LIBERATING INDIAN MIND -24
Display of histrionics

II
Can we count the hours and days spent on the histrionics surrounding the Manuvad and Manusmriti by those who despise history, but revive myths and characters from epics and Puranas? Don’t they enact shadow war to avenge injustice of yore to divest themselves of pressing modern responsibilities? Can we identify the forces behind the curtain prompting them as and when they forget the crammed dialogue? If not, then we ignore what is obvious and fool ourselves.

The bane of social discrimination is endemic to Indian society from top to bottom. It has frustrated all agitations and movements launched against it, from Rigvedic period to the present- those of the Asuras(Bhargavas in RV), Upnishadic teachers, proponents Yoga, Sankya and Vaisheshik schools, Buddha, Mahavir, Shavites, Tantriks, Siddhas, down to medieval saint movement under the leadership of numerous thinkers from Ramanand, Kabir, Nanakdev to Namdev and later Brahmasamaj, Arya Samaj.

Can we ignore the inner turmoil of Indian society? Have we any parallel in world history of the urge for freedom, equality and justice for all? Had not all these movements been spearheaded by those who did not belong to the socially discriminated and economically deprived section, including the progressive Brahmanas?

There is something in Indian society exclusively of which it felt so proud. Sarve bhavantu sukhinah sarve santu niramaya, sarve bhadrani pashyntu ma kashcid dukkhabhag bhavet (May everyone be happy, may everyone be free from disease. May everyone reach the summum bonum of life, may none suffer pain) is not a vain cry, but a widely felt urge of Indian society at a time when there were societies that held that the niggers have no soul so they don’t feel any pain when tortured and lynched.

For the first time missionaries inspired some socially oppressed leaders to revolt (Jyotiba Phule and a few others) but they were not moved by humanitarian concerns. They simultaneously and even much after, met out worse treatment to the slaves, liberated slaves and bonded laborers without any remorse and biting of conscience ( To Kill a Mockingbird). They made disruptive use of their sufferings for augmenting proselytism.

Whatever their motive but the outcome was salutary and the role of such leaders in modern awakening can not be underplayed. But it shall be thanklessness not to show gratitude to those luminaries counted above whose labour was not entirely lost. They created a moral justification for social justice that even the most cynical of the castes blamed for discrimination could not raise even a whisper when exceptional favour was granted and discrimination was judged as punishable offence by constituent assembly and the law-makers later on.

Not a single study by sociologists, anthropologists or historians has been made to explain the origin, support base, dynamics of this institution, that it survives all the assaults without making much fuss on visible plane. This was a real challenge for the intellectuals coming from oppressed section and making headlines by tales of their plight which is broadly known and variously felt by all. Placing the blame on Brahmanas alone is too facile and misleading . Can the backwards embrace the socially oppressed or the various substrata among the Dalits free themselves from intra-Dalit discrimination?

It is a vicious circle in which transfer game may relieve you of your responsibility, and prompt you to present a melodramatic solution of a deep malaise, only to further aggravate the problem.
{ I have treated the evolutionary and cosmological philosophies as revolt against social discrimination despite the fact that they have not been treated earlier as such because these philosophies have no place for segregationist and discriminatory social system.}