Bringing about Social Change in India

B.R.P.BHASKAR

The following is the text of the Inaugural Address delivered at the 25^th conference of the All India Backward (SC ST OBC) and Minority Community Employees Federation (BAMCEF) held at Nagpur from December 27 to 30, 2008

 

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you, leaders and members of the All India Backward (SC, ST and OBC) and Minority Community Employees Federation on the successful completion of three decades of service.

 

You have taken upon yourselves the arduous task of bringing about social change in this land, where the bulk of the population has been labouring under the burden of injustice for centuries. An iniquitous system, which gave a few people mastery over society and reduced the majority of the people to virtual slavery, came into being in this land at some stage. Apologists of the system have sought to defend the system in terms of division of labour. All societies felt the need for division of labour as they developed, but nowhere else did it take the form of the caste system, which denied mobility and trapped large numbers of people in permanent servitude. On more than one occasion, the people rose in revolt and threw out the system. But it came back to haunt the society again and again. The fact is that each time it was thrown out its beneficiaries schemed to bring it back so as to maintain their privileged position. We have to eradicate it once and for all, leaving no room for it to come back.   

 

The first formal step towards that goal was taken when, soon after gaining Independence, the Constitution of India was framed. It sought to do away with the iniquitous system and establish a new social order based on equality. Six decades later, it is still with us. While there has been some mitigation in the plight of the long-suffering victims, the end of the system is not in sight.

Those at the helm of affairs are the beneficiaries of the old system. We must realistically appraise the situation and plan appropriate strategies to bring about the desired change. Though a numerical minority, the erstwhile caste supremacists are quite powerful. They dominate almost all aspects of national life. At all levels they wield political power far in excess of their numbers. They have the ability to control the economic resources. Having enjoyed enormous privileges on an exclusive basis for several centuries, after subjecting the rest of the people to a system of graded inequality, they enjoy natural advantages and are reluctant to give them up. As Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who played a leading part in the making of the Constitution, has pointed out, "Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them."  It is the task of organizations like BAMCEF to build sufficient force to compel them to divest themselves.

 

It will be appropriate to begin our appraisal with a quick examination of the working of the Constitution. What is the promise that it holds out and to what extent has it been fulfilled?   

 

The assembly which adopted the Constitution was not truly representative of the people of the country. Most of its members were elected indirectly. They were chosen by provincial assemblies, which were themselves elected on the basis of limited franchise and thus not fully representative of the population. Most of the princely states did not have assemblies of any kind, and they were represented in the constituent assembly by nominees of the maharajas. Yet the members of that august assembly spoke in the name of the people of India. They believed they were articulating the wishes of the people of India.  

 

The Preamble, as it stood originally, says "We the People of India" adopted and enacted the Constitution to constitute India into a sovereign, democratic republic and to secure for all its citizens justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. It was later amended to make it clear that the republic is also secular and socialist. Having adopted and enacted the Constitution, We the People of India gave it to themselves. Note the words of the Preamble: We the People of India “give to ourselves” this Constitution. We the People did not give it to the Executive, or the Legislature or the Judiciary. We gave it to ourselves. The import of the words is clear. The people of India are the makers of the Constitution as well as its keepers.  

 

We the People must remind the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, which exercise authority under the Constitution, that we have not entrusted the Constitution to any of them. When a conflict arose between the Legislature and the Judiciary in Uttar Pradesh in the early years of the Constitution, the President sought the Supreme Court's advice on the relative powers of those two limbs of the state. In the opinion, tendered in response to the reference, the court said each is supreme in its own sphere. However, in a judgment delivered subsequently, the Supreme Court expressed the view that it is the Constitution that is supreme since all authority flows from it. The inquiry into the source of authority cannot stop there. We must ask a further question: where does the Constitution derive its authority from? The answer to that question is: We the People of India.

 

We the People, who are the makers and keepers of the Constitution, are the source of all authority. The authority that the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary exercise is the authority that We the People have vested in them. We the People must keep a close watch on them all and make sure that they exercise that authority in our interest.

 

It is not just the three estates that need to be reminded that We the People are the final arbiters of the destiny of this nation. The fourth estate needs to be told too. The media, or rather a section of it, wants us to believe that when we face a TV anchor we are facing the nation, that the city folks brought together in a TV studio are We the People. We have to disabuse the media of such illusory ideas.  

 

The Preamble mentions the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. These are concepts that gained currency worldwide in the wake of the French Revolution. Most nations subscribe to these ideals in theory, though few honour them in practice. These are ideals echo in some ancient Indian works but the makers of the Constitution picked them up from elsewhere. One of the ironies of our land is that we forsook ideals that were known to our ancestors and now borrow them from outsiders.

Today, the world hails Mahatma Gandhi as the apostle of Non-violence. It is a concept that the Buddha had articulated forcefully more than 2,000 years ago. Gandhi did not give the Buddha the credit due to him probably because he borrowed the concept from some other source. 

 

The most distinguishing feature of the Constitution of India is its emphasis on social justice. The Preamble mentions Justice ahead of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The concept is elaborated in these words: Justice, social, economic and political. Note that social justice is mentioned ahead of economic justice and political justice. The primacy accorded to social justice is a reflection of the concern over the prevalence of social injustice and the recognition that it is the biggest impediment in the way of realizing the goal of a democratic republic.  

 

The people, as the makers and keepers of the Constitution, have to ensure that those in whom they have vested the power of the state live up to their expectations. This is not an occasional task – to be performed, say, once in five years, when they are given the opportunity to vote. This is a task to be undertaken on a continuing basis at all times. Democracy is not mere holding of elections at intervals. Nor is it staging colourful parades on Republic Day and Independence Day. It must manifest itself in a tangible form in the lives of the people on a day-to-day basis.

 

We the People have the opportunity to decide the composition of the Legislature. That gives us a limited role in determining the character of the Executive too. Thanks to the compulsions of electoral politics, these limbs of the state find it necessary to be sensitive to the needs of the weaker sections of the society, who constitute a large majority of the population. The Judiciary stands on a different footing. Over the years, exercising its exclusive right to interpret the Constitution, it has assumed powers that were not expressly given to it and, going by a common understanding of the scheme of things, do not properly belong to it. What has enabled the Judiciary to widen its reach is a provision of the Constitution, which gives it the power to issue any order to do complete justice in a matter. No doubt public opinion has welcomed many of its incursions into the domains of the other limbs as necessary steps to undo the effects of improper exercise of authority by the Executive and the Legislature. However, a Judiciary that determines its own composition is an aberration that is unacceptable, particularly in the context of the continued dominance of caste supremacists in the society. It needs to be corrected.

 

Today, for the first time, a Dalit is the Chief Justice of India. The circumstances in which Justice K. G. Balakrishnan rose to the position merit passing attention. After qualifying as a lawyer, he became a member of the subordinate judicial service in Kerala. Even with the system of reservation, which has been in vogue in that part of the country since before the Constitution came into force, he might not have progressed beyond the level of high court judge. Believing he would have better prospects as an advocate, he resigned and set up practice. A chief minister, who recognized the need for Dalit representation in the high court and considered Balakrishnan an ideal candidate for the post, took up his case, and he was elevated to the bench at a comparatively young age. In due course, he became high court chief justice and was in line for elevation to the Supreme Court.

 

Yet, he was made Supreme Court judge only after President K. R. Narayanan wrote to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee impressing upon him the need to consider the cases of qualified candidates belonging to the weaker sections of the society. The initial reaction of the Prime Minister's office was to leak the President's note to select media persons, who promptly insinuated that the President, a Dalit, had done something improper in reminding the Executive of its constitutional duty to uphold social justice. Justice Balakrishnan’s claim for elevation was so strong that those concerned could not deny it. However, they could delay it. This is not an isolated case. While the system of reservation has helped to soften the impact of the caste system on the services, the most illustrious members of the weaker sections often find the cards stacked against them as they move up the ladder.

 

The Judiciary is the branch of the state where Dalits and other backward classes have the poorest representation. The reason is obvious. The principle of affirmative action does not operate there. An institution whose composition is heavily weighted in favour of a powerful, privileged minority cannot be a reliable instrument of social justice. A scrutiny of the Judiciary’s performance will reveal that it has a remarkable record in the dispensation of political justice. With regard to economic justice, its record is probably not as good but can still be regarded as fair. On social justice, its record is clearly poor. Despite repeated exertions, it has not been able to render complete justice to the victims of the Bhopal gas disaster. Complete justice has also eluded the Adivasis who were displaced by the Narmada Dam project. We know that once two judges of the Supreme Court sat after dinner at the residence of one of them to consider the bail application of an industrialist, who had been convicted by the high court, so that he did not have to spend the night in prison. Will the gates of a judge’s residence open to let in a Dalit whose life is in imminent danger?

 

Social justice must enter the highest judiciary. Immediate steps are needed to ensure that the backward classes of people have adequate representation in the superior courts. These classes have produced in the past 60 years enough persons with the necessary qualifications and competence to perform the functions of judges. They still remain underrepresented because the state machinery is not free from the hangover of the iniquitous past. Since the machinery has not corrected itself, there is a case for legislation to remedy the situation.

 

There is a common misapprehension that the Preamble of the Constitution has relevance only to the state and its limbs. How can Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity prevail in the republic if institutions that wield influence in society are free to ignore these principles?

 

In this context, it is pertinent to raise the question of representative character of the Indian media. Professor Robin Jeffrey, author of “India’s Newspaper Revolution”, says he asked a senior Delhi journalist how many Dalits were on the staff of his newspaper. The gentleman did not know. On inquiry, it was found that there was no Dalit on the newspaper’s staff.  This is the case with most of the national and regional media.

 

Ask the owner or editor of a newspaper or news channel about the caste composition of the staff, and he will tell you that he never asks the candidates about their caste. The fact, however, is that there is no need to ask. Candidates belonging to the privileged sections generally do not miss the opportunity to proclaim their pedigree.     

 

The Indian media makes no effort to build a representative newsroom. Its indifference in this regard is in sharp contrast with the efforts of the American Society of Newspaper Editors to raise the representation of non-whites in the newsroom to bring it on par with their population. The ASNE’s diversity programme, launched in 1978, was designed to give the blacks parity in the newsroom by 2000. It was enlarged later to cover other minority groups like Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans also. The programme succeeded in raising the number of minority journalists but the 2000 deadline could not be kept, mainly because the non-white population rose rapidly during the period as a result of fresh immigration. Now the non-white population is about 34 percent and the ASNE is working to raise the number of non-white journalists to that level by 2025.

 

The ASNE took up the diversity programme after a commission, which studied the causes of racial riots in Newark and Detroit, said that newspapers and television stations, which had failed to adequately and fairly cover the black community over the years, shared some of the responsibility for the outbreak of violence. Do not the Indian media, likewise, bear part of the responsibility for the recurring caste riots in this country?

 

An important difference between the situation in the US and India needs to be noted. The whites who dominate the US society constitute a majority of the population. They accept affirmative action as a measure necessary to do justice to the deprived minorities. The erstwhile caste supremacists who dominate the Indian society constitute a small minority. They take every available opportunity to defeat affirmative action because they want to perpetuate their dominance over the majority.

Beyond the media, there is the vast field of economic activity, where, too, social justice is conspicuous by its absence. The ongoing process of globalization is shrinking the role of the state and increasing the power of the corporate sector. In the circumstances, the private sector’s denial of adequate opportunities to large sections of the people deserves serious notice. The captains of industry have rejected the government’s suggestion to extend affirmative action to their empire. The government is unable or unwilling to make them to fall in line with the national goal proclaimed in the Constitution.

 

We need not remain silent spectators in the face of industrialists’ recalcitrance and the state’s acquiescence in it.  The market is the ultimate arbiter of the industrialist’s destiny. He is looking for sales and profits. Those belonging to the weaker sections may not be shopping for luxury goods but they are consumers, too, and they have numbers on their side. Individually, what each of them consumes may be small but, collectively, it is large enough to make a difference to the sales of many products. They must refuse to buy the products and services of private sector companies which do not subscribe to the principle of social justice and practise it.

 

Is it not possible for BAMCEF or some other organization of the dispossessed communities to set up a task force to study the employment policies of private sector companies? The task force may send out questionnaires to major companies seeking information about the number of Dalits, other backward classes and minorities on their staff. Most of them may ignore the query. Some may claim that they make appointments purely on merit and do not ask candidates about their caste or religion. In the case of such institutions, the task force may conduct its own inquiry to ascertain if the dispossessed sections are adequately represented in their establishments. Every year the task force may bring out a report based on its findings. It must place on a black list the names of companies which do not follow the principle of social justice in making appointments. It must also urge all people who believe in the principle of social justice to boycott the products and services of the blacklisted companies.

Long years of oppression having sapped the Mulnivasis’ self-confidence, they are unable to stand up and claim their dues as equal citizens. They have been deprived of their history and fed with myths which were invented to reinforce the inferior status imposed on them. They have to recapture their history and explode those myths.           

 

Much of what we are told about India’s past is pure fabrication. The Vedic establishment claims an unbroken tradition of 5,000 years or more. Most Mulnivasis tacitly accept this claim and talk of having been subjected to slavery for 5,000 years or more. In doing so, they are overlooking the long Jain-Buddhist period, during which they suffered no such disability.

The factual part of what we know of our past now is what has been reconstructed in comparatively recent times, mostly by foreigners. Take, for instance, the Indus Valley civilization, which is today recognized as a glorious part of India’s heritage. We were not even aware of it 100 years ago.  Of Emperor Ashoka, H. G. Wells has written: "In the history of the world there have been thousands of kings and emperors who called themselves 'their highnesses,' 'their majesties,' and 'their exalted majesties' and so on. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright star, even unto this day." Actually, we were not quite aware of this shining star until 19^th century. 

 

The British stumbled upon Mohenjodaro and Buddhist monuments and unearthed the story of their builders. How could any people forget glorious parts of their past? There is only one answer to that question: the descendants of their builders were deprived of their history. Until the Mohenjodaro excavations brought to light the urban civilization that had flourished on the banks of the Indus, the Vedas were believed to be the oldest Indian achievements. When the Indus Valley civilization became known, the Vedic establishment sought to push its own history back to claim it as part of its heritage. Both British and Indian scholars initially attempted to read the Indus seals with reference to Sanskrit. They assumed that if it was great it must be the work of the Vedic people. Few scholars subscribe to that view today. In fact, most researchers now believe that the Indus Valley civilization was the work of non-Vedic communities.

 

That the oldest of the Vedas, Rigveda, is a very ancient work is not in doubt. However, the version now available to us is full of evident interpolations. Many scholars, for instance, are of the view that the Purusha Sukta in Chapter 10 was put into it at a later stage with a view to sanctifying the obnoxious caste system. Shorn of all identifiable interpolations, the Rigveda is still a magnificent work – a collection of poems in which members of a tribe, which had not got past the pastoral stage, gave spontaneous expression to the sense wonder that they experienced as they encountered the outside world. It contains numerous references to non-Vedic people who, unlike the Vedic people, have built towns and forts. A recurring prayer of the Vedic people to their gods is to destroy the towns and give them the cows of their rich neighbours.

 

The high philosophy that scholars have read into the Rigveda is of comparatively recent origin. Its basis is the interpretation of the text by Sayana, who lived in the 14^th century. By his time, the language had undergone much change and those who recited the Vedic slokas did so without even knowing the meaning of the words. Sayana, who was a minister under successive rulers of the Vijayanagar Empire, interpreted the Vedic slokas, not in the context of the ancient period when they were composed, but in the light of the accumulated spiritual knowledge of his own time. He declared that the Vedas were not of human origin but had existed all the time. The seers to whom authorship of the slokas is attributed did not compose them, but had gleaned them, he said. Almost all Indian and foreign scholars who have expounded Vedic thought since then have followed Sayana’s interpretation. Sayana had close links with the Sringeri Mutt, which was established by the Sankaracharya. The Vijayanagar rulers and the Sringeri Mutt made a big contribution to the rise of the Vedic establishment in the south after the decline of Buddhism and Jainism, both of which had promoted equality.

 

In the north, the Vedic school had gained supremacy even earlier, under the Brahmin Sungas, who had seized power from the Mauryas. It was during the Sunga period that what is now known as Manu’s Code was written. Manu is actually a fictitious character. Way back in 1917, K. P. Jayaswal, who was a scholar in Law and Sanskrit, in a series of 12 talks delivered under Calcutta University's Tagore Law Lectures, identified the title of the work as Manava Dharma Shastra and the author as Sumati of the Bhrugu clan. He pointed out that the early versions of Manava Dharma Shastra mentioned Sumati Bhargava, in keeping with the practice of weaving the author's name into the work. Later, the name was omitted to propagate the fiction that it was the work of a primordial character.

 

Jayaswal's lectures were a comparative study of the ideas of two law-givers of ancient India, Sumati Bhargava alias Manu and Yajnavalkya. In the Buddhist era, the king was viewed as a servant of the people, whose duty it was to protect them. Sumati, who had to justify the murder of Maurya king Brihadatta by Brahmins and support the usurper who took his place, raised the king above the people and installed him as a deity created by the gods. He said Brahmins can kill the king and destroy his army. The wholly unjust and utterly inhuman provisions of the so-called code of Manu must be viewed in the context of the Brahmin dynasty's ruthless efforts to establish its authority.

 

Yagnavalkya came along a little later. By then, the period of intense conflict was over, and he made an attempt to soften the provisions of Manu's code. He produced a new code which incorporated some of the features of the compassionate laws of the Buddhist period. He said the king was liable to loss of majesty and banishment if he committed illegal acts.

Yagnavalkya, like Sumati, was a Brahmin. Why is it that the Vedic establishment even today harps on Manu and his barbaric code and is not interested in Yagnavalkya and his humane code? The short answer to the question is that it entertains a desire to perpetuate its privileged position. A computer search of a website, where copies of judicial verdicts are stored, shows that even Supreme Court judges have a marked weakness for Manu. They cite him far more often than Yagnavalkya, whose ideas are closer to the ideals of the Constitution than his.

 

When Manu's code was being ruthlessly enforced in the north, the south was free from the influence of the Vedic establishment. Tamil literature of the period contains evidence of the presence of Brahmins in the region in the early years of the Christian era, but they did not enjoy any special status. It was not the Brahmins who conducted puja at the temples. That was done by members of Mulnivasi communities. It was \later that the Brahmins took over priestly functions and established themselves as a power centre standing between man and god.    

 

The Rigvedic Aryans did not conduct puja. They performed homa to propitiate gods. Their chief gods like Indra, Agni and Varun are either absent or have only nominal presence in the Hindu pantheon. The popular deities of the present like Rama, Krishna, Durga and Ganesa were unknown to them. Evidently they jettisoned their original gods and took new ones. Did they conjure them up as they moved across the Indian mainland? It is more likely that they took over the gods of the people whom they encountered. The way the Vedic establishment brought a Bihar tribe under its sway in the 18^th century has been recorded in great detail by a writer. All that it did was to dislodge the tribal priest and put a Brahmin in his place. The place of worship was the same and the deity was the same, but there was now a Brahmin priest between the god and the tribe. The takeover of the tribe and its deity was peaceful.

 

A full and dispassionate study of the Vedic community’s rise to power will probably show that it established its hegemony by taking over the gods of other peoples and making itself intermediaries through whom alone they could seek favours from their traditional deities. That a Bihar tribe could be subjugated without using force in the 18^th century does not mean that the process was peaceful at all times and at all places. The Vedic establishment vehemently rejects the theory of Aryan invasion as a Western invention. They say there is no evidence to substantiate the invasion theory. This is not true. We don’t have to look farther than the Rigveda for evidence in this regard. It contains many slokas which testify to the intense hostility between the Vedic tribes and their non-Vedic neighbours, at least some of whom were more advanced than themselves. The suggestion that vast masses of people accepted the slavery of the caste system willingly is preposterous.

 

Vivekananda, in one of his speeches, says Sankaracharya had personally led the hordes that attacked and killed Buddhist monks at Nagarjunakonda. Apparently he made the statement relying upon certain references in Sankara Vijayam, a Sanskrit work which describes the exploits of Sankaracharya, who is credited with having destroyed Buddhism and re-established Hinduism. Talk of re-establishment of Hinduism is, of course, absurd since there was no set of beliefs called Hinduism in Sankaracharya’s time. Buddhism rose and prospered not in opposition to Hinduism, but in opposition to the Vedic school. Several versions of Sankara Vijayam have been in circulation and they all contain highly exaggerated accounts of Sankara’s life and achievements. Its contents cannot be taken as the literal truth since devotees attributed to Sankara many things that he probably did not do with a view to adding to his personal glory. There is thus room to doubt the story that Sankaracharya personally led the marauders at Nagarjunakonda. However, it is not in doubt that Vedic zealots destroyed many Buddhist establishments. The decapitated Buddha images found in different parts of the country are proof of the violence that accompanied the Vedic establishment's ascendancy.        

 

While acknowledging the role of Westerners in bringing to light several aspects of our history, which were suppressed by a small, dominant group to facilitate its supremacy, we must not lose sight of the fact that the foreigners' reconstruction of our past has been arbitrary and selective. As Europeans began colonization of the subcontinent, they took a keen interest in the history and culture of the local people. Quite naturally what interested them most was the affinity between them and a dominant stream in the subcontinent. The British rulers and the Vedic community were thrilled by the discovery that Sanskrit and the European languages belonged to one family. Both saw it as evidence that they were long lost cousins, and not masters and servants.

The Europeans did not take in the other ancient languages of the land the same interest as in Sanskrit. Hebrew scholars have drawn attention to the existence of a substantial body of common root words in that language and Tamil, which is as old as Sanskrit if not older. Similarly, Japanese scholars have noted affinity between their language and Tamil. A publication brought by the Korean Association of Hawaii more than 100 years ago says the Korean language belongs to the Dravidian group of languages spoken in the south of India. Neither the Europeans nor Indians have seriously studied the links between Tamil and the languages of other ancient lands. Universities in Tamil Nadu are probably inhibited by the fear that the Dravidian political parties may not take a kind view of any study that may explode their claim that, unlike the Aryans, the Dravidians are wholly indigenous. 

Besides Tamil, there is a vast body of ancient tongues which are collectively classified as Prakrit. Among these languages are Ardhmagadhi, Shourseni, and Maharashtri in which much of Jain literature is written. Then there is Pali, the sacred language of the Buddhists.  In Sri Lanka and Thailand, Pali is taught in schools. In India, it suffers neglect. The study of tribal languages is also neglected. Some universities, like those of Pune and Mysore, have created facilities for Prakrit studies, but they have not so far made any worthwhile contribution to unravelling of our suppressed history. A complete and truthful history of India will not emerge until we have a body of scholars who can look at our past without Vedic blinkers.

 

One of the problems the Mulnivasis encounter is the serious identity crisis resulting from the deprival of their history and the theft of their cultural and spiritual traditions. The myths created and propagated by the Vedic community to establish its superiority have instilled in them a deep sense of inferiority. Recapture of their history, revival of their traditions – to be precise, those elements of their traditions that are still relevant -- and creation of conditions conducive to assertion of human dignity are necessary steps in the process of establishment of the Mulnivasi identity.

 

Current scientific knowledge points to a common origin of all humans in the African continent. The oneness of man is a concept which many thinkers had arrived at even without the help of modern science. Ancient communities everywhere have to organize themselves and assert their rights because they have been oppressed and subjected to disabilities and indignities by later migrants. Their fight against the oppressors is a fight to secure their legitimate rights as equal members of the human race.  

What passes for the Hindu religion, with the attendant vice of the caste system, is an artificial construct. The word ‘Hindu’ does not figure in any of the Vedas or the epics. Sankaracharya makes no mention of Hindu or Hinduism in his works. The term ‘Hindu’, a variation of Sindhu (Indus), had been used by ancient Persians to denote the people living to the east of their land. Al Barouni, who visited India at the instance of Mohammed Ghaznavi 1,000 years ago, used the term to denote both the land and the people. He came into contact with a Brahmin community and learnt from it about the Gita. At that time Vedic scholars were engaged in feverish literary activity, retelling the tales of the land in such a way as to reinforce their ideas. Their efforts resulted in the integration of all Indian thought under one system with the Vedas at the very top. Early writings mention only three Vedas -- Rig, Sama, Yajur. Subsequently, Atharva was also added, making for four Vedas. There are reasons to believe that Atharva was not the work of the tribes who created the other three. Many gods and goddesses also got integrated. One technique employed for the purpose was the production of works like, say Vishnusahasranama, which made Vishnu a god with 1,000 different names.

 

By and large, the scribes did a good job but some instances of imperfect editing remain. Thus, in some works, Ganesa, known also by other names such as Vighneswara, is a chronic bachelor, while in some others he has two wives. The contradiction may be explained as the result of integration of different characters from different traditions. Ganesa’s brother, Karthikeya or Kumara in the north and Subrahmanya or Muruga in the south, appears to be another composite character created by the amalgamation of different folk heroes. In the tales of the south, Muruga’s wife Valli is a Dalit.

 

Some medieval works mention the Buddha as one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. This indicates that at one stage the Vedic establishment attempted to integrate Buddhism fully with Hinduism in the same way as Saivism and Vaishnavism were made part of it. A scholar has offered an interesting explanation for the failure of this attempt. According to him, the Buddha could not become an avatar because he did not kill anyone. The ostensible purpose of every avatar is the physical liquidation of someone who invited the hostility of the gods.

 

The Muslim conquerors who established empires on the subcontinent and the Christian colonizers who followed them were not familiar with plural societies. They assumed that, as in the lands of their origin, there was just one religion. The Vedic establishment was ready to go along with that proposition if its supremacy was recognized. This is illustrative of the way this minority seized every opportunity to further its ambitions of social hegemony. A scrutiny of the Hindu religious texts will show that it is not the Vedas, but the Upanishads, that is the repository of high spiritual values. Unlike the Vedas, the Upanishads are not exclusive profusions of Aryan thought. They bear internal evidence of substantial contributions by non-Aryans. Unlike the Vedas, which emphasize division, the Upanishads proclaim the essential unity of man. The Vedic establishment, in keeping with its practice of appropriating the intellectual property of other peoples, made the Upanishads its own. This appears to have been done by the simple expediency of making the Upanishads mere appendages of the Vedas, along with the Vedangas and the Brahmanas.       

 

Indian thought moved far beyond the effusions of the early Aryan immigrants, but the inheritors of the Vedic tradition have been making continuous exertions to pull society back, seeing in that tradition the best chances of holding the vast majority in perpetual subjugation. While the Vedic establishment dominates the society, the proclaimed goal of a just society will remain a pipedream because its ideals stand in direct contradiction to the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity enshrined in the Constitution. Some reformers, recognizing the pernicious influence of the Vedic establishment on Indian society, have argued in favour of rejection of the past in toto. When we do that we are actually playing into the hands of the Vedic establishment because it amounts to tacitly conceding its specious claim that the Vedic community created the Glory that was India. We have to go deep into the past and distinguish the healthy elements of it from the unhealthy ones. An objective study will show that while the Vedic community devised an iniquitous system with narrow and selfish motives other peoples came up with liberal ideas that saw the whole world as one and all human beings as equals.  We can reject the former and accept the latter.

 

We have not learnt everything about our past. Many elements of our past are still waiting to be unearthed and studied. New scientific tools like DNA mapping are now available to expand our knowledge about the past. Most of our scientific and academic institutions are under the influence of the Vedic establishment. Can they be relied upon to undertake unbiased studies? Its self-serving record raises doubts on this score. Just as there is need to make the newsrooms representative of the wider community, there is need to make the research institutions representative of the society.

 

The strength of the Indian tradition lies in its plurality. In the whole wide world there is no country with the kind of diversity that India has. Some forces at work in our society make no secret of their desire to destroy this diversity and enforce a uniformity based on their narrow interpretation of the past. We must defeat their designs and do everything possible to strengthen diversity.

We must move ahead drawing inspiration from the savants who have shown us the way forward. You have recognized the need for this, as is evident from the emphasis you have placed on the teachings of Acharya Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar. There are others, too, like Periyar E. V. Ramaswami in Tamil Nadu. 

 

In this context, I would like to draw your attention to the work done by Sree Narayana Guru, who is widely acknowledged as the chief architect of the social renaissance that Kerala experienced in the late 18^th and early 19^th century. The initiators of that movement were the backward classes. Narayana Guru was only a 32-year-old sanyasin when he challenged the Vedic community’s authority by consecrating a Sivalingam and establishing a temple which was open to all, regardless of caste, in 1885. In his later temples, he put a mirror instead of an idol. As a devotee folds his hands in prayer, his mirror image returns the greeting. It was a telling illustration of the Upanishad teaching that godhood is in you. He looked forward to the day when schools will be built instead of temples.

 

Sree Narayana propagated the idea that there was only one caste, one religion, and one god. Gandhi, who met him in 1925, pointed to the different sizes of the leaves of a tree and argued that differences among humans were natural. If you chew the leaves, they will taste the same, whatever the size, he told Gandhi. The encounter possibly played a part in such efforts as Gandhi made subsequently to mitigate the effects of the caste system. Gandhi’s approach, however, continued to suffer from a grievous drawback. He envisaged for the upper crust the role of trustees who should look after the welfare of those at the bottom. Trusteeship and patronage run counter to the principle of equality.

 

Ayyankali, the Dalit leader, who was Sree Narayana’s contemporary, told Gandhi that he was looking forward to the day when his community would have ten graduates. Today, thanks to spread of education and introduction of affirmative action, there is no dearth of graduates and post-graduates among the Dalits, but justice, social, economic and political, continues to elude them. 

Sree Narayana’s advice to the people was to become enlightened through education, emerge stronger through organization and better their prospects through agriculture and industry. Similar advice has come to us from other leaders of Dalit liberation too. Above all, we must have faith in ourselves.

 

Any deficiency that the so-called backward classes suffer from is the result of long years of exclusion. Any merit that the so-called forward classes can lay claim to is the result of long years of privileged existence. Let there be level playing ground and the false notions of merit and demerit will disappear.