K, there is a tendency to think there was some sort of uniformity of religious thought that was brutally suppressed by the Muslim invaders and later grossly misrepresented by the British. There is lot the Muslim invaders and the British have to answer for, but, the idea of an idyllic India living in peaceful uniformity is just a myth. The past was characterized by a diversity and conflict all along. (Happy may correct me if I am wrong).
In the South we see a whole host of religious doctrines vying for converts up until the Pallava dynasty. We get a glimpse of this in the concluding chapters of Manimekalai. Entering Kanchi Manimekalai encounters all kinds of religious doctrine. Of course she chooses to enter a Buddha Vihara and becomes a Bikshini, no surpirse as the author of the epic was a Buddhist.
Even in Vaalmiki Ramayanam we see a telling episode in which Jabala Maharishi advocates Charvaka to Rama. He of course gets shot down with severe warning from Lord Rama and jabala backs down feigning he was only kidding.
The near uniform Hinduism we see today, influenced greatly by Brahminism, is a far cry from the market place of ideas that was prevalent. It is clear that people were not afraid of ideas. Criticism of ideas was not immediately seen as offensive and hurting the sentiments. But now, everything is getting beaten down to conform to some form of uniformity, we all belong to Hindutva family, even if you are not a Hindu. All divergent views are seen as offensive, hurtful, western influenced, left-wing biased, Marxist, based on hidden nefarious agenda, etc. etc.
After nearly 65 years after independence we are still finding fault with Europeans for distorting our history. The Hindutva crowd still finds fault with Lord McCauley for the education system. For Lord McCauley to have any effect, we need to get the students to think first, a notion that is squarely rejected in favor of a job in an MNC, which I understand and sympathize, but the fact remains Lord McCauley's vision, if there was one, was a huge failure. The education system we now have in India is one that is nothing more than a network of trade schools.
I like to see us Indians grow a pair, stand up, take a critical look at our past, reject all that is repressive, adopt all that is progressive, forge a better tomorrow. Some of us who are older folks must stand with and encourage our youngsters to think along these lines, instead of adopting a knee jerk reaction, like anything seen as negative by the Hindutva brigade is European conspiracy.
Cheers!
Dear Sir,
I think what irks hindus is that research deflates their pet beliefs.
The mother of all pet beliefs is that an ideal world existed in the past, where everyone was divided into 4 varnas based on their abilities, and where everyone lived happily and peacefully doing their respective jobs.
From whatever have seen on this forum, it seems to me that brahmins love to beleive they were chosen because of their sattva guna and purvajanmakarma. Portions of shastras inconveneint to them should be overlooked.
Then there are people who wish to eulogise their own valor and bravery and run after the kshatriya label. Through the tendency to eulogise various dynasties. This eulogising is done even by dk people, including mk who
compared himself to raja raja chola.
Ofcourse (to them) reasons for internecine warfare between chieftains have to be set aside. I found ponnar shanker movie outright silly. Kept wondering how can family fights for land, power, etc be used to eulogise 2 guys (as heros) under the category of valour and bravery. To me, the whole idea of kshatriyahood is a plain laugh.
To hindus anything that questions the caste (or, varna) system from the historical pov, or from the analytical pov of the hindu corpus texts including dharmashastras, is all anti-brahmanism / anti-hinduism.
But ofcourse there are self-designated caveats in all this. A vellalar likes to call himself kshatriya / vaishya but hates a brahmin designating him a shudra. An orthodox brahmin likes to call himself brahmin but may hate anything that traces his origin to a non-brahmin tribe.
Then there are those pet "faith-based" beleifs, like sages meditated upon devas who appeared out of nowhere to grant boons. Anything that contradicts such things (or brings out the rivalry between devas and sages) is anti-hinduism / anti-brahmanism.
All blame has to be placed on the British/Christians and the Muslims. I do agree that the Brits and Muslim invaders were out to loot India. However, putting all blame on them is like putting all blame on brahmins, or all blame on NBs.
Casteist NBs are no different from orthodox Bs. I still remember Senthil (the one in brits are to blame thread) who chose to blame brits and eulogise caste-system.
By Senthil's own admission he ate rats, yet called himself a kongu vellalar. If we take such dietary permissibility into consideration, it may seem this is a case of sanskritisation. Perhaps a case of sanskritisation so recent that even dietary prohibitions are not in place, instead the permissibility is still intact.
Rat-eaters were the lowest of lows. A good number of rat-eaters made claims of being Kurmis, etc in the colonial period (thurston). Musahars are not considered socially equal to other agricultual labourers even to this day.
I feel, if people had not got the opportunity to sanskritise themselves, they wud still be marginalised, fighting for recognition like the arunthatiyars, or cleaning out shit as scavengers or possibly still surviving on rat-meat like the Musahars.
Ofcourse for upholders of the caste system and the shastras (irrespective of B or NB), any form of research that deflates pet beleifs must be opposed. Researchers must be demonised for being western and/or leftist/marxist.
Everyone must delude themselves into beleiving that an idyllic India living in peaceful uniformity existed in the past. A past characterized by diversity, conflict, violence is to be brushed aside.
If people are not even going to recognise problems of the past, wonder how are they going to set right those problems in the present times. Are we still going to have rigid birth-based varna and/or jaati system in hinduism....wonder what is going to be the future of hinduism....
I feel the hindutva brigade wud do better to function as the opposite of Ranvir Sena. They could allow free movement of people between caste structures, from now on atleast. No use getting Ramanujam's essay banned and doing such things....
Addition: I looked up Senthil's blog recently, there are some nice points but he doles out plenty of jaati crap in the typically self-assured way...some of his points are stupid infact, but i do not post comments on his blog. Suppose he comes to this website, i will engage him...
