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Angst of the outcaste
Mark Tully
February 11, 2010
POST-HINDU INDIA
by Kanchailaiah
Sage
Price: Rs 295, Pages: 295
This is a startling book, revealing the extent of the anger and hurt
of the author, a well-known OBC academic and social activist. It's a
polemic on what his experiences as an OBC as well as his academic
research on Dalit and tribal communities have led him to see as a
centuries-old Brahmin conspiracy. The conspiracy to subjugate the
Dalits, the tribals and the Shudras too. Kancha Ilaiah equates
Hinduism with Brahminism. He says, "For any external observer Hinduism
is nothing but an institutionalized image of the Brahmin self;
although some people say it is a religion that encompasses all the
castes."
Ilaiah attacks what he considers to be Hinduism for imposing an order
on society which is neither egalitarian nor pluralist. The caste
system is responsible for this imposition, and it is still in place,
he says, because democracy hasn't affected the domination of the upper
castes. They are accused of being "spiritual fascists", and
"intellectual goondas". Ilaiah maintains that the spiritual fascism
was so constructed by Brahmins that those who were its victims could
not comprehend its essence. In other words, a confidence trick has
been played on them.
He calls the Dalits, tribals and the Shudras Dalit-Bahujans and sees
them as the productive sections of society while regarding the upper
castes as mere parasites. If they had not fostered the caste system
and prevented intermarriage, Ilaiah believes there would have been an
interchange of the technology practiced by different castes in their
professions and India would have become a scientific society. He
quotes as an example of the Dalit's technology of tanning animal skins
and manufacturing shoes and other leather products. Brahminism is seen
by him as anti-scientific, and disinterested even in such basic
subjects as agriculture. He accuses it of seeing "knowledge as
ignorance, and ignorance as knowledge", and doesn't credit it with a
single scientific discovery. In fact he believes the position is even
worse than that. The Brahmins are accused of stealing the discoveries
of the Dalit-Bahujans. Ilaiah maintains that zero was discovered by
cattle herders and many Ayurvedic medicines by Shudras, Dalits or
tribals, but Brahmins have claimed them as their own.
"The Indian nation is on the course for a civil war; a civil war that
has been simmering as an undercurrent of the caste-based cultural
system."
Ilaiah does not merely concentrate on the economic and other material
problems created by the caste system. He believes it is essential for
the Dalits, tribals and Shudras to acquire a spirituality which is
egalitarian and pluralist. He says, "The first major agenda for
post-Hindu India is to build a spiritual democratic basis... A
religious structure that guarantees their right to spiritual
equality." He compares Hinduism with Christianity, Islam and Buddhism,
which he sees as egalitarian and pluralist religions, and lays great
emphasis on Ambedkar's rejection of Hinduism and adoption of Buddhism.
But the repressive role that all these religions have played at times,
and some would argue still do play, particularly their repression of
women, is not taken into consideration.
The last chapter of the book is called Post-Hindu India. Ilaiah
believes Hinduism's days are numbered, and even talks of a civil war
in which Hinduism will be defeated by the combined forces of the
Dalit-Bahujans. When that happens, he believes "the regeneration of
India begins in multiple levels of Indian society. The society and
technology that the productive masses nurtured for so long will take a
new life". But Ilaiah recognises that the Shudras have not yet
rejected Hinduism partly because those he calls the Brahaminic forces
linked Independence and democracy with that religion. So there is
still one major fissure in the Dalit-Bahujan alliance he foresees. Nor
of course is there unity yet within the Dalit, Shudra, or tribal
communities themselves. A recent report from rural Gujarat pointed out
that Dalits of the more highly regarded castes treat other Dalits as
untouchable while the political geography of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
is evidence that the OBCs are not united.
Because this book is a polemic, it's one-sided and so loses some of
its impact. At one stage Ilaiah suggests that because Hinduism is not
egalitarian and pluralist, it cannot last long. But it has, and that
must surely be because it has positive attributes. Ironically, just at
the time Ilaiah is prophesying the end of Hinduism, admiration of its
spiritual teaching and practices is spreading in other parts of the
world. Admittedly the same cannot be said for the caste system which
has few defenders anywhere, and Ilaiah would argue that the caste
system is the essence of Hinduism. But surely the Gita, revered by
Gandhi as his Bible, and by distinguished thinkers of different faiths
too, cannot be written off just because it is set in the context of a
war.
Now that Ilaiah has got his polemic off his chest, might he not think
of publishing a reasoned dialogue between himself and those who do not
see Hinduism as wholly inimical to egalitarian democracy? The danger
is that many people will write off this book as extremist. It is a
danger because we need to be aware of the depth of anger and hurt it
reveals. I have to say that, when I look back on what I have written,
I have not been as aware of this as I should have been.
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