Tag Archives: Phule

Archival Note

Published in Dalit Voice (Vol. 22, Issue No. 20, 16 October 2003), this essay by V. T. Rajshekar intervenes in debates over the social and political composition of the anti-caste movement at a time when questions of Bahujan unity and electoral realignments were reshaping Indian politics.

Rajshekar argues that the Brahminical Social Order, rather than the Backward Classes (BCs), is the principal adversary of Dalits. He contends that excluding BCs from the Ambedkarite movement weakens the struggle against Brahminism and calls for a renewed Bahujan alliance grounded in the shared emancipatory vision of Phule, Shahu, Periyar, and Ambedkar.

More than two decades later, the essay remains relevant as anti-caste politics continues to grapple with questions of coalition-building, social solidarity, and the relationship between caste oppression and political strategy.

Dalit movement will suffer if BCs are excluded

The one-line answer to the question, “Who is the enemy of Dalits?” is the Brahmins, not BCs, who are the natural allies of Dalits.

Both the Dalits and BCs are the victims of the Brahminical Social Order. The historical truth also must be considered that the BCs and Dalits are from the same stock. Of course, we cannot ignore the involvement of forward BCs in the atrocities against Dalits. Persons enacting the rule seem to be cruel because they are in direct touch, but the actual cruelty lies in the rule and the frames of the rule. The same thing is with BCs and the BSO.

So, I suggest establishing a positive relationship between Dalits and BCs because the root cause of the problem is not the BCs but the Brahminical system.

Dalits alone can save BCs: We have to remove the false Kshatriyatva from the minds of BCs. Of course, Dalits cannot say that it is not their duty. It is their duty because they are the pillars of the Ambedkarite movement. The Dalits, as leaders of the Indian revolution, must lead the BCs also.

Our duty is to generate attachment of BCs with the ideology of Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar. The first step for this is the detachment of BCs from the Brahminical fold. Of course, BCs cannot detach themselves. It is the Dalits who have to do this job.

Restricting the movement to Dalits will not only not help our movement, but it will take the movement backward. On the contrary, we will help the BSO only. Our movement is to abolish the BSO. One of the purposes of our struggle is this. Our target should not be any individual but the culture which creates individuals like Mulayam, Kalyan, Katiyar, and even Paswan. If you want to abolish the BSO, a major part of this system should get out from the BSO, and that major part is the BCs. By avoiding the relationship between Dalits and BCs, we cannot run the Ambedkarite movement. On the contrary, we put a question mark on Phule-Shahu-Periyar-Ambedkar’s mission.

Mulayam is a Hindu: It is a misconception that BCs cannot accept Dalit leadership. Jagjivan Ram did not accept the leadership of Dr. Ambedkar. That does not mean that Dalits did not accept the leadership of Babasaheb. Today, the movement is identified with the name of Babasaheb, not Babuji. So, you cannot generalize the relationship between Dalits and BCs by citing the example of Mulayam and Kalyan (both BCs), but we must understand that they are not accepted by all the BCs. Mulayam, Kalyan, and Paswan are driven by the Brahminical force. Mulayam and Kalyan do not accept the leadership of Kanshi Ram not because of their BC origin but because of their “Hindu mentality.”

Thakur-Brahmin alliance: A leader having the Indian Constitution in one hand and the Manusmruti in another must not be tolerated, even if he is a Dalit.

When Thakurs and Brahmins can join hands to save their BSO, why not Dalits join with BCs? Look how BC MLAs in the BSP have shown their loyalty to the BSP. None of the BC MLAs other than 3 Yadavs left the party (still there are 2 Yadav MLAs with the BSP). While 1 Nishad (ST) and 1 Khatik (SC) have left the BSP, BC MLAs like Rajbhar and Maurya are still with the BSP. Who says that BCs cannot accept Dalit leadership? In UP, Swamiprasad Maurya, BSP legislature party leader, and Sukhdev Rajbhar (chief whip of the BSP) are BCs. In UP, 90% of the Rajbhars vote for the BSP. Similarly, the Maurya and Nonia (BC) castes also cast over 70% of their votes for the BSP.

We cannot put a line between Dalits and BCs because such a division will be a division of ourselves only. Koli is a caste whose subcastes are in different categories: SC, ST, BC, and outside these categories, i.e., general. Where will such castes stand? A caste like Bhar is BC in UP, SC in MP, and ST in Maharashtra.

Psychological violence: We must understand the fact that the BCs are not oppressors. Rather, they are an instrument in the hands of the oppressive forces, the BSO. We must understand that psychological violence is more injurious than physical violence. We should learn something from dogs. If somebody throws a stone at a dog, it does not run after the stone but after the hand that throws the stone. BCs are like stones that are being thrown by the BSO mind. If we do not make them (BCs) part of our struggle, they will go more and more into the BSO camp. We must develop the culture of Bahujan Samaj instead of Dalit Samaj. We should learn a lesson from the collapse of the RPI. Without the BCs, Dalits cannot capture power in the true sense. The true sense means to capture power, retain it, and use it to preserve and propagate the ideology set by our forefathers.

Holi arrives each year with fire and colour. On the eve of the festival, bonfires commemorate the burning of Holika; the next day, colours create community, at least symbolically. Yet for many of us Dalit-Bahujan thinkers and activists, Holi is not merely a spring festival. It is also a reminder that myth is never innocent. Who is cast as demonic? Who is sanctified? And who gets to decide? Where do the borders of this community that are based on violence and trauma begin and end?

Religious and mythological reinterpretation has been a recurring strategy in anti-caste thought. Rather than cede the terrain of epics and Puranas to Brahminical authority, generations of thinkers have re-read these stories against the grain, recovering suppressed figures, unsettling canonical heroes, and exposing the moral grammar of caste society. These interventions are not uniform; they differ in clarity, force, and political consequence. But taken together, they reveal a long-standing struggle over cultural meaning.

A major intervention was articulated by Jyotirao Phule in Gulamgiri. Phule reinterpreted the story of King Bali and Vamana, the dwarf incarnation of Vishnu. In the orthodox account, Vamana subdues Bali and consigns him to the netherworld. Phule inverted the moral hierarchy: Bali became the just ruler of the Bahujans, while Vamana symbolised Aryan-Brahmin cunning and conquest. The myth was reframed as political allegory, an account of indigenous dispossession. Invocations of “Bali Raja” as a symbol of egalitarian rule continue to animate Bahujan imagination in parts of India.

Then we return to Holi. The dominant narrative commemorates the burning of Holika, who attempts to immolate the devout Prahlad and is herself consumed by fire. In several Dalit-Bahujan reinterpretations, Holika and other Asura figures are read not simply as embodiments of evil but as representatives of demonised lineages, figures whose defeat encodes the triumph of one social order over another. The bonfire, then, is not only purification; it is conquest ritualised. To question what is being burned, and why, is to interrupt the moral ease of celebration.

One of the most enduring examples centres on Shambuka in the Ramayana. In the orthodox narrative, Rama executes Shambuka, a Shudra ascetic, for performing penance deemed inappropriate to his varna. Anti-caste thinkers have repeatedly foregrounded this episode as an explicit theological defence of hierarchy. The killing is not incidental; it is justified as necessary to restore cosmic order. By elevating Shambuka as a symbol of aspiration punished by caste, Dalit-Bahujan readings transform the moral centre of the story. Dussehra, for some, becomes a day not of triumph but of mourning. This is reinterpretation with sharp political edges: it confronts scripture at the precise point where it sanctions graded inequality.

A fourth powerful example is the story of Ekalavya from the Mahabharata. Denied instruction by Dronacharya because of his birth, Ekalavya trains himself in archery before a clay image of the guru. When his talent threatens the Kshatriya monopoly, he is compelled to sever his thumb as guru dakshina. In Dalit-Bahujan discourse, Ekalavya has become a paradigmatic figure of merit thwarted by caste privilege. His mutilation is read as an allegory of exclusion from knowledge systems, an allegory that resonates in contemporary debates on education, institutional gatekeeping, and social mobility. The story’s clarity makes it difficult to dismiss: it names the wound and locates responsibility.

Fifth, the most systematic critique of scriptural authority in modern India came from B. R. Ambedkar. In Riddles in Hinduism, Ambedkar subjected revered deities and narratives to rational and ethical scrutiny, exposing contradictions and moral failures in the epics and Puranas. His interrogation of religious figures was not an exercise in inversion but in demolition; he refused the presumption that tradition is beyond question. Crucially, Ambedkar did not stop at reinterpretation. His turn to Navayana Buddhism in 1956 marked a decisive break, an effort to build new ethical and institutional foundations rather than endlessly contest old ones.

Taken together, these examples illustrate a spectrum of cultural politics. Some reinterpretations, like those of Shambuka and Ekalavya, and Ambedkar’s broader critique and deconstruction of religious texts, directly confront narratives that naturalise caste hierarchy. They target explicit moments where scripture disciplines the lower orders. In these cases, counter-reading is not decorative; it exposes the theological underpinnings of social exclusion.

Others, however, raise more complicated strategic questions.

The reimagining of Bali as a subaltern sovereign and the reframing of Holika Dahan as ritualised conquest are imaginative and often emotionally compelling. They assert dignity and refuse demonisation. Yet their political effects are less determinate. Both operate within the symbolic universe of the Puranas; both depend on reversing moral valence rather than escaping the frame.

In the case of Holi especially, there is an additional difficulty. The festival today is an expansive cultural production, embedded in neighbourhood ritual, cinema, advertising, and state spectacle. A radical reinterpretation of Holika may carry intellectual force, but it can easily be absorbed as background noise amid colour and commerce. Unlike the Shambuka episode, which directly encodes punishment for caste transgression, or the Ekalavya episode, which lays bare the calculated demand that the caste-oppressed mutilate their own talent to preserve upper-caste monopoly, the Holika narrative does not transparently legislate varna order. The critique risks appearing as hostility to festivity rather than confrontation with power.

This does not mean such reinterpretations are futile. Cultural humiliation leaves deep scars, and symbolic reclamation can be a form of healing. But strategy matters. If the goal is to dismantle caste hierarchy, one must ask where myth is doing active political work and where it functions more as inherited folklore.

There is also a broader transformation to consider. While many ritual and religious practices historically emerged within caste society, contemporary caste power often operates through bureaucratic, economic, and institutional channels: land relations, educational access, employment networks, labour dynamics, and matrimonial markets. Myth may provide background justification, but its influence can be epiphenomenal in daily governance. To focus on narrative inversion risks neglecting the material sites of domination within these festivities themselves.

The contrast with projects that build alternative institutions is instructive. Ambedkar’s embrace of Navayana Buddhism was not merely theological; it created new commemorations and community infrastructures. Similarly, congregational traditions around figures such as Guru Ravidas and Kabir have sustained distinct devotional and organisational forms that dilute Brahminical mediation. These moves shift the terrain from reinterpretation to reconstruction.

What, then, might be a way forward?

Perhaps the task is not to abandon mythological critique but to discriminate among its targets. Where stories explicitly justify hierarchy, as in Shambuka’s execution or Ekalavya’s mutilation, they warrant sustained confrontation. Where reinterpretation risks dissolving into aesthetic dissent, intellectual energy might be better directed elsewhere. At the same time, there may be ways to sharpen even the more tentative critiques. Rather than attacking Holi as a whole, one might ask how contemporary celebrations reproduce social exclusion: who organises, who participates safely, and whose labour sustains the spectacle. The argument would then hit more obvious instances of power, connecting cultural practice to present structures rather than ancient allegory.

Holi will continue to blaze and bloom each year. The question is not whether to celebrate or abstain, which caste Hindus will continue to do, but how to think and intervene. If anti-caste politics is to colour the future differently, it must decide when to contest the inherited story, when to build new ones, and when to move beyond the story altogether.

Divya Jadhav is a student of literature and politics.

The editorial ‘Anti-Brahminism as an Ideology’ from the original Dalit Voice run’s Vol. 2, Issue No. 10 (01/03/1983) critically explores anti-Brahminism as a powerful indigenous philosophy and social movement that has profoundly shaped Indian history, society, and politics by opposing the entrenched caste hierarchy symbolized by Brahmin dominance. While acknowledging that anti-Brahminism does not constitute a systematic ideology in the classical sense, the piece argues that it functions as a necessary and enduring counterpoint to Brahminism’s religiously sanctioned exploitation, embedded in a caste system that subjugates millions, including women and even Brahmins themselves. Tracing the genealogy of this resistance through seminal figures—from Buddha and Phule to Ambedkar, Periyar, and Lohia—the essay positions anti-Brahminism as a secular, revolutionary force committed to the destruction of caste’s core institutions: sacred scriptures, priesthood, and caste itself.

At the same time, V. T. Rajshekar’s framing of caste as a specifically Indian and Brahminical phenomenon invites critical unsettling. Treating caste as an exclusively Hindu aberration risks obscuring the broader social logic through which descent-based and occupation-linked hierarchies reproduce themselves globally. Comparable regimes of inherited exclusion—such as those experienced by Haratine and Osu communities in parts of Africa, the Burakumin in Japan, and Quilombola and Palenque communities in Latin America—demonstrate that caste-like structures are not civilizational anomalies but recurring social forms produced at the intersection of labour, purity, and power. Contemporary Dalit movements have increasingly foregrounded these parallels, forging transnational solidarities that situate anti-caste struggle within a wider global politics against racialization, coerced labour, and inherited inequality.

The essay also situates anti-Brahminism at the centre of a broad spectrum of social movements, including Dravidian identity politics and Dalit emancipation, which mobilize histories and cultures of India’s “original inhabitants” to counter Aryan and Brahminical narratives. While such claims of indigeneity are politically potent and historically intelligible within anti-caste struggles, they must be read as strategic polemics rather than settled historical truths. Across genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and critical historiography, the evidence points to long population continuity and repeated admixture in South Asia, with categories such as Shudra, “untouchable,” and tribe emerging much later as historically contingent social hierarchies rather than as markers of a singular, primordial indigenous people. Recognizing this does not diminish anti-Brahminism’s political force; rather, it sharpens its critique by anchoring caste firmly in relations of domination and social reproduction rather than in competing origin myths.

Yet, engaging this legacy from the vantage point of the twenty-first century—long after Rajshekar’s original intervention—also demands a critical reckoning with the limits of anti-Brahminism as a purely negative philosophy. Contemporary anti-caste politics is increasingly fragmented, particularly in the electoral sphere, where alliances and compromises risk diluting its radical horizon, a trajectory that would have deeply troubled Ambedkar. The present conjuncture calls for renewed efforts to articulate a positive and shared minimum programme of anti-Brahminism or anti-caste politics—one that foregrounds liberty, equality, and dignity, and translates these principles into concrete social-justice demands, as many anti-caste thinkers and practitioners are already attempting to do. Importantly, while the essay does not necessarily state this explicitly, it underscores the dual role of anti-Brahminism in fostering self-respect and political consciousness among marginalized communities,  In presenting anti-Brahminism not merely as opposition but as a constructive and historic force for justice, the essay challenges readers at this summit to engage deeply with the legacies of caste resistance and the ongoing struggle for equality, dignity, and democracy in India.

The essay is a key text from the archives of Dalit Voice for exposing the tensions within broader national and leftist movements. For contemporary NGOs, academics, activists, and journalists, this piece serves as a vital reminder that caste oppression remains foundational to India’s social inequalities and that any emancipatory work must confront this reality head-on. It also raises critical questions about the complexities of identity politics, the role of religion and tradition in oppression, and the necessity of inclusive yet uncompromising strategies for social transformation.

V. T. Rajshekar

“Anti-Brahminism” may not be a perfect, systematic ideology, but it undoubtedly is a powerful philosophy which once moved, and still moves, millions of people—not only among Hindus in India, but others as well. Since some urban-bred people cannot so much appreciate the importance and significance of this most powerful indigenous ideology, an effort is being made here to go into its different aspects.”

How can anti-Brahminism, a negative concept, be an ideology or a philosophy? It is being described so for want of any other appropriate name. When Brahminism can be a philosophy, why not anti-Brahminism? Suffice it to say that the revolt against the domination of Brahmins and even those non-Brahmins immediately below them in the Hindu caste hierarchy by those who have suffered at the hands of Brahminism has played and continues to play a great role in shaping Indian society and politics. Anti-Brahminism has, therefore, been the central theme of all protest movements in India for centuries—from the days the Aryans invaded India.

However, anti-Brahminism cannot be confined merely to a revolt against the Brahmins alone but includes all those non-Brahmins who subscribe to their value system. Brahminism is, therefore, more dangerous than Brahmins, because the Brahmins themselves have been victims of Brahminism. From the Buddha, the greatest enemy of Brahminism, Basaveshwara, Guru Nanak, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dayananda Saraswati, to Mahatma Phule, Narayana Guru, Ambedkar, Lohia, and Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy—all of them rank among India’s most virulent crusaders against Brahminism. Therefore, anti-Brahminism can be considered the most indigenous among the different secular ideologies of India. Social or political leaders can ignore this ideology only at their peril.

What gives teeth to anti-Brahminism is the caste system, which is a specific Indian phenomenon. Caste is the curse of Hinduism, with its ascending scale of reverence and descending degree of contempt. Anti-Brahminism believes that the caste structure, with the Brahmin standing at the apex of this deathless pyramid, is the root cause of exploitation, inhumanity, and slavery in India. The Brahmin domination has religious sanction, and the Brahmin hereditary priesthood plays a central role in perpetuating Brahminism. Therefore, anti-Brahminism calls for the destruction of its three major institutions—the “Sacred Scriptures,” the caste system, and priestcraft. This is the quintessence of its philosophy.

Including the Brahmin, every Hindu has been a victim of Brahminism, particularly the Untouchables, many of whom have sought refuge in other religions to escape its tyranny. Women, including women among Brahmins, have suffered silently from the barbarity of Brahminism. Even Vivekananda and Gandhi, two of its greatest pillars, were forced to speak out against the havoc caused by Brahminism. M. N. Roy and Nehru—both Brahmins—had also lent powerful support to anti-Brahminism. “Democracy and caste cannot coexist,” they said. Anti-Brahminism has thus become the most powerful ideology that has moved every social, cultural, literary, and political movement in India since the days of Jainism, over 2,500 years ago. Every political party was rocked by it. Even the Communist parties were not spared, and many splits took place because Indian Marxists refused to heed the pulls of this ideology.

Mahatma Phule of Maharashtra is considered the father of this anti-Brahminism in recent times. Author of several books on this philosophy and founder of the powerful Satya Shodak Movement, he described the Manusmriti as an unholy book. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, an “Untouchable”, was mainly inspired by Phule, who belonged to a backward (gardener) caste. Anti-Brahminism also became the ideology of a powerful social, cultural, and political movement for realising the Dravidian identity of Tamils. Founded in 1944 by Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy, the DMK of Annadurai came as an offshoot of DK in 1949. EVR improved upon this philosophy and ridiculed the Hindu gods and the Hindu religion itself. Hinduism (its correct name is Brahminism), he said, was founded by Brahmins to exploit the poor, illiterate, and ignorant masses. The abolition of Brahmin priestly services was his basic programme.

Ambedkar followed a similar line of thinking. He said caste deadens, paralyses, and cripples the people. It has ruined the Hindus and has destroyed, demoralised, and devitalised Hindu society. Ranked among the greatest thinkers and philosophers of modern India, Ambedkar, in his innumerable books, has given a call to free every woman and man from the thralldom of “sacred scriptures.” He also considered the priest as the real villain of Brahminism. Both Ambedkar and EVR dubbed Brahminism as a reactionary philosophy.

What did anti-Brahminism achieve? By reviving the glorious cultural and social traditions of the original inhabitants of India before the Aryan invasion, it helped them to find their roots, gain self-identity, and recover self-respect. Phule, Ambedkar, and EVR said shudras and atishudras (Untouchables), along with tribals, were the original inhabitants of India before the Aryan invasion, and they had enough historical evidence. To condemn the Brahmin as a stranger in Tamil Nadu has become a handy weapon of the non-Brahmin to beat the Brahmin with, but popularising the myth of their Dravidian origin also gave Tamil non-Brahmin Hindus both an identity and a self-confidence, says E. F. Irschick.

Evidence has also been found to prove that Tamil society was free from idol worship and the caste system before Brahminism invaded. The Indus Valley Civilization has conclusively proved that the Aryans were not the first or the most important creators of Indian culture. Father Heras said that Tamils were the purest cultural descendants of the Indus Valley.

Brahminism, being a proselytising religion, savagely persecuted Jains and Buddhists and reconverted them to Hinduism—a new name given to Brahminism after the death of the Buddha. Murder and torture of Buddhists and Jains are cited by many historians. Behind the DK-DMK slogan of “Tamil for Tamilians” lies the conviction that Aryans are the aliens and non-Brahmins are the Dravidians. Anti-Brahminism has thus brought a new awakening, a new pride among the non-Brahmins, and convinced them that their poverty and suffering were due to Brahminism.

The emphasis given to social revolution has made them conscious of their exploitation at the hands of Brahmins. So much so that many non-Brahmins preferred British rule to Brahmin rule. Both Ambedkar and Periyar EVR boldly said so. It is this anti-Brahminism that drove EVR out of the Congress and made him found the Self-Respect Movement. Later, he launched an agitation for a separate Dravidastan. EVR also said that the so-called nationalism is nothing but Brahminism in another form. The growth of RSS and Jan Sangh (now BJP) has confirmed their fear.

Lohia contributed a great deal to the promotion of anti-Brahminism in the Hindi heartland. Lohiaites all over India are today in the vanguard of anti-Brahminism. It is to be noted that all the leaders of anti-Brahminism came into conflict with the Indian Left movement for ignoring the basic principles of its philosophy. All of them warned that Marxism, an alien philosophy, cannot take root in India as long as it fails to attack Brahminism and its three pillars. Ambedkar said Brahminism and capitalism are the twin enemies of the working class and that both must be attacked simultaneously. He criticised Dange, the lone Lenin Order winner in India, and others controlling the Communist parties as a “bunch of Brahmin boys.” EVR was also critical of the Brahmin domination of the Communist parties—so too was Lohia. Caste being the principal contradiction in India, its elimination should be our prime effort.

One of the greatest impacts of anti-Brahminism was on education. Phule and Ambedkar launched an education drive among the low castes, laying stress on anti-Brahminism in their books. Ambedkar set up a chain of educational institutions. Both Phule and Periyar introduced anti-Brahmin interpretations of the Puranas. The Ramayana and Mahabharata, the epics, are interpreted as a fight between Brahmins and non-Brahmins. Bonfires of the Gita and Manusmriti, which spread the poison of Brahminism, became popular. Ambedkar himself publicly burnt the Manusmriti in 1927. Periyar entered temples and broke idols, burnt scriptures, tarred hotel name boards bearing Brahmin names, and cut Brahmin tufts. His most popular programme, which turned out to be a mass movement, was “self-respect.”