I was given a copy of your periodical, Dalit Voice, by a friend. For the last two months he is regularly sending me Dalit Voice after he finishes reading it. i must say i find your periodical a powerful and very straightforward one. You have the courage to call a spade a spade.
“I only wish you would devote more attention to the Backward Castes who are, orthodoxy and it is only by reaching out to them that radical social change, especially in North India, can be brought about. Besides giving attention to social exploitation {i.e. caste), don’t you feel that you should deal with economic exploitation too?
Dalit Voice asserts that the Untouchables and the Backward Castes are not Hindus. Surprisingly, your argument is confirmed in a remarkable book I have just finished reading, Indian Caste Customs by CIE, ICS “Reid. (Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1932).
Fear of conversion: The learned. author says:
A generation ago, orthodox Hindus regarded the untouchables as outside the pale of Hinduism and did not scruple to say so. A Bengali Brahman, Mr. U.N. Mukherji, merely reflected current opinion when he wrote in 1909: –
‘It is all one to the Brahmans whether they (i.e. the untouchables) Cali themselves Hindus or not. They are just as much untouchables as they were before. Their adoption of the Hindu religion causes some amount of amusement and sometimes gives rise to a certain amount of indulgent contempt”.
A Hari or Dom (both untouchables) and a dog would be hunted out of a place of worship with equally little ceremony and with equally little hesitation. If anything, the dog will get off more cheaply than the other two, as they are supposed to know better. Few now would be so outspoken, at any rate in public. The same views may be held, but it is not thought politic to express them. A change has come over the science since the introduction of the Montagu-Chelmsford. political reforms and the separate representation of Moslems. Communal passions have risen high and Hindu politicians have realized that the untouchables are not a negligible quantity. There has been really anxiety that they should not be driven into the fold of either Islam or Christianity and so decrease the numerical strength and voting power of Hindus”. (pp. 158-59) Put simply, the author asserts that even though the ruling classes still despise the Untouchables, for the sake of preserving their hegemony they (reluctantly) have ‘Hinduism the untouchables.
This confirms what you have been saying all along. Please bring this to the notice of your readers.
The writer being new to DV doesn’t know how much we have written on this subject. In fact, rescuing the Backward Castes, hovering in what is described as “Trishanku Swarga®, has been our main concern.:
Fortunately, the anti-Mandal agitation came as a blessing in disguise. Our first major piece on the BCs was “Backward Castes are Neither Sudras nor Hindus,” (N.K. Sharma, DV March 1, 1987) and this was brought out as a reprint because of the big demand for it. Hundreds of copies were sold all over India. It was also translated to several languages. If the author is interested, he can get it reprinted again and translated to Hindi as well. Then we had another piece, “BCs and SCs not Sudras: They are a distinct, Separate Entity.” (N.K. Sharma, DV Nov. 16, 1990, p.i8).
There were several smaller items in between. The caste war launched by the Aryan forces against the Mandal Commission in the later part of 1990 convinced the BCs about the truth of our argument and finally the war culminated in the entire non-Hindu Indian races siding with Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar crushing the alien Aryan races. No journal in India has done so much to awaken the BCs and unit them with the other non-Hindu indigenous counterparts like SC/STs, as DV. Over 85% of the Indians are Nen Hindu. Only less than 15% are alien Aryans/Hindus/upper castes/ “Savarnas. The Aryans also know this supreme truth. But to hide this truth and to hoodwink the innocent SC/ST/BCs, the Hindu Nazis started their muchpublicised Toyota Rath Yatra “to unite the Hindus”. What is going on in India today is a violent war launched by the Hindus against the 85% non-Hindu natives of India for peacefully demanding their human rights assured in the Constitution of India. The recent election was about to turn into a veritable war between the “Mandals” (the 85% non-Hindus) and the “Bandlas” (15% Aryans) but the latter averted the danger: because of the well-timed murder of Rajiv Gandhi — EDITOR.
