(in)Tolerance, Intransigence………….and Mera Bharat Mahaan; the non-practising brahmin

On the preceding blog of this series, I received a comment on my WhatsApp broadcast group – “I can understand a non-practicing Hindu but who is a non-practicing brahmin?”

Honestly I did not see that coming, I had prepared myself for some reactions like maybe “bhakt” “intolerant” “nonsecular” – the usual reactions to anyone these days who does not debase the majority belief.

I am a Hindu, born one, revel in the freedom that it provides. I do not follow/practice most of the rituals, but strongly believe in the practice of “Dharma”. I have read and re-read the Bhagvad Geeta many times over, but don’t ask me to quote or preach from it.

I digress – a non-practicing brahmin.

Brahmins based on the varna system are scholars, teachers and healers.

Your varna is defined by not what you are born into but by what you do.

My grandfather and great grandfather were school teachers so they were brahmins in every sense.

I am neither a scholar, teacher or healer so in the strictest sense of the term I do not qualify to be a brahmin.

If at all we want to use the term caste – We need to re-define this ugly word that we have adopted (instead of the varna system) to identify your social position based on your occupation and contribution to society.

In my re-classification:

Scholars, scientists, teachers, architects & designers and doctors – would qualify as Brahmins.

Administrators, Bureaucrats, Technocrats, Soldiers, Security forces and Sportsperson would qualify as Kshatriya.

Businesspersons, MBA’s (yes even IIT-IIMs), Economists, Bankers and Financiers would qualify as Vaishya – First Gen entrepreneurs would be Kshatriya, the next gen would be specialized business persons so they would get cataloged as Vaishya.

The backbone of the nation – Technicians, blue collar & white collar workers, agriculturists, field Engineers, skilled draftsmen, entertainment industry and all who don’t qualify in the above three verticals would be the Shudra.

Politicians (and activists) – well this creeps me out but they are supposed to serve the nation and its people aren’t they? So I put them as Shudra.

You move up and down as per your ability and inner drive.

However if the designated Brahmins – “Scholars, scientists, teachers, architects & designers and doctors” use their knowledge to operate a business then they are re-classified as Vaishya.

So these are not horizontal layers one above the other but verticals – wherein you can choose to move as per your inclination based on your capability, your status is determined by the perceived value of your contribution to society.

I add one more category to the Brahmin category – a stay at home mother.

In one stroke the caste barriers are broken, I am a technocrat so Kshatriya by my definition, married to a Brahmin (a stay at home Mother plus Creative person), elder son an Engineer still not a technocrat so halfway stage between Shudra and Kshatriya, a younger son who being in a creative profession (designer) gets to be a Brahmin until he decides to start on his own venture – when as an entrepreneur he will be a Kshatriya and if he creates a multi-billion dollar venture that his children inherit to operate then his children will be Vaishya.

There is one group that is very difficult to define – inherited immense wealth and have professionals to run their enterprises or manage their wealth and the put in maximum effort to figure on “page 3”. These despite their obvious wealth, private jets and yachts will be classified as Chandala.

How and why did I arrive at such a “Tughlaq-type” formula for integration through classification.

INDIAN HISTORY – This is the cause and reason.

This will be difficult for today’s generation to relate to – but Mumbai was not as open and accepting of South Indians in the fifties and sixties.

At school we (South Indians) were considered as the people who spoke “undu-gundu”, were all Madrasis. In history books – there was a half page to the Chalukyas mainly for the battle on the Banks of the Narmada and more on Fa-Hien the Chinese traveler who visited India and even more on Harsha Vardhan, the defeated Emperor in the North. A page or maybe two to the Vijayanagar Empire, whose Emperor Krishna Deva Raya was described by Babar as the most powerful ruler in India. Little or nothing about the Tamil empires that encompassed most of south east Asia, the North Eastern Kingdoms or Nepali History.

Had I not studied in Maharashtra, I would not have been exposed to the Mahratta Empire – Shivaji and the Peshwas except as a footnote in some history text book.

It was sometime in 1968 or 69 I forget when, that I realized what I was taught was not complete, it was a Kannada movie screened as a Sunday morning show at Aurora theater, Kings Circle. The movie was “Immadi Pulakeshin” starring Raj Kumar, and was about the Chalukya Emperor Pulakeshin II.

The seed was planted.

Life went on – school, college, engineering, job, marriage, children…….retirement.

In the intervening 50 years – the divide had grown sharp and shrill the battle lines were drawn up on caste, religion and nationalism.

We had a new term that was freely used “Hindutva terror” accompanied by state sponsored propaganda and diatribe against any form of Hindu renaissance or re-assertion of identity.

This was so vicious that I had to understand the what, where and why – and for this – understanding the concept of the Indian nation has became a mission for me.

There were so many questions to be answered:

The Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Bhagvad Geeta were not written by Brahmins but by Rishis’ born low but acquired prophetic status.

If the Brahmins dominated, manipulated and oppressed the other castes, there should have been wholesale conversion as occurred in other parts of the world when the Muslims invaded and ruled for almost five centuries.

Islamic rule in India – as per Wikipedia – “Beginning in the 13th century, several Islamic states were established in the Indian subcontinent in the course of a gradual Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent. This process strongly culminated in the Delhi Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate, Suri Empire and Mughal Empire, which ruled most of India during the mid-14th to early-18th centuries^{. The rulers include those of the Mamluk dynasty (1206–90), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), the Sayyid dynasty (1414–51), and the Lodi dynasty (1451–1526). Razia Sultana has been the only female Islamic ruler. The wealthy Bengal Sultanate has been ruled by the Hussain Shahi dynasty. Emperor Aurangzeb, the most powerful Islamic ruler in Indian history, fully established sharia and Islamic economics across most of the South Asian land and compiled the Fatwa Alamgiri. The Islamic rule gradually declined after Nader Shah’s invasion and the British East India Company’s conquest, which increased the dominance of Maratha Empire and Sikh Empire”.}

Almost five centuries – most of the conversions were due to either fear of death or greed for gold.

So if there was oppression – why was there so much resistance against conversion to the ruler’s faith – that would have made life so much easier!!!!!!

Here lies the tragedy of the Indian sub-continent, we have never maintained a factual written chronological history like the Jews. So we have to depend on conjecture, conceptualizing, visualizing and analysis.

The destruction of the oldest and largest universities and libraries of the time at Taxila and Nalanda have not helped either.

The Brahmins never had political or military power – this was the domain of the Kshatriya, the Brahmins never had financial power – this was the domain of the Vaishya, they never had any skills or trades – this was the domain of the Shudra.

The Brahmins were the repository and conduits for knowledge. They operated ashrams or gurukuls where everyone was free to come and learn. On graduation the student or shishya gave a guru dakshina as per his capability. During the student days the student would beg for alms to run his guru’s household. The shishya’s also looked after the Guru’s cattle, fields – unpaid labor that also introduced them to physical work and labor.

The gurukul was the ancient and medieval India version of middle school, the children entered the gurukul at “upanayanam” – (officially the end of childhood when the boy was handed over from his mother’s care to his father who would be his first guru – the symbolic initiation being the recitation of the “Gayatri Mantra”) around 7 years of age to puberty/early teens around 12-13 years of age. After graduating, the boys would continue apprenticeship in their chosen professions/business/trade, the scholars would continue at the gurukul or go for higher studies to a more established gurukul or a university. The guru’s daughter exposed to education often ended up marrying the scholars and thus their children were naturally pre-disposed to education.

The Brahmins were given high respect for the service they rendered to society.

The Muslim invasions and rule did cause disruption as these gurukuls were often centered around temples and with mass scale destruction of temples and oppression restricted the education for the masses especially in North India – but despite this the average Indian was most likely better educated and more Literate than his counterparts anywhere else in the world probably with the exception of China.

The final nail in the coffin of the traditional Indian style of education was the introduction of the education system by the British.

The British needed local intermediaries to help rule the country.

You needed their education to get a job.

It was their syllabus – history was subverted, they were the rulers and no better way to control the subjects than by introducing the British system of education, this coupled with industrialization broke the back of the traditional Indian system of education. The lack of a formal chronologically recorded history played a major part in obscuring the past allowing the conqueror to reconstruct history to suit his purpose.

How did varna with it’s built in flexibility get converted to a rigid caste – probably part of this took place with the Muslim Invasion but most of this was probably European influence, Europe had a very rigid social system in fact caste is derived from the Portuguese “casta”.

Europe had the aristocracy – kings & nobles, clergy – Pope & priests, bourgeoisie – traders and middle class, commoners – working class, farmers and a little lower serfs and finally – slaves who did not count at all. Sounds familiar???

Britain was a tiny opportunistic nation that due to a fortunate mix of timing and lack of scruples managed to rule a broken and tired giant. The giant gradually woke up and regained freedom albeit at a great cost. Despite the oppression by some Muslim rulers during their period of domination, the Hindus and Muslims were living side by side and the Muslims were moving towards an integrated common national identity. The British cleverly used the religion to divide the people – it did not prevent them from leaving India but split the country with great bloodshed, anguish and indelible memories.

The British left but only the skin-color of the ruler changed, the manner of governance did not change, this gradually corrupted the once idealistic leaders to become power hungry corrupt moral pygmies. The highly idealistic patriots were gradually side-lined and petty vengeful politicians seized political power.

Divide and Rule – they learnt from their masters and superseded them.

The first step – demonize the Brahmins, who constituted less than 5% of the national population and had neither political power or financial power to retaliate or fight back.

The second step – debase the majority faith so that faith as a unifying factor is removed from the table.

The third step – give non indigenous minority beliefs huge concessions but create sufficient fear of “majority” through communally oriented religious leaders leading to a ghetto mentality and control them as a vote bank at the cost of both the community and the nation. NB: The Parsis are a noble and notable exception.

This nexus between unprincipled politicians and scheming religious leaders have led to the deep divide and mistrust among Indians.

The way out is – become non-practicing caste members, embrace your varna. Seek your station in life by your ability and deeds, your contribution to society and not as a birth-right – irrespective of religion, color or gender.

I therefore believe that I am “a non-practicing Brahmin”. I hope one day to teach and impart knowledge without seeking material gain and regain my varna as a Brahmin by karmic deeds.

Please read my fellow blogger Eric Alagan’s excerpts from his soon to be released historical novel

Protected: 2_Vel Pari: Not for Gold