PU Library Organized Books’ Introductory Talks

The Punjab University Library conducted its March 2021 Book Club program in which introductory talks on two books were presented. The books of the month were “Maqalat-e- Shams Tabrazi by Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Tabrazi” and “Why I am not a Hindu by Kancha Ilaiah” The program was attended by students and faculty members under strict compliance of Covid-19 SOPs.

The introduction to the Persian Book“Maqalat-e- Shams Tabrazi” was presented by Prof Dr Moeen Nizami, Professor Dept of Persian PU. His scholarly talk on the book was highly appreciated by the audience. He, in a brief and precise manner, presented the biographical sketch of the Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Tabrazi by narrating the author’s statements. Dr. Moeen rejected the immoral allegations levied by some European scholars on Shams Tabrazi, while presenting intellectual pieces of evidence from the book.

The talk on the second book “Why I am not a Hindu” was presented by Dr Marium Kamal, Assistant Professor, Centre for South Asian Studies, PU. She provided a critical yet interesting comparison of the ideologies of Hinduism and Dalits in India and its implications not only on India but also on the neighbouring South Asian countries. She also included some points from the book of Shahi Tharoor “Why I am a Hindu” to elaborate the concepts in depth.

Dr Muhammad Haroon Usmani, Chief Librarian PU Library, thanked the speakers and audience for their lively participation in the program and help in promoting PU Library’s vision of Book Reading and Loving Culture.

in Book Review — by Grant McFarland — March 8, 2021 A Review article on the recently launched book edited by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and Karthik Raja Karuppusamy “The Shudras–Vision For New Path” number one bestseller on Amazon India’s farmers have sustained the largest protests in modern Indian history since Mahatma Gandhi and the independence movement. While Gandhi’s Khadi dhoti appeared in media worldwide, the farmers received relatively scant attention until cultural stars like Rihanna and Greta Thunberg tweeted and Disha Ravi, the granddaughter of a farmer, was arrested. Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents took the world by storm, but it failed to turn international attention toward the country that invented the caste system, India. Amazon’s newest bestseller, the recently released The Shudras: Vision for a New Path, edited by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and Karthik Raja Karuppusamy, promises to accomplish what Wilkerson’s book failed to do. Christophe Jaffrelot, a European expert on caste, says, in a quote on the book cover. ‘The Shudras echos Dr Ambedkar’s question in Who Were the Shudras? that he asked in 1946.’ Shepherd and Karuppusamy do more than echo the question; they answer it. The Shudras are the farmers who are currently building tents to prepare themselves to protest through the tortuous Delhi summer heat after suffering through the water cannons and bitter cold of winter. They are the productive castes whose labour has prospered the nation while leaving themselves with one foot in the cremation grounds. Shudra in Sanskrit means slave, and they are the largest body of enslaved people in the world today, comprising 52% of India, over 700 million people. Yet, just as they sit in protest today, they have always resisted their enslavement and can boast of a proud history of egalitarian aspirations. There have been works done (although not enough) describing the discrimination against and slavery of the Shudras in India’s past. There have been even fewer works done depicting the glorious contributions of the Shudras to Indian civilization. This book weaves together the humiliations suffered by the Shudras, ancient and modern, with the struggles they have undergone for emancipation and forms a vision for their path forward. The call is as necessary as it is bold: to promote an egalitarian India in opposition to the Hindutva of the RSS, to incorporate a spiritual-religious foundation for liberation within the political, social, and economic spheres, and to recognize and promote the Shudra culture over and against upper-caste historical hegemony. Academics have neglected scholarship about the Shudras and Shepherd and Karuppusamy ably fill the dearth. Discussions of human rights, discrimination, and atrocities always focus on the Dalits when spotlighting India. The Dalits, who are 18% of India, sit outside India’s caste system, the most dehumanised of all, and receive some aid and relief efforts by Indian and international agencies. Poor Shudras, at the bottom of the caste system, exist above the Dalits, yet neglected and unknown outside. The twice-born upper castes, who are 7% of India, and to which Gandhi, Nehru, and Mohan Bhagwat of the RSS belong get everything. In a veritable no-man’s-land, they are not eligible to receive any aid, nor the benefits of English education, capitalist wealth, religion rights, and political power at the national level. As an example of this from the chapter Caste and Political Economy, more 90% of industrial and business capital is in the Dwija castes’ hands. Despite dogged determination and massive appeal, not a single leader from the Shudras emerged as a national leader. They remain in provinces speaking minor regional languages and do not feature in English media, the bureaucracy, high-end business, or industrial wealth. With no national or international allies, the Shudras are forced to forge their own path forward; a path laid out in the book The Shudras. They argue that they have always had a spiritual-religious system that existed in opposition to Brahminical Hinduism by focusing on artisanal and agricultural production. Their gods and goddesses protect life and labour. Shepherd and Karuppusamy assert the need for all religions in India to link a relationship between God and production, a relationship the Shudra religious system has but is absent in Hinduism, Indian Islam, and Indian Christianity. The international audience, blinded by racism, seeks to project their own faults and shortcomings onto India’s caste system and communicate their findings to themselves in their own language. Thus, they create race-based conclusions from caste data but without establishing proper connectivity. Wilkerson, in her book, claims that caste originated in Germany, but Indian Brahminism birthed it in 1500 BCE with the writing of their Rigveda. There is no such textual evidence in Germany. The international audience has not lived in a religion like Hinduism and does not understand the spiritual-religious structures that create the caste system and sculpt a hierarchy different from race. Comparing caste and race is valid but insufficient. Shudras subsist below the Dwija castes but above the Dalits because “Hindu dharma (justice)” determines it from their previous lives’ sins, connected with productive work like leather tanning and tilling land. Hindu scriptures unanimously relegate the Shudras to slavery, poverty, and illiteracy. The RSS and their Hindutva family uphold the same tradition. If Westerners are averse to commenting on controversial matters like religion in India, then lend a supportive voice the Shudras to take the lead; learn from their movements and protests for an egalitarian and inclusive India. When the Delhi government laid spikes on the road to prevent Shudra farmers from entering Delhi, the farmers laid flowers on top, singing the songs of a 15th century Shudra saint-poet, For those sowing thorns in your path, you sow flowers You will have flowers all the way, but the other will have thorns The Dwija Indian thought has already influenced the world, but, as the Shudras show today, the lower castes have creative, inspirational, peaceful, and productive contributions to share as well. Allow Shepherd and Karuppusamy to guide you to the path the Shudras have chosen to halt the sinking of Indian democracy and to rebuild their country around its constitutional ethos, democratic character, secular nature, and inclusive spirit. Grant McFarland works with Truthseekers International, a caste reconciliation movement started by Mahatma Phule (to whom The Shudras is dedicated). He has an M.A. in History from Alagappa University and is pursuing a PhD from the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology, Science  

Disha Ravi Is Nation’s Heroine

in India — by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd — February 25, 2021

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The nation must be thankful to Prime Minister Narender Modi and Amit Shah, more so to the RSS/BJP for giving this nation young leaders of future. Disha Ravi is definitely the hope and future of India. Leaders emerge only when the nation is in a crisis. Particularly very young leaders emerge when it is charged with emotion for freedom or equality and human dignity. When Kanaiya Kumar and others in Jawaharlal Nehru University, who were more grown up student leaders, gave the slogan Azadi I was not comfortable.

The struggle of Indian people, the Shudra farmers, Dalits and Adivasis is not for freedom but for equality and dignity. Freedom is achieved with Ambedkar’s constitution but not equality and dignity in every field of life. In modern India the RSS and its ideology has not shown indication that they are against varna dharma and inequality. The farmers who are mostly Shudra artisans are unequal and undignified in the varna system.The Shudras,Dalits and Adivasis will suffer more and more in this kind of a rule.

They did not stop with abrogation of 370 and CAA but moved on to enact the Farm Laws that would hand over the entire agribusiness to the Bania monopoly capitalists. The agribusiness which was in the hands of the Shudra agrarian castes and because of that economy there are a number of regional parties that are ruling the states checkmating the control of RSS/BJP. They enacted the farm laws to set the Shudra leadership across India almost to the pre-Independence status. Fortunately they understood that.

When the Modi Government arrested a young girl of 22 years, Dish Ravi for her support to farmers’ protest, I thought she would become a globally identifiable young leader like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai. Her ability to invite the attention of the global community to the plight of the food producers has shaken the rulers. The present ruling political forces that decided to hand over the labour power of farming families to the monopoly houses which never respected the farming community. That surprised the whole world. Unlike the race question the caste/class nature of the Indian food producers is not known to the world. Disha Ravi’s activism for environment protection like Greta seems to have realized that without good agriculture there would not be good greenery and without good greenery, there would not be a good environment in India and the world.

This young girl activist comes from Lingayat Shudra peasant family. She lives in Bengaluru with her mother as a single parent. Her grandparents are farmers in Tumkur district, Karnataka. For editing two sentences in an internet toolkit she was arrested, leaving her single mother behind and charged with sedition. This very same Government provides expensive security for Kangana Ranaut, a Ksatriya actor, who is abusing the food producers of India as terrorists. She is behaving like a queen on the Indian national scene.

There is a very good proverb in Telugu: chetilo daalu and ballem, vantipai kavacham, unte yuddam chyyadam kastama (when there is war robe on the body and knife and shield in the hands fighting in war field is not difficult) Kangana is fighting with all those weapons in the hands only on screen. In real life with the support of the central Government fighting poor food producers.

Disha is the real heroine of the nation fighting a massive battle with just a pen in hands–the battle for dignity of food producers. She is not acting but fighting on the street, in the courts. That gives a life to this nation.

Disha is an environmental activist as part of global young female environmental activists. The world environment is closely linked to agriculture. As Donald Trump disliked Greta Thunberg ,the European environmentalist Modi and Mohan Bhagwat seem to dislike Disha. But the entire farmers world does keep her in their hearts. She is a beloved daughter of this dharti.

What do her college mates from Benguluru say about her. She was organizing an environmental campaign through a network called Fridays For Future (FFF).

“Her sense of history is remarkable as she has drawn not only from her personal, familial history of farmer-grandparents and the difficulties they suffered due to the impact of climate change on agricultural practices. She has also drawn her inspiration to protest and lend her voice to farmers’ protests in the country from the greatest of people’s movements in India – the Independence struggle”.

What she said in the Delhi court has lit a lamp in the hearts of millions of young women and men of not only this country but of the whole world. She said “If highlighting farmers’ protest globally is sedition, I am better [off] in jail.” This only reminds us what 23 year old Bhagt Sing said in the jail and colonial court. This one statement of a young woman from a farmer’s family who were not supposed to read and write till Savitribai Phule and Mahatma Phule began a socio-spiritual and cultural revolution of ‘read and write and fight’ in the mid nineteenth century. She has proved what is the power of language that could communicate to the global mass.

She was arrested because there is a leader in her. If only the Delhi Police were not to arrest her the nation and the world would not have known this great girl, who is working for the welfare of not just India but the whole world.

Malala won the Nobel Prize, even though Pakistan did not like her. But see what Indian so called nationalist Government did? It shamed the whole nation by its conduct.

Disha I salute you. Your grandparents and your mother would be proud of you, as the nation is.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is simply an admirer of Disha Ravi

https://countercurrents.org/2021/02/disha-ravi-is-nations-heroine/

 

Disha Ravi Is Nation’s Heroine

in India — by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd — February 25, 2021

Share:

Share on WhatsAppShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on TelegramShare on RedditShare on Email

The nation must be thankful to Prime Minister Narender Modi and Amit Shah, more so to the RSS/BJP for giving this nation young leaders of future. Disha Ravi is definitely the hope and future of India. Leaders emerge only when the nation is in a crisis. Particularly very young leaders emerge when it is charged with emotion for freedom or equality and human dignity. When Kanaiya Kumar and others in Jawaharlal Nehru University, who were more grown up student leaders, gave the slogan Azadi I was not comfortable.

The struggle of Indian people, the Shudra farmers, Dalits and Adivasis is not for freedom but for equality and dignity. Freedom is achieved with Ambedkar’s constitution but not equality and dignity in every field of life. In modern India the RSS and its ideology has not shown indication that they are against varna dharma and inequality. The farmers who are mostly Shudra artisans are unequal and undignified in the varna system.The Shudras,Dalits and Adivasis will suffer more and more in this kind of a rule.

They did not stop with abrogation of 370 and CAA but moved on to enact the Farm Laws that would hand over the entire agribusiness to the Bania monopoly capitalists. The agribusiness which was in the hands of the Shudra agrarian castes and because of that economy there are a number of regional parties that are ruling the states checkmating the control of RSS/BJP. They enacted the farm laws to set the Shudra leadership across India almost to the pre-Independence status. Fortunately they understood that.

When the Modi Government arrested a young girl of 22 years, Dish Ravi for her support to farmers’ protest, I thought she would become a globally identifiable young leader like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai. Her ability to invite the attention of the global community to the plight of the food producers has shaken the rulers. The present ruling political forces that decided to hand over the labour power of farming families to the monopoly houses which never respected the farming community. That surprised the whole world. Unlike the race question the caste/class nature of the Indian food producers is not known to the world. Disha Ravi’s activism for environment protection like Greta seems to have realized that without good agriculture there would not be good greenery and without good greenery, there would not be a good environment in India and the world.

This young girl activist comes from Lingayat Shudra peasant family. She lives in Bengaluru with her mother as a single parent. Her grandparents are farmers in Tumkur district, Karnataka. For editing two sentences in an internet toolkit she was arrested, leaving her single mother behind and charged with sedition. This very same Government provides expensive security for Kangana Ranaut, a Ksatriya actor, who is abusing the food producers of India as terrorists. She is behaving like a queen on the Indian national scene.

There is a very good proverb in Telugu: chetilo daalu and ballem, vantipai kavacham, unte yuddam chyyadam kastama (when there is war robe on the body and knife and shield in the hands fighting in war field is not difficult) Kangana is fighting with all those weapons in the hands only on screen. In real life with the support of the central Government fighting poor food producers.

Disha is the real heroine of the nation fighting a massive battle with just a pen in hands–the battle for dignity of food producers. She is not acting but fighting on the street, in the courts. That gives a life to this nation.

Disha is an environmental activist as part of global young female environmental activists. The world environment is closely linked to agriculture. As Donald Trump disliked Greta Thunberg ,the European environmentalist Modi and Mohan Bhagwat seem to dislike Disha. But the entire farmers world does keep her in their hearts. She is a beloved daughter of this dharti.

What do her college mates from Benguluru say about her. She was organizing an environmental campaign through a network called Fridays For Future (FFF).

“Her sense of history is remarkable as she has drawn not only from her personal, familial history of farmer-grandparents and the difficulties they suffered due to the impact of climate change on agricultural practices. She has also drawn her inspiration to protest and lend her voice to farmers’ protests in the country from the greatest of people’s movements in India – the Independence struggle”.

What she said in the Delhi court has lit a lamp in the hearts of millions of young women and men of not only this country but of the whole world. She said “If highlighting farmers’ protest globally is sedition, I am better [off] in jail.” This only reminds us what 23 year old Bhagt Sing said in the jail and colonial court. This one statement of a young woman from a farmer’s family who were not supposed to read and write till Savitribai Phule and Mahatma Phule began a socio-spiritual and cultural revolution of ‘read and write and fight’ in the mid nineteenth century. She has proved what is the power of language that could communicate to the global mass.

She was arrested because there is a leader in her. If only the Delhi Police were not to arrest her the nation and the world would not have known this great girl, who is working for the welfare of not just India but the whole world.

Malala won the Nobel Prize, even though Pakistan did not like her. But see what Indian so called nationalist Government did? It shamed the whole nation by its conduct.

Disha I salute you. Your grandparents and your mother would be proud of you, as the nation is.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is simply an admirer of Disha Ravi

https://countercurrents.org/2021/02/disha-ravi-is-nations-heroine/

 

Farmers Are Tillers, Not KillersKancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Kangana Ranaut again and again is attacking the Indian farmers as terrorists. She has done that in response to the world famous pop singer Rihanna and famous environmentalist girl Greta’s support to farmers movement. Sachin Tendulkar and other pro-BJP forces also joined the chorus. Most of these forces are pro-monopoly houses and hardly have any engagement with the agrarian production.

One’s own social location in terms of caste plays a key role in taking stands when the farmers of India and the business and industrial houses are on the course of conflict.  International expressions cannot be judged based on convenience. In a globalised world international opinions get expressed on many things. In fact the BJP/RSS mobilized international opinions in their favour on many occasions. Such international opinions were expressed during the anti-rape Nirbhaya agitation and the RSS/BJP combine was very happy and welcomed such global opinions coming in since those opinions were against the Congress Government at that time. The farmers issue is a massive survival issue of the whole nation itself.  I have never in my life time experienced such massive agitation by farmers. What do Sachin Tendulkar and Kangana kind of people know about agriculture? Particularly Kangana Ranaut’s language against farmers has shocked the whole world, not just the nation.

It is a well known fact that Kangana is a Ksatriya arrow left on the Indian Shudra farmers by Yogi Adithyanath. I say this with conviction  because the agitating farmers mostly are Shudras and the Ksatriyas as a community did not put its hand on the plough, in their historical existence, though they own estates of land. They treat tilling land below their community status. Quite interestingly the Jats of Uttar Pradesh are in the lead of the movement at present under the leadership of Rakesh Tikait, who is a son of the famous Mahendra Singh Tikait. Even then Kangana says the same thing that she was saying against Punjab farmers linking this agitation to Khalistan. The caste system makes many of the policy decisions biased. There is a clear divide between the agrarian production and the business networks that want to make business and make profits around agrarian produce. Farmers  have never evolved into a business community in India. Even the high end agriculturist communities like Kamma, Reddy, Velama, Kapu, Lingayat, Jat, Gujjar, Yadav, Maratha and so on did not get into high end monopoly businesses. The high end business is mainly in the hands of national Banias, Brahmins, Kayathas, Khatris. Of late Ksatriyas are also entering into business. The farmers’ fears get compounded because of this caste divide also.

Kanagana, who characterises the food producers  comes from a family that never tilled an acre of land and never sowed a seed and produced a ton of grain. She comes from a horse riding and knife wielding family heritage. Perhaps she has not seen how a farmer’s furrow germinates the plant that becomes the source of life blood of all others in the country while living in a mansion in Himachal Pradesh.

There is a fine Telugu folk song that has become a trend setter on youtube written by a Telugu writer Asta Gangadhar ‘Raithu (farmer) the Legend’ and sung by Relare Ganga, which broadly goes as follows:

O farmer you are our hero

O farmer you are our legend

O farmer you produce food from the mud

Unless you produce food computers cannot work

Unless you produce food the robots do walk

Unless you produce food the soldier cannot fire a gun

Kangana calls this farmer who is the real hero of the nation and real legend of the nation, a terrorist repeatedly. She does not seem to read or hear what is said and written about her daily attack on farmers.

Why did the international response come even after so many days of farmer agitation against the new farm laws? A tribal environmentalist young girl from North East India called Kangujam, who is just nine, gave a call to the world to respond to the suffering farmers in the cold, in corona pandemic in the open on Delhi borders. They are facing police lathis, barricades along with insufficient food and water.

Kangujam tweeted, “Dear friends, our millions of poor farmers sleeping in the streets in this cold weather don’t expect anything from you. Just your one tweet of love and support /solidarity to their cause means a lot to them. Our Indian celebrities are lost!”

This appeal of our own environmentalist young Adivasi girl invoked responses from many global celebrities including

Rihanna who said in her hashtag tweet “Why aren’t we talking about this farmers’ protest” with a picture of Indian farmers living in the cold on the Delhi border. This led to a series of tweets.

Greta Thunberg said “We stand in solidarity with the farmers protest in India”

Actress and Instagram influencer Amanda Cerny too showed her support:

She said:

“The world is watching. You don’t have to be Indian or Punjabi or South Asian to understand the issue. All you have to do is care about humanity. Always demand freedom of speech, freedom of press, basic human and civil rights-equity and dignity for workers.  #FarmersProtest #internetshutdown”

Kanagana said in her tweet in response to these international tweets, they “are not farmers but terrorists who are trying to divide India”. She not only repeatedly slut shamed Rihanna in a aseries of tweets, Ranaut also called Thunberg a “dumb and spoilt brat”. Kangana’s response must be seen in the background of the BJP Government trying to project the farmers movement as Khalistani terrorist movement. For the first time in six years Modi rule a political blunder has been committed. He went after farmers who voted the BJP to power twice. His Government and party also do not stop such a miscalculated attack on the farmers.   Why should the Government of India become very sensitive to individual criticism from abroad? As I said such a criticism came more than this when Nirbhaya rape agitation took place in Delhi.

The narrative of farmers getting attacked as terrorists is certainly making the organic intellectuals coming from the agrarian family background who write in every regional language their own songs, stories and novels. The farmers agitation has inspired a new genre of writing, singing and dancing in the villages. The farmer terrorist language is infuriating them. That will have its fall out sooner or later.

Social media cuts both ways. In one particular stage it worked in the RSS/BJP favour. But now the narrative is changing. Farmer is too much of a nationalist to be brandished as terrorist or anti-national.

The author is a political theorist, with an upcoming new book The Shudras — Vision for a New Path co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy (Penguin).

https://countercurrents.org/2021/02/farmers-are-tillers-not-killers/

 

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd and 1 more

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https://www.amazon.in/dp/0670092983/ref=cm_sw_r_u_apa_i_KdNbGbMH3CBAG

 

I got a strong philosophical foundation to assert my identity, wherever possible, writes Banavath Aravind.

FACEBOOK/ KANCHA ILAIAHVOICES OPINION FRIDAY, JANUARY 08, 2021 – 15:51Banavath AravindFollow @aravind_mnnit

I was introduced to Kancha Ilaiah’s work when I was about 20 years old. He was then in the midst of a controversy for a chapter in his book Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan, Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution, which termed the Baniya community as social smugglers. During many of his debates, I had come to notice his undeterred fighting spirit in trying to bring up certain fundamental social issues that were hitherto undiscussed. I eventually came across some of his works and started reading them silently. I’m deliberately stressing upon the word ‘silently’ here, as this was the kind of silence particularly associated with sensitive social issues like caste, religion, etc. But, as I write this essay, I feel silences on sensitive issues should be broken.null

Ilaiah opened up an entirely new debate that had the vigour and strength to counter the systemic Brahmanism. His methods of research were also novel in terms of going back to the roots of Dalit -Bahujans, whom Iliaiah refers to as ‘production communities’. In an era, where the gulf between academia and social reality is ever-increasing, he tried to bridge the two, which is the need of the hour. His work majorly revolved around productive masses and their contribution to the nation-building process.

Indian sociologists, mostly coming from the upper caste background, have not examined Dalit lives and tribal lifestyles to document their cultural differences from the mainstream Hindu society. This way of writing texts by overshadowing all such nuances of Indian society has been a major issue. In the context of all such limitations, Ilaiah emerged as a saviour of social sciences with his people-centric research work. His writings were/are devoid of elite jargon and are easily understood by the marginalised sections as well. His contemporaneous scholars tried to limit his reach by refusing to acknowledge his intellectualism, in vain. His first masterstroke against mainstream intellectuals took the form of his book Why I’m not a Hindu. His idea to quote instances directly from the lives of people refects a deviation from conventional ways of writing a book, but protected his work in the long run. 

In his book Post-Hindu India, he refers to Brahmins as ‘spiritual fascists’ and Komatollu/Baniyas as ‘social smugglers’. He consciously separated these castes from the rest to highlight their historical non-participation in the production process. These communities were historically known for ‘‘intellectual discourse” which Ilaiah called a trade of conspiracies. He also added the suffix Shepherd to his name to assert the dignity of labour and to outgrow his local caste identity.null

My understanding of Ilaiah

Ilaiah did not confine himself to abstract ideas, at random. But he worked out a systematic framework to express his dissent. For example, the concept of spiritual fascism (the system that excludes Dalit-Bahujans from becoming priests to have a direct connection with god, according to Ilaiah, is not democratic and is spiritually fascist in nature) has its roots in the idea of unequal birth of different castes, based on the different body parts of Brahma. Certain castes are considered to not even be created by god. 

How could the upper castes accommodate the ‘uncreated’ castes into their structure of hierarchy and oppress them for centuries then becomes a valid question. Well, we do not get answers to such questions. Hindus have created an unintelligible caste system that is self-contradictory by any measure. But, the way we choose to respond to the challenges posed by Vedic writings is a crucial decision to be made. 

Dr BR Ambedkar studied the Vedic texts more than anyone else and wrote a critique of them within the same unintelligible framework, showcasing the shortcomings of the Rig-Vedic period formulations. This has a lot of potential  to survive in the form of challenging the status quo with a counter text rather than completely striking down the system as illogical. This is where Ilaiah differs from Ambedkar in terms of his approach. Ilaiah has come up with an entirely different theory about the existing caste structure with a bottom-up approach. Some misconstrued this as sharpening the divisions within the society. But, he tried to explain the scientificity associated with lower caste occupations, like making leather out of dead animals’ skin, knowledge of food resources passed down by tribals, the surgical sense of the barber, and feminism of the dhobis and so on.

My life after Ilaiah

The inferiority complex associated with my social background started to slowly disappear as I read more of Ilaiah. I got a strong philosophical foundation to assert my identity, wherever possible. The utopian view of society, till then, which was a result of my ignorance was shattered with Ilaiah. I have started analysing the patterns of my immediate student environment. This took some time and mental energy but the process was intellectually stimulating. 

A Telugu cultural organisation with students from all the four years was led by the seniors. In my batch, I have noticed the preponderance of students coming from upper caste backgrounds in the dominant positions of the organisation. Even if there were any from the lower caste, they primarily came from the upper class. To my surprise, I have even found that this hegemonic organisational structure was never questioned by lower caste students even though they were in good numbers. Their historical behaviour of compliance was clearly visible. 

My initial friction with that organisation and members started after I had noticed that their design of any programme systematically excluded the marginalised. They used to link many programmes with monetary aspects and the obvious sufferers were those who studied on scholarships and were from a poor financial background. The upper caste organisers, being rich donors, would command more respect and have their say in the implementation part.null

Several layers of discrimination like religion, region, class, caste were the major factors that determined relationships. After noticing that the majority of the professors come from upper caste backgrounds, I have understood the limitation of such pedagogy. I started searching for my way of overcoming such limitations by reading books written by Ambedkar, Ilaiah, and so on. This broadened my understanding in a tremendous capacity. For an inclusive environment to prevail in the universities, I propose that there should be space for voices such as Ilaiah from historically excluded sections. That space would democratise knowledge generation and dissemination processes which come about when universities have professors hailing from diverse backgrounds with diverse exposure. Ilaiah taught me that intellectualism doesn’t mean incomprehensible writings, but a dissection of social realities with sheer common sense, which is most uncommon.

Banavath Aravind is a post graduate student in sociology at Hyderabad Central University.

Views are the author’s own. 

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/how-kancha-ilaiah-shepherd-influenced-my-life-and-thought-student-writes-141104

If Westerners are averse to commenting on controversial matters like religion in India, then lend a supportive voice the Shudras to take the lead; learn from their movements and protests for an egalitarian and inclusive India. When the Delhi government laid spikes on the road to prevent Shudra farmers from entering Delhi, the farmers laid flowers on top, singing the songs of a 15th century Shudra saint-poet,

For those sowing thorns in your path, you sow flowers
You will have flowers all the way, but the other will have thorns

The Dwija Indian thought has already influenced the world, but, as the Shudras show today, the lower castes have creative, inspirational, peaceful, and productive contributions to share as well. Allow Shepherd and Karuppusamy to guide you to the path the Shudras have chosen to halt the sinking of Indian democracy and to rebuild their country around its constitutional ethos, democratic character, secular nature, and inclusive spirit.

Grant McFarland works with Truthseekers International, a caste reconciliation movement started by Mahatma Phule (to whom The Shudras is dedicated). He has an M.A. in History from Alagappa University and is pursuing a PhD from the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology, Science

https://countercurrents.org/2021/03/a-book-of-the-farmers-by-the-farmers-and-for-the-farmers/

 

Pragya Thakur’s comment about Shudras echoes what her compatriots say but there is no protest by the Sangh Parivar or even opposition politicians.24 hours ago | Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Pragya Singh Thakur is a militant and firebrand Kshatriya woman leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).null

She recently said in a meeting of the Kshatriya Samaj in Bhopal: “If you call a Kshatriya a Kshatriya, they do not feel bad; call a Brahmin a Brahmin, they do not feel bad; call a Vaishya a Vaishya, they do not feel bad. But if you call a Shudra a Shudra, they feel bad. Why is it so? Because of ignorance, they are unable to understand.”

Her argument, in other words, is that this is a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ and the society should function according to the Dharma Shastra’s Varnadharma. Shudras should remain slaves as they have been serving Brahmins, Banias and Kshatriyas since ancient Vedic times. The Shudras were liberated from that status only after India adopted the Ambedkar-written Constitution in 1950.

Thakur, meanwhile, also gave a call to Kshatriyas to produce more children and also join the army.More in Politics :Here’s a List of the Most Significant Contributions to the PM-CARES FundAssam: BJP Leader Among 36 Named in Chargesheet in State Police Exam Paper Leak ScamMangaluru Police Violence: A Year on, Muslim Victims Wait for Names to Be Dropped From FIRsWistron Violence: Apple Supplier Admits to Not Paying Some Workers Properly, Removes India VPAP SEC Files Contempt Plea Against State Govt in High CourtHow Meritorious and Inclusive Are Our Institutions of Higher Education?

Pragya Thakur addresses BJP workers in Bhopal. Credit: PTI

Hers is not just fringe talk – it is a calculated ideological argument that comes after the Ram temple judgment and reading down of Article 370 which have dealt with the Muslims. Now the Shudras seem to be the next target.

Nor is she exceptional – these views are the broad understanding of the Sangh Parivaar.

What should be the status of the Shudra and OBC working mass in that structure and also in the Hindu Rashtra? The organisational strength of the RSS and BJP comes from Shudras and OBCs and she too knows that. But, whatever their role be in that network, they have to behave as if they are unequal as they belong to the fourth varna.

It is for the Shudras and OBCs of the nation to decide now. It is true that they need not be ashamed to be called Shudra as an all Indian category. Blacks, the world over, are not ashamed of being called blacks, even though they are a minority in many Euro-American nations. The Shudras are the majority, constituting 55% of the population and they are the productive mass of this nation, with a long history of indigenous existence from the days of the Harappan civilisation.

The real productive force

As of now in different states they are known by different names. On the other hand, the Brahmins are Brahmins, Kshatriyas are Kshatriyas and Vaishyas are Vaishyas in every state and in Delhi. The Shudras will remain regionalised communities if they are not willing to modernise the notion of Shudra with a new definition. If we look at the farmers of all states, they would mainly constitute the Shudra mass. Even in the 21st century, like in ancient and medieval India, they were and still are the real producers of wealth by being the real productive force of India.

The Brahmin, Kshatriya, Bania (Vaishya) who are also known as Dwijas (twice born), in a historical sense, even in the 21st century – they remain outside agricultural production. They do not accept all forms of Indian cultures that emerged out of what is known as agriculture as spiritually dignified.

Two more castes of the western and the eastern India, Khatris and Kayasthas have now joined the Dwija ranks. The Kayasthas of Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh seem to have joined the ranks of Dwija more consciously after the emergence of Swami Vivekananda as a modern Hindu saint-thinker who the RSS has adopted as their ideological guru.

The Bengali intellectuals and media constructed concepts like Bhadralok (upper-caste people) which include Brahmins, Kayasthas and Baidhyas, and Chotalok (lower-caste people) which include Shudras, Namashudras and Adivasis of that state. Quite tragically, they never produced their own organic intellectuals who could challenge such a construction. This very language destroys the confidence of the productive mass in a manner that does not allow them to attempt for socio-spiritual equality.null

The same Vivekananda has become the ideological guru of Brahminised writers like Shashi Tharoor (a Shudra from Kerala) too. This is very clear from Tharoor’s extensive quotations from his writings, particularly Why I am a Hindu. Though Vivekananda vaguely talked about Shudra spiritual rights but his main arguments affirmed Varna Dharma that Pragya Singh Thakur is now upholding by undermining the present constitutional promise of equality. And now Vivekananda’s statue has been installed in JNU as a representative thinker of modern Indian thought.null

The Shudras as a historical productive force of India did not theorise their status in the national life. They now depend only on the constitution that Ambedkar so laboriously put in place and the indications are such that not only Pragya Singh, with her Kshatriya assertion, even others like the Gujarat speaker, Rajendra Trivedi, are asserting their ‘Brahmin pride’. “Most Nobel Prize winners from India, including recent recipient Abhijeet Banerjee, are Brahmins, and it was a Brahmin – B.N. Rau – who made the draft Constitution and handed it over to Babasaheb Ambedkar”, Trivedi said at the inauguration of a Brahmin Business Summit. Thus they are also taking away the credit of writing the constitution from Ambedkar. Earlier Arun Shourie too did the same thing by calling Ambedkar a ‘false god’.

The caste system

Amit Shah, the present home minister had said “banias are ‘chatur’ (or clever) people.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an OBC identity does not stop these varna-dharma-superior-inferior constructions by his own ministers and MPs.

The Shudras from the RSS/BJP networks and outside do not react. They behave as if they accept their inferior slave status even now. As of now they do not have the right to priesthood in any major temple with a systematic Hindu theological training along with Brahmins. All their Dharma Shastras including Manu Dharma Shastra and Kautilya’s Arthasastra go along the same high and low, inferior and superior theories. Those will be main books as teaching material in all universities now under the supervision of the RSS/BJP academicians.

Not that the Dwijas working in the Congress and other structures are very different. We know what Mani Shankar Aiyer said about Modi being chaiwala just before the 2014 elections. Janardan Dwivedi and Manish Tiwari have consistently opposed the reservation system which is helping the SC/ST/OBCs in education and job sectors. They pretend as if there is no caste system in India.

There is no serious critique to Manu Dharma Shastra from the right-wing intellectuals even if they happen to be Shudras. Mahatma Gandhi affirmed Varna Dharma practice and Sardar Patel, who was a lone Shudra leader in the Congress, did not object. Now Shudra leaders or intellectuals from the RSS/BJP camp do not object to the caste and varna affirmation from the RSS camp, such as by Pragya Thakur.

The Dwijas do not participate in modern production and other agrarian and cleaning labour tasks in spite of the fact that Modi’s government has given a call for ‘Swachh Bharat’ and ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’. Only Dalits/OBCs/Adivasis do hard labour jobs and they are being treated as unworthy Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis with an undignified image.null

How does this nation generate wealth if the others do not participate in hard agrarian physical labour and continue treating Shudra/OBC and Dalits as inferior as they were treated in ancient India because they do that hard productive work?

If the Shudra/OBC leaders and intellectuals working in RSS/BJP, Congress and in the communist parties remain silent when this kind of humiliating language is allowed to be used against the main productive forces of India, the nation will definitely slip into medieval and ancient varna dharma order sooner than later.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, with an upcoming new book The Shudras — Vision for a New Path co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy (Penguin).

https://m.thewire.in/article/caste/shudras-casteism-india-pragya-thakur

 

Asaduddin Owaisi’s success in carving out a Muslim constituency will benefit BJP and bleed the Congress

The RSS mode of targeting Muslims as the permanent enemy, and Owaisi’s attempts to organise Muslims electorally, may lead to a national disorientation and gradual disaster.

Written by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd |Updated: December 14, 2020 8:57:26 amAsaduddin Owaisi

The All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi is poised to become a national leader of the Muslim community. Apart from Hyderabad, his electoral base has now spread to Maharashtra and Bihar, where the AIMIM has won both assembly and municipal seats. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, AIMIM won a seat in Maharashtra, apart from Hyderabad. The rise of AIMIM is in the backdrop of the RSS and the BJP’s politics, which has been steadily isolating the Muslim community in India. According to the 2011 census, Muslims constitute 14.2 per cent of the Indian population. In certain urban pockets, AIMIM could win seats on its own, if the Muslims vote as a bloc.

Asaduddin’s father, Salahuddin Owaisi (1931-2008), was also an MP, representing Hyderabad constituency, but he was not a modern Muslim leader with a national image. But Asaduddin Owaisi is educated in England, and trained as a barrister, with a deep conviction that democracy is a necessary political system for Muslim well-being in India. He broke away from the UPA in 2012, which gave a boost to his national ambitions. It also turned him into a Muslim face that the BJP/RSS has constantly attacked and targetted.AIMIM’s spread has serious implications for the BJP and Congress. His success in carving out a Muslim constituency will benefit the BJP and bleed the Congress. If Muslims move away from the Congress, the BJP’s winning possibilities in every state will increase. Some of the regional parties like the Samajwadi Party and the RJD also stand to lose. So Owaisi’s rise as a visibly Muslim leader is as much BJP’s need as the AIMIM’s.

However, this may have another implication for Muslim life in India. Since a large chunk of the Muslim populace is concentrated in urban areas, their political organisational mobilities will increase and a religious-ideological leadership will emerge. By and large, Muslim masses are also unhappy with secularism, which traps them in a majority-minority discourse in which their Muslim identity is lost.The old slogan of SC/ST/OBC minority unity is also likely to go for a toss now. Though he talks about Dalit-Muslim unity, Owaisi has no language to address the Shudras or OBCs. The RSS-BJP combine wants to expand their base in a state like Telangana by militantly opposing Owaisi. They made inroads in the Hyderabad city by mainly mobilising OBCs against Muslims, as is clear in the recent municipal elections — a politics that they will now take to rural Telangana. Since AIMIM has a history of asking for an independent Nizam state (what they called South Pakistan during Kasim Razvi’s Razakar movement in the 1940s), Hindutva forces conveniently labelled the old city as Pakistan and Owaisi its Jinnah.

In many cities with a significant Muslim population, as in Hyderabad, the Shudra/OBC population have no intimate relations with Muslims. The OBCs are meat-eaters, but many do not consume beef. The RSS/BJP networks want to use these differences and organise Shudra/OBC masses against Muslims. Owaisi’s entry into caste language is recent and his more militant brother treats all OBCs as Hindus.

In fact, no Muslim leader and intellectual has studied the fault line of caste adequately. Their focus has always been the Hindu-Muslim divide. Their understanding of caste contradictions is limited to Alberuni’s Al-Hind. But India has had too long a history of caste oppression from the days of the Vedic civilisation, which predated the beginning of Muslim rule in the 11th century.

The Hindutva nationalism forged by RSS-BJP has challenged the idea of secularism, under which Muslim leaders had a place. Under Owaisi, the AIMIM, too, speaks a Muslim nationalist language. Since Owaisi’s ancestors refused to leave Hyderabad for Pakistan, the AIMIM leaders use their Indian-Muslim nationalism as a weapon against the BJP-RSS’s attempt to brand Muslims as foreign or Pakistani. That is also why Muslims across India may gravitate towards him. But the RSS mode of targeting Muslims as the permanent enemy, and Owaisi’s attempts to organise Muslims electorally, may lead to a national disorientation and gradual disaster.

This article first appeared in the print edition on December 14, 2020 under the title ‘Owaisi Promise & Its Limits’. The author is a political theorist, with an upcoming new book The Shudras — Vision for a New Path co-edited with Karthik Raja Karuppusamy (Penguin)

https://countercurrents.org/2021/02/disha-ravi-is-nations-heroine/