Author: Francois Gautier
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: June 15, 2007
URL: http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/15franc.htm
The first _article_ (http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/may/23franc.htm)
published by rediff on Brahmins as an underprivileged community, brought a
flurry of reactions, mostly of surprise: "What, Brahmins as toilet cleaners,
coolies, rickshaw pullers, priests earning less than Rs 150 a month... How
is it possible, we always thought that Brahmins were a rich, fat, arrogant
community?" Many Brahmins and other upper castes expressed online their
relief that someone was speaking about their plight, that for once they were
not attacked, made fun of, ridiculed. Of course there were also a few hostile
e-mails, accusing the author of upper casteism, of anti-Dalits bias.
One would have thought however, that at a
time when reservation was the hottest journalistic topic, the media would
have seized this story and made it its own. After all, isn't impartial journalism
to show both sides of the story? Don't you think, for instance, that the discovery
that all 50 Sulabh Shauchalayas (public toilets) in Delhi are cleaned and
looked after by Brahmins -- traditionally the task of the lowest of the lowest
caste -- and that this noble institution was started by a Brahmin, Dr Bindeshwar
Pathak, makes a wonderful story, both for the print and electronic media?
That is what I believed, at any rate. So when
I discovered that the Art of Living Foundation was conducting workshops for
all coolies, irrespective of their religion and caste of the Delhi railway
station -- and that quite a few of them were Brahmins -- I thought I could
share this story and the Sulabh Shauchalayas scoop, with a few journalistic
acquaintances, who would jump on it with glee. Unfortunately I was very wrong.
Initially, some young journalists were enthusiastic
and joined us in our investigation. We expected the story to hit the headlines
soon and be taken up by the entire press, hungry for something different than
the strike of the medicos, or Arjun Singh's adamant attitude. But nothing
happened.
We called them day after day, proposed some
more data, but still no story came out. Then one of the young journalists,
working for one of the largest media outfits in India told us off the record
that the sub-editor, backed by the editor, had killed the story in true journalistic
freedom.
The second scenario we encountered was stone
silence: the star anchors, bureau chiefs, editors of national English newspapers
whom I personally contacted, either did not return my calls or were evasive.
Third scenario: Downright hostility: "You're
a right winger, a pro-BJP-RSS journalist" etc. What does truth and investigative
journalism have to do with the BJP (who by the way did no more than the Congress
for the Kashmiri Brahmins, for instance, when it was in power)? I don't know.
Some journalists, initially willing to do
a story, backed out after some time under the pretext that the data was not
solid enough. Not solid enough? Does flimsy and unchecked data ever stop the
Indian media to publish slanderous stories in the recent past?
Then, I came to the conclusion that more than
fifty years later, the Nehruvian culture which directly brainwashed two generations
of Indians in certain thinking patterns, has survived today. Actually, you
have to go farther back than Nehru. For Jawaharlal was a true end product
of Macaulay's policy of creating Indians who would be Indians by the colour
of their skins, but British in their thinking. Thus, the English outlook on
India survives today in India's intellectual class, particularly the journalists,
who often cast a Westernised, anti-spiritual, pro-minority, anti-majority,
un-Indian, anti-Brahmins and other upper castes -- look on their own country.
It is true that Nehru started from a positive
volition: How to solve India's huge class and caste disparity? How to appease
a Muslim minority which ruled India ruthlessly for ten centuries and was not
ready to be ruled by those who were for a long time Islam's pliant subjects?
But Nehru went overboard. He made the paupers
of yesteryear the saints of modern India, allowing some states to literally
hound out Brahmins and other upper castes. He twisted history and thanks to
docile historians, made of cruel Muslim invaders and rulers, the benefactors
of medieval India.
He went to the extent of excusing the razing
and sacking of thousands of exquisite temples all over India, by saying that
Muslim invaders such as Babar did it because these temples were full of hidden
gold and jewels, damning again indirectly the poor hapless Brahmins, who were
beheaded by Muslim invaders, crucified in Goa by the Portuguese Inquisition,
vilified by British missionaries, and morally crucified today by their own
brothers and sisters.
It is true that Brahmins may be paying today
for the excesses of yesterday. In ancient times, as Sri Aurobindo wrote: 'A
Brahmin was a Brahmin only if he cultivated the spiritual temperament and
acquired the spiritual training which alone would qualify him for the task.'
But once Brahmanism became hereditary, arrogance,
complacency and casteism became rampant, ultimately bringing the downfall
of Brahmins, a downfall which the Dalai Lama defines (for his own people)
as Black Karma.
Thus, thanks to the lingering influence of
Nehruvianism, 'Brahmins' remain today a dirty word, even in the face of reality:
that Dalits have considerably come up since 1947 in Indian society, that no
nation in the world has done so much for its underprivileged (India had a
Dalit President -- did the US ever have a Black President?). But the intellectual
elite of India, which never mentions these facts, continues to hide its face
in the sand like an ostrich, refusing to see the reality.
And rampant anti-Brahmanism and upper castes,
first used by the Muslim invaders, then by the British colonialists and missionaries,
is still in vogue at the hands of Nehruvians, Marxists, Indian Christians
and politicians in search of the votes of Dalits and Muslims, which combined
together make and unmake prime ministers.
Yet, Brahmins and other upper castes have
played an invaluable role in Indian history, as Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, the
founder of the Sulabh Shauchalaya Movement remarks: 'Society sustained the
Brahmins and other upper castes earlier, who upheld the Hindu scriptures and
Hindu culture. Today Hinduism is on the decline day-by-day. There is a lack
of ancient knowledge. No political party has objected to reservation thanks
to vote-bank politics. People have a very short memory. They have forgottenthe
contribution made by Brahmins to our society.'
And who says that Brahmins and other upper
castes are anti-Dalits. Some of India's top avatars, saints and gurus were
of low caste and are still worshipped today by all upper castes. Valmiki,
the composer of the Ramayana, was a fisherman; Ved Vyasa, the epic poet of
the Mahabharata, which also contains the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible of Future
Humanity, was the son of a fisherwoman; Krishna was from the shepherd's caste.
And are not today's Amritanandamayi or Satya Sai Baba of low caste birth?
Don't they have millions of Indians, many of them from upper castes, bowing
down to them?
Anti-Brahmanism has to be stopped!
This inter-caste war, triggered by the politicians'
greed for votes, has to be defused.
FACT, my Foundation, which conducts exhibitions
on persecuted minorities, whether the Kashmiri Pandits, the Christians, Buddhist
Chakmas and Hindus suffering in Bangladesh at the hands of fundamentalists
in Bangladesh, or the Tibetans facing a cultural and spiritual genocide in
Tibet, decided to take things in hand.
We started, with the help of a few dedicated
friends, a film on Brahmins and other upper castes as an underprivileged community.
This film will lead to a photoexhibition and hopefully to a book. All testimonies
and documents are welcome.
The future of this country lies in a unified
India, where all castes will find their just place, where all will feel Indians
first and belonging to this caste or that one, after.
1) _WHO ARE REAL DALITS?_
(http://www.francoisgautier.com/Written%20Material/real%20Dalits%20of%20India.doc)
2) _Caste vs. Merit_ (http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/12ram.htm)
