India, a great nation with great history enriched with rich culture, I remember having read these words in my school and we also read, “India is diverse in its languages, behaviors, culture but then we all are united, We have Unity in Diversity!” Yes, we are united but only in the name of ‘Caste’, which is stuck to each of us from the womb to the deathbed. It’s a harsh reality, which India and most of the Indians have ignored or probably have learnt to live with. Indians today have dared to change the world, made millions, showed humanity a path but what they really can never change is their own Caste, we may change their religion but cannot leave back their caste, it would haunt us wherever we are and whatever we do, thus we stand united in this ordeal!
We aspire to be a developed
nation and a super power, but can we ever be? Even if we reach there can we ever
withstand it? When I put these questions to myself, I hear a stern echo, “No,
it can’t!” Because India doesn’t know what its real problem is, it never
introspects deeper than a mere superficial check by the self-proclaimed intellectuals
putting in numbers to show that our money is stacked in Swiss Bank and we can just
laze around as we would get that money back, making India the richest, a great
fairy tale indeed! Why do we still believe in Treasures which once discovered
will wipe away our tears, why do we relate all our problems to Corruption and
then why do we show one single solution and one super hero and put all our
strength behind it, why don’t we introspect little more? Why don’t we
understand India’s real problem? Why don’t we realize that India’s problem is
not a few decade old corruptions but its real problem has been seeded few
thousand years ago in the form of corruption of our minds. How can we target and resolve a problem when
we even fail or refuse to realize. Why do we always brush it away saying it’s
the colonial ghost haunting us still, that’s an easy way out but facts defer
and its important for us to understand it further, or how else we would
understand this great nation; India in its entirety can only be realized if its
social evolution intertwined with caste for thousands of years is understood. And
yes you heard it right, it is a great nation but with inflicted with a scar!
Many of us think that scar is our birthmark and fail to understand that its actually
not and we belittle our strength to subdue that mark. How can we overcome our
biggest curse and the meanest enemy when we don’t even want to identify it?
Thousands of years from now we have built the walls around and above us in the name of Caste, today however
hard and tough we try to out beat ourselves we always hit those walls and fall
back into our own trench, they alone have been successful who have surpassed
their own walls of restrictions. Once I was talking to a English man in London
and we ended discussing state issues and he seemed thoroughly impressed with
the progress that India has made lately in Technology etc. but when I happened
to mention that we still struggle with social challenges like Caste to which pat
came the reply, “Yes, we see in the news here now and then about the killings
in India in the name of Caste, India is very backward!” To cite another
instance, in an argument with Dr. Sudramanyam Swamy during a News chat show, the
Pakistan Ex. ISI Chief Hamid Gul, was groping for words in his defense, but
then he targeted India saying, “Class system in your country is built over
hatred, only religion in the world which promotes hatred among people of its
own religion. They have no right over education, not allowed into temples, for
God sake don't be so evil towards your own people!” if we have a vulnerability
we cannot stop its exploitation. Fixing the corruption demon might help us to
sustain and meet our needs inside these walls of caste but to be a super power it
does not suffice! It requires immense emotional strength to bulldoze the caste
walls around each of us. West is able to demonstrate its power as it has
conquered its internal racism conflict even though God can be attributed with
some credit of racism, which is missing in the caste issue, but we haven’t done
enough, when would we be doing the same? Its too late, we have lost quite a
many men and opportunities but our hopes are not yet down, today is the time we
stand against it, today is the time to overpower it, imagining any more delay mean
along with delay in realizing the Super power dream it might also result in
dire consequences!
If you still feel that God has defined and structured the caste and that’s how Hindu society should work
then you ought to read further.
This was when the ‘Aryans’ have not yet landed on our soil, around 2500 B.C., the Indian society was divided into the – Priests, Warriors, Others and Slaves but notable point here is that the division was wholly based on the profession and neither it was based on birth nor it was a hereditary identity! Sati and Animal sacrifice was prevalent. Around 2000 B.C. Aryans started to appear in India and they declared themselves to be a superior race and treated others as inferiors and slaves, what’s interesting here is, the Priests, Warriors who earlier treated a certain section of their own society as Slaves are now started getting treated as Slaves by the Aryans! If the factual excavations proved this, does Hindu mythology agree? ‘Maharishi Brigu’ and ‘Maharishi Bharadwaj’, both the ‘Saptarishi’s’ met one fine day to discuss how to structure a stable society. There were four absolute sources of power in the society - knowledge, Weapons, Wealth and Land. They decided these powers should not be in one hand, not even two should be in one hand. So those who have knowledge will not have wealth, will not have weapons and will not have lands etc. Those who will have weapons will rule the country but they will not make policy. They need to go to people having knowledge to seek their permission and advice. Those who are having wealth, their social status will be decided by how much philanthropy they do and not by their wealth. Those who have land have to produce food for the society. In fact none of these four categories or ‘Varna’ was based on birth. Mythology also seems to be in tandem with our argument - God had never created Caste and Casteism. In Bhagvad Gita as well Krishna said “Janmana jayate sudraḥ" - Anyone by his birth is a ‘Sudra’, the lowest in the order. Even if he is born in the family of a Brahmana, he is to be considered as a Sudra. “Saṁskarad bhaved dvijaḥ.” One has to take his rebirth, by Samskara (culture), by education, by knowledge. Through this cultural birth one becomes Dvija. Unless he takes this cultural birth, he is to be considered the lower grade person, or the Sudra. ‘Beeshmacharya’s’ life teaches us how a person’s caste changes from birth to death, when he was born he was a fisherman (Ganga Putr) and when he was in the court of the king he was Acharya (Brahmana) – a teacher who helped with the policies and during the Mahabharata war he became a Kshatriya – a warrior; but its sad to know that he is being used as a brand object by one of the community today! So was Maharishi Veda Vyasa a fisherman turned into a rishi and wrote Mahabharata, Maharishi Valmiki who wrote Ramayana was born in Sudra family, Kalidasa a great poet was a hunter, Maharishi Vishwamitra was a Kshatriya.
During 1500 B.C. to 1000 B.C.,
two big conflicts arose and they ended up in wars. One was between the Aryans
and Non-Aryans and the other among the Aryans itself, during the latter war few
Aryan tribes added Non-Aryans into their fold to fight with the other Aryan
tribes. ‘Rishi Vishwamitra’ (who wrote Gayatri Mantra) led the battle
‘Dasaranja’ (Battle of 10kings) on river Parusni against ‘Rishi Vashistha’,
which later ended up with Bharatas becoming the supreme clan led by ‘Rishi
Vashistha’. The same battle has been depicted in a mythological as ‘Rishi
Vishwamitra’ fought with ‘Rishi Vashistha’ for the cow ‘Nandini’ daughter of ‘Kamadhenu’.
Its mystical how our mythology has been derived from the actual happenings, we
can deny the mythology but not the history! After this war a major merger of
cultures took place and the differences between the Aryans and Non-Aryans dimmed.
Before, Sati was not practiced, women had all freedom to choose her man, had
equal right in education and property but after, Sati again came into vogue and
status of women deteriorated.
Later Vedic times were a
cultural mix of Aryan and Non – Aryan cultures and a large influence of culture
existing before Aryans is evident. Though, Vedas are most scientific we
undermine Vedas and follow Puranas as a prime source of Hinduism. Whereas Vedas
are the first scriptures of Hindus and Rig Veda containing 1028 Hymns
mentioning ‘Om’ 1028 times is the world’s oldest scripture dated to 1500 B.C.
Today we use Varna, as a synonym to caste but Varna is just a word to
differentiate based on colour. Gothra is a place where the cattle are kept but
today we divided ourselves on Gothra as well, surprising and weird! Swastik, as
a symbol has great significance in Hinduism but what it really depicts barely
any one would know, the symbol has two lines crisscrossing and moving in
opposite directions but at the same time they are balanced at a point, it shows
man that in life we always see two opposites like Good and Bad, Man and Women,
Wealth and Health, these opposites has to be balanced to lead a happy life.
Such is the greatness of this symbol that Hitler, adopted the symbol for his
Nazi party. Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda collectively called, as Trayi were
termed as eternal i.e., not man made and cannot be modified. Such was the
importance given to the Vedas. Purana’s, Upanishads, Brahmanas weren’t given
the same status of being eternal and Purana’s though actually written more or
less during the same time of Vedas was again re-written during the Gupta period
and today the Purana’s what we read are actually not the original Purana’s and
most notifying point is, the Brahmanical Hindus mostly quote Purana’s to
justify their act of Casteism.
Slowly, Caste started taking
a center stage, a probable reason might be a few sections of the society
started seeing the advantages of it as they were now treated as masters and
superior and they are able to enjoy the absolute power, holistic right over the
resources, be it Land or anything else in the name of God. A very notable point
here is that through out the history whenever the Caste system deepened and was
revered as a system made by God, even the status of the Women deteriorated.
Women were ill-treated and were deprived of their right to education, property,
freedom. It’s very logical to conclude from this that a few selfish groups who
wanted to enjoy the resources all by themselves by out casting more than half
population i.e., the women and the out castes in the name of God! But if the
castes were to be defined by profession, any selfish person would fear of
loosing the status when ever they change their profession or would fear that
his off-springs might not enjoy the same status, so he started identifying
Caste as a birth identification and made it hereditary such that they can gain
those rights forever i.e., even for generations after the generations, A slave
would remain a slave and his offspring would also remain a slave. A heart
rendering question that today India needs to answer, till when?
Around, 1000 B.C. - 500 B.C.,
Caste has modified the Indian society so much so that everything started to
revolve around it and become a single most rigid system. Brahmanas still on the
top, followed by Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the others termed to be ‘Dvijas’, who
are allowed to read and gain knowledge and then there were the Sudra’s called
as ‘Advijas’ who are not allowed to read and had no access to any kind of
knowledge! Even though the selfish few were successful in tramping the others
in the society in the name of God, it was not always a free run for them there
was constant clashes; we can find a mention about this in ‘Anushashana Parva’
of ‘Mahabharata’, where it is said that Sudra’s will destroy the King, a
warning which still holds good? May be! ‘Shanti Parva’ of ‘Mahabharata’ which
was completed in 4 A.D. during the Gupta’s who were completely Pro-Casteism,
asked to unite Varna’s for betterment of society. India would you ever listen
to this?
The present India might have
become deaf to this but, ‘Gautama Buddha’ and ‘Vardhamana Mahavira’ both being
Kshatriyas questioned the superiority of Brahmanas in Hindu structure and both felt
deep pain towards this inequality and misery brought in by the new coin trading
system. Both came out of the worldly pleasures of kingship and promoted the Equality
and Karma, sternly protested the caste system and propagated acetic living.
They were so staunch against the Brahmanical corruption of Hinduism that they came
out with new religions and their religious scriptures like ‘Agam’, ‘Ardhmagadhi’
were written in ‘Pali’ and ‘Prakrit’ and not in Sanskrit. Pali and Prakrit lesser-known
languages to Indians, but they both existed along and may be even before
Sanskrit in India. In fact, Prakrit is the
origin of many regional languages like ‘Shauraseni’ from which Marathi
originated.
Many kings embraced ‘Jainism’ and ‘Buddhism’ for the same
reason of Brahmana’s superiority in Hinduism, like the great ‘Chandragupta
Maurya’ embraced Jainism and became a reason for wide spread of Jainism and
none other than the greatest ever king of India – The ‘Asoka’ embraced Buddhism
after the Kalinga war and propagated Buddhism. Mahavira abolished animal
sacrifices as well as non-vegetarianism as the farmers were finding it
difficult to plough their fields due to the constant killing of the animals.
Whereas Gautama Buddha was more rational in his approach and realised that agriculture
alone cannot feed the humanity, hence banned only the animal sacrifices but
allowed non-vegetarianism. Asoka after becoming a Buddhist, he passed orders banning
animal sacrifices and regulated the animal slaughter, this made some unhappy. It
would be a whammy to know who were unhappy and revolted and they were the
Brahmanas! They revolted against the king whom we still revere as the greatest,
whose symbol is on our emblem, flag and which was also on the Rupee note until Mahatma
Gandhi. Reason behind this hatred towards the great Asoka was banning animal
sacrifices, which is usually
accompanied by mantras by ‘Yajamana’ (Brahmana) and this affected the revenue
of the Brhamanas. Today if some one feels he is superior due to his eating
habits, they have to look into their history! It’s not yet clear how the Brahmanas
who fought against Asoka as he abolished animal sacrifices have eventually embraced
vegetarianism. According to Vedas Brahmanas are one among the 16 priest groups,
what happened to the other 15 is not known, this mystery behind the lost priest
classes might have a hidden reason behind the change in the eating habits. It’s
incredible how Purana’s have pictured all major historical events in a
mythological pattern, Brahmanas financial struggle can also be related to a mythological
story in Purana where goddess of
prosperity and wife of ‘Lord Vishnu’, ‘Maha Lakshmi’ cursed ‘Maharishi
Brighu’ that she would never visit
Brahmins and they would all live in absence of wealth as Maharishi hit Lord Vishnu on his
chest which left a foot print on Lord's chest known as ‘Shri Vatsa’ as God
Vishnu did not realise that Maharishi Brighu was asking for his attention.
After the fall of Asoka i.e., the fall of Mauryans, Brahmanas established various kingdoms major among them are the Gupta’s around 300 A.D. Though Gupta’s are credited to be one of the finest kingdoms in terms of Literature like Mahabharata & Ramayana was completed in 4th century A.D. and Technological advancement like meteorological and others but History had failed to reckon other contributions by Gupta’s like Education system became more Brahmanical based on ‘Shruti’ and ‘Smriti’, which was open only for the Dvija and not for the Advija - the Sudras. Sudras were allowed to hear to Puranas and perform the rituals, which would bring in extra revenues for the Brahmanas. Large land donations were made to the Brahmanas and the Dvijas, which created in-equality. Make believe in the purity of Brahmana increased, which even today is very much in existence and we never question why should we donate clothing, ornaments, food and much more to a Brahmana after every ritual that is taken up and we never question why a Brahmana should be revered as equivalent to God! From Gupta’s, Hinduism was majorly dominated by priest and priest intervention became necessary for every prayer every visit to a temple, even now every temple remains open only when a priest is available otherwise the doors remain closed for any other! Buddhists tried to present a protest and brought in their education setups to which the Brahmanas reacted adversely and forced Buddhism to migrate away from India, today Buddhism is 400 million strong! Yet Gupta period is termed as a Golden age in ancient India may be because they have released more gold coins than any other kingdom.
There is more to the credit of Gupta’s, under their rule
Women status deteriorated further, Sati was legalised and now women were
treated just as a property, they have no right over education or property, in
fact upper Varna women had more stringent restrictions than the lower Varna.
Untouchability became a norm. Purana’s were re-written and given the present
form! Due to the trade in-equalities and land in-equalities the Vaishyas rose
to power and more Caste’s were formed.
It requires prudent thinking to understand the motive behind
the arranged marriage system of India, which is unnatural and no where
mentioned in the Vedas, Purana’s, Upanishads, Shastra’s but it’s a very rigid
norm in India today which no other ritual can match to. Why would any society
want to turn a pure feeling that is innate and godly into an artificial system
governed by commercial trading in form of dowry and regulated by terms and conditions?
Why would there be a need of Brahmanical verses to unite two souls if they are
united before? It’s greatly surprising that generations have passed but none has
questioned this! Hindus believe the God makes marriages in heaven but their
actions speak completely in a different manner, every act of Indian arranged
marriage system is a business, it’s a trade of cash, property and even human
exchange driving the humanity to its shameful discourse. What might be the
reason for this? If history is to be believed then its very evident that this
system was brought in to safe guard the in-equality and protect the property
gained in the name of caste and god and to restrict the resources only among
them. Marriage is a major dilution factor that would have diluted the Caste
structure, fearing which the selfish few have designed this Indian arranged
marriage system which is another curse of India. After all these ghastly in
human acts throughout our history, we today say that our values, ethics and
politics are deteriorating day by day what a misnomer!
This continued for many hundred years and India is still not
been able to overpower this curse. Although many in due course from the Gupta’s
till today, tried to nail the demon called caste but today it can clearly be
stated that they all failed! Failed miserably! Today, every political party
plays caste cards for votes, today the hatred among the castes have heightened
to an extent which we recently witnessed during the protest over the
reservations, in Andhra even the Cinema hero following is determined by the
caste and I am sure we all are living by all this and elaborating it further is
not necessary.
Moghuls though ruled India
but they haven’t ever stood against or for Casteism and untouchability. They
maintained the status quo probably as it was helping them in extending their
empire. Moghuls even married Hindus to protect and expand their empire. Akbar
too married a Hindu and made efforts to unite Hindus and Muslims against the
evils of both the religions and started a new religion, Din-I-illahi. Later Portugese,
French, Dutch invaded India but they had no major role in Casteism apart from
Portuguese drawing parallels between our Varna system and Casta, the inherited class status within the Portuguese society. English though
initially established itself in India by taking advantage of Casteism that was
in synchronous with the divide and rule policy. But later after they
established themselves all over India, their outlook towards the social malice
started to change and they abolished Sati, Slavery, supported widow
re-marriage, banned human sacrifices, and initiated equality before law, abolished judicial function of caste based
Panchayats, provided open opportunities in services for all castes, stood for secular
educational system but also promoted
conversions into Christianity, made English as the court language and a
necessity for a government job these were the sublime reasons for the Indians
to feel their culture is being compromised and felt devastated, introduction of
Ranfield Rifle catridge was only a
immediate cause for the outbreak of 1857 sepoy revolt but underlining reasons still
remain to be acknowledged!
I am sure most of the Hindus
would have participated in the ‘Jagaran’ during the ‘Shivratri’ and would have
seen ‘DakshaYagna’ most of the times if not every time. What does that small
story teach us? When ‘Daksha Prajapati’ insulted the Lord Shiva as he thought Shiva
was no match to them, he committed another mistake before as well by not
approving his daughter ‘Sati Devi’s’ wish of marrying ‘Lord Shiva’ naming him
to be an outcaste and the result we all know was complete destruction and
Daksha had to lose his head! This story should have awakened you from your deep
slumber but its startling that this story which helped us to be awake during
the Jagarans but it could never confront us with our ignorance. The same can be
learned from the life of ‘Lord Krishna’ where he celebrated being son of
‘Yashoda’ more than ‘Devaki’ though Yashoda is from yadava community. And if
you don’t believe in God or you are not religious, I am sure you would believe
in practicality. So, in all rationality every problem that a human faces is due
to his/her bad doing to others! To explain it further if a person has harmed some
ten people, all ten might not retaliate but at least one would avenge, that’s
how all our miseries and hardships can be related to one or the other person.
So logically we receive less troubles than what we actually deserve as not
everyone avenges. It’s fascinating to quote another Hindu mythological instance
here; Lord Krishna forgives 99 mistakes of ‘Shishupala’ but punishes him for
his 100th mistake. This might be a possible reason why it is said that
God makes us suffer in this world itself and how truly it is said that ‘In the
court of God there is delay for justice but there is no denial to it’. We
believe that ‘Serving humanity is serving God!’ but why do we forget that
insulting a fellow being and denigrating him is equivalent to insulting God and
demeaning him!
Many social reformists like Raja Rammohan Roy who started
Brahmo samaj opposed the Brahmanical system and propagated Vedas and equality,
Devendranath Tagore, Viresalingam Pantulu in south, Vivekananda declared
Vedanta as rational condemned caste system, rituals and superstitions and
started the Ramakrishna mission, Swami Dayanand Saraswati started Arya Samaj
that revolted against the casteism and Hinduism preached by the Brahmanas and
believes that selfish or may be ignorant priests have perverted Hinduism based
on faulty Purana’s and stated Vedas to be infallible and tried to prevent the
conversions which were happening due to the vexation rendered in corrupted
Hinduism. Sayyid Hamid Khan of Aligarh School of Thought tried to reform the
social malice in Muslims, Mahatma Gandhi all through his life fought against
untounchability, Mahatma Jyothiba Phule stood against the Brahmanical society,
B.R. Ambedkar stood for the deprived castes, Sri Narayan Guru promoted One
religion, One caste, One God even before all this the Bhakti movement by Kabir,
Meera Bai, Tulsi Das was in search of revival of Hinduism. Even in the other
religions like the Akali movement in Sikhs, the Parsi religious reforms. Not
sure how effective these reforms were in other religions but even after the
great efforts from the greatest sons of this soil couldn’t uplift Hinduism from
its self strapped trench!
Are we going to let India be
were it is or we will lend our hand to it? Today is the time we decide,
monetary corruption can wait but corruption of our minds cannot! It has left
India dry and left Indians nothing but to cry. Young India, the so-called Youngistan,
where are you lost? Are you lost in the same world created around you in the
name of Purana, in the name of God, in the name of caste? There is no more time
left to delay, there is no more patience left and if ever India witnesses a
civil war, it would not be due to the corruption, it would not be for a region
but it would be for the caste based in-equality just as lava which remains calm
and quiet for centuries underneath but once it erupts as volcano, it drains and
burns everything. Or how many more centuries we would keep the majority at bay
while just a few minorities have all the resources to them like in Andhra
Pradesh almost all the land is owned by only two quantitatively small sections
of the society, Politics is dominated by these two alone and there could be no
other Chief Minister to AP other than a person from these two communities,
Majority Business houses are owned by this minority, Bureaucracy is dominated
by them again; for how many more years this goes as acceptable? One day it won’t
be and that day it’s hard to even imagine the end!
Time immemorial, man yearned
to prove his existence and prove his contributions to the humanity like the
early man’s strong desire to leave back his messages in form of the cave
paintings, the scriptures, which even now govern and show humanity the path.
But what have we contributed? Can’t we stand against this injustice? History
remembers only those who stood against the wrong and rest is just lost in the
pages of history untraceable and insignificant. Today the choice is yours if
you want to stand against this social malice and be a part of this history or
just be an ordinary person lost in the time. We are like that wild elephant
which doesn’t know its real strength and it is made believe that it cannot break
its feeble chain as when it is trapped it is chained with the toughest chains over
the time the elephant gives up and thinks that it cannot ever overpower those
chains but the truth is with one stroke it can break its chain whenever it
wants, even we could do the same if for once we keep our inner fear aside.
Vivekananda’s words are so true here; ‘Arise, awake and stop not till the goal
is reached’ and today our goal should be to bring down the casteism. I make
sincere appeal to our revered elders please support your lads while they fight
against this social injustice. You might have not thought about it, you might
have failed fighting against it or you might have as well supported it but for
sure somewhere, sometime you would have felt that its wrong and today is the
time to react!
Indian government’s answer
to this outage is the Reservations but reservations are not a solution for this
problem instead it is deepening the issue. If caste system has inscribed the
hatred among the classes in the name of God, the reservations are heightening
the hatred in the name of equalizing. To render the reservations caste needs to
be acknowledged and once its on your face the society becomes even more divided
and it would get exploited as it was exploited by the Moghals, French, Dutch,
Portugal, English and now the Political class! Why do we fail to reckon that
equalizing in this format would never be possible? Once, there were two cats
who were fighting over the bread, there entered a monkey who made them believe
that he can arbitrate and divided the bread in two pieces and gave each to the two
cats but one cat complained that its piece was smaller than the others, so the
monkey took a part of the larger piece and ate, but then this part became
smaller than he grabbed a part from the other piece and ate, this continued
till all the bread was over! Its not difficult to guess who fits into the
monkey role in todays India. We are doing no service in the name of
reservations but rendering more harm to the Indian society at large!
India is not isolated, most
of the nations like Korea, Japan, England, Italy, Latin America, Caribbean
Nations, China, Myanmar, Bali, Tibet, Hawaii & Polynesia, Yemen, Africa,
Roma, Czech Republic, Spain, France, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Hungary,
Russia, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Poland and many more all of them at some
point in the history have suffered with social class system and they have been
successful to curb it and brush it aside on way of development. But our India,
is still burning and bleeding in the name of caste and I am not sure when we
would put an end to this when we would be honest and genuine enough to our
fellow Indians and treat them as we would treat our brothers sisters. We all
know Vivekananda’s famous greeting (My dear brothers & sisters) in the
Parliament of religions in Chicago when he could lend out his heart to the
other nationalists, cant we treat our fellow Indians as our equals?
Lets dream, no not a dream
but a promise that we would see a brighter India where there would be only
Indians and no Hindus, no Muslims, no Brahmins, no Sudras! A promise that the
future India would be read that there was Sati practice and there was Casteism
in India. That day we all would take India forward hand in hand in roads to
development on a path that would make us the next super power.
Harish
Bheemarthi
www.indiaagainstcaste.com
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