--- On Sun, 18/10/09, ram.puniy...@mtnl.net.in <ram.puniy...@mtnl.net.in> wrote:
> From: ram.puniy...@mtnl.net.in <ram.puniy...@mtnl.net.in>
> Subject: Eradicating Caste- ISP October 2009 III
> To: ram.puniy...@gmail.com
> Date: Sunday, 18 October, 2009, 10:16 AM
> UN Anti-Caste Charter: Annihilation
> of Caste
>
> Ram Puniyani
>
> The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) held in
> Geneva (September 2009) deliberated on the recognition of
> caste as race. It proposed to ensure that descent and work
> based discriminations need to be fought against at global
> level. Nearly 200 million people all over the World are
> victims of such discriminations, which are associated with
> notion of purity, pollution and practices of untouchability.
> These are deeply rooted in our society and have also assumed
> cultural forms. India so far has been taking the stand that
> caste issues should not be internationalized as caste is not
> race and it is our internal matter. On this issue, earlier
> Nepal, a Hindu Kingdom, also was toeing similar line. With
> overthrow of Hindu Kingdom and coming in of democracy, Nepal
> has come to take the stand that caste based discriminations
> are akin to race based one?s and so international efforts
> need to be thought of to supplement the national efforts.
> India still is trying to hide its underbelly, which is quite
> unfortunate.
>
> There are two types of pressures on India currently. The
> Human Rights activists are urging that India should take
> leadership in ensuring that UN norms are brought up, caste
> recognized as race and the caste discrimination should
> invite censures from UN as well. On the other hand BJP
> spokesperson Ravi Shanker Prasad stated that India should
> oppose such a move as that will involve UN sanctions if such
> violations take place in India. He went to say this
> internationalizing the issue of caste is a failure of
> India?s foreign policy. At the same time we read that dalits
> were beaten up (15th Oct 2009) while trying to enter temple
> in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. This is a matter of great
> shame. This temple entry was part of several such programs
> planned to ensure that dalits are not discriminated against
> in temples. We recall that nearly eight decades earlier Dr.
> Ambedkar also met a similar fate when he organized Kalaram
> Temple agitation on the issue of Dalits entry into temples.
> How little things have changed after such a lapse of
> time!
>
> In consequence, Nepal has been the first country in South
> Asia, where untouchability has been traditionally practiced,
> to articulate its opposition to those abysmal practices in a
> very strong manner at International level as well. UNHRC
> document is proposing a regional and international
> mechanism, UN and its organs are to complement national
> efforts to combat caste discrimination. It proposes to
> equate all discrimination on the basis of caste occupation
> and descent as violation of Human rights. India?s opposition
> to this is shocking despite an earlier (2006) statement by
> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which compared untouchability
> to apartheid. It seems that the state machinery has elements
> that are deliberately tilting the policies in this
> retrograde direction. BJP?s opposition to the UN Human
> rights efforts is quite understandable, as BJP politics is
> based around the goal of Hindu Rashtra. In all the concepts
> of religious nationalism, based on any religion for that
> matter, there is a neat division between rights and duties.
> Rights are for elite dominant sections and duties are for
> the downtrodden! So as per that human rights for dalits and
> women are unthinkable. But how come Manmohan Singh who
> equated untouchabilty with apartheid is keeping quiet on
> this?
>
> Despite the provisions enshrined in our constitution and
> various prevalent laws the practice of untouchability, caste
> based discriminations do persist. There are also political
> tendencies, which want to undo the affirmative action
> directed to uplift those discriminated due to caste. In
> India today various theories are doing rounds as to the
> origin of the caste. Many of these are mere propaganda of
> vested political interests in the guise of theories.
>
> It is being propagated that caste system came into being
> due to the invasion of Muslim Kings, who were out to convert
> the local people by sword. According to this those Hindus
> who were very proud of their religion escaped to forests,
> resulting in their social down slide and so the caste system
> came into being. The other such Hindus who opposed their
> conversion were forced to clean the toilets of Muslim kings
> and elite. Due to this, caste system came in and
> untouchability became a norm! These ?theories? of caste
> system are merely a figment of ?politically necessary?
> imaginations, not based on any historical scholarship or
> deeper social understanding of those times.
>
> Some of the more serious theories revolve around
> Aryan-Dravid race theories, some around Marxist class theory
> of division of labor. About the Aryan-Dravid theory of
> caste, recently Genome studies have ruled out any water
> tight Aryan-Dravid divide, as there is unrecognizable
> mixture. Aryans took some as Dasas, but later intermixing
> was very extensive to be able to maintain race boundaries.
> As far as class theories, division of labor, Ambedkars?s
> comments are very apt, caste is not a division of labor, it
> is a division of laborers.
>
> The origin of caste is much more complex. Ambedkar in his
> various contributions presents highly nuanced theory of
> caste origin. Two of his books, ?Who were the Shudras?? and
> ?Untouchables? deal with it. His ?Revolution and Counter
> Revolution in Ancient India? also throws light on the topic.
> Ambedkar rejects the race theory to a great extent. As per
> him caste is a social division of people, created by
> ideological and religious factors. The concept of caste can
> traced to first Millennium BC. Let?s remember here that
> Muslim kings? influence in India began around eleventh
> century only.
>
> Multiple factors operated in converting the locally
> organized tribes into castes. The process was not sudden and
> went on getting rigid over a period of time. The factors
> converting these local tribes into caste entities were,
> coming of Aryans and Brahminical ideology. The Aryans who
> came here were divided loosely into three groups, warriors;
> priests and trader-farmers. The Dasas were added up here in
> India. Over a period of time this loose arrangement became
> birth based and tribes in local areas got transformed into
> fixed endogamous groups, belonging to a particular caste,
> performing a fixed economic function. This in turn created a
> social hierarchy between castes. By second century AD its
> contours are very marked.
>
> The Vedic period is a one of Varna. Purush Sukta of Rig
> Veda tells us that Lord Brahma created four varnas from the
> body of Virat Purush. With coming of Buddhism, Brahmanical
> values of Varna got challenged and were not adhered to. This
> resulted in the betterment of condition of Shudra and women.
> This period is followed by the period of Manu Smriti (2nd
> Century AD) where Varna gets converted in to caste, with
> consequent downgrading of shudras and women.
>
> The Muslim Kings who ruled areas of the country did not
> disturb the local social arrangements. As a matter of fact
> they had many associates and advisors, who were Hindus and
> they were also part of top echelons of administration and
> army during this period. Two other phenomena took place
> during this period. One, Indian caste system affected Muslim
> community as well, because of which there came into being
> castes amongst Muslim community, Ashraf; Azlaf and Arzal,
> quiet akin to the caste hierarchy in Hindu society. Two,
> some low caste Hindus tried to escape the Brahminical
> tyranny by embracing Islam under the influence of Sufi
> saints. Bhakti tradition also talked against caste system.
> Most of the Bhakti saints themselves were from low caste.
>
> The period of freedom movement, in contrast, is a period of
> the beginning of processes demanding the equality of caste
> and gender. Movement for Indian nationalism was accompanied
> by these values while the politics based on Muslim
> Nationalism and Hindu nationalism, had not much to do with
> these social processes. Low caste Muslims and Hindus both
> kept aloof from Religious nationalism and followed the
> concept of composite Indian nationalism. We see the contrast
> that the protagonists of equality for Shudras burn
> Manusmriti, the codification of caste and gender hierarchy,
> while the one?s based on religious nationalism called for
> ancient glories when Manu Smriti was ruling the roost. Some
> of them (Deen Dayal Upadhyay) went on to state that
> different varnas are like different limbs of the body
> politic of the society, needed for proper equilibrium in
> society.
>
> Today sixty years after Independence and coming into being
> of Indian Constitution, the prevalence of untouchability and
> caste practices are a matter of shame for us. It is time we
> intensify our own efforts to eradicate it and join the
> global efforts to end this carry over from our past.
>
> --
> Issues in Secular Politics
> October 2009 III
>
> www.pluralindia.com
> ram.puniy...@gmail.com
>
>
>
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