Why do Shudras practice untouchability? - 1

As we know the Hindu society is composed of five categories of people who are further divided into watertight compartments. These five categories in descending order of social status are Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, Shudras and Antyajas. And same is the order of purity. The Brahmans are the purest and Antyajas the polluted. The Antyajas are outside Varna system also. And same is the order of authority of social control that is limited to twice born. The Hindu society is not a simple matrix of five hierarchical and heredity Varnas. All these Varnas are divided and sub-sub-divided into sub-sub-castes and sub-sub-jatis. This division takes place until an endogamous group is reached which is not further divisible and is independent. This last endogamous group is composed of many exogamous gotras which are paternal lineages. All the jatis are finely divided along the bloodlines. There are thousands of jatis in India. Each jati follows a particular heredity occupation which is passed down from father to son. Each sub-sub-jati is supposed to follow the occupation of its main jati. The Shudras being the larges group have the largest number of jatis. Further these sub-jatis are limited to a given region and people generally do not marry outside their geographical area. Two endogamous groups following same occupation represent two sub-jatis of the main jati or sub-castes of main caste. Any given main jati may or may not be prevalent all over India. All the Varnas also may or may not be prevalent all over India. The Shudras have largest number of jatis so it is difficult to give the names of their jatis but some of them are carpenter, barber, potter, gardener, vegetable seller, milkman, washer man, oil presser, ironsmith, goldsmith etc. These various endogamous groups cannot be identified on the basis of Varna only. The professions with in Shudra Varna may different from each other as chalk from cheese. The jati indicates an endogamous group within a Varna, which has its specific heredity occupation. These jatis are identifiable on the basis of their heredity occupation only. The regular tillers of land occupied a higher position compared to other Shudras. The Antyajas or untouchables are also divided further into different jatis which are further arranged on a hierarchical scale. These jatis are further sub-divided mainly on the basis of region. Each sub-caste or sub-jati has the social status of the main caste or jati only. The jati is placed on a social scale on the basis of its relative purity and the relative purity also defines its particular power in the society. It also defines the occupation and thus the economic condition of any given jati. The people belonging to a higher heredity occupation have higher social status and a relatively higher level of earning.

Status and Behaviour - 3

Finally with increase in population the demand for agriculture and thus for land increased. This gave rise to many conflicts and many wars over the land.

The history is full of hierarchical societies. This is the main trend of history. However, the French revolution and American rights declaration made people equal at least in the case of political power. This equality is provided on individual basis that may easily be transformed in tyranny of majority if different groups are present in the society. The equal distribution of political power requires a group of homogeneous individuals. The Russian and Chinese revolutions tried to make people economically equal on collective basis but failed in implementing properly. Economic equality does not seem to go hand in hand with political equality. But economic inequality can easily go hand in hand with political inequality.


However, we define all societies as hierarchical societies. An equal society has hierarchy of degree one. A society has as many degrees of hierarchy as many as strata it has. In such a society a man has a given status. Here we take the status to be axiomatic in its existence because the status may change with the cultural values of the society. In a changing society the status may be changing but we deemed it to exist. In a composite society again we take the status to exist even if it is difficult to define.

Status and Behaviour -2

The general tendency in the history has been towards formation of hierarchies with an equally natural tendency to oppose it. The two opposing forces are working at the same time. This also explains the need for great movements against hierarchy which often led to bloodbath.


With the discovery of agriculture, which was a stupendous change in the history of mankind, the institution of private property came into existence. The stage of hunter, food gatherer required that the small tribes moved in search of food from here to there. This movement of people from one place to another place obviated any need or desire of a man to claim a piece of land as his own. It was not certain that the tribe was going to be back to that place in near future. And there was no use of land as private property. It yielded nothing that he could use directly and which was under his control. All the food he gathered was from the trees or shrubs that he did not know how to plant. The nature planted them for him from place to place in a natural way. He could claim any particular tree as his own. However, one trait was possibly there which prepared the ground for future private property institution. The finder was the keeper. Anybody who found a particular food could consume it himself. And keep the rest for others in tribe. Later it translated into private property where first user of the land was the owner. With the discovery of agriculture the human society was able to produce regularly more then its immediate needs. It was no longer necessary to go everyday for hunting or for food gathering to forests. The grains being dry in nature were not immediately perishable like fruits and meat. Thus, food could be stored for a longer period. The development of agriculture technology was in fact an important step of man towards the control of nature. Now the man was no longer chasing the nature in the form of hunter and food gatherer, he could now control it. His food supply was no longer controlled by the whimsical acts of nature. The man now could clear the forest, prepare the field, sow the seed; when the crop maturee he could reap and store it. And clear as much as forest as he needed it. This led to a settled life. There was no longer any need to move from place to place in search of food. Now he could live near the land giving him the food. Also being settled meant that he could no longer act or move in a random manner. Some kind of order was needed. To prevent two men fighting to cultivate the same piece of land; it was necessary to allot them the land. It was absolutely necessary to avoid the violence. The random desire to cultivate any piece of land meant invitation to violence. Or stronger men pushed the weaker men out of the prime land. However, it was necessary to identify a man with a given piece of land to maintain peace. Randomness was not going to work; some kind of order was needed; the agriculture itself required an organized way of operating. The durable identification of man with a specific piece of land led to the notion of belongingness that developed in the notion of private property. Some authority was needed to implement the order and thus a king like authority emerged which was strong enough to safeguard people’s claim to land. For this the authority extracted some part of food surplus. This authority also needed warrior men who could fight with the marauding tribes who still had not learnt the technology of agriculture. Or the society had to agree to give the plunderers a share of the crops whenever they came. The defenders of society obviously needed a part of surplus produced by the society. It was possible since the cultivators were producing more than they needed. Obviously those who controlled the people and defended the land were more powerful than the owner cultivators. Or the one who had more land came to be more powerful. In a sense the hierarchy was developed. At the top was the man who controlled the men not the land. With the warriors or soldiers under his control he could change the ownership of the land. Then there were his courtiers and the owners of the land and then came the actual cultivators. These owners and cultivators could have been the same if the piece of land in question was small. But if the land was large enough then the owners and cultivators could be different. The cultivators were having lower rankings. Naturally, those who were low in ranking had low powers and those high in ranking had high powers.


Another group of people, which came into important existence, was the group of shamans or later day priests. A man is not only a social being but he is also a curious and thinking animal along with being physically weak and nurtures a fear of unknown powerful things. He needs reasons and explanations for the events in the nature. The shamans and later religious people were able to convince the people of the supposedly higher live powers behind the natural events and also the existence of life after death. The natural powers like lightening, rain and other had a terrifying effect on people’s life. So the people supposedly in contact with the God and spirits came to be powerful and thus authoritative. Super natural things had a very important place in the life. The people supposedly connected with super natural powers came to acquire the supposed super natural powers. It was another group of influential people which extracted the surplus from the cultivators. Societies having faith in super natural powers paid their shamans and priests handsomely in kind. These shamans and priests traded in people’s natural fears.


Thus the people connected with temporal power and others connected with super natural powers extracted their share and had the highest status in the society. However further labor specialization took place with advancement in technology. Many more occupations came into existence. These were carpenter, forger, weaver and potter etc. These people got their share of produce in exchange of their services or goods. These were the lower ranking people similar to cultivators.

Status and Behaviour -1

...A man is a social being; he cannot live without society. All societies can be considered as being made of hierarchies. In a society where everybody is equal we may consider as a society of single hierarchy. It may be a very long horizontal stratum. The nearest of this kind of society was found in pre-agriculture communes. There was only one leader. Even the leader in such societies could not take independent decision because he was dependent on others. An egalitarian society has been ideal of many thinkers and philosophers for a long time but not yet fully achieved. It has been very difficult to create such a society in a situation where the members of the society are very large in number. The elements of equality have been embedded in varying degrees in the thinking of Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad, Magna Carta, French revolutionaries, American Lawmakers, Hobbes, Rousseau, Karl Marx etc. Everywhere it was present in it own way. Actually it has been an enduring theme of the history. The same ideal of equality is supposed to have been provided by democracy and communism etc. There have been great religious and social movements in the quest of equality. Needless to say the three great religious movements in this direction have been Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The French revolution, American rights declaration and American civil war have been great events in quest of equality. In this the aim of Russian revolution and Chinese revolution cannot be denied.


The natural desire of a man is to be superior to others. This has twofold opposite results. One is that a man always tries to be superior to others and the second is that the same desire forces him to negate the superiority of others. The first one leads to formation of hierarchy and the second leads towards equality. Those who are able to assert superiority are able to form hierarchy and those who oppose them lead to equalization. The superiority is desirable and inferiority is undesirable...

The tolerance of Hindu religion - 6

...So the resources of state had shrunk considerably. Thus in the absence of resources it was not possible to raise a large army of soldiers which was necessary to fight it out with the new invaders. Invading India was never a new thing. Had the new invaders got converted to Hindu religion and undertaken to protect Brahmans, temples and dharma like the earlier invaders there would have been no problem. In that case the paeans would have been sung in their favor. But they did not. However, the Hindus lacked the might to holdout against the Muslim onslaught due to religious accumulation of wealth that was not available to defend the dharma.


During the period of Muslim invasion and rule, the God created superiority of upper castes was nowhere to be seen. The God created superiority knows no reason; its sheer existence is the reason for it to rule over the others. It cannot be defeated - “never” is the word. The born superiority itself is the cause of ruling over the society. If the born superiority gets defeated then it is inferiority. If that happens then born superiority or naturally born pure Varna dharma ceases to make any sense. The purity becomes meaningless. With the Muslim rule the pure, pious and supposedly superior Hindus became subordinated to people not believing in Vedas - the adharmic, hated and cow-eating people. However, the upper castes maintained their position in Hindu society as the Muslim rulers did not interfere with its structure.

So the resources of state had shrunk considerably. Thus in the absence of resources it was not possible to raise a large army of soldiers which was necessary to fight it out with the new invaders. Invading India was never a new thing. Had the new invaders got converted to Hindu religion and undertaken to protect Brahmans, temples and dharma like the earlier invaders there would have been no problem. In that case the paeans would have been sung in their favor. But they did not. However, the Hindus lacked the might to holdout against the Muslim onslaught due to religious accumulation of wealth that was not available to defend the dharma.


During the period of Muslim invasion and rule, the God created superiority of upper castes was nowhere to be seen. The God created superiority knows no reason; its sheer existence is the reason for it to rule over the others. It cannot be defeated - “never” is the word. The born superiority itself is the cause of ruling over the society. If the born superiority gets defeated then it is inferiority. If that happens then born superiority or naturally born pure Varna dharma ceases to make any sense. The purity becomes meaningless. With the Muslim rule the pure, pious and supposedly superior Hindus became subordinated to people not believing in Vedas - the adharmic, hated and cow-eating people. However, the upper castes maintained their position in Hindu society as the Muslim rulers did not interfere with its structure.

So the resources of state had shrunk considerably. Thus in the absence of resources it was not possible to raise a large army of soldiers which was necessary to fight it out with the new invaders. Invading India was never a new thing. Had the new invaders got converted to Hindu religion and undertaken to protect Brahmans, temples and dharma like the earlier invaders there would have been no problem. In that case the paeans would have been sung in their favor. But they did not. However, the Hindus lacked the might to holdout against the Muslim onslaught due to religious accumulation of wealth that was not available to defend the dharma.


During the period of Muslim invasion and rule, the God created superiority of upper castes was nowhere to be seen. The God created superiority knows no reason; its sheer existence is the reason for it to rule over the others. It cannot be defeated - “never” is the word. The born superiority itself is the cause of ruling over the society. If the born superiority gets defeated then it is inferiority. If that happens then born superiority or naturally born pure Varna dharma ceases to make any sense. The purity becomes meaningless. With the Muslim rule the pure, pious and supposedly superior Hindus became subordinated to people not believing in Vedas - the adharmic, hated and cow-eating people. However, the upper castes maintained their position in Hindu society as the Muslim rulers did not interfere with its structure.



So the resources of state had shrunk considerably. Thus in the absence of resources it was not possible to raise a large army of soldiers which was necessary to fight it out with the new invaders. Invading India was never a new thing. Had the new invaders got converted to Hindu religion and undertaken to protect Brahmans, temples and dharma like the earlier invaders there would have been no problem. In that case the paeans would have been sung in their favor. But they did not. However, the Hindus lacked the might to holdout against the Muslim onslaught due to religious accumulation of wealth that was not available to defend the dharma.


During the period of Muslim invasion and rule, the God created superiority of upper castes was nowhere to be seen. The God created superiority knows no reason; its sheer existence is the reason for it to rule over the others. It cannot be defeated - “never” is the word. The born superiority itself is the cause of ruling over the society. If the born superiority gets defeated then it is inferiority. If that happens then born superiority or naturally born pure Varna dharma ceases to make any sense. The purity becomes meaningless. With the Muslim rule the pure, pious and supposedly superior Hindus became subordinated to people not believing in Vedas - the adharmic, hated and cow-eating people. However, the upper castes maintained their position in Hindu society as the Muslim rulers did not interfere with its structure...

The tolerance of Hindu religion - 5

....The rise of Islam cut off the trade between India and Europe. Europe depended on India to provide spices and clothes. A large portion of gold of Roman Empire flowed to India through trade. The Roman Empire was not in existence when the new invaders came to India. However the trade was continued. The rise of Islam brought a stop to that. Europe was the main source of income through trade. After rise of Islam the Arab traders monopolized the trade between India and Europe. They paid minimum to Indian sellers and charged maximum to European buyers. This had an adverse effect both on India and Europe. The prosperity of both declined. The cities and urban centers in India declined during this period. Some part of this wealth of Arab traders might have gone to finance the Islamic wars and expansion of Ottoman Empire. This extremely high cost for Indian goods ultimately forced Europeans to find a sea route to India indicating the vital importance of trade both for India and Europe. The Arab traders monopolized this trade for about seven hundred years during which Islam spread and enjoyed its golden period. Its golden period incidentally came to an end with the discovery of sea route to India.

The trade through Arabs reduced the margins on trade and thus taxes revenue of the Indian kings.

Another source of raising revenue was agriculture. By the time Muslims came to India the India had had inherited a tradition of wealthy and land owning temples, which were power centers in themselves. The new kings had continuously patronized the Brahmans and temples to raise their social status and attain the status of a caste divinely ordained to rule; in other words to acquire divine right to rule over everybody except Brahmans and temples. The land grants and donations by kings and Vaisyas made these temples so rich that many of them were richer than the richest Vaisyas. The Brahmans who were knower of Vedas did not have to pay tax on their land. Other Brahmanas were taxed at a lower rate. There was a large scale of transfer of wealth to Brahmans and temples. The temple wealth also indicated a devotion of Vaisyas to dharma. The life was not worth living if it was not for dharma. This automatically meant a paucity of resources with the dharmic kings. And no king could think of attacking temples to loot their wealth because that could have been adharmic and could have robbed him of divine right to rule. Large amount of wealth and socially powerful Brahmans were outside the control of kings. The temples enjoyed the wealth but did not provide army to kings in case of need. The Brahmanas, individually and through temples, had cornered a considerable chunk of wealth. This was going to be proved fatal to India but nobody learned the lessons. The importance of land grants to Brahmans and temples can be seen in the fact that the kings who did not do so offered better resistance to Muslim rulers; the Rajputs of Rajasthan...

The tolerance of Hindu religion - 4

...there were historical reasons rooted in the past and the structure of Hindu society for absence of any big army in north India. There was no big king in north India at the time of Muslim invasion. This indicates that no king could command loyalties of a large number of people. And the loyalties were related to caste and to sustenance. To have a big standing army or to have the local rulers supply a large number of soldiers, one needed to have a command over a large number of resources. The army had to be paid in kind or money; larger the army larger the payment and larger the resources required. However there was no big army indicates that the small kings were lacking in resources. The small kings with small dharmic kingdoms did not have large resources to raise large armies to fight the adharmic invaders. Of course, they could have united, but that meant willing to die for others, the concept that was quite lacking in Hindu society. And what would have happened to fault lines along bloodlines? The overwhelming pride of Kshatriyas in their bravery which was the direct result of atmosphere of by and large a demilitarized society was no substitute for the need of big army. The valiant and non-retreating Muslim armies were not in a mood to be cowed down by the presence of God created bravery in Hindu society. And they had a cause to die for and a unity to fight with. This concept of God created bravery of Kshatriyas’ could have terrorized the weaker segments of Hindu society but the outsiders were a different proposition. The Muslims looked for weaknesses in fractured Hindu sides like disunity and a lack of loyalties. As we have seen that the loyalties are caste related and not village or land related. And in bravery and resources the Muslims were second to none. Not even to the holders of God created bravery. The inherited attributes according to Varna dharma were simply useless. The victories of Muslims simply rubbished the inherent bravery. The Muslim rule made a mockery of right to rule of Kshatriyas. And still nothing happened to Varna dharma. The Delhi sultanate by and large limited itself to urban centers and the Mughals made a peace with upper castes. The bottom of the heap remained by and large unaffected. The dastardly Panchayats ruled in rural areas and maintained the Varna dharma.

The society had multiple centers of power. These centers were kings, Brahmans, temples and village caste Panchayats. These power centers had their own existence independent of each other. And all of them helped in maintaining Varna dharma. Brahmans were not under the rule of kings. Similarly the temples were very wealthy and socially very powerful but not under the control of kings. They were by and large autonomous and received heavy land grants from kings and donations from others. The temples were accumulating fabulous wealth while the Shudras and untouchables were eating grains cleaned out of cow dung and bread made out of fodder and grass. There was divine and dharmic justice in favor of Brahmans and other higher Varnas. These temples did not provide army or resources to king in case of need. The wealth of temples became very famous outside India and attracted the attention of invaders who came earlier only to rob the rich temples of their fabulous wealth. The came and looted and destroyed the temples. They dug out their walls and foundations to find the gold buried in them. And the Brahmanas waited for miracles and/or reincarnations assuming that they had accumulated a very large amount of dharmic Karmas to help them out of the situation; however such hopes based on unfailing Shastras were belied. Their purity and their Karmas were not sufficient to save the temples. No king was powerful enough to stop the looting and destruction of temples....

The tolerance of Hindu religion - 3

...the intolerance of Hindus moves inward and tolerance moves outward. It is all relative. The Brahmans were more pliant than all the others. They simply disowned the idol worship to avoid the Jaziya tax imposed by Muslim rulers on Hindus. The Jaziya tax was not to be imposed on people of book like Koran and Bible. The Brahmans disowned the holy trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh and the temples and rest of the Hindus and claimed that their sole allegiance was to their books; the four Vedas which made them the people of book – ahle-e-kitab. The people of book were not liable to be taxed under Jaziy tax. Thus they avoided the Jaziya tax. It is a classic example of their flexibility and of not having any answerability toward other Hindus who are lower then them. They disowned the Hindus and their gods and nobody thought to question them. It was a complete lack of indignation at betrayal.

The emergence of tolerance seems to be the result of the relative lack of might of Hindu religion against Muslims. Showing intolerance and opposing Muslims and their mosques might have resulted in a quick and brutal show of might of state. Muslims were the rulers. The fear of reprisals helped the development of Hindu tolerance.

One of the reasons among several others for the Hindus losing out to Muslims was the finely divided and graded society along bloodlines and purity. Such a fine, scientific and divine division labor produced a society where people could not link to each other because the bloodlines separated them with in caste. A demilitarized society of thousands jatis could not produce a homogeneous group of warring people large enough in numbers to tackle the militarized society of Islam where people were linked to each other in the name of Islam – the worshipiing is secondary in Hindu society not the stratification. The linking of society in India was provided by the caste not by the religion. The new religion of Islam promised equality to its followers and a share in loot to soldiers. The Islamic soldiers did not most probably understand the concept of equality but they fully understood the importance of a share of loot that prompted them to join Islam and Islamic army and a promise to go to heaven and live there with the Hoors if they were martyred in the cause of Islam. And there was no concept of dying for a cause in India. Therefore there is no equivalent to word “martyr” in Indian languages. There was no cause worth fighting for except political cause. There was indeed concept of killing and mutilating Shudras and untouchables for dharma. But there was no concept of giving up one’s own life for dharma. The absence of such a concept was also the contributory reason for outward tolerance of Hindu religion and absence of crusades in Sanatana dharma. Some castes were wiling to die for their honor but not for a cause. Nobody was willing to die so everybody got subjugated. Why die for a cause or for others? Absolutely there was no point. Willingness to die for their religion separated Muslims from Hindus. The Hindus fought for money, the valiant but purely mercenary soldiers.

In the presence of such situation, one alternative to avoid defeat was to have a large army of mercenary Hindu soldiers though finely divided into different non-inter dining jatis. The sheer size could have compensated for the weakness created by the irrevocable divisions in the Hindu society. The army that was big enough to repel the attacks was the need of the honor. The people who could not eat together could not fight together on sustainable basis though they could fight together on a temporary basis until some real danger presented itself. The only motive to fight was to provide sustenance to oneself. These people deserted the army whenever defeat looked...

The tolerance of Hindu religion - 2

 ...we have to see that why the Hindus who cannot tolerate the presence of an untouchable, pliantly capitulated before Muslims as if though it was their favored wish or it was in their destiny? Why they became so tolerant while maintaining intolerance about entry of untouchables into temples? The Muslims came and they plundered as they wished and came ultimately to rule over Hindus. Nobody really offered any effective resistance. The outsiders were welcome but not the people of their own villages.

The mightless people of Hindu society (untouchables) have never experienced Hindu tolerance as widely claimed. The tolerance was reserved for Muslims and British. The controls of society, state and economy were reserved for the higher Varnas. Special favors were reserved for special people, not for the people from bottom of the heap. The intolerance of Hindu society and religion is pretty evident in the ever hanging sword of violence over the heads of untouchables under the eternal guidance of the pious lawmakers, the Brahmans - the swindlers. The untouchables are friendless, landless, weaponless, statusless, hungry, isolated and permanently exploited people at the bottom of the heap of Hindu society; victimizing them is the natural order of the things. It is the eternal dharma.

The king cobra always raises its hood to its full height whenever any mice raise their voice in favor of equality or challenge it. It no longer remains a suppliant and compliant rabbit. After all, its honor is at stake - the untouchables dare to raise their worthless heads. The honor on which the foreign rulers treaded with impunity gets a sudden upsurge and evidents itself in full form. A frequent, quick and decisive violence is inflicted at the bottom portion of the Hindu society by the upper portion; tradition that is. The worthless dirty thick red water that flows out dying untouchables’ veins is a foolproof evidence of tolerance of Hindu religion. It is just a routine, nothing much to be talked about. Just in a day’s work. The tolerance does not mean that the bottom of the heap can revolt. One has to be out of his mind if one thinks so....

The tolerance of Hindu religion - 1

...the paeans are sung in praise of tolerance of Hindu religion. It is in contrast to intolerant stand of other two major religions, the Christianity and the Islam. The tolerance of Hindu religion is said to be very high. All the people coming to this subcontinent were assimilated into Hindu religion with the exception of Muslims and British. The Greeks, the Scythians, the Huns, the Parthians, the Kushans and others who came to India as invaders or migrants were ultimately assimilated in Hindu society to the extent that now they are not separately recognizable. They lost their original identities.

The invaders were co-opted by giving them Kshatriya status and poor migrating communities were assimilated as Shudras. There were Shudras who never knew when they became Shudras and became a part of Hindu society. These Shudras either came from outside or lived in the region of India which had not come under cultural hegemony of Brahmans. The assimilative powers of Hindu religion have been grand but they were ineffective in case last two major rulers of this mammoth land. These assimilations have taken place without any involvement of violence. There have been no crusades. The Hindu religion is not proselytizing. Nobody has gone converting people to Hinduism. There has been no prescribed method of converting a man to Hinduism.


The spread of Vedic religion has been patronage oriented. By and large the concept of Vedic and later Hindu gods seems to have been superior to the local gods of local people. Additionally the reincarnations were already there to appropriate local and tribal gods. If one patronizes Brahmans or protects them and accept their superiority and scriptural authority then he becomes a Hindu and that too a Kshatriya if he is a ruler. However, there have been real conversions in history to Vedic religion. If a poor migrating community starts worshipping gods from Hindu pantheon then over a period of time, then they automatically become part of Hindus. They become Shudras, if they are doing clean jobs and untouchables if they are doing unclean jobs. The Muslims and British refused to accept the superiority of Brahmans and thus maintained their separate identity.


The Hindu society and religion itself consist of groups that worship different gods and still live peacefully with each other. This is idol mode of worship that cuts across caste and deity lines in the Hindu society. The only condition is that the deities worshipped must belong to Hindu pantheon or be a reincarnation of them. The deities may be worshipped singularly or in groups. The Shudras and women are prevented from studying Vedas but not from idol worship. The religious dictums of Hindus do not prevent them from worshipping any god from Hindu pantheon. This worshipping of different gods by different people does not create any antagonistic feelings among the followers of different gods. One of the reason for existence of peace is that mode of worship is secondary in Hindu society and acceptance of traditional stratification primary. A Hindu from any jati has the freedom of choice in worshipping the god/s and/or goddess/s of his liking from Hindu pantheon but with two restrictions; one is that the priest of a temple can only be a Brahman and second is that every fifth Hindu (untouchable) is not allowed to enter the sacred and pure temples for the fear of defiling the undefilable god. The faith in any of the gods or deities has no bearing on jati or Varna of any individual. This can also not be a basis for exclusion from caste; the most powerful weapon in the hands of Varna dharma. So any person from any caste can worship the holy trinity of Hindus, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh as long as he believes in superiority of higher Varnas. The grouping in Hindu society is on the basis of jati not on the basis of favored deity. The identification of trinity with the Absolute eliminates any basic differences between them. Thus there are no differences and no antagonism. The concept of reincarnation takes care of local deities and also eliminates basic differences of deities. The goddess have been taken as being complimentary to gods and are usually their wives otherwise reincarnation of their wives. Thus basic difference problem among followers of different deities is amicably solved. All the loopholes that can provide basic differences are plugged. And then what appears is a tolerant religion.


However this tower of tolerance stands on the cries of untouchables. Their cries go unheard. These people living barely at sustenance level hardly receive any iota of tolerance. They are invisible to this persona of tolerance. The acclaimed tolerance develops myopic vision when it comes to fifth stratum. At their sight the tolerance turns into a king cobra looking at mice; the fangs outstretched.


However, the Hindu religion did not react violently to the entry of Muslims and British. The presence of Mosques and Churches was peacefully tolerated. In this calm scenario of peaceful coexistence one thing must be remembered is the relative capacity of Hindu dharma to react aggressively under adverse conditions. It looked at the small presence of Parsis and earlier catholic Syrian Christians with passive indifference bordering on smugness. Secondly these people were not violating Varna dharma since they did not have any. There were always chances of assimilating them through the system of reincarnations. However such hopes were belied but not destructive. Such was not to be the case with Muslims. In the presence of Muslims; the smug, powerful, lazy constricting python got converted into pliant tolerating rabbit mildly hoping to convert Mohammad into a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu. Again the hopes were belied. However it kept its king cobra character for untouchables. The Muslims always treated Hindus as heathen idol worshippers since the idols do not have any actual power. They refused to take heathen Brahmans; the idol worshippers; as their superiors unlike earlier invaders; they derived their mental strength from their own religious dictum; the Koran. The earlier invaders had their tribal deities with limited powers related to nature which ultimately lost out to ultra powerful Hindu deities namely the holy trinity. Muslims also had their concept of all powerful Allah that was more than a match to Hindu concept of God. There was no way in which one Absolute could be proved superior to another Absolute. Thus nobody yielded totally though Islam, over the course of time, came to occupy about one fourth of the Hindu turf...

Spirituality 13

...However, such a spiritual community required a full community of born servants (the Shudras) to serve it. The Shudra are supposed to serve the Brahmans because of their fault of being born in an impure and powerless Varna due to faulty accumulated Karmas of their past lives. The Shudras are supposed to provide them with the same material comforts in which they are supposed to be disinterested in. A strange kind of spirituality prevails here. They needed all the land grants in the world for such otherworldly purpose. They needed all the plum administrative and judicial jobs to maintain their spiritual needs. This otherworldliness circulates around them and raises them to a higher level from where they can watch people committing atrocities on their behalf without sharing a bit of responsibility; it is all for the cause of dharma; they have nothing to do with it. They have to have all the top jobs with the kings. They have to be their guides. You see how astoundingly unworldly it is to be the guides of kings, have all the land grants and enjoy the facility of Niyoga. They are provided all these jobs and facilities through non-materialistic scriptures. The king who upholds dharma has to be secondary to them. Like all true materialists they do not believe in jobs giving them pittance. All the powerful jobs are reserved for them. Like all power hungry people they want indirect power through dharma and kings and of course through built up of tradition in their favor. But after all this they maintain their unquestionable spirituality. The impure lower strata do not have a right to question these pure, pious, honest, truthful, simple and spiritual people. These ancient lawmakers through their birth right would not hesitate in classifying their land and power jobs as being essential to upholding of dharma and hence spiritual. There is the real magic; everything is fair under the cover of dharma. And mutilating justice is also spiritual because it helps in upholding the dharma. Thus all the material things can be endowed with spirituality if they help in maintenance of divinely ordained social, religious, political and economic power structure. It is like crime committed by a Brahman is not a crime, so no punishment. But the same crime committed by a Shudra is a ghastly crime. It is just incidentally that they are forced to use all these materialistic things for the cause of dharma. This combination of spirituality and materialism was hard to beat. The now much hated materialism, was much endearing to Brahmanas, as is evident in land grants to them, in their control over sacred, money guzzeling temples, the power they yielded in the society and an army of born servants to serve them. Many temples had become richer than the richest Vaisya and even small kings. At the same time they accuse the Western society as being materialistic. The spiritual Brahmans were as near to crass materialism as a scavenger is near to garbage dump. One of the underlying assumptions behind criticism of Western (modern West) exploitative materialism is that they give a very humanistic treatment to Shudras and untouchables. However, it was a case of permanent exploitation of the lowest two strata. The masters of hatred could not do anything else. How much maximum humanistic one can be toward people whom he hates and despises? The answer is near to Nullity. And it is supposed to move in southward direction from that point and progress further down without break until sustenance level of Shudras and untouchables is reached. Remember these people were forced sometimes to eat the grain cleaned out of cow dung and bread made out of fodder...