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in Annihilate Caste — by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Shahu Maharaj

But for the accidental reading of Shahu Maharaj’s letter to the retired Governor of Bombay presidency, Lord Sydenham, written in 1918, I would not have thought of writing this essay. In my life time experience of writing about the Brahmin-Bania power in contemporary times at the expense of life threats and cases in various levels of courts the Dwija pundits tried to dismiss my arguments about the Brahmin-Bania power over the society and state in post-independence times and in the past–medieval and ancient– times. Many Brahmin-Bania liberal intellectuals keep arguing that when so many Shudra kings ruled the Indian states in ancient, medieval times how could Brahmin-Banias control the system. For a long time, they also dismissed Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Jyotirao Phule’s arguments about the control of Brahmins on the state and society on the same ground. But Shahu’s lengthy letter in his own words, reproduced in this essay, as a king of a very important Princely State that existed till 1947, as a descendant state of great king Chatrapati Shivaji provides an indisputable testimony, how the Shudra kings suffered under the spiritual and intellectual yoke of Brahmins. This control of Brahmin priestly forces who turned, apart from being head priests in every kingdom, the Prime Ministers of all Shudra monarchical states and other bureaucratic networks from the days of Kautilya, the author of Arthashastra –a book of dangerous statecraft shows the real mirror image of Indian history.

This essay looks at the history of Shudra kings and their fear of Brahmins from the days of Chandragupta Maurya’s kingdom, in the light of Shahu Maharaj’s letter.

Kautilya’s Arthashastra stipulates that the state has to maintain the caste system in the following order:

“As the triple Vedas definitely determine the respective duties of the four castes and of the four orders of religious life, they are the most useful.

The duty of the Brahman is study, teaching, performance of sacrifice, officiating in others’ sacrificial performance and the  giving and receiving of gifts.

That of a Kshatriya is study, performance of sacrifice, giving gifts, military occupation, and protection of life.

That of a Vaisya is study, performance of sacrifice, giving  gifts, agriculture, cattle breeding, and trade.

That of a Sudra is the serving of twice-born (dwijati), agriculture, cattle-breeding, and trade (varta), the profession of  artisans and court-bards (karukusilavakarma)”[1]

“This people (loka) consisting of four castes and four orders of religious life, when governed by the king with his sceptre, will keep to their respective paths, ever devotedly adhering to their respective duties and occupations.”

He further says “the observance of one’s own duty leads one to Svarga and infinite bliss (Anantya). When it is violated, the world will come to an end owing to confusion of castes and duties. Hence the king shall never allow people to swerve from their duties; for whoever upholds his own duty, ever adhering to the customs of the Aryas, and following the rules of caste and divisions of religious life, will surely be happy both here and hereafter. For the world, when maintained in accordance with injunctions of the triple Vedas, will surely progress, but never perish.”[2]

Having stipulated strict caste duties and condemning the Shudras to serve Brahmin, Ksatriya and Vaisyas by investing their labour power forever Kautilya makes a false spiritual promise of granting moksha/heaven to the Shudras. This kind of false written word was also believed by the Shudra masses that if they do not practice caste order they would also be punished by Brahmin Gods both in this life and hereafter. Nowhere in the world religious book writers played such a satanic mischief on the life of innocent productive masses, who were illiterate and ignorant. By using Vedas as divine books both Kautilya and Manu created a barbaric civil society and State. The subsequent Brahmins practiced the spiritual and political ideology formulated in those books. No book of divine source would divide people into such inhuman categories and create fear generated by the combined institution of religion and State and also promise heaven if they remain slaves. No slave in the world other than in India would believe this kind of barbaric book knowledge as God-given. The Shudras and Dalits of India followed this so-called divine sanction for millennia.

Shudra Kings under spell

The Shudra kings of India from ancient days, particularly from the times of Chandragupta Maurya to the present came under the mystic spiritual spell of Brahmin writers. Though they knew that the war strategies and the abilities to fight nature and produce food were with Shudra masses they surrendered the written word to the Brahmin and internalized a psychology of enormous fear and slavishness. The fear of God was attached to a human person, a Brahmin, and the food producers believed that he has all the powers that God is said to have. While the idea of God evolved in the process of human transformation from one state of life to the other, hunter-fisher to animal domesticater to agrarian producer, the Brahmin superimposed himself as Bhoodeva with an uncommon mystic wisdom on them. This distorted the very nature of religion in India. Kautilya projected this Brahmin divine power onto the state as far back as the 3^rd century BCE.

Kautilya forecloses any transcendentality of castes into one another in administering the state institutions. Even the occupational change was also arrested. To maintain caste hierarchy, the state was made to be violent and ruthless. He established a complete control over the state resources in the interest of the Brahmin, Kshatriya and Bania forces by totally disarming the Shudra/Dalits who were the main productive force all through the Indian history after this book was written. By various estimations by scholars we now come to know that Manu’s Dharmashastra belongs to much later periodicity than that of Arthashastra from Mauryan dynasty of the 3^rd century BCE. The Brahmin power on the state structure got tightened from then on. The animal economists and agriculturalists broadly known as Shudras from the days of building of Harappan civilization were pushed to the status of slaves once the Vedic civilization was established as Aryan divinely ordained and the Arthashastra pushed that system into the state structure with a full force of fear of God and also violence of the state.

Even in the case of Shudra kings, they were forced to suppress their own brothers and sisters, who were toiling in the productive fields. Kautilya gave full freedom and leisure time to Brahmins by living a good life while constantly receiving gifts from the state and Shudras at will. The duties that he assigned to the Shudras, Vaisyas and Ksatriyas that they have to give gifts of wealth to the Brahmin as a duty shows the Brahmins were completely made free from labour and production process.

The so-called mental labour they were assigned was very negative. If the Shudras did not give wealth in the form of a gift he said the state has to punish them. The Shudras had to pay taxes to the state for its maintenance and also provide for the labour free good life of the entire population of Brahmins. The Brahmin is only receiver but never a giver at any time in Indian history. This idea Bhoodeva is opposite of the universal God who gives the humans life, wealth and the knowledge to produce food from the earth and a human family life. Both the Brahmin God and also the Brahmin himself are opposite of this universal spiritual ethics and morals. Once the Shudra kings were made to accept it they lived against themselves, framed laws against their own people.

Constitution vs Manudharma

In this background of Brahmin written word and its mystic power in the past it is important to understand the present ruling Hindutva forces projecting only Vedic and Post Vedic books written by Brahmins like Arthashastra and Manu Dharma Shastra and also Vastyanana’s Kamasutra as the source ofIndian civilization. They are trying to re-establish the Arthasatric state and Manu Dharmic civil society even in the 21 century. Not many Shudras understand this historical process that they are part of. As we have shown in The Shudras–Vision for New Path, Hedgewar the founder of Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) praises Manu’s laws as greater laws than the laws written by Lycurgus and Solon and says “To  constitutional pundits that (Manu’s laws) means nothing” (Introduction XXV) He had no respect for the constitution that Ambedkar has instituted which made an Other Backward Class (OBC) Narendra Modi ( a man of their own party) the Prime Minister of the nation in 2014. As he was still the Prime Minister Ram Madhav an RSS young leader in his book Because India Comes First–Reflections on Nationalism, Identity and Culture (2020) in the very introduction says “Through its living history of over five millennia, India has offered invaluable gems of wisdom enriching all of mankind…This widom proclaimed in Manusmriti, one of the oldest constitutions of India”. He further quotes a Sanskrit sloka from the Manusmriti to say “ Men all over the world would come to beseech lessons in character through the lives of the great men born in this country”.[3] According to him Manu was the greatest wise man of India from whom great men of the world should learn how to institutionalize, perhaps, caste and untouchability. He knows pretty well that Ambedkar burnt this ‘great constitution’, treating it as the most barbaric book that does not deserve to be positively talked about. This middle aged RSS Brahmin leader from Andhra Pradesh, knows that the Shudras and Dalits all over the country treat Manuwadis as anti-national as this book made them perpetually slaves. The BJP’s own Prime Minister Modi never takes the name of Manu, rather he takes the name of Gautham Buddha on international platforms, but Ram Madhav tells the Shudras/Dalits/Adivasis working in both RSS/BJP, leave alone outside their fold, that they should follow only the Manusmriti that Ambedkar burnt but not the Ambedkar’s constitution which gives them equal rights with Brahmins, at least in the state institutions. In the Hindu spiritual system still Brahmins control everything. Even the RSS Shudras/Dalits/Adivasis cannot become priests in the Hindu temples even now. This is where the Shudras/Dalits and Adivasis working in the Sangh Parivar must realize even in the 21 century the Brahmin leaders of RSS from Hedgewar to Ram Madhav worship only Kautilya and Manu, certainly not Ambedkar who wrote a constituted that liberated them in the political and legal domain.

Orthodox versus secular Brahmins

The Hindutva Brahmins quite openly own Kautilya and Manu but the secular, liberal and left Brahmins by and large remain silent about them. They pretend as if the ancient thought of Brahmins does not matter. In the literary sources there is no left-liberal and secular critique of these authors written in a manner that we could use to counter the Hindutva Brahmins. The silence of left-liberal Brahmins must be treated, for all practical purposes, as agreement with the Hindu Brahmins and hence the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis must suspect their liberalism, secularism and socialism. There is however, a fundamental problem with the Shudraness and Brahminness which I will examine at the end of this essay.

In the latter half of the last century, many leaders from Shudra castes have become the Chief Ministers in different states and also ministers of  different State as well as Central Governments. For them a question lies unanswered: for how long in Indian history the Shudra kings were made the slaves of the mystical powers of the Brahmin books? By their calculated silences, RSS wants that mystic power of the Brahmin should remain unchecked. The RSS Brahmin leaders know enough now to let go of the Manu and Kautilya who gave them enormous power in the political domain.

The Tyranny in Arthashastra

The Arthashastra does not talk of Chandal and Adivasi as separate categories. As per the Kautilyan classification, the Dalits and Adivasis are part of the Shudra category. In his socio-legal formulation all agrarian and artisanal masses are Shudras. But at the same time they all are fragmented based on their occupations and Kautilya asks the state not to allow them to move out of each one’s occupation and caste boundaries. This kind of long enforcement of caste-occupational rules by the Brahminic state power by all the rulers the Shudra masses who constitute about more than 52 per cent population of modern India believe that they must surrender to Brahmin authority, spiritually and socially, even now. It does not matter what their economic and political status in modern India is. They treat Brahmin as Bhoodevata. Such a mental surrender does not allow their intellectual, philosophical and spiritual energies to evolve even now. The Shudra and Namasudra submission to Bengal Brahmins and Kayasthas, whatever their ideology, left or liberal or Hindutva is a strong case in point.

Though there has been a lot of discussion about Manu’s role, through his socio-legal text– Dharmashastra or Manusmriti– in controlling the productive Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi masses with an iron grip of brahminism there is not much discussion around Kautilya’s Arthashatra in terms of its role in controlling the state institutions by the brahminic ideological apparatus in terms of human management by the hierarchical Varna system. In his very serious critique of the Hindu Social Order, B.R.Ambedkar, examined numerous key texts of Brahmanism except that of Arthashastra. But this is the text that strategized their perennial control over the state structure of India. They got far higher control on the state institutions even in our times because of the Kautilyan varna classification acted as the normative principle that guided the state. The so called secular and liberal Dwija scholars tried to hide this aspect of the Indian state as this was providing them enormous scope to control in the post-Independent state institutions and also the civil society.

Many get misled with the title of the book Arthashasatra thinking that it is about science of economics. It actually is a book that gives hegemonic control to brahminism in every field of the state activity. Thus, it weakened the potential of the productive forces–the Shudra and Dalits in a long history of India. It was also meant to suppress all tribal transformation processes into normal civil society with an iron hand.

The mischief in Kamasutra

The third book that another ancient Brahmin author Vastayana wrote – Kamasutra – was meant to control the Shudra/Dalit masses–particularly women. He has converted Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi women into sexual objects without giving them motherhood agency too.

On the contrary Wendy Doniger, a well-known American Sanskrit scholar writes “The Kamasutra is almost unique in classical Sanskrit literature in its near total disregard of class (varna) and caste (jati). Of course, power relations of many kinds – gender, wealth, political position, as well as caste – are implicit throughout the text. But wealth is what counts most.”[4] But that is not true if we look at that social distinctions mentioned while discussing sexuality.  It is primarily a book for anti-production leisure Brahmin Kshatriya ruling class and Bania business men

Kamasutra stipulates that the Brahmin women should be wives of only Brahmin men but the Shudra/Dalit women should work as Granikas (sex workers) for nagarikas (the urbanite Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya leisure-centered male citizens)

No Shudra king in such a long history could dare to oppose the Brahminical hegemony. Neither he was ingenious enough to record or authorize the history of the spiritual system of the productive masses that existed outside the brahmanical fold. Nor did they establish schools for the Shudra children and commissioned writers to write books of their own, history, culture and civilization. The Shudras and Dwijas were not living like one national people but of two different cultural and civilizational entities. Even the kings were made to obey the Brahmins unquestioningly as they themselves treated the Brahmin as god — Bhoodeva. Even the kings were living like socio-spiritual slaves without any rights to read and write books. After getting the Kshatriya status some could learn reading and writing but they too were forced to isolate themselves from the productive masses by injecting fear of the Brahmin controlled Gods. The Shudra kings never realized that their own ancestors had their gods/goddesses different from the god images that the brahmins constructed in their books. The gods in their books were mainly their own war heroes. The Shudra gods/goddesses were evolved mostly from the Shudra production and science and development (See Why I am Not a Hindu, Our Gods and Goddesses and their Gods and Goddesses) processes. But the Shudra kings and rulers even of our times are forced to believe only the Brahmin Gods. Brahmins went on telling the kings that they themselves would curse the king if he does not obey them or their god will punish him if they do not obey the Brahmin. This whole spiritual ideology was a myth constructed to acquire wealth and power without getting involved in agrarian or artisanal production.

Shudras as human beings like any other human beings on the earth should have doubted this spiritual theory though it was being propagated both in oral and book form. The Shudra kings were also made to fear books that the Brahmins wrote as if they were god’s words and truth. When Brahmins told them they should not even touch their spiritual books the Shudras remained away from those books. Such a dictum is patently a historical fraud committed in the name of spiritual theory. Once the right to read was forbidden for the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi masses, their fears of Brahmins and their Gods increased many fold.

Fortunately for us, Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj, the grandson of Chatrapati Shivaji, left evidence of the Brahmin grip in his state even though he was a revolutionary ruler with a vision of his own to change the caste hierarchy. He told the story of his own kingdom and the Brahmin hegemony and control in all spheres of the state. His full letter to the former Governor of the Bombay Province is given below to understand the role of Brahmins in that state. This is the only document available written by a king from the Shudra community with a commitment to their development.

Perhaps from the third century BCE onwards, ever since Kautilya became the Prime Minister of Chnandragupta Maurya the kings who came from the Shudra varna were virtually under the control of Brahmin PM and also the head priest. The situation did not change much both even after the Muslim rule and also that of the British. It is a known historical fact that the Shudra agrarian and artisanal communities never rebelled against the varna dharma order that Vedas, Arthashastra and Manudharma Shastra ordained through written codes. Until the British came and opened school education for the Shudras they had no right to educate themselves and write what their point of view was. The Shudra masses could never organize themselves cutting across the internal caste-occupation divisions. The growth and transformation of the food producers who were the main source of the national wealth production was stalled by the written knowledge of Brahmins rather than help them advance.

Even the stone pillars or epigraphic evidence that come from the Shudra kingdoms also were written by Brahmins. Except Ashoka, no other king could reject the Brahmin authority. King Ashoka did that only after he became Buddhist. Quite ironically after Ashoka’s ancient Buddhist revolution and his pursuit of a welfare administration again the Brahmin counter revolution took place with Pushyamitra Shunga capturing power. Since then Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Manu’s Dharmashastra were systematically used to suppress Shudras in all fields of life. From that period to Muslim rulers all the kings ran the state apparatus with Brahmins as the real drivers of administration.

I have examined in detail the fundamental difference between the Buddhist political and social thought and the Brahmin thought in my book God As Political Philosopher–Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism (2000). After Buddhism became a major religion it influenced the kings who ruled India till Kautilya wrote Arthashastra. In its core, Arthashastra changed the State structure in favour of the Brahmin ministers and priests whoever was the king. From Magadha rule to Nanda rule i.e. till the 3^rd century the Brahmin authority was not allowed to direct the state structure. Kautilya systematically planned to overthrow the Nanda dynasty and established the Mauryan Chandragupta rule, which was Shudra, under his control. Thereafter the Brahmin authority was established over the kings, as himself became the Prime Minister and head priest. That authority and power continued into the post-colonial period as well.

It was a surprise to those of us who were born and brought up in Hyderabad in Nizam’s state, how the Brahmin authority over the civil society continued to play a critical controlling role, in such a Muslim state. Though more than 300 years Muslim rule existed here once the Nizam rule ended in Hyderabad state in 1948, a Brahmin, Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, became the first Chief Minister and the Brahmin control over the Telangana state and also united Andhra Pradesh existed with iron grip for several years later. The reason was very clear during the Satavahana (the Kummaris–pot makers even today claim that Satavahanas belong to their community, which is of lower Shudra order) rule and later Kakatiya (from 13^th Century AD onwards), rule the Brahmin bureaucratic and priestly power continued unabated. Kakatiyas were Shudras, with several Shudra castes claiming their community heritage.

The Kakatiya stone edicts were written by Brahmins by making fourfold varna order a strict rule. ( There is a strong claim that Kakatiyas were Kammas and also Mudirajas in their organizational writings).

Even the kings who were ruling small princely states during the British colonial rule could not reject the Brahmin authority over what is now known as the Hindu system. The Shudra kings who fought brave battles with enemies were also dead scared of the Brahmin spiritual power. All the Shudra warriors who won wars and became the kings were forced to take the Kshatriya status without which they said gods would punish them. Once they were declared Kshatriya they were told to remain away from the Shudra masses and follow only what the Brahmin priest tells and run the state according to the Brahmin Prime Minister’s directions.

In the religious domain the Brahmin head priest was guiding the king. The priests were regularly taking gifts from the king. In many cases they got a huge amount of cultivable land as the temple Agrahara land. This land over a period of time was made the private property of the priest family. Again this land was also cultivated with the free labour of Shudra masses. The priests and the ministers made the kings to build massive temples for the Brahmin gods with the state money in accordance with Agamashastras and the priesthood rights were taken in the name of families around that area.

In West Bengal the famous Shudra woman queen Rani Rashmoni built a Dakshineshwar Kali temple on the riverbed of Ganga at Hooghly in the 19^th century. She bought 33 acres of land around the temple. But the Bengal Brahmins did not allow the queen to inaugurate the temple from her position as queen. They forced her to write off the whole land and the temple to a Brahmin to make it functional. She wrote off that land and the temple to Ramakrishana Paramhamsa’s elder father Ramkumar Chattopadhyay and Paramhamsa inherited that land and the temple and his spiritual image was built from that temple and its property. Gradually they displaced the queen’s history itself. Amitanghush Acharya in his article in The Hindu says “As upper caste (Brahmin and Kayastha) Rajaram Mohan Roy, Easwar Chandra Vidhyasagar, Ramakrishna Paramhamsa and Vivekananda gained prominence Rani Rashmoni was one of the most influential icons of the 19^th century was relegated to the margins of history”[5]

Thus Kautilya’s book gave, in addition to such power to Brahmins, free lands, free labour and exclusive rights for  education which continue being the most important property of that caste and it was given both by state and the civil society. Their power was acquired from books--Vedas, Upanishads, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Arthashastra and Manusrimiti. They would not have retained such vast powers with physical strength  or through any other method, except for the mystic power of written word. With all that power and property the Brahmins entered the free India after 1947 with a clever shift from Sanskrit to English as their private educational language. Under the leadership of Pandit (a Brahmin with Kashmiri roots) Jawaharlal Nehru the Brahmins mostly educated in England captured the state and civil societal institutions and the Brahmins who could not go to England for English education remained here either studied in locally available English medium schools or in Sanskrit Gurukulas and became officers and priests in the temples. They defined all Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis as Hindu for keeping their political hegemony in a democratic polity without giving them the basic spiritual rights. The entire Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi forces were forced to remain either illiterate or regional language literates.

Historically productive mass community relationship with the king was quite consciously cut off by the Brahmin priest and the Prime Minister during the monarchical phase. The Shudra kings could not do anything to weaken the power of the Brahmin. The issue of graded inequality and caste based human untouchability could have been gradually abolished if only the Shudra kings were to rebel against the Brahmin spiritual, social and political power. But that power was so deeply entrenched even the kings were terribly scared to oppose the Brahmin because of the spiritual hold over the idea of God. The Shudras–both rulers and masses–did not realize that they had a spiritual tradition of their own, independent of the Brahmin tradition but that had no recorded book version and with a systematically trained priesthood with a written book to read. But that was so because the Brahmins refused to educate them in their gurukulas and did not allow the Shudra kings to open parallel schools. The Shudra kings also naively believed that if they open parallel schools the Brahmins and their gods would curse them. There are many examples where great warrior Shudra kings surrendered to the Brahmin power of spiritual letter and mantra.

Famous Chatrapati Shivaji of the present Maharashtra region was made to surrender to the Brahmin power and was made to take Kshatriyahood under the leadership of Brahmin priests. When the local Brahmins refused to coronate him as he came from an ordinary Maratha family he was desperate to get coronated by the Brahmins. He imported a group of Brahmin priests from Kashi and got himself crowned and surrendered to their spiritual authority. Even such a brave man could not think of training Shudra priests and keeping the religion under the Shudra control. A man who fought Mughal rulers could not oppose the Brahmins who controlled the domain of mystic power. In fact, such a mystic power which was not open for all human beings could not be defined as religion. But the same Brahmin and Bania intellectuals defined Hinduism as a inclusive religion like other religions in the world where caste kind of system was not accepted. The Shudra kings treated a Brahmin as god and whatever he asked was gifted as the Kautilya stipulated in Arthashastra.

Take for example the Baroda king, Sayajirao Gaekwad, who sent Ambedkar to America for higher education. He was a Shudra king. He was a visionary enough to send a brilliant Dalit student for his higher education to America. In fact, the scholarship given to Ambedkar came with the obligation of working for the State of Baroda after he finished his education abroad. Despite this, the Brahmin intervention came at a stage when Ambedkar was to work in Baroda’s administration. Brahmins, even as late as the twentieth century, could not come to terms with the fact that a Dalit man has become a superior/colleague of them. The fact that Ambedkar studied in Columbia and London School of Economics mattered little for them. So the priestly caste forced the king to send him away, as it was not agreeable for them to provide him a house for Ambedkar within the city. Within four days, in 1917, Ambedkar had to leave the job and go away to Bombay. That was the power of Brahmins in the kingdom of a Shudra king who was sympathetic to the education of the exploited castes–including Dalits.[6]

However, for the first time as I said earlier Shivaji’s  grandson tells the story of their control in a letter that he wrote to a top British official. Once such a gimmick was done by injecting enormous fear into their kingdom itself, then Brahmins were able to control every other aspect of the civil society and state life in his kingdom also. After the king becomes a Kshatriya a Brahmin becomes the PM of the state and another Brahmin becomes the head priest and spiritually controls the day to day belief systems of the king and his family.

Even when the Muslim empires controlled the whole nation there were Shudra local rulers and they depended on the same from Brahmin, Kayastha or Khatri knowledge of Persian language. The Muslim rulers were also dependent on the Brahmin forces for the simple reason that if they were not happy they would instigate the Shudra masses against the state. Hardly any Shudras learnt Persian during the Muslim period of Indian history. Maybe because of the fear of learning letters that the brahminism injected into their psyche, they remained away from Persian education also. There is no historical evidence that the Muslim rulers started Persian schools to teach the Shudras in the villages who were main tillers of the land, builders of artisanal and animal economy.

But for the accidental reading of Shahu Maharaj’s letter to the retired Governor of Bombay presidency written in 1918, I would not have thought of writing this essay. In my life time experience of writing about the Brahmin-Bania power in contemporary times at the expense of life threats and cases in various levels of courts–from a Sessions court at Korutla, Hyderabad, and the High Court of Telangana and the Supreme Court of India–the Dwija pundits tried to dismiss my arguments about the Brahmin-Bania power over the society and state in post-independence times and in the past–medieval and ancient times. Many Brahmin liberal intellectuals keep arguing that when so many Shudra kings ruled the Indian states in ancient, medieval and contemporary times how could Brahmin-Banias control the system. For a long time, they also dismissed Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Phule’s arguments about the control of Brahmins on the state and society on the same ground. But Shahu’s lengthy letter in his own words as a king of a very important Princely State that existed till 1947 as descendant state of great king Chatrapati Shivaji provides an indisputable testimony of how the Shudra kings suffered under the spiritual and intellectual yoke of Brahmins.

It is true that from Chandragupta Maurya to the princely states during the colonial times and also the present Chief Ministers of many states were Shudras. Yet, they could never control the spiritual power in India. Not only that, their political power was heavily circumscribed by Brahmin bureaucrats and priests. The kings and the Chief Ministers were virtual slaves of the varna spiritual control that the Brahmins imposed and that grip remains very strong as the Hindu spiritual system is not democratized.

Why were they so afraid of the Brahmin population which was so small without directly controlling the armed strength? Very rarely they were in the army. They had no role in food production and improvement of its technology from time to time. They in fact hated productive work in the fields as work of pollution. Yet their control on the Shudra masses and rulers was unbridled. As I said earlier their spiritual power came from their written word. They spread all over India with the common Brahmin language–Sanskrit–and the Shudra masses were forced to live in disconnected regions without a common language. Not that they did not learn the local languages. They learnt and also gradually Sanskritized them. Today all the regional languages which were developed by the productive masses over a period of centuries got Sanskritized by varying degrees . Because these languages were brought into written text the Brahmin writers jumped into the task to inject Sanskrit vocabulary into all regional languages. At the same time, they saw to it that the Shudra/Dalit masses do not learn Sanskrit or Persian during the Muslim rule and English during the British rule. Mahatma Phule and Ambedkar’s lives show how difficult it is for them to learn Sanskrit or English. Ambedkar had to learn Sanskrit in Germany.

Even the children of Shudra kings did not become well educated in Sanskrit, Persian or in English by the time India achieved freedom. Only the Dwijas whom Brahmins–particularly Kautilya and Manu– historically given the status of three upper varnas which need not do the agrarian production or practice animal husbandry became most educated by 1947. Mahatma Gandhi, a Bania from Gujarat who was a son of the Prime Minister of a small princely state and Nehru a Brahmin a Brahmin with Kashmiri roots became the main pillars of independent India. No Shudra king could get English education like these two leaders. Sardar Vallabai Patel a peasant Shudra and Ambedkar a Dalit competed with them with foreign degrees but they were not allowed to run the real system.  Ambedkar became a Buddhist and died and Patel died as an equal Shudra.

However, to understand the role of Brahmins in the states where Shudra kings were ruling during the British colonialism it is important to carefully read the full text of the memorandum that king Shahu Maharaj (1874–1922) wrote to Sydenham the former Governor of Bombay province. what follows is the only written record that a Shudra king left for understanding the cunning role of Brahmin intellectuals in the whole of Indian history and it speaks volumes:

“SHAHU Maharaj TO SYDENHAM FORMER GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY ABOUT BRAHMIN CONTROL OF THE SATE AND SOCIETY

Kolhapur
September 1918

My Dear Lord Sydenham,
I have to thank Your Lordship for championing the cause of the dumb millions of India. Your close acquaintance with India and especially with Bombay, which is the political storm-centre of the country, has enabled Your Lordship to gauge the situation correctly and to see the fallacy of applying the Western principles of equality to the priest-ridden and caste-divided illiterate millions of India. The Deccan has been for centuries groaning under the tyranny of the Brahmin priest, who has seized supremacy in every way in religious as well as secular matters, politics, commerce, education, banking, etc and so on. The masses of the country are not, therefore, free agents and unless special precautions are taken to safeguard their interests they are sure to fall an easy prey to the tyranny of their Brahmin masters. Communal representation is the only way for safeguarding their interest in the Provincial and Imperial Councils. I may state some of the reasons why the Marathas (a caste to which king Shahu himself belonged to. This community is now demanding for reservation in education and employment both at Delhi and in their own state Maharashtra–italics and emphasis are mine) are greatly in need of it:

FIRSTLY. Although the British are the rulers of the country, the real power rests with the Brahmin officers who pervade every rank of the service from the meanest clerk and the village accountant, the Kulkarni, to the highest offices and predominate even in the Councils. The other communities have to submit to this Brahmin bureaucracy and their tyranny is beyond description. The grievances of the non-Brahmin communities do not reach the British Officers and even when they go to them the Brahmin subordinate is a past master in the art of prejudicing his head against the complainant. Under such a bureaucratic rule of the Brahmins, the Marathas and other backward communities have no chance to send their representatives to the enlarged Councils. The non-Brahmins will have to vote in favour of Brahmin candidates whose caste-men know all the tricks of threatening, cajoling or inducing them. There is no remedy except communal representation, for a limited number of years at least. The elections for the Councils, Municipal and Local Boards are instances in which a Maratha very rarely succeeds.

SECONDLY. The Congress agitation forced the Government to enlarge the Councils under Morley-Minto-Scheme. The Congress has up to this time devoted its energies to further the cause of the Brahmin bureaucracy and the British Government has also unwittingly played into their hands. The Congress has closed its eyes to the needs of, and done nothing for, the submerged classes, and the aims of their leaders are to strive to keep down the masses to perpetuate the bureaucratic rule of their community. Tilak’s organ, Kesari, is condemning free and compulsory primary education and the Maharaja of Darbhanga is opposing tooth and nail in the Council of Behar any scheme of popular education. This is one done with no other object but the preservation of the despotism of their community. And if, Government persists in refusing communal representation the result will be to flood the Councils with the Brahmins, whose ideal leaders are the two worthies who barefaced oppose the interests of communities other than their own. This is sure to degrade the position of the non-Brahmins more and more. Communal representation is, therefore, necessary to counteract all such tendencies.

THIRDLY. It might be urged that the Government will nominate members from the Maratha and other backward communities if they do not succeed in the general election. But I think that this expedient will not be very useful. Such a nominated member generally lacks the confidence which a successful fight at the poll gives. He is, moreover, most likely to play into the hands of those the poll gives. He is, moreover, most likely to play into the hands of the powerful priestly bureaucracy. He may not care for the interests of a community which does not elect him. Moreover, the very fact that he is a Government nominee takes away from him the value of advocacy, however disinterested it may be. The Brahmin bureaucrats are in the habit of accusing nominated members of being partisans and slaves of Government and thus try to lower such members in the popular esteem. An election through a limited communal electorate will create confidence in the Councillors who will be more and more self-reliant. And this the Brahmins do not want and hence their opposition to communal representation is due to this fear.

FOURTHLY. I may quote an instance to show how the Brahmin bureaucracy kills self-respect. One Mr Bagal, a Maratha LLB, was a Mamlatdar here and that time he was very enthusiastic in the cause of the masses and was against the Brahmin supremacy. But when he left service and commenced to practice at the courts, he found it expedient to change his angle of vision in order to curry favour with the Brahmin Judges and Magistrates and now he is noted Brahmanophil in public. He dares not give expression to his real feelings. Mr Latthe too, after commencing practice at the bar, has become altogether moderate in his attacks against the Brahmins. He was a zealous advocate of non-Brahmins.

Many a time I have found to my mortification and chagrin that orders against the interests of the Brahmin bureaucracy are intercepted or were so watered in the passage that they became useless. The reason was that the Brahmins were in possession of the records and they can quote precedents to support Brahmin claims and can suppress the precedents that will go against them.

Even high British officers and non-Brahmin States are powerless against the Brahmin bureaucracy. They dare not make any move lest the Brahmin press will raise a howl against them and they are afraid of the higher officers whose Brahmin assistants take precious care to have them prejudiced against innovation. This has come to such a pass that the British officer or State who dares to go against the Brahmins is looked upon as foolish or imprudent; for he forgets that he is standing on a very slippery ground. His Brahmin subordinates are to join with his enemies and bring him into trouble.

FIFTHLY. The principle that majorities have no need of separate representation does not hold good in a province where a selfish minority is likely to get the power, which is sure to be used to hold the majority in perpetual vassalage. The Maratha community is numerically very strong in the Central Division. But it is weak as the number of men of independent views is very small. It can of course boast of a very small number of legal practitioners. The few that now practise, realise that the whole weight of the Brahmin bureaucracy will be thrown against them if they resist and therefore young men are unwilling to begin practice at the bar. There is not, nor will there be, in my lifetime at least, a single Maratha leader in the whole of the Bombay Presidency. This shows the necessity of some special provision for the numerically strong Maratha community to secure an adequate representation of their grievances.

It is difficult to realise the tyranny to which the millions of Marathas are subjected. In the villages, as Your Lordship knows, the Kulkarni or the village accountant reigns supreme and none dare raise his voice against him. The village priest and the astrologer and their caste men are looked upon as Gods and the villagers have to feed them and pay them fees equally on joyful and sorrowful occasions. The secular and religious bondage is so very complete that the Maratha can hardly think for himself much less act for himself. But for the inborn loyalty of the Maratha, the wily Brahmin would have made a tool of him in his reasonable acts. It must be said to his credit that although the Maratha was never the recipient of any special favours at the hands of Government, he has ever remained loyal. To refuse communal representation to such a community who have been profusely shedding their blood on the fields of battle in the three continents in the cause of the empire is tantamount to consigning these faithful people to the tender mercies of their hitherto oppressors. The Councils will be flooded with Brahmins who will have a dominating voice in the affairs of the departments handed over to them. All these departments will be exploited to the advantage of the favoured community and to the prejudice of the real supporters of Government. The non-Brahmins will ultimately have to submit to Brahmin influences and sacrifice their loyalty.

I, for myself, have done my best to completely free my subjects from the tender mercies of the village Kulkarni, Bhat (ritual priest) and Joshi (hereditary village astrologer). The services of the first are commuted and are replaced by paid agencies mainly recruited from non-Brahmin ranks who were specially trained for the work in anticipation of the change. By a proclamation the rayats (farmers) are informed that they need not employ the village priest or the astrologer who will have no claims against them if they do not employ him. Thus liberty of conscience is given them. In the same way liberty of action is also given to them by abolishing the hereditary rights of the village artisans whose inefficient work was very dearly paid for, by a portion of the produce.

I have also cancelled the rules that pressed very heavily against the Mahars and Mangs and Ramoshis who were described as the criminal tribes. The restriction upon their movements resulted in preventing them from taking to trade and forced some of their members to take to dishonesty and violence. By the way I may mention that the Boarding Institute for the untouchable classes named after your beloved lamented daughter is quite flourishing. I am sending a photo of the building from which Your Lordship will see that its inmates do not despise manual labour as they were apt to do when they took to books.

Very few can realise the influence of the Brahmin bureaucracy as your Lordship does. Being very strong in every branch of the service, high or low, it has its way and means to keep other communities down, who have to submit to their ex-actions and dare not raise a protest even when flagrant injustice is done to them. A merchant of Kolhapur was cheated by a Brahmin leader. When asked to prosecute the latter, the former said that he had no chance of success as the judges were Brahmins, the Police were Brahmins, the clerks were Brahmins and that instead of getting any redress of injustice he would make himself a marked man and that he would have to bear the consequences of Brahmin revenge. Even when I asked him to prosecute the pleader he begged to be excused and refused to move in the matter. Similarly, one Mr Gandale, a Brahmin, preached in public that it was good for the untouchable classes to remain so, because a new mixed caste is seen springing up as a result of illegitimate connections between the two castes of Brahmins and Marathas, as the two castes are touchables. I tried to bring Mr Gandale to court for making such defamatory statements but no one dared take up the prosecution. This fear of the Brahmin bureaucracy is not entertained by the merchants or such other people alone but it haunts even Princes. I crave your Lordship’s indulgence for a little piece of personal boasting. I am the only Prince who is openly fighting against the Brahmin bureaucracy although I do realise their power. They do not come forward themselves but they instigate the subjects against their Prince whose black side only the Brahmin bureaucracy exposes.

The best way to break down this citadel of Brahmin power is to grant communal representation, not only in the Councils but also in all branches of the service, high or low. Whenever a chance occurs, preference should be given to qualified non-Brahmins. It will not appoint a few non-Brahmins in important places. This remedy is worse than the disease. Such an office is between the anvil of his Brahmin staff and the hammer of the similar staff of the higher office. His staff forces him to take measures even against the interests of the masses and the poor fellow has to bear the responsibility. The remedy lies in granting proportionate communal representation in the subordinate and clerical staff also. Recruitment for the posts of the lowest clerks should be made from non-Brahmins and for this purpose a list of eligible candidates from those communities should be maintained, and appointments made from among them until the non-Brahmins get a percentage of posts in proportion to their numerical strength.

In the educational department also the Brahmin bureaucracy comes in. All the school-masters are Brahmins. The Brahmin bureaucracy here is not like the priestly bureaucracy. In priestly bureaucracy not only caste but learning is also necessary. A learned Brahmin becomes a priest. In the Brahmin bureaucracy it is the caste alone that is required. However low, wicked, unhealthy, immoral a man he may be, being a Brahmin, he is supposed to be higher than a Prince or a General or an Admiral or any learned man of another caste. The Brahmin bureaucracy for ages past had ordered that no non-Brahmin should be taught anything, even the three ‘R’s’ [reading, writing, arithmetic]. The consequence is almost all the colleges and high schools are for Brahmins though they are cosmopolitan. There are all Brahmins in them. Untouchables are not allowed to come in their precincts. Some other castes are allowed but their percentage is 1 to 100. Again I say there should be communal representation in service as there must be in councils at least for another 20 years. If no step is taken in that direction it will not be correct to say that the Princes ruled India or I may even say that the British ruled India but on the contrary it will be right to say that Brahmins rule India. Communal representation is the only remedy.

If communal representation is not granted to the non-Brahmin communities in Maharashtra, all this trouble of Political Reform will end in strengthening the Brahmin bureaucracy at the expense of the really loyal and faithful subjects of the Government

The Shankaracharya of Kolhapur (Dr Kurtkoti) is a learned man, but I must say that at heart he is a Brahmin of Brahmins. The other day he presided at a meeting held to support the Durbar in their action of doing away with Kulkarni and the president refused to communicate to me the resolution passed at the meeting to request the Durbar to investigate the conduct of the Kulkarnis and to give relief to a certain extent to the people who had to suffer at their hands. He has now openly joined the extremist Congress. As a religious head he ought not to dabble in politics; but a Brahmin is very rapacious and wants to be supreme everywhere.

Even such an educated person like Mr Rajwade, who poses to be a great historian, is partial to his own caste and so envious towards other castes, that he has published some false and defamatory matter about the Chandrasenia Kayastha Prabhu caste and the Mohamedans. Of course they are going to take steps against Mr Rajwade but I only refer to the incident in order to show you the Brahmin character.

I should have very much liked to speak and discuss these matters personally with Your Lordship, but my only chance to do so seems to be if I am sent up by Government like the Maharaja of Patiala.

This letter has become very lengthy and I must now close, not, however, without making apologies to Your Lordship for its unusual length, for which my only excuse is the gravity and urgency of the situation and the momentous issue involved.

May I request Your Lordship kindly to convey my respectful remembrances to Lady Sydenham, and with warm regards.

Believe me,

Yours Sincerely,

[Signed]

PS: I hear that Sir John Hewett is coming over here in India. May I request Your Lordship kindly to send to me a note of introduction to him?

I herewith enclose a few copies of my letter so that you may please give one to Sir John Hewett and Sir Valentine Chirol and, if you think it unobjectionable, to Mr Montagu, with a request to all in my behalf to treat this as confidential as I do not want my name to come forward.”[7]

Shahu Maharaj realized that the priesthood was critical in controlling civil societal life. He says “they control the religious and even the secular life of the people”. According to him a Brahmin is only for Brahmins. He describes the Indian society as “priest-ridden and caste divided”. He calls the Deccan as a society that was groaning under the tyranny of the (Brahmin) priests” They help each other at every place, in the darbar and in the court. They were the village land revenue officers called Kulkarnis. They exploit the tillers all along. A similar system was also there all over India including Telangana where a Muslim ruler was ruling. The revenue system was under the control of Brahmins by my childhood in Telangana state. He thus came to a conclusion that unless a proportionate reservation system is placed in his state he cannot do justice to the non-brahmin productive population. But that day to present, the whole issue is revolving around jobs in the Government sector whether it is small or big. But there is no demand from Shudras at the base structural level—the priesthood and handling the spiritual philosophy–for a share in every aspect of Hindu life.

Brahmins established their hegemony through the spiritual system and that system got institutionalized through philosophical written text. But philosophy and understanding the role of each symbol in a religion requires very critical reading of the religious texts. The Shudras, whether they were rulers or tillers or artisanal operators, have not focused around that fundamental issue of equality in religious life. For example Ambedkar in his seminal work, Who Were The Shudras: How They Came to Be the Forth Varna in the Indo-Aryan Society says:

“1) The Shudras were one of the Aryan communities of the Solar race. (2) There was a time when the Aryan society recognized only three Varnas, namely, Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. (3) The Shudras did not form a separate Varna. They ranked as part of the Kshatriya Varna in the Indo-Aryan society. (4) There was a continuous feud between the Shudra kings and the Brahmins in which the Brahmins were subjected to many tyrannies and indignities. (5) As a result of the hatred towards the Shudras generated by their tyrannies and oppressions, the Brahmins refused to perform the Upanayana of the Shudras. (6) Owing to the denial of Upanayana, the Shudras who were Kshatriyas became socially degraded, fell below the rank of the Vaishyas and thus came to form the fourth Varna”[8]

In this sum up Ambedkar puts the Shudras as part of Aryan society. That may be because by the time he was writing this book the race question was not well studied with advanced methodological tools–archeology and DNA studies. Now that question is settled that Shudras are Indo-Dravidians with Indo-African roots. The significant question, however, in his thesis is his importance to the spiritual symbol, Upanayana (so called sacred thread). The Brahmin priesthood is still linked to this issue. Even now when the RSS is defining all Shudras as Hindu whether it wants all of them to get this right to Upanayana is not allowed to come up for debate. The Shudra kings who were given the Kshatriya status got the Upanayana right yet they did not have the right to priesthood, why? This fundamental control over the religious power is exclusively kept in the hands of Brahmins. The Kshatriyas and Vaisyas in  modern times, while claiming to be Hindu, rather militantly, also do not ask for the priesthood right. But they ask for reservation in the state and in fact several Bania castes got the right to reservation as they defined themselves as the OBC.

The long history of political systems, monarchical and post monarchical, the role of the spiritual system and its exclusive control in the hands of Brahmins made India a very stagnant nation. Even the priestly class could not face competition and never improved the systems in any meaningful direction. The Shudras and Dwijas, particularly Brahmins, remained frozen. The Shudras and Dalits got stuck not only in social fragmentation but illiteracy, spiritual backwardness and lack of national and international exposure. Both the masses and rulers remained helpless in their unorganized way of life. Both the Brahminness and Shudraness became shackles and kept the productive forces, market relations primitive even in modern times. No revolutionary movements sprang up from the Shudra forces and the Brahminness did not allow the priestly forces to self-reform with an understanding of universal changes. Even with their violent colonialism, if not for the British and their globalized knowledge system, Brahmins would have been even more regressive social forces in the subcontinent without any outside exposure. The Sanskrit language would not have given them any additional advantage than the spiritual control over the Shudra masses. All Indians lived a very fate bound life.

Dynamic spiritual discourse involving all masses would have changed every other sphere from time to time. But Brahmanism was uncannily successful in assimilating and swallowing up all the revolt against its oppressive spiritual conspiracy. The only major shakeup that the Shudra and Dwija masses encountered collectively in their living history was the freedom struggle. Even the arrival of Islamic rule and its existence in India did not bring any significant revolutionary change in Indian life. The Muslim rulers and the Muslim ruling class remained more aligned with the Brahmins and other Dwijas than the Shudras all through the Indian history, ever since they established their administrative authority either in the whole of India or in different regions like Telangana, Mysore, Junagadh and so on. This question needs a study of its own.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is the author of Why I am Not a Hindu, Post-Hindu India and The Shudras–Vision for a New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy. I thank Karthik Raja Karuppusamy for his editorial assistance.

[1]Kautilya, Arthashastra, Shamahastri’s translation, p 10

https://ia802703.us.archive.org/13/items/Arthasastra_English_Translation/Arthashastra_of_Chanakya_-_English.pdf Page 10

[2]Ibid, p 10-11

[3]  Ram Madhav, Because India Comes First: Reflections on Nationalism, Identity and Culture, (Chennai, Westland, 2020)

https://www.amazon.in/Because-India-Comes-First-Reflections-ebook/dp/B08LDMMV2X?asin=B08LDMMV2X&revisionId=5e8f7294&format=1&depth=1 kindle version

[4] Wendy Doniger, What is the Kamasutra really about? Wendy Doniger reads the classic text, Scroll, Aug 06, 2015

[5]https://www.thehindu.com/society/the-shudra-queen-rashmoni-and-a-sacred-river/article34847554.ece

[6] http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_ambedkar_waiting.html

[7] This letter has been excerpted from ‘Chhatrapati Shahu: The Pillar of Social Democracy’, edited by P.B Salunkhe and published by the Education Department, Government of Maharashtra

[8] Ambedkar BR, Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches, Volume 7, (Bombay: Government of Maharastra, 1990), 11-12

https://countercurrents.org/2021/08/the-shudra-kings-and-brahmins-a-mirror-image-of-history/

Scholars study her books to understand the question of caste and untouchability, and also to change the caste system.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd    

Gail Omvedt. Photo: Shramik Mukti Dal

Dr Gail Omvedt (81), one of the greatest scholars on caste studies, passed away on August 24, 2021 evening in her village, Kasegaon, Sangli, Maharashtra.

Omvedt has pioneered caste studies having come as a student from the US and settled down in India in the 1970s. She later married Bharat Patankar, a Marxist scholar and activist; both of them lived in his village over these years. She came to study caste and Mahatma Phule’s movement in Maharashtra as a PhD student, and was moved by the kind of caste and untouchability system she encountered in India. Omvedt settled down in this country to work for the liberation of the oppressed castes.

As an American-born Indian scholar, sociologist and human rights activist, she was well known all over the world for her writing on Dalits/OBCs/Adivasis.

Also read: Gail Omvedt on the Indian Feminist Movement and the Challenges It Faces

She was a prolific writer and published numerous books. Her PhD thesis introduced Mahatma Phule’s Satyashodhak Movement to the world and her major book, Dalits and Democratic Revolution, became a handbook in every young student’s hands in the colleges and universities across India, and also in the South Asian study centres of the world.

Scholars study her books to understand the question of caste and untouchability, and also to change the caste system. She was a great Phule-Ambedkarite, who led many movements from the front. The Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasi movements all over India will be indebted to her lifetime of work.

All of us who worked with her in a long journey of Dalit/OBC/Adivasi/women’s liberation movements for the last 40 years, along with her husband Bharat Patankar and daughter Prachi Patanakar, will celebrate her life and work as proud Indians.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is political theorist, social activist. His latest book is The Shudras: Vision For a New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy.

The Wire: India Will Remember Gail Omvedt Forever. https://thewire.in/caste/india-will-remember-gail-omvedt-forever

CM Jagan Mohan Reddy has made sure that students are taught in the English medium at all levels, from anganwadi to university. That is a quantum jump in India’s educational language policy.

Written by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd |August 17, 2021 5:02:46 pmThe Andhra government’s education policy has parallels with the British model of educational welfarism. (Representational)

Andhra Pradesh’s education policy appears to be birthing new hope among its people, especially those sections historically denied equal opportunity in the Indian education system. The hope comes from the repeated stress of Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on investment in school, college and university education and his claim that he wishes to provide education as “property to every child in the state”. His policy has three major aspects:

One, the CM is saying, rather repeatedly, that quality and equal education in all respects is the best asset that the government could give to the younger generation.

Two, never before, including the period after Independence, have Indians got a one-language education with uniformity of learning opportunities. In this case, he has made sure that students are taught in the English medium, with one subject Telugu, at all levels from anganwadi (pre-school) to university. That is a quantum jump in India’s educational language policy.

Third, the government is creatively spending a substantial amount of money on the education sector. The data provided here gives a clear picture. The amounts given here were spent in two budget years after Jagan Mohan Reddy came to power in 2019. Under the Jagananna Amma Vodi scheme, it spent Rs 13,022 crore, which went into the accounts of poor mothers to spend on their children’s school education. It benefited 44,48,865 families. Under the Jagananna Vidya Deevena scheme, it spent Rs 5,573 crore, which went into mothers’ accounts of college-going youth. It benefited 18,80,934 families. Under Jagananna Vasathi Deevena, Rs 2,270 crore went into 15,56,956 women’s accounts to spend on various miscellaneous educational and family expenditures. Under Jagananna Gorumudda scheme, Rs 1,600 crore was allotted for the provision of quality midday meals in schools. Under yet another scheme, Jagananna Vidya Kanuka, it spent Rs 650 crore on books, bags, shoes and so on. The state government also initiated a programme to build good school infrastructure. In all, so far on, the government spent Rs 26,678 crore in two financial years on education.

This expenditure is over and above the teaching and non-teaching staff salaries. In a country of massive poverty, this is a game-changer.

The Indian education system has been caste and class biased. Indian democracy has not yet realised the importance of investing in quality school education. No state or the Centre has realised that the nation has to be united with one-language education. For this, a bold decision is needed to appoint English as the main national teaching language. Recently N R Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, said English must be recognised as an Indian language and taught in all schools as a national priority.

The so-called bold and progressive chief ministers like Congress’s Siddaramaiah and CPM’s Pinarayi Vijayan shrank from introducing English-medium in government schools in their states. In Telangana, K Chandrashekar Rao promised KG to PG English medium education and went back on it. Mamata Banerjee too has not done anything innovative on that account. Even in Maharashtra and Gujarat, where the rich educate their children in English medium, Maratha and Gujarati sentiments keeps poor Dalits, Shudras and Adivasis in regional language education. This is where Jagan Mohan Reddy’s bold step must be appreciated.

The Andhra government’s education policy has parallels with the British model of educational welfarism. However, this policy is not backed by the central government. So long as Delhi does not push for a switch to teaching in English, quality education for future generations will not be possible. The AP government is showing a way.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist. He is the author of From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual–My Memoirs 

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/why-andhra-pradeshs-education-policy-deserves-to-be-scaled-up-nationally-7458123/

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/why-andhra-pradeshs-education-policy-deserves-to-be-scaled-up-nationally-7458123/

The RSS knows that Shudra agrarian communities across India are re-assessing their status in all spheres of life — spiritual, social, educational and economic.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD17 August, 2021 11:25 am IST

Illustration by Ramandeep Kaur | ThePrint 

Just a day before the Indian Parliament passed the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Amendment) Bill on the question of Other Backward Class reservation, the general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Dattatreya Hosabale, gave an unusual statement, given the history of his organisation. He said that reservation is a historical necessity for India, it should continue as long as there is inequality being experienced by a particular section of society. He also said that “the history of India would be ‘incomplete’ without the history of Dalits”.

The statement of its new general secretary goes against the repeated statements that Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has given against reservations. On 10 August 2021, the OBC reservation Bill, which is meant to uphold the Maratha and other state-level caste reservations, was passed unanimously with a two-thirds majority in Parliament at a time when the Parliament did not do any other useful work by Narendra Modi’s BJP government.

This Bill put the Congress in a fix, because when it was in power, it never took such a significant step.

The RSS knows that the Shudra agrarian communities across the country now are in a mood to reassess their status in all spheres of life — spiritual, social, educational, and economic. 

The Tamil Nadu government’s decision to appoint trained archakas (priests) from all Shudra/Dalit castes also goes against the very traditional (in the garb of nationalist) idea of Hinduism of the RSS. It never openly stood against the practice of only Brahmins getting priesthood in the temples. But now it cannot go against such a move because it knows that to remain in political power in Delhi and also in other states, the Shudra/OBC votes are critical.

It also knows that all its anti-Muslim battles were physically fought by the Shudra/OBCs with the hope that they will get equal rights in Hinduism with the support of RSS. If they do not get equality when they are in power, the Shudra/OBCs will rebel against the RSS’ Brahminism. This is why the strongest anti-OBC reservation forces in that network are grudgingly silent.

The issue of caste census

Another very contentious issue in the organisation is the caste census. Since the Vajpayee-Advani days (1999-2004), the RSS has been resisting the demand for a caste census. But the statement by Dharmendra Pradhan, the current education minister, who is an OBC himself, shows a serious intent that has otherwise been missing all these years. He said during a debate in the Rajya Sabha, “caste-based census is a revolutionary process.” At an ideological level, the Shudra/OBC demands of extending reservations in education and jobs, access to temples, priesthood to all Shudra/Dalits who accept themselves as Hindu, and caste census, have existed irrespective of parties. There are more such people in the Bharatiya Janta Party and RSS than in any other group as of now.

These issues are not that of the RSS. The sangh parivar’s issues were the Ram temple, abrogation of Article 370, the Uniform Civil Code, and so on, which have implications for the Muslim community. The theory of RSS came from the Brahmins, but in practice, the anti-Islamic muscle power came from the Shudra/OBCs. Ever since Narendra Modi claimed that he was an OBC, just before the 2014 election, the Shudra/OBC forces felt that the future government would be theirs. In the latest cabinet reshuffle, Modi has included more OBC/Dalit/Adivasis than ever before.

This kind of caste-identity issue was not anticipated by the RSS theoreticians who officially owned Manusmriti as their great ancient constitution. K. B. Hedgewar, M. S. Golwalkar, even and later Sarsanghchalaks were not at all convinced by the present Constitution, which could empower the Shudras, OBCs, and Dalits in Delhi and other states, and even shift the power base. The Congress also resisted such a shift in power, which some liberal intellectuals lament as a ‘total shift in power elite.’ While the Shudras/OBCs/Dalits do not understand the Euro-American jargon, they do now know the power of caste and numbers. The Left-liberals, coming from the dvija social background, think the Modi era has disempowered the so-called well-educated power elite.

Ideological opposition in BJP and RSS

An ideological opposition to Modi and Dharmendra Pradhan kind of OBC practice can be seen in the recent writings of Ram Madhav. Madhav, who is a Brahmin from Andhra Pradesh, came from the RSS to the BJP after Modi became prime minister and went back to the RSS with definite ideological differences. In many of his recent articles talking about the dangers of ‘elected authoritarianism dictatorships’, it is easy to understand who he is referring to. He bemoans how a democratic government cannot be run by elected representatives alone. Perhaps he wanted to be a Pramod Mahajan in the Modi government but was not allowed to. In his recent book, Because India Comes First: Reflections on Nationalism, Identity and Culture (2020), Ram Madhav upholds Manusmriti in the same ideological reverence as Hedgewar when speaking about Manu’s laws.

As I have written in The Shudras: Vision for New Path, Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS, praised Manu’s laws as greater than those written by Lycurgus and Solon and says,  “In our constitution, there is no mention of the unique constitutional developments in ancient Bharat. Manu’s laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia…. But to our Constitutional pundits, that (Manu’s laws) mean nothing.” (Introduction XXV) He had no respect for the Constitution that Ambedkar instituted.

However, it is the same Constitution that enabled an OBC, Narendra Modi,  to become the Prime Minister of the nation in 2014. Since Modi is still the Prime Minister, Ram Madhav in the very introduction of his book, says “Through its living history of over five millennia, India has offered invaluable gems of wisdom enriching all of mankind…This wisdom was proclaimed in Manusmriti, one of the oldest constitutions of India.” He further quotes a Sanskrit sloka from the Manusmriti to say “Men all over the world would come to beseech lessons in character through the lives of the great men born in this country”. No Shudra/OBC/Dalit man or woman can accept this view of Manu even if they are from the RSS/BJP fold. In one of his articles in the Indian Express Madhav says, “this pandemic has become an excuse for some leaders to usurp more powers and become more authoritarian”. In his book, he develops this line of argument further.

In a 2014 internal RSS meeting, Bhagwat also said that “the Sangh should not get into eradicating or opposing caste. Caste is a system (though now perverted) that exists in society. It would remain until the society believes in it.” Hosabale’s view of caste and reservation is opposite of this view of Bhagwat.

We know that Brahmin intellectuals working with all parties and institutions share similar sentiments about Manu, Kautilya and the caste system, but no Shudra/OBC/Dalit who has studied them and experienced caste oppression can agree with that view.

The opposition to reservation and caste census comes from such Brahmanism and its support from Shudra/OBC/Dalits comes from their socio-spiritual and historically oppressed status. The Shudra/OBC/Dalits working in the RSS/BJP have more serious reasons to ask for equality in every sphere because they have invested their energies and resources in anti-Muslim campaigns. Modi’s location as a ‘claimed OBC’ and Ram Madhav’s location as a Brahmin ideologue of the RSS seem to clash on such issues.

However, one can see there are two strong opposing ideological positions in the RSS and BJP. Let’s wait and see what happens in the future.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist and social activist. He is the author of The Shudras: Vision For a New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy. Views are personal.

(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)

https://theprint.in/opinion/bjps-obc-line-has-silenced-rss-brahmins-but-shudras-key-to-anti-muslim-battles/716709/

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/video/is-low-job-creation-the-reason-for-quota-fixation-1839749-2021-08-11

May 27, 2014, 7:52 am IST

kancha ilaiah

First time in Indian history, a PM declared that he hailed from a lower caste

India’s 15th Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Photo: PTI/File)

“The coming decade is of dalits and other weaker sections.”
Narendra Modi, March 2, 2014

Narendra Modi’s spectacular win across India packs in massive implications for our polity, civil society and the Hindu spiritual system. The Bharatiya Janata Party has not only won a clear majority on its own steam, but it has wiped off the Congress Party’s presence from several states. There is a sizeable vote that the BJP bagged because of Mr Modi alone, and not because of its sister organisations, for example the other backward classes’ vote. The party and its sister organisations provided the logistics, but Mr Modi’s appeal travelled beyond that. What this means for the Hindutva forces needs to be examined, as they might use this vote base for further expansion.

For the first time in Indian history, a prime ministerial candidate declared that he hailed from a lower caste and that he had been oppressed and humiliated by the upper castes. None of our Prime Ministers — from Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh — could talk about their social background because they all belonged to the “oppressor” class. Mr Modi rallied the weaker sections on his own accord, promising that “the coming decade will be of dalits and other weaker sections”. The hopes of the weaker sections of India have risen.

Mr Modi’s win, and swearing-in on Monday, has another social dimension. He was trained at khaki shorts camps of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. This organisation, along with its affiliates, provoked several communal riots. The biggest riots took place in Gujarat in 2002 under Mr Modi’s nose. Both Muslims and Christians have reason to harbour fear as he is seen as the person who aided and abetted the Gujarat riots. Globally, he was targetted more than L.K. Advani, a father figure of the hate campaign against Muslims and Christians. Nobody campaigned for Mr Advani’s visa rejection by any foreign government though Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi described Mr Advani as “The Merchant of Hatred” in the 2009 election campaign when he was the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

In contrast, Mr Modi was projected as India’s Hitler in upper caste households. There was a caste bias in constructing that image of Mr Modi. For example, Mr Advani was India’s home minister during the 2002 Gujarat riots and also other riots. But there was no such massive international or national campaign against
Mr Advani. But Mr Modi was projected as the villain of India.

Mr Modi turned this villainous image into that of a hero. He exploited his lower caste background and chaiwala status to his advantage. Many BJP upper caste leaders may be upset with Mr Modi for opening up the caste discourse across the country.

But with the Prime Minister of India himself letting the world know that he is an OBC, because of which his family and caste suffered for generations, the caste discourse enters a different stage. The humiliation and backwardness of the lower castes was because of the same Hindu religion that the Sangh Parivar does not want to reform. Unless the Hindu spiritual system is reformed, cultural relations will not change. This is one of the main reasons for religious conversions in India. This problem cannot be solved with economic development alone.

Mr Modi’s development cannot be for the high-profile, monopoly companies and the affluent, upper castes alone. Development has to reach the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes and the other backward classes, who constitute the real poor of India. And economic development has to go hand-in-hand with educational and cultural development.

No Prime Minister can serve the interests of the rich when the poor, with whom he identifies and who voted him to power with the hope of change, get no returns. If they could be disillusioned with the Congress — a party that gave them many welfare schemes and spent much on their well-being — they can get disillusioned with Mr Modi as well, and in a much shorter time span.

When the American blacks found a sympathetic President in Abraham Lincoln, they rebelled against their white masters. At a time when the most violent Ku Klux Clan was targeting the blacks, Lincoln who got elected as President from the right-wing Republican Party, turned the black-white issue into a civil war to preserve the integrity of the nation. He also initiated the legal process to abolish slavery.

Mr Modi, who has accepted that “neech jaati” life is humiliating and unacceptable, should initiate steps for the abolition of untouchability and caste inequality.
A section of the RSS and the BJP might oppose such social reforms, but only a fight like Lincoln’s will help him secure a special place in history.

Mr Modi should know that it was because of the reform agenda that Lincoln lost his life, but he is also remembered as the greatest President of America. We also have the example of George W. Bush Jr, who went after Muslims while claiming to export democracy and American values to the Arab world. He attacked Iraq and in the process weakened America and buried his own history. No one celebrates his role even after his two-term presidency.

Mr Modi can go after minorities in India and think of establishing Akhand Bharat by annexing Pakistan and Bangladesh as part of his cultural training in khaki shorts. But such an attempt will destroy India and also his image. The huge non-resident Indian community that sees him as unworthy of becoming the Prime Minister, both because of his low caste background and non-Western English education, will move against him.

However good an orator Mr Modi may be — even better than Atal Behari Vajpayee — he is not seen as an enlightened leader. The notion of enlightenment in India still hinges around English education and foreign degrees. And, of course, one’s caste.

Mr Modi should know that New Delhi is not Gandhinagar. The poor people who voted for him across the country will be happy only if their children are able to study in English-medium and if their schools are at par with those of the rich children. They should get good jobs, good food and live in good houses. Otherwise the disillusionment will turn into something we are unable to foresee, or even fathom.

The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/amp/140527/commentary-columnists/article/modi-lincoln-or-bush

Opposing the use of the English language as the medium of teaching and learning in public institutions and allowing it to flourish in private institutions is a dangerous method that over a period of time will lead to Indian English becoming the new Sanskrit – a preserve of the few, writes Kancha Ilaiah ShepherdBY 

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD कांचा इलैया शेपर्ड ON JULY 19, 2021 NO COMMENTSइस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ें

The Hindutva school of thought has been completely in control of the nation from 2014 onwards. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in Delhi and Mohan Bhagwat and Dattatreya Hosabale and other Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders in Nagpur have been executing a strange ideology of nationalism after they came to power. Theoretically, the Hindutva school of thought has propagated “Hindu, Hindi and Hindustan” as the short form for its religious, linguistic and nationalist goals. The Hindu, Hindi and Hindustan goal appears as an all-inclusive nationalist goal. The projection has been that it does not exclude historically excluded castes and communities from the spiritual system and educational structures in terms of language and of course from the national resources if they are Hindus. It has always treated Muslims and Christians as the other.

The Hindutva ideological forces came to power with the support of big industries and big business houses, which have been entering into the education business – school, college and university – in a big way from the mid-1990s liberalization onwards. A decade later, in Sonipat, Haryana, the state government purchased a massive amount of land to be allocated for the private educational sector. It was named as Rajiv Gandhi Education City. It is here that the costliest private English-medium universities, touted as offering world-class higher education, came up. Now, the so-called best liberal arts and basic science universities, Ashoka University and O.P. Jindal Global University, have made it their home. These universities do not implement the reservations that the public universities are Constitutionally mandated to implement.

The character of these universities is very different from the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Hyderabad Central University and Aligarh Muslim University, which are required to implement central educational laws and norms.

The private universities evolve their own syllabus and teach in more sophisticated, British-American English so that students of these universities will be able to compete in the global market. The teachers and students live in an anglicized environment on the campuses. The first generation of educated poor Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs, taught in a regional language, cannot even enter those campuses.

The universities like JNU, Delhi University and Hyderabad University provided quality education in an environment where the first-generation regional-language-educated youth also gradually picked up that quality education and English language. There is no such atmosphere in the private universities. We must understand that the Indian civil society that produces the student mass is not the USA or UK. India should more reasonably compare itself with China, though China’s political system is different. If we weaken the best government universities and promote private higher education the poor will get frustrated sooner than later. In the central public universities, the Hindutva nationalists are pushing for more and more Hindi and also their “pure-nation-centred” Hindutva syllabus. The pliable academicians appointed as vice-chancellors appointed by the central government are bound to appease the central government by imposing its ideological agenda on the central universities.  

(Left) The 2018 Convocation at Banaras Hindu University; Students at Ashoka University

Weakening the government-owned educational institutions and encouraging the private institutions to educate the rich for foreign markets is not nationalism. India is not a nation of a single non-English national language like China or Japan. Hindi is not like Mandarin or Japanese. Opposing the use of the English language as the medium of teaching and learning in public institutions and allowing it to flourish in private institutions is a dangerous method that over a period of time will lead to Indian English becoming the new Sanskrit – a preserve of the few. The Shudra, Dalit and Adivasi intelligentia is not in a position to see the danger of this politics over the medium of instruction and syllabus by the Hindutva forces. There is no resistance from the academic bodies.         

Banaras Hindu University, the Hindutva school’s brainchild, now has classes mostly in Hindi and allows both post-graduate and undergraduate students to take their exams in Hindi and English. But most students take their exam in Hindi and also write their dissertations in Hindi. This university, in the past 30-40 years, has not produced many intellectuals who could influence our education system. On the contrary, JNU, Delhi University and Hyderabad University have produced scholars, civil servants and politicians of visible stature. If the present trend of de-standardizing them continues they will turn into ordinary so-called nationalist universities.      

Interestingly, the Hindutva school of thought is for massive privatization in industry, agriculture and education. Their push for privatization in the industrial economy is well known. They have also decided to privatize agriculture through new laws, against which the farmers have been fighting. Their policy on higher education has significant bearing on the future. The Ministry of Human Resource Development and the University Grants Commission are operating in two opposite directions. The private educational institutions are being allowed to be globalist (not nationalist) and the government-owned universities are being pushed into substandard “pure nationalist” ways. In a globalized world, such a regionalized education system would again make the poor Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs immobile and cause them to remain substandard.  

In all of the central public universities, the Indian government controls the syllabus, language and organization. Global standards or competitiveness is not the focus there. The focus of Hindu nationalism is ancient Hindu (not Indian) knowledge and its goal is to do away with the English medium of instruction and learning. For example, while teaching Political Thought, there is an attempt to reduce the European Thought component and to let Indian Vedic, Upanishadic, Thought take its place. Exclusion of Buddhist Thought is quite conspicuous.

Even in universities like JNU and Delhi University the focus is not on improving the English-speaking and English-writing skills of students and helping them acquire globally competitive knowledge. Rather, it is on confining them to Hindi and Hindutva ideology. Even China is not so narrow-minded in its attitude to education.

The recent incident of Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s resignation and the subsequent debate that followed in Ashoka University also showed how teachers who have academic visibility have left the central universities like JNU and Delhi University and joined private universities confident that their global approach to education will be safe there. But all socially concerned academicians who are leaving the top government institutions and joining private universities must think again. Private universities, without representation of students and teachers from the poor sections, middle classes and historically oppressed castes, do not serve the mass cause in India. Just teaching the rich who can pay has no intellectual stimulation, at least in my view.

https://www.forwardpress.in/2021/07/world-class-private-universities-and-hindu-hindi-public-universities/

As long as there are foreign-educated, dominant-caste ministers who find a Cabinet position via Rajya Sabha, SCs, STs and OBCs will continue to lose out.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a group photograph with ministers during the swearing-in ceremony as part of Union Cabinet expansion, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi today | ANIText Size: A- A+

After the recent Cabinet reshuffle of the Narendra Modi government, there are now 27 Other Backward Class, 12 Dalit, and 8 Adivasi ministers for the first time in our parliamentary democracy history. In all, Cabinet membership of OBCs, SCs and STs has reached 47. I do not know whether this number includes the prime minister himself.

However, the media highlighted the new number of OBC/SC/STs in the Cabinet, covering it over and over again. At the same time, it mourned the resignations of Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar and Harsh Vardhan. For the national media, it was unthinkable that they could be dropped from the Cabinet.null

Now, while talking about OBC/SC/ST members and leaders, their caste becomes an identifiable marker. But the media not once mentioned, as it never does, the caste background of the so-called “meritorious” ministers who were dropped — Ravi Shankar Prasad is a Kayastha, Prakash Javadekar is a Brahmin, and Harsh Vardhan is a Bania with a Goel family name. Both Prasad and Javadekar have never won an election and entered the government only through Rajya Sabha membership.

Generally, the national media includes Shudra communities like Jat, Gujjar, Patel, Maratha, Reddy (G. Kishan Reddy from Telangana is the only Reddy in the Cabinet), Kamma, Kapu, Lingayat, Vokkaliga, Nair and Naikars, Mahisya (from Bengal) and many others in the OBC category. Let us not forget that the Shudra OBCs (both reserved and unreserved), SCs and STs together constitute about 77 per cent of India’s population — 52.2 per cent OBCs (as per the 1980 Mandal Commission report), 16.2 per cent SCs and 8.2 per cent STs (according to 2001 Census). If more than half of the council of ministers’ pool is from such a large population, why does it still become negative news?

Dwijas’ cushion 

In our caste-cultural democracy, after Rajiv Gandhi came to power, those in the Congress and the BJP who are foreign-educated — the Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge walas — but could never win an election, became the ‘face’ of the government through Rajya Sabha. The national media always falsely projected only these people as the ‘real’ representatives of democracy. But the cornerstone of democracy is the elections on the ground. If the members of Rajya Sabha are made ineligible to become ministers at the Centre, the Dwija caste representation in the ministerial list will go down drastically. This is what the Mandal movement sought to do.

The OBCs who were part of the BJP when the V.P.Singh government implemented the Mandal Commission report in 1990, including Modi himself, thought that it was an anti-national agenda. But it created a massive power consciousness among the rural agrarian and artisanal communities, which Modi, with the OBC card, utilised to become the prime minister. But gaining power via Rajya Sabha has continued where the OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis have hardly any scope because it is a route of manipulation.

Manmohan Singh remained in Parliament for more than 20 years, serving as both finance minister and prime minister. So did P. Chidambaram (though he sometimes won elections), Jairam Ramesh, and others with a so-called “intellectual aura.” Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar are also Rajya Sabha heroes, apart from Nirmala Sitharaman and S. Jaishankar who still are holding top ministries — finance and external affairs — in the Modi government. The friends of the English press — Arun Jaitley, Pramod Mahajan and Arun Shourie from the BJP camp also never won elections. They became famous leaders in top ministers via Rajya Sabha.

Shudra, Dalit and Adivasi leaders have hardly ever had this cushion. One good thing about these 47 OBC/SC/ST leaders is that, largely, they won elections at the ground level. Running the central government via Rajya Sabha with “proxy-intellectualism” is not a democratic method regardless of the BJP or Congress rule.

Bring the new intellectuals

There was a latent subtext in the media coverage — the inclusion of SC/ST/OBC ministers comes at the cost of the ‘merciless dropping’ of Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar. It is seen as an ‘injustice to meritocracy.’https://1322ee43c91da0e0e1d18c4000cc230b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

If democracy means English-speaking intellectualism but denying it to the Shudra, SC and STs in the government schools, where a large population of children from these communities study, then it’s better to just abolish the electoral system itself.

We now live in an age of identities where different groups are asserting their right to be part of democratic governance with a vision and efficiency of their own. “Efficiency” has different meanings for different sections in this regard. Community identities are always laid on the power negotiation table in our governance. The Congress, the BJP, and the Communists have long tried to sweep caste and community identities under the carpet. But it does not work for the future. The Communist parties are dying because they do not recognise caste as an identifiable marker.

The only way to strengthen Indian democracy is by giving representation to those communities that have been relegated to the margins of Delhi’s power corridors all these years.

In a country where casteism is a key social organiser, the notion of secular-liberalism has been misused to control power by the Dwija English-educated elite.

The RSS and the BJP have now realised that the oppressed castes are conscious of the power of their votes. They will turn the other way if their representatives are not seen in the power structure. The Congress, meanwhile, has never attempted a deeper caste analysis because its powers rest within the hands of imported intellectuals.

This is not to suggest that ignorant individuals be brought into governing structures just to be inclusive of caste identities. Ambedkar also strongly opposed mere symbolic “slave-Dalit” representation in governance. The post-Mandal era has produced a number of well-educated Dalit, Adivasi, and OBC leaders and intellectuals who deserve their chance, for the future does not hold stead only for the former ‘greats’ but young voices destined to bring change.

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

(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)

https://theprint.in/opinion/why-modis-cabinet-reshuffle-doesnt-really-benefit-scs-sts-and-obcs/696321/

Stan Swamy has saved India by his death. The world has come to know how the Indian regime could crucify one who worked for the most oppressed. Our constitutional democracy obviously has not changed the hearts of those who don’t love the Tribals and Dalits as fellow human beings, writes Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

By Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd On July 8, 2021

Father Stan Swamy (Stanislaus Lourdusamy) who was systematically sent away to heaven, certainly not to hell as they wanted, from a Mumbai private hospital by the Indian government agencies on 5 July 2021, is in my view the greatest saint in the Catholic history of India. Normally, sainthood is conferred upon a great Catholic by the Vatican through an elaborate process. But Fr Stan Swamy’s sainthood is bestowed on him by WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA – the Adivasis, Dalits and Shudras. From the time he started work in Ranchi, Jharkhand, the 84-year-old worked tirelessly for the poor, exploited and oppressed masses. He was persecuted for standing up for the human rights of the Adivasis to the point that despite limited judicial intervention, he was allowed to die from criminal neglect.Cruelty of this kind on an old and infirm priest is unparalleled. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central government has shown its contempt for his selfless service to the Tribals of India. This is not what the Indian civilization and culture stands for. The productive mass civilization of India salutes Stan Swamy for the sacrifice he made for its people. 

St Thomas, one of Jesus’ original 12 disciples, was martyred in today’s Tamil Nadu in the first century of the Christian Era. St Thomas travelled all the way from Palestine (Israel) and planted the message of Jesus Christ so that it could take root in Indian soil, which it did. That was not an era of nationalism. It was an era of Jesus’s death and resurrection for all of humanity’s liberation from sin, slavery, ignorance and superstition. India needed such a messenger from outside at that time because of the brutal varna dharma that the brahmanical ancestors of the present Hindutva forces inflicted on the productive masses of India who built this civilization from Harappan civilization onwards.

They destroyed the human soul in this land of great Harappan civilization by creating caste and untouchability. All the food producers and artisans, those who worked with their hands, were rendered soulless by their brahmanical teachings and practices. They needed somebody from outside to instil a soul among them. St Thomas lit that flame and was martyred in our land. 

Centuries after St Thomas, Mother Teresa who came from Albania spent most of her life ministering to the poorest of the poor – Dalits, Adivasis and Shudras – in India and also those who were suffering with leprosy and other serious diseases. For their services, shortly after her death, the Vatican declared her a saint. However, during her life of service, she encountered several insults from the same Hindutva forces. At a time when she was serving leprosy patients no RSS activist or Hindu saint was touching such Indians, let alone serving them. Their nationalism was working around the rich and healthy. 

Stan Swamy was never a believer in violence. He went from his native Tamil Nadu to the central Indian tribal regions to educate them through various legal institutions. Since colonial times, Christian educational institutions and hospitals have worked to improve the life of such oppressed masses. One does not know how the central government and its National Investigation Agency (NIA) came to the conclusion that this frail, old man supposedly conspired against the Indian State. This is unprecedented!

Father Stan Swamy

Furthermore, it is hypocritical. Most of the English-medium-educated ruling class of India – including many top leaders of the BJP – studied in Christian educational institutions and even have been treated for serious ailments in their hospitals. Even today schools and colleges run by the Jesuits of India are among the most preferred by the Indian elite. Stan Swamy was associated with many such institutions. He was Director of the Indian Social Institute, Bangalore in the 1970s and 1980s with a great reputation for social work. Such a man, that too in his 80s, was accused of being a Maoist and arrested under the draconian law – the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which virtually declares you guilty until proven innocent.

Stan Swamy has saved India by his death. The world has come to know how the Indian regime could crucify one who worked for most oppressed. Our constitutional democracy obviously has not changed the hearts of those who don’t love the Tribals and Dalits as fellow human beings. The ruler’s heart hangs around the wealthy who have no moral value of sharing the wealth with the poor even when they are dying in a pandemic. Their spiritualism hangs around brahmanical saints who establish institutions in the West and accumulate wealth but not around those like Stan Swamy who left a comfortable life in Tamil Nadu and lived among Adivasis for decades to give them human dignity and self-respect.

They saw in St Stan a moral house that was accommodating these homeless masses. Burning that house was their cultural nationalism. St Stan is not dead. That burnt house will not become ash. He resurrects and rebuilds many houses for the Tribals, Dalits, Shudras and the poor to live as proud Indians. St Stan’s love for all was deeply rooted in his nationalism as he lived among the Adivasis who are the actual inheritors of the great Harappan civilization.

https://www.forwardpress.in/2021/07/st-stan-swamy-declared-a-saint-by-the-adivasis-dalits-and-shudras/

The Andhra Pradesh model of education under CM Jagan Reddy is breaking barriers for children. He’s equalising language.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

File photo of Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at a school | Facebook/ysjaganText Size: A- A+

The Andhra Pradesh government is doing an unusual experiment in the education sector. In 2019, it introduced English as the medium in government schools from class I to VI — a move stuck in legal trouble. Now the government has made English the medium of teaching in all UG colleges. The state’s young and ambitious chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had to fight several battles to do so.

The hypocrite intelligentsia of the state, who educate their own children in costly private English-medium schools, opposed the move and made it a huge ‘mother tongue’ issue. They shouted ‘mother tongue is like mother’s milk’. When the shouting did not cow down Jagan, they went to court.null

The Andhra chief minister launched a counter-attack by exposing their hypocrisy and deployed his young cadre and leaders to counter their street and media fight. The Telugu Desam Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Left forces opposed him and said he was anti-Telugu. But Jagan stood his ground because English medium education was part of his navaratnalu (nine jewels) programme and a promise in his election manifesto.

Jagan also made one Telugu subject compulsory in private and government schools, and ordered all textbooks to be printed in bilingual mode. The same lesson will have the English version on one page and the Telugu version on the other for all subjects. His critics had no option but to keep quiet because this also pushed their own children into learning two languages, even in private schools. Many private English medium schools till then were not allowing Telugu learning at all.

Also read: No more Telugu medium in Andhra — Why Jagan govt wants English in all schools, colleges

Jagan’s education overhaul

Jagan Mohan Reddy got the support of the people because most rural, farmer, and middle-class parents prefer English medium education in government schools. No court can go against a child’s right to education in preferred medium, a principle the Supreme Court of India upheld in many judgments.

The right to English-medium education cannot be confined only to the private sector. Child is a child; their right is right whichever school they study in — private or government.

Jagan backed his English medium agenda with the Amma Vodi (mother’s lap) scheme, which gives a school-going child’s mother Rs 15,000 per year for educational expenditure along with total fee reimbursement for college education. Added to this, under Nadu-Nedu (earlier and today) scheme, he is investing huge amounts in changing the school infrastructure all across the state. This scheme is more concrete and qualitative than Arvind Kejriwal’s programme in Delhi. Andhra Pradesh is also a bigger state.

The chief minister also has clubbed the anganwadis with primary schools from this academic year, and increased the staff and school facilities. The government gives quality mid-day meals with a fixed menu for each day. The quality of food is better than in most states. A few days back, Jagan announced that there will be a primary school within one kilometre of every child’s house, a high school within three kilometres, and twojunior colleges within seven-eight kilometres. All these institutions will be English medium, with a strong Telugu component in one subject.null

The Andhra Pradesh government also launched a massive teacher-training programme to enable teachers to teach both in English and Telugu.

No leader focuses so much on education. Jagan Reddy is young a man of just 48. He has a long political life left. In fact, he is the youngest chief minister with his own regional party running the government in the country. If he continues this education agenda, he will leave a major mark on the nation’s public educational policy.null

Also read: Karnataka upset as Andhra makes English the ‘medium of instruction’ in its schools 

A model for equality

It is well known that education is the most durable property in one’s life. It is better than gold. English education for Dalits, Adivasis and Shudrasworks like a gold mine in one’s own travel bag. This has been proved time and again.

But the post-Independence Indian rulers denied equal medium education by establishing two separate sectors—public regional language and private English language. The food producers and other labouring masses are starved for English language education in the garb of regional and national sentimentalism. The formation of linguistic states abetted that sentiment and worked in the interest of the English-educated elite.

Jagan Mohan Reddy is breaking that sentimental chain. He regularly reviews his education projects. No other chief minister is known for such a focus on education. His education budget allocation is fairly good. It appears that he also uses other resources for his education schemes.

Although the Narendra Modi government’s New Education Policy worked out a somewhat improved model of education, its language policy does not help provide globally competitive education to the rural and poor masses who cannot afford private English-medium schools. A new contradiction is emerging in the education sector during the BJP era. On the one hand, it is rigid about regional language school education in state government schools, on the other, it allows a huge number of private schools, colleges and universities to continue in English medium.

The Andhra Pradesh model of school education is the only option to provide quality and equal medium education to all children in schools. Since there is no scope to abolish private sector education where only the rich can study, bringing all schools to a level playing field is the only way out.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist. He is the author of From Shepherd Boy to An Intellectual-My Memoirs.

https://theprint.in/opinion/jagan-reddy-is-giving-andhra-pradesh-children-something-better-than-gold-english-education/684719/