dalits
‘DALITS’ AND THE CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA
Abstract
This speculative paper argues that the caste system of India could be seen as a presentday remnant of ‘tribal apartheid’ which came into being when Indo-European warlike nomadic pastoralists overran and dominated an earlier urban Dravidian peoples. This form of discrimination based on identity is akin to racism. The enduring salience of caste and colour consciousness among Indians forms one of the great modern paradoxes that have resisted Indian governmental attempts to bring about social change.
Introduction
It is a truism that any statement made about India even when backed by some adduced facts can be immediately contradicted by equally probable deductions and countervailing information. This sense of intellectual confrontation has been heightened to painfully shrill levels of late, and everything is now being called into venomous political question and public debate. Paintings, literature, theatre, cinema, and even scholarly works on prehistory are seen as deliberate and malicious insults to one community or other. In such a charged social atmosphere, it is impossible to raise debates on the fraught question of the
Indian Caste System without immediately igniting attack. Hence, most Indian scholars avoid exploring this question after routinely passing a comment condemning it, and decrying its continued social observance, though outlawed by law.
However, because of its singularity as a socio-religious system, its discriminatory hold over the civic life of over two-hundred million people, and its constant fueling of heinous violence in India, the caste system deserves to be studied with whatever intellectual honesty is possible, and not only through the lens of inflamed bigoted passion, derogatory or defensive.
The Present Indefensible State of Discrimination
The person accredited with framing the Indian Constitution was Dr. BR Ambedkar, an
‘untouchable’ himself, a great and enlightened
Abstract
This speculative paper argues that the caste system of India could be seen as a presentday remnant of ‘tribal apartheid’ which came into being when Indo-European warlike nomadic pastoralists overran and dominated an earlier urban Dravidian peoples. This form of discrimination based on identity is akin to racism. The enduring salience of caste and colour consciousness among Indians forms one of the great modern paradoxes that have resisted Indian governmental attempts to bring about social change.
Introduction
It is a truism that any statement made about India even when backed by some adduced facts can be immediately contradicted by equally probable deductions and countervailing information. This sense of intellectual confrontation has been heightened to painfully shrill levels of late, and everything is now being called into venomous political question and public debate. Paintings, literature, theatre, cinema, and even scholarly works on prehistory are seen as deliberate and malicious insults to one community or other. In such a charged social atmosphere, it is impossible to raise debates on the fraught question of the
Indian Caste System without immediately igniting attack. Hence, most Indian scholars avoid exploring this question after routinely passing a comment condemning it, and decrying its continued social observance, though outlawed by law.
However, because of its singularity as a socio-religious system, its discriminatory hold over the civic life of over two-hundred million people, and its constant fueling of heinous violence in India, the caste system deserves to be studied with whatever intellectual honesty is possible, and not only through the lens of inflamed bigoted passion, derogatory or defensive.
The Present Indefensible State of Discrimination
The person accredited with framing the Indian Constitution was Dr. BR Ambedkar, an
‘untouchable’ himself, a great and enlightened
References: Bamshad, Michael, et al., “Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations,” Genome Research, Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, 2001. Babu, Shyam D. and Prasad, Chandra Bhan, “Six Dalit Paradoxes,” The Economic and Political Weekly, 2009-06-06 Cordaux, Richard et al., “Independent Origins of Indian Caste and Tribal paternal Lineages,” Current Biology, Vol.14, 2004-02-03. Debarshi Dasgupta, et al., “Our True Colours,” Outlook India, 2009-06-29 Gautier, Francois, “Are Brahmins the Dalits of Today?” Rediff News, 2006-05-23. Ingalls, Daniel H.H., “Sankara’s arguments against the Buddhists,” Philosophy East and West, 3[4] University of Hawaii Press, 1954. Jain, Meenakshi, “The Plight of Brahmins,” The Indian Express, 1990-09-18 Khan, Mujtaba, “Caste Discrimination has Racial Overtones,” The Economic Times, to Accept Reality,” The Economic Times, 2010-04-02 Menezes, George, “Caste discrimination amongst Catholics,” Hindustan Times, States [PNAS], 98:18, 2001-08-28 Witzel, Michael, “A maritime Rigveda? – How not to read ancient texts,” The Hindu, Books Chavan, Seshrao, Gandhi and Ambedkar: Saviors of Untouchables, Laurier Books, 2001. Childe, V. Gordon, The Aryans, Alfred A. Knopf, 1926 Ghurye, G.S., Caste and Race in India, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1932 Gimbutas, Marija, The Civilization of the Goddess, N.Y., HarperCollins, 1992 Hawley, John Charles, India in Africa, Africa in India, Indiana University Press, 2008. Karmer, Samuel Noah, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963 Kochar, Rajesh, The Vedic People, Orient Longman, 2000. Kosambi, D.D., Ancient India:A History of its Culture and Civilization, Meridian, 1969. Krishnamurti, Badriraju, Comparative Dravidian Linguistics, Oxford University Press, 2001. Lal, P., The Mahabharata of Vyasa: The Complete Virata Parva, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2006. McBrewster, John et al, Mitanni, Alphascript Publishing, 2009 McIntosh, Jane R., The Ancient Indus Valley, ABC-CLIO, 2008. O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger et al.[Trans], The Laws of Manu, Penguin, 1991. Parpola, Asko, Deciphering the Indus Script, Cambridge University Press, 2009. Piggott, Stuart, Prehistoric India, Penguin, 1950. Rodrigues, Valerian [ed] The Essential Writings of B.R. Ambedkar, Oxford University Press, 2004. Sengupta, Padmini, Everyday Life in Ancient India, Oxford University Press, 1950. Shabbir, Mohamed, Ambedkar on Law, Constitution and Social Justice, Rawat, 2005. Shastri, Shakuntala Rao, Women in the Vedic Age, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954. Strong, John S., The Legend of King Ashoka, Princeton University Press, 1983. Thaper, Romila, From Lineage to State: Social Formations in the First Millennium BC in the Ganga Valley, Oxford University Press, 1984 Ibid., Early India:From the Origins to AD 1300. University of California Press, 2004. Thorat, Sukhadeo, and Newman, Katherine [eds.], Blocked by Caste: Economic Discrimination and Social Exclusion in Modern India, Oxford University Press, 2010. Wheeler, Sir Mortimer, Frontiers of the Indus Civilization, Books & Books on behalf of Indian Archaeological Society jointly with Indian History & Culture Society (1984) Watch of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban, 2001.