Tag Archives: Untouchability

[Testimony to delegates to the Seventh Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia held in Bangalore, from May 18, 1981 given by D.M. Thimmarayappa, Convener, Karnataka Dalit Action Committee, Bangalore, on behalf of the untouchables of India.]. 

Sisters and brothers,  

We represent the above organisation comprising mainly the untouchables. Ours is a militant group wedded to the philosophy of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, not only the greatest leader of untouchables but the greatest Indian born in India after the Buddha, whose name is a household word in the whole of Asia.  

Ambedkar said untouchables are reduced to slaves in India because of Hindu religion and therefore, he quit Hinduism and became a Buddhist.  

Hundreds of untouchables all over India have got converted to Christianity. Buddhism and Islam, Sikhism, etc. because of this oppressive Hindu religion.  

CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET  

The problem of the untouchables, forming almost a third of India’s 800 million population, is not so simple as to state it in a note like this.  

There is no problem in the whole world more serious than the problem of the Indian Apartheid. However, it remains a closely guarded secret. Every day untouchables are kicked, killed, burnt, raped and their property destroyed all over India which prides itself as the largest democracy in the world-the land of Gandhi, non-violence and what not. But nobody talks about it in India. The ruling class keeps this as a closely guarded secret. The Hindu hypocrites make much of the racial discrimination in US., U.K., Africa, etc. ‘But the most naked form of race hatred is here in India. 

Caste war is spreading all over India and we are thinking of approaching the UNO and the Human Rights Commission to fight for our demands of separate homeland or Dalitasthan  

The entire wealth of the country is produced by this servant class. They carry the burden of the whole land as sweepers, scavengers, tanners, agricultural labourers.

Untouchability is born out of prejudice. Therefore, it is more dangerous than any other problem because it is invisible You cannot racially make out a person belonging to the untouchable class. Therefore, it is a problem born out of prejudice. And this mental prejudice has reduced a third of the Indian population to be economically the poorest, socially the lowest, physically the weakest, culturally the most deprived, mutually divided, totally illiterate, landless, dumb-driven cattle. A living dead-the largest persecuted minority in the world.  

THE POISON OF HINDUISM  

The poison of the Hindu religion has infected the untouchables as well. They are also divided into several sub-castes. There are untouchables among untouchables.  

Although the untouchables are the original inhabitants of India, before the Aryans invaded India and established Brahminism (Hinduism), they too got polluted by this religion and further degenerated themselves. Once kept out of the Hindu religion the Hindu revivalist (fascist) organisations are doing their best to ‘Hinduise’ the untouchables, so that they will not quit the Hindu fold and swell the ranks of Christianity and Islam.

It is these very same Hindu revivalist organisations who are now and then raising the bogey of conversion. The Christians are charged with “forcible” conversion The Hindu religion despises the untouchable and tortures him as long as he is inside the Hindu religion. But the moment he thinks of quitting because of this torture and seeks social respectability by getting converted, the “ruling class” of India punishes him by withdrawing “reservations” given to him in the Constitution.  

ROLE OF BRAHMINS  

Both ways the untouchable is punished. He can neither live nor die. It is a living death. Have you ever heard of a parallel to this in any part of the world?  

In other societies and cultures, the status of a person is decided on the basis of his qualification, scholarship, power he is enjoying, the bank balance he is holding. None will have all this right at birth. They are all acquired. But in Hindu India status comes right at the birth. It is the birth that decides the status The Hindu society divided into several castes-ascending order of reverence and descending order of contempt-has no respect for scholarship or intellect.  

Here in India, the status is decided not on the basis of one’s office. Even a Deputy Prime Minister of India (Jagjivan Ram) was once insulted by the high caste Brahmin boys because he was an untouchable. Status in Hindu India is decided on the basis of birth and caste. Have you ever heard about this anywhere? Even dogs and cats are allowed inside the houses but not untouchables. Humans have no value in Hindu India.  

We have animal-lovers club, tree-lovers club, bird-lovers club. But no human-lovers club. It is a vast desert where the milk of human kindness has dried up.  

The untouchables of India have hardly any friends inside the country. The Press is hostile, police are its main enemy, the Government is not bothered. Every opportunity is barred. Therefore, we have no other go but to seek friends outside.  

And if there is one section in India which is responsible for creating this world’s greatest mayhemed minority it is the Brahmins-India’s ruling class. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, had come to this conclusion after years of research and practical experience.

There is no deprivation greater than cultural deprivation Brahmins have blown the brain out of the untouchables. The Brahmin religion of Hinduism has mesmerised the untouchables and emasculated them into the most culturally deprived race in the world Can there be a greater crime than this?  

CHURCH CRITICISED  

It is said that poverty breeds communism If so the entire lot of these wretched of the earth should have been in Communist parties They should have been the first to join the Communist parties. But alas, even the Indian Marxist leadership has double-crossed them.  

Because, the leadership of the parties is also in the hands of Brahmins and other high castes. That is the reason for India not having a revolution,  

From centuries, the high castes of India have used them as slaves and serfs. The creed of non-violence is solely intended to keep them disarmed, emasculated. The Hindu religion has drugged them with the opium of “Karma”-the destiny-fate. That is why they can’t even think of protest, let alone rebel. They do and die without ever questioning how and why.  

Therefore, the Christians owe a duty to save this wretched of the earth. We admit that nobody has done greater service to the untouchables of India as the Christians. That is why thousands of them have embraced this religion.  

But unfortunately, even after conversion, they continue to be untouchables. This is yet another tragedy. Christianity therefore, failed to fully liberate them-still in many parts of India, converted untouchables have separate churches, segregated graveyards Segregation continues even after conversion. It is here that the Christians should do some heart-searching and plain-speaking.  

The CCA must address itself to this grave problem. It must also give the highest priority to the liberation of untouchables by treating it as the world’s greatest problem needing the immediate attention of the Church.  

Liberation of untouchables should be the No. 1 item in the Christian agenda. And we assure our fullest co-operation in this most humanitarian task.  

[The speech was greeted with prolonged cheers and the chairman said they were deeply touched by the Apartheid in India and the church would do everything to liberate the untouchables.] 

I wish to refer to the phenomenon of adoption of Islam by the Panchamas in Tamil Nadu which has been going on for more than 10 years, but made a government issue now by the anti-democratic and anti-secular elements of the Hindu Rashtra school. 

Varnashrama Dharma is a well-known tenet of Hinduism. Under this tenet, the panchamas are untouchables. To term the panchamas as Hindus is not correct. They are only unbonded, untouchable slaves of the Hindu.  

As such it is not surprising, with the slow penetration of modern education among the panchama castes and with the consciousness of their human dignity by the youths, some of them become rationalists or materialists. But the vast majority who are religious minded have been adopting Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. The process has been going on for hundreds of years.  

The Hindu clergy and the R.S.S. element are blowing up this phenomenon as part of a Muslim proselytization programme. The animosity existing between Hindus and Muslims in Tamil Nadu is exemplary. The Jamat-e-Islam in Tamil Nadu is very keen about not giving room for communal discord to develop in this part of India. So they are too reluctant to provide assistance for initiating the new-comers into their fold unless responsible Hindus consider it not as a calamity to their way of life but as liberation of the panchama from centuries of caste oppression.  

In such circumstances, I would request democrats to use their influence with the responsible Hindus, R.S.S., the govt. and religious leaders etc. to convince them about the need to desist from rousing communal passions on the issue and to create an atmosphere conducive to the free exercise of their human rights by the panchamas without government interference. The freedom of the Muslims to enfold into their brotherhood the ones who aspire to it without government interference and harassment by Hindu communalists is an an essential demand of secularism.  

This is not the first time in history that people reject the social tyranny of a particular religion and adopt a more rational and humanistic religion. But unfortunately, every Hindu – from the Prime Minister down to the police constable – is propping up the tyranny of Hindu social system on the victims of this tyranny, trouncing all principles to a secular polity. The Indira Congress has started Panchama baiting and Muslim-baiting. Here it has become imperative for democrats to intervene and work in defence of secularism as well as human rights to the Panchamas. We are planning to call a meeting of Panchamas and Muslims at Madurai to thrash out this matter which is so vital for democracy and secularism. Such a meeting should be held at the national level also. 

Sir, 

The cartoon in the Indian Express of July 9 [by Abu Abraham] is in a deplorably low taste. Is it necessary for a principled and sober newspaper to sink so low and indulge in casteism by publishing a cartoon which shows a Brahmin, lathi in hand and a policeman in close support? At this stage of our national evolution, it is just as well to remind the reading public that any number of Brahmins fought for freedom and it was certainly due to the efforts of stalwarts like Rajaji, Satyamurthy, and very many others [including of course the Brahmin Jawaharlal Nehru] that we won freedom. Brahmins are being decried and hounded by some political parties for perpetuating their own pernicious regime no holds barred.  

Is there any justification for this Brahmin-baiting? True when the caste system was born, the Brahmin was the preceptor.  

It might be said that he practiced untouchability. Yes, he really does, even when he begets a son. He treats himself as an untouchable and does not even go to a temple for a certain number of days – a practice being followed to this day. This ‘untouchability’ descends on him even even when his brother begets a child. The basis of this is ‘tantric’ and only the sastras can give the reason, perhaps bordering on the occult.  

The Brahmin has been guilty of untouchability. The British who ruled us have perpetrated greater atrocities on Indians. For that reason, do we massacre every Briton who steps into our shoes? Do Hindus hack every Muslim he encounters because once upon a time Muslim hordes descended on India on a loot-and-plunder spree?  

This Brahmin-baiting is irrational and meaningless. Repeating with convenient mutilations, historical situations which are no longer valid in the present context is not going to help the nation which has, not just the four castes, but innumerable such social divisions.  

What is required is a healthier understanding of each other’s social practices and ways of life, and a national will to put talents to the best use for building an India which can speak from a position of strength in all platforms of the world. 

C. S. SETHURAMAN, Trivandrum.

(Letter to the Editor in the Indian Express on the mass conversions – 14-7-81)

The first report of the Scheduled Caste & Tribes Commission headed by Bola Paswan Shastri says: “Untouchability is a byproduct of the Hindu caste system”. It also calls for “determined and consistent onslaught on the basic evil: i.e. the caste system”. But the commission, whose first report (total pages 230) is yet to be accepted by the Government of India though it was submitted over a year ago (Feb. 8, 1980), does not indicate how caste system can be destroyed. Some suggestions made by it to fight caste system are akin to Gandhian prescriptions, all of which have been tried but failed to cure the patient. 

Shastri, a highly respected former Chief Minister of Bihar and himself an untouchable, makes an important point when he says that caste riots are spreading from rural to urban centres. This is a new development in the history of India. Visiting (12-8-78) Villupuram (Tamil Nadu) where largescale atrocities broke out resulting in the death of several untouchables, he says (Page 113): A new phenomenon, is developing ……. The clash between the caste Hindus and the Harijans has so far confined to the rural areas only. I have no knowledge of any clash between caste Hindus and Harijans in the urban area in the recent past. Villupuram is the first urban area”. This is an eye-opener. Just as ‘caste riots’ (Hindu-Dalit) are spreading to urban areas, communal riots (Hindu- Muslim) so far confined to urban areas are spreading to rural areas. The over-fed Hindu communalists are out for the blood of the untouchables, tribes and minorities. Therefore, the persecuted minorities should be more vigilant. This is the message in the Shastri Commission report.

The Commission has regretted that no State Government has conducted a survey of the working of the PCR, Act nor set up any special court for trial. It is foolish to expect the government to undertake such a work because if any Government makes such an attempt the government will be toppled by the ruling class. The high castes who control every Government do not want to enforce the PCR Act. This is the simple truth.

As regards the root causes of atrocities (page 86) the Commission cites social causes. The social cause lies in the practice of untouchability which is a byproduct of the Hindu caste system pushing the SCs down to the lowest rung of the social ladder in the caste hierarchy. How can we remove untouchability without disturbing the caste scaffolding? Will not the Hindu religion shake if the caste system – its very foundation – is sought to be destroyed? Who is prepared to make such a sacrifice? If caste goes all the property and privileges enjoyed by the high castes of India will also go. Therefore, we can safely conclude that as long as the ruling class of India is allowed to continue, the caste system will also continue. Hence the need to destroys the ruling class becomes all the more urgent. We thank Bola Paswan Shastri for boldly hinting at the need to destroy caste.  

We also appreciate the commission’s recommendation for a special police force comprising 50% SC constables to be posted particularly in sensitive areas. We would go a step forward and recommend that the other half the special force should be Muslims. In that case, the jurisdiction of such a force can be extended to areas prone to Hindu-Muslim riots as well. Such a force should be airlifted within four hours of the violence breaking out. But why confine the recruitment of the special police force only to the level of constables? Even officers manning it should be SCs, STs and Muslims – 50:50.  

The Commission has passed strictures on the work of the Central and State Governments for not fulfilling the job quota to SCs. The SCs will not come to the desired level even after the next 10 years, it says.  

The percentage of reservation was raised by the Government of India vide resolution No. 27/25/68 – ESTT (S.C.T) dt. 25th March 1979 in proportion to the population of these communities as shown in the 1961 census. The report mentions that the 15% reservation to SCs is to be enforced through direct recruitment on all-India basis: – a) by open competition b) posts to be filled by promotions c) and on the basis of seniority. But, the commission, observes that “the actual percentage of SCs are nowhere near the prescribed one”. In annexure I, it has given the data to prove the failure of the Government. However, in Class IV posts, reservations have exceeded the quota fixed because these positions of sweepers, scavengers etc. are permanently reserved for the untouchables, as there are none else to take up these jobs. The real position of SCs, in RBI, nationalised banks, public industries different Government departments are all furnished. A very valuable document.