divine narratives of Brahminsm. They were given both Ksatriya and Brahmin caste identity. Rama, for whom they are building a temple now, which is being described as the Vatican of Hinduism, is part of the Ksatriya caste. The spiritual ideology that the Brahmin writers constructed created God images from Brahmin and Ksatriya castes. In the life process they believe that physical labour is pollution. One who believes in Brahmin and Ksatriya gods should live without soiling their hands. By implication, the Brahmin spiritual theory says that the earth itself is untouchable as it consists of dust and mud. How do human beings survive with this philosophy?

The pre-Rigvedic spiritual philosophy of Harappans, who built a great civilization of agriculture and animal economy, much before the arrival of the Aryans, was made to be forgotten as it survived without a written text. Perhaps that spiritual philosophy would have operated around the idea of a productive God. The Brahmins later seem to have treated all those labouring masses as Shudras and their spiritual philosophy was discarded. The Shudras in reality were forced to be the slaves who toiled for the well being of the Brahmins, Ksatriyas and Baniyas. The modern Dalits, who not only suffered slavery along with the rest of the Shudras also suffered human untouchability. The Brahmin divinity stamped a seal of approval on this unusual barbaric civilizational practice and forced the rest of the Shudras to practice and enforce it. The state administration till 1947 was under the rule of both Ksatriya and Shudra (who were given ksatriya status after they became rulers; this happened till the princely states were abolished after independence) rulers, who were made to implement the caste laws codified by Manu, a Brahmin himself. The Brahmin head priest and prime minister were overseeing the implementation of the caste laws. Every caste practice was given a written codification with a direction that it was Gods’ command, as those Gods themselves were rooted in the caste system. Their books did not allow any re-interpretative gateway also. Thus, India as a nation was made a jail with a full blown caste structure and the head of the jail was always a Brahmin. Within this jail the Shudra/Dalits were forced to produce food, other goods and commodities and the other three castes, Brahmin, Ksatriya and Baniyas, consumed that food, goods and commodities. Knowledge hybridization was completely arrested therein. The Jewish spiritual textuality, on the other hand, allowed scope for interpretation and re-interpretation and each prophet went on changing the spiritual, social and economic knowledge system based on the need, geography, times and conditions as it became global.

This being the central philosophy of the Brahmin spiritual books one does not have to laboriously read those books in terms of contradictions, positive and negative ideas that they contain. Their fundamental thesis is anti-labour and caste centered: that automatically goes against human advancement. The great spiritual, legal and socio-political thinker of modern India, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, very laboriously examined those books and said that they would not allow change in the Indian spiritual and social system. Hence they would not allow human equality and economic development. What needs to be studied very carefully is: how among the Shudras/Dalits and Tribals of India an alternative spiritual philosophy still exists. The Brahmin literature, both spiritual and social, does not mention about the parallel existence of a positive productive spiritual philosophy in India. However, it exists, otherwise Indian people would have starved and disappeared from the earth.

This also shows that the early Jewish spiritual literature like Genesis of the Bible could have been written much earlier than Rigveda, otherwise they too would have been influenced by the Brahmin spiritual thought of God being anti-labour. The Jewish spiritual book related ideas spread far and wide in the world, whereas the Brahmin spiritual literature remained confined only to India.

Producers and Prophets

Jewish spiritual thought talked about the narratives of humans as commoners and prophets. After Adam and Eve their children–Cain and Abel– were born as commoners from Eve’s pregnancy. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. Both of them are equivalent to Shudras in Brahmin sacred books. Agriculture and animal economy became part of the Jewish sacred book, the Torah or the Old Testament. This follows the whole development of human productive labour, struggles, and advancement of human civilization, as it happens in the human history of any society.

Abraham, a shepherd (in Indian context, a Shudra), emerges as a prophet and a leader, who built the first society or nation. He was a human and a member of Adam and Eve’s dynasty. Both shepherding and agriculture remain part of his and his children’s life. Then, of course, the population multiplies in a system of human production and procreation process. Labour, human and animal positive relations, conflicts, and advancement of society remain part of the Bible.

The Brahmins have excluded themselves, in all their writings, from production. The other caste group, Ksatriyas, was assigned the role of ruling the society and state strictly under the guidance of Brahmins. The Shudras had no spiritual, social and economic rights. The Vaisya caste was assigned the work of agriculture and business in the beginning. Gradually the Baniyas also eschewed productive work and started confining themselves to business and accumulation of wealth. The Shudras were spiritually given the role of producing food of all varieties without allowing an access to Brahmin Gods. The Jewish spirituality assigned all varieties of food production to all humans, including prophets. Thus, it left scope for the emergence of social classes but not social castes. And also it led to creative thinking about productive science. Historically social classes competed in discoveries and social castes had no way to compete with other castes. The Brahmin spiritual theory arrested humans by binding them to caste boundaries. Caste became part of Brahmin blood, bone and body.

The Bible gave the story of Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah and finally the birth and growth of Jesus. Of course, from Abraham to Jesus their nationality was shown as Israelite and Israel is written about as the chosen land of God. But at the same time the Israelites were said to be slaves in the hands of Egyptians and hence God took the responsibility of liberating them. But all of them were humans and by their conduct, acts and teachings have come to be known as that of prophets but not of God. Prophets taught about God’s commands or teachings to shape the moral and ethical conduct of people in a manner that the human society lived with civilized relations. Moses and Jesus’ teachings show humanity how societies were moralized. Each human being lived a life of poverty, struggle, survival by sharing everything with other human beings. From there the societies moved towards prosperity. Labour was integral to their life. Many things in those stories resemble the human life stories of modern times–tilling the land and cultivating, heavy rains and droughts, human quarrels and dispute resolution were written about, in the form of stories and parables. Men and women shared everything. There is a social science in that spiritual narratives. There was no race preference in God and prophets. However, gender inequality was written into the Jewish spiritual books. But commoners became kings and prophets in the Bible. Moses was an ordinary shepherd and King David too was a shepherd who becomes a king by displaying courage and sacrifice. These are outstanding examples. In the Brahmin spiritual writings, quite opposite to the Jewish spiritual system, God enslaves the Shudras from the very beginning. Thus, in the Brahmin spiritual narrative God is an enslaver but not liberator. Commoners’ life struggles, pains and pleasures do not figure at all. The Shudras and Dalits remain invisible and history-less in those narratives all through.

Priest and Labour

The Brahmin books were always concerned about Brahmin labour-free life, and also their hegemony over the rest of Indians. Of course, the Brahmin books negotiated with colour questions by constructing Gods as blue and black also. The third major God, Shiva, appears in black colour, though his wife Parvati is shown in brown Aryan colour. All Brahmin books depicted women only in brown colour. We, therefore, get a doubt that black or blue women are not fit for marriage. In the Jewish portraits, men and women appear in the same white Israelite colour.

In the visual portrayal of Vishnu, Rama’s blue colour was shown as God’s colour. But never were they said to have compromised with the caste system.

In the Brahmin spiritual literature caste was constructed as part of its blood, roots, bones and body. Caste was made an inescapable institution by the divine agencies themselves. Labour was not allowed to be a universal human survival base but forced upon the Shudra/Dalit social forces. The tribal communities were left to themselves without giving them any scope to come into the spiritual domain of Brahmins. Hence there is still tribal society within the forest zones in India, which does not exist in Africa or Latin America where the Jewish Bible spread. The Jewish spiritual literature gave scope to any human being to enter into God’s domain. A tribal could come into religion and become a priest without any social hurdles. In Brahmin literature and practice such entry is strictly prohibited with a fear that the new entrants could claim equality and change the spiritual and social structure they constructed in their spiritual books. Thus, the spiritual books that they wrote were made fortresses to sustain their unproductive living process.

Jesus and Shambuka

The rich and high powered people controlling God without allowing the poor to enter the high pedestal of the religious system was broken by Jesus in the Jewish system. He was an ordinary shepherd woman’s son (equivalent to the Indian Shudra), who worked as a carpenter with his father, Joseph, who adopted him, though he was born before his marriage with Mary. He broke that powerful class controlled spiritual system with a spiritual and social revolution. He did that by declaring himself as the son of God. He walked most of the time on bare foot or rode a donkey. He lived in tattered clothes. He had no chariots and no weapon wielding armies. He lived among fishing folks, shepherds and broken women. No Shudra in Brahmin literature could declare that he/she was son or daughter of Brahma or Vishnu or Rama because of their caste location. No Brahmin saint lived among fishing folk, shepherds and helped women who were condemned and suffering with object poverty and exploitation because of caste and isolated food culture–pure vegetarianism.

Jesus changed the class status of poor into rich and rich into poor. He lived in poor people’s houses and ate whatever food they offered. He never believed in the theory of purity and pollution of human occupations and food items. This revolutionary process is seen in the New Testament.

Contrary to such practices of Jews, any attempt to change in the Brahmin religious system was violently stopped. The case of Shambuka, a Shudra, in Ramayana is a case in point. Shambuka was a Shudra who wanted to realize God through tapasya. The Brahmin gurus of Sri Rama advised him to kill him, as he was Shudra hence not permitted to negotiate directly with God. Rama kills him. The whole of Brahmin literature is silent about Shudra/Dalit hunger for spiritual equality and liberation. Or it tells the stories of tortures and killings of Shudras who asserted their right to religion. If Jesus were to be born in India he would have been killed at an early stage in life. He would not have had any Brahmin followers. But many Jews, including a royal Jew like Paul became his followers and spread his message across the world. Saint Thomas who came to India as a follower of Jesus was a Jew and was killed by a Brahmin.

Survival of Jews in Europe

After Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection Christianity was formed as a religion. Some Jews accepted it and some did not. Once Islam got constructed as a separate religion from the very source of the Jewish Old Testament, conflicts between Christianity, Islam and Jeudaism got sharpened. Finally Jews of Israel lost their nation. The Jews spread all over Europe just with the hope of surviving with labour and their spiritual books in their hands. Until the 1948 resettlement in Israel, their knowledge was used in Europe in many spheres. They produced great intellectuals, scientists, industrial innovators even in that torturous life. Karl Marx, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein are just a few outstanding examples. They worked for global transformation, human enlightenment and progress. After resettling back in Israel they built their nation within a short time with a combination of hard labour and creative knowledge. Today’s Israel is a powerful nation with just 9.2 million people. With a combination of labour, science and wisdom the Jews built a very powerful modern nation within just 70 years. India is dependent on Israel for many scientific innovations.

The Brahmins were never displaced from this land. They lived a comfortable life with the labour of the Shudra/Dalit/Tribals. As of now a rough estimation of the Brahmin population is about 4 per cent of the total Indian population of India. In other words the Brahmins constitute roughly about 50 million. Their labour power contribution in the agrarian and other productive economy of India is negligible. They have not contributed by educating the actual tillers as they believed that if the Shudras get education they will not accept a slavish life and live under their control. Not allowing Shudras to educate themselves was to see that skilled intellectual leadership could not emerge from the agrarian masses. An organized rebellion would then be possible against the comfortable leisurely spiritual and social life of Brahmins. No Jewish leader could think of such a strategy because everyone in the Jewish community could work in any field of life. In one Jewish family there could be a shoe maker, there could be a rabbi, and there could be a shepherd. A Brahmin household cannot think of having in the same family a shoe maker or a shepherd or even a tiller together.

Does a Brahmin nation survive?

The Brahmins opposed soiling their hands with a theory that the Vedic Gods treated soil itself as a polluting substance for hands, thereby the human body. Hence the entire production work was forced on the Shudras since then. Till today that theory is alive and operates as a spiritual norm. They have also not produced intellectuals who could match the Jewish intellectuals, with all their spiritual literature at their command. Historically they were against combining physical labour and mental labour. As I said earlier they treated physical labour as spiritually polluting. Let us ask a hypothetical question: can these 50 million Brahmins constitute a nation and develop it as Israel was developed by Jews? Can they develop that nation like the Jewish nation and make it globally visible? The Jews built enormous vitality in themselves by combining physical and mental labour power as historical spiritual and social processes. The Brahmins, on the other hand, reserved intellectual work but could not advance because of the disconnect between physical labour and mental labour. Neither in the realm of God nor in the realm of nature such a disconnection is acceptable and allowed.

In my opinion it is impossible because of the Brahmin anti-labour casteist intellectuality, which does not allow them any open creative thinking. Their knowledge and literature never were positive. Lot of Brahmins in the twenty first century migrated to various countries in the world, not as labourers but as middle class intellectuals with the same caste controlling spiritual literary heritage as their property. Does the Western world treat them as valuable as Jews? I do not think so. The Jews suffered holocaust and barbaric German fascist attacks, humiliation, labour camps yet sustained their civilizational strength. They retained their positive will of spirituality, humanity, labour and scientific approach to life. Would Brahmins have recovered form that holocaust trauma and built a nation of their own? I do not think so. Given their negative spiritual history of caste, anti-labour and human untouchability they would have lost their historical existence. Unless one’s spiritual book gives that strength and positive will to work, suffer, eat and rest and start working again no human community can reconstruct themselves as the Jews did.

In my sixty nine years of life, I have worked with many Brahmins. I have seen the Brahmins who are known as spiritual, left, liberal and so on. Some claimed thems to be secular, democratic, radical, rationalist and so on. But I have not found them honest reviewers of their spiritual and social history. I have not known even one Jew personally. But I read their writings and their history. Their commitment is to physical labour, intellectual honesty and positive will for human equality.

The communist Brahmins knew that there is something fundamentally problematic with their ancient civilizational roots. Many of them read Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Einstein and other Jewish thinkers who changed the civilizational paths of the world. But they have not tried to look at their own anti-production divine, social and cultural ethic. They know that many Jewish scholars and thinkers contested their own philosophical evolution, in spite of its inclusive culture and positive production and labour ethic. But no Brahmin in such a long history opposed their living process and the kind of spiritual, social philosophy they constructed. Thus, India was made to be a stagnant nation. Theirs is not love for the nation but it is love for their own community. This ancient civilizational nation is built by the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi labour. But they were never allowed to emerge as thinkers, philosophers and prophets. It is their turn to change the nation and the world with a positive spiritual, social and scientific thinking and writing in a globally understandable language, English.

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Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is the author of Why I am Not a Hindu, Post-Hindu India, The Shudras–Vision for a New Path (edited along with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy) and other books. He is a political theorist, social and spiritual reformer and a follower of Mahatma Phule and Dr.B.R.Ambedkar.

https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10220:the-god-clashing-vision-of-the-jews-and-brahmins-kancha-ilaiah-shepherd&catid=118:thought&Itemid=131

The RSS, which carries the ‘one nation, one culture’ slogan, has never allowed a farmer’s son to head the organisation in its 96 years of existence.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD15 October, 2021 8:18 am ISThttps://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=https://theprint.in/opinion/suv-over-protesters-in-lakhimpur-kheri-shows-how-rss-looks-at-farmers/750791/&layout=button_count&show_faces=false&width=105&action=like&colorscheme=light&height=21

An SUV that was destroyed when violence erupted during farmers’ protest in Lakhimpur Kheri | PTI Photo

The Lakhimpur Kheri incident, in which Union minister Ajay Mishra’s son Ashish Mishra has been accused of crushing four protesting farmers to death, raises fundamental questions about the culture of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its associates.

The BJP is the political wing of the RSS and the training of leaders on their behavior and motives comes from there. Ajay Mishra and his son are part of this organisational structure.https://ddf2dc66f4ec5ab1ae52d0a49f3c5bcf.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Though there is discussion on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the issue, the RSS’ quiet on the Lakhimpur Kheri violence too speaks a lot. Neither Mohan Bhagwat nor Dattatreya Hosabale has spoken a word on it. This raises a fundamental question on the character and outlook of the RSS vis a vis the productive masses of India — farmers and artisans who mainly constitute the Shudras and Dalits. Are human rights, democracy and the Constitution of India safe under the thumb of this organisation?

Here, I examine the fundamental differences between the Indian National Congress, the party that led India to freedom and kept democracy surviving, and the RSS, in the context of their respective outlook towards farmers and other productive masses of India.

The INC

The Indian National Congress was formed by both Indian and Scottish anti-colonial freedom lovers in 1885. Dadabhai Naoroji, Allan Octavian Hume, Dinshaw Edulji Wacha were among the first founders of the INC.

While Dadabhai Naoroji and Dinshah Edulji Wacha were Parsis, Hume was a Scottish libertarian. There was no Indian Brahmin or Bania leader in the beginning. The lamentation of Wacha, a famous cotton businessman who had many things to lose in confronting the British rulers, was “how many figures, such as Pherozeshah Mehta, who would have made capable leaders, eschewed total alliance with the Congress for fear of damage to their private careers”. Despite this lack of support from Indian leaders, Wacha did acknowledge “the vital role that the Scotsman, Allan Hume, played in maintaining the Congress” in between sessions. Wacha had said: “He is the man to give us steam.” Pherozeshah Mehta was another Parsi leader who was working for the Congress. He was a lawyer turned politician for the sake of freedom.

By that time, there were many Brahmins, Banias, Kayasthas and Khatris in India who got educated in England and were practising law. Most of the English-educated Dwijas were working with the colonial government as officers even when the British administration was running in Persian language, and after it shifted to English in 1835. Dwijas were eschewing an alliance with the Congress, keeping their careers in mind. Of course, they joined the party once it gained momentum and became its leaders.

But for Shudra farmers, English education remained inaccessible. The first English-educated Shudra farmer, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, was born in 1827. He was educated only up to 7^th grade. In government service and courts, only the English-educated Dwija youth were working and making money. The Shudras were mostly involved in farming and artisanal tasks. Yet, the peasant revolts against British taxation took place in several parts of India, even before 1885 — Bardoli and Champaran being the most well-known.https://ddf2dc66f4ec5ab1ae52d0a49f3c5bcf.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

The first English-educated Shudra farmer to became a lawyer and join the Congress was Vallabhbhai Patel in 1917. He had shown a way to the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi on how to organise the farmers. Patel, a good lawyer with a good practice, led several peasant movements in Gujarat, including in Kheda and Bardoli. It was he who made inroads into the villages and into the minds of the farmers as an organic intellectual, though he took a Right-wing path within the party in an era of socialist peasant revolutions.

But it was not until 1931 that he became the president of the Congress. After becoming the first person with a farming background to become the INC president at the Lahore conference, he said: “You have called a simple farmer to the highest office to which any Indian can aspire”. Historian Ramchandra Guha writes that “in 1931, the Congress had been in existence for more than four decades. Yet in this time, it had never before elected a person born in a peasant household to head the organization, this despite Mahatma Gandhi’s own claim – and exhortation – that ‘India lives in her villages’.”https://ddf2dc66f4ec5ab1ae52d0a49f3c5bcf.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

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And the RSS

The RSS was established in 1925 by Maharashtra Brahmins with no Parsi or Sikh or Buddhist on board — leave alone a Muslim. It never said anything positive about the farmers and artisans in any of their ideological documents. They never participated in any of Sardar Patel’s farmer movements. Even after Independence, they never organised any farmer agitation. How and why the farmers and artisans, broadly known as Shudras, trusted them once the RSS came up with the Ram temple issue, is a mystery. Now they are seeing the real face of the RSS.

The RSS, which came with the slogan of ‘one nation, one culture and one ancient heritage’, has never allowed a farmer’s son to head the organisation in its 96 years of existence. It seems for the RSS, the farmers aren’t part of the nation or its ancient heritage. This is the difference between the INC and the RSS. The INC was part of many farmers’ struggles in its living history, not the RSS. The organisation is drawn only as a muscle power force to fight against the minorities.

The farmers’ agitation—on issues that affect their survival—has been treated by the Right-wing as anti-national, as if India belongs to a small section of Hindutva forces who have nothing to do with farming. Their cultural nationalism does not consider agriculture as part of nationalism and it is limited to Hindu temples where the children of farmers have no right to head and lead. The RSS’ nationalism exists in ancient Sanskrit books that do not talk about agriculture and Shudra/Dalit masses.

Ashish Mishra’s confidence that he can allegedly drive his vehicle over food producers of the nation, as if they are less worthy than street dogs, came from this heritage of the RSS, one that is based on caste, culture and organisational support lent to arrogance. The farmers’ heritage includes food production by Shudras, for the whole nation. But they haven’t understood this difference yet.

It is time that the nation understands Ashish Mishra’s heritage. The farmers and the whole nation will have to survive. The RSS as an organisation came into existence without farmers being part of it. Its cultural nationalist agendas have no love for farmers and farming. Yet they are ruling the nation with the same farmers’ vote. This is a paradox.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book The Shudras–Vision for a New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja Kuruppasamy. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)

https://theprint.in/opinion/suv-over-protesters-in-lakhimpur-kheri-shows-how-rss-looks-at-farmers/750791/