Brahmin
This page deals with the Hindu varna. For other uses of this word and
similar words, see Brahmana, Brahman and Brahman (disambiguation).
A Brahmin (anglicised from the Sanskrit word IAST '; Devanagari ),
also known as Vipra, Dvija, Dvijottama (best of the Dvijas), (god on
Earth) is a member of a caste within Hindu society. Historically,
Hindu society consisted of four based on occupation and divine birth:
Brahmin (reciter of the Vedas as they came from the mouth of Brahma),
Kshatriya (protectors of Dharma, since they are the arms of Brahma),
Vaishya (mercantile and agricultural class, since they are from the
body of Brahma) and Shudra (artisan and labour class, since they are
from the feet of Brahma).
However, in addition to these four classes, there were many other
tribes mentioned in mythology such as Gandharvas, Yakshas, Kinnaras,
Kimpurushas, Rakshasas, Nagas, Suparnas, Vanaras, Vidyadharas,
Valikilyas, Pisachas, Devas, Vasus, Rudras, Maruts, Adityas, Asuras,
Danavas, Daityas, Kalakeyas, Mlechchas etc. Today, the Hindu society
in modern India is divided into four classes based on birth: Forward
Castes/communities (FCs), Backward Caste/communities (BCs), Scheduled
Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
In the 1931 caste census taken by the Colonial British government,
Brahmins were 4.32% of the total population. Even in Uttar Pradesh,
where they are most numerous, the Brahmins constituted just 9% of the
total populace. In Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, they formed less
than 3% and 2% of the population respectively.
The Nirukta of sage Yaska says ' — A Brahmin is a person who knows
Brahman, the ultimate reality or God; hence Brahmin means, "knower of
God". However, the historical situation in Hindu society is that
Brahmins are the traditional priests and pundits (scholars). Today
however, many Brahmins are employed in secular occupations and their
religious traditions and culture are fast disappearing from their
lives.
History
The history of the Brahmin community in India begins with the Vedic
religion in ancient India. The Manu Smriti, an ancient Smriti, refers
to Aryavarta.The Vedas are the primary source of knowledge for all
brahmin practices. All the sampradayas of Brahmins take inspiration
from the Vedas. Traditionally, it is believed that Vedas are ' (not
written by either humans or God) and anÄdi (beginingless), but are
revealed truths of eternal validity. The Vedas are considered Åšruti
(that which is heard, signifying the oral tradition).
Due to the diversity in religious and cultural traditions and
practices, and the Vedic schools which they belong to, Brahmins are
further divided into various subcastes. During the sutra period,
roughly between 1000 BCE to 200 BCE, Brahmins became divided into
various Shakhas (branches), based on the adoption of different Vedas
and different rescension Vedas. Sects for different denominations of
the same branch of the Vedas were formed, under the leadership of
distinguished teachers among Brahmins. The teachings of these
distinguished rishis are called '. Every Veda has its own . The that
deal with social, moral and legal precepts are called Dharma Sutras,
whereas those that deal with ceremonials are called Shrauta Sutras and
domestic rituals are called Grhya Sutras. are generally written in
prose or in mixed prose and verse.
There are several Brahmin law givers such as Angirasa, Apasthambha,
Atri, Brihaspati, Boudhayana, Daksha, Gautam, Harita, Katyayana,
Likhita, Manu, Parasara, Samvarta, Shankha, Shatatapa, Ushanasa,
Vashishta, Vishnu, Vyasa, Yajnavalkya and Yama. These twenty-one
rishis were the propounders of Smritis. The oldest among these smritis
are Apastamba, Baudhayana, Gautama, and Vasishta Sutras.Manu Smriti on
learning of the Vedas
Nature of Brahmin
"Samodamastapah Saucham
Kshanthiraarjavamevacha
Jnanam Vijnaanamaastikyam
Brahmakarma Swabhavajam!"
Control on emotions, Control on senses, Purity, Tolerance, Simplicity,
Concentration and belief in knowledge and science
Duties of Brahmin
The six duties of a Brahmin are given as per the Sloka
"Adhyaapanam Adhyayanam
Yajanam Yaajanam Tathaa
Daanam Pratigraham Chaiva
Brahmanaanaamakalpayaat"
Teaching, learning, performing Yaaga, make performing Yaga, accept
Daana, and give Daana are the six duties of a Brahmin.
Practices
Adi Shankara (centre) is the Hindu philosopher whose tradition is
followed by Smarta Brahmins
Brahmins adhere to the principles of Hinduism, such as acceptance of
the Vedas with reverence, adherence to the position that the means or
ways to salvation and realization of the ultimate truth are diverse,
that God is one, but has innumerable names and forms to chant and
worship due to our varied perceptions, cultures and languages.
Brahmins believe in ' — Let the entire society be happy and prosperous
and ' — the whole world is one family. Some Brahmins practice
vegetarianism (Bengali Brahmins and Kashmiri Pandits are exceptions to
this).
Daily routine
Hindu Brahmins hold practice of Dharma more important than beliefs.
This is a distinct feature of the Dharmic religions. The practices
include mainly Yajnas. The daily routineA day in the life of a Brahmin
includes performing Snana (bathing), Sandhyavandanam, Japa, Puja,
Aupasana and Agnihotra. The last two named Yajnas are performed in
only a few households today. Brahmacharis perform Agnikaryam instead
of Agnihotra or Aupasana. The other rituals followed include Amavasya
tarpanam and Shraddha.
See Also: Nitya karma and Kaamya karma
Samskaras
Brahmins also perform sixteen major Samskaras (rites) during the
course of their life-time.The Forty Samskaras In the pre-natal stage,
Garbhadharana (Conception), Pumsavana (Rite for consecrating a male
child in the womb) and Simantonnayana (Rite for parting the hair of a
pregnant woman) are performed. During childhood, Jatakarma (Birth
ceremony), Namakarana (Naming ceremony), Nishkarmana (First outing)
Annaprasana (First feeding solid food), Choodakarana (First tonsure)
and Karnavedha (Piercing of the ear lobes) are performed.During
education of the child, Vidhyarambha (Starting of education),
Upanayanam (Thread ceremony- Initiation), Vedarambha (Starting of the
study of the Vedas), Keshanta or Godana (First shaving of the beard)
and Samavartanam or Snaana (Ending of studentship) are performed.
Suring adulthood, Vivaha (Marriage) and Anthyesthi (Funeral rites) are
the main ceremonies.
Sampradayas
The three sampradayas (traditions) of Brahmins, especially in South
India are the Smarta sampradaya, the Srivaishnava sampradaya and the
Maadhva sampradaya.
Status of Brahmins Today
Historically Brahmins have been not only ascetics, sages and priests
for millennia seeking welfare of the society, but also secular clerks,
merchants, agriculturists, artisans, etc. They were also very poor. In
the modern democratic India, the Brahmins are still not only poverty
stricken, but also shunted out of every opportunity,The status of
Brahmins in Andhra Pradesh
http://www.vedah.net/manasanskriti/puranam.html
#Poor_Brahmins Brahmin Poverty] despite the fact that Prime Ministers
like Jawaharlal Nehru, Venkatanarasimharao Pamulaparti (P.V. Narasimha
Rao), and Atal Behari Vajpayee have been Brahmins. French journalist
Francois GautierFrancois
Gautier.com
has written on the sad state of Brahmins in India today.Are Brahmins
the Dalits of today?
Contributions to modern India
Brahmins have contributed immensely to the making of modern Indiain
many fields like literature, science and technology, politics,
culture, scholarship, religion etc. In the Indian independence
movement, many Brahmins like Balgangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna
Gokhale, C. Rajagopalachari and others were at the forefront of the
struggle for freedom. After independence, Jawaharlal Nehru, a Brahmin
and an atheist, became the first Prime Minister of India. Later,
Brahmins like P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Behari Vajpayee became Prime
Ministers. even now after persecution of brahmans by politicians they
hold top posts in administration, academia ,business, army,
jouranalism etc. Infact it was those Brahmin leaders like
Rajagopalachari and Thilak who fought for the upliftment of the
socially backward dalits and their equality in the society.
See also:List of Brahmins
Persecution
The anti-Brahmin sentiment was first kindled in India by the Dravidar
Kazhagam movement in Tamil Nadu. Caste & the Tamil Nation -Brahmins,
Non Brahmins & Dalits This was a reaction to the Brahmin hegemony in
the Civil services under the British government. In later years, this
movement caught on in many other parts of India even after
independence.
Communities
http://en.allexperts.com/e/d/dr/dravidar_kazhagam.htm
http://en.allexperts.com/e/t/ta/tamil_nadu.htm
http://en.allexperts.com/e/b/br/british_india.htm
Brahmin castes in the Indian subcontinent are traditionally divided
into two regional groups: Pancha-Gauda Brahmins and Pancha-Dravida
Brahmins as per the shloka,
http://en.allexperts.com/e/i/in/indian_subcontinent.htm
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¿à¤¡à¤¾ महाराषà¥à¤Ÿà¥à¤°à¤•à¤¾à¤ƒ,गà¥à¤°à¥à¤œà¤°à¤¾à
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सारसà¥à¤µà¤¤à¤¾à¤ƒ कानà¥à¤¯à¤•à¥à¤¬à¥à¤œà¤¾ गौà¤
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http://en.allexperts.com/e/s/sh/shloka.htm
The classification first occurs in Rajatarangini of Kalhana.
http://en.allexperts.com/e/r/ra/rajatarangini.htm
http://en.allexperts.com/e/k/ka/kalhana.htm
See also
* Varnas
http://en.allexperts.com/e/v/va/varnas.htm
* Brahmanism
http://en.allexperts.com/e/b/br/brahmanism.htm
* Anti-Brahmanism
http://en.allexperts.com/e/a/an/anti-brahmanism.htm
*Brahmin Contribution to Other Religions
http://en.allexperts.com/e/b/br/brahmin_contribution_to_other_religions.htm
Notes
References
*Definitions: A Sanskrit English Dictionary by Sir Monier Monier-
Williams
*Mayne's "Treatise on Hindu Law and Usage.
Hindu Castes and Sects Jogendranath Bhattacharya.
Andhra Viprula Gotramulu, Indla Perlu, Sakhalu by Emmesroy Sastri.
History and Culture of Andhra Pradesh Rao PR.
History of India Herman Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund.
Acharalu sastriyataNarayanareddi Patil.
Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies Abbe J. A. Dubois
External links
*List Of Andhra Brahmins And Surnames
http://www.maganti.org/PDFdocs/brahmins.pdf
*Brahmins
http://www.vedah.net/manasanskriti/Brahmins.html
*Brahmins of Andhra Pradesh
http://www.vedah.net/manasanskriti/Brahmins.html#Brahmins_of_Andhra_Pradesh
*Poverty Stricken Brahmins
http://www.vepachedu.org/brahmana-tribe.html#The_Mouths_that_Recited_Vedas_are
*Source: Vepachedu Educational Foundation Inc.
http://www.vepachedu.org/
*Brahmin Sages and Branches (Gotras and Subcastes)
http://www.vedah.net/manasanskriti/Brahmins.html#Brahmin_Sages_and_Branches
* A Long List of Brahmin Castes and Sub-castes
http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/people/brahmins/list.htm
* Brahmin Yahoo Groups
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http://en.allexperts.com/e/b/br/brahmin.htm
When will the Brahmin-Bania hegemony end?
The Brahmin and the Bania still control the economy, but now the
Shudra controls politics
Reply To All | Aakar Patel
On 9 April, the Supreme Court rejected a plea that the 2011 census be
caste-based. CII and Ficci oppose job reservations in the private
sector, but Manmohan Singh is keen. India’s population of Brahmins and
Banias and Jains all together is 6% or less.
Ruling axis: Jawaharlal Nehru, a Brahmin, became Prime Minister with
the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi, a Bania.
The Sensex comprises the 30 largest traded companies of India.
ACC is run by a Brahmin (Sumit Banerjee), Bhel is run by a Brahmin
(Ravi Kumar Krishna Swamy), Bharti Airtel is run by a Bania (Sunil
Mittal), Grasim and Hindalco are run by a Bania (Kumar Mangalam
Birla).
HDFC is run by a Bania (Deepak Parekh), Hindustan Unilever is run by a
Brahmin (Nitin Paranjpe), ICICI Bank is headed by a Brahmin (K.V.
Kamath). Jaiprakash Associates is run by a Brahmin (Yogesh Gaur), L&T
is run by a Brahmin (A.M. Naik), NTPC is run by a Brahmin (R.S.
Sharma), ONGC is run by a Brahmin (also called R.S. Sharma). Reliance
group firms are run by Banias (Mukesh and Anil Ambani), State Bank of
India is run by a Brahmin (O.P. Bhatt), Sterlite Industries is run by
a Bania (Anil Agarwal), Sun Pharma is run by a Bania (Dilip Shanghvi)
and Tata Steel is run by a Brahmin (B. Muthuraman).
Punjab National Bank is run by a Brahmin (K.C. Chakrabarty), Bank of
Baroda is run by a Brahmin (M.D. Mallya) and Canara Bank is run by a
Bania (A.C. Mahajan).
Also Read Aakar Patel’s earlier columns
Of India’s software companies, Infosys is run by a Brahmin (Kris
Gopalakrishnan now and Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani before
him). TCS is run by a Brahmin (Subramanian Ramadorai). Wipro is owned
by a Khoja (Azim Premji). Khojas are Shia of the Sevener sect,
converted from the Luhana trading community (same caste as L.K. Advani
and M.A. Jinnah).
India’s two largest airlines are Kingfisher, owned by a Brahmin (Vijay
Mallya) and Jet, owned by a Bania (Naresh Goyal).
Of India’s mobile phone firms, Reliance Communications (Ambani),
Airtel (Mittal), Vodafone Essar (Ruia), Idea (Birla), Spice (Modi) are
owned by Banias. BSNL is run by a Bania (Kuldeep Goyal) and Tata’s
TTML is run by a Brahmin (K.A. Chaukar).
Cricket in India is run by a Bania (Lalit Modi) and before him it was
run by another Bania (Jagmohan Dalmiya).
http://www.livemint.com/2009/08/27220957/When-will-the-BrahminBania-he.html
Posted: Tue, Apr 7 2009. 12:30 AM IST
Economy and Politics
Mixing Vedas and code in new-age India
After seven years of juggling Vedas and school, Satya, a Tamil
Brahmin, had to make the big decision: whether to follow his family
and make a career in Hindu priesthood--or to forge his own new path.
As an undergraduate engineering student now, he has only temporarily
kept the decision on hold
Samanth Subramanian
Chennai: If this were 1989, or indeed 1979 or even 1799, S.
Sathyanarayanan would probably not possess the full head of hair he
does today. Instead, he would have shaved the front half of his skull
and then swept his remaining hair back to resemble a bulging half-
moon, knotted loosely at the back—a distinctive do for a young Brahmin
who would have been preparing to follow his father, his uncles and his
cousins into a career of Hindu priesthood.
Photo: Sharp Image
But this is 2009, and Sathya, as he introduces himself, has a short
but regular haircut, grown out from a few months ago, when he passed
his final year’s exams in a pathshala—Vedic school—run by the Sri
Ahobila Muth, a Hindu religious institution.
“We had to have our hair pulled back when we sat for our exams. It was
the rule,” he says. Sathya’s new look, though, fits right in at the
Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology, where he has started an
engineering degree, becoming the first in his family to attend
college. Sathya turned 18 in July, just as he was completing seven
years of Vedic education that came with a punishing schedule.
“Our Veda classes started at 4.30am and went till 7am,” he says. “Then
we had regular school from 9am to 4pm. Then more Veda classes from 4pm
to 7pm, and then supervised independent study in school from 7pm to
9pm.”
Apart from two monthly holidays, on the days after amavasya (no-moon
nights) and pournami (Tamil for full-moon nights), this arduous
regimen ran for six days a week; on Sunday, Sathya was still required
to attend Veda classes for five hours in the morning and two in the
evenings.
Also Read The boy who broke from tradition
“He’d never go anywhere but school, or maybe to the market to buy
vegetables” his mother Shanti remembers. “Every spare moment he could
get, he’d simply lie down and go to sleep.” Sathya saw his first movie
in a theatre when he was 16, and he got his first email address just
earlier this year. His only distraction, he admits, was the one
universally shared by Indian boyhood: Sunday evening games of cricket,
at a cramped ground near his house or in the narrow corridors of his
block of apartments.
BRAHMINICAL UPBRINGING
Sathya is short and slight, and he has a thin moustache, worn almost
out of rebellious joy that he is now no longer bound by the rules of
the pathshala, where every student had to be clean-shaven every day.
His slow grin fights its way through a mouthful of braces that he
wears to correct a misaligned jaw. “Because of that, my speech used to
be slurred, and I’d be very reluctant to talk in school, even to my
teachers,” he says. He had to give up flute lessons after two years
because his gums would begin to bleed. But the braces are helping—
Sathya still mumbles, but it sounds less like a medical problem and
more like a typical case of teenage shyness. “I find myself talking a
lot more willingly in college now.”
http://www.livemint.com/2009/04/06224522/Mixing-Vedas-and-code-in-newa.html
Posted: Fri, Nov 16 2007. 4:42 AM IST
Home
TN’s anti-Brahmin movement hits tradition, boosts real estate
Brahmins are finding ways to survive in changing times, while clinging
to old traditions
Priyanka P. Narain
Kannan’s house, which sits across the street from the ancient
Parthasarthy temple in the heart of Chennai, has not changed in 500
years: the palanquin his forefathers used now hangs on wooden beams
and he draws water from the same well as them. In his backyard, a
brown calf chews cud.
For centuries, Brahmin families such as Kannan’s have lived and worked
in the streets or villages around ancient temples. These four streets,
called the agraharam, created a subculture where Brahmin priests lived
a chaste life and performed traditional duties as priests and teachers
by running the temple and teaching the Vedas to students. They
essentially formed the ecosystem that ran the temples of south India.
Yet, against a backdrop of Tamil Nadu’s anti-Brahmin movement,
government policies outlawing the Brahmin-only colonies, skyrocketing
real estate prices and Brahmins’ declining social relevance, the
culture of the agraharam and people such as Kannan, who uses one name,
are becoming a rarity.
Earlier this year came another policy change—temple authorities will
now train their own priests, and priests no longer have to be
Brahmins, making older Brahmin priests all, but irrelevant.
With growing economic prosperity and migration, many of the streets
occupied by Brahmins in south Indian cities are finding it hard to
resist selling out.
Just memories? Interiors of Kannan’s 500-year-old house that sits
across the street from the Parthasarthy temple in Mylapore.
From Kannan’s house, it is easy to see the new white, pink and yellow
coloured buildings of residences, malls and coffee shops. Another
being constructed adjoins his backyard. He insists he will hang on—to
the past; to the identity.
“I would get about Rs3 crore for it (my house). But I will not sell. I
want my children and grandchildren to own it. Without this house, what
am I?” says Kannan, who has a postgraduate degree in economics.
Brahmins are finding ways to survive in changing times, while clinging
to old traditions.
Babu Das grew up helping his father run a canteen, or mess as it is
called in south India, inside his pink-coloured home at the
Kapaleeshwar temple agraharam in Chennai’s Mylapore area. The
Karpagambal Mess is famous for its authentic Tamil snacks, home-made
idlis and dosai served on banana-leaf plates while playing while
playing M.S. Subbalaxmi’s rendition of the Vishnu Sahasranama, the
thousand names of Vishnu.
Das inherited the canteen from his father, but does not know how old
the building is. “I love everything about this place. No one wants to
change anything about it. The people who come here to eat like it for
what it is. After all, money can buy you the latest trends, but will
it bring back this tradition?” he asks.
http://www.livemint.com/2007/11/16235400/TN8217s-antiBrahmin-moveme.html
Posted: Fri, Feb 19 2010. 9:37 PM IST
Culture
The Thackerays’ primitive charisma
The Senas have nothing constructive to offer Marathis. So what’s their
appeal? The Mumbai Marathi, better at renaming things than building
something himself, is disinherited from his city, and the Thackerays
give him an illusory sense of powerReply to All | Aakar Patel
All these events blocked eventually come to pass anyway, because the
control is cosmetic, and it wilts when the state decides to apply rule
of law. But that moment of theatre—when the media exhibits anguish—
produces the spotlight that nourishes the Thackerays. This is the
pattern to Shiv Sena’s actions.
It might appear that these actions are irrational, but the Thackerays’
method is cold and reasoned to squeeze out advantage. Witness the
discipline of Raj. He works his strategy with great care. On national
television he speaks Marathi no matter what language he is questioned
in. The Marathi loves this because it reflects his defiance.
There is a second reason why the Thackerays are compelled to make a
nuisance of themselves every so often. Unlike other parties, Shiv Sena
has a physical presence in neighbourhoods. These offices, run by local
toughs, are self-funded, meaning that they approach businesses and
residents for “donations”. This activity can be smooth only so long as
Shiv Sena radiates menace. The party is not effective if it isn’t
feared, and the grass roots reminds the leadership of this.
The Marathi pattern of resentment we have observed is visible
elsewhere in time.
India’s nationalist debate a century ago was dominated by the
Marathis: Tilak, Gokhale, Agarkar and Ranade. All four were Chitpavan
Brahmins, whose members are fair-skinned and unique for their light
eyes (like cricketer Ajit Agarkar and model Aditi Govitrikar).
Going against the current noise about Marathi in schools, Chitpavans
actually demanded to be educated in English. By 1911—100 years ago—
Chitpavans were 63% literate and 19% literate in English. This gave
them the edge over other Indians.
All four were on the most influential body in western India of the
time, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha. But English education had not exorcized
the native instinct. There they unleashed their pettiness on each
other. Agarkar and Tilak fought over leadership. Tilak was forced out
in 1890 after quarrels over social status and money. Gokhale took his
place but was opposed by Tilak who said the job required 2 hours of
work daily and so it couldn’t be done by a college principal. Ranade
was attacked in Tilak’s newspapers and Gokhale quit in 1895 because he
couldn’t work with Tilak’s friends. A jealous Tilak sabotaged the
Congress session held in Pune the same year.
When the Gujaratis—Jinnah and Gandhi—entered Congress, they
immediately eclipsed the Marathis, because they had the trader’s
instinct towards compromise. The Marathi Brahmin’s energy was then
channelled into resentment, this time against Muslims.
RSS, founded in 1925, is actually a deeply Marathi organization.
Hindutva author Savarkar, RSS founder Hedgewar, the great Golwalkar,
his successor Deoras and current sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat are all
Marathi Brahmins.
Marathi resentment cuts down its own heroes. The first was Shivaji.
Marathi Brahmins refused to crown him though he controlled dozens of
forts in the Konkan. This was because he was a peasant from the
cultivator caste and not a Kshatriya. He had to invent an ancestry,
perform penance and bring in a Brahmin from Kashi before he could
crown himself in 1674, with the title Chhatrapati, meaning leader of
Kshatriyas.
Comments
What a blatant piece of crap!! And that too a center-spread in Mint!!
And what a branding! I have came across lies which stink of hatred
while reading this bullshit. Now I know that Tilak was a petty man,
was Brahmin, and is not much relevant. That Jinnah and Gandhi (who
calls Gokhle his Guru), were Gujaratis. Though, both owe a lot to
Maharashtra. I just want to ask this 'pseudo-expert' why Ambedkar was
borne in Maharashtra? Why Maharashtra had reformist stalwarts? Why,
when all other states (including GJ) in India were reeling under
Muslim rule, only Maharashtra created a king of people in Shivaji?
Shivsena-MNS are a different issue. Linking it to Marathis & Tilak-
Gokhle-Ranade-Agarkar & RSS, & painting all this as a Brahmin
conspiracy is disgusting. (And this fool thinks that there only 2 ends
to any economy - high and low. So one can run a company with a CEO and
a sweeper & both are non-Marathis in Mumbai as he claims.)
Ganesh
http://www.livemint.com/2010/02/19213129/The-Thackerays8217-primitiv.html?pg=2
Views
Reducing the poor to numbers
After 62 years of Independence, Dalit exploitation continues even if
the setting and players are different
With rising food insecurity, the proportion of the poor will
definitely soar (“Who count as India’s poor?” Mint, 2 October). The
same is true for those classified as vulnerable and stressed. It is
deplorable that our representatives fight like cats and dogs over
statistics and their reliability. This is nothing but a cheap attempt
to justify ratios and proportions established by surveys and censuses,
and by so-called think tanks who undertake the task of achieving
“comfortable numbers to play with”. This act of putting the cart
before the horse jeopardizes many lives while Nero enjoys his fiddle.
An attempt to place 50% of the population below the poverty line is
not only a welcome relief but pro-human and pro-life.
— Rohit Saroj
This letter refers to Mrinal Pande’s thought-provoking article “Caste
in a new mould ” (Mint, 9 October). After 62 years of Independence,
Dalit exploitation continues even if the setting and players are
different: refreshingly, not the usual whipping boys but the Brahmins.
If the Plan projects from the 1950s onwards have made people richer,
the ingenuity of the latter-day politicians in introducing an ever
expanding “OBC” (other backward class) list has given them a doubly
assured vote bank.
The article refers to the killing of 16 villagers in Bihar (Khagaria
district), originating in “land ownership and use”, an area in which
our post-Independence leaders enacted progressive statutes. For
example, Tamil Nadu (TN) is one of the early states which introduced
the salutary principle, “land to the tiller”. Several hundred Brahmin
mirasdars (landlords) had to part with the land to the actual tillers.
TN has not looked back since then, even if the Brahmin mirasdars had
to choose other livelihood options and even migrate. On the same
principle, Kurmis of Bihar cannot cite their holding 500 bighas in
Amausi if the Dalits were sharecroppers, managing and tilling the land
for generations. Bihar’s agricultural and revenue departments are
sufficiently endowed for ascertaining the factual situation and
deciding the issue. It is a grave mistake on their part to have let
the situation result in mass killings. Will the Dalits of Amausi ever
get the ownership of the land which they have been tilling for several
generations?
Pande has also touched on the role of education. The Brahmin
intellectual and statesman Rajaji, during his TN chief ministership,
introduced an educational system —earn while you learn —whereby all
would get primary and secondary education while learning their family
craftsmanship, which was vital for livelihood until their education
was completed. This would have avoided the worrying phenomenon of
increasing school dropouts, but he was unjustifiably branded as a
perpetrator of caste system. It is a little-known fact that long
afterwards, even in Britain, the New Labour intellectuals of Tony
Blair proposed a similar system for its citizens to enjoy the fruits
of the “knowledge economy”.
Until political powers stop viewing Dalit uplift as a vote bank issue—
or stop perpetrating the caste system by continuously expanding the
grouping called OBC—caste will not die nor will Dalits see progress.
The West is using the “human rights movement” to cash in on our
miseries, which we are trying to cure. This is one more area where the
government has failed in the international arena.
Sadly, this festering issue is witnessing a theatrical display.
Lately, Dalits and their neighbourhoods are being turned into tourist,
picnic or pilgrimage spots by politicians wanting to be noticed by
their leaders. It is an amusing spectacle to notice “mentions” that
they should not carry separate tiffin boxes but partake in the frugal
meals of the Dalits, and sleep on their humble charpoys. What an
innovative way to treat this festering sore.
— S. Subramanyan
http://www.livemint.com/2009/10/13222427/Reducing-the-poor-to-numbers.html
Posted: Sun, Oct 11 2009. 9:51 PM IST
Views
Caste in a new mould
The usual definition of caste oppression can no longer explain
emerging patterns of dominance
The Other Side | Mrinal Pande
In the first week of this month, 16 villagers were murdered in cold
blood by armed killers in Amausi village in Bihar. Of those murdered,
14 were Kurmis, the same caste as the chief minister of the state, two
were Koeries, also from the other backward classes (OBCs). Those who
understand the murky C of India know that the incident was not only
about settling some local scores. It was also sending an unambiguous
message to the Kurmis and other OBCs who have emerged as powerful
landlords in the state during the last few decades of OBC rule. The
locals insist that the killers were not Naxals as the police claimed,
but assassins hired by the newly empowered Dalit community of Mushars,
for settling old scores with Kurmi landlords. Whether the killers were
Naxals or hired assassins, two things are clear: One, usually a long-
standing land dispute lies at the heart of most violence in our
villages. And two, the usual definition of caste oppression can no
longer explain the emerging patterns of dominance and subjugation.
The genesis of the recent violence is said to lie in the report of a
recently appointed government commission on land reforms in Bihar. It
had suggested that the state government must protect the rights of the
landless sharecroppers, put a cap on land ceiling at 15 acres (for
both agricultural and non-agricultural land) and computerize all land
records. In Khagaria district, where the massacre took place, as
elsewhere in rural India, ultimately all fertile land is controlled by
the most powerful (read politically best connected) caste with the
landless Dalits as their sharecroppers. The Kurmis say they are the
titled owners of 500 bighas in Amausi, but Mushars quoting the report
say they have a bigger right to it since they have tilled it for
generations. This tension is what ignited the caste war.
When the issue of caste-based violation of human rights in India came
up at the 12th Human Rights Council in Geneva recently, it was
proposed that caste be put on a par with race. But in 2009, when we
talk about caste biases, we cannot overlook India’s actual electoral
politics. Here, being identified as a Dalit or backward leader offers
a distinct advantage and becomes the biggest guarantee of a
candidate’s electability. From Bihar to Tamil Nadu, they have voted
out upper caste groups regularly, but the unjust land ownership
patterns born of unfair state patronage extended by incumbent leaders
to their own community, persist. Expunging caste from school syllabi
has not helped either, and the learning system still remains unequal
and heavily biased in favour of the powerful and rich. This is because
of a confused and confusing language policy perpetuated by the new
rulers. They insist on government schools teaching the children
(mostly poor) in the regional languages, even though English is
undeniably the language of all power discourse and higher learning.
None of these leaders will educate their own children in the local
language, though.
Actually, the traditional characteristics and power of the Brahmins in
the traditional upper caste hierarchy (high learning, arrogance and
clever use of a certain elite language to build firewalls around
knowledge and information to keep it away from the commoners) are now
much more visible among India’s upper middle-class professionals,
whatever their caste. Whether backward, Dalit or forward, successful
children of the new dominant classes no longer acquire their basic
knowledge, skills and networking abilities in Brahminical Sanskrit,
but in English. Likewise, the power of the old-style, landowning
Thakur (Kshatriya), who killed a thousand tigers and routinely torched
Dalit huts, has been usurped by today’s political class, who ride lal
batti cars with similar disregard for laws, sirens blaring and black
cat commandos in tow. They hold power dialogues with neighbouring
warlords, make and break treaties—not the princes and nawabs who, if
they have not become penniless, have turned hoteliers and protectors
of wildlife. The traditional merchant class, thanks to family-based
businesses, may have retained some part of their old glory, but in the
global arena they are now heavily dependent on the neo-Brahmin: the
Indian Institute of Management-trained, multinationalized manager,
banker and expat consultant, who strides the global village and
carries vital knowledge in his laptop, as a Brahmin once carried in
his almanac.
All caste systems need a cleaning class. They are today the invisible
and unorganized freelancers. Moving from job to job, they help mop up
the night soil of the global village and provide the paymasters with
linguistic bridges into the vernacular heartland, where the markets
are also the votes.
Mrinal Pande likes to take readers behind the reported news in her
fortnightly column. She is a writer and freelance journalist in New
Delhi. Comment at ***@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/2009/10/08230128/Caste-in-a-new-mould.html?h=D
Posted: Fri, Jan 2 2009. 12:09 AM IST
Home
Mayawati leads BSP’s ‘elephant’ to temple towns
A Rs250 crore package to revamp Mathura was announced in August; now
Rs800 crore has been allocated for Varanasi
K.P. Narayana Kumar
New Delhi: To win both the hearts and minds of voters across the
country as India gets ready for the national elections in April, Uttar
Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati
is deliberately targeting an overhaul of urban infrastructure in
pilgrim towns, such as Varanasi and Mathura, which see a large influx
of Hindu pilgrims.
Poll sops? BSP leader Mayawati. Nand Kumar / PTI
After announcing a Rs250 crore package for Mathura in August, Mayawati
announced an Rs800 crore revamp plan for Varanasi last week.
“By announcing these, Mayawati is telling the people—especially the
non-Dalits—that they should not judge her or the BSP by their past (as
a party that catered mainly to those at the bottom of India’s caste
pyramid) and, instead, think of the future they are trying to create
by catering to wider sections,” says Dalit writer Chandra Bhan Prasad.
Both Mathura and Varanasi are already covered under the Jawaharlal
Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) a Rs50,000 crore
Centrally funded scheme that ties grants for urban renewal projects to
a set of mandatory reforms that municipalities have to enact to be
eligible to receive the grants.
As of 30 June, Varanasi had one water supply and one solid waste
management project worth a combined Rs159 crore granted under JNNURM,
while Mathura had one solid waste management project.
The urban infrastructure development package for Varanasi includes
drinking water, sewerage and solid waste disposal schemes, apart from
improving power supply to places of tourist interest, including the
ghats along the banks of the Ganga river.
The Mathura-specific projects that were announced earlier in August
included improvement in tourist facilities and new road projects.
In the 2007 assembly elections, of the total 12 seats in Mathura and
Varanasi districts, the BSP, which won four seats, was the only party
that gained seats compared with the previous elections in 2002, when
it had won just one seat.
The main opposition at the Centre, the Bharatiya Janata Party, lost
one and the Congress party, the Central ruling coalition leader,
managed to retain the lone seat it had won in Mathura in 2002.
A senior priest with the Sankat Mochan temple in Varanasi said it was
quite likely that Mayawati would benefit if she were to carry out the
planned works.
“Caste politics has been played by all political parties, where
promises specific to interest groups are made before polls. So there
is nothing wrong in Mayawati announcing more development of temple
towns keeping the upcoming elections in mind. At the end of the day,
people want development. Let us see what Mayawati can do,” said this
religious leader who didn’t want to be identified.
Mayawati and senior BSP leader S.C. Mishra couldn’t be contacted
despite repeated attempts.
A study conducted by the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) showed that the BSP had increased
its share of upper-caste votes in Uttar Pradesh from 23% in the 2002
assembly elections to 31% in 2007. The share of Brahmin votes for the
party increased from 6% in 2003 to 17% in 2007, after it handed out
tickets to Brahmins and other backward class (OBC) candidates.
“It is interesting to note that among Brahmins, 27% of poor Brahmins
voted for the BSP, while only 12% of the rich voted for it,” said
Pravin Rai, an analyst with CSDS.
Ajoy Bose, the author of Behenji, a biography of Mayawati, has noted
that of the 206 seats the BSP had won in 2007, 51 were held by
Brahmins.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/01/01231639/Mayawati-leads-BSP8217s-8.html
Posted: Sun, Sep 27 2009. 10:32 PM IST
Columns
Opportunity, challenges for Indian banks in UK
The Indian banks in United Kingdom are trying hard to reach out to the
Indian community at Southall, Wembley, Birmingham, Harrow, Slough,
Ilford and Leicester
Banker’s Trust | Tamal Bandyopadhyay
Thursday afternoon, I sneaked into the Camden Centre on Bidborough
Street at King’s Cross, before London’s oldest Durga Puja was formally
opened for worshippers. Ajay, a local doctor and accomplished Rabindra
Sangeet singer, was rehearsing for his evening programme while a few
others were putting up a Bank of Baroda banner on the dais where Ajay
and other artistes were to perform.
Indian banks’ overseas business model hasn’t changed— festivals and
community gatherings continue to be the most critical points of sale.
On Wednesday, S.R. Sharma, managing director of Punjab National Bank
(International) Ltd, or PNB International, the UK subsidiary of
India’s second largest public sector bank, headed to Norwood Park in
south London after office hours. He was invited by P.L. Suri, a
customer, to attend a satsang, a programme of devotional speeches and
songs. Sharma met Suri’s guru and many of his friends and is hopeful
of converting at least some of them into customers.
State Bank of India, or SBI, operating in London since 1921, has an
asset base of $7.3 billion (Rs35,040 crore); PNB International, just
two years old in the UK, has assets worth $625 million. There are
other Indian banks, too, in the UK such as Bank of India, Bank of
Baroda, Canara Bank, Syndicate Bank and a subsidiary of ICICI Bank
Ltd, which has the biggest UK balance sheet among all Indian lenders.
Based on 2001 statistics, UK’s ethnic minority population is about 4.6
million, close to 8% of the country’s total population. In 2001,
Indians accounted for 1.8% of the total population. Since then it has
gone up to about 2% and Indian bankers are chasing this chunk and no
one is willing to miss a single opportunity to reach out to the Indian
community at Southall, Wembley, Birmingham, Harrow, Slough, Ilford and
Leicester. Sharma recently convinced the UK chapter of the Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan, a charitable public trust-run institution dedicated to
the promotion of education and culture, to distribute its newsletters
to 1,500 members across the UK in PNB International envelopes every
month. Last year, his bank sponsored a few awards at the annual
function of London’s Goud Saraswat Brahmin Sabha, an organization of
the Konkani-speaking Hindu Brahmin community.
Also Read Tamal Bandyopadhyay’s earlier columns
These marketing gimmicks are paying off. PNB International’s deposit
base has gone up from $103 million in December 2008 to about $280
million now and the number of accounts from 4,419 to 10,075. The
global meltdown has also helped. Up to £50,000 is covered by deposit
insurance and many consumers have now started keeping deposits in
various Indian banks, including SBI, for fear of losing their money in
case of a bank failure. According to Rajnish Kumar, regional head and
chief executive of SBI’s UK operations, the bank did not have too many
local customers until September last year, but in the past one year it
has got many, and now non-Indians account for about 10% of State
Bank’s UK customer base.
Indian banks are also developing new deposit products to attract
money. SBI, for instance, offers a step-up rate structure where a
depositor is paid 3.75% for one year money, but the rate progressively
goes up if the money is kept longer. For five years, it can fetch as
much as 5%. From customers’ point of view, the step-up structure is a
better option than a plain vanilla deposit scheme where one is hugely
penalized for withdrawing money ahead of maturity. But these products
can help only to a certain extent and Indian banks won’t be able to
mop up much unless they start offering other facilities such as debit
cards.
Unlike India, where such cards function on the chip and signature
principle, in the UK it’s the chip and PIN (personal identification
number) norm and consumers punch in the code after every transaction
and don’t sign a charge slip. The technology is quite expensive. SBI
is working on it while ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda and PNB
International already have it. Each time a bank’s debit card holder
uses another bank’s ATM to withdraw money it needs to pay for such
transactions, but it also earns a commission when customers use the
card for shopping. The debit card offering has possibly helped PNB
International get the salary accounts of the Indian High Commission in
London, which had been banking with SBI and HSBC Holdings Plc. PNB
International now runs the salary accounts of about 125 high
commission employees, including Nalin Suri, the new high commissioner.
All Indian banks seem to be keen on collecting deposits, but when it
comes to giving loans, they continue to meticulously stay away from
retail Indian customers. The main reason behind the diffidence of
Indian banks is possibly the lack of a credit history for most of
their customers. There are a few agencies that sell credit history
data, but until a bank attains a critical mass in loan accounts, no
agency tracks the data of its customers. This means the customer of an
Indian bank can default on loan repayments and yet continue to get
credit from local banks as this information will not be known to
them.
Banks in the UK aren’t required to keep money with the central bank or
buy government bonds. But things will change as the Financial Services
Authority, the banking supervisor, is planning to ask banks to invest
8-10% of their assets in government bonds. Since such bonds are low-
yielding, the new norm will hit Indian banks’ profitability. One way
of protecting their bottom line could be the creation of retail
assets. But this has to be done with caution as KYB (know your
business) is as important as KYC (know your customer) for banking in
the post-Lehman days.
Tamal Bandyopadhyay keeps a close eye on all things banking from his
perch as Mint’s deputy managing editor in Mumbai. Please email your
comments to ***@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/2009/09/27223257/Opportunity-challenges-for-In.html
Posted: Fri, Feb 6 2009. 11:05 PM IST
Culture
Fringe takes centre stage
The importance of being Mahesh Elkunchwar and Satish Alekar in Marathi
theatre; the plays of poet, painter and doctor Gieve Patel
Marathi playwrights Mahesh Elkunchwar and Satish Alekar occupy the
same place as their better-known counterparts Vijay Tendulkar and
Girish Karnad in the theatre-active centres of India. Even the most
culture-specific of their plays have been performed in other
languages. Now, Oxford University Press has published the collected
plays of Elkunchwar and Alekar (in separate volumes), thus bringing
some of their most important plays out of their Indian context into a
wider domain.
Modern times: (clockwise from top left) Satish Alekar (Kumar Gokhale);
Mahesh Elkunchwar (Vivek Ranade); and a scene from Alekar’s play,
Atirekee.(Theatre Academy, Pune)
Elkunchwar’s Wada Chirebandi (Old Stone Mansion), which deals with the
crumbling values of a landowning Brahmin family of Vidarbha, has been
performed in Hindi, Bengali, Kannada and even Garhwali.
Alekar’s Mahanirvan (The Dread Departure), which takes an ironic look
at the funeral rites of Marathi Brahmins using the keertan (devotional
song) form of story-telling to underline its black humour, has been
staged in Rajasthani, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Konkani, Tamil and
Kannada. Begum Barve, a tragi-comic look by Alekar at the glorious
tradition of sangeet natak (musical theatre) in Maharashtra, has been
brilliantly adapted in Hindi, using nautanki (traditional/folk
theatre) in place of sangeet natak, and in Gujarati, using the music
plays of Bhangwadi as a parallel.
Plays by both playwrights have been read and performed in American
universities as well.
Although both began writing around the same time, their first plays
were staged a few years apart. Elkunchwar’s early plays, published in
the prestigious literary magazine Satyakatha, attracted the attention
of Vijaya Mehta (née Jaywant). She directed four of them in quick
succession in the same year, 1970, for her theatre laboratory,
Rangayan. Alekar’s early plays were also published in Satyakatha, but
were not performed on the established “fringe” stage. Instead, they
became popular on the inter-collegiate drama competition circuit.
Contemporaries though they are, Elkunchwar and Alekar are driven by
widely different concerns. Elkunchwar’s preoccupations, to put it in a
nutshell, are about creativity, life, sterility and death. In his
early plays, his characters are manifestations of these ideas rather
than flesh and blood people. In his later plays, for instance Wada
Chirebandi, they are delicately delineated human beings of many
shades.
Whatever his theme or mode, Elkunchwar’s plays are marked by his
mastery over dramatic structure, each play having a well-defined
beginning, middle and end. His language, which began as an unstoppable
outpouring in his early plays, quietened down later to an economic,
rhythmic prose, full of eloquent silences.
http://www.livemint.com/2009/02/06211922/Fringe-takes-centre-stage.html
Posted: Thu, Jul 23 2009. 9:54 PM IST
Columns
Rita and Mayawati stoop too low to conquer
This is a tragedy, while the Congress’ provocation is merely a form of
low farce, because Mayawati is a historical political figure, whereas
Rita Joshi is a political creature and Rahul Gandhi is a fifth-
generation dynast
High Windows | Mukul Kesavan
The recent contretemps between Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Mayawati has
been the most depressing sequence of events in post-general election
politics. The gratuitous ugliness of it ought to make the observer of
Indian politics despair.
Speechless: Rita Joshi visits her house soon after it was torched by
miscreants. AFP
Joshi’s part in this squalid quarrel isn’t surprising. The daughter of
the late chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, she
has had a political career of the sort that’s politely described as
chequered. She has been in and out of the Congress; she has fought for
elective office as an Independent, as a Samajwadi Party candidate and
as a Congresswoman. Apart from winning the mayoralty of Allahabad, she
has lost every other election that she has contested. But despite her
recent electoral defeat in Lucknow, her political career has been on
the upswing; she is the chief of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee
(UPCC) and given the Congress’ resurgence in UP during the last
general election, her star has been in the ascendant.
I was in Moradabad during Azharuddin’s election campaign when she
addressed the Congress faithful at a political rally held in the
grounds of the palace of a Muslim grandee. It was apparent from her
speech that she had cast herself, in a long and ignoble Congress
tradition, as a family loyalist. She urged the Congress workers
assembled there to make sure that they assembled in their thousands
for “Rahulji’s” scheduled stop in Moradabad. The turnout for Rahul
Gandhi’s constituency visit seemed rather more important to her than
the turnout in the general election.
I imagine that as a creature of 10 Janpath, Joshi was taking her cue
from Rahul Gandhi’s strategy to aggressively project the Congress’
presence in UP when she made her infamous remark about rape. Trying to
make the point that the UP government’s policy of giving financial
compensation to rape victims was inadequate and demeaning, she is
reported to have said: “Throw such money back at Mayawati and tell
her, ‘if you’re raped, I am ready to give you a crore’.”
It’s hard to believe that any responsible political figure, leave
alone a politician whose father was a UP Brahmin, could polemicize
against a Dalit woman chief minister in terms as crass and offensive
as these. It’s even harder to believe that the Congress party, whose
erstwhile dominance in that state was based upon an electoral
combination of Dalits, Muslims and Brahmins, would respond to Joshi’s
speech with a pro forma expression of regret and disapproval without
censuring or disciplining her. Sonia Gandhi was content to distance
herself from the form of words used by her apparatchik, while her son
was even more aggressive in his response, insisting that Joshi’s
choice of words was unfortunate but that her critique was valid.
Rahul Gandhi’s willingness to write off Dalits in general and Jatavs
in particular in UP by doing as little as possible to discipline
Joshi, is of a piece with the Congress’ cynical willingness to find
new electoral combinations in the Hindi heartland. So the UPCC chief’s
willingness to appeal to a casteist electorate’s worst instincts is
depressing, but unsurprising.
What’s rather more disheartening is the UP chief minister’s response
to Joshi’s provocation. She was charged under several non-bailable
sections of the law, including the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act,
1989, and remanded to judicial custody. Had Mayawati contented herself
with this, with demonstrating the awful retribution that Indian law
visits upon those who seek explicitly or by implication to humiliate
or intimidate Dalits, she would have made her point, consolidated her
reputation as a no-nonsense opponent of inflammatory rhetoric and
stood out as a defender of the downtrodden.
But she didn’t. Newspapers and news channels reported that Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP) goons set fire to Joshi’s home in Lucknow and
ransacked it. A few days later the BSP member of Parliament allegedly
behind this act of arson was rewarded with the deputy chairmanship of
the Uttar Pradesh State Sugar Corporation. Instead of casting herself
as the guarantor of the public peace in UP, the chief minister seemed
to go out of her way to stand out as the embodiment of the lawlessness
and state impunity that has characterized UP politics in recent
times.
This is a tragedy, while the Congress’ provocation is merely a form of
low farce, because Mayawati is a historical political figure, whereas
Rita Joshi is a political creature and Rahul Gandhi is a fifth-
generation dynast. Mayawati is the first Dalit chief minister of
India’s largest state and the first Dalit ever to be seen as a
credible candidate for the prime ministership of the republic. Instead
of fulfilling her historic potential, she has chosen to fritter it
away by allowing the media to assimilate her to the thuggish politics
of her home state.
It’s unfair to expect Mayawati to set higher standards than Mulayam
Singh Yadav or Amar Singh or Rita Joshi, but pioneering politicians
from plebeian backgrounds owe it to the people they represent to set
an example. Mayawati could have made an example of Joshi within the
law; by seeming to step outside it, she has sold herself short,
betrayed a political trust and given her enemies and the enemies of
the bahujan samaj that she claims to represent, a weapon. It’s unfair
to expect Mayawati to be India’s Obama, but not too much to ask,
surely, that she not turn herself into UP’s Ahmadinejad.
Mukul Kesavan, a professor of social history at Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi, is the author of The Ugliness of the Indian Male and Other
Propositions
Write to Mukul at ***@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/2009/07/23215401/Rita-and-Mayawati-stoop-too-lo.html
Posted: Thu, Oct 22 2009. 12:12 AM IST
Columns
Maoist documents point to erudite research
It is important to go beyond the government-engineered media movement
that has largely dismissed Maoists as being from the lunatic fringe
seeking to destroy the “Shining India” and “Imagining India”
narratives of the India dream
Root Cause | Sudeep Chakravarti
A former director general of police of Chhattisgarh once commented as
to how well Maoist documents were prepared. “These appear to be
written by educated people—JNU types.”
He then looked sharply at me. “Are you from JNU?” he asked, referring
to Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, often painted as left-leaning.
I disabused him of the notion, but I agree entirely with his point:
Whatever the extreme politics and polemic, documents and statements by
Maoist rebels are erudite and clear. These are not ravings of
stereotypically wild-eyed, frothing intellectuals, but the thoughts of
deliberate, yet intensely angry ideologues who invite people to join
battle against the current nature and practice of Indian politics,
administration and law-keeping.
All that Kobad Ghandy, a recently arrested Maoist leader, repeatedly
muttered to television cameras as he was being led to a Delhi court by
police was: “Bhagat Singh zindabad”. Long Live Bhagat Singh. This
revolutionary occupies pride of place in official histories of India’s
freedom movement. His likenesses are evident in countless public
places across northern India; indeed, in India’s Parliament. Those who
battle Maoists know this well.
Also Read Sudeep Chakravarti’s earlier columns
It is important to go beyond the government-engineered media movement
that has largely dismissed Maoists as being from the lunatic fringe
seeking to destroy the “Shining India” and “Imagining India”
narratives of the India dream. This is part of government’s lateral
tactic in a battle—“psy-ops” or psychological operations—much like
what public relations professionals and warring corporate siblings
practise.
Alongside, the Union government is engaged in intense on-ground
security operations with a self-declared mandate to arrive at a
conclusion within the next three years.
But it knows what it is up against, the same as the incredulous former
police chief of Chhattisgarh. So too do his colleagues in Karnataka—a
marked state, as it were—know the facility with which Maoist rebels
plan.
As far back as 2002, the Maoists prepared a document titled Social
Conditions and Tactics—A report based on preliminary social
investigation conducted by survey teams during August-October 2001 in
the Perspective Area. The “perspective area” were Central Malnad,
including parts of Udupi district, and the adjacent districts of
Shimoga, Chikmaglur and Dakshina Kannada. It offers insight into the
planning and argumentative conviction that go into developing a
revolutionary base.
Malnad is the “ghat” region of Karnataka comprising 10 districts, from
Belgaum in the north-west to Chamarajnagar in the south. It includes
nearly half of Karnataka’s forest area, nearly all of its iron ore and
manganese riches, major concentrations of areca—betel nut—cardamom and
other spices, and coffee. It records a large tribal population and
caste prejudice. The Maoist survey recorded a fairly large percentage
of landless and poor farmers, and domination by the upper castes—
Brahmins and Vokkaligas, among others. The landless received daily
wages as much as 15% less than the norm. In places, the survey
recorded between 10% and 32% of land without title deeds and
consequent “encroachment” by wealthier peasantry and landlords.
The survey, which referred to particular villages only with designated
alphabets to maintain secrecy, recorded high interest rates on account
of private moneylenders, and high indebtedness. As many such
moneylenders were also landlords—comprising 4% of the population but
owning a quarter of all land—inability to repay led in numerous cases
to a member of the family, usually a youngster, being bonded as farm
or plantation labour.
The survey tracked the fall in prices for several categories of areca,
pepper, cardamom and coffee. Inevitably, daily wages dropped. This was
recorded as the overall impact of “semi-feudalism”, free-market
pricing, lowering of import restrictions, and in some cases—such as
coffee—overproduction.
In great detail, the survey noted which Brahmin landlord was “known to
break two whipping sticks on the backs of his tenants”; where a
landlord had links with Mumbai’s timber mafia; where “Jain landlords”
evicted tenants unable to pay rent; and which temples in the region
had links with powerful politicians and businessmen. There was also a
list of weapons in the surveyed villages.
The survey recommended that Maoist support must be developed in the
area by “strictly secret methods”. These should include secret front
organizations of women, “coolies” and Adivasis. Village-level clusters
of militias should in turn be guided by the local guerilla squad
assigned to that territory—one such squad would have under its care
800 sq. km and four squads would form an interlinked team to control
3,200 sq. km.
The plan is on the ground.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He writes a
column alternate Thursdays on conflicts that directly affect business.
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Posted: Wed, Feb 3 2010. 11:45 PM IST
Columns
Naxalism and angst of Jharkhand tribals
With pressure from major businesses to deliver on now-dusty
memorandums of understanding and from Maoists--as they reconnoiter new
areas and call in old debts--Jharkhand will witness more churn
Root Cause | Sudeep Chakravarti
Jharkhand has for some time resembled a tragicomic circus.
This is where a former state health minister, Bhanu Pratap Shahi, told
media in early 2007 of a novel method of combating Maoist rebels—
interchangeably known as Naxalites. One vasectomy in a “Naxalite-
dominated” village would mean that many “potential comrades less”, the
minister offered, in a situation of “many mouths to feed and little
food to eat”.
A state chief minister, Madhu Koda, received an official certificate
from the Limca Book of Records, India’s version of the Guinness World
Records, for becoming the first independent legislator to gain that
position. He formed a government with four other legislators and the
support of the United Progressive Alliance.
Also Read Sudeep Chakravarti’s earlier columns
Koda is now history, accused of using his tenure to amass a fortune
along with some cronies and allies, mainly from concessions to
mining.
The newest chief minister, Shibu Soren, has this past fortnight
troubled hawks for suggesting negotiations with Maoist rebels in the
state. Leaks to media mentioned slowed police operations against
Maoists. Such moves would, according to conventional wisdom, permit
Maoists breathing room to regroup and gain ground. Failed peace talks
in Andhra Pradesh in 2004, and overtures in Orissa, are held up as
examples of what not to do.
Soren, too, carries baggage, marked as he is by scandals such as money-
for-votes during the premiership of P.V. Narasimha Rao; and the death
of a once-trusted lieutenant. But it is important to understand
Soren’s background with fellow travellers, as it were.
Jharkhand is blessed with iron ore, manganese, coal, limestone,
graphite, quartzite, asbestos, lead, zinc, copper, and some gold,
among others. It supplies to the region electricity from thermal and
hydroelectric plants. But there has always been a discrepancy between
generating wealth and its application.
The Jharkhand region received minimal development funds from undivided
Bihar based on a time-honoured presumption: tribals live there, and
they need little. Resettlement and rehabilitation issues were—and
continue to remain—poor on delivery.
The area’s displaced tribals were gradually organized by a tribal
rights and right-to-statehood organization, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha
(JMM), which also took on exploitation by a concert of contractors,
moneylenders and public servants. Bihar’s response was to send a large
team of armed police, which intimidated and arrested at will. To
protest, an estimated 3,000 tribals gathered in September 1980 in Gua,
a mining-belt town near Saranda forests to the state’s south, for a
public meeting.
There was an altercation with police. The police fired; the tribals
fought back with bows and arrows. Three tribals and four policemen
died; human rights activists place the number of tribal deaths at
100.
Both groups took their wounded to Gua Mines Hospital, where the
tribals were made to deposit their bows and arrows before the hospital
took in their injured. Then the police opened fire on the now unarmed
tribals, killing several more.
The police, thereafter, went on a rampage in nearby villages, in much
the same way as some of their colleagues in Chhattisgarh: looting and
destroying homes; molesting and killing as much for revenge as
suspicion of collusion with rebels.
JMM leader Guruji—Soren—became a bulwark for key tribal leaders, who
led movements in Saranda to prevent the illegal felling of trees such
as sal and teak.
As resentment peaked through the 1980s and 1990s, leaders sought
allies with greater firepower: the Maoists—through the Maoist
Communist Centre (MCC), the key rebel entity in undivided Bihar. This
alliance of expediency has since matured.
Saranda is a Maoist area of operation and sanctuary. MCC has merged
into the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the presiding
conglomerate. Besides attacks against police and paramilitary, looting
weaponry and imposing levies on small to big businesses to fund the
rebellion, Maoists have also carried out spectacular strikes. For
instance, they shot dead member of Parliament and bête noire Sunil
Mahato and three others as they watched a football match at Baguria in
early 2007.
Leaders with deep roots, such as Soren, understand the dynamics of
tribal aspiration and angst. Soren can, on a good day, still hold the
power to bring disparate issues to the table for resolution of
conflict. But tribal leadership is otherwise compromised, adding to
the rot and ineptitude that have marked governance in Jharkhand since
it attained statehood in 2001.
Even funds meant for modernization of police forces are known to have
been appropriated to purchase sports utility vehicles for ministers.
With pressure from major businesses to deliver on now-dusty
memorandums of understanding and from Maoists—as they reconnoiter new
areas and call in old debts—Jharkhand will witness more churn.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He writes a
column alternate Thursdays on conflicts that directly affect business.
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: Wed, Nov 18 2009. 10:13 PM IST
Columns
Cos open to accusations of complicity with govt
If businesses find it difficult to comprehend morality, they could at
least work to understand liability
Root Cause | Sudeep Chakravarti
The flap these past weeks about Tata Steel Ltd’s proposed 5.5 million
tonnes a year project in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh triggered
thoughts of a recent conference on human rights and business. I can’t
talk much about that meeting at Manesar, near Delhi, sponsored by a
relatively new London-based institute, as we were bound by the Chatham
House rule. But I can discuss my personal observations as they do not
vary in private or public; as well as broad parameters of discussion
without specifically naming participants.
There was a senior representative from Tata Sons Ltd at the conference
this past summer, as well as his corporate social responsibility (CSR)
colleagues from ArcelorMittal, JSW Steel Ltd, Royal Dutch Shell and
Lafarge SA. Except Shell, others are between them currently engaged in
either contentious or tricky projects in central, north or north-east
India. Alongside executives were arrayed human rights activists,
lawyers, tribal representatives, self-declared liberals from Delhi’s
seminar circuit, and corporate practitioners and consultants from
Europe and the Americas.
Also Read Earlier columns by Sudeep Chakravarti
The purpose was to take inputs about the Indian situation to evolve
corporate best practice guidelines across the world as to the
experience of relocation and rehabilitation—frequently the curse of
projects—and work in conflict areas. The meeting was well timed, too,
seeing several popular protests against large projects and special
economic zones; and the outright concern of locating projects in areas
of Maoist influence.
A broad thought came through, surprisingly, from several executives.
The bean counters and boardroom “suits” that operate in India don’t
care about the socio-economic impact at ground zero. The project
blueprint is absolute in terms of cost in time, finance, man-hours and
return on investment. As activists joined the discussion, it became
ever more evident that CSR ends up being a tool to buy out
“opposition” with money, a primary school or health centre, some tube
wells. Responsibility ends there. The governments of the states where
the projects are to be located—with their political leadership,
bureaucracy and police—become an extension of corporate will.
Such an approach led to Singur for Tata Motors Ltd; the relocation of
the project to Gujarat worked through similar, though non-violent,
channels as the government there had already pre-empted protest by
releasing vast stocks of pre-acquired land. Tata Steel’s loud
clarifications that it had been “allocated” land in Chhattisgarh; and
its denial that a public hearing on the project in mid-October was
attended by hand-picked villagers in a room heavily guarded by state
police and local toughs, suggests a worrying trend: this conglomerate
has learnt little from its recent collective experience.
In Chhattisgarh, it is likely to face protests that could easily
escalate to violence as the administration lends a hand to shoehorn
the project. There is little doubt too that Maoist-front organizations
and militias will leverage toeholds offered by such an approach, the
same as they have done to a project by Essar Steel in the state’s
Dantewada district.
What drives a corporation to pursue a project in a clear zone of
conflict? Why do businesses feel strengthened, even invulnerable, if
they are in direct or moral partnership with government? Why do
project planners ignore the fact that the principle of eminent domain,
which permits the government to expropriate land for public good, is
abused in spirit and execution? Why don’t consultants, whom
corporations pay millions of dollars to scope a project, clarify
political and security risks?
The fig leaf of government having appropriated land—and so, business
being absolved of all responsibility—is mandated by India’s mai-baap
culture, a benevolent dictatorship deeply prevalent in the
relationship between business and politics. While this proved to be
the bedrock of much of India’s economic growth, businesses will, in
today’s charged rights and legal environment, be open to accusations
of complicity with government. Globalized Indian businesses are
additionally vulnerable, under international laws, to legal action
even in other countries if accusations of negative complicity with
government are proven. Moreover, there would be a public relations
fallout.
In plain words: it will be difficult to explain away aggressive
presence in a conflict zone where a project clearly stands to gain by
government forces killing off rebels. And it will be difficult to deny
moral responsibility for the death and displacement of innocents in
such a conflict. If businesses find it difficult to comprehend
morality, they could at least work to understand liability.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He writes a
column alternate Thursdays on conflicts that directly affect business.
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Posted: Wed, Sep 23 2009. 10:33 PM IST
Columns
Denying development is privileging violence
If the body count swings against the rebels and their support militia,
government will declare victoryRoot
Cause | Sudeep Chakravarti
A major offensive against Maoist rebels by the CoBRA (Commando
Battalion for Resolute Action) paramilitary force is under way in the
forests and tribal homelands of southern Chhattisgarh.
Besides being the present-day heart, as it were, of the rebellion, it
is also a region where the government of Chhattisgarh has agreed in
principle to locate nearly $30 billion (Rs1.44 trillion) of investment
in minerals, metals, and electricity.
If the body count swings against the rebels and their support militia,
government will declare victory. If it goes against CoBRA, Maoists
will crow. TV crews will move in. People who track such phenomena—the
Maoist rebellion in India as well as prime ministerial pronouncements
as to its demerit—will receive calls for commentary on the who, what,
why and where of it all. It will be a circus, as always. And key
truths will, after a time, be reburied.
Maps detailing the current spread of Left-wing rebellion usually show
the overlap in forested areas, which provide rationale, recruits and
shelter. But the Maoist movement has long ago moved beyond the jungle.
Maps that detail other characteristics and topography are hence more
productive.
I’m fond of quoting at such times Omkar Goswami, who runs the New
Delhi-based CERG Advisory Pvt. Ltd. He was struck some years ago by
what current minister for environment Jairam Ramesh told him about an
“east of Kanpur characterization of India”.
Also Read Sudeep Chakravarti’s earlier columns
Ramesh’s point: the regions west of Kanpur, marked by the longitude
80.24 (east), were doing better, while those to the east of it were
“withering away”.
Goswami decided to check Ramesh’s hypothesis by collecting data on
India’s districts, development blocks and villages. His colleagues and
he pored over this data for two years, and alongside, used data from
the Census of India 2001 to map an India based on ownership of, or
access to, 11 assets and amenities: Whether the household had a bank
or post office account, a pucca house, electricity connection, owned a
TV set; owned a scooter or motorcycle; used cooking gas, had an
inhouse drinking water source or one within 500m; had a separate
kitchen area, a separate toilet, a separate and enclosed bathing
space, and a telephone.
CERG then took the results of these indicators of necessity and basic
aspiration, what it termed the Rural India District Score, and mapped
it. The districts were ranked in six grades, with accompanying
colours: Best (dark green), Good (light green), Better than Average
(very light green), Average (white), Worse than Average (orange) and
Very Poor (red).
Central India showed great patches of white and orange, and splashes
of red. Moving east into Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, eastern Andhra
Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and most of north-eastern India,
it’s a sea of red and orange with peripheral white and 10 islands of
varying shades of green—one being Kolkata.
The white bank of “average” spreads south into peninsular India, with
some orange penetrations of “worse than average” in Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu.
The “east of Kanpur” districts are dropping off the development map,
Goswami concluded. “Getting the benefits of growth to these districts
is the greatest challenge of development and political economy.”
If political leaders and policymakers were to open similar statistical
tables of socio-economic growth and demographic spreads of the
marginalized and the dispossessed, and look at maps of attacks and
penetration by the disaffected in general and Maoists in particular,
they would see the current and future course of what they label
“menace” and “infestation”. They would see how they are privileging
violence, by denying development until violence forces the hand.
There are several studies that prove it. A particularly striking one
is by a senior police officer, Durga Madhab (John) Mitra, who
published a paper in 2007 called Understanding Indian Insurgencies:
Implications for Counter-insurgency operations in the Third World,
during a sabbatical at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War
College.
The Planning Commission received an excellent report last year from an
expert group it commissioned, comprising political economy, security,
and legal specialists, some of them former senior police and
intelligence officers.
Titled Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas, the
report’s frank expression pleasantly stunned even cynical human rights
activists long used to government’s blinkers.
Mitra received polite attention at the ministry of home affairs. The
Planning Commission report is filed away—as such things often are. I
hope to draw attention to key outlines and recommendation in these and
other documents in future columns.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He writes a
column alternate Thursdays on conflicts that directly affect
business.
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: Thu, Aug 27 2009. 1:02 AM IST
Columns
Andhra grapples with Maoists, new acronymsThe state already has at
hand several Union government-controlled paramilitaries, in their
acronyms CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force), IRB (India Reserve
Battalion), and the newly formed and giddily named CoBRA (Combat
Battalion for Resolute Action), aimed at Left-wing rebellionRoot Cause
| Sudeep Chakravarti
Beyond the urban bling of Hyderabad lies territory that is giving Y.S.
Rajasekhara Reddy headaches. At a New Delhi conference of chief
ministers to discuss internal security, convened by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh in mid-August, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh
said he wanted three districts by the state’s border with Orissa to be
formally declared Maoist-affected.
Despite several years of anti-rebel operations—a mix of specially
trained forces, better weapons, infiltration, better equipped police
posts, utter disregard for human rights niceties, and rehabilitation
packages for Maoists—the fire burns.
While Maoists have retreated in the north, central and southern parts
of the state, the forested, hilly and coastal east tells a different
story. Reddy’s key concern is that several power, irrigation and
mining projects planned for the east would be in jeopardy. “Maoists
find such activities as ideal pastures,” he said.
Maoists do, as these activities typically involve displacement of
populations, and the imperfect exercises breed great resentment—rebel
tinder. Alongside, Maoists have taken common cause against Special
Economic Zones and the effects of globalization, not just in Andhra
Pradesh but across the country.
The rebels have bureaus in most states tasked with recruitment,
agitation and raising the level of cadre strength and “awareness”.
This is to seed rebellion in several ways, a prelude to “protracted
war” to gain political power.
This is a lateral expansion of thought and activity to keep up with
the times, as it were, extending the Maoists’ traditional turf of
fighting for agrarian, tribal and caste issues.
This is the continuation of a process from as far back as 2004, when a
definitive Maoist document, Urban Perspective: Our Work in Urban
Areas, recommended that “The centres of key industries should be given
importance as they have the potential of playing an important role in
the People’s War”—what Maoists call their armed movement.
In 2007, Muppala Laxman Rao, the chief of the Communist Party of India
(Maoist), stressed another thought from the document. “We have to
adopt diverse tactics for mobilizing the urban masses into the
revolution,” said Rao, better known by his nom de guerre Ganapathy,
“take up their political-economic-social-cultural issues …”
Reddy is described by Maoists, relatively gently, as “mercenary”. His
predecessor, N. Chandrababu Naidu of Telugu Desam Party, even five
years after losing the chief ministership, is mentioned in Maoist
journals as “the known and despicable American stooge”. This is in
great part for Naidu’s unabashed worship of Bill Gates, and PowerPoint
frenzy to tout “Cyberabad” at both local and global investment
seminars even as large swathes of the state lay in tatters; and
farmers killed themselves by the thousands, driven by debt and
desperation.
Congress’ Reddy learnt from Naidu’s mistakes and opted for more
inclusive policies. Among other things, he launched the Indiramma
(Mother Indira) project with fanfare in early 2006. A double entendre
of pleasing masters and political economy—the acronym expands to
Integrated Novel Development in Rural Areas and Model Municipal Areas—
it sought to cover every village panchayat in three years and provide
what the state has not in decades. Primary education to all; health
facilities where there are none; clean water; pucca houses with
latrines; electricity connections to all households; roads; and so on.
The halting success of the project, in bits reborn as the Andhra
Pradesh Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, contributed to Reddy’s re-
election earlier this year. However, his recent remarks are revealing.
Andhra Pradesh has battled post-Naxalbari rebels for three decades. It
raised a now-hardened special force, the Greyhounds, to combat rebels.
But the stick-and-carrot policy of the state has proved patchy.
Policing and brutal suppression of Maoists has not effectively been
replaced in these areas by development works and delivery of dignity
to the poor and marginal. And so, these places continue to be deeply
vulnerable to Maoist activity. Reddy is understandably nervous about
developments in eastern Andhra Pradesh, both for their immediacy and
potential to reignite churn elsewhere.
To battle Maoists and other forces such as radical Islamism, Reddy at
the New Delhi conference said Andhra Pradesh has established a new
force: OCTOPUS. It stands for Organisation for Counter Terrorism and
Operations.
The state already has at hand several Union government-controlled
paramilitaries, in their acronyms CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force),
IRB (India Reserve Battalion), and the newly formed and giddily named
CoBRA (Combat Battalion for Resolute Action), aimed at Left-wing
rebellion.
As Reddy must realize, acronyms with aggressive intent can only go
part of the way.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He will
write a fortnightly column on conflicts that directly affect business.
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Posted: Wed, Sep 9 2009. 10:39 PM IST
Columns
It is time lessons were learnt in West Bengal
The government of West Bengal has diligently courted grief
Root Cause | Sudeep Chakravarti
All it takes to go from chutzpah to chaos is a blind corner. Few in
recent times would know this better than the policymakers of West
Bengal—and their enforcers.
The Singur episode with Tata Motors Ltd is now a modern classic of how
not to work with government intervention. Another contemporary classic
is from Nandigram, several hours’ drive south of Singur. Here the
state government and Indonesia’s Salim Group were prevented by public
protests in 2007 from going ahead with a massive special economic zone
(SEZ), a venture of New Kolkata International Development Pvt. Ltd (a
joint venture of Salim Group, Unitech Ltd and a company owned by a
Salim associate) and West Bengal Industrial Development Corp.
Both projects faced intense public agitation over the practice of some
bureaucrats, police, and leaders and cadre of the ruling Communist
Party of India (Marxist), or CPM, strong-arming farmers to part with
land—both cultivable and not—to the state, and for such acquisitions
to be passed on to proposed businesses.
Also Read Sudeep Chakravarti’s earlier columns
Earlier this week, West Bengal’s department of information technology
(IT) yanked a couple of project sites at Rajarhat on the outskirts of
Kolkata it had offered Infosys Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd. The
firms were expected to take up residence in a proposed IT park. A
scandal from the preceding fortnight, violence involving local land
sharks and political mafia that had helped purchase land for a resort
in the area—and were allegedly involved in procuring land for the IT
park—gave the government cold feet. “The government does not want to
be involved in any illegal activity,” a press release from the
department announced. “… (We) cannot proceed with the project.”
Infosys and Wipro should rest easy. Increasingly, businesses with
global footprint, ambition and stock listings that ride investment on
direct government intervention or inadvertent intervention in areas of
any conflict—a war, civil war, or violence rooted in corruption and
political mismanagement—could find themselves in court at home and
elsewhere.
A slim document titled Red Flags: Liability Risks for Companies
Operating in High-risk Zones, published in 2008 by International Alert
(www.international-alert.org) and Fafo Institute (www.fafo.no) lists
several grounds for litigation, including some that are commonplace in
India. Under international law, expelling people from their
communities by “the threat or use of violence to force people out of
their communities can be a crime”, Red Flags maintains. “A company may
face liability if it has gained access to the site on which it
operates, where it builds infrastructure, or where it explores for
natural resources, through forced displacement.”
Other points of liability include “engaging abusive security
forces” (directly or through the proxy of state police or
paramilitary) to effect and perpetuate a project; and “allowing use of
company assets for abuses”, such as overlooking mistreatment of people
by security forces and providing company facilities for such activity
to take place.
The government of West Bengal has diligently courted grief. Since it
assumed power in 1977, the CPM, more than its coalition partners, has
skilfully built a ground-up network, a broederbond of cadre and
leaders that thrives on a mix of intimidation, corruption and
administration. They gradually came to control the politics, political
economy and business, and dealt harshly with the opposition. This
cracked spectacularly in Singur and Nandigram, where Maoist rebels and
the Trinamool Congress got the flak—or credit—for engineering foment
which should have been placed at the doorstep of the state’s Marxist
leadership and its system of patronage.
In the Lalgarh region, which I visited past June during the
confrontation between security forces and a team of tribals and Maoist
rebels, it was easy to track “anti-establishment” targets. Almost
without exception, the largest and best homes, and businesses and
farmland belonged to, or were controlled by, the local leadership of
the CPM. Rebels and aggrieved residents killed many, and chased away
more.
JSW Steel Ltd is setting up a plant in neighbouring Salboni. Chief
minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee narrowly escaped an assassination
attempt by Maoists in November, when he was returning to Kolkata after
attending the foundation ceremony at the site of the plant. Two
ministers from New Delhi were with him.
There is nothing to indicate that this region has become less restive
after intervention by security forces, and businesses that choose to
work in this area do so at their own risk—all risk. Surely it is time
lessons were learnt in West Bengal and elsewhere in India.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He writes a
fortnightly column on conflicts that directly affect business.
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Posted: Wed, Jan 13 2010. 10:20 PM IST
Columns
Implosion in Nepal will subsume ‘red corridor’
Nepal had for long been at a dead-end politically and economically and
this in great part assist the Maoists in the country
Root Cause | Sudeep Chakravarti
A precept of the Pashupati to Tirupati theory of sub-continental
Maoism was the seamless meshing of Nepal’s rebellion with that of
India’s. While there certainly were fraternal links—providing
sanctuary; attending key meetings; occasional training of cadre; and
such—Nepal’s war was its own.
With renewed militancy of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist), or UPCN (Maoist), which has brought government near to
standstill, and disrupted economic activity in this already
impoverished country, there is again speculation of Maoist meshing.
Those who indulge in it fail to acknowledge Nepal’s dynamics; and the
fact that developments in Nepal can have far-reaching implications for
India beyond the obvious laboratory lessons of Left wing extremism and
its immediate aftermath.
Nepal had for long been at a dead-end politically and economically,
which in great part assisted Maoists there to achieve their initial
goal in 12 years—from the first attack on a police camp in 1996 to
helping to overthrow a seedy monarchy and to run a democratically
elected government for several months, until May. As premier, the
sharply dressed Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who encourages the
nom de guerre of Prachanda (fierce) even led a business delegation to
India.
Also Read Sudeep Chakravarti’s earlier columns
India’s Maoists are lower in the revolutionary arc, as it were. They
are the first to acknowledge that their task of national domination is
made difficult on account of India’s socio-economic growth, increasing
opportunities for that growth and expanding power of government, armed
forces and police.
The danger in Nepal today is one of socio-economic implosion as much
as its corollary: a resumption of hostilities between hardline
Maoists, and a coalition government undermined by charges of nepotism
and corruption. The government, controlled by moderate Marxists and
the Nepali Congress, is at loggerheads with Dahal’s party over several
issues.
Arguably the most contentious of these is the integration of Maoist
combatants—now located in seven major peace camps across Nepal—into
the mainstream. Proposals call for integrating them with former
enemies: Nepal army and police. The Maoists’ public spat with the then
army chief over this enabled in great part for Dahal’s former allies
in the constituent assembly, the Marxists, to pull the plug on his
government last year.
Among other things, subsequent turmoil has slowed progress towards
Nepal’s Holy Grail, the promulgation of a new constitution by this
May. The constitution is crucial for the process of peace and
reconciliation, further guarantee that decade-long hostilities, which
took an estimated 14,000 lives and ended in 2006, do not resume.
Maoists make no secret of an ambition to resume power—a legitimate
objective of a party. Dahal and his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, have
told me, as they have several media persons, of their goal. Maoists
are clear that they will employ any approach short of outright war,
thus far, to achieve it. Dahal is fond of using the word bisfot, or
explosion.
And though their supporters and critics alike are agreed that there
can be no lasting peace in Nepal without Maoist participation, the
Maoist cause has been diminished, for instance, by their employing the
often-thuggish Young Communist League (YCL). A growing paramilitary,
YCL is used to enforce trade unionism—most hospitality industry unions
in Kathmandu are Maoist-controlled—intimidate opponents, and provide
numbers at Maoist rallies.
To increase all-round pressure, Maoists are reaching out to groups
that shored up the rebellion—and voted for them in the 2008 elections.
UCPN (Maoist) declared its “fourth phase of struggle” last week. Mass
gatherings are to be held between 19 January and 24 January, addressed
by the crème of Maoist leadership in regions that represent ethnic
minorities such as Limbu, Kirant, Sherpa, Tharu, Bhote-Lama, and
Madhesi—long-disenfranchised people of Indian origin concentrated in
Nepal’s southern Terai belt—and caste minorities, which together make
up about 70% of Nepal’s population.
There is talk of autonomous regions based on this mix. Should it come
to pass, it would dilute the influence of the hill Bahun, or Brahmin,
community and upper caste Hindu leadership long-dominant in politics,
the bureaucracy and army.
The exercise for India and other countries will now be to gauge the
tipping point for robust democracy—or an irredeemable one. The latter
outcome will contribute to conditions of an implosion of Nepal. Large-
scale migration of destitute into India; a 1,700km-long unstable
border with worrying security implications; and weakened economic
interaction with Nepal—India accounts for 70% of its trade—will
subsume any concern of a Red Corridor.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues related to conflict in South Asia.
He is the author of Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country. He writes a
column alternate Thursdays on conflicts that directly affect business.
Respond to this column at ***@livemint.com
http://www.livemint.com/articles/2010/01/13222008/Implosion-in-Nepal-will-subsum.html
Why I Am Not a Hindu
Ramendra Nath
Originally published by Bihar Rationalist Society (Bihar Buddhiwadi
Samaj) 1993.
Electronically reprinted with permission.
I have read and admired Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian.
On the other hand, I have also read and disagreed with M.K.Gandhi's
Why I Am a Hindu. My acquaintance with these writings has inspired me
to write this essay explaining why I am not a Hindu, though I was born
in a Hindu family.
The Meaning of "Hindu"
The word "Hindu" is a much-abused word in the sense that it has been
used to mean different things at different times. For example, some
people even now, at least some times, use the word "Hindu" as a
synonym for "Indian". In this sense of the term, I am certainly a
"Hindu" because I do not deny being an Indian. However, I do not think
that this a proper use of the term "Hindu". There are many Indians
such as Muslims, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians as well as
rationalists, humanists and atheists who do not call themselves
"Hindu" and also do not like to be described as such. It is certainly
not fair to convert them into Hinduism by giving an elastic definition
of the term "Hindu". Besides, it is also not advisable to use the word
"Hindu" in this sense from the point of view of clarity. The word
"Hindu" may have been used in the beginning as a synonym for
"Indian" [1], but, at present, the word is used for people with
certain definite religious beliefs. The word "Hindu" belongs to the
category of words like "Muslim", "Christian", "Buddhist" and "Jain"
and not to the category of words like "American", "British",
"Australian", "Chinese" or "Japanese". There are, in fact, many
Indians who are not Hindus, and on the other hand, there are many
Hindus who are not Indians , for example, those who are citizens of
Nepal, Sri Lanka and some other countries.
In the religious sense, the word, "Hindu" is often used broadly to
include Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in addition to those who are
described as "Hindu" in this most restricted sense of the term, that
is, the adherents of Vedic or Brahmin religion. For example, the
expression "Hindu" is used in the Hindu law not only for those who are
Hindu by religion but also for persons who are Buddhists, Jains and
Sikhs by religion. This, again, is too broad a definition of "Hindu".
If we consistently use the word "Hindu" in this sense, we will have to
say that Japan is a Hindu country!
The above definition of "Hindu" is clearly inadequate from a
philosophical point of view. Buddhism and Jainism, for instance,
explicitly reject the doctrine of the infallibility of the Vedas and
the system of varna-vyavastha, which are fundamental to Hinduism, that
is, if the term "Hinduism" is used in its most restricted sense.
Therefore, clubbing together Buddhists and Jains or even Sikhs with
those who believe in the infallibility of the Vedas and subscribe to
the varna-vyavastha is nothing but an invitation to confusion.
Though I agree with Buddhism in its rejection of god, soul,
infallibility of the Vedas and the varna-vyavastha, still I am not a
Hindu even in this broad sense of the term "Hindu", because as a
rationalist and humanist I reject all religions including Buddhism,
Jainism and Sikhism. However, in this essay I am concerned with
explaining why I am not a Hindu in the most appropriate sense of the
term "Hindu", that is, the sense in which a person is a Hindu if his
religion is Hinduism in the restricted sense of the term " Hinduism".
In this restricted sense of "Hinduism", Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism
are excluded from its scope. I also maintain that this is, at present,
probably the most popular sense of the term, and every body should, in
the interest of clarity, confine its use, as far as possible, to this
sense only, at least in philosophical discourse.
Radhakrishnan, for example, has used the term "Hindu" and "Hinduism"
in this restricted sense when he says in his The Hindu View of Life
that, "The chief sacred scriptures of Hindus, the Vedas register the
intuitions of the perfected souls." [2] Or, when he says that
"Hinduism is the religion not only of the Vedas but of the Epics and
the Puranas." [3]
Basic Beliefs of Hinduism
Gandhi, too, has used the term "Hindu" in this restricted sense, when
writing in Young India in October, 1921, he says:
I call myself a sanatani Hindu, because,
I believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and all that goes
by the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in avatars and
rebirth.
I believe in the Varnashram dharma in a sense in my opinion strictly
Vedic, but not in its present popular and crude sense.
I believe in the protection of the cow in its much larger sense than
the popular.
I do not disbelieve in idol-worship. [4]
One may be tempted to ask, at this point, whether all the beliefs
listed by Gandhi are really fundamental to Hinduism. In my opinion,
(I) the belief in the authenticity of the Vedas and (II) the belief in
the varnashram dharma are more basic to Hinduism than the belief in
cow-protection and idol-worship. [5] Though it cannot be denied that,
in spite of attempts by reformers like Kabir, Rammohan Roy and
Dayanand Saraswati, idol-worship is still practiced widely by the
Hindu masses, and there is, at present, a taboo on eating beef among a
large number of Hindus. In any case, I am in a position to establish
the fact of my not being a Hindu by asserting the contradictory of
each of the above statements made by Gandhi:
In other words, I assert that I am not a Hindu, because,
I do not believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and all
that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in avatars
and rebirth.
I do not believe in the varnashram dharma or varna-vyavastha either in
the sense in which it is explained in Hindu dharma shastras like
Manusmriti or in the so-called Vedic sense.
I do not believe in the Hindu taboo of not eating beef.
I disbelieve in idol-worship.
However, while explaining why I am not a Hindu, I will concentrate
mainly on (I) the belief in the authenticity of the Vedas, and (II)
the varnashram dharma , which I consider more fundamental to Hinduism.
Besides, in the concluding section of the essay, I will briefly
discuss moksha, which is regarded as the highest end of life in
Hinduism, and some other Hindu doctrines like karmavada and
avatarvada.
The infallibility of the Vedas
First of all, let me explain what do I mean by saying that "I do not
believe in the Vedas", and why I do not do so.
The schools of ancient Indian thought are generally classified by
orthodox Hindu thinkers into two broad categories, namely, orthodox
( astika) and heterodox ( nastika). The six main Hindu systems of
thought -- Mimamsa, Vedanta, Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya and Vaisheshika --
are regarded as orthodox ( astika), not because they believe in the
existence of god, but because they accept the authority of the Vedas.
[6]
Out of the six orthodox systems of Hindu thought, Nyaya system is
primarily concerned with the conditions of correct thinking and the
means of acquiring true knowledge. According to Nyaya system, there
are four distinct and separate sources of knowledge, namely, (i)
perception (ii) inference (iii) comparison, and (iv) testimony or
shabda.
Shabda, which is defined in the Nyaya system as "valid verbal
testimony" is further classified into (i) the scriptural ( vaidika),
and (ii) the secular ( laukika). Vaidika or scriptural testimony is
believed to be the word of god, and therefore, it is regarded as
perfect and infallible .[7]
Mimamsa or Purva Mimamsa, another orthodox Hindu system is "the
outcome of the ritualistic side of the vedic culture". However, in its
attempt to justify the authority of the Vedas, Mimamsa elaborately
discusses different sources of valid knowledge. Naturally enough,
among the various "sources of valid knowledge", Mimamsa pays greatest
attention to testimony or authority, which, too, is regarded by it as
a valid source of knowledge. There are, according to Mimamsa, two
kinds of authority -- personal ( paurusheya) and impersonal
( apaurusheya). The authority of the Vedas is regarded by Mimamsa as
impersonal. [8]
As mentioned earlier, according to Nyaya, the authority of the Vedas
is derived from their being the words of god. But Mimamsa, which does
not believe in the existence of god, declares that the Vedas like the
world, are eternal. They are not the work of any person, human or
divine. The infallibility of the authority of the Vedas, according to
Mimamsa, rests on the "fact" that they are not vitiated by any defect
to which the work of imperfect persons is liable. [9]
Thus, orthodox Hindu schools like Nyaya and Mimamsa regard the
testimony of the Vedas as infallible, though they give different
reasons for doing so. Well-known orthodox Hindu theologians like
Shankar and Ramanuja believed in the authority of the Vedas.
Manusmriti, too, upholds the infallibility of the Vedas. As pointed
out by S.N.Dasgupta, "The validity and authority of the Vedas were
acknowledged by all Hindu writers and they had wordy battles over it
with the Buddhists who denied it." [10]
The point worth noting is that though popularly Hinduism is a theistic
religion, it is not essential to believe in the existence of god for
being an orthodox Hindu -- belief in the authority of the Vedas is
more important.
When I say, "I do not believe in the Vedas", what I mean is that I do
not regard the testimony of the Vedas as a valid source of knowledge.
In other words when I say, "I do not believe in the Vedas", I do not
mean that each and every proposition contained in the Vedas is false.
It is quite possible that one may find a few true statements in the
Vedas after great amount of patient research. But I assert that the
truth or the falsity of a proposition is logically independent of its
being contained or not contained in the Vedas. A proposition is true
if there is a correspondence between the belief expressed by it and
the facts. Otherwise, it is false. So, a proposition contained in the
Vedas might be true, that is, if there is a correspondence between the
belief expressed by it and the facts, but it is, I insist, not true
because it is contained in the Vedas. I categorically reject as
invalid every argument of the form: "The proposition P is contained in
the Vedas. Therefore, the proposition P is true".
Besides, I also assert that some propositions contained in the Vedas
are certainly false. For example, according to Purusha-Sukta of Rig
Veda , Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras originated
respectively from the mouth, hands, thighs and feet of the purusha or
the creator. I categorically reject this statement as false. I
maintain that varna-vyavastha is a man-made social institution and it
has nothing to do with the alleged creator of this world.
I also reject both the reasons put forward in support of the
infallibility of the Vedas. I neither regard them to be "the words of
god" nor I consider them to be eternal and impersonal. I believe that
Vedas were conceived, spoken and written by human beings. The question
of their being "words of god" simply does not arise, because there are
no good reasons for believing in the existence of god. The existence
of an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent god is totally
inconsistent with the presence of suffering and evil in this world. It
is impossible for god to exist. [11]
Similarly, Vedas could not have come into existence before human
beings appeared on this earth, and before Sanskrit language came into
existence. And there are no good reasons for believing that Sanskrit
language came into existence even before human beings appeared on this
earth!
As far as Gandhi is concerned, though he liked to describe himself as
a sanatani Hindu, he was, in fact, not a completely orthodox Hindu.
For example, in the article quoted earlier in this essay Gandhi goes
on to add, "I do not believe in the exclusive divinity of the Vedas. I
believe the Bible, the Koran, and the Zend-Avesta to be as much
divinely inspired as the Vedas. My belief in the Hindu scriptures does
not require me to accept every word and every verse as divinely
inspired, I decline to be bound by any interpretation, however learned
in may be, if it is repugnant to reason or moral sense. "[12](emphasis
mine)
I seriously doubt that this position will be acceptable to an orthodox
Hindu. In fact, Gandhi's position comes very close to that of
rationalists and humanists when he says that "I decline to be bound by
any interpretation however learned it may be, if it is repugnant to
reason and moral sense". However, since he refused to say in so many
words that he did not believe in the authority of the Vedas, Gandhi
may be described, in my opinion, as a liberal Hindu with an eclectic
approach towards religion. On the other hand, my position is radically
different from that of Gandhi, because I do not consider either the
Vedas or the Bible, the Koran and Zend-Avesta or any other book to be
divinely inspired.
Varna-vyavastha
Before discussing varna-vyavastha or varnashram dharma, let me clarify
in the very beginning that I am not interested in giving my own
interpretation of what varna-vyavastha is or ought to be in its ideal
form. I am interested, firstly, in giving an objective exposition of
varna-vyavastha as contained in recognized Hindu scriptures like Vedas
and dharmashastras like Manusmriti; and secondly, in mentioning my
reasons for rejecting varna-vyavastha. In doing so I will concentrate
on the chaturvarnya (four-fold division of society) aspect of varna-
vyavastha.
We have already noted that the first reference to varna (class based
on birth or caste) is to be found in the Purusha-Sukta of the Rig
Veda . The reference to the four ashrams or stages of life, namely,
Brahmcharya, Garhastya, Vanprashta and Sanyas is to be found in the
Upanishads. These are, in their turn, related to the four purusarthas
or ends of life, namely, dharma (duty), artha (wealth), kama
(satisfaction of sensual desires) and moksha (liberation). Out of
these, the Upanishads attach maximum value to sanyas ashram and moksha
purusartha, which is regarded as the highest end of life. [13]
The system of varnashram dharma is upheld by popular Hindu scriptures
like Ramayana, Mahabharata and Bhagvat-Gita. In Ramayana, for example,
Ram kills Shambuka simply because he was performing tapasya (ascetic
exercises) which he was not supposed to do as he was a Shudra by
birth. [14]
Similarly, in Mahabharata, Dronacharya refuses to teach archery to
Eklavya, because he was not a Kshatriya by birth. When Eklavya,
treating Drona as his notional guru, learns archery on his own, Drona
makes him cut his right thumb as gurudakshina (gift for the teacher)
so that he may not become a better archer than his favorite Kshatriya
student Arjuna!
The much-glorified Bhagvat-Gita, too, favors varna-vyavastha.[15] When
Arjuna refuses to fight, one of his main worries was that the war
would lead to the birth of varna-sankaras or offspring from
intermixing of different varnas and the consequent "downfall" of the
family. [16] On the other hand, Krishna tries to motivate Arjuna to
fight by saying that it was his varna-dharma (caste-duty) to do so
because he was a Kshatriya. In fact, Krishna goes to the extent of
claiming that the four varnas were created by him only. [17] Thus,
Arjuna's main problem was being born a Kshatriya. Had he been a
Brahmin or a Vaishya or a Shudra by birth, he would have been spared
the trouble of fighting a destructive war. Even the much-applauded
doctrine of niskama karma is nothing but an exhortation to faithfully
perform one's varnashram dharma in a disinterested manner. [18]
The celebrated orthodox Hindu theologian Shankar, too, was a supporter
of varna-vyavastha. According to him, Shudras are not entitled to
philosophical knowledge. [19] However, the most elaborate exposition
of varnashram dharma is to be found in Manusmriti, an important
dharmashastra of Hindus. Let us turn to it in order to have a close
look at the varna-vyavastha.
Manusmriti
In the very first chapter of Manusmriti, it is clearly stated that
Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras were created by Brahma
(creator of this world) from his mouth, hands, thighs and feet
respectively. [20]
Manu claims that the same Brahma, who created this world, also created
Manusmriti and taught it to him. [21]
The duties of the different varnas are also mentioned in the
Manusmriti. The Brahmins were created for teaching, studying,
performing yajnas (ceremonial sacrifices), getting yajnas performed,
giving and accepting dan (gifts).[22] The Kshatriyas were created for
protecting the citizens, giving gifts, getting yajnas performed and
studying. [23] The Vaishyas were created for protecting animals,
giving gifts, getting yajnas performed, studying, trading, lending
money on interest and doing agricultural work. [24] The Shudras were
created by Brahma for serving Brahmins and the other two varnas
without being critical of them. [25]
It is interesting to note that studying, getting yajnas performed and
giving gifts or charity are common duties of Brahmins, Kshatriyas and
Vaishyas; whereas teaching, accepting gifts and performing yajnas are
reserved exclusively for Brahmins. The Shudras, of course, are denied
the rights to study, getting yajnas performed by Brahmins or even
giving gifts to them.
Manusmriti further states that having originated from the mouth of
Brahma, being elder and being the repository of the Vedas; Brahmins
are the masters of the entire universe. [26] Besides, Brahmins alone
act as a sort of post office for transmitting food to the gods and the
dead, that is to say, the gods and the dead eat food through the
mouths of Brahmins (apparently because they do not have mouths of
their own). Therefore, no one can be superior to Brahmins.[27] All
others are said to enjoy everything owing to the Brahmins' mercy.[28]
The Manusmriti clearly states that Brahmins alone are entitled to
teach this dharmashastra and none else. [29]
Manusmriti refers to the Vedas, which are to be regarded as the main
valid source of knowledge about dharma, as shruti and to
dharmashastras as smriti. No one is to argue critically about them
because religion has originated from them. [30] Any nastika (non-
believer) or critic of the Vedas, who "insults" them on the basis of
logic, is worthy of being socially boycotted by "noble" persons. [31]
In short, the main features of chaturvarnya as elaborated in the
Manusmriti are as follows:
1. Division of Hindu society into four varnas on the basis of birth.
Out of these only the first three, namely , Brahmins , Kshatriya and
Vaishya, who are collectively known as dwija (twice-born) are entitled
to upanayan and the study of the Vedas. Shudras as well as women of
dwija varnas are denied the right to study.
2. Assigning different duties and occupations for different varnas.
This is to be enforced strictly by the king. [32] According to
Manusmriti, if a person of lower caste adopts the occupation of a
higher caste, the king ought to deprive him of all his property and
expel him from his kingdom. [33]
3. Treating Brahmins as superior and other varnas, namely, Kshatriya,
Vaishya and Shudra as inferior to him in descending order with the
Shudra occupying the bottom of the hierarchy. A Brahmin is to be
treated as god and respected even if he is ignorant. Even a hundred-
year old Kshatriya is to treat a ten year old Brahmin as his father.
[34] Brahmin alone is entitled to teach. If a Shudra dares to give
moral lessons to a Brahmin, the king is to get him punished by pouring
hot oil in his ear and mouth. [35] Similarly, if a Shudra occupies the
same seat as a Brahmin, he is to be punished by branding his waist
(with hot rod) or getting his buttocks cut! [36]
4. Treating women as unequal. Women, that is, even women belonging to
Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya varna are not entitled to upanayan and
the study of the Vedas. For them, marriage is equivalent to upanayan
and service of their husbands is equivalent to the study of the Vedas
in the gurukul.[37] Even if the husband is morally degraded, engaged
in an affair with another woman and is devoid of knowledge and other
qualities, the wife must treat him like a god. [38] A widower is
allowed to remarry but a widow is not. [39] Besides, women are not
considered fit for being free and independent. They are to be
protected in their childhood by father, in youth by husband and in old
age by son. [40] They should never be allowed by their guardians to
act independently. [41] A woman must never do anything even inside her
home without the consent of her father, husband and son respectively.
[42] She must remain in control of her father in childhood, of husband
in youth and of son after the death of her husband. [43]
5. Treating different varnas as unequal for legal purposes. The Hindu
law as codified by Manu is based on the principle of inequality. The
punishment for a particular crime is not same for all varnas. In fact,
the punishment varies depending on the varna of the victim as well as
the varna of the person committing the crime. For the same crime, the
Brahmin is to be given a mild punishment, whereas the Shudra is to
given the harshest punishment of all. Similarly, if the victim of a
crime is a Shudra, the punishment is mild, and the punishment is harsh
in case the victim is a Brahmin. For example, if a Brahmin is awarded
death sentence, it is sufficient to shave his head, but Kshatriya,
Vaishya and Shudra are to actually die. [44] If a Kshatriya, a
Vaishya, or a Shudra repeatedly gives false evidence in the court, he
is to be punished and expelled from the kingdom, whereas the Brahmin
is not to be punished, he is to be only expelled. [45] If a person has
sexual intercourse with a consenting women of his own varna, he is not
to be punished. [46] But if a person of lower varna has sexual
intercourse with a woman of higher varna, with or without her consent,
he is to be killed. [47] If a Brahmin forces a dwija to work for him,
he is to be punished. [48] But if a Brahmin forces a Shudra to work
for him, whether by making or not making payments to him, he is not to
be punished, because Shudras have been created only for serving
Brahmins.[49] If a Brahmin abuses a Shudra, he is to be fined mildly,
[50] but if a Shudra abuses a Brahmin, he is to be killed. [51] On the
other hand, even if a Brahmin kills a Shudra, he is merely to perform
penance by killing a cat, frog, owl or crow, etc. [52] Thus a Shudra
is to be killed for abusing a Brahmin, whereas a Brahmin is to be let
off lightly even if he kills a Shudra. Such is the unequal justice of
Manusmriti.
In fact, this system of graded inequality seems to be the very essence
of the varna-vyavastha. Whether it is the choice of names, [53] or the
manner of greeting, [54] or the mode of entertaining guests, [55] or
the method of administering oath in the court, [56] or the process of
taking out the funeral procession, [57] at each and every step in
life, from birth to death, this system of graded inequality is to be
applied and observed. Manu does not even spare the rates of interest
on loan. For borrowing the same amount, Kshatriya has to pay more as
interest than Brahmin, Vaishya more than Kshatriya and the poor Shudra
has to pay the maximum amount as interest! [58]
6. Prohibiting inter-marriage between different varnas. According to
Manusmriti, a dwija ought to marry a woman of his own varna.[59] A
woman of the same varna is considered best for the first marriage.
However, a dwija may take a woman of inferior varna as his second wife
if he is overcome by sexual passion. [60] But Manu strongly
disapproves of Brahmins and Kshatriyas taking a Shudra woman even as
their second wife. They become Shudra if they do so. [61]
7. Supporting untouchability is also a part of the scheme of social
stratification outlined in the Manusmriti. Manu clearly mentions that
Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya, collectively known as dwija and the
Shudras are the four varnas. There is no fifth varna.[62] He explains
the origin of other castes by saying that they are varna-sankara
castes, that is to say, castes originating due to the intermixture of
different varnas, both in anuloma (upper varna male and lower varna
female) and pratiloma (lower varna male and upper varna female)
manner. [63] For example, Nishad caste is said to have originated from
anuloma relationship between Brahmin male and Shudra female,[64]
whereas C handala caste is said to be owing its origin to pratiloma
relationship between Shudra male and Brahmin female. [65]
Manu seems to be disapproving of pratiloma relationship more than the
anuloma, because he describes C handalas as the lowest of the low
castes. [66]
Let us see what Manusmriti, has to say about the C handala. The
Chandala, says Manusmriti, must not ever reside inside the village.
While doing their work, they must reside outside the village, at
cremation ground, on mountains or in groves. They are not entitled to
keep cows or horses, etc., as pet animals. They may keep dogs and
donkeys. They are to wear shrouds. They are to eat in broken utensils.
They are to use ornaments of iron, not of gold. They must keep moving
from one place to another, not residing at the same place for a long
duration. [67] They must not move around in villages and cities in
night hours. They may enter the villages and cities in daytime, with
king's permission, wearing special symbols (to enable identification),
and take away unclaimed dead bodies. [68]
Moreover, how is the "religious" person to deal with the Chandala? He
must not have any social intercourse (marriage, interdining, etc.)
with them. He must not talk to or even see them! [69] He may ask
servants (apparently Shudras) to give them food in broken utensils.
[70]
8. Granting divine and religious sanction to varna-vyavastha. Manu
gives divine and religious sanction to the varna-vyavastha by claiming
divine origin for the varnas as well as for the Manusmriti and
demanding unquestioning obedience of it.
So, that completes my exposition of the varna-vyavastha. I want to
emphasize in particular that my exposition does not contain any
exaggeration at all. The reader may check each and every statement by
comparing with the original Manusmriti in order to satisfy himself or
herself. I cannot help if the system is so unjust and so out of tune
with out existing values that even an objective exposition reads like
a severe condemnation. Nevertheless, I will now turn to my reasons for
rejecting varna-vyavastha: I reject varna-vyavastha because it is
irrational, unjust and undemocratic, being opposed to the democratic
and human values of liberty, equality and fraternity.
Criticism of varna-vyavastha
The varna-vyavastha is opposed to the value of liberty as it denies
the freedom to choose one's occupation and marriage partner to one and
all. Everyone must join the occupation of his varna and must marry
within his varna. Similarly, it denies the freedom to study to the
Shudras and woman in particular. Even the dwija must study the Vedas
before he studies anything else. Otherwise, he becomes a Shudra.[71]
(Incidentally, according to Manusmriti, there are several ways by
which a Brahmin or dwija may become a Shudra but there is no way by
which a Shudra may become a Brahmin. A Shudra must always remain a
Shudra.)[72]
What is worse, the Chandala is even denied the freedom to reside at a
place of his choice or to wear clothes and ornaments of his choice. He
is not even free to keep pet animals of his choice.
The conflict between varna-vyavastha and the value of equality is more
than obvious. As I mentioned earlier, the system of graded inequality
seems to be the very essence of varna-vyavastha. It denies equal
respect to all in society. It denies equality before law. It denies
equal access to marriage partners. It denies equal access to jobs. The
occupation of teachers and priests, for example, is reserved
exclusively for Brahmins. Finally, it also denies equal access to
education and knowledge.
A Brahmin, according to Manu, must not teach the Shudra and woman even
if he dies with his knowledge without imparting it to anybody. [73] On
the other hand, if anyone studies the Vedas on his own he or she will
go straight to hell. [74] In other words, cent percent reservations
for dwija males in the sphere of education.
The varna-vyavastha is most unfair to the Shudras and the
untouchables. They are denied respect, knowledge, power and wealth.
They are denied access to occupations considered respectable, just as
they are denied access to men and women of upper varnas for marriage.
The Shudras are virtually reduced to being slaves of the Brahmins in
particular and the dwijas in general, whereas the untouchables are
regarded as outcast -- beyond the pale of the society. The women are
generally treated as sexual objects and as unfit for being independent
and free.
As far as fraternity is considered, we must not expect it to exist in
a society, which is so unequal and unjust. A Shudra's waist is to be
branded or his buttocks are to be cut only because he occupies the
same seat as the Brahmin. The "religious" are not to talk or even look
at a Chandala. Inter-marriage is prohibited. Manu seems to be most
eager to prevent inter-mixing of the varnas. Thus, the Hindu social
order is based on the isolation and exclusiveness of the varnas.
The Manusmriti not only outlines a totally undemocratic and unjust
social system but also gives divine, religious sanction to this man-
made social institution of chaturvarnya. Some Hindus, including
apparently learned "thinkers" and writers, smugly wax eloquent about
Hinduism being the most tolerant and liberal religion of the world.
Is there any other religion, which sanctions slavery and
untouchability? Is there any other religion in which only persons born
in a particular caste ( Brahmin) are entitled to become priests?
Slavery is not peculiar to India or to Hinduism, but carrying it to
the extremes of untouchability, and granting it divine and religious
sanction is peculiar to Hinduism.
Similarly, some Hindus may be tolerant, just as some of them are
intolerant, but Hinduism or Hindu religion is not tolerant at all,
either socially or intellectually. Manusmriti, for example, clearly
says that anybody who argues critically and logically about
dharmashastras ought to be ostracized. [75] Non-believers, including
freethinkers, rationalists and Buddhists, are not to be entertained
respectfully as guests; though, mercifully, they may be given food.
[76] The families of non-believers are destroyed sooner than later
according to Manu. [77] A state with a large number of Shudras and
nastikas soon meets its destruction. [78] Manusmriti is full of
abusive epithets for freethinkers and non-believers. The unorthodox
( nastikas) are sometimes equated with the Shudras, sometimes with the
Chandalas, sometimes with thieves and sometimes with lunatics! [79]
Such is the generosity of Hindu dharma.
Apologies for varna-vyavastha
Let me now consider what the apologists of varna-vyavastha have to say
in its defense.
A standard defense of varna-vyavastha is to say that it is a system of
division of labor. It is easy to grant that division of labor is
essential for any complex society, but it is equally easy to see that
varna-vyavastha is not a system of division of labor based on aptitude
and capability. It is a system of division of labor based on birth .
Besides, it has other associated features such as feeling of
superiority and inferiority, inequality before law, denial of equal
access to knowledge and prohibition against inter-marriage.
What have these features to do with the division of labor?
Division of labor is found in all societies, but varna-vyavastha is
not. Thus, trying to justify varna-vyavastha as division of labor is a
futile exercise.
Another standard defense of the varna-vyavastha is to say that the
system was originally based on aptitude and capability. Whether it was
actually ever so is a subject for historical research. Most probably,
the racial theory of the origin of castes is true. However, even if we
grant for the sake of argument that the varna-vyavastha was originally
based on aptitude and capability, how does it help? We cannot say that
because the system was originally, some time in remote past, based on
aptitude and capability; therefore we ought to gladly suffer the
present system based on birth. It hardly makes any sense at all!
In any case, Manusmriti was most probably written between200 BC and
200 AD [80] and the system as outlined in it is totally based on
birth. Gautam Buddha, who lived in sixth century BC, challenged the
infallibility of the Vedas as well as the varna-vyavastha. There are
several passages in Tripitaka, mainly in Digha Nikaya and Majhima
Nikaya which are "directed against the claims of the Brahmans to be of
different origin from the rest of humanity, born from the mouth of
Brahma, having a hereditary prerogative to teach, guide and
spiritually govern the rest of the society." [81] In Majhima Nikaya
Buddha is quoted as refuting varna-vyavastha on several occasions.
According to Buddha, it is unreasonable to decide one's place and
functions in society on the basis of one's birth in a caste. Buddha is
also quoted as insisting that in the eyes of the law all persons ought
to be treated as equal, irrespective of the caste or varna in which he
or she is born. [82] Thus, it is obvious that even if the system of
varna-vyavastha ever existed in its ideal form -- which is doubtful --
it had already degenerated by the time of Buddha, that is, about 2500
years back.
The most blatant defense of varna-vyavastha, however, is to say that
human beings are born unequal, and, therefore, it is natural and
normal for children to join the occupation of their fathers.
Surprisingly and sadly, no less a person than Gandhi defended varna-
vyavastha in a similar manner.
To quote Gandhi: "I believe that every man is born in the world with
certain natural tendencies. Every person is born with certain definite
limitations which he cannot overcome. From a careful observation of
those limitations the law of varna was deduced. It establishes certain
spheres of action for certain people with certain tendencies. This
avoided all unworthy competition. Whilst recognizing limitations, the
law of varna admitted of no distinction of high and low; on the one
hand it guaranteed to each the fruits of his labors and on the other
it prevented him from pressing upon his neighbor. This great law has
been degraded and fallen into disrepute. But my conviction is that an
ideal social order will only be evolved when the implications of this
law are fully understood and given effect to". [83]
Again, "I regard Varnashrama as a healthy division of work based on
birth. The present ideas of caste are a perversion of the original.
There is no question with me of superiority or inferiority. It is
purely a question of duty. I have indeed stated that varna is based on
birth. But I have also said that it is possible for a shudra, for
instance, to become a vaishya. But in order to perform the duty of
vaishya he does not need the label of a vaishya. He who performs the
duty of a brahman will easily become one in the next
incarnation." [84]
So, varna-vyavastha, according to Gandhi, is a "healthy division of
work based on birth", which takes into account the "natural
tendencies" of human beings and avoids "unworthy competition."
This apparently plausible defense of varna-vyavastha is, in fact, most
unscientific. It is a well-known and scientifically verified fact that
acquired characteristics are not inherited biologically, only genetic
qualities are transmitted from one generation to another. For
instance, carpentry is an acquired characteristic; just as knowledge
of philosophy is an acquired quality. Neither a carpenter's son or
daughter is born with the knowledge of carpentry, nor is a
philosopher's daughter or son born with the knowledge of philosophy.
These are acquired characteristics and, therefore, they cannot be
inherited biologically. If sometimes, though not always, a carpenter's
son becomes a good carpenter or a philosopher's daughter acquires a
good knowledge of philosophy, without being formally initiated into
these disciplines, it is not because they are born with the required
knowledge, but only because of the favorable environment at home,
which enables them to acquire these characteristics. The result could
be different if their places were to be interchanged.
One may say that though the knowledge of carpentry of philosophy in
not inherited biologically, the mental qualities enabling one to
acquire the requisite knowledge is inherited. Some physical and mental
qualities are, no doubt, inherited but this does not mean that parents
and their children are always identical in physical or mental
qualities. It is a well known fact -- anybody can verify this by
careful observation -- that due to different permutations and
combinations of chromosomes and genes offspring of same parents are
not always identical to one another or to their parents. More often
than not, they are different. For instance, one son or daughter of
same parents may be tall and another short. The colors of skin, hair
and eyes may differ likewise. What is true of physical characteristics
is equally true of mental qualities. Thus, a child may or may not have
the mental characteristics, which his father has.
Therefore, it is totally unscientific to forcefully restrict children
to the occupations of their forefathers.
It is true that all human beings are not equal in the sense of being
identical in physical or mental qualities. But it does not follow from
this that they ought to be denied equal opportunity to join a vocation
of their choice or that they ought to be denied equality before law or
equal respect as human beings in the society.
As for "unworthy" competition, how do we know that the competition is
unworthy unless all are, to begin with, given equal opportunity? Take
the example of Gandhi himself. He was a bania by caste. Yet, in spite
of some serious aberrations such as supporting varna-vyavastha based
on birth and linking politics with religion, he performed fairly well
in the role of a national leader. It would have been a great loss for
the nation if in the name of avoiding "unworthy" competition in
politics, Gandhi would have been confined to running a grocery shop.
Similarly, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was born in an "untouchable" caste, but
he played an important role in the drafting of the democratic
constitution of independent India. He also taught in a college for
some time. To use the terminology of varna-vyavastha, he ably
performed the work of a Brahmin.
Is it possible to imagine how many Ambedkars we may have lost by now
owing to the restrictive varna-vyavastha?
As we have noted earlier, varna-vyavastha is a closed system of social
stratification without any scope for upward social mobility. To quote
M. Haralambos, author of a textbook on sociology, "A person belongs to
his parents jati and automatically follows the occupation of the jati
into which he was born. Thus no matter what the biologically based
aptitude and capacities of an untouchable, there is no way he can
become a Brahmin. Unless it is assumed that superior genes are
permanently located in the Brahmin caste, and there is no evidence
that this is the case, then there is probably no relationship between
genetically based and socially created inequality in traditional Hindu
society." [85]
Returning to Gandhi, though Gandhi was opposed to untouchability and
caste, he did not carry his opposition to its logical conclusion.
Inconsistently enough, he continued to support the varna-vyavastha
based on birth. At one stage, he even supported restrictions on
interdining and intermarriage. As he wrote in Young India in 1921,
"Hinduism does most emphatically discourage interdining and
intermarriage between divisions... It is no part of a Hindu's duty to
dine with his son. And by restricting his choice of bride to a
particular group, he exercises rare self-restraint. Prohibition
against intermarriages and interdining is essential for the rapid
evolution of the soul. "[86] (emphasis mine)
Later Gandhi moved away from these orthodox ideas, and started
supporting intercaste marriages. Finally in 1946, he refused to
solemnize any marriage at Sevagram Ashram unless one of the parties
was an untouchable. [87] May be he would also have given up varna-
vyavastha if he had lived longer. That, however, is in the realm of
imagination, the fact is that Gandhi supported varna-vyavastha. It is
worth noting that he invented his own conception of varna-vyavastha,
which, according to him, had nothing to do with the feeling of
superiority and inferiority or with prohibition against intermarriage.
We find here in Gandhi a quaint mixture of conservatism and
reformism.
I would like to dispose of one last objection before concluding this
section. One may say that the Hindu law at present is quite different
from what Manu desired, and presently Hindus in general do not follow
Manu in totality. This is true. The Hindu law at present, for
instance, allows inter-caste marriage and prohibits bigamy and child
marriage. It permits divorce. It also allows widow remarriage and
grants equal rights to daughters in father's property. Nevertheless,
there seems to be a gap between the progressive Hindu law and the
conservative social practices of the Hindus. A majority of Hindu
marriages are still within the caste and very few Hindu women actually
claim or get a share in father's property.
The Indian constitution has rightly made special provisions, such as
reservations in services for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and
other socially and educationally backward classes, to enable them to
enter occupations and positions of power, which had been traditionally
denied to them. No doubt, some upper caste liberal Hindus, too,
support the policy of reservation. But, by and large, the Hindu upper
castes are far from fully reconciled to this progressive step as is
evident from violent and aggressive anti-reservation agitation
spearheaded by upper caste students from time to time. This kind of
reactionary agitation aimed at preserving the present dominance of
upper castes in education and the services enjoys considerable support
and sympathy in the upper caste dominated media as well as the
academia.
On the whole, the Hindu society is yet to fully exorcise the ghost of
Manu. Caste based on birth and untouchability still exist in the Hindu
society, in spite of the fact that untouchability has been abolished
by the Indian constitution. The distribution of education, power and
wealth continues to be uneven in the Hindu society, with the dwijas
being on the top and the Shudras and untouchables being at the bottom.
Teaching is no more an exclusive preserve of Brahmins, but the
occupation of Hindu priests is still fully reserved for Brahmins,
though this fact does not arouse the ire of our fervent anti-
reservationists.
Moksha, Karmavada and Avatarvada
Moksha is traditionally regarded as the highest end of life in Hindu
religion. The "endless cycle of birth and death" is considered a
bondage from which one must attain liberation, that is moksha or
mukti.
This whole concept of bondage and liberation is based on the unproved
assumption of life after death, and the existence of soul ( atma)
which continues to exist apart from the body even after death. In the
famous words of Gita, the soul changes bodies just as human beings
change clothes. [88]
Now, there are no good reasons for believing in the existence of soul
or life after death or rebirth. These beliefs are not at all supported
by incontrovertible scientific evidence. According to S.N. Dasgupta,
"there has seldom been before or after Buddha any serious attempt to
prove or disprove the doctrine of rebirth. The attempts to prove the
doctrine of rebirth in the Hindu philosophical works such as Nyaya,
etc. are slight and inadequate." [89]
However, even before Buddha, Lokayat had disproved the existence of
soul, life after death, rebirth, heaven and hell on an empirical
basis, as these things are never perceived. [90]
Thus, in absence of any evidence to the contrary, it is reasonable to
believe that each one of us has got one and only one life . Once a
person is dead, he is dead for ever. Never to be reborn. Mind,
consciousness, memory and life cannot outlast the destruction of brain
and body. This is the harsh truth; howsoever we may dislike it.
The belief in soul seems to have originated from primitive animism.
[91] If this belief continues to persist, in spite of total lack of
evidence in its support, it is only because of human beings' inability
to come to terms with, or to squarely face, the reality of death. One
likes to believe that one's near and dear ones, who are dead and
finished forever, actually continue to live in some other imaginary
world, and that they will also be reborn one day. One draws comfort
from the thought that one will not die even after death, and continue
to live in some other form. It is paradoxical that, first, the fear of
death and love of life makes one readily accept the belief in the
immortality and rebirth of soul without adequate evidence, and, then,
getting rid of this alleged cycle of birth and death itself becomes
the topmost religious aim! [92]
The problem of getting "released" from the alleged cycle of birth and
death is a pseudo-problem (in the sense that one is trying to get rid
of something which simply does not exist) and moksha is an imaginary
ideal which has nothing to do with the reality. Instead of running
after the imaginary ideal of moksha, it is far better to concentrate
on improving and living well this one and only life, which we have.
Mimamsa, which is an orthodox Hindu school of thought, considers
attainment of heaven ( swarga), instead of moksha, as the highest end
of life. References to heaven and hell are also to be found in the
Manusmriti. The belief in heaven is fairly widespread at popular
level. However, the ideal of the attainment of heaven, too, is based
on unproved assumptions, like life after death and the existence of
heaven, and, therefore, it cannot be accepted.
Another related doctrine is the Hindu belief in karmavada or the so-
called law of karma. According to this doctrine, every human being
gets the fruits of his actions either in the present or in some future
life. Whatever a human being is in his present life is the result of
his own actions in the past life or lives.
This, again, is a totally unverified and unverifiable doctrine based
on the assumption of the "cycle of birth and death". It is only a
convenient tool for explaining away the perceived inequality in human
society. The idea of karma is found in Buddhism and Jainism as well.
However, these religions do not support varna-vyavastha. But in
Hinduism the doctrine of karma, along with the idea of god, has been
used for providing ideological support to the unjust varna-vyavastha
and for making it appear just and fair. In Hinduism the so-called law
of karma merely serves the purpose of legitimizing the unjust varna-
vyavastha by making the Shudras and the "untouchables" meekly accept
their degrading position as a "result of their own deeds" in imaginary
past lives, and by assuring them "better" birth in "next life" if they
faithfully perform their varna-dharma in their present lives. [93] In
this way, this doctrine prevents them from revolting against this man-
made undemocratic system, which has nothing to do with alleged past
and future lives.
Lastly, I come to the Hindu doctrine of avatarvada. According to this
doctrine, whenever religion is threatened in this world, god takes
birth as an avatar to put things back into order. Ram and Krishna, for
example, are popularly regarded as avatars by the Hindus.
Belief in avatarvada, too, is logically unjustifiable and merely makes
one run away from one's own responsibilities. Instead of making
efforts to improve their own condition, those who believe in
avatarvada keep waiting for an avatar to take birth. Since god does
not exist, there is no question of his being born on this earth as an
avatar. (Let me add here that I also do not believe in the truth of
statements like "Jesus is the son of god" or "Mohammed is the
messenger of god".)
Not only I do not regard Ram or Krishna (or anyone else) as an avatar
of god, I also do not regard them as ideal personalities. Ram, as
mentioned earlier, was on upholder, of the varna-vyavastha. His cruel
behavior with Sita, after fighting a destructive war with Ravana to
get her released, is too well known to need recapitulation. [94]
Krishna, on the other hand, is portrayed in the Mahabharata as the
teacher of Bhagvat Gita , a book which expounds untrue and harmful
doctrines like the belief in god and immortal soul, avatarvada,
karmavada, varnashram dharma and the doctrine of moksha.
In Mahabharata Krishna adopts and advocates adoption of unfair means
like lying and deception for achieving one's ends. Obviously, he did
not believe in the doctrine of purity of ends and means. There are
several flaws in the character of Krishna as portrayed in the
Mahabharata, Bhagvat and Harivamsa. These have been ably enumerated by
Dr. Ambedkar in his The Riddle of Ram and Krishna . I refer the
interested reader to this work for a fuller treatment of this subject.
[95]
Conclusion
To conclude, I categorically reject major Hindu religious beliefs
including the doctrine of the infallibility of the Vedas, varnashram
dharma , moksha, karmavada, and avatarvada. I am not an admirer of Ram
and Krishna, and I also do not believe in idol worship or the Hindu
taboo of not eating beef. I support logical and scientific thinking;
and a secular, rational morality based on human values of liberty,
equality and fraternity. Therefore, I am not a Hindu by conviction,
though I am a Hindu by birth.
Endnotes
[1] S. Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View of Life (Bombay: Blackie & Son
(India) Ltd., 1979), p. 12.
[2] Ibid., p. 14.
[3] Ibid., pp. 16-17.
[4] M.K.Gandhi, "Aspects of Hinduism" in Hindu Dharma (New Delhi:
Orient Paperbacks, 1978), p. 9.
[5] Ninian Smart, "Hinduism" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed. in
chief, Paul Edwards) Vol. IV (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
& The Free Press, 1972), p.1.
[6] S.N.Dasgupta , A History of Indian Philosophy , Vol. 1 (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1975), pp. 67-68.
[7] Chatterjee and Datta, An Introduction to Indian Philosophy .
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] S.N.Dasgupta, Op. Cit., p. 394.
[11] I have discussed the question of the existence of god in my small
Hindi book Kya Ishwar Mar Chuka Hai? (Patna: Bihar Buddhiwadi Samaj,
1985, 1995). See, Is God Dead? (An introduction to Kya ishwar mar
chuka hai? ) [Patna: Buddhiwadi Foundation, 1998]
[12] M.K.Gandhi, "Aspects of Hinduism" in Hindu Dharma , pp. 9-10.
[13] A.L.B., "History of Hinduism" in The New Encyclopaedia
Britannica , Vol. 8 (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1981),
pp. 910-11.
[14] B.R. Ambedkar , Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches,
Vol. 4, Riddles in Hinduism (Bombay: Education Department, Government
of Maharashtra, 1987), p. 332.
[15] Y.Masih, The Hindu Religious Thought (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1983), pp. 192-93.
[16] Bhagvad-Gita I: 40,41, 42,43.
[17] B.G. IV: 13.15.
[18] Y.Masih, Op.Cit., p.208, Also see, pp. 224-25.
[19] V.P.Verma, Modern Indian Political Thought (Agra: Lakshmi Narain
Agarwal, 1991), pp. 50-51.
[20] Manusmriti (MS) I: 31.
[21] MS I:58.
[22] MS I:88.
[23] MS I:89.
[24] MS I: 90.
[25] MS I: 91.
[26] MS I: 93, Also see, X: 3.
[27] MS I: 95.
[28] MS I: 101.
[29] MS I: 103.
[30] MS II: 10,13.
[31] MS II: 11.
[32] MS VIII: 410.
[33] MS X: 96. Also see, Kautilya, Arthshastra I: 3, Quoted by J.N.
Farquhar in An Outline of the Religious Literature of India ( Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), p. 44.
[34] MS II: 135.
[35] MS VIII: 272.
[36] MS VIII: 281.
[37] MS II: 67.
[38] MS V: 154.
[39] MS V: 168,157.
[40] MS IX: 3.
[41] MS IX: 2.
[42] MS V: 147.
[43] MS V: 148.
[44] MS VIII: 379.
[45] MS VIII: 123.
[46] MS VIII: 364.
[47] MS VIII: 366.
[48] MS VIII: 412.
[49] MS VIII: 413.
[50] MS VIII: 268.
[51] MS VIII: 267.
[52] MS XI: 131.
[53] MS II: 31,32.
[54] MS II: 127.
[55] MS III: 111,112.
[56] MS VIII: 88.
[57] MS V: 92.
[58] MS VIII: 142.
[59] MS III: 4.
[60] MS III: 12.
[61] MS III: 14,15,16,17,18,19.
[62] MS X: 4.
[63] MS X: 25.
[64] MS X: 8.
[65] MS X: 12.
[66] Ibid.
[67] MS X: 50,51,52.
[68] MS X: 54,55.
[69] MS X: 53.
[70] MS X: 54.
[71] MS II: 168.
[72] MS VIII: 414.
[73] MS II: 113; X: 1.
[74] MS II: 116.
[75] MS II: 11.
[76] MS IV: 30.
[77] MS III: 65.
[78] MS VIII: 22.
[79] MS III:150, 161; IX: 225. From a humanist point of view, there is
nothing wrong in being born as a Shudra or a Chandala, but in the
context of the Manusmriti, these are abusive epithets.
[80] Manusmriti (Varanasi: Chaukhambha Sanskrit Sansthan, 1982), pp.
10-11.
[81]A.K.Warder, Indian Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1980),p.
163.
[82] Y.Masih, The Hindu Religious Thought, pp. 336-37.
[83] Nirmal Kumar Bose, Selections from Gandhi ( Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Publishing House, 1972), p. 265.
[84] Ibid., p. 263.
[85] M.Haralambos, Sociology Themes and Perspectives (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1980) pp. 27-28.
[86] N.K.Bose, Op.Cit., p. 266.
[87] Louis Fischer, Gandhi (New York: New American Library, 1954), pp.
111-12, Also see, N.K.Bose, Op.Cit., p. 267.
[88] B.G. II: 20-25.
[89] S.N. Dasgutpa, A History of Indian Philosophy , Vol. I, p. 87.
[90] Chatterjee and Datta. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy .
[91] See M.N.Roy, "The Transmigration of Soul" in India's Message
( Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1982), pp. 4-6.
[92] Probably "the cycle of life and death" is considered "bondage"
because it will presumably lead to death again and again. So,
primarily the doctrine of liberation seems to be a reaction against
death.
[93] "Those whose conduct has been pleasing will quickly attain a
pleasing birth, the birth of a Brahman or a Kshatriya, or a Vaisya;
but those whose conduct has been abominable, will quickly attain
abominable birth, the birth of a dog, or a hog, or an Outcaste."
Brihadaranyaka, quoted by J.N. Farquhar, An Outline of the Religious
Literature of India , p. 34, Also see, S.N.Dasgupta, Op. Cit., p.
363.
[94] See, my "Why I do not want Ramrajya" in Why I am Not a Hindu &
Why I do not want Ramrajya (Patna: Bihar Rationalist Society, 1995).
[95] B.R. Ambedkar, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches ,
Vol. 4, Riddles in Hinduism.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ramendra_nath/hindu.html
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Modern Documents:
A Hindu Woman:
Answer to Why I Am Not a Hindu
Answer to Why I Am Not a Hindu
by A Hindu Woman
I
First, I wish to make clear that I have no quarrel with Mr. Ramendra
Nath for declaring that he is not a Hindu. He has listed four reasons
for declaring why he is not a Hindu:
"I do not believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas and all
that goes by the name of Hindu scriptures, and therefore in avatars
and rebirth."
"I do not believe in the varnashram dharma or varna-vyavastha either
in the sense in which it is explained in Hindu dharma shastras like
Manusmriti or in the so-called Vedic sense."
"I do not believe in the Hindu taboo of not eating beef."
"I disbelieve in idol-worship."
As it happens, I am fully in agreement with the above statements. I do
not believe in the existence of any God or soul. Therefore the
question of scriptures as divine revelations, rebirth and avatars is
moot. I do not believe in the caste-system. I have eaten beef. Again,
since I do not believe in God the question of worshipping anything--
idols or otherwise--is moot. Nevertheless, I still call myself a
Hindu. However that is a completely separate matter.
Mr. Ramendra Nath has discussed in length why he rejects the Vedas as
infallible. Since I have no disagreement with him on these grounds, I
am skipping it.
He next attacks "varna-vyavastha or varnashram dharma." If it had been
a simple exposure of the evils of this system, again there would be no
problem. But what I essentially find troubling is that he does not
present a balanced appraisal. He rejects emphatically the story in the
Vedas that the Brahmins are created from God's mouth, the Kshatriyas
from his arms, Vaishyas from his thighs and Shudras from his feet--
plainly this story appeared later to account for a reality that was
already present. He dismisses evidence that originally it was nothing
more than a functional division which ultimately hardened into a rigid
system backed by the religious authority of the Brahmins and the
military might of Kshatriyas as something unimportant to the issue at
hand. After all, today the Hindu social system functions quite well in
the metropolises where the rules of purity and impurity regarding
caste are no longer important. Also when he discusses the evils from
which Hinduism has traditionally suffered, he ignores the good that is
in Hindu Dharma as well. In particular his criticisms against
Manusmriti or Manusamhita is one-sided. Above all he ignores the
entire picture to concentrate on certain negative aspects only. To put
it plainly, I think his account is biased.
II
Ramendra Nath charges that Ram kills Sambuka, a Shudra, because he was
performing tapasya or ascetic exercises which are the province of
Brahmins alone. Certainly the story is there. But what he does not
mention is that the story belongs to Uttarkanda (lit. "later
chapter"). Along with the story of Rama's adventure, every child is
also taught that this chapter was added much later and that Valmiki's
Ramayana ends with Rama's coronation. In Valmiki's Ramayana itself, we
have two very important stories: that of Guhak and Sabari. Guhak is a
Nishada king of Sringaverpur who is described as Rama's friend as dear
as life, with whom Rama stays while going to the forest
(Ayodhyakandya, chaps. 50-52). Shabari was a practitioner of
asceticism. Rama's first question on meeting her was, "Have you
conquered all that disrupts tapasya? Has your tapasya increased?";
from her hands Rama accepted food and her soul ascended to heaven
(Aranyakanda, 74). Nishadas are an 'uncivilized' forest-tribe who
include the Chandalas among them. Shabari is the feminine of shabar,
the hunter community. Manusmriti states that Nishadas are the
offspring of Brahmin male and Shudra female (an obvious afterthought)--
they are what we call today 'untouchable'. The shabars are designated
simply as 'mlechha,' completely outside Vedic/Hindu society, yet
Shabari performs perfect tapasya and goes to heaven blessed by the
avatar. The story has often been offered as proof that neither birth
nor gender is important in performing tapasya and going to heaven. The
apparent contradiction between Rama's behaviour towards them and
towards Sambuka need not puzzle anyone; the Sambuka story was clearly
added later to strengthen Brahmin hegemony. My question here is why
does Ramendra Nath ignore these points which are known to any ordinary
Hindu? The answer became clear when I looked at his citations. He was
simply quoting from another person's work rather than from the
Ramayana itself. Apparently he had not bothered to read the text he is
criticizing.
Next Ramendra Nath speaks of a certain episode in Mahabharata.
Certainly the story of Ekalavya is true. Because he was a Nishada,
Drona refused to teach him. The text explicitly states that being
nishada he was 'asprishya' (untouchable) and it is never allowable
that he should be put on a par with the general populace. Obviously
social stratification has taken place since Ramayana. When Ekalavya
learnt on his own, Drona made him cut off his finger. However,
Ramendra Nath places undue emphasis on the fact that Arjuna is his
Khastriya student. Drona asked for this terrible sacrifice because he
did not wish anyone to exceed his favourite Arjuna, who had promised
to give him whatever Drona desired materially. Caste here had nothing
to do with it.
More importantly, Ramendra Nath ignores those portions of this epic
which obviously belong to earlier stratas and which show a far more
humanitarian stance. The grandmother of both Kauravas and Pandavas (of
whom Arjuna is one) is only a fisherwoman. She had a liaison with a
Brahmin (which did not make the latter an outcaste) and gave birth to
an illegitimate son who became a sage himself and the writer of
Mahabharata. If she wants to marry into a respectable wealthy family,
to be a fisherwoman who ferries passengers on a boat and who has a
bastard child is definitely a handicap yet today even in developed
countries. Nevertheless, she marries a Kshatriya king, her sons become
kings and she is never reproached because of her sexual misconduct.
How could such miscegenation and its placid acceptance by the
population (which includes Brahmins) have been possible unless the
varnavyavastha in ancient times was very much a fluid system?
We also have the story of Dharmabyadh. A Brahmin had gained power to
work miracles by his penance and became arrogant because of this. When
a woman seems to ignore him, he becomes enraged. But the woman
demonstrates that merely by carrying out faithfully her duties as a
housewife she had gained even greater power; she tells him that only a
man who controls his sensual instincts, never hates another person,
thinks of all human beings as his own [kin], tells the truth always,
and never wanders towards unrighteousness--is acknowledged as a
Brahmin by the gods. He is then sent to a meat-seller known as
Dharmabyadh to learn what dharma is, as he is ignorant of it. The meat-
seller says, "I follow my ancestors' livelihood; I tend to the
elderly; I always speak the truth; I never show hatred for anyone; I
give to charity as far as I am capable; I never speak ill of anyone; I
eat the leavings of the gods, guests and servants [I eat after all
these have eaten]." It is these simple things that has elevated a meat-
seller above the powerful Brahmin (Vanaparva, 205-213).
Yuddhistira (the son of the God of Justice) is asked what is the cause
of being a Brahmin. He declares that neither birth nor learning makes
a Brahmin, that only proper conduct does. Even a Brahmin learned in
four Vedas cannot be considered as a Brahmin if his conduct is evil.
[However it must be noted that performing proper rituals is also
included in the passage as the mark of a Brahmin (Vanaparva, 312).] In
another place he is asked by a serpent who a true Brahmin is. He
answers, "The person in whom resides truth, charity, forgiveness,
courtesy, rejection of cruelty, austerity, is a Brahmin." The serpent
argues that the Vedas have given every varna their dharma or law.
"Therefore truth, charity, forgiveness, non-violence, rejection of
cruelty, and compassion based on Vedas is noticed even in Shudras. If
even in Shudras these symptoms of Brahamandharma appear, then Shudras
too can be Brahmins." Yuddhistira's answer is, "In many Shudras
symptoms of Brahmin appear, and among many of the twice-born, symptoms
of Shudras appear. Therefore it is not that to be born in a Shudra
family makes one a Shudra or that to be born in a Brahmin family makes
one a Brahmin. The persons in whom such behaviour [the qualities
mentioned above] ordained by Vedas appear are Brahmins and those in
whom they do not appear are Shudras" (Vanaparva, 180). From such
episodes it is obvious that the ideal was a high one and low castes
were honoured by society if they were virtuous. Critics would say that
the reality does not often match the ideal. True. But where is the
paradise on earth where there is no discrimination on the basis of
class, irrespective of the law? I do not see why varnavyastha should
be singled out with special virulence. It is simply that some
countries have made greater progress in doing away with systems like
feudalism (which was held to be reflection of cosmic hierarchy) and
slavery (backed by the story of Noah and his sons) while India is
starting to catch up.
Ramendra Nath argues that Gita too teaches every caste to do their
Dharma. Certainly if in these "enlightened" times a soldier like
Arjuna would refuse to fight on the battlefield when the war has
begun, the government would punish him and he would be called
"deserter" and "traitor." Again Shankar is pointed out as supporting
the caste-system. This is essentially true. But why does Mr. Ramendra
Nath slight the entire Bhakti and Tantric traditions in both North and
south India? Did not the practitioners of these traditions, many of
them Brahmins themselves, try to do away with caste? In such
movements, outcaste teachers and Brahmin students were common.
III
Next, Mr. Ramendra Nath--like many others--attacks Manusamhita. What
all these critics do is to imply that the entire book was written by
one man. Yet research has proved that many verses were added to the
main text throughout later ages and other verses left out or edited to
bring it in line with contemporary thought. (The interested reader can
look up the works of G. Buhler, P. V. Kane, and Max Muller.) The
result is that it is cris-crossed with contradictions.
Now let us take a close look at the book. Each of the verses he quotes
declaring the inferiority of Shudras and dominance of Brahmins, do
exist. Yet he also skips verses that directly contradict those verses.
"If a woman or lower (Shudra and younger) person performs goodly
ceremonies [holy or good works], then the Brahmachari must join them
with enthusiasm" (2:223). "The Shudra who devoid of jealousy engages
himself in honest work receives honour in this life and heaven in the
next" (10:128). (Of course another verse has been added immediately
after saying that Shudras cannot accumulate wealth because a rich
Shudra might despise Brahmins.) "A wife, jewels, knowledge, dharma
[religion/duty], rules of purity, good advice, vocational skills, can
be received by everyone from everyone else [irrespective of caste or
family]" (2:240). "A devout person can [I use 'can', but it is
actually in the imperative mood] accept even the best knowledge from
Shudras; accept ultimate truth from outcastes like chandalas; an
excellent wife even from low families" (2:238). Nothing can be more
amusing for a social historian than to see how Medhatithi, a Brahmin
commentator (c. A.D. 900) tries to explain away this verse. He argues
that "shubham [holy, best, pure] vidya [knowledge]" refers to logic,
magic formulas and singing and dancing. Similarly "param [ultimate,
best] dharma" is redefined as knowledge of local geography and
customs. Never mind that Mahabharata also defines--on the basis of
Manu--'param dharma' as knowledge of moksha/liberation which can be
acquired from anybody. Medhatiti's argument is that since low castes
are not eligible for religious knowledge they cannot teach anything.
Obviously the upper castes were anxiously trying to impose hegemony
over lower castes. Again, the verse stating that "he [the Brahmin] who
studies from a Shudra teacher or teaches a Shudra student" cannot
officiate in funeral ceremonies (3:156) offers evidence that Shudras
were teachers, a fact that the Brahmins wished to change. The rules
and later condemnations regarding marriages between castes offer proof
that for a long time it had not hardened.
Incidentally, may I ask how the terrible punishments inflicted on
Shudras can be reconciled with marriages between castes, both anuloma
and pratiloma, division of property among children born of such
'miscegenation,' rule that in distress a Brahmin might serve a Shudra
as a servant, or that a Brahmin householder must feed his Shudra
servants first, if he has any? There is a distinction between what
some men would like society to be and the social reality. For example,
Louis Dumont observed that power did not automatically reside in the
hands of any specific community. The caste that actually owned land in
a region enjoyed actual power; in many cases such power and property
lay in the hands of the Shudras. Though the Brahmins were the priests
they were actually dependant on the Shudras for their favour. Surely
Mr. Ramendra Nath knows that there are thousands of Brahmin families
whose only means of subsistence is being priests of low-caste
families?
Like Mr. Ramendra Nath, I too cannot help it that an objective reading
exposes how the caste system degenerated. He accuses that
untouchability and allowing men of one caste to become priests alone
is peculiar to Hinduism. But apartheid was peculiar to the rational
democratic white Christian races, as was the Holocaust peculiar to the
industrialized Nazi Germany. In neither case had it been claimed that
these two factors represent the sole face of Western culture. So once
again, why is varna-vavyastha presented as proof that Hinduism is
intrinsically evil, instead of realizing that untouchability is simply
the result of human love of power and not integral to Hinduism itself?
Now we come to women. Yes, Manusamhita does have these verses that
paint women as evil and deny them any freedom. But again we see how
other verses, remnants of earlier times, paint a different picture.
There is a whole portion called naribandana (Praise of women) where it
is insisted (3:55-62) that only a house where women are respected and
made happy is favoured by the gods and that--where women are treated
badly--all worship and ceremonies are in vain. There are verses such
as, "Mother is a thousand times holier [can also be read as worthy of
obedience] than the father" (2:145). "It is better that a daughter
should live at home till death rather than be given to an unworthy
husband; After menstruation, a girl should wait for three years and
then choose her own husband; If a girl at proper time should select a
husband herself, then she is not to be blamed" (9:89-91). "Any
relative [including a husband] who uses stridhan [lit. property of
woman which is both liquid cash and land, here a wife's], vehicles and
animals given for the wife to ride or a wife's clothes [and ornaments]
for himself, is a sinner who falls [into hell]" (3:52). I can give
other verses as examples.
Again Mr. Ramendra Nath charges that a widow cannot marry. Nothing
arouses my ire more than this statement. An illiterate villager might
be forgiven for believing this since this is the reality in many
places, but an educated Hindu would know better. These verses, of a
later origin, hold out inducements to widows not to remarry--such a
course would hardly have been necessary if widows never remarried.
"The woman who abandoned by her husband or left a widow marries of her
free will another man, is punurbhu and the son of such a union is
called pounorbhava"; "If a wife who is still a virgin, or a wife who
has left her husband to consort with another man returns to her
husband's home, then [another] ceremony of marriage can take
place" (9:195-196). Insistence in numerous verses that a Brahmin who
is a second husband or son of a woman's second marriage should not be
allowed to perform religious ceremonies merely prove that remarriages
were frequent. "While the mother is alive, if there is a dispute
between the son of the [first] husband and between a pournorbhava or a
golok (bastard born after the husband's death) regarding property,
then each son will receive the property that belongs to his biological
father" (9:191). "If the husband goes to foreign lands for holy
purposes, the wife will wait for 8 years; if he goes to study or earn
fame she will wait for 6 years; if he goes for pleasure then she will
wait for three years--after that she will marry again [alternative
explanation, she will go away somewhere else to support herself" (9:
76). Moreover the commentator Madhavacharya declares, "Manu has
ordained, if the husband is missing, dead, has become an ascetic,
impotent, or outcast, then the second marriage of woman is lawful
according to the shastras." Again this verse is present in
Naradasmriti, which is stated to be a collection of more important
verses of Manu. Not so surprisingly, this verse cannot be found in the
relatively modern edition of Manu we have today. Ramendra Nath is
strangely ignorant of history of his own country if he does not know
that Vidyasagar persuaded the British authorities to pass the widow-
remarriage bill by proving that it is enjoined in the shastras.
Mr. Ramendra Nath also gets excited while heaping scorn on the notion
that Hinduism is tolerant. Perhaps it has escaped his attention that
Hinduism is considered not tolerant socially as such, but from the
religious point of view. It is a religion that does not declare that
it has the sole monopoly on truth nor does it try to impose its gods
on other cultures by force. That is what is defined as religious
tolerance. Manusamhita certainly has many harsh things to say about
nastikas, but they are limited to denunciations. What did Hindus, Mr.
Ramendra Nath, actually do to disbelievers in this physical life?
Usually nothing. Buddha lived and preached peacefully. So did
Mahavira. The worst that some of them suffered was ostracism. But as
Ramendra Nath himself acknowledges (4:30), though rationalists and
freethinkers are not to be treated respectfully, they can be given
food, according to Manusamhita. For some reason Mr. Ramendra Nath
seems to think that a devout believer in God and afterlife should
welcome a disbeliever worshipfully (arcchana) as proof of his humane
attitude, yet in the same breath he denies that there is any human
value attached to the injunction that even hellbound disbeliveers are
to be fed. Considering the way Semitic religions have dealt with
unbelievers and apostates in the past (and do so even today), indeed
"such is the generosity of Hindu dharma."
Above all I find Mr. Ramendra Nath's focus on Manusamhita puzzling.
The British in an attempt to codify law focused exclusively on
Manusamhita. But why should an educated Hindu do so? There are
nineteen other dharmashastras all held to be of equal importance. He
ignores Arthashastra, the secular manual for Hindu kingdoms. He
ignores that every region had its own particular laws and every
community in it had its own set of customs which even the king was
forbidden to override. He ignores that often in villages--even today--
the shastras are only a hallowed name; if they routinely consult any
texts, those are the Ramayana and Mahabharata and often the two epics
are retold differently to suit that particular region. Unlike the
Bible, there is no text that forms the basis of Hindu law. The simple
result is that society varied from place to place and age to age. Yes,
class-system based on birth is wrong. Yes, the ugly face of caste is
encountered daily in many places in India. But the picture he presents
is one of absolute stratification, with the cruel Brahmins trampling
down the helpless Shudras for thousands of years. This picture is very
biased. In the first place, the Brahmins are not like the clergy of
church; only a certain percentage actually enjoys real power and
wealth. Secondly, from reading Mr. Ramendra Nath's article, no one
would have any idea of the low-caste royal dynasties like Mundas,
Chandellas, Nandas, Gurjjaras, Senas, the rule of the Lingyat
community, the rise of the Alvars, or the elevation of Reddies and
Jats to the warrior caste. Shivaji was a Shudra landowner who dreamt
of creating a Hindu empire (with all that it implies to him) and
brought the Mughal empire to its knees; he kept Brahmin ministers. A
1345 inscription of Reddi kings read, "With death of Ksathriyas [by
the Muslims], duty of defending cows and Brahmins fell to Shudras." It
was the Shudras who drove away the Muslim invaders and reestablished
Brahmanical educational institutes. If the Shudras, treated as Mr.
Ramendra Nath assumes followers of Manu treated them, say and do this
after gaining power (and when the Brahmins were at their nadir), then
obviously the Brahmins are a superior race who deserve to rule over a
spineless inferior caste.
IV
Just as Mr. Ramendra Nath concentrates on Manusamhita alone among the
dharmashastras, so too he concentrates on Gandhi alone. Apparently
Gandhi is to be taken as the representative of Hindu society at large.
Gandhi had supported varnashrama. But Gandhi had also said, (The
Collected Work of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. LXII, p. 121).
"I believe in varnashrama of the Vedas, which in my opinion is based
on absolute equality of status notwithstanding passages to the
contrary in the smritis and elsewhere."
"Every word of the printed works passing muster as `Shastras' is not,
in my opinion, a revelation."
"The interpretation of accepted texts has undergone evolution and is
capable of indefinite evolution, even as the human intellect and heart
are."
"Nothing in the shastras which is manifestly contrary to universal
truths and morals can stand."
"Nothing in the shastras which is capable of being reasoned can stand
if it is in conflict with reason."
Again, Vivekananda the monk came from a conservative family of the
nineteenth century and fiercely advocated doing away with
untouchability. He even declared that doing social service is more
important than worshipping God, because the former is true worship.
Rabindranath Tagore's family was orthodox and he himself was very
devout; yet he declared that though the caste-system has become
integral to Hindu society it must be done away with. There were as
many Hindus who attacked the caste-system as those who tried to defend
it. Similarly, the Shankaracharya of Puri recently declared that women
have no right to learn Sanskrit or read Vedas. The head priest at
Jagganath temple, on the other hand, has started training women
priests--yet both are pious Hindus. Why then is there the assumption
that all believing Hindus are retrograde?
Mr. Ramendra Nath grieves that the upper castes are not reconciled to
losing their power. That generalization is too sweeping. Some are not,
but the present generation has grown up accepting it. There is still
resistance, but is there any reason to think that the situation will
not improve? Even in England, full-fledged democracy did not spring up
miraculously with Magna Carta. The very fact he is able to write an
article such as this and post it on the Internet is proof that Hindu
society has undergone a sea-change. Again in speaking of agitations
against reservation policy for untouchables, he does not give the full
picture. Major factors in that agitation had been economics and
competence. Many untouchables have become rich by means of affirmative
policies and government aid. There is a substantial body of
untouchables and lowcastes who have now become middle-class and many
who have become legislators. However, they insist on their children
enjoying the same advantages they had enjoyed. But if they have become
rich, is it not unfair for their children to take advantage of the
policies meant for their poorer brethren? Again, why in reverse
discrimination shall the desperately poor of other castes be deprived
of government help and seats in educational institutions while those
who have become rich demand more advantages and money? This has led to
the extremely ridiculous situation of uppercaste people changing their
surnames by deed-poll and bribing officials to declare them
untouchables. More, those who have made it to the top now hog every
post and then lobby to pass laws for their own advantage so that the
benefits no longer trickle down to those who really need them.
Recently, members of the Dalit educated community themselves said that
the reservation policy is not working; a political party based on
backward votes immediately expelled those members who had dared to
utter such heresy. That is why those who agitated against widening of
the affirmative net were students--it is their future that is being
jeopardized in the name of social justice. The people of India wish
for a fairer affirmative policy--one that is based on poverty; the
poor alone should get preferential treatment.
About moksha, karma and avatarvada I have nothing to say on rational
grounds. However once again, it appears that the two Hindu epics need
defending on moral grounds. Rama is an avatar, but nowhere it is said
that all his behaviour is perfect. In particular, Mr. Ramendra Nath
singles out his notorious treatment of Sita--he makes her undergo
ordeal by fire to prove her purity. But what also needs recapitulating
is how the 'higher authorities,' so to speak, react to this. The soul
of Dasaratha, father of Rama, descends from heaven and begs Sita, "Do
not be angry; forgive my son for having abandoned you" (Yuddhyakandya,
120). More importantly Brahma appears and gives a long speech. The
gist of it is that since Rama is lord of all, why is he ignoring this
terrible event? He is God, so why he is meting out injustice to Sita?
(Yuddhykandya, 118). Rama's answer is that he knows himself only to be
a man, not a god. Since the Creator himself declares Rama's deed is a
sin, I do not see why the ordinary Hindu would face a moral dilemma
here and go on insisting Rama did no wrong. The case is the same with
Krishna. Many explanations have been given for his behaviour, but all
of them have one thing in common--it is acknowledged that he did wrong
and human beings must not follow his ways. Most telling is the
evidence of Mahabharata itself. After the war is over, Gandhari--the
only perfectly virtuous human--curses Krishna for the evils he had
committed; as her relatives and friends had been destroyed
[deceitfully by Krishna's advice], so too Krishna's family would be
destroyed and he himself will die a horrible death (Striparva, 25).
The curse comes true. Dharma or moral law of the universe would not
allow it to be otherwise. In other words God incarnate is accountable
to man--even an avatar must be punished.
Mr. Ramendra Nath also simply omits all positive aspects of Hinduism.
He makes no mention of the philosophies, logic systems, mathematical
contributions, music, temples, poetry, teachers and reformers, or the
heroes and heroines in myth and history. He simply makes no attempt to
explain the Hindu world-view or dharma (in the secular sense). Nor
does he give a full picture of Hindu history. Anyone reading his
article would get the impression that no decent man can call himself a
Hindu. (On the other hand I too can quote only favourable verses and
examples and give the impression that Hinduism is flawless.)
If Mr. Ramendra Nath had rejected Hinduism on rational grounds, then
this answer need not have been written. If he had balanced the good,
the bad and the ugly and then declared, "You have been judged and
found wanting", again this present article would not have a leg to
stand on. Let me repeat, it is the one-sided picture of Hindu culture
that I protest.
It is only right that a culture's worst excesses be condemned, but it
is only equitable that its highest ideals and what it has achieved
also be considered. By writing in such a superficial manner, he denies
a Hindu any pride in his heritage. Mr. Ramendra Nath would not allow
anyone to admire Rama as a human being, nor Yuddhisthira or Gandhari;
enjoy the philosophy and symbolism; be proud of either high caste or
low caste leaders and teachers, or of reformers who came from Hindu
society itself--or even how Buddhism, Jainism, Zorastrianism and
Judaism have been protected by the Hindu community. Above all, he
makes it seem as if reform and Hinduism are inherently incompatible.
Gandhi said, "My belief in the Hindu scriptures does not require me to
accept every word and every verse as divinely inspired .... I decline
to be bound by any interpretation, however learned it may be, if it is
repugnant to reason or moral sense" (The Collected Work of Mahatma
Gandhi, The Publication Division, Government of India, Vol. XXI, p.
246). Yet Gandhi was only following Hindu law. Every shastra and epic
states that no age is identical to other ages, therefore the law of
every age must be different. Dharma changes from age to age depending
on circumstances. It is this that has allowed Hinduism to withstand
ravages or war and time, constantly remoulding itself to survive.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/a_hindu_woman/answertohindu.html
...and I am Sid Harth
