Muslim shock over racism in India
I came across this book review on V.T. Rajshekar’s book, DALIT — the Black Untouchables of India, while doing a web search on Y.N. Kly, author of The Black Book: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X.
My knowledge of the Indian caste system and the position of the Untouchables is very limited. In fact, until recently, I had never even heard of a people called the Dalit. Are the Dalits Black? A search on the Dalit leader, the late Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, revealed a man who was very-fair skinned and had parents who were both Dalit.
Writers with marXIst leanings tend to use the race card (sometimes unfairly) whenever it serves their end, so 1 am putting the question to some of the brothers on the list from the subcontinent. Are the Dalit ethnically/anthropologically different from other Indians? From what region of the world did their ancestors originate?
Apartheid in India: Is the caste system still pervasive in Indian culture? Is it possible that the realities of this system could be exploited in a campaign to bring political and economic pressure to bear on India much like the surge of apartheid was the catalyst in galvanizing world opinion against the De Klerk regime in South Africa? Of course, while the horrible acts being committed by the large contingency of armed occupation forces (1 Indian soldier for every 10 Kashmiri civilian) against the Muslims of Kashmir is more than enough evidence to encourage mobilization for its destruction, I believe that a military struggle should be buttressed by an ideological and or political struggle whenever possible.
Non-violence shattered: This book by VT Rajshekar is the first to provide a Dalit view of the roots and continuing factors of the gross oppression of the world’s largest minority (over 150 million people) through a 3,000-year history of conquest, slavery, apartheid and worse. Rajshekar offers a penetrating, often startling overview of the role of brahminism and the Indian caste system in embedding the notion of untouchability in Hindu culture, tracing the origins of the caste system to an elaborate system of political control in the guise of religion, imposed by Aryan invaders from the North on a conquered aboriginal/ Dravidian civilization of African descent. He exposes the almost unimaginable social indignities which continue to be imposed upon the so-called Untouchables to this very day, with the complicity of the political, criminal justice, media and education systems. Under Rajshekar’s incisive critique, the much-vaunted image of Indian non-violence shatters.
Gandhi exposed: Even India’s world-famous “apostle” of pacifism (M.K. Gandhi) emerges in less saintly guise, in seeking to ensure Hindu numerical domination in India’s new political democracy. Gandhi advocated assimilating those whom Hindu scriptures defined as outcastes (Untouchables) into the lowest “Hindu” caste, rather than accede to their demand for a separate electorate. Rajshekar further questions whether the brahminist socio-political concepts so developed in turn influenced the formation of the modern nazi doctrine of Aryan supremacy, placing the roots of nazism deep in Indian history. This new updated and illustrated third edition includes: Y.N. Kly on the Dalit plight as a warning to African-Americans, Runoko Rashidi on “Blacks as a global community”, the 1995 intervention at the UN on behalf of Dalits by Dr. Laxmi Berwa, and the recent US congressional Bill 4215 on human rights in India which marks the first US congressional recognition of the Dalit plight.
V.T. Rajshekar is recognized worldwide as one of India’s foremost human rights activists and a spokesperson for the Indian Dalits. Combining the essentials of marxism and the philosophy of the late Dr. B.R. Ambedkar into a new indigenous political philosophy, his writings clarify the caste-class struggle in India. He is editor of the internationally distributed English language Indian bi-weekly, Dalit Voice.
