The UN Human Rights Commission in October 2009 declared casteism as a form of human rights abuse and has begun the process of criminalizing casteism. However, this will not end casteism. The UN can only create a little pressure internationally. To annihilate casteism, an internal revolution is required. Since the brutal Aryan invasions of India began nearly eight millennia ago, countless individuals have fought and died against vedic varna racism and puranic casteism. By studying the legacy of a few of these heroes, we seek to explore the different dimensions of the revolution against casteism.
SHIVA’S CASTE REVOLUTIONS
In 1959, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar presented Shiva as a historical figure to end (global) Aryan arrogance and establish universal humanism. According to his seminal discourse, Tantra and Indo-Aryan Civilization, he said Shiva was non- Aryan born to a Tibetan mother and an Aryan father. Throughout South Asia, countless Adivasis and “low caste” communities worship Shiva. Sarkar presents the Aryans as brutal, materialistic warriors with no spirituality or culture. The non- Aryans were simple, sublime people who lived in peace with each other and who were intellectually developed. It is only after coming in contact with the indigenous Indians the Aryans learned non-Aryan Tantra and renamed it as yoga.
Shiva’s followers, called ganas (though despised by Aryans as dark Untouchables), became recognized as the first genuine human beings.
Even today, the word gana is used in many Indian languages to signify the authentic people of India.
Second, Shiva was able to create a military revolution. He was the first and last person who was able to unite all tribes and all races into a unified force to fight the Aryans, Sarkar said.
BUDHA LAUNCHED INDIA’S FIRST REVOLUTION
Shiva founded the first cosmopolitan city of Kashi in the east, far away from the Aryans to establish this sama samaja. The conquest of Shiva’s city by the racist Aryans is perhaps of the greatest tragedies of Indian history.
While Mahaviira Jain was perhaps the first person to denounce casteism, it is Budha who propagated these ideas to the common people. Budha was a spiritual revolutionary because he became a monk in order to remove suffering rather than to escape it. He learned Samkhya yoga under the Adivasi sage, Sainjaya, and attained the final goal of this yoga. However, he remained unsatisfied, as he still could not understand or remove world suffering. This compassionate thirst resulted in his true enlightenment. The effulgence of this enlightenment caused ordinary people to become transformed by his presence. Rather than using his enlightenment to become a high priest, he used his spirituality to create a moral revolution in Central India
For the first time, dharma was not based on the ritual purity of animal sacrifice (as in vedicism and confucianism); dharma was based on one’s actual conduct. For the first time, morality was demanded of all people, regardless of the caste or class. This also resulted in a partial social revolution.
Budha created the first spiritual order in which there was equality amongst all races and castes. Budha was the first to reason and dialogue with the common people to make them realize and condemn the irrationality of caste discrimination, the futility of religious rituals and the barbarism of ritual animal slaughter (yajna).
Budha’s moral revolution has never been equalled in human history. Countless social reformers have come and gone, but none could create a moral revolution as Budha did.
BASAVA’S REVOLUTION
Basava founded one of the most militant, anti-caste movements in Indian history. He also started a new trend, because he was able to attract and create other great personalities to his movement. Basava was the first to renounce the temples and roam the Dalit parts of Kalyan, Karnataka. He mixed with the most oppressed and despised people and taught them how to sing, how to fight and how to love like Shiva’s tiger. For the first time, shudras and Untouchables spoke out against injustice and spoke about their own internal, spiritual revolution.
Basava and his fellow saints achieved a spiritual revolution so powerful that it transformed ordinary Dalits into great poet-saints. He also engendered a cultural revolution by creating a revolutionary peoples’ poetry. Other saints like Jnaneshwar and Guru Nanak were also able to create a mass-based social and ideological revolution, but none were more revolutionary than Basava.
CHOKHAMELA – FIRST DALIT REVOLUTIONARY
Chokhamela was the first known Dalit revolutionary in India. He achieved an inner, spiritual revolution. In one of his later poems, he writes that in the beginning he was an outcaste who worshipped a stone in a temple, but now he found himself filling the sky and universe and he worshipped the lord as his very own self. This inner revolution forced even the adherents of casteism to grudgingly give him respect as a saint. Many have criticized Chokhamela for not being a political or social revolutionary. However they could not achieve the spiritual stance of Chokhamela. They could not attain genuine inner peace, transcending all religious dogma, despite all their Marxist analyses. All types of revolution are essential; none can be neglected. Any caste revolution is useless, unless however it can kill the casteism in one’s soul after a lifetime of discrimination and abuse. Most educated people today have failed to attain the inner freedom, sublimity and powerful love of Chokhamela.
RAVIDAS MURDERED BY BRAHMINS
The greatness of Ravidas needs no telling. Just recently a Sikh follower of his was killed in Austria by the Brahminical forces and Dalits revolted across entire North India. Ravidas was born in Kashi, which was under Aryan, casteist occupation. In the city of Shiva, which had become the center of casteism (the antithesis of Shaivism), Ravidas created the first Dalit social revolution, thus reviving sama samaja. He was even able to win over progressive upper-caste people to his movement. For the first time ever, Dalits marched through the streets with their head held high in upper-caste areas. For the first time, Dalits sang devotional songs that created the first Dalit cultural revolution. It all came about due to Ravidas’ spiritual and ideological revolution. Unlike Kabir, he did not stop with mere ideological awakening. Instead, he led a social revolution that briefly allowed the rose of Shaeva humanism to bloom once more in Kashi. The power of this spiritual and ideological revolution has never been equalled in Dalit history. For this very reason, Ravidas is a beacon of inspiration to Dalits and all those who yearn for sama samaja.
GHASIDAS’ SATNAMI REVOLUTION
It is also the reason why, as activists like V.T. Rajshekar have intuited, he was murdered by the Brahmins. Ghasidas followed in the footsteps of Ravidas. While Ravidas stayed within Kashi, Ghasidas travelled on foot throughout Chhattisgarh. He taught the exploited Dalits to develop moral discipline and to liberate themselves socially and spiritually with his Satnam spirituality.
When we see the current reign of terror in Chhattisgarh, the karmabhumi (legacy-lands) of Sant Ghasidas, we can only bury our heads in shame that despite our so- called education we do not have the same integrity and courage of the Satnamiis.
PHULE, INDIA’S ONLY MAHATMA
Mahatma Phule may have been one of the least educated modern Dalit leaders, but he was perhaps the most original and creative thinker. Phule and his wife Savitribai created an educational revolution. Theirs was an education with the simplest of curriculum, with few books, but it instilled a longing for justice, a determination to fight for personal dignity that still transcends current educational efforts. For it is not just good books, it is the moral ardour and purity of purpose of the teacher that is the essence of genuine education. In the middle of the Brahmin renaissance in Pune, Phule was the sole voice of the voiceless Dalits. For the first time in Indian history, Dalit and Brahmin debated in public and in print. For the first time, a Dalit published books attacking Brahminical rule. The media revolution launched by Phule undermined the Brahminical bogus moral and religious legitimacy. Phule used his media revolution to attempt a cultural revolution by creating the utopia of Baliraja as opposed to Brahmin Ramrajya. Due to his very lack of Western education, Phule was able to outsmart and outthink his enemies in creative ways.
IYOTHEE THAS HITS TAMIL COUNTRY
He is the country’s only genuine mahatma. lyothee Thass was the first Dalit to undergo a personal educational revolution. He educated himself in Tamil, Sanskrit, Pali and English. Because he was self-taught, he was able to shed new light on Tamil and Pali culture and spirituality. He is a role model for every Dalit student struggling in casteist, run-down government schools.
lyothee Thass was the first modern Dalit social revolutionary.
AMBEDKAR’S IDEOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
He realized, as few others did, that the real revolutionary potential lay not in urban Dalits, but in the rural Dalits and adivasis. He united and organized the various tribes of the Nilgiri Hills (Wayanad in Kerala, Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu). He was the first Dalit to use Dravidian sentimental legacy to liberate Dalits from Hinduism. He did this based on his deep knowledge of Tamil history, culture and social dynamics He was the first Dalit to realize the revolutionary legacy of Budhism and to use Budhism to create social change. While his movement did not transcend religion into a genuine spiritual movement, it had a tremendous impact in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.
Till this day his writings are not properly compiled let alone translated.
lyothee Thass was also an intellectual revolutionary because while most Indians were running after Western knowledge or imagining airplanes and atoms in the Vedas, lyothee Thass revived the Dravidian Siddha system of medicine.
The Tamil Siddhas were among the most revolutionary poets in Indian history. Their strong assault on not just casteism but the very materialist mentality behind it has a powerful impact, even in translation, on any materialist – western or eastern.
lyothee Thass revived this anti- Brahminical medical knowledge system in the teeth of resistance from the Aryan, Ayurvedic establishment. Recently the Govt. of India removed his name from the National Center for Siddha Research in Madras. Most Dalits (like the rest of India) today are in the boxes of either western (Christian, Muslim) or Hindu knowledge systems, and this is why the cognitive intellectual revolution of lyothee Thass is so important for us today.
It is impossible to summarize the achievements of Dr. Ambedkar in just a few sentences but still we will try. First and foremost, it is Dr. Ambedkar’s personal revolution that has had the greatest impact on society. His personal revolution comprised an education revolution in which a Dalit scaled the educational heights of his time. It also comprised a character revolution, revealed in a life of endless struggle and endless literary and social activism. Above all it was a character revolution, revealed in Dr. Ambedkar’s commitment to rational discourse rather ranting like his upper-caste enemies, it was a commitment to debating issues rather than in engaging in slanderous attacks and abuse, it was a commitment to maintaining his composure under fire while his opponents were losing theirs.
INDIA’S 1ST NATIONAL LEADER
He launched a multidimensional ideological revolution. For less educated readers, he wrote simple but incisive articles in beautiful Marathi (included in Sahitya Akademi’s “Masterpieces of Indian Literature”) that built on the foundations of the Maratha humanism of Namdev and allowed his rural readers to enter into modern discussions of sociology and economics. He was able to develop the most powerful critique of casteism in Indian history. If Dr. Ambedkar were alive today, he would not be re-reading his old books; he would be writing new ones based on the latest historical discoveries.
8% UPPER CASTES CONTROL BENGAL
Dr. Ambedkar was the first Indian thinker to create the mandate for the annihilation of casteism. He was the first Dalit who was a national leader, who was able to win an election in Khulna District of Bengal province with the help of Jogendranath Mandal, even though he was not a Bengali. This in itself was a social revolution, as it showed that fighting casteism was a national issue that transcended language and birthplace.
He created a legal revolution by positing that the very purpose of any constitution is to guarantee equality of dignity. When he realized that, contrary to his American teachers, constitutional rights do not bring about social equality, he began to create a national movement to force social change before his untimely death.
For most of his life, Dr. Ambedkar was anti-religious, as per the teachings of John Dewey, but he realized that Indian society mandated some form of spiritual struggle. Though he had so many degrees, he did not have the spiritual revolutionary bha’va (ethos) of Chokhamela or the capacity to create a socio-spiritual movement like Ravidas, since it is not part of the heritage of Western education. Hence, he was forced to choose among the different religions. He was trying to create a new Budhism before his untimely demise. This social evolutionary movement still has impact on Indian society today.
Because Dr. Ambedkar lived, we have the annihilation of casteism as the desideratum of India today – to move from inhuman apartheid towards a genuinely human and humane society. Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy keeps our eyes focused on the prize of a casteless society despite the miserable legacy of savarna svaraja of 1947.
Casteism is the central issue of Indian life. Every issue, from economic exploitation, destruction of the environment, debasement and decimation of Indian languages, corporate land-grabs, police brutality, communalism and omnipresent corruption, is rooted in casteism.
SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
Any attempt for a genuine revolution in India must be primarily focused on ending casteism.
In Communist West Bengal, despite countless bombastic speeches talking about revolution, it is a fact that aside from outside exploiters, just three castes (Brahmin, Bania and Kayastha), who are only 8% of the population, control the lion’s share of wealth and high positions in the society. In addition, while each of us may be talented in only one or two dimensions of revolution, every dimension of revolution is important, not just in social life but in our personal lives as well.
These brief explorations are meant to provoke discussion, obtain feedback and create a multidimensional consensus for myriad forms of resistance and revolution against casteism.
The reality of these realms of revolution is revealed only in revolutionary activism. It is to spark such revolutionary activism that this document was created.
Spiritual revolution is the foundation of any revolution. Without a spiritual revolution, any lasting change in the human personality is near impossible. Hence, any non- spiritually based revolution will simply replace one group of exploiters with another. We see this in the history of casteism in modern India. After a long struggle, the backward castes obtained some social power, but mostly their power was used to abuse the castes lower than their own. The reason is that they have not become free from casteist psychology.
Spiritual revolution is meaningless if it is based on rigid non-violence, because such passiveness leads to more exploitation, more himsa, and increases the crudity (tamas) in the society. Secondly, spiritual revolution is meaningless if it is based on a negative attitude towards the world and the human self as a meaningless void or illusion. If human beings are illusions, then the concept of human rights has no foundation. Thirdly, spiritual revolution is only possible if the meditation can enable the aspirants to rapidly combat inner propensities and become empowered with genuine shakti that gives them the courage to attempt the impossible and suffer tremendous hardships. Fourthly spiritual revolution is only possible if the meditation can generate a flood of deep, selfless love.
P.R. SARKAR’S TEACHINGS
It is this prema shakti alone that can create any meaningful revolution in society, as was created by the ambrosial Sufi poetry of Rumi, Bulleh Shah and others. This applied not just to individual life but to social life as well. Hitler said that love does not last, and that hatred alone is the real lasting emotion through which one can gain power. Only someone who can maintain and infuse powerful, selfless love in others can be considered a spiritual revolutionary.
While other spiritual teachers sought to revive Vedic dogmas and taught mediation to relieve the stress of wealthy upper castes, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar taught a new Tantra capable of transforming ordinary, uneducated boys and girls into lions who, gave such high blood pressure to the ruling Indian Congress that it declared the suppression of Ananda Marga as the primary reason for imposing Emergency in 1975. The reason Sarkar was able to create such revolutionaries is because being with him was like being lost in a tsunami of tenderness. The first head of the CBI revealed in his memoirs that he was instructed by Nehru to keep special watch on two organizations (the RSS and the Muslim League) and one man – P. R. Sarkar. It was the spiritual power of Ananda Marga that caused the Brahmin-led communists of India repeatedly try to crush the organization with brutal violence.
BAN ON ANAND MARG
When Ananda Marga was banned in India during the Emergency (1975-1977), the Soviet communist newspaper, Pravda declared that it should be banned all over the world. He created Anand Marga in the 1950s in Bihar, the bastion of casteism. The anti-caste movement spread throughout Bihar.
One can never defeat an enemy until one defeat their army. One can never defeat casteism until one fight the army of casteism – the RSS. Similarly, upper caste communists and Maoists must also be fought against in any genuine social revolution. Any genuine social revolution must combat communalism and casteism as twin heads of the same best. The fundamental fact of Indian history is that Kabir, Ravidas and other sants have been far more successful social revolutionaries than the countless coailist and communists of the modern era, because social revolution invovles transforming the collective mind and the collective heart.
EDUCATION REVOLUTION
Today we need an education revolution of Dalit schools across South Asia. Just as African- Americans developed Afro-centric education (Black pride and Black power), India needs an educational system that is centered around mulanivasis. Adivasi cultural education is the key to creating an alternative to Hindu and Bollywood culture. Education in Dalit history needs to be taught in a way that respects local differences. Each region of India has its own local caste history which must be studied and taught. It is not enough simply to talk about a few famous people like Phule and Dr. Ambedkar.
AHIMSA KILLED DALITS
The great tragedy of India is that since the rise of Jainism, Dalits and other communities have been taught to renounce arms and self- defense in the name of pseudo- ahimsa. It left Dalit communities at the mercy of upper caste rulers who were never forced to renounce violence. Such a double standard left lower castes helpless observers to their own cremation.
HUMBUG OF GANDHI
The root reason for Gandhi’s non- violence was a fear of what the Indian masses would do to his beloved zamindar-Birla-Bania elite and his fear of the end of the varna- based society of the traditional Brahmin-centered village that was the goal of his savarna hind svaraj. So any genuine Dalit educational network of training must provide education in individual and community self-defense techniques.
Kerala and TN have world renowned martial arts traditions that should be taught in Dalit schools. It should not be forgotten that the confidence of Dr. Ambedkar’s community came from having been soldiers in the British army.
BRAHMIN MEDIA
Educational revolution can only take place if there is a media revolution to educate and empower adults. In the last ten years we have seen the tabloidization of Indian media in which there has been a Rupert Murdoch-style vulgarization of public discourse. The non-English media is under severe pressure and readily sells out to communal and corporate forces.
The problem is not just with the Indian journalists, of whom more than 90% are Brahmins (2% of the Indian population.) The problem lies with the Indian public that wilfully accepts govt. and corporate muzzling of the truth according to international polls. People of other nations may suffer the same lack of media democracy, but they have a high degree of awareness and anger that India lacks. This malaise is due to the fact that the Indian media has never known genuine freedom and has never had the courage to seriously challenge, for example, the foreign policy of their government. In the past, certain American newspapers used to expose the crimes of the CIA, but there has never been such a newspaper in India.
Around the world there are many examples of alternative media that provide education to the public on so many topics, that foster critical thinking and empower communities to take charge of their own destiny. This kind of multilingual media revolution is essential to spread Dalit culture. For many people, it will be the only education they ever receive. Hence for them a media revolution is an essential part of an education revolution.
LEGAL REVOLUTION
Dr. Ambedkar’s legacy is that of a legal revolution. The Indian constitution is a deeply flawed, communal and racist document that is a carbon copy of the structure of British rule. It bestows rights in grand phrases and restricts those rights in narrow clauses. The very fact that the constitution has no provisions for adivasi rights and uses vague, British racist terms such as “Scheduled Tribes” shows the clear lack of basic humanism. Throughout South America we have seen indigenous people and landless peasants rise up and secure their rights by changing their constitution. We have seen it most recently in Bolivia. India has so much to learn from South America in recreating the Indian Constitution.
The BJP has created fear across India because they want to change the constitution into a charter for a Hindu state based on the Manu Smrti. Mulanivasis need to seize the momentum for constitutional change from the BJP and the corporate elites. Dalit communities need to create their own constitutions and enforce them by their own security forces, exactly as some Latin American communities have done.
UPPER CASTE MAOISTS
The creation of a new legal order, heedless of the savarna legal order, is essential in order to create change in society.
Economic revolution is the heart of any revolution. Both the ancient and modern social revolutionaries in India have entirely neglected economic revolution. Communists and Maoists have failed because fundamentally their solution to all problems lies in party dictatorship with upper caste party leaders. From Nepal to Andhra Pradesh, all so-called revolutionary Maoist organizations are controlled by upper castes. For Dalits and adivasis, a Maoist revolution means exchanging one set of upper-caste (landlord) masters for another set of upper-caste (party leader) masters. Fundamentally, capitalism, communism and Maoism support centralized economies. They are committed to economic tyranny – to giving all economic power to a small handful of people (capitalists or party bureaucrats). Generally Communists and Maoists gain power by speaking about the rights of landless peasants and about autonomous collectives (soviets, village coops). Once in power they violently repress economic democracy and establish centralized economic dictatorship in a militarized society of party goondas.
REVOLUTION AGAINST BRAHMINISM
Thus far, no Dalit leader has been able to combat the structure of rural economic exploitation of Dalits. JNU did a study of Bihar, which indicated that the upper-caste landlords of Bihar resisted modernization of the economy because they feared that increased wealth would trickle down to Dalits and give them the chance to advance themselves economically and hence socially. It was in fact also one of Narendra Modi’s prime reasons for conducting a genocide of Muslims (2002). Muslims were coming up economically and were prospering, owning numerous hotels, restaurants, and other businesses in Ahmedabad. Since the genocide, they are back to square zero. So long as the structure of economic exploitation is present, any attempt at social reform or social revolution will prove futile. This is because all ideological and social independence of Dalit communities is dependent on their economic independence. The social democracy of Dr. Ambedkar cannot exist without genuine economic democracy.
Since the era of Shiva, there has been no genuine military revolution against casteism. Those who tried, like Basava and the Satnamis, paid for it with their lives. For over 7,000 years we have seen an unending series of Dalit martyrs to Aryan violence, Mulnivasis must decide to end once and for all the assault, torture, rape and slaughter of their family members by upper castes. It can only be done by the physical and military empowerment of Dalits and their communities.
What is needed is community- based peace militias emerging from individual and community self- defense and martial arts training programs, specifically designed to resist upper caste goondas and mercenaries.
Dr. Ambedkar began such work in Nagpur for Dalit self-defense against RSS thugs. These programs should now start in all Dalit and Adivasi-dominated areas, and the resulting local militias of these areas should expand to defend Mulanivasis in nearby areas.
SELF-DEFENCE
So long as Dalits and Adimasis do not defend themselves, the atrocities on them will continue. Hence, it is mandatory that they create local and regional peace militias whose members will serve as defenders of their own community against any kind of injustice even attempted against them. These peace militias must become so powerful that no person, no institution, no government, dares to mete out any kind of injustice against them. Dalits and Adivasis comprise 80% of the Indian population. It is time to convert that 80% into a powerful moral and military force so that the very last remnants of casteism are removed from the Indian landscape once and for all.
No political party or so-called religious institution can bring salvation. Praising god in concerts with drums and cymbals will not bring salvation either, because this will not bring the sinner to submission. To curb the onslaughts of the immoralists today, arms are more necessary than drums and cymbals.
CONCLUSION
We have seen in a nutshell what the revolution in caste involves. Until we plunge boldly into the 7,000 year old sewer of Indian casteism and combat the crocodiles of the Brahminical forces, these intuitions and aspirations will remain mere dreams in the dungeons of casteist debasement of Indian civilization. The time to act is long past. We need to now step forward to reclaim the glory of the martyrs of the seven millennial-old struggle against casteism. We must step forward in full armour, comprising the mighty missiles of spiritual, moral, cultural, ideological, social, educational; legal, economic and military revolution.
The ultimate aim of the Hindu terrorists is not just the subjugation and religious genocide of Christians and Muslims. The real goal is the reincarnation of the cannibalistic caste society of the pre-Muslim era. So the fight against Hindu terrorism constitutes the beginning of the revolution against caste. This is the Varna Viplava – to bring back the Sama Samaja of Shaevite and adivasi cultures.
