The Concept of India a Hindustan continues...

Not only did he write like a Hindu patriot, but he can be regarded as a joint architect, with Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel, of the geographical India of today. Had Dr. Ambedkar accepted the 1932 British imperialist offer for a separate electorate for scheduled castes, and had Gandhiji not staked his life against it, India would have been completely balkanized before the British left in 1947. That was the imperialist plot; and Dr. Ambedkar understood it and being a patriot he refused to oblige. It is a great tragedy for India that personal jealousies led to his sidelining in politics after Independence which ultimately frustrated him. It is not too late to express our veneration for him even now by a campaign to demolish what is left of the caste system.

We owe it to Dr. M.V. Nadkarni for a brilliant study titled: “Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism?” [Economic and Political Weekly, November 8, 2003] wherein he has proved beyond anyone’s reasonable doubt that “it is necessary to demolish the myth that caste system is an intrinsic part of Hinduism”. Dr. Nadkarni further argues very convincingly that “the caste system emerged and survived due to totally different factors, which had nothing to do with Hindu religion”. He concludes his study with a highly perceptive remark that the caste system “has collapsed today because all its functions have collapsed. It has lost whatever relevance, role, utility, and justification it may have had”.

The caste system was never meant to create a Brahmin hegemony; nor was it conceived as birth-based. Brahmins were those venerated because they led a simple life and were devoted to education and religious theology. But to become a Rishi it was not necessary to be born of Brahmin parents. Valmiki, Veda Vyasa, Vishwamitra, and Kalidasa were not born in Brahmin families. Nor were Brahmins above the law. Ravana, a scholar of repute had to pay a heavy price for his abduction of Rama’s wife. Caste identification instead was by gunahs [virtues], as Lord Krishna told Arjuna according to the Uttara Gita.

to be continued...