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Why there is no scope for the liberation of Shudras in RSS’ Hindu Rashtra
The outcome of 2019 Lok Sabha elections depends on the Shudra realisation of their spiritual and socio-political status in the ‘RSS Hindutva realm’.
KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERDDev Raj Chanana in his book, Slavery in Ancient India, proves that the Shudra varna was nothing but the Dasa varna, which means slaves.
The Shudras historically evolved from slavery to broken peasantry by medieval times. This further led to division of that varna into many sub-castes. However, the Shudras were/are the main producers of food in India then and now.
For a long time they had no socio-spiritual relations with the Brahmin priest as the Brahmin was not even ready to touch the Shudras. By medieval times, the Shudras had their own spiritual agrarian God/Goddess figures.
There was no link between the Shudra spiritual system and the Vedic spiritual system. Since Brahmins were recognised as bhu devatas by the rulers, any Shudra attempt to become literate was curbed violently, as Brahminism was against Shudra education.
The Brahmin, Bania and Kshatriya unity connected by a common ‘sacred’ thread. (Credit: Twitter) Brahmins constituted a small minority at all times. Their physical strength was drawn from the Kshatriya rulers. Although the foot soldiers were Shudras, the commanders were always Kshatriyas. Hence, any rebellion by them was easily crushed.
After the Gupta (Vysya) dynasty established its rule in the 5th century AD, the Banias got the sole business rights and the Brahmin priests and the Banias made that rule acceptable to all.
We must understand Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s position of power in this background.
Although he has an Other Backward Class certificate, the Banias of India — particularly the big business owners — think that after the Gupta dynasty, they got all powers in their hands.
Amit Shah, a non-reserved category Bania, is the real connection between the Bania business and the entire political set-up.
Hence, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the big businesses will play a much bigger role than what they did in 2014 to bring Modi back to power.
However, the election outcome depends on the Shudra realisation of their spiritual and socio-political status in the RSS Hindutva realm. After the 2014 elections, the Shudras of North India lost whatever regional political power they had earlier.
The Bania business and industrial houses have been playing a key role in Indian politics after 2014 elections.
Modi and Amit Shah have no choice but to obey their rule as ‘natural’ leaders of that community.
Historically, the Bania ‘business success’ is infamous for its ‘extractionist’ policies. The priest and king in the medieval times were happy with that kind of business since the shahukar fed the priest, the temple as well as the state treasury with such immorally earned money.
The Brahmin, Bania and Kshatriya unity connected by a common Janeu (sacred thread), the right to education for all three castes (varnas in Vedic language) got stabilised by the time the Muslim rule got established.
The big businesses will play a much bigger role than what they did in 2014 to bring Modi back to power. (Credit: PTI photo)The ‘Janeu’ is a citizenship marker for the Hindu for spiritual, social and political engagement.
If a Shudra became a king by physical force, the priestly class offered him Kshatriya-hood and separated him from his Shudra lineage.
The king’s children thereafter got the right ‘Janeu’, education and political rule. That family’s citizenship rights were guaranteed and the Brahmin priest would serve him with all respect.
The right to religious citizenship is more important than political citizenship in India because it has more impact on the human behaviour. The Shudras of India do not have that spiritual right in Hinduism even now, ever since the Rig Veda was written.
In North India, castes like the Jats, Yadavs (though they are called people of Srikrishna heritage) Gujjars, Patels, Marthas to Dhobis and Nayees were considered to be Shudras who are physically touchable, but spiritually untouchable in Varnadharma Hinduism of modern times.
Their right to enter temples could be termed as post-Muslim rule achievements. The so-called Bhakti movement was Muslim era concession in which Shudras were given some spiritual status in order to checkmate conversion of Shudras into Islam. But even then the Shudras were not given the spiritual citizenship as that would destabilise the Varna order in a big way.
The RSS skillfully shifted the political debate from Mandal and caste to religion with Mandir politics. (Credit: India Today)KB Hedgewar and MS Golwalkar were very particular about protecting that Varnadharma in a ‘Hindu Rastra’.
The Muslim rulers respected and safeguarded the Varnadharma order because the spiritual unity among all non-Muslims would have caused a political crisis. Muslim scholars did not write a single book on caste system at any point of time in history because they were scared of the Brahmin wrath.
Until 1915, the year in which the All India Hindu Mahasabha was established, there was no political institution to organise Hindus outside temples and the Peethas that Adishankara had established.
The All India Hindu Mahasabha was established under a Brahmin leadership with Bania finance while the Kshatriyas worked with it as integral Hindu citizens.
The Shudras were mobilised around it without giving any spiritual citizenship rights.
But the real political mass structure to organise the much bigger Shudra mass into the Hindu fold by highlighting the Muslim threat (not so much Christians as they did not want to invite the anger of British rulers) came into existence with the establishment of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh by Brahmin leaders in 1925.
By then, the Brahmin Bania youth were going to English-medium schools. Sanskrit got disconnected from Brahmin families across India.
Hedgewar and Golwalkar were educated in English-medium colleges. The former was a doctor and later was a lecturer in the Banaras Hindu University.
In urban areas, the anti-Muslim agenda attracted lot of Shudra youths who could hardly go to schools and colleges.
The visible spiritual symbols of Islam like a beard without moustache, the skull cap and the invisible but religious circumcision were used as ‘anti-India markers’ to enthuse the Shudra youth.
But they were never allowed to become conscious of their own lack of Hindu marker — the Janeu. It was a highly skillful operation.
From 1915, the Hindu Mahasabha and from 1925, the RSS never asked for all Hindus getting equal rights in the Hindu religious system — the right to Janeu and the right to priesthood in mainstream temples.
On the contrary, the right to Janeu for Shudras (leave alone Dalits and Adivasis) was not even allowed to come up for discussion. The most important right to priesthood in the organised non-Shudra temples was also never discussed.
The anti-Mandal protests stoked ‘caste fires’ among the youths. (Credit: Twitter)However, by 1990, the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian campaign became a massive issue. Thousands of Shudra youths got mobilised into the movement. By then, the Brahmin-Bania and Ksatriya youths were mostly in engineering, medicine and civil service training centres. Most of them were trained in private English-medium schools. The RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha never opposed their children going to English-medium schools and colleges.
But they were totally opposed to English-medium teaching in government schools across the country. It was a very intelligent strategy. That kept even the Shudra land-owning castes away by the time globalisation began.
Even today, there are very few English-speaking and writing individuals among them.
The RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha organised the anti-reservation movement which worked against the few educated Shudra youths in the colleges and universities in terms of securing jobs.
They also weaved the anti-Muslim campaign around the Ram Mandir with the Shudra youths also taking to the streets. Their anti-Mandal campaign mobilsed the Brahmin-Bania, Ksatriya (and the unreserved Shudra) youths who finally took to the streets. This was being done with a slogan of “Hindu Unity”. The Shudras did not realise their status till they started the recent reservation movement — for instance by the Jats, Gujjars, Patels and Marathas.
However, the Shudras as a whole did not understand the hidden strategy. Golwalkar made one thing very clear. In his book, We or Our Nationhood Defined, Golwalkar said the Hindu Rastra that we establish would see that “people of the world will come to Hindustan to learn their duties at the holy feet of the eldest born Brahamanas of this land”.
Amid such cultural beliefs of the RSS, where is the scope for liberation of Shudras?
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The Shudras Want Empowerment, Not a Giant Statue of Their Iron Man
The stories of Patel, Gandhi and Nehru are parables of the status of Shudras, Banias and Brahmins in India.
File picture of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar vallbhbhai Patel. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Prime Minister Naredra Modi will unveil a statue of Vallabhbhai Patel – the tallest statue in the world – on October 31. This is happening at a time when the Patels, Jats, Gujjars, Marathas – the top layer of the north Indian Shudras, to which Patel belonged – are fighting to be categorised as Other Backward Classes to gain access to government reservations. If they succeed, the Shudras of India will unite in a single socio-political bracket, which can lead to a massive re-organisation of the country’s social relations. On this occasion, it is important to assess the status of Patel and the Shudras in the Hindu religion and the Indian socio-political system.An assessment of Patel is best done via comparison with Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the two main leaders he worked with during the freedom movement and, for some time, in independent India. The stories of Patel, Gandhi and Nehru are parables of the status of Shudras, Banias and Brahmins in India.
Also Read: With Modi Set to Unveil Statue of Unity, Gujarat’s Farmers, Tribals Plan Protests
Patel was a Shudra from Gujarat, Gandhi a Bania from the same state, and Nehru a Brahmin with Kashmiri origins from what was then the United Provinces and is now Uttar Pradesh. Their status in the Hindu religion differed quite significantly. Patel had slave origins in the Vedic period, Gandhi had early trading (middle varna) origins and Nehru had priestly origins. Gandhi and Nehru had the right to wear the sacred thread, the janeu. Patel had no such right, just as the Shudras still don’t have that right today, even though they are considered to be Hindu.
- Patel’s ancestors had no right to education, no accessibility to the Vedic gods and this was enshrined in the sacred texts of the Hindu religion. Gandhi and Nehru’s ancestors had that access from the beginnings of the Hindu religion in Vedic times, and the right to education – in Sanskrit, but also in other languages as time went on.
Patel’s ancestors were tillers of the land, cattle grazers, harvesters of crops. They were also soldiers in the service of different rulers through various periods of history – the monarchical period, the Mughal period and the colonial period, because the Shudras had a duty to defend the village and nation. The work of defence and production fell to the Dalits too, even when they were treated as being untouchable.
Gandhi and Nehru’s ancestors never produced any goods – agriculture and physical labour were considered demeaning, Shudra domains. There are few examples of Banias or Brahmins being soldiers at any stage in history. Their vegetarianism and the notion of non-violence prohibited them from entering the army. But they depended on the Shudras’ work throughout their existence and the Shudras always served them.
Patel served Gandhi and Nehru in the same spirit. It was in this tradition that he became the “Iron Man” of the freedom struggle, whereas Gandhi became the “Mahatma” and Nehru the “Pandit.” Patel’s moniker, was meant to be derogatory, a declaration, in the eyes of those who coined the term, of Shudra intellectual and spiritual inferiority.
Patel’s ancestors had no right to education till the British arrived in India. They never wrote about themselves and others did not write about them. Patel and his elder brother, Vithalbhai, were the first in his family to go to school. The tradition of Shudra illiteracy was broken in the region only during the 18th century. That was why Patel’s parents never recorded his real date of birth – his official date of birth, October 31, was invented for his school records. This is why Modi is inaugurating Patel’s statue on that day – because of the Brahminical oppression of Patel’s ancestors.
By the time of Patel’s birth, the Brahmins and Banias had already acquired advanced education in English. Gandhi and Nehru had their dates of birth properly recorded, and had well-documented family histories. They were not self-made men – they inherited status and privilege.
Statue of Unity design. Credit: statueofunity.in
Patel was a self-made, “hard” man – his rise relied on his brute political strength. But he never had the luxury of evolving the “soft” power of intellect. He served a role similar to that of his ancestors and never broke beyond the position assigned to him in the Brahminical system of Hinduism. Blindly, he defended this system that oppressed him. This is the unfortunate legacy he left to the Shudras.
Today, Brahmins and Banias continue to dominate India’s politics, government and economy, and control the country. A big reason for their grip over all the structures of power is that they control the system of Hinduism that they impose upon the Shudras. The Shudras have no say in this religion that is supposed to be theirs. They have no right to be priests or to take the lead in interpreting scripture.
Also Read: Why the Statue of Unity Hasn’t Quite Generated the Euphoria BJP Craved
The Patels, Jats, Gujjars, Marathas and so on are fighting for reservations hoping that it will give them some space in the structures that they have been shut out of. They have thrown their support behind the Bharatiya Janata Party and it continues to pay lip service to Patel – Advani described Patel as “Abhinava” during his rath yatra before the demolition of the Babri Masjid. But under the BJP, the Shudras have become even more marginalised. The hegemony of Bania and Brahmin forces is visible everywhere in India even now.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, always headed by Brahmins, admires Patel because he did not disturb the varna order. He did not ask for priesthood for the Shudras; he did not ask to wear the sacred thread himself; he did not ask that Shudras get the same rights as Banias and Brahmins in all spheres. When Gandhi decided that the first prime minister of India should be a Brahmin (Nehru), Patel obediently resigned from his post as the president of the Congress and handed it over to Nehru.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh admires Patel because he did not disturb the varna order. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat Credit: PTI
Gandhi and Nehru wrote their own histories, leaving behind careful autobiographies. But Patel did not do this. He must have thought that his family history and his own history were not worth writing. Gandhi and Nehra archived all their writing and correspondence. Patel, as one of his biographers notes, wrote all of his letters by hand and never preserved copies, and never kept copies of the letters he received either.
Also Read: Statue of Unity: An Open Letter to Sardar Patel by Medha Patkar
Today, Gandhi and Nehru are known as great thinkers and their works are studied in schools, colleges and universities. Patel is known as an “Iron Man”, without any books of his own about his life, his ideas, his family, his caste. We can only learn of him from the writings of others, and even those others rarely happen to be Shudras. It is easy now for the RSS and BJP to write whatever history they want for him.
- Gandhi and Nehru wrote their own histories, leaving behind careful autobiographies. But Patel did not do this. He must have thought that his family history and his own history were not worth writing.
Patel’s self-erasure was an unfortunately typical Shudra characteristic. They have a rich tradition of oral history and story-telling, but due to the Brahminical prohibition on Shudra literacy, they never developed a culture of writing any of this down. In fact, no Shudra leader of the freedom movement wrote an autobiography. The Hindu religion, historically, wanted Shudras to be known as people of actions but not of ideas. Patel’s life operated in that Brahminical domain. None of his descendants, unlike Gandhi and Nehru’s, became writers or politicians. His Iron Man-ship ended with him. That is how it was meant to be.
Patel was claimed by the RSS early on, as he was seen as a close ally of the Hindu Mahasabha. As a Shudra, he did not feel the compulsion to seek any social and religious reform and so he became their man. The irony is that the RSS has championed this man but has never allowed a Shudra to become its sarsanghchalak. Except one Kshatriya – Rajendra Singh – all sarsanghchalaks have been Brahmins.
Had Patel written down his philosophy, his views on his family and community, their work ethic and spiritual culture, perhaps the whole Shudra community would have entered the national philosophical and political discourse. Gandhi and Nehru performed that service for the Banias and Brahmins, though they only needed to add to existing traditions, not establish completely new ones for their communities.
Unlike Patel, Ambedkar refused to accept his community’s unequal status under Hinduism and challenged the foundations of their spiritual and social oppression. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
What Patel failed to do for the Shudras, another man did for the Dalits against even greater odds. B.R. Ambedkar educated himself in political thought, philosophy, scripture and rhetoric, and took up the cause of socio-spiritual reform. Unlike Patel, he refused to accept his community’s unequal status under Hinduism, and challenged the foundations of their spiritual and social oppression.
Patel studied law, but did not show any interest in philosophical questions. Without that, he never gathered the tools to understand his given position in society. While in Britain as a student, Patel did not realise that racial and caste oppression have commonalities. Ambedkar, by comparison, grasped that point when he studied in the US and learnt important lessons from the struggles of black people. Ambedkar developed an anti-caste consciousness, Patel never saw beyond an anti-British one. He never understood Ambedkar’s point that independence without caste emancipation would only mean a change from British to Brahmin and Bania masters.
Patel accepted Gandhi as his guru and never came to think for himself. His mind never stretched beyond the Gandhian framework of feudal democracy, of gramraj and Ramraj. Maybe Patel thought that the Shudras might become rulers in that gramraj, but he was fooled. He did not see the other side of Gandhi – his reliance on Bania industrialists such as the Birlas and Goenkas even while he spoke of a return to village economy. The Bania industrialists were the real power Gandhi was working for, and their power over the country today is part of Gandhi’s legacy.
Also Read: Reconfiguring India’s Nationalism, One Grand Statue at a Time
Patel’s apathy reflected the Shudra predicament: denied equal rights yet still positioned somewhere in the middle of the caste order. The Dalits, at the very bottom, are ready to take on the dominant castes that oppress them. The Shudras have been resigned to their limited privileges, even if these come with limited lives. They have never been angry at the Brahmins and Banias above them. Instead, they have let the Brahmins and Banias convince them that the threat comes from the Dalits, and so direct anger at them. Shudras have never realised their own unequal status in the Hindu religion and all the socio-political consequences of it.
Patel’s lack of intellectual production has become the bottleneck for his history and power, just as it has always been the bottleneck for Shudra history and power. Patel had no socioeconomic theory of his own. He represented the Shudras without a representative ideology. He did not give the Shudras any theory or ideology to show them the way to their empowerment. Shudras are still facing that same ideological hole today. Just a statue of Patel, no matter how big, will never be able to fill it.
So now Modi, who as I said in my recent essay for The Caravan, is a Bania, taking orders from his guru Mohan Bhagwat, the Brahmin sarsanghchalak of the RSS, will unveil a statue of the Shudra Patel. Even here, the BJP and RSS have excluded Shudras from the most important roles. Let us wait and see what this Bania-Brahmin rule brings to the nation and the Shudras, apart from a giant statue.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist and chairman of T-MASS.
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Nudge to drop Kancha Ilaiah’s books splits DU
https://m.telegraphindia.com/india/nudge-to-drop-books-splits-du/cid/1672621
‘The books are about experiences of Dalits and the backward classes and their knowledge system. Those opposing the books want continuation of the cultural hegemony of the Brahminical social order’
ByBasant Kumar Mohantyin New Delhi
- Published 26.10.18, 1:54 AM
- Updated 26.10.18, 3:39 AM
Kancha Ilaiah(Agencies)
A Delhi University panel’s suggestion to drop three books written by a backward class academic on Hinduism from the political science master’s syllabus has split academics into two camps.
While one claimed the works by Professor Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd were “anti-Hindu”, Ambedkarite scholars described the move as a bid to maintain the “cultural hegemony of the Brahminical social order”.
The varsity’s standing committee on academic affairs (SCAA) had on Wednesday decided to recommend that the books — Why I am not a Hindu, Post-Hindu India and God as Political Philosopher: Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism — be dropped from the list of suggested reading on social exclusion as part of the MA course.
Nachiketa Singh, who is on the standing committee, said some members of the BJP-backed National Democratic Teachers’ Front (NDTF) had found the books “anti-Hindu”.
“They said the books were not very relevant. But they did not explain in detail,” Singh said.
The committee, headed by pro-vice-chancellor J.M. Khuranna, accepted the NDTF point.
NDTF member Geeta Bhatt said the books lacked empirical data and research content. “They carry the author’s perspective. The author has used the fault lines in society to create further division in society,” Bhatt told The Telegraph.
Professor Veena Kukreja, head of department of political science, said the committee’s recommendations would be “deliberated upon” at the departmental council. “This is not the final decision.”
If the departmental council approves the suggestion, the matter might be sent to the academic council and later the varsity’s executive council.
Professor Kesav Kumar, an Ambedkarite scholar who teaches philosophy at the varsity, said Ilaiah’s books distinguished Dalits and the backward classes from the homogenised idea of Hinduism.
“The books are about experiences of Dalits and the backward classes and their knowledge system. Those opposing the books want continuation of the cultural hegemony of the Brahminical social order,” Kumar said.
Ilaiah, he said, has demonstrated with evidence how the Dalits and the backward classes were distinct from the others and democratic in terms of culture, food, lifestyle and philosophy.
“This is Hindutva conspiracy,” he said, referring to the standing committee’s decision.
Negi said the MA political science course also includes content on Hindu Mahasabha leader V.D. Savarkar and RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar.(Prem Singh)
Saroj Negi, an assistant professor of political science, said: “Ilaiah is among a few scholars who tell the real history of society, cutting through layers of dominant ideologies. There is a deep sense of insecurity in coming to terms with the actual conditions of Dalits and bahujans in the country. This a reaction to that.”
Negi said the MA political science course also includes content on Hindu Mahasabha leader V.D. Savarkar and RSS leader M.S. Golwalkar.
DU executive council member Rajesh Jha said the university provides space for debate and study on any issue, and dropping books from the syllabus because they happen to be critical about the dominant social order showed narrow consideration. The DU Teachers Association too has protested the standing committee’s recommendations.
Ilaiah termed the recommendation an “unfortunate anti-academic attempt, which is part of the larger RSS/BJP’s agenda to not to allow plural ideas to be taught to the students in the universities”.
“The right-wing academicians said there is no empirical data (in the books). While saying so they have not shown the basic academic ethic of reading my books,” he said in a statement.
He said God as Political Philosopher was his PhD thesis, which is heavily referenced, while Post-Hindu India had a massive database on the production knowledge of village communities and the process of scientific experimentation of various productive communities.
“Those who do not have any understanding of village production relations hardly understand that book,” Ilaiah said.
Why I am not a Hindu is taught in many universities in India as well as in the West.
“The Hindutva forces are opposing the teaching and reading of this book in many countries — including in Columbia University (US). Scholars such as Lise McKean, Linda Hess, Eliza Kent etc., recommend it as an introduction-level reading material on Hinduism. The Hindutva forces opposed but did not succeed in removing it. The same forces are trying once again in DU,” Ilaiah said.
“The same forces are asking for inclusion of Savarkar’s book Hindutva-Who is a Hindu? and Golwalkar’s book Bunch of Thoughts to be taught in universities. Are these books referenced? Is there empirical data in these books?” he asked.
“Universities are meant for teaching and debating diversified ideas and concepts. Hundreds of thoughts must clash there. Universities are not theological institutes where only one religious idea is taught.”
The BJP-backed NDTF had last year opposed a move to include Professor Nandini Sundar’s book, The Burning Forest: India’s War in Bastar, in the MA sociology syllabus.
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ON THE DELHI UNIVERSIT PROPOSAL TO REMOVE MY BOOKS FROM THE SYLLABUS
Press Release
The meeting of the Delhi University Standing Committee for Academic Affairs, according to media reports, in its meeting on 24 October, 2018 has recommended to drop teaching of my three books for M.A. Political Science course. The three books are ‘Why I am not a Hindu’, ‘God as Political Philosopher: Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism’; and ‘Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution’
This is an unfortunate Anti-academic attempt, which is part of the larger RSS/BJP’s agenda to not to allow plural ideas to be taught to the students in the universities. The right wing academicians who demanded for removing the books said “his understanding of Hindu faith is wrong and there is no empirical data to establish his understanding’. While saying so they have not shown the basic academic ethic of reading my books.
God as Political Philosopher is my Ph.D. Thesis, which is heavily referenced. It has nothing to with Hindu faith. Post Hindu India is a book of massive data base from the village communities’ production knowledge and scientific experimentation process of various productive communities. Those who do not have any understanding of village production relations hardly understand that book. Unless they get back to the village life and study the production relations and they say it is anti-something or the other does not make sense. It is published by Sage an internationally reputed publishers. They cannot rubbish my research work of 10 long years.
Why I am Not a Hindu is known as a classic, being taught in many universities in the West and India. The Hindutva forces are opposing teaching and reading of this book in many countries—including in the Columbia University US. Scholars such as Lise McKean, Linda Hess, Eliza Kent etc., recommend it as an introduction level reading material on Hinduism. The Hindutva forces opposed but they did not succeed in removing it. The same forces are trying once again in DU.
The same forces are asking for inclusion of Savarkar’s book “ Hindutva-Who is a Hindu? and Golwalkar’s book ‘Bunch of Thoughts’ to be taught in the universities. Are these books referenced? Is there empirical data in these books?
While their right to ask for what they want to teach is part of their academic freedom but asking for removal of other books that they do not agree with is Anti-academic and destructive. Universities are meant for teaching and debating diversified ideas, concepts. Hundreds of thoughts must clash there. Universities are not theological institutes where only one religious ideas are taught.
The MHRD must not allow this kind of destructive un-academic processes to continue in DU and also in other universities. I appeal to the academic fraternity to fight this trend in the nation and protect the academic freedom and autonomy. -
From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual
ShareFrom a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual
My Memoirs- Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd – Retired, Director, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad
November 2018 | 372 pages | SAGE Select‘Caste is Race in Ancient Times,
Race is Caste in Modern Times,
Untouchability is an Aryan Construct.
They said God has not created Untouchables.’
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd goes on to say, ‘Many people from the Brahmin–Baniya castes have written about their own greatness in their autobiographies, in English and in the regional languages. But I have not seen even a single autobiography of a person born and brought up in the shepherd community’. He adds that it is in writing about themselves that people gain a sense of self-respect. Shepherd’s evocative memoirs reveal the struggle for education and dignity that a great majority of Indians undergo. As a little boy herding sheep and goats, he and his brother were the first to go to school. The author writes of his long and often interrupted journey to becoming a writer and an intellectual, without support and having to overcome adversities.
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Sabarimala: Why BJP wants to ’empower’ Muslim women but is against equal rights for its Hindu daughters
By Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd @DailyO_ |
2018-10-18 14:31:52Right-wing forces are mobilising women against women’s right to spiritual equality in Hinduism.
Despite their sharp differences, one thing that unites radical Hindu men and Muslim male fundamentalists is their opposition to gender equality within their respective communities.
The Supreme Court order allowing women of all ages to enter Lord Ayyappa’s Sabarimala Temple is being opposed by the right-wing forces just as Muslim fundamentalist organisations didn’t agree with the striking down of instant triple talaq.
What is absolutely ironical is that the RSS/BJP, along with the Shiv Sena, has been mobilising women against women’s right to spiritual equality in Hinduism.
Radical Hindu men, just like their fundamentalist Muslim counterparts in India and the world over, believe that a woman’s body is impure because of her menstrual cycle. They, however, feel a man and his body is absolutely pure and spiritually superior. Hence, men of all ages can go to all temples, but women are not allowed to enjoy that equality.
The Supreme Court has thrown open the doors of Sabarimala Temple to women of all age groups. (Photo: PTI file)The radical Muslim men also believe in imposing purity-related restrictions on women. Added to that is the burden of burqa culture to avoid arousing impure thoughts in men. They believe that a woman’s body should be zealously guarded from men.
The radical Hindu men are doing exactly the same thing. The RSS is quite open about it now and I am glad it has finally shed the cloak.
The notion of men’s ‘prerogative’ to divorce a woman in a manner he likes and chooses is still treated by many Muslim men as a divine right. But the Hindu men from radical Hindu organisations believed that the Muslim women must be liberated and the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre supported that “cause” before the Supreme Court.
And once the instant triple talaq judgment was out, the BJP government enacted a law abolishing the same. But the same BJP government opposed the entry of Hindu women (of menstruating age) into the Ayyappa temple.
Right-wing forces are now mobilising Hindu women against Hindu women’s right to spiritual equality.
Does that mean the RSS/BJP want freedom and equality for Muslim women, but are opposed to Hindu women enjoying equal rights as men?
The issue of women’s equality following the Sabarimala judgment is, quite understandably, being seen as a ‘leftist’ verdict.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is being targeted for his resolve to implement the SC verdict.
Why men feel a woman’s body should be zealously guarded from men. (Credit: PTI file)While the Congress leadership in Delhi is trying to play safe, in Kerala, it is supporting the most imprudent Shudra approach by the Nair Service Society (the most cruel Shudra patriarchal society that supported Sambandham marriages for a long time in history). The NSS, with the tacit support of the Congress, is mobilising the Nair women against themselves. Nair women were forced to live as concubines of youngest Brahmin sons for centuries. Now, they do not want the women to visit a temple in Kerala.
The Nair men implement all Brahminical rules against their own women. They have no sense of self-respect. Whatever was written as temple code by Brahmin spiritual theoreticians, these Nair men are happily implementing that.
According to the Agama Shastras (written by Brahmins), Shudras, including Nairs, don’t have the right to priesthood. The same pundits wrote that women should not enter temples and the Nairs want to implement it at their own cost.
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Why Modi government is for sansyasis, not farmers
There is no talk of pro-agrarian development agenda because the RSS-BJP rules the nation only for the well-being of sadhus and sanyasis.
| 6-minute read | 05-10-2018
KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD-
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The Indian farmers, who produce food for this nation’s survival, well-being and development to usher in Achhe Din for all, are samsaris who have wives and children to feed. They are not sanyasis or semi-sanyasis like the leading members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
They have to produce food, not just for themselves, but for the whole nation. And their problems during the four-and-half-years of the BJP-RSS government have doubled. Demonetisation denuded their bodies and de-cropped their fields. The ever-hiking privatised petrol and diesel prices threaten not just their survival but the survival of the nation — including the nation of Hindutva nationalists.
Let us not forget the fact that this is, in fact, a full-fledged RSS government which is being run by Swayam Sevaks of “nationalist” belief and commitment. Mohan Bhagwat, a brahmachari, is in real control. Narendra Damodardas Modi is a married man but living the sanchalak life (without wife and children) and Amit Anilchandra Shah, is a Jain shakahari, who comes from a background of treating and tilling land.
The man who is running the nation. (Photo: PTI)These three leaders are running the nation. They control the army and the police — with the use of which, the samasari farmers were shown their non-violent Gandhian power on October 2, 2018 in Delhi.
The RSS has never pledged before the nation that it believes in Gandhian non-violence. It has never conducted Champaran-like of farmers’ movements in its entire existence. Neither Mohan Bhagwat, nor Modi and Shah can cite a single example, in their lifetimes, that they fought for farmers’ improvement.
They have conducted several agitations to build new Mandirs (like the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, after demolishing the Babri Masjid). They have conducted movements to improve the living standards and conditions for sanyasis, sadhus, pujaris, and so on.
The farmers marched from Tikait Ghat in Haridwar to Kisan Ghat (the memorial site for Chaudhary Charan Singh), New Delhi. And what happened there? Something that can be defined as an extremely non-violent act by the Neo-Gandhians. Hundreds of farmers were beaten with lathis. Water cannons were used to completely immobilise them.
Water cannons and lathis were used to disperse protesting farmers. (Photo: PTI)The farmers lost the turbans on their heads, incidentally near the Red Fort, where Modi sported a red turban and gave a pro-farmer speech on August 15, 2018.
On the same day, the RSS-BJP’s pretentious celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th Jayanti next year (2019) were going on in Delhi and Nagpur. This we must see in contrast to the preparations to celebrate the Allahabad Kumbh Mela of 2019 of sanyasis, sadhus, RSS sanchalks and Hindutva bhakts in Uttar Pradesh, who have never soiled their hands and produced a single grain for human survival.
Some of them walk naked quite deliberately to increase the prestige of the nation, perhaps. The RSS would never object to such naked sadhu yatras, as it is seen as the Hindu Swabhiman Yatra.
In Uttar Pradesh, the sanyasi chief minister, who had not found time for the mundane samasari shudra-OBC farmers was busy the whole time, supervising and preparing for the grand Kumbh. Perhaps, he never believed that farming, cattle-grazing in the fields (not in Goshalas) and food production from the fields was divine work.
Do not forget the role of caste in this Hindutva belief system. Mohan Bhagwat is a Saraswat Brahmin, Modi is an OBC Bania, Amit Shah is a Jain Bania, Rajnath Singh is a Kshatriya and Yogi Adityanath is a Rajayogi Kshatriya.
The caste arithematic doesn’t favour the famers. (Photo: PTI)All the top three Vedic Varnas are at the helm of the national guard in Delhi now. The RSS Dharma Shastra and Arthashastra tell them that farmers are not sacred people.
In the RSS-BJP bloc, there was no shudra-OBC in the top leadership. They are there for muscle within those organisations. Historically, the Hindutva thinkers philosophically treated the tasks of tilling the land, cutting the crop as the unworthy of upper castes – hence it was the charge of the shudra. The RSS has not altered this definition of shudra status even in the recent Vigyan Bhavan outreach and ideological re-positioning official function.
One of the recent Yogi Encyclopedias that the RSS fully supports defined the shudra peasant status in Hindu Rashtra as follows:
“Shudras are characterised by their low order of refinement. For members of the caste, awareness is so dull that expansive or creative thoughts are almost nonexistent. Operating only on automatic responses, the shudra is always the effect of life and never the cause. The other castes of vaisyas(merchants), kshatriyas (warriors), and brahmins (priests) represent progressively higher levels of spiritual consciousness”.
Further, it said that the “Shudra types are encouraged to work with their hands, avoid sloth, and serve more creative people. Naturally, shudras fall into the farming occupation. Since farmers are the ones in any social system most likely to work with their bodies, shudras are typically defined as farmers or peasants”. The RSS and BJP as organisations believe in this core philosophy.
Assume that if there were to be cow protection rally from Haridwar by sadhus and sanyasis to Yogi Adityanath’s new Ashram called the CM’s camp office. Would there have been lathi-charge on them or the use of water cannons against them?
The CM would have received them with folded hands and promised all things positive.
The RSS-BJP rulers think that they rule the nation for the wellbeing of sadhus and sanyasis. (Photo: PTI)Or imagine such a Yogi rally to Rashtrapati Bhavan and how the PM would have responded. He would have gone there with folded hands and promised them all things asked for.
We know what the RSS-BJP leaders said when there was a lathi-charge in Indira Gandhi’s new regime in 1966, against the gau raksha rally (not Gopalan rally) of sanyasis. The RSS went after her and called her anti-Hindu. Of course, by lathi-charging against food producing farmers the RSS-BJP ruling forces have every right to think that they are fulfilling their ideological dharma.
The RSS-BJP rulers think that they rule the nation for the wellbeing of sadhus and sanyasis. Structurally the RSS does not believe in samasari life as all its main sanchalaks are sanyasis.
But what they should realise is that before Akbar, a liberal Muslim ruler, no Hindu ruler ruled the whole of present-day India. Except during the Ashokan period, who donned a pro-farmer avatar after becoming a Buddhist, there was no pro-agrarian development agenda.
How do the Indian agrarian masses believe that RSS-BJP moves them on the path of development, the main harbinger of which in India is still the farmer?
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A Call To Shudra/OBC/SC/STs To Celebrate October 5 As Indian English Day
I appeal to all the Shudra/OBC/SC/STs to celebrate the Indian English Day on 5 October, 2018 as we have no significant place in the world of English even after 201 years of English education in India. The first ever Indian English school was started in 1817 in October by William Carey and Rajram Mohan Roy. But the Shudra/OBC/SC/STs are excluded from learning this language as it is pushed to private sector education. We need to own that language as ours and learn it with vengeance. We have never been allowed to learn any Pan Indian or global language for millennia. Even now the conspiracy of English educated Brahmin/Bania intellectuals is to deny this language of power and glamour to us.
It is a coincidence that my birthday, much later in 1952 falls on that day. It is also international teacher’s day. I was born in a shepherd family which had no right to education in any language. However, I went to Telugu medium school in the early sixties and learnt the English language I speak and write on my won with an undaunted struggle. I then realized this language has the power to liberate education starved SC/ST/OBC/Shudras.
The Indian Christians (mainly Catholic) taught English only to Brahmins and Banias but not to the Shudra/OBC/SC/STs for long time. Now scores of world class English medium private schools, colleges and universities are coming up with the tacit support of the ruling Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janatha Party from power position at Delhi. They too left Sanskrit to their gods and worshipping the goddess of English in private.
Even now the best Christian and Non-Christian private schools teach mainly to Brahmin/Bania/Kayastha and Khatris as they have biggest economic resource at their command. As a result Delhi is being ruled by these four castes, whosoever is the Prime Minister of the country. Naredra Modi (OBC) and Amith Shah, though non-English speaking Bania, rule in the political sense, all the top industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, economists, media men/women, educationalists, mainly coming from those four castes with good command over English rule India.
The complete control of the RSS over central power structures has not changed the power position of the Bania/Brahmin English class of India. The English speaking and writing ( most of them are BJP spokes persons on English TV channels) intellectuals cannot win elections hence get into Rajyasabha as Arun Jaitley, (earlier Arun Shourie did), Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Swapan Dasgupta, Rakesh Sinha, GVL Narsimha Rao and so on did. They become rulers and policy makers. Hardly any Shudra/OBC/SC/STs is there in this crop of rulers.
Dr. Manmohan Singh, Jayram Ramesh, Abhishek Manu Singvi, Manish Tiwari, Janardhan Dwivedi and so on during the Congress regime ruled through same channel of entry into power positions. This caste- class that controls the nerve centre of the nation is in every major national political party and the English language is their main instrument.
The present English speaking and writing intellectuals, who rule India through Rajya Sabha, are strong RSS army men and women. Hence it now says the “RSS is not opposed to English language” and wants the English education to remain in private sector but not in the state sector.
It is fully supporting the establishment of private schools, colleges and universities by the top 20 monopoly companies—including Reliance, Adani, Vedanta, Lakshmi Mittal, Bharti group, Azim Premji and so on. They are establishing rich private English medium schools and colleges and universities into which no SC/ST/OBC/Shudra from rural areas could get in.
Even though a section of Jats, Gujjars, Patels, Marathas that are fighting for reservation in the North India, could afford because of their hold on agrarian economy they never realized its importance. They were/are mad linguistic chauvinists of their regional language. This is what the Brahmin /Bania English educated elite want so that the power of English could remain in their hands.
The Shudra agrarian castes have never understood the link between English education and Delhi power. After four years of RSS/BJP rule they seem to have realized that the Brahmin/Bania forces have become more powerful than ever before. Hence asking for reservation but the English educated forces in top judicial system will not allow that to happen. It is this English educated class that interprets constitution, mostly in their favour.
The ST/SC/OBC/Shudra children and youth can never get into these institutions as they could not enter into the best of the Catholic schools and colleges like St.Stephen’s of Delhi or St.Xavier’s of Mumbai for last several decades. Now they cannot get into the rich private universities because of lack of that kind of elite English and money.
The lower caste/ community children have only one way to get the English medium education. They have to force the State Governments of all states to make all Government schools to teach in English medium. For that these castes and communities must overcome the hatred and fear of English education and fight for that language medium of study in Government schools.
All the major public and private schools, colleges and universities run in English medium where the presence of Shudras like Marathas, Patels, Gujjars, Jats, Kammas, Reddys, Lingayats, Yadavs of all states, the Shudras of Bengal, Modaliars of Tamilnadu is marginal, leave alone that BC/SC/STs. Unless these castes take initiative the Government sector does not change the language policy in the provinces.
The very same English educated Brahmin/Bania intellectuals injected anti-English culture into the psyche of the all Shudras—higher and lower. Thus the, the Shudra castes themselves helped the Brahmin/Banias to sustain their power by refusing to learn English in this globalized times.
They also injected a fear that no first generation school going children can learn English, as it is a foreign language. They never let the examples like Mahatma Phule, Ambedkar or this author, who not only learnt but mastered English without even going to the Christian or Non-Christian English medium schools within one generation of learning, reading and writing . They do not let them realize that the English is an easiest language that the children from the productive castes and communities could learn much better than any Indian langauge.
The higher Shudras like Marathas, Patels, Jats, Gujjars, Kammas, Reddys, Lingayats, Vakkalingas, Nairs and Menons, Modaliaras (except the Shudras of West Bengal) and so on, realized, of late, that their position in Delhi power structure, in the national and international markets, is very poor because of lack of English education and reservations.
Their feudal estates—the landed properties—no longer allow them to control the power structures of Delhi and also the massively growing capitalist industries and markets both in India and abroad.
They are slowly realizing about the link between bureaucratic power and globalized English language controlled market system. Their feudal estates are shifting into the hands of monopoly industrialists in the form of special economic zones. The old Shudra feudals have now become rich farmers without understanding modern markets and new Mall Economy. They are just sellers of their produce in the Bania market that is linked to the international market.
In one of my recent interactions with one of the richest Private English Medium Universities—The Ashoka University Haryana—alumni, who have undergone high end leadership training course I found that there was not a single Jat or Gujjar, or Patel in that group. They were all Brahmin/Banias with a sympathetic understanding towards poor and lower castes.
There are no organic English speaking and writing intellectuals from the agrarian Shudra communities. They need motivational drive into English medium education.
Each year the Shudra/OBC/SC/ST exclusion from the main market of India is increasing. Top industry both of hardware and software is run by the Banias and Brahmins who have international standard English educated force that is acquired skills both in foreign and Indian schools, colleges and universities. All ideological forces– the right, left and liberal Brahmin/Banais– are comfortable with the present private English medium education and regional language ghettoized Government sector education.
The Shudra/OBC/SC/STs must break this monopoly of these caste/community elite. The lower caste forces must begin to celebrate English language education as Indian. The double standards of the Brahmin/Bania elite must be fought with the same weapon that they control the lower castes—once Sanskrit and now English. Therefore, new slogan “Bahujan Bache English Pado, Brahmin Bache Sanskrit Pado”, makes sense.
The youth from all the Shudra/OBC/SC/ST communities should not remain in the regional language trap and in the grip of the propaganda that English is foreign language. English has become a very powerful Indian language that controls the power, industry and communication structures of India. It survived here more than two hundred years. Hence we must own it, learn it and rule the nation through it.
Therefore, celebrate the birth of that language on 5thOctober to motivate ourselves.
Prof. Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd Chairman T-MASS and political theorist.
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How Vedic Brahminism Stunted The Development Of Sciences
After the Bharatiya Janatha Party came to power and ruled the nation for two terms from 1999-2004 and 2014 to present a lot of propaganda by the Brahminic pundits belonging to that ideology clamour that all modern sciences, originated in Europe, America and China and Japan is no match to the Vedic science that the ancient Brahminism has built. Particularly after the Narendra Modi came to power all the Science Congresses have turned into Vedic Science congresses . They started propagating that all the colleges and universities must teach only Vedic science instead of teaching the universal science discovered in many countries over a period of millennia. They do not want to recognize the agrarian science that the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasi masses of India have discovered for millennia too.
It is, now, very clear that all the four Vedas were written during the period of pastoral economy after the Harappan economy was destroyed and before the Buddhist economy was built. The villages and cities were completely erased after the Indo-Aryans settled down. By then the Indo-Africans who later came to be known as Indo-Dravidians were enslaved to do the basic cattle rearing and sustaining of the pastoral economy. It is clear that the food production using animals—buffalo, cow, bull, sheep, goat and so on— was built by the Vedic Shudras. But they were not allowed to take any decision for advancing that economy that could lead to rebuilding of villages and cities. The Vedic Brahmins were the main decision makers. The Ksatriyas were assigned the work of defending and protecting the hegemony of Brahmins and the Vaisyas were assigned the work of distribution of the cattle economic products. The Brahmins could get the highest share of that pastoral economy for consumption and spiritual sacrifices.
Horse was the only other animal that the Aryans brought with them and used for mainly for war by Ksatriyas with a specialization. They were under the guidance of Brahmins who composed the Vedas. Once the Brahmin spiritual hegemony got established all other forces, including the non-Brahmin Aryans were under the Brahminic control. It was during this period that they established the psychological control over the rest of the communities—both Shudras non-Shudras.
The saints who were said to have composed or written the Vedas began to survive with the Shudra slave labour based on cattle economy. They did not teach them their spiritual knowledge. As there were no village communities, after the Harappan society was destroyed , mostly the pastoral life was of roaming cattle herders and saints who were living in the forests mostly under the trees or in the caves looking for self-salvation. That is the reason why even today a typical Hindu (mainly Brahmin) saint’s image in the school text books is that he is a lonely man sitting semi-naked under a tree or in a cave for self salvation. He is never seen amidst people teaching divine ethics or religious morals. It is here that the roots of Brahminic isolationist castesist Hunduism got struck into the Indian soil.
The Brahmin saints never believed in the community salvation. The Shudras were not treated as human beings. Though such Shudra socioeconomic slavery does not exist now, the culture of Shudra spiritual slavery continues to operate in the 21 century. Hence the Brahmin priest or saint remains away from the rest of the communities and the Shudras cannot lead the Hindu spiritual system. The Shudras including Marathas, Jats, Patdars, Gujjars, Kammas, Reddys, Nairs and so on are not even conscious of this spiritual non-existence. As their spiritual illiteracy and ignorance is long drawn out, from Rigvedic period to present, they have not acquired any philosophical strength to assert themselves. The modern philosophy is more associated with religious thought, though materialist and secular thought co-exists with it. For a long time in human history the Shudras were not allowed to enter into the world of reading and writing of text—religious or secular. This actually caused a huge loss for human knowledge of the world. One of the major productive human societies was kept out of positive philosophical discourses. Hence the poverty of philosophy among the Shudras continues even today. The Brahmin saints and priests did this quite deliberately and systematically starting from the Vedic period.
The Brahmin saints in the Vedic period were either celibate or having sexual relations with women only occasionally without accepting the marriage system that could have, perhaps, existed in Harappan civilization. Even the family culture was taken backward by the Vedic brahminism. They did not construct a spiritual theory of moral family life of one wife and one husband as happened in other religious spiritual books . The Shudras must have carried the Harappan man-woman relations with them into the Vedic period where some kind of marriage system existed among them. However, the Brahmanic sainst have not evolved any positive marriage system. This is very clear from all Purana writings of the same saints.
They did not recognize the female sainthood. No woman was allowed to construct a spiritual texts also. That is the reason why the first Indian text written by women is Therigatha of the Buddhist women only after 6th century BC.
The very nature of pastoral economy was that the cattle herders were roaming or travelling along with cattle for grazing without having any scope for settlement. Pastoral economy in nature and character was unsettled economy with a food resource that was centered around meat and milk. The Brahmin saints were living in the forests either engaged with one another among themselves or sitting alone in the dhyana and mantra pattana (reciting of Vedamantras) activity.
Agni, Vayu, or Brahma must have been their gods of worship and of offering sacrifices. They slowly seem to have left Indra to his textual existence. The sainthood that they constructed during the pastoral economy was by and large anti-people and self survivalist and without any interaction with the laborers. The animal economy also needed lot of hard work of grazing, taking care of young ones, keeping a watch of wild animals that attack the domesticated animals like buffalo, cow, sheep, goat and so on. No saint was involved in this work. Even the animal economic activity was treated as impure and un-brahminic by the saints. They, thus, systematically cut their relationship with physical economic activity. The purity and pollution relations in different forms were established.
The saints in other religions like Buddhism or Catholic Christianity from early days were working among the masses. Teaching the ignorant was their main job. They lived in the villages and towns. As there were no villages and cities in the pastoral economy the Brahmin saints in that period became so self centered and exclusionary that they stopped all forms of social interaction with the Shudras. Any encounter with an unknown human being was scary and sinful for the saints. It was here that human untouchability was constructed. The saints became so anti-labour that the cattle herding Shudras were treated as totally untouchable.
Only in 19-20th centuries, during the Bhakati movement ,the Shudra touchability, leaving only the Dalits as untouchable, started. The Shudra Bhakti Movement was given recognition in the face of large scale Shudra conversion to Islam in Afghanistan, Pakistan and East Bengal (present Bangaldesh). Till then all Shudras, including the present Marathas, Patidars, Jats, Gujjars, Reddys, Kammas, Nairs, Lingayats and so on were also treated as untouchable to Braahmins. In Food (dining) and Bed (marriage) related issues untouchability is practiced even now with the same Vedic fervor by the Brahmins pundits and saints. No Shudra community is in a position to challenge this kind of spiritual and social untouchability. The RSS/BJP are also not opposing that practice. They justify it as social practice with Indian sentiments.
The varna and caste system seems to have been constructed like that in the Vedic period. That had huge implications to the economy of the ancient and modern India. Two major spiritual systems that the Vedic Brahminism created did not allow any surplus generation in that period. Without surplus generation no good village and town system could survive. Actually religion should have played a positive organizational role for generating surplus and distributing that surplus among various working forces. But the Vedic Brhamnism chose a negative role of social fragmentation and anti-communitarian life. This practice of the spiritual intellectuals did not allow emergence of advanced village system and its development into urbanization.
This whole process played an anti-science role. Science can develop only in the social collectivity and with involvement of in hard physical and mental labour of the people. The educated teachers of the society both spiritual and secular play a critical role in the process. The self isolationism of Brahmin saints only negated that process of surplus generation. The Vedic pastoralist period is a good example of long drawn out socioeconomic stagnation of a big nation like India. Till the Buddhist school emerged this stagnation continued.
What are those two anti-surplus generation mechanisms that the Vedic Brhaminism deployed?
One was the wastage of milk products in the fire and in other rituals. The second was massive animal sacrifices that they indulged in. The Yagnas, Yagas, Kratus were perfomed by sacrificing hundreds and thousands of cattle—cows, bulls, buffaloes, sheep, goats and so on. In yagnas or yagas like Rajasuya, Aswamedha thousands of cattle were killed at one go. The dead animals were thrown in the open space where they rotted polluting the environment. The animal sacrifice was a norm in all religions in ancient times. Only Buddhism completely avoided such animal sacrifice. Catholic Christianity and Islam practiced the animal sacrifice in various forms. Islam continues such large number of animal sacrifice on Bakrid day, which has its negative impact on the modern Islamic economy.
Though the Brahmin priests gave up this practice after the Buddhist spiritual revolution, Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi people still continues animal sacrifice even today in a limited way. Except for pure food purpose no animal should be killed and that was what Gauthama Buddha also propagated. Pure vegetarianism is also anti-developmental.
In Nepal there is still a practice of mass animal sacrifice with a Brahminic priestly class involvement. Such animal sacrifice without proper use for food purpose of human beings certainly negates economic development of any society at any given point of time. The Vedic period was full of unwanted sacrifices and that negated its economic advancement.
Now the Brahminic forces and the BJP/RSS live a vegetarian life but even within that vegetarianism food wasting through fire poojas and homam performances is allowed.
Throwing mainly ghee that was being produced in plenty in the pastoral economy came into brahminic life and it continues till now. Of all the milk products only ghee gets burnt in the fire. The other products like milk, curd would only put out the fire. But milk and curd they used for washing the idols ( what is known as milk wash) and leaving lot of curd (now with mixed rice) before idols as naivedhyam (godly food) to Godheads. Most of the ghee was either consumed by the Brahmins or poured in the fire rituals leaving hardly any milk products—particularly ghee– for the Shudra slaves and other Aryan Varnas like Ksatriyas and Vaisyas. However, the kshatriyas seems to have asserted their right to better food and better status as they were handling the horse power and war weapons.
The ghee consuming culture of Brahmins on daily basis continues even today along with pouring ghee in the Agni while performing fire rituals. Among the Shudras, Other Backward Classes and Dalits who actually produce ghee by grazing cattle the consumption of ghee is minimal. Hence the hard working people lived only for short period and the saints lived for long time.
The Vedas do not have any social science content, leave alone science content. They have only mantric content. The Buddhist Suttas and Pitakas have some social science content. Of course, the ancient Brahmin thinkers who wrote books of some social science content were Kautilya amd Manu. But those books—Arthashastra and Manudharma Shastra—written after the Buddhist revolution justified the Vedic social divisions and sacrifices of animals and food.
If the BJP and RSS want that ancient Hindu literature to be taught as science and social science to the Shudra upper castes like Marathas, Patidars, Jats, Gujjars, that are fighting for reservation this will only help to restore the Vedic slavery.
Prof. Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd Chairman T-MASS and political theorist.
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How Brahmins ensured India never progressed
By Kancha Ilaiah ShepherdDailyO
The ritual of throwing food into fire started during the Rig Vedic times, continues to this day and nobody challenges it.
In my earlier article “Shudras, not Aryans, built the Indus Valley Civilisation”, I have argued that the Agni and Vayu worshipping Rig Vedic Aryans might have caused the destruction of 1,500 years of Harappan and post-Harappan civilisation.
My broad analysis that South Indian names and spiritual cultures match the productive and spiritual cultures of Harappan civilisation is confirmed by the DNA analysis of the Rakhigarhi skull (The Explosive Truth, by Kai Friese, India Today, September 10, 2018). It is now well established that the Indo-African DNA and Indo-Aryan DNA have significant differences.
The Indus Valley Civilisation was built by Indo-Africans.
The Rig Vedic Aryans never believed in worshiping the God who created the universe. Their devotion for fire and air indicates that they believed in material reality, not the spiritual abstractness of God.
It is in Rig Veda that they constructed the theory of varna (colour and caste) in what is known as Purusha Sukta (there is no God Sukta in that book), as they never believed in God as created by humans. Though in Rig Veda, Brahma appears as the Purush who created a varna-based society in India, his presence in the text is minimal. The real Purush (the heroic man), who significantly figures in Rig Veda, is Indra.
Apart from Agni and Vayu, the text is full of references to Indra, who is presented as a hero capable of causing a lot of destruction, but there is no moral strength and constructive energy in him. May be because of that he was never projected as part of the Aryan Hindu Gods like Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were projected.
The Rig Vedic priests worship Agni, Vayu and Indra in that order. Soma was the Rig Vedic intoxicant that gets lot of adulation.
The Agni worshipping culture of Aryans, who called themselves Brahmins in the post-Rig Vedic period, saw to it that all the roots of productive and scientific cultural values of India were undermined with massive promotion of fire worshipping spiritual practice called performing Homam. They have thrown tonnes of food material into the fire and systematically developed a spiritual culture that denied people food for survival.
This is how poverty got institutionalised. The practice continues to this day in the name of yagnas and kratus. The Brahmins continue being semi-naked while performing these yagnas and kratus. This reflects their primitive brains and body culture.
Since Shudras follow Brahmins in the spiritual domain their move towards modernity is also in crisis. The Shudras have accepted the religious practices and dress code of the Brahmins despite being denied an equal status in the religious, social and economic domain.
They remain an uncritical social mass without a unique spiritual thought process.
They follow the Brahminsim that came into being with the writing of the Rig Veda and continue that life even under a modern political democracy.
It has institutionalised a structure of spiritual fascism that resists change and transformation. In this spiritual system, the Shudras live as spiritual second-class citizens.
Brahmins have always opposed the right of Shudras and OBCs to study Sanskrit in ancient times and English in modern times.
The Brahmins in the days of Jawaharlal Nehru supported private English medium education only for Brahmin-Bania children by enrolling them in schools. By and large, they opposed the reservation system put in place by Dr BR Ambedkar, the modern Messiah of the Shudras and Adivasis.
Unfortunately, many Shudras trust Brahmin spiritual and political pundits but do not trust themselves.
From the days of Rig Veda to the current times, all major institutions have remained under the control of Brahmins, and the Shudras could not challenge them in any sphere. They could not challenge them in the spiritual and philosophical realm because they accepted the Brahmin superiority as God-given.
After the BJP came to power in 2014, the Bania-Brahmin control of central institutions became more pronounced as a result even the top layer of Shudras comprising Marathas, Jats, Patels, Gujjars and others began to fight for reservations in central jobs. They have woken up to the realisation that there is no place in Delhi’s power structures for them.
What has worked against the Shudras and OBCs is that earlier they were well versed in Sanskrit and now they are not as good as the Brahmin-Bania intellectuals in English.
To ape Brahmins, the Shudras today participate in yajnas which is a ritual that involves throwing food into fire at a time when thousands of kids die of malnutrition in the country.
The Rig Vedic Aryans, who perhaps would have been much like the Greek and Roman slave owners, gave shape to a four-fold Varna system. Shudras, who fall at the bottom of the Varna order, must have been the real descendants of the Harappans. A whole mass of people would have been forced to become slaves of the Aryans over a period of time.
By 1500 BC around when Rig Veda was written, the enslavement must have been complete. This is exactly what Rig Veda says about the fourfold Varna system.
brāhmaṇo”உsya mukha’māsīt | bāhū rā’janya’ḥ kṛtaḥ |
ūrū tada’sya yadvaiśya’ḥ | padbhyāgṃ śūdro a’jāyataḥ ||
(From His face (or the mouth) came the brahmanas. From His two arms came the rajanya (the kshatriyas).
From His two thighs came the vaishyas. From His two feet came the shudras.)
These two lines decided the fate of the people in the Indian society for the times to come, the brunt of which is being borne by people even today.
Even the Post-Ambedkarite Hinduism follows the same Rig Vedic ideology. Though Ambedkar embraced Buddhism, the Shudras hanged on to Hinduism, which treats them as second-class citizens. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its political wing, the BJP, mobilise hundreds of Brahmins to perform such food wasting rituals and Banias give hundreds and thousands of rupees to be spent on it. The practice is now spreading across the world including the US, Europe, Australia and Canada.
The Shudras living in the foreign countries are also not in a position to challenge them.
The Rig Vedic culture served as a huge setback to Harappan economy pushing it back to pastoralism, which was non-productive.
To take India out of that backward anti-urbanisation mindset, a Buddhist school of thought had to emerge which rebuilt Indian economy and agriculture by re-connecting Harappan civilisation of city building to Buddhist urbanisation.
If Gautam Buddha hadn’t been born back then, perhaps India would have remained a pastoral economy for several hundred years. No urbanisation would have returned to build cities such Pataliputra and Hastinapur.
While Brahmins never worked on the fields, they kept throwing food in the fire. The Shudras kept following the bidding of the Brahmins.
The agrarian Shudras like Marathas, Patels, Jats and Gujjars (all descendants of the Harappan civilisation) are fighting for reservation but they may not win the battle as hardly any of their representatives are in the higher judiciary, top bureaucracy or English-speaking political and academic intellectuals.
That is why India continues to remain stuck in the past.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 
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