Hindu Caste Racism: BABASAHEB Dr. AMBEDKAR ON THE RACIST EVIL OF THE BRAHMAN - BANIYA "TWICE BORN" APARTHEID GOVERNING CLASS OPPRESSING THE SO CALLED "SHUDRAS" ( BACKWARD CASTES) AND DALITS

Saturday 19 November 2011

BABASAHEB Dr. AMBEDKAR ON THE RACIST EVIL OF THE BRAHMAN - BANIYA "TWICE BORN" APARTHEID GOVERNING CLASS OPPRESSING THE SO CALLED "SHUDRAS" ( BACKWARD CASTES) AND DALITS

Starting with the Brahmins who form a strong and powerful element in the governing class in India it is no exaggeration to say that they have been the most inveterate enemies of the servile classes, the Shudras (the old name for the non-Brahmins) and the Untouchables who together constitute about 80 or 90 percent of the total Hindu population of India. If the common man belonging to the servile classes in India is today so fallen, so degraded, so devoid of self-respect, hope or ambition, and so lifeless, it is entirely due to the Brahmins and their philosophy. The cardinal principles of this philosophy of the Brahmins were six—to use a correct expression, techniques of suppression—(1) graded inequality between the different classes; (2) complete disarmament of the Shudras And the Untouchables; (8) complete ban on the education of the Shudras and the Untouchables; (4) total exclusion of the Shudras and the Untouchables from places of power and authority; (5) complete prohibition against the Shudras and the Untouchables acquiring property, and (6) complete subjugation and suppression of women. Inequality is the official doctrine of Brahmanism and the suppression of the lower classes aspiring to equality has been looked upon by them and carried out by them, without remorse as their bounded duty. There are countries where education did not spread beyond a few. But India is the only country where the intellectual class, namely, the Brahmins not only made education their monopoly but declared acquisition of education by the lower classes, a crime punishable by cutting off of the tongue or by the pouring of molten lead in the ear of the offender. The result is that for centuries the Brahmins have denied the servile classes the right to education. Even to-day the Brahmins exhibit the same hostility to their education. Mr. Baines, the Census Commissioner for 1891 in discussing the causes why education was not spreading among the masses said :—

" The second influence antagonistic to a more general spread of literacy is the long continued existence of a hereditary class whose object it has been to maintain their own monopoly of all book-learning as the chief buttress of their social supremacy, Sacerdotalism knows that it can reign over none but an ignorant populace. The opposition of the Brahmin to the rise of the writer castes has been already mentioned, and the repugnance of both, in the present day, to the diffusion of learning amongst the masses can only be appreciated after long experience. It is true that the recognition by the British Government of the virtue and necessity of primary education has met with some response on the part of the literate castes, but it is chiefly in the direction of academic utterances, which cannot, in the circumstances, be well avoided. It is welcome too, in its capacity of affording the means of livelihood to many of these castes, as they have to be engaged as teachers, and are bound accordingly to work up to the State standard of efficient tuition. The real interest of the castes in question is centred on secondary education, of which they almost exclusively are in a position to reap the advantage."

The Congress politicians complain that the British are ruling India by a wholesale disarmament of the people of India. But they forget that disarmament of the Shudras and the Untouchables was the rule of law promulgated by the Brahmins. Indeed, so strongly did the Brahmins believe in the disarmament of the Shudras and the Untouchables that when they revised the law to enable the Brahmins to arm themselves for the protection of their own privileges, they maintained the ban on the Shudras and the Untouchables as it was without lessening its rigour. If the large majority of people of India appear today to be thoroughly emasculated, spiritless, with no manliness, it is the result of the Brahmanic policy of wholesale disarmament to which they have been subjected for the untold ages. There is no social evil and no social wrong to which the Brahmin has not given his support. Man's inhumanity to man, such as the feeling of caste, untouchability, unapproachability and unseeability is a religion to him. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that only the wrongs of man are a religion to him. The Brahmin has given his support to some of the worst wrongs that women have suffered from in any part of the world. In India widows were burnt alive as suttees and the Brahmin gave his fullest support to the practice. Widows were not allowed to remarry. The Brahmins upheld the doctrine. Girls were required to be married before 8 and the husbands were permitted to claim the right to consummate the marriage at any time thereafter whether she had reached puberty or not. The Brahmin defended the system. The record of the Brahmins as law givers for the Shudras, for the Untouchables and for women is the blackest as compared with the record of the intellectual classes in other parts of the world, For no intellectual class has prostituted its intelligence for the sole purpose of inventing a philosophy to keep his uneducated countrymen in a perpetual state of servility, ignorance and poverty as the Brahmins have done in India. Every Brahmin to-day believes in this philosophy of Brahmanism propounded by his forefathers. He is an alien element in the Hindu Society. The Brahmin vis-a-vis the Shudras and the Untouchables is as foreign as the German is to the French, as the Jew is to the Gentile or as the White is to the Negro. There is a real gulf between him and the lower classes of Shudras and Untouchables. He is not only alien to them but he is also hostile to them. In relationship with them, there is in him no room for conscience and no call for justice.

The Bania is the worst parasitic class known to history. In him the vice of money-making is unredeemed by culture or conscience. He is like an undertaker who prospers when there is an epidemic. The only difference between the undertaker and the Bania is that the undertaker does not create an epidemic while the Bania does. He does not use his money for productive purposes. He uses it to create poverty and more poverty by lending money for unproductive purposes. He lives on interest and as he is told by his religion that money-lending is the occupation prescribed to him by the divine Manu, he looks upon money-lending as both right and righteous. With the help and assistance of the Brahmin judge who is ready to decree his suits, the Bania is able to carry on his trade with the greatest ease. Interest, interest on interest, he adds on and on, and thereby draws millions of families perpetually into his net. Pay him as much as he may, the debtor is always in debt. With no conscience to check him there is no fraud, and there is no chicanery which he will not commit. His grip over the nation is complete. The whole of poor, starving, illiterate India is irredeemably mortgaged to the Bania.

In every country there is a governing class. No country is free from it. But is there anywhere in the world a governing class with such selfish, diseased and dangerous and perverse mentality, with such a hideous and infamous philosophy of life which advocates the trampling down of the servile classes to sustain the power and glory of the governing class ? I know of none. It is true that the governing classes in other countries do not readily admit into their society those who do not belong to their class. But they do not refuse admission to those who have risen to their level. Nor do they prevent any person from rising to their level. In India the governing class is a close corporation unwilling to admit anyone who does not belong to it by birth and ready to use every means to prevent the servile classes from rising to their level.

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HINDU CASTE RACISM

A blog against the racism of the Hindu caste system. The Hindu caste system is nothing but a system of racism founded on on descent (birth) based supremacy and bigotry that degrades and imprisons people in a system of vertically graded caste inequality of descending inferiority and ascending superiority, with each caste considered as inferior and superior to castes above and below in the vertically graded bigoted system, with the "twice born" Hindus led by Brahmins (at the summit of the caste system as the "most superior" caste) unleashing this bigotry to divide and rule the Indian working (Dravidian - Mulnivasi) masses. The castes lower to the "twice born” Hindu castes are degraded as "Shudras" (backward castes) by the Hindu scriptures who were traditionally restricted to physically laboring vocations and excluded from education, wealth and governance for millennia, until the advent of British rule. The “Shudras” (backward castes) are segregated from Dalits (who are enslaved at the bottom of the caste system as outcasts - untouchables). Dalits are bonded to the most degrading and inhumane labour while being subjected to heinous and manifold forms of physical segregation called “untouchability”. The "twice born" racist supremacist castes [Brahmins (priestly caste) - Baniyas (“Vysyas” or traders’ caste) – Kshatriyas (regal castes)] lord over as the ruling class of castes controlling the government, central (federal) government bureaucracy, army officers corps, top judiciary, business corporations, elite academia, arts and the mainstream media. Dalits are in the receiving end of violent atrocities, untouchability and segregation perpetrated by all Hindu castes (caste Hindus) above Dalits in this vertically graded and bigoted caste system.

All people who live by physical labour or descended from castes bonded to physical labour were derided as “Shudras” (slaves) by the Hindu religion and bigoted Hindu scriptures such as “Mansumiruthi” which codify the caste system, even if they acquire wealth. According to Hindu law, all people who do not belong to “twice born” trio of upper castes (Brahmans, Baniyas-Vysyas and Kshatriyas) are “Shudras” including those belonging to “untouchable” castes. The term “Shudras” literally means “slaves” or “slaves who serve Brahmins” apart from other degrading meanings ascribed to the term “Shudras” by Hindu religious scriptures such as “descendants of prostitutes”, "bastards", etc.

“Shudras” were profanely derided as “descendants of prostitutes” and accorded a “bastard” status by the bigoted Hindu scripture “Manu Smiruthi” and were entailed to serve the Brahmins as the latter’s slaves even if the “Shudra” acquires wealth. Shudras were traditionally proscribed from education despite some of them being land owners. “Shudras” are further divided into hundreds of vertically graded castes with each caste bonded to a physically labouring occupation and professing superiority over those castes below, with the “untouchable castes” at the bottom. “Shudras” were traditionally banned from literacy and education for millennia, until the advent of the British rule. Education was made available to “Shudras” and untouchables only after the advent of the British rule. The Hindu caste system as codified by the Hindu religious scriptures considers all people who make a living by physical labour and all descendants of castes bonded to physical labour as “Shudras” including those derided as “untouchables”, even though the “untouchable Shudras” are also referred to as “Panchamas” or scheduled castes, while the “touchable Shudras” are referred to as “backward castes” in governmental parlance. The so called “untouchables” are further divided into vertically graded castes, who are all forced to live in segregated slums in each town and village across India. The “twice born” supremacist trio off upper castes (Brahmins. Vysyas – Baniyas and Khatriyas) are explicitly excluded from all kinds of physical labour, while being given the monopoly over education, commerce and governance for millennia, which has made the "twice born" trio the ruling elite of the Indian governing establishment. The Indian working masses wholly consist of the backward castes and scheduled castes, who are divided by the caste system of the Hindu religion despite being members of a common working class. Backward castes and scheduled castes were traditionally excluded and banned from education, governance and acquisition of wealth, which started changing slowly only after the advent of British rule and the dawn of the independent India, while the core of the ruling elite still comprises of Brahmins, Baniyas (Vysyas) and Kshatriyas under the religious and ideological leadership of Brahmins.

Even a wealthy “Shudra” still remains only a “Shudra” in the Hindu caste system – as codified and governed by the bigoted Hindu scriptures. According to the bigotry of the Hindu caste system, a wealthy Shudra is still deemed and doomed to be a “Shudra” (“slave of the Brahmin”) who should use his wealth to serve the Brahmin and the latter’s bigoted agenda while wallowing in his inferiorized “Shudra” status in the caste system. Thus acquiring wealth does not abolish the inferiorized and degraded “Shudra” (slave) caste status and the allied caste identity of a person nor does it grant him a social status on par with Brahmins and “twice born” trio of supremacist upper castes (Brahmins, Baniya-Vysyas and Kshatriyas) in the caste system. A famous example of this was the refusal of Brahmins to coronate the Maratha warrior and leader Shivaji as “King” because he was born into a caste deemed to be “Shudra” by the Brahmins. Thus, even a wealthy person cannot escape his “Shudra” status and the allied inferiorized caste identity which are determined by birth and not by wealth. The same applies to the wealthy amongst those belonging to various castes stigmatised and segregated as “untouchables” by the Hindu religion – since acquiring wealth does not abolish the inferiorized and stigmatised “untouchable” caste identity of a person. This is why true advocates of social justice want affirmative action to be awarded to backward castes (Shudras) and scheduled castes (Dalits) irrespective of their economic status.