You missed my main point. Untouchability started as a method to purge undesirables (not just the unclean), and as a defence against foreign interlopers.
Sir, the 'untouchables' have been in our socirty long before any 'foreign' interlopers. Most agree that it probably started when the 'locals' who were subjugated, who could not be amenable to 'culture' and who followed a free lifestyle were banished to live outside the enclaves. This happened even before the advent of Dharma Shastras (300 AD to 300 BC) and there have been mention of these folks even in our Upanishads.
Then came the rigid caste system by birth, and the banishment according to the Shastras (there were many, based on the school of thought), of the 'Chandalas'; those who were excommunicated because an upper caste woman married/begot children by marrying a lower caste man.
Next, came the period when certain people following certain trades (leather makers, butchers, cremators etc.) were banished as the rites of 'purity' were propounded in the Shastras, especially the Manu Smrithi. Well, by this time, it is not about a person not taking a bath. It is about the Smrithi saying that if a 'Chandala' enters a temple, the grounds have to be purified with cow urine! (I can go on and on with many citations that would shock some of our readers).
Who wrote these Shastras and Smritis?
The problem, is PRETENDED by DK-DMK-SP to be a Brahman problem- it is not. Tell me, when did Brahmans play gatekeepers and blocked avarnas from civilizing. Do you personally know that civilized avarnas were still blocked from polite society? No, that was not the case. Sankara, Ramanuja, Shankar Dev, Madhva, Raghavendra, Sadasiva-- all were known as social emancipators too. And all were dvijas, if not vipras. Please let us stick to facts and the history books. Not media fuel thrown out by the govt.
Sir, we were once the custodians of the Hindu culture. Why did we not 'pull up' others as Swami Vivekananda asks? Sir no one listened to Ramanuja's ideas, after he attained Samadhi. (I do not think Adi Shankara, as much as I admire him, did have enough time for social emancipation - even the chandala story in His biography, I think is inserted). Please read the following:
Shastras
So, sir, will you please stick to the fact and not repeat what these rabid Hindutva fellows are telling?
My point are that untouchability is merely stratification; that it is not a Brahman created problem; that it is not any worse than other forms of stratification in other countries. Politicization of the issue has given it, the present color.
I have already punctured your myth above. Let us call it what it is. In the name of Varnashrama Dharma, we have allowed and religiously sanctioned others in our religion to mistreat a sizeable segment of a population without any humanity. And till today, not withstanding your protests, this continues, especially in a lot of Tamil Brahmin households.
Addressing untouchability is the same as socio-economic emancipation of any poor and rural peoples. Where are the greatest concentrations of avarnas in India? Precisely in poor, illiterate tribal and dalit populated areas. Emancipate them educationally and financially and the so-called untouchability problem resolves itself. How is this any different from emancipating, say, the African poor? Seeing this any other way is merely drinking the pseudo-secular aka Hindu bashing coolaid of the congress govt.
Pray tell how does this 'emancipation' can come when even today they are socially ostracized just because of their birth? The difference between any poor and these folks is that about 75% of the dwijas look down upon them as 'unworthy' human beings. Please do not refer to any other country's problems. I do not care about how other countries treat some of their citizens, to justify our actions. We are supposed to have a superior culture. There is Hindu bashing on this, which is very justifiable, irrespective of who is doing the bashing.
The state has failed to do this emancipation. Not the Brahman community.
Even today, many of my relatives (who all I love dearly) still hold these superstition based ideas on how to treat Shudras and Paraiahs. And I have to agree with Sri Nara here that most of our religious maths associated with Brahmins have not done much to address this problem. So your denial flies stark in the face of reality.
Why should Brahmans take the whip for this? Why? Why?
Because, because, because, in not a distant too long ago, we wrote the societal laws that made and continued this odious practice based on superstition and in someways continue it in some fashion today.
