The popular narrative that Brahmins have been persecuting Dalits for the past several thousand years have many glaring gaps and these gaps hint at the possibility of setting up a mischievous campaign led by the left liberal and supported by hardcore Islamists to malign Hinduism. Whatever the divide may be existing between sawarna and awarna, it is more of a social nature that normally changes with changing financial and power structures within the society and have contestable religious sanctions. The correctness of Manusmriti among its fifty odd versions has remained under doubt. And even in that, a chosen few of the verses that are often quoted to prove that persecution of lower Varna (not caste) had some religious sanction fail to impress. This is because one finds another verse in the same Manusmriti that has almost contradictory meaning. And also since ‘Smritis’ have never been accepted as holy and as sacred as the Vedas and Puranas. On the contrary, the divide between hardcore Islamists and Dalits exists on rabid religious grounds originating out of real hate of Islamists against Kafirs. The hateful and bloody campaigns carried out by the Islamist invaders against the non-muslims (Kafirs) during the medieval era have been on such a scale and intensity that all attempts to whitewash this has been proven insufficient.
Such attempts of giving mischievous intellectual twists to semi-cooked facts by liberals in general and a few Islamists in particular have not yielded any visible success. While ‘reservation policy’ to correct the mistreatment against ‘Awarnas’ has been accepted by Hindus grudgingly or otherwise to a satisfying scale, anything similar has been summarily rejected in Pakistan and Bangladesh and in the contrary a medieval-like policy of denial of equal opportunity had found approval in a Muslim majority state Kashmir under the influence of Islamist forces.
Divide between ‘Bheem’ and ‘Meem’ is far more real and religious, while between Sawarna and Awarna is hardly a match to that. Islamist forces backed by liberals have miserably failed in their attempt to use their semi-cooked half-stories of persecution of Awarnas allegedly carried out with religious sanctions by Sawarnas to ignite hate among them against Hinduism. Their attempts have led to a limited success that is hopelessly restricted to a small fringe within ‘educated’ Dalits. Historically, Dalit movements to find access in temples have found much larger and much spontaneous support within the community as compared to the campaigns to put them against Hindu idols and Gods. Sawarkar and Ambedkar working on such campaigns were hated therefore by these liberals and Islamist forces.
A reflexive incompatibility can be noticed between Islamists and Dalits even in the modern era despite institutional efforts to bring them together on a common platform against the upper caste Hindus. This only hints at something that we have never been academically allowed to explore. The divide between them is more than what meets our eyes. Ambedkar had hinted that muslim brotherhood is not universal and is only targeted within their religious fold. He believed, they can’t think of brotherhood with non-muslims. For them Kafirs are not merely non-muslims but are anti-muslims. Dalits are in fact historical witness to the Islamic atrocities purely on religious grounds during the brutal medieval era.
All the recent political misadventures to bring Dalits and Islamists together and counter what they call as upper caste hegemony have failed. J. N. Mondal experiment attempted by Jinnah to club Dalits with Muslims in the name of Pakistan failed in no time. The continuing religious persecution of Dalits in Pakistan, their status as untouchables finds root in their hate against Kafirs. Similar treatments to Dalits often get reflected also in Kashmir, Mewat and at many places where muslim are in majority even in today’s India.
Let us discuss the possible structure of our society existed in ancient Bharat when we used to contribute almost one third of the world GDP. In 300 BC, the celebrated Greek historian Megasthenes had identified seven professional classes of communities in his narration ‘Indica’ wherein he mentioned that all these communities were prosperous in the then Bharat. And since this existed before industrialization took place, there is little scope of only a few industrialists accumulating the entire wealth. This must help us in concluding that when we used to rule over the world’s business, we probably had communities instead of individuals who were proficient in their respective professions/business models.
A community dealing in the business of extracting iron from its ore and making iron-goods would have been prosperous because their products were exported to the entire world. Similar story would have been true for those who were engaged in the production of other metals, cotton and silk textile, artisans, building and temple architecture, sculpture, music, dealing in extraction of oils from seeds, producing leather products, engaged in the business of fish or meat, working in different products of farming and so on. All these communities must have been functioning like today’s closed industrial groups and must have been following/promoting interest of their respective communities. They preferred marriages within the community most likely to ensure easy adaption of the business environment by the new family member and also to secure their business secrets.
We realize now that we have lost the knowledge of producing the quality of cast iron that was used in the Iron pillar installed in the Qutab Minar complex. We lost the know-how of producing high quality zinc, copper, brass, metallic salts and other alloys. We lost the technical knowledge of scientific processes such as sublimation, calcinations, distillation used to produce dyes, cement and other chemicals. We lost the knowledge of how to build high quality architectural structures that exist even today in the form of temples, forts and baolis. We lost the know-how of creating beautiful sculptures, we have lost the knowledge of mountain cutting techniques that is there for our display at Ajanta, Ellora and Mahabalipuram and we also lost our unbelievable stone carving wonder methods. We also lost the knowledge of producing superfine export quality cotton and silk textile products.
We must have lost these knowledge during the brutal medieval invasions as the communities engaged in these activities and keeping their business/art secrets safe, were either eliminated by the religious expansionist invaders or killed for some other reasons yet to be investigated. This loss must have further got aggravated due to Industrialization of Europe and England when the ruler-British would have ensured that India loses its status of being producers and becomes a nation of buyers and users. In all these cases, such a sudden loss of knowledge/profession within many communities must have led to the downfall in their financial status resulting in formation of hierarchy among them that was not noticed earlier by Megasthenes in his ‘Indica’ in 300 BC.
Continuous changes in the financial and power equation must have led to one community ignoring the interest of others to protect themselves. It is also not unconvincing to realize that some of these communities might have protected their own interest at the cost of the others. The transformation of the division between castes and communities from ‘horizontal’ to ‘vertical’ resulting in creation of hierarchy must have found basis during this period of religious, financial and professional uncertainties. The hierarchy therefore is more ‘Medieval’ than ‘Braminical’ in nature.
Some of these communities that had lost their business in the inhuman medieval era of brutal invasions, must have become dependent on the ruler of the time and would have been left with no other choice but to follow the option of pursuing a profession imposed on them, howsoever unwilling they might have been. These factors could be the reason for Yadavas of Krishna fame, Kushwaha and Maurya of Ashoka and Candragupt Maurya fame, Valmiki samaj of Valmiki rishi fame to get identified with lower castes, SCs and STs in the modern India.
The culture of research and development in science and technology pursued by scientists (read Brahmins) of that era were also destroyed completely in the same barbaric medieval Islamic invasions. Universities like Taxila and Nalanda were razed with their libraries burnt and Brahmin saints and monks working as teachers with shaved heads and sacred threads, killed. The scientists engaged in research in Ayurvedic medicines, development of vaccines, methods of surgery, astronomical calculations and other scientific developments were either killed or forced to pursue menial jobs as priests.
Requirement of a profession such as manual scavenging could never have existed in the ancient Bharat as it is projected by the liberal lobby and supported by the Islamist forces in India. All the villagers of even modern India (almost without exceptions) and a significant urban population were still used to visit open fields for defecation before Modi’s toilet construction initiative began a few years ago. Being predominantly a village based country there would have never been any significant requirement of manual scavengers. The Indus valley or Harappan civilization had very advanced idea of town planning having functional toilets with flowing water and therefore could also be having in all probability the technical know-how of cleaning the same with least manual involvement.
The continuity of that civilization with the current population is impossible to get established without accepting a catastrophic break in between. In our current continuity of civilization, we know a Bharat that had idea of homes without toilets and were known for using water of rivers and ponds to clean during our daily morning routine. The narrative therefore built up by some that we had a community assigned to clean up excreta from individual homes manually is only mischievously set up and do not stand the scrutiny of logic and rationality.
The job of manual scavenging must have sprung up only in the medieval period with Turkish invaders who came with the idea of home commodes. They came also with very strict purdah system that did not exist in our land of open culture as depicted in the sculptures built on a host of ancient temples of Bharat from Kiradu to Khajuraho to Konarka temples. Islamic rulers who used to observe very strict purdah and patriarchy system must have helped in percolating this conservative attitude down to all the rich and influential communities of our society first and then to others. In south Indian state of Kerala, this purdah culture that was identified to be associated with the influential class did not used to allow the native Bhartiya women to cover their bodies just to make them feel inferior. Imposition of breast tax in the society that was not used to covering their breasts, was only to keep the distinction intact between influential class and slaves intact under foreign influence.
Islamic rulers enjoyed their stay in India exploiting our capacity of wealth creation but also kept on inflicting deep wounds in the structure of our prosperous and open society by converting it into patently hierarchical and strictly patriarchal structures to suit their habit, tradition, culture and their mission of religious expansion. Dalits came into being during this period historically. Social scientists have until now not been allowed by the liberal-historians to do research on the reason and manner of emergence of Dalit and Mahadalit communities during a period when actually Brahmins were being religiously persecuted continuously, were killed on a massive scale and were humiliated at will of the medieval rulers. It is now becoming clear that left liberals have very mischievously projected Brahmins as the persecutors despite the open and accepted fact that they themselves were being mercilessly persecuted for at least last ten centuries at the hands of British and Islamic rulers like Taimur, Muhammad Gori, Khalji, Mehmud Gajnavi, Muhammad bin Quasim, Tipu Sultan, Babar and Aurangzeb.
