Dalit Challenges to Brahmanical Worldview

 

This movement had two main peculiarities. This movement was mainly the expression of poets belonging to Dalit and Backward castes and it had challenged Sanskrit, the language of the elites, through local languages. After sixth century B.C. it was the biggest challenge to the Brahmanical worldview. Varna system is the biggest pillar of Brahminical life philosophy. Birth based castes and caste based human classification and this whole system certified by scriptures and duly sanctioned by God are the tenets which establish Brahmanical worldview as the most unscientific, inhuman and backward philosophy.

This philosophy was given a serious challenge during sixth century B.C. Buddha had almost destroyed it but it soon reappeared in old form crueler and more intolerant. It has amazing capacity to assimilate which not only helped it in saving its existence but it had no difficulty in assimilating Buddha symbols which includes Buddha himself. Its biggest power is its elasticity which is the outcome of its special peculiarity. This is the only religious philosophy which has no revealed book and there is no concept of last prophet. It is a very big power. Anything concerning God can become its part. Not only theists but atheists can also become a part of Hindu religion. With this power, this tradition almost usurped Buddhism.

The Bhakti movement also severely attacked Varna system and Brahmanical rituals. The praises of gods sung in common languages immediately destroyed the charismas woven around gods in Sanskrit. The songs sung in common languages by men changed the gods into human beings just like an admixture of goodness and evil. Bhakti movement was like a storm which uprooted the Brahmanical traditions to good extent. The Brahmins were still healing these wounds when Islam and then the British started attacking its foundations. Islam put before the Dalits an alternative negating birth based stratification and the British did a thing which even Islam failed to do in India. They presented such model of universal education which was completely new to Indian society. For the first time the doors of education were opened to the common man. The worldly subjects as compared to religious issues occupied more space in education and state investment in the sphere of education became decisive. In common parlance it was the final blow that broke camel’s back. The right to education for the Shudras made it impossible to restrain them from raising questions about birth based superiority and resultant inequality.

It was not possible for the elite of India, Hindu and Muslims alike, to digest education of Shudras.The letters written by Ram Mohan Roy and Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan from time to time, are its interesting examples. Raja Ram Mohan Roy had objected to separate allocation in budget for education of Dalits and wrote that it is a direct interference in the religious affairs of Hindus. On the other hand Sir Sayyad Ahamad Khan had complained that the government was compelling the Ashraf (high caste Muslims) to receive education with weavers (low caste Muslims). Dhananjay Keer has aptly observed:” Orthodox Brahmins raised, in the name of religion, a violent opposition to non-Brahmins being given any education at all. They thought that the lower classes, if educated would reap the benefits of education, their monopoly would be in danger, and consequently their position in society would be jeopardized.

Apart from education the opening of the doors of military service to the Dalits was also a big cause of military resentment among Varna Ashram minded sections of society. Entry of Dalits into education and service meant an opportunity of power sharing in whole social system which Brahmins were never ready to accept. Roy also wanted to shut the doors against ‘persons of lower castes’ and include only rich merchants and zamidars- respectable and intelligent classes- in the political system. He insisted that only ‘natives of respectability should be appointed as collectors in lieu of Europeans’.

Dr. Ambedkar in his statement concerning the state of education of the Depressed Classes in the Bombay Presidency on behalf of the Bahishkrit Hitkarni Sabha submitted to the Indian Statutory Commission in 1928 reproduced paragraph 17 of the Report of the Board of Education which stated that, “The large minded administrator who has appeared on the side of India, points out the true rule of action. It is observed that, he says ‘the the missionaries find the lowest castes the best pupils, but we must be careful how we offer any special encouragement to men of that description; they are not the most despised, but among the least numerous of the great divisions of society....”

Dr. Ambedkar, inte alia, further observed: “In the course of observation of my Report of 1855-56 the government issued the following order: the only case as yet brought before government in which question as to the admission of lower class to Government schools has been raised was of a Mahar boy on whose behalf a petition was submitted in June, 1856, complaining that though willing to pay the usual schooling fee, he had been denied admission to the Dharwar Government School”. The admission was refused to avoid wrath of higher castes. It was not until April 28, 1858 that the Court of Directors passed the order to admit the Mahar boy. This instance projects the antagonism of higher castes towards the education of lower castes.

Another social reformer Lokahitvadi Gopal Deshmukh who was contemporary of Jotirao Phule also portrayed a similar situation when he said: “the Brahmins have monopolized learning through unfair means. They have decreed that other castes should no be educated. Today the Brahmins have captured all means of livelihood. The Brahmin pundits have threatened to leave their profession rather than teach the holly language Sanskrit to non-Brahmin students”.

The 1857 revolt cannot said to be a new awakening in Hindi land for the reason that it was not a struggle for the liberation of whole population. Had it succeeded, Varna system which was badly shaken during Bhakti Movement would have reemerged more strengthened. The Dalits would have lost whatever little they had gained and the same Dark Age would have descended which had overshadowed this continent after the fall of Buddhism. Many serious scholars of Indian society presume that if the British were not there, the cycle of progress would have taken the same course and similar freedom struggle stories would have been written here also like other parts of the world. The only difference would have been that of motivating force. We have no objection to it. It is true that India would not have remained untouched by the forces of History and the pernicious system of Varna Ashram would have certainly perished with time but it would have taken how much time. It is possible that we would have been fighting it till today.

Before the arrival of the British, India was a society mainly based on agriculture and craftsmanship. Karl Marx had written in 1853 about this society, that it was an unchallenging society. Along with this it was self-sufficient to good extent. A village was in itself a unit. It produced the needed cloth, food grains, small implements and goods of daily use. The result was that it had very little communication with other villages and towns. That was the reason that any change at the level of technology was much delayed or took place at a very slow pace. Challenging this utopia of rural self-sufficiency Marx labeled it as an inert or a stagnant society. Later Dr. Ambedkar also said challenging the Gandhian dream of Gram Swaraj (village self-rule): “What is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and communalism?).

To understand Dalit perspective of 1857, we have to accept that this distrust should be kept in mind. Here I am reminded of a sentence of one Dalit writer in which he has said that the British came to India late and left early. I am of the view that they did not leave early. When they left the objective realities had become such that they could not stay more even if they wanted. They had played their historical role in the destruction of Varna system. If they had come early, the pernicious Varna system would have been destroyed more speedily.