The Caste System in India (split from "Gandhi on Communism")

[SubcomandanteJames]

When studying Hindu culture, I noticed that despite some spiritual beliefs I had a lot respect for, there was a large rejection of true socialism, communism, or even class struggle, due to a religious caste that is part of their dogma. That where they are in capitalist society is where they were put for a reason, even for something wrong they did in a past life. This kind of spiritual belief seems to be blind to the exploitative nature of capitalism.

As I read in the Bhagavad-Gita:
"The works of Brahmins, Ks'atriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras are different, in harmony with the three powers of their born nature."

That is, the priests, the landlords, the laborer, all work together in a harmonious system, one not able to exist without the consent of another. This is typical capitalist Utopian idealism to me, and even a nudge-nudge to "trickle-down" economics. Laborers are on the outer two rings of the caste system, right before "untouchables".

[Random Precision]

When studying Hindu culture, I noticed that despite some spiritual beliefs I had a lot respect for, there was a large rejection of true socialism, communism, or even class struggle, due to a religious caste that is part of their dogma. That where they are in capitalist society is where they were put for a reason, even for something wrong they did in a past life. This kind of spiritual belief seems to be blind to the exploitative nature of capitalism.

As I read in the Bhagavad-Gita:
"The works of Brahmins, Ks'atriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras are different, in harmony with the three powers of their born nature."

That is, the priests, the landlords, the laborer, all work together in a harmonious system, one not able to exist without the consent of another. This is typical capitalist Utopian idealism to me, and even a nudge-nudge to "trickle-down" economics. Laborers are on the outer two rings of the caste system, right before "untouchables".

Of course the caste system is completely incompatible with socialism. However we have to understand it as a dynamic institution that has undergone many changes since its inception. In the first place the Western understanding of Brahmins > Kshatriyas > Vaishyas > Shudras > Untouchables is as good as no understanding at all, since each of these categories were made of of many different professional castes that could and did promote themselves to higher castes. This variation within castes is obvious in modern India, where many Brahmins are actually cooks rather than priests, since only Brahmins can cook for other Brahmins. Furthermore it's not like Brahmins were always the dominant caste throughout Indian history, in fact many Hindu scriptures are very telling of the class struggle between Brahmins and Kshatriyas throughout Indian history up to and even past the Muslim conquest. Also I've read of at least 2 Shudra kings in different parts of India. And of course, we also have to take into account that in modern India caste is generally thought of as an obsolete relic whose existence is only kept in place by the capitalist class. When we add to this that Hindu scriptures have countless stories that challenge the importance placed on caste or even the institution itself (such as the famous story of a Pariah woman and Brahmin woman whose heads are switched) the challenges posed by socialism in a Hindu society seem hardly as simplistic as you have painted it

And also on the subject of your quote from the Bhagavad-Gita. It's not really correct to think of this or any other piece of Hindu scripture as being equal to the status of, say, the Bible in Christianity. Different groups of Hindus have placed importance on different texts throughout the history of the religion. The importance of that particular text above others only came along with the arrival of the British in India, since the spirituality and monism of the Gita was thought of by British Sanskrit scholars as being the closest thing in Hinduism to Protestant Christianity, as opposed to the sensuality of the Tantric texts or the open polytheism of the Puranas for example

The moral of the story being, be very very careful when making any kind of generalization about the Hindu religion

[Random Precision]

What do you mean by "promote"? In traditional (feudal) Hindu society, a "promotion" for a caste occured when they do certain kinds of rituals by employing Brahmins. Ultimately, the key to this "promotion" rested with the Brahmin caste and with the Vedic authority of rituals. Today's phenomenon of "Hindu nationalism" is essentially a mass promotion for certain "Shudra" castes to Kshatriya status. This of course follows the caste hierarchy you mentioned. In reality however the "power" of any particular caste today basically rests with the number of politicians/bourgeoisie they have and the the influence they have over the government.

Indeed.


Again, within traditional feudal society, Brahmins are considered "higher" even though they are cooks or employed in any other profession.

Can pre-modern India really be considered "feudal" in the Marxist sense? I don't know, so if you could recommend some reading on it I would appreciate it.


There were actually hundreds of Shudra dynasties all over India over the ages.

Good to know. My reading on India has mostly been limited to religion, so I'll hope to find out much more.


Thats not actually a fair characterization, since Indian capitalism itself can be said to be a phenomenon of extreme caste based discrimination, where almost all industrialists, CEO's, politicians and bosses belong to the non-Shudra, non-Dalit upper castes.

Fair enough. However this goes directly toward my point, which is that caste is upheld by the Indian bourgeoisie as a tool to further their rule.


Depends again on which scriptures you're referring to.

This was exactly my point.


The highest respect is usually given to the Vedas which contain passages referring to Brahmins as gods on earth and Shudras as "demons".

Well as I understand it the Vedas are highly respected as you said, however today they aren't followed very exactly. For example I doubt that even the Vedic fundamentalists have ever been into the horse sacrifice although it's a pretty central part of the ritual, though I'm willing to be corrected on that. As the product of a nomadic culture focused mostly on rituals intended to keep that society stable, the Vedas don't exactly fill the spiritual needs modern Indian society or for most of India's pre-modern history either.


The scripture argument against caste usually falls flat on its face in spite of such arguments being used by Hindu nationalists. Ultimately even if its not based on birth but on so-called qualities, the institution of caste imbibes a deep classist mentality. So the system of caste has to be challenged from a scientific socialist viewpoint, rather than from a "scriptural" argument.

I completely agree. My point was that you can't judge Hindu society or the various Hindu religions based on a superficial knowledge of that specific institution.

In any case, for reasons already explained, scriptural arguments within Hinduism work even less well than they do in religions that have one or several central texts.

[Random Precision]

You should probably look up works by DD Kosambi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DD_Kosambi) although I haven't read his works myself.

Thanks. I have also heard great things about Romila Thapar.

[himalayanspirit]

I belong to the untouchable caste in the caste system. The Hindu caste system might seem very strange to non-Hindus, but if you really want to know how cruel this system is, you should only read it from those who belong to its bottom - the untouchables.
Caste system is much like racism in that :-

1. Caste of an individual is identified on the basis of his/her birth, just as in racism, although there might not necessarily be any racial/ethnic difference between members of two different castes.
2. Once born into a caste, one belongs to the same caste till death. If someone is born an untouchable, he will remain so even if he is educated. I have an engineering degree, but that doesn't mean I do not face discrimination. This is worse than the class system, for in the class system, at least the classes are flexible and those who are "unfortunate" enough to be born poor can "work hard" (or cheat?) and become richer. Caste system has no option.
3. There are strict restriction on the inter-dining and inter-mixing of different castes. In India, the real rural India, where caste system is followed sincerely, there is no concept of marriage on the basis of love. "Love marriage" is considered a western concept (that is somehow unnatural to humans?). People have arranged marriages, where parents select prospective groom or brides according to their choices from within their caste communities. In many cases, if some "love birds" marry for love after violating caste rules in rural villages, the whole society will even go for "honor killing" them (just type honor killing India in google). Similarly, there are restrictions on inter-dining; the higher caste member wouldn't touch a food or have dinner along with a lower caste man. In India, the middle class and higher class people employ poor people as cleaners, maids, servants at their homes for doing normal household work (these people are given negligble salaries because this is their only way of subsistence; they are even tortured and harrassed in many cases). If you belong to an untouchable caste, the higher class family will not employ you even to do the cleaning job, because if you touch their utensils, they will get "dirty" (you are untouchable, after all). Most of the lower castes and untouchables are bonded laborers; i.e they are forced to work as farm laborers for a few elite upper castes who own majority of cultivable land despite being very few in number.



Dr. Ambedkar, who was born an untouchable, was also the architect of India's constitution, and is well respected by the oppressed untouchable castes of India (and hated by the "higher" castes of India for obvious reasons). He was the most educated man in India in his times with doctorates from many respected institutions of UK and USA. But that didn't stop him from being discriminated against. In his childhood, he had to sit on the floor in school when everyone else was sitting on chair and there were free chairs available (he was perhaps the only untouchable kid in his time determined enough to study). The Shankaracharya of Hindus (its like a "pope" of the HIndus) openly protested against him calling him with derogatory names like "untouchable", "low life" etc, and all the Hindus more or less agreed with him. When he was a kid, he was thrown out of a barber shop because the barber (who is himself a member of low caste, but not as low as untouchable) refused to cut his hair; instead, the barber asked him to get his hair cut done by people who cut the hair of buffalows. There were many many such instances that happened in his life. Discrimination is an everyday business in caste system.

This was many decades ago. Things have improved now. Now caste system is practiced in its dirty form openly in rural Indian only (India is 70% rural!). In the urban areas, people practice less inhuman form of caste-ism.


Caste is independent of class, although these may show some correlations, like for example, people of elite and very rich classes in India are almost always members of the most highest castes also, and the most poorest are more likely to be members of the lower castes. But still the caste system is different from class system. If you were born into a lower caste and somehow you are a millionnaire you will still get discriminated against in most of the parts of India.



Dr. Ambedkar, the great leader, summarized Indian caste system in simple words:

"Class system is the division of labor and caste system is the division of laborers"



If any of you want to know more about caste system, then read books by Dr. Ambedkar. Hinduism might look mystical and peaceful - it is marketed like that in the west - but it is one of the most cruelest religions on Earth. What you people of the west are told about Hinduism are things that many Hindus themselves must have never heard about in India. The talk of peace, moksha, enlightenment, reinarnation, yoga etc, which seem to be good and attractive feature about Hinduism, is hardly practiced by an average Hindu.

An average Hindu is one who is theistic, with a particular god among the many gods as his particular deity, and who follows caste system thoroughly.

[manic expression]

Very informative posts all around.

himalayanspirit, do you feel Hinduism itself has, politically, become identified with the reactionary and chauvinistic trends you specified among the "higher" castes? How much do the politics of India revolve around religion and/or caste? Does the urban working class divide itself along caste lines? In addition, is caste a strong influence in city life for most workers? Do you feel that Hinduism is really the problem, or at least a part of it?

I've heard many different impressions about caste from people who have lived or traveled to India, so it's difficult for me to make conclusions. Like Random Precision said, Hinduism defies most generalizations, at least in my experience.

[himalayanspirit]

Very informative posts all around.

himalayanspirit, do you feel Hinduism itself has, politically, become identified with the reactionary and chauvinistic trends you specified among the "higher" castes? How much do the politics of India revolve around religion and/or caste? Does the urban working class divide itself along caste lines? In addition, is caste a strong influence in city life for most workers? Do you feel that Hinduism is really the problem, or at least a part of it?



"Hinduism" was originally not a religion at all; it was a number of religions. The term "Hindu" was first used by the Persians to refer to the people living on the Eastern side of the "Sindh" river (which covers most of the Indians). Therefore, it was an external term used by the non-Indians whereas the Indians themselves were following many different religions and cults. Later the British ruled India for more than two centuries and during that time gave the official name to the religions of the Indians (who are not followers of other established religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Islam etc) as "Hinduism". In reality, "Hinduism" as it is known today, was actually only the religion of the higher castes alone in Indian in the ancient times. Only the Brahmins (the priests) and Kshatriyas were allowed access to the Vedas, the most Holy scriptures of Hinduism.


Therefore, what is now "Hinduism" (or at least the more dominant part of it) is the religion of the higher castes alone. The Sudras and untouchables, which together form at least 50 % of the Indian population neither ever read Vedas or any other scriptures; the untouchables weren't even allowed to come inside the temples to worship the gods.


In the present times, this religion of the higher castes has taken a political form of "Hindutva". It is the extreme right wing organizations like RSS, VHP etc, that profess this angry and reactionist form of Hinduism. These are the same people who are responsible for many Hindu-Muslim riots in India since the last few decades. They preach open hatred against Muslims and Christians; but they purport to be in solidarity with the untouchables. In reality, they are as much against the untouchables as the Muslims and Christians. As such the Christian and Muslim missionaries are preaching and converting people mostly from these oppressed classes of people. These right wingers don't like this, as their numbers is supposedly decreasing whereas that of other religions are increasing.


Hinduism is seriously the problem. This caste system and discrimination is not the only flaw of Hinduism, but the Hindu scriptures openly preach that women are inferior and should be controlled. There have been much worse things in Hindu scriptures, which were practiced widely till the independence of India, like the Sati (where bride has to burn herself alive on the pyre of her husband if he dies), widows cannot remarry, a woman is treated as an untouchable by the Brahmins when she is having her menstruation, etc etc.


Most of these horrific rules and practices are found in the infamous Hindu scripture of law called "Manu Smriti".

Dr. Ambedkar once publicly burnt this scripture for the hate it spews against the untouchables and Sudras. This naturally angered the Hindus, and they formed the first right wing groups. The Hindutva groups of today want to make Manu Smriti, the Hindu rule book of the dark ages, as the rule book of the current modern India.


During the rule of the Peshwas in the Maharashtra state of India, Manu Smriti was fully enforced by the Peshwas, who were Brahmins by caste. Untouchables had to tie a broom on their back whenever they walked on the village street, so that the impurification of mud after their shadow falls onto it, can be removed. If a Sudra somehow manages to hear the recitation of Vedas, hot oil should be poured onto his ears (as prescribed by the Manu Smriti). The low caste women of South India were now allowed to cover their breasts while a Brahmin or some other high caste was passing by. Brahmins made sure that they could see the breasts of all low caste women.

It was thanks to the Britishers, and their effort, that gradually all these horrific practices got eliminated.

To learn more about Manu Smriti and the hatred filled in its every verse, read this:-
http://www.ahrchk.net/pub/mainfile.php/hrculture/293/

And this is written by Dr. Ambedkar himself:-
http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/57.%20Manu%20and%20the%20Shudras.htm



I don't really like critiquing religions or the beliefs of the others, but when their beliefs wrongly affects me or others, then I have every right to criticize it. In that sense, I do strongly believe that Hinduism is beyond reform and the root of most of the problems of India. Dr. Ambedkar also realized it after reading about Hinduism deeply for many decades; that is why he converted to Buddhism towards the end of his life. He considered Buddhism to be the real religion of India, which was once the religion of the masses of India, unlike the Brahminic religion based on the Vedas, which came from outside India, along with the Indo-Aryans.

[OneNamedNameLess]

And of course, we also have to take into account that in modern India caste is generally thought of as an obsolete relic whose existence is only kept in place by the capitalist class.

I wouldn't be so sure. Hinduism is still alive and well all over India. As Himalayaspirit said, the caste system is less influential in urban areas but it is still adhered to in rural India which is where all the horror stories and murders relating to caste seem to come from. This is a major problem as the bulk of India's population still live in rural areas therefore it is alarming that such thinking still has a foothold there. So is the capitalist class responsible for preserving the caste system if it is rife in rural India? Do Indians really have this perception?

[Dave B]

Just to throw something controversial in.


I obviously don’t want to be mis-understood or seem to be endorsing any kind of caste system but I think nevertheless it might be useful to consider that it may have been understood differently at different points in time.



Undoubtedly in early history those that wrote about the ‘caste’ type system were those of the higher caste and perhaps have a particular bias.



However in English history there was a historical justification of they way society was organised on a ‘caste type’ basis. The idea was that society was mutually interdependent whole and that the various parts of it were like different parts of the body. And that no one part of the body was therefore or could be more important than another.

Somebody called John of Salisbury put the idea across around 1200 Ad.


Actually this kind of historical notion of ‘castes’ presented as a kind of ‘mutually’ accepted cultural division of labour appeared in volume one of capital and in Ante-Duhring.

As it did in Monty Python’s Holy Grail were people took turns at being peasants and lord of the manor.


The idea I think is more clearly seen in Charles Dickens. Where despite his sympathy for the abuse of the poor; his view is that there can be nobility and humanity found in all levels of society. And that in such a ‘harmonious’ society everyone would be just fulfilling their ‘natural’ role.

This was the idealistic picturesque view of the poor in 19th century English literature as well as the dreamy and perhaps satirical views of Rousseau. Where in fact the sophisticates would claim to envy in fact the simple, innocent and un-complicated life of bare footed shepherdess’s in Arcadian idyll’s etc.


Ruing the corrupting influence of naked capitalism.

Anyway what about the Sikhs, they have a kind of communistic ideology written into their stuff don’t they.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism))

I have been told that there is quite a lot of Sikh communists by a friend who is a ‘Sikh’, by cultural heritage, and whose father was a member of the Communist Party of India and a member of the ‘Land-owning’ peasant caste.

[amandevsingh]

Anyway what about the Sikhs, they have a kind of communistic ideology written into their stuff don’t they.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar_(Sikhism))

I have been told that there is quite a lot of Sikh communists by a friend who is a ‘Sikh’, by cultural heritage, and whose father was a member of the Communist Party of India and a member of the ‘Land-owning’ peasant caste.


Sikhism is very alienated from its original teachings. But in essence it promotes equality between genders, races, religions, etc.
It also says to never hoard wealth, and always give to the poor.

I am also of Sikh heritage, and my great grandfather was also in the CPI(M), I am of, presumably, the same caste, if that is Jatt.



I wouldn't be so sure. Hinduism is still alive and well all over India. As Himalayaspirit said, the caste system is less influential in urban areas but it is still adhered to in rural India which is where all the horror stories and murders relating to caste seem to come from. This is a major problem as the bulk of India's population still live in rural areas therefore it is alarming that such thinking still has a foothold there. So is the capitalist class responsible for preserving the caste system if it is rife in rural India? Do Indians really have this perception?


I would have to disagree, in New Delhi, I saw a Brahmin pour hot oil into a Dalit's ears for just hearing the holy scriptures being read. The caste system is so thoroughly ingrained into our culture that people even here, in Canada, still adhere to it! My cousin doesn't talk to me because my friend is a Dalit.

[himalayanspirit]

I obviously don’t want to be mis-understood or seem to be endorsing any kind of caste system but I think nevertheless it might be useful to consider that it may have been understood differently at different points in time.



I know you don't endorse the caste system, but I have to disagree what you say. There is no ambiguity in the fact that caste system has existed among Indians since ages; it still exists; it is cruel; and it is inhuman.
This is absolutely unambiguous.


Like I said in my first post, if you want to know about caste system ask the people who are at the bottom of it, who are suffering.


Tell me; whose advice about capitalism would you take more deeply - a banker or a factory worker?
As long as you are a communist/anarchist, you would rather base your opinion about capitalism on what the factory worker has to say. In the same way, if you want to know about caste system, learn it from the dalits (the former untouchables). The ones who are at the top of the caste system would naturally consider it to be without flaw; after all, they benefit from it. In fact, in India it is not uncommon to some kind of justification or the other, of caste system, by the higher caste "intellectuals".



Regarding caste system in Sikhism, the guru of the Sikhs (their founder) completely banned the caste system from his religion. However, the practical reality is more or less opposite. Sikhs are some of the most caste-ist people in India; much more than many Hindus also. Recently there was a case of some Sikh man killing people in another Sikh religious function in Austria. Their media showed it to be inter-sect rivalry among Sikhs, which indeed it was; the Sikhs who were killed were low caste untouchable Sikhs, and the ones who shot them were the "higher" caste Jatts.


Where ever Sikhism and Hinduism go, caste system naturally follows. I've heard of lot of caste-ism and discrimination happening among Hindus in UK, Canada and other western countries.

Co-incidently, I just read another news in the front page of Times of India, yesterday. Reading this, the westerners would get an idea of what caste system is:


ROHTAK: Blamed for inaction in stopping honour killings by khap (caste) panchayats, Haryana police have hit upon a new idea of setting up secure
homes for runaway couples. With senior cops seriously brainstorming over the new plan, an eloping couple may no longer have to go into hiding. A safe place will then shelter them at the nearest town from their village.

Concerned over disturbing episodes of couples being butchered for falling in love, ADGP (law and order) V N Rai said the number of youngsters approaching courts and police was growing. ‘‘With over a dozen such cases being reported each month, we are considering creation of homes where young couples will feel secure,’’ Rai said. The ADGP also promised to take other necessary steps to check such incidents in rural areas, where in the name of khap justice, young couples are being evicted, threatened and even killed.

‘‘After reviewing social and legal aspects in a meeting attended by DGP, IGs and SPs, certain guidelines have been evolved to tackle the menace,’’ he said.

Citing three judgments made by the Supreme Court and high courts forest training khap panchayats, Rai said: ‘‘The police will follow court directives in letter and spirit. It has been decided to hold SPs accountable for ensuring protection to couples after informing the courts concerned.’’

According to an 11-point note prepared by officials in the meeting, the cases will be centrally monitored through coordination by DIG (law and order). It also states that a couple, if major, shall be facilitated to record their versions before a judicial magistrate and security cover will continue even after a protected couple leaves the jurisdiction of concerned SHO, who will be under obligation to convey their status to the next police station.

It also promises to follow trials vigorously for maximum conviction by depending more upon scientific evidence instead of oral statements, provide protection to witnesses and make khap leaders who give illegal calls for tormenting, evicting and killing victims liable for crime.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Haryana-cops-to-set-up-safe-houses-for-runaway-lovers/articleshow/4887806.cms

[Dave B]

Of course the caste system is crap. And I am not even going to bother saying why as in a place like this it would be a bit like attacking racism and ‘give us a rest, save it for the fascists’.

Actually I was out with my Sikh friend last night and we discussed this kind of thing at one point. She said as well that the Sikhs theoretically don’t have the caste system or are opposed to it or whatever but they have it anyway.


Maybe it is a bit like the ‘thou shalt not kill’ and ‘turn the other cheek’ juxtaposed with ‘onward christian soldiers’ and christian priests blessing bombs etc


She said that she is nominally from the ‘landowning caste’ and that is fairly high up in the pecking order, not that she believes in bullshit like that. I think the ‘family’ owned or owns a 20 acre farm in the Punjab somewhere growing sugar cane or something.


Her father came over ‘here’ in the 60’s and became a bone fide member of the working class working in a factory making boilers or something. He had a degree in maths from a university in India so must have been a bit middle class ish I suppose.

[OneNamedNameLess]

Of course the caste system is crap. And I am not even going to bother saying why as in a place like this it would be a bit like attacking racism and ‘give us a rest, save it for the fascists’.

What do you mean by this? Are you implying that attacking the caste system is racist? It is extremely important to discuss the horrors of the caste system if we are ever to progress in the world. This is what a political debate forum is for is it not? Also, what is wrong with 'attacking racism'?

Sorry for being petty, I just can't get my head around this statement.

[Dave B]

Casticism and racism is shit!

[Random Precision]

Hinduism is seriously the problem. This caste system and discrimination is not the only flaw of Hinduism, but the Hindu scriptures openly preach that women are inferior and should be controlled. There have been much worse things in Hindu scriptures, which were practiced widely till the independence of India, like the Sati (where bride has to burn herself alive on the pyre of her husband if he dies), widows cannot remarry, a woman is treated as an untouchable by the Brahmins when she is having her menstruation, etc etc...

It was thanks to the Britishers, and their effort, that gradually all these horrific practices got eliminated.


As I understand it suttee is only very tenuously attributable to Hindu scripture, and is a fairly recent custom in the millennia-long history of the "great tradition". Furthermore the British role in trying to reform this and other practices in Hinduism was at best ambiguous. During the first wave of colonization it was welcomed as an ideological stick to beat the "barbaric" Hindus with and used as shock value to convince people of the morality of the colonial project despite that comparatively few suttees were actually performed. After about the 1850s, the British Raj kept condemning it as an ideological stick but in practice mostly tolerated it if it was somehow found that the woman involved really wanted to do it

As to the other practices you would know much better than I. For the record Wendy Doniger has a really good chapter in The Hindus: An Alternative History that deals pretty well with British attempts to reform Hinduism, though in my opinion her approach is too textual and can ignore the horrible misogyny, classism etc that is very much a part of the Hindu past

[amandevsingh]

What do you mean by this? Are you implying that attacking the caste system is racist? It is extremely important to discuss the horrors of the caste system if we are ever to progress in the world. This is what a political debate forum is for is it not? Also, what is wrong with 'attacking racism'?

Sorry for being petty, I just can't get my head around this statement. He means that it obvious for all us leftists that the system is idiotic.


Actually I was out with my Sikh friend last night and we discussed this kind of thing at one point. She said as well that the Sikhs theoretically don’t have the caste system or are opposed to it or whatever but they have it anyway.Our Guru said that the caste system was stupid and rejected it utterly, but it has moulded itself back into our culture.



Her father came over ‘here’ in the 60’s and became a bone fide member of the working class working in a factory making boilers or something. He had a degree in maths from a university in India so must have been a bit middle class ish I suppose.He is a Jatt, and therefore pretty high as far as Sikh Punjabis go. Most immigrants worked in factories, my grandparents did in the 80's. There isn't really a middle class in India, if there is it is very small; he is, I would assume, a higher-class villager, who's family found money for his college. That or he could have lived in the city and actually been one of the few middle class. I am interested to know which!

[himalayanspirit]

As I understand it suttee is only very tenuously attributable to Hindu scripture, and is a fairly recent custom in the millennia-long history of the "great tradition".



Again, as I said earlier, "Hinduism" is defined to be a religion not on the basis of what is written in scriptures (there are many contradictory scriptures in "Hinduism"), but on the basis of what the people follow. People followed Suttee, and I don't know what you mean by "recent", but according to my knowledge it was being followed since much before the British came.

Technically, whatever the people of India believe, who are not believers of an established religion like Christianity, Islam or Buddhism or Sikhism etc, is called "Hinduism". And the people of India practice caste system, they practice male-female inequality (some go on to destroy female fetuses because they want boy kid), untouchability, discrimination etc, regardless of whatever is written in the scriptures.


There is no mention of untouchability in the Vedas, which is supposed to be the most ancient Hindu scriptures; but whatever people wanted to follow, they created new scriptures to justify it. They wrote new scriptures with new laws of caste system and untouchability with the increasing complexity of society. Scriptures were written, re-written or modified at will by the ones who had the power and eligibility to do so (Brahmins). So, its irrelevant what is written in the scriptures. In fact, "Suttee" is indeed justified in some Hindu puranas; but its obvious that the Brahmins must have modified these and appended justification of it whenever they wanted this to happen.



As for the British role in emancipating the lower castes, I believe they played a very significant rule. It would be disgusting for me to even think of an Indian society which hadn't been modified by the British influence; caste system would have been a strict law in India and its constitution if it was a case. British missionaries were the ones who influenced other Indian reformers like Rammohan Roy and Phule to work for the betterment of Indian society and Indian women. They worked towards the movement to allow the low caste women of South India to cover her breasts in public, Indian reformers who were influenced by them worked to allow widow remarriage, to ban suttee, to educate the lower and depressed classes.
It was under their rule that the likes of Dr. Ambedkar, Phule etc, emerged out of the dark corners of the medieval Indian society.


Not to say that the British were not cruel in invading the Indians, but at least they did something to curb the ills of the Indian society, which would have remained backward had they not influenced it.

[amandevsingh]

Not to say that the British were not cruel in invading the Indians, but at least they did something to curb the ills of the Indian society, which would have remained backward had they not influenced it.They were not cruel, but utterly vile in colonialising and ruining India (Bengal Famine, etc.)

I believe that these ills would have continued, they rather would have stopped of their own accord. Some of these practices will have changed with the evolution of society. For example, the British didn't hold on to some of the barbaric customs of the Romans.

[red cat]

If you read some of the poetry sort of literature that was coming up in India just before the British entered, you will notice that Hinduism was actually being challanged and to some extent, mocked at during that time. This is because the Indian bourgeoisie was getting stronger and sought to replace the feudal system. All this was being reflected into the prevalent culture. But when British capitalism came in, first of all it tried to stop the national bourgeoisie. They did this by forcefully stopping many industries, for example, they chopped of the thumbs of all weavers in certain areas etc. This is why I think that the caste system was also reinforced by British capitalism, as it would serve as the social basis for continuation of feudalism in India, accompanied by endless plunders by the British imperialist capital.

As for Ambedkar, his perrsonal struggle as a dalit is surely to respected and remembered, as are his positive contributions like thet introduction of reservation etc, but let us not forget that he was one of the framers of the Indian constitution, which kept most of the British law intact and ensured the continuation of British imperialism with minor changes under the disguise of democracy. No wonder that some of the present followers of Ambedkar do infact regard direct British rule better than what the Indians have now.

The Dalits in India cannot and will not count on any "condescending saviours"; they have to shatter the caste system with their very own hands, and to do so they must oust the ruling class altogether by means of a true revolution.

[Random Precision]

If you read some of the poetry sort of literature that was coming up in India just before the British entered, you will notice that Hinduism was actually being challanged and to some extent, mocked at during that time. This is because the Indian bourgeoisie was getting stronger and sought to replace the feudal system. All this was being reflected into the prevalent culture. But when British capitalism came in, first of all it tried to stop the national bourgeoisie. They did this by forcefully stopping many industries, for example, they chopped of the thumbs of all weavers in certain areas etc. This is why I think that the caste system was also reinforced by British capitalism, as it would serve as the social basis for continuation of feudalism in India, accompanied by endless plunders by the British imperialist capital.

This is really very interesting. Can you talk more about it, is there any source material on the native Indian bourgeoisie before colonization?

[himalayanspirit]

I believe that these ills would have continued, they rather would have stopped of their own accord.

Not likely. I just posted a report of how the people of India think. They staunchly believe in caste and would fight against anything to protect their traditions, which actually hurt other groups or is altogether quite inhuman. Even the police can't do anything. There have been far more 'honor killings' of couples who have broken caste rules than are reported in the news. And I am yet to see any person even getting convicted for it. When the masses themselves believe in these things so staunchly, how can you expect these to die?


Better take your own example of Sikhism. Initially, during the presence of the founder of Sikhism, caste system had been reduced a lot among those who followed it, but later everything only became worse. The Sikhs in Canada are in a developed country, they are educated; when they cannot leave caste system what gaurantee do you have that the Indians would have stopped practicing it naturally?




Some of the practices, Sati in particular, are hardly as vile as they are made out to be, in my opinion, but I still don't support it for hopefully obvious reasons.


Forcing a widow to sit on the burning pyre of her husband and giving her the most painful and slow death, is not vile according to you? This is MURDER. Worse than murder, because there is torture involved. Even worse because there is the ideology of inferiority of women involved here.


And sati is not the only bad tradition of Hinduism. There are others that are much worse. Those practices may not directly inflict physical pain over humans, but they leave a great psychological and emotional pain on the victim for the rest of his/her life.



The Dalits in India cannot and will not count on any "condescending saviours"; they have to shatter the caste system with their very own hands, and to do so they must oust the ruling class altogether by means of a true revolution.

Dalits do not count on any saviour for their liberation. Our lives are devoted towards our own liberation, and we look to our own leaders for our vision. However, our greatest problem is not the the ruling classes alone, but the masses; because it is the whole masses that follow caste system. We are fighting discrimination everyday and one day our oppressors will themselves be ashamed of their own evil.

[red cat]

Are you talking about Kabir and other reformist poets? Just because they wrote poems or some literature does not mean that changes actually took place!No, I was talking about some other poets. Some of them were from the early 18th century. Anyway, the point that I want to make is that the caste system was being challenged in someway, atleast through songs and poetry.


What bourgeoisie are you talking about? Its debatable if India even had a feudal system in place. This article suggests it could be characterized more as the "Asiatic mode".Yes, India did have a feudal system before the advent of British imperialism. However Asian feudalism was a bit different from the European model. But it was feudal indeed. And as for the Bourgeoisie, very powerful merchants were slowly coming up, and they wanted a share of political power. With the advent of the British capital, they sided with it.


Not so. What transpired after independence was the emergence of a new capitalist and thus imperialist state of the Republic of India that however continued to be part of the world capitalist market as before "independence".Not a single aspect of the state machinery, except the people at the top(i.e. Indians replacing the British), was changed in the course of this so called "independence". Do you know that an "elected" government comprising of these very people had been appointed by the British imperialists even BEFORE this so called "independence"? How can capitalism replace a colonial system with only a few people being replaced? Moreover, the production relations in rural India are still feudal.


I

[red cat]

Dalits do not count on any saviour for their liberation. Our lives are devoted towards our own liberation, and we look to our own leaders for our vision. However, our greatest problem is not the the ruling classes alone, but the masses; because it is the whole masses that follow caste system. We are fighting discrimination everyday and one day our oppressors will themselves be ashamed of their own evil.
True, educating the masses is a difficult task. But as for the ruling classes, you will have to overthrow them by force. History shows us that they never get ashamed or give up peacefully.

[manic expression]

Himalayanspirit, I'd like to thank you for your thorough response. That being said, I'd like to comment on some of it.


In reality, "Hinduism" as it is known today, was actually only the religion of the higher castes alone in Indian in the ancient times. Only the Brahmins (the priests) and Kshatriyas were allowed access to the Vedas, the most Holy scriptures of Hinduism.

The Vedas have no relevance in the Hinduism that exists today, so that's not really pertinent. Also, the Vedas weren't scriptures because they were memorized and passed down generations in an oral manner. It was a practical impossibility to give everyone access to the Vedas until the printing press was established in India (and by that time no one cared about the Vedas anyway).


Therefore, what is now "Hinduism" (or at least the more dominant part of it) is the religion of the higher castes alone. The Sudras and untouchables, which together form at least 50 % of the Indian population neither ever read Vedas or any other scriptures; the untouchables weren't even allowed to come inside the temples to worship the gods.

Most religious people aren't well-read when it comes to scripture. Do you think the majority of Catholics in Latin America or Europe or Africa know exactly what the doctrine of the immaculate conception or Filioque really means? I doubt it, and that's talking about the present day as opposed to the Catholic church before the counterreformation (or even the internet).

Plus, Hinduism is a religion of practice first and foremost. You don't need to read scriptures in order to do prasad, you just move the tray the way you've seen other people do it. That's one of the biggest reasons why Hinduism wasn't as damaged by the more fanatical Muslim rulers such as Aurungzeb (sp). Buddhism was demolished in most parts of India since it was a centralized religion based on monasteries; in contrast, Hindus can make any house or cabinet a temple suitable for worship.


In reality, they are as much against the untouchables as the Muslims and Christians. As such the Christian and Muslim missionaries are preaching and converting people mostly from these oppressed classes of people. These right wingers don't like this, as their numbers is supposedly decreasing whereas that of other religions are increasing.

Yes, the rhetoric of groups such as RSS is quite dispicable. But you do realize that caste does find its way into Christian and Muslim communities as well, right? I've heard many stories about untouchables converting to one of the two and finding that they're still discriminated against when they go to church.

Christianity, after all, did exactly what you're accusing all of Hinduism of: only a select group of people were allowed near the altar during mass. So not only was mass performed entirely in a language only the educated could understand (Latin), but priests installed screens in front of the altar so the "rabble" wouldn't profane the holy books. My question: if Christianity can change in this regard, why can't Hinduism?


Hinduism is seriously the problem. This caste system and discrimination is not the only flaw of Hinduism, but the Hindu scriptures openly preach that women are inferior and should be controlled. There have been much worse things in Hindu scriptures, which were practiced widely till the independence of India, like the Sati (where bride has to burn herself alive on the pyre of her husband if he dies), widows cannot remarry, a woman is treated as an untouchable by the Brahmins when she is having her menstruation, etc etc.

These sorts of statements are anti-materialist. That's the first thing we need to establish. Religions, to Marxists, aren't root problems, they are products of the epochs in which they exist. The Hinduism of the Vedic era was different from later Hinduism because life was different. In the same way, as colonialism came to India, Hinduism changed with its environment because new methods of life and of production took hold.

The Bible justifies selling daughters into slavery, stoning people for working on the sabaath and other insane (almost comically so) crimes. Are they practiced by most Christians today, or do you hold that Christians are practicing some other religion? The attempt, one that you're making, to draw a continuous line through the life of a religion runs against the dialogue of history. Just as Christianity has changed so much, just as Islam is changing so much, Hinduism can and will change with progress.


It was thanks to the Britishers, and their effort, that gradually all these horrific practices got eliminated.

Partially, but Hindu reformers were also instrumental in abolishing Sati. Raja Rommohan Roy was one such reformer.

But doesn't it strike you that Hinduism is today practiced without Sati, without those horrific practices you outlined? If Hinduism can lose those feudal elements and still be practiced in modern society, why can't it lose more of them and be practiced in socialist society?

Our comrades in Cuba have tolerated the practice of Catholic and Russian Orthodox Christianity, leaving it as a personal matter, which is exactly Lenin's argument. This is the model we should promote.


He considered Buddhism to be the real religion of India, which was once the religion of the masses of India, unlike the Brahminic religion based on the Vedas, which came from outside India, along with the Indo-Aryans.

Hinduism didn't come from outside of India; it may have been influenced by different nations which have come to India, but that doesn't change the fact that it is Indian, just as it is Balian. Even if we accept the long-debunked Aryan Invasion Theory in order to support your argument, you still have many problems to deal with. Speaking of which, I take it you reject Marxism, as it came from outside India, correct? What of penicilin? The airplane? I could go on.

And if you consider Hinduism un-Indian, then you must consider Catholicism un-Italian and Anglicanism un-English; Islam un-Egyptian and un-Persian; Buddhism un-Japanese. Your logic reduces religion to little more than a picket fence, placed neatly between neatly-defined peoples, unchangable onto the end of time. It is far more complicated and fluid than that, and if it isn't, then I might as well convert to Druidic paganism.

[amandevsingh]

Burning widows on pyres is not vile? Its one of the most horrible things to come out of the patriarchal society of India. You must be a male chauvinist or plain stupid to defend Sati.

I am not defending it in any way. I am sorry if it comes off that way, but it is less vile then some other practices of tribals of many regions; especially since it was many times voluntary, due to grief of the loss. I would never support this murder if it was coerced. Perhaps this statement was misleading.

To be honest I lost the point somewhere along the line, I give up this idea. And I apologise for it coming off this way.


Its not a question of the British imperialists being "cruel" or "vile". They were following the self-interest of their bourgeoisie in expanding their market into newer territories including India.

This statement was a reply to HimalayanSpirits statement: "Not to say that the British were not cruel in invading the Indians, but at least they did something to curb the ills of the Indian society, which would have remained backward had they not influenced it."

In that statement he seemed to downplay the evil-ness of the British Raj


Better take your own example of Sikhism. Initially, during the presence of the founder of Sikhism, caste system had been reduced a lot among those who followed it, but later everything only became worse. The Sikhs in Canada are in a developed country, they are educated; when they cannot leave caste system what gaurantee do you have that the Indians would have stopped practicing it naturally?

I acknowledge this, but I think we should stop this speculation. Following Socialist's advice is usually a good thing. ;)

[manic expression]

Clearly, you have no idea of Hinduism as practiced in India today. Have you visited any temple in India? You'll very likely find the Vedas there being read or taught specially for males of the Brahmin caste.

The majority of Hindus have never read the Vedas, and there is no need for them to do so. Three of the Vedas are about sacrifices and fire rituals that are very rarely performed today, and the last deals with theology that's been built upon for centuries and expressed far more concisely by other scripts.

Brahmins learn the Vedas, sure. Most Hindus don't. Just because some Christians know the Old Testament in its original language, it doesn't mean such a translation is central to Christianity or the spirituality of the majority of Christians.


Thats just semantics. Scriptures is a word used for Abrahamic religions. The Sanskrit word for the Vedas etc is "shastra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shastra)". The Vedas were written down pretty much for most of Indian history. They were of course originally meant to be oral, but to say existed only orally would be false.

There are no scriptures in Hinduism that equal the Bible or Quran or Torah. That's one of the problems of people ascribing Biblical qualities to the Vedas, when in reality very few Hindus have any use for them at all.

And during the Vedic period, when the Vedas were central to what's known as Hinduism, they were transmitted orally.


It was actually not a matter of practicality, but one of the rules found in many of the accessory scriptures to the Vedas, like the Manu Smriti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manu_Smriti).

So most Hindus had no access to the Mahabharata or the Ramayana when they were written? Those are, after all, the texts which arguably matter the most to most Hindus. Ignoring that, the Laws of Manu were written long after the end of the Vedic period.


That seems to a myth spread by the Hare Krishnas. Common Hindus in India use temples as much as having special "sacred" places in their houses for worship.

Did I say Hindus don't use Mandirs? No, I said they can use homes as houses of worship, which is true. Temples are desired of course, but they are not truly necessary.


Yes. Its common among all religions in India.

Exactly.


As Marxists, why should we even care?

We must care because socialist societies must deal with religion in some manner. More immediately, every Marxist party must grapple with the issue of religious party members. Lastly, Marxism touches upon every portion of human life, and religion is no exception; Marxists must understand every aspect of society, especially one that is so crucial.


He actually founded a separate religion called Brahmoism, completely divorced from the commonly practiced Brahmanic religion.

His argument on the subject, however, was that Sati was not part of Hinduism. Many other Hindus also condemned Sati for years before it was abolished.


Because religion in itself is profoundly reactionary. Having said that it can be a private affair and left at that. I wouldn't also want "official atheism" to be a part of a working class movement.

The court system is profoundly reactionary, does that mean we are to abandon the enforcement of laws in a post-capitalist society? The same could be said of schools, industry, firearms, public sanitation and more things which would assuredly have a place in a socialist society.

Religion may be profoundly reactionary today, but it is because religion is controlled by the bourgeoisie. If you end the latter, you change the former.


To quote Lenin,

Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free associations of like-minded citizens, associations independent of the state.


This is getting off-topic, but what comrades? You mean the state capitalist Castroite government? "We" don't need to promote any such "models" IMHO.

The Cuban workers, not to mention the most committed revolutionaries in every corner the world, respectfully disagree.

[manic expression]

True, but apologists of the caste system mostly use the Vedas to support it. The other "parts" of the Vedas including sacrifices are clearly outdated.

That's their interpretation of them, and it's not the only one.


Where did I ascribe Biblical qualities to the Vedas?

I was trying to say that the Vedas aren't like the Bible or the Quran or the Torah; Hinduism is decentralized in both doctrine and scripture. Also, my original point was that since the Vedas were memorized and not written down, it was almost a matter of course that they wouldn't be accessible to most people.


Since they were written in Sanskrit, which was a language restricted to the "Aryan" castes, yes. However, during the middle ages, there were many translations to common languages like Hindi and Tamil, like those by Tulsidas and Kambar.

Understood. My point here was that the most important Hindu texts were accessible to many, and that this is more pertinent to the spirituality of most Hindus than the Vedas.


What evidence do you have for the existence of this "Vedic period"?

It's not a question of evidence as much as classification. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are, IIRC, considered post-Vedic because of different developments; those epics signal a move away from Vedic ritual and toward an emphasis on dharma in everyday life. By the Maurya Empire, society in India had transformed in many ways since the height of the Vedic Civilization: politically, culturally, etc.


:rolleyes: Where did I say religion wouldn't have a place in socialism? If you read what I said,

Perhaps I misunderstood this statement:

Hinduism is indeed the worst religion and I don't think there is much scope for reform within Hinduism because of caste. Hinduism has to be rooted out from India in order for it to progress.

At any rate, I agree with the sentiment that it should be a private affair.


So much for you speaking for all Cuban workers and speaking of Stalinists as the "most committed revolutionaries".

You may believe such unsophisticated stereotypes if you wish, but the fact is that the Cuban workers have strongly endorsed the Cuban Revolution on multiple occassions. That's the essence of the thing.

[himalayanspirit]

Manic Expression, here is my reply to your arguments:



The Vedas have no relevance in the Hinduism that exists today, so that's not really pertinent.Also, the Vedas weren't scriptures because they were memorized and passed down generations in an oral manner. It was a practical impossibility to give everyone access to the Vedas until the printing press was established in India (and by that time no one cared about the Vedas anyway).



True. And as I said, Hinduism is forcibly defined as a religion; in reality, it is not. It is just a group of religions and the term "Hindu" is geographic in origin, not religious. As much as the content of Vedas have no relevance today in "Hinduism", it always had symbolic significance. The Brahmins claimed the Vedas to be the ultimate knowledge, and the Vedas themselves say that these can only be passed down from among the Brahmins. This was the symbolism that was used to mock the indigenous people. They were considered inferior and ineligible of this "sacred knowledge".
And leave out the printing press, don't you think that it would be better to preserve some oral traditions by imparting the "knowledge" to as many as possible? Even if it was passed down to only a few, say 10 or 20, why were these only selected among the Brahmins?

In the medieval times in India, again this symbolism was used to oppress the indigenous people. As Manu Smriti says, if any aborigine reads the Vedas his eyes should be gouged out; if he hears it, hot oil should be poured on his ears etc. This Manu Smriti was written around 4 A.D, and it has been almost two millennia since then.



Do you think the majority of Catholics in Latin America or Europe or Africa know exactly what the doctrine of the immaculate conception or Filioque really means?


Well, you did not get it. Its true that most of the masses in all religions are not versed in their religions. But what if someone wanted to learn the scriptures? Would he/she be banned to read it? In Hinduism, a certain class of people are banned to read it even if they wanted to and even if there was really something worthy in the Vedas. THIS is the problem. This is discrimination.


You don't need to read scriptures in order to do prasad, you just move the tray the way you've seen other people do it.

Ya, thats only when you are allowed inside the temple! Remember that the indigenous people are NOT allowed inside the temple. And even if the law of today allows them to go inside the temple, the scriptures themselves ban them to do so! Thats a big contradiction here!


Buddhism was demolished in most parts of India since it was a centralized religion based on monasteries; in contrast, Hindus can make any house or cabinet a temple suitable for worship.



I do not know what you mean by "Hindus" here. People didn't know the existence of such a word even in India during the time of Buddhism. You must be knowing that the concept of idol-worship is quite recent compared to the days of the Vedas. Buddhism was demolished because of persecution by the Hunas (who were HIndus), the Shaivites, the Vaishnavites and lastly by the Muslims. I can PROVE to you that the Hindus (Shaivites and Vaishnavites) had a big hand in the obliteration of Buddhism from India; and I can bring you evidence of the hatred that is spewed against the Buddhists and their religion in the puranas, smritis, and other "Hindu" scriptures. I have done deep personal research on both the religions.


I've heard many stories about untouchables converting to one of the two and finding that they're still discriminated against when they go to church.


The difference is that the Christian and Muslim scriptures do not preach that human beings belong to different species (the hindi term for caste, "jati", when translated to English, means "species"). Hinduism does. Hindu scriptures lay down the rules and protocols for the interraction of these different "species" of humans. As much as I know Christianity and Islam, their first law is that human beings are equal.


Just as Christianity has changed so much, just as Islam is changing so much, Hinduism can and will change with progress.



I live in the "ground zero" of Hinduism, and I don;t see any change. I assure you, caste system will remain for at least a few more centuries.


But doesn't it strike you that Hinduism is today practiced without Sati, without those horrific practices you outlined?


I have been to Rajasthan, and I can assure you that if Sati is again decriminilized now by the Indian government, the people of the warrior castes will start practicing it even from today itself. Even untouchability is banned by the government, but it is an everyday practice; though not in a horrific way as in the earlier days.



But doesn't it strike you that Hinduism is today practiced without Sati, without those horrific practices you outlined?

Well, you should read without anxiety. I didn't say "Hinduism" came out of India; I only said that the Vedas came out of India and also the religion based on it.

[red cat]

what evidence do you have for this? Should i take your word for it?

Any standard book on India's history will tell you that. If you are too picky then look at the footnotes in this article by Marx:

The East India Company — Its History and Results


my point wasnt that capitalism "replaced" it. Indian capitalism existed before and after our so called independence. The current indian state is as imperialist as any other bourgeois state.No, there were just some comprador families who in general were managers of British capital in India and had comparatively very little capital of their own. It continued that way even after 1947. The relatively small size of the Indian proletariat compared to the total population is an evidence of this fact. Also, the caste system itself is a feudal cultural structure.

[Random Precision]

Are you talking about Kabir and other reformist poets? Just because they wrote poems or some literature does not mean that changes actually took place!

Well, why not? The most prominent literary champions of bourgeois society in Europe (Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke etc) were writing decades before the storming of the Bastille, and a century before the spread of bourgeois revolution over the continent. Of course, for them to be able to be who they were the bourgeois class had to already be in a very strong position economically, and I don't know if India can be characterized in a similar way. But this in and of itself is a pretty easy comparison to make.


What bourgeoisie are you talking about? Its debatable if India even had a feudal system in place. This article suggests it could be characterized more as the "Asiatic mode".


what evidence do you have for this? Should i take your word for it?


Well, I am reading Romila Thapar's book Early India right now, and though I have not made it as far as her arguments that India was indeed a feudal society (although with features that distinguished it from European feudalism), here she is on the Asiatic mode of production:


... There was a questioning of Marx's own model for India, contained in his Asiatic Mode of Production, and this was by and large set aside, although there were some historians and sociologists who thought that even if it was not applicable in its entirety it raised worthwhile questions. Its weakness was common to many nineteenth-century theories about Asia, in that early nineteenth-century sources for Asian history available to European scholars were very limited while the available sources had not been explored in depth.

The article you linked to does well to point out and criticize the Stalinist stage-ism of primitive communism-->slavery-->feudalism-->capitalism etc. but it is just as dangerous on these historical questions is to uphold a particular conclusion just because Marx or Engels subscribed to it. What's important to Marxist historical investigation, as with all of Marxism, is the method.


Thats just historical speculation and we'd be better off not making wild guesses on such matters.

Actually I thought he raised a very good point, namely, questioning whether the British enforcing Western "progress" on India was necessary or even perhaps if it was detrimental to the progress of Indian society. Which remains important whether we talk about the India of the 18th century or the 21st century, which still has a large heritage to deal with from British colonialism.


What evidence do you have for the existence of this "Vedic period"?


It's pretty commonly agreed by scholars of Indian history and Hinduism that the Vedas were the product of the nomadic Aryan clan society, which came before their settling in cities. This is what is meant by the "Vedic period" or "Vedic society".


To quote Lenin,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Socialism and Religion
So far as the party of the socialist proletariat is concerned, religion is not a private affair. Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by word of mouth. But we founded our association, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, precisely for such a struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party, of the whole proletariat.

As manic expression pointed out, this is hardly the only side to Lenin's views of religion. In fact he was the one who had the idea of the Bolsheviks targeting workers of religious minorities (Old Believers, Catholics, Baptist converts) with propaganda since they were necessarily oppressed by the state's association with Greek Orthodoxy. Maybe revolutionaries in India could learn from this by targeting people who fall outside of the brahmanical Hinduism, like Dalits, Jainas, and of course Muslims and Christians. But I digress.


Buddhism was demolished because of persecution by the Hunas (who were HIndus), the Shaivites, the Vaishnavites and lastly by the Muslims.

Actually the Hunas (known more commonly as the "Huns") were most probably a Turkish-speaking people from western China. So more likely they had their own beliefs when they were engaged in invading India and destroying Buddhist monasteries. Furthermore they were more interested in plunder from Buddhist monasteries than in exterminating the religion espoused by the monks.


I can PROVE to you that the Hindus (Shaivites and Vaishnavites) had a big hand in the obliteration of Buddhism from India; and I can bring you evidence of the hatred that is spewed against the Buddhists and their religion in the puranas, smritis, and other "Hindu" scriptures. I have done deep personal research on both the religions.

Of course outright persecution played its role in the extinction of Buddhism in India, but you also cannot underestimate the amount to which it was simply undercut by other religions. Things like adopting the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu. Also much of Buddhist ethical doctrine was adopted into Hindu texts, and the ascendancy of the Mahayana tradition within Buddhism which cast Gautama Siddhartha and the bodhisattvas as gods made it less of a theological challenge to brahmanism.


The difference is that the Christian and Muslim scriptures do not preach that human beings belong to different species (the hindi term for caste, "jati", when translated to English, means "species").

According to John Keay's India: A History, the original Sanskrit term for caste was varna, or "color"- which actually did not have anything to do with the brahmans and kshatriyas considering themselves fairer skinned or whatever. The use of jati comes from Buddhist texts, and "derives from a verb meaning "to be born" the emphasis being less on the degree of ritual purity, as in the four-tier varna, and more on caste determination as a result of being born into a particular kinship group. If varna provided the theoretical framework, jati came to represent the practical reality... caste formation was veering away from ritual status to take greater account of the proliferation of localized and specialized activities" (Keay, p. 54)


Hinduism does. Hindu scriptures lay down the rules and protocols for the interraction of these different "species" of humans. As much as I know Christianity and Islam, their first law is that human beings are equal.

I wouldn't say it's their "first law". In both religions it's more like an assumption, that all humans can be saved through accepting Jesus and/or obeying God's law. You can get equality from that, but the fact is that both these religions, just like Hinduism, have propped up the most horrible class systems throughout their history. Furthermore there are sects within Christianity (Calvinism) that openly reject equality of humans in favor of certain people being saved from the beginning of time.

I would also like to elaborate this point made by manic expression: "Religion may be profoundly reactionary today, but it is because religion is controlled by the bourgeoisie. If you end the latter, you change the former." What I think this speaks to more generally is that religious values tend to generally reflect the priorities of the society they develop in. We can see in Hinduism that it is infinitely adaptable, in fact even the caste system began as a "mechanism for assimilation" of professional groups into a settled Aryan society as Romila Thapar puts it. Hinduism is a dynamic religion whose institutions have changed in response to the massive changes to India's economic base throughout history, and there is no reason to believe that Hindu belief itself needs to be generally "stamped out" for India to progress.

[himalayanspirit]

Actually the Hunas (known more commonly as the "Huns") were most probably a Turkish-speaking people from western China. So more likely they had their own beliefs when they were engaged in invading India and destroying Buddhist monasteries.


The white Hunas must have originated either in western China or from other places; the fact is that they came outside India and most of the extinction of Buddhism from Northern India is attributed to them. The other fact is that most of the North Indians of the warrior and land-owning castes are their descendants. According to the evidence from the scriptures, this is roughly the chronology of the events:-

1. Initially when they came to India and started invading India, they were called by the Hindu Brahmins as "Mlecchhas" (foreigners/barbarians). Some Hindu puranas attest to this fact.
2. Later the Hindu Brahmins realized that these group of people can be used to obliterate their competition in the form of the Shramanic religions (most prominently, Buddhism) from India. So, they plotted a conspiracy.
3. Therefore, the Brahmins 'upgraded' their status as Kshatriyas (or warriors) and connived along with them to reduce or eliminate the influence of Buddhism which had been giving serious competition to them.
4. The people belonging to the Rajput caste themselves agree of their origin; although they also believe in their purity as a human race and their higher position compared to the other masses of India. They call themselves as belonging to the solar race (Suryavanshi). There are other Kshatriyas who call themselves of the Lunar race (Chandravanshi).

If the Indian Buddhist literature has ever criticized any one people for being too virulent towards the Buddhists and the dhamma, it is the white Hunas. From Mihirkula to the likes of Shashanka, all are accused of persecuting the Buddhists heavily.


Furthermore they were more interested in plunder from Buddhist monasteries than in exterminating the religion espoused by the monks.

Why only the Buddhist monasteries? Why do you think that they saved the Hindus? Any bias?

In the north, it was the white Hunas, under the direction of Brahmins, who were persecuting the Buddhists and in the south, it was the Brahmins and other Shaivites and Vaishnavites who were directly conspiring against the Buddhists.
If you go to the famous Meenakshi temple of Madurai, you would see the beautiful sculptures depicting the ancient Jain past of Tamil Nadu, which is still remembered in the form of folk stories by the peasantry there. The sculptures depict a famous Shaiva Brahmin massacring 8000 Jaina monks within a week. If some hundred years ago, before the advent of media and fast forms of communication, you had asked anyone about "Jain" or "Jainism", they would have no clue at all. Such has been the complete persecution there. Did the Moghuls and Muslims persecute them? No, they didnt even reach south India by as late as the British invasion.

Same phenomena is seen everywhere else in India. Where ever you dig under the Earth in India, you will find the forgotten and glorious past of Buddhism. Many Buddhists monasteries were destroyed, temples of HIndu gods were erected over them (usually the Phallus of Shiva). Scriptures were burnt. Such complete had been the persecution that by as late as a hundred or two, years ago, people of India perhaps didn't even know who Buddha was or who Ashoka was. It was the British archaeologists who studied the old ruins, Ashoka's pillars etc, and told the Indians of their forgotten past. Why do you think that the scholars have to go to Sri Lanka to find Pali cannon and translate them? Why isn't it found in India when India was the originator of Buddhism from where it spread elsewhere?

Its easy for Hindu fanatics to put all blame over the Muslims and Mughals. The thing that the Hindu fanatics never explain is that why were the Hindus not persecuted by the Muslims if it was indeed the "blood-thirsty" Muslims who completely obliterated any sign of Buddhism from North India? Were Hindus any special in the eyes of the Muslim? You can go and find Hindus living in Afghanisthan also, even till today, even under the Taliban also. Moreover some Mughal kings, like Akbar, were secular and believed in the co-existence of all religions.




Things like adopting the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu.

This was the last nail put on the coffin of Buddhism by the hands of the Hindus. But this certainly doesn't prove as the only reason for the elimination of Buddhism from India. Do you really think that people as diverse as the Indians, with all their independent languages, cultures, beliefs etc, would simply stop believing in Buddhism just because someone claimed him to be an Avatar of Vishnu?
And even so, the Buddha may be included as an avatar of Vishnu, but Buddhism was degraded and mocked by the Vaishnavites by doing so. Vaishnavites claimed that the Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu who has come to Earth so as to delude the demons by teaching them heretic and false doctrine, and thus, rendering them eligible for slaughter. This was the real motive. Even though Buddha was now a Hindu god, Buddhism had been declared as a heretic and false doctrine which is only practiced by the demons.
[Ref: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9411&L=indology&P=12527]


Also much of Buddhist ethical doctrine was adopted into Hindu texts


Wrong again. Buddhists believe in equality of all humans. Buddha himself is supposed to have said so, as is recorded in the pali canon, that all humans are equal and there should be no discrimination against each other. He taught compassion towards the poor and needy; not the sadistic oppression of them, and their expulsion from society, as is taught by Hinduism.
Moreover, Buddha taught about the equality of men and women. He never asked anyone to force their widows to burn if their husbands die.

Hinduism did take many things from Buddhism, but most of it was for their conspiracy to defeat it and increase their (Brahmins) own influence over people. Vaishnavites included Buddha as avatar for this purpose. Sankara created Advaita for this purpose. There must have been some genuine and positive influence too, but it is overshadowed by these evil motives.


According to John Keay's India: A History, the original Sanskrit term for caste was varna, or "color"- which actually did not have anything to do with the brahmans and kshatriyas considering themselves fairer skinned or whatever

There is nothing "original" about it, because it is still the term in existence. Caste is different from varna. Caste is translated into Hindi as "jati". And the puranas, smritis and Brahmans that preach the caste laws use this term along with the varna term.


The use of jati comes from Buddhist texts, and "derives from a verb meaning "to be born" the emphasis being less on the degree of ritual purity

Don't know where it originated, but in Buddhist as well as Hindu texts, "jati" strictly means "species". In the Buddhist scriptures "jati" is used as in "jati of all different animals"; but in Hinduism, "jati" is used to exclusive show that humans belong to different species and thus further their agenda that different caste should live with several rules so as to not intermix and impurify each other.



And as I have observed, you're still bent over reading about caste system from the sources of the elites; those who have never been low caste or untouchable and those who themselves control most of the media and intellectual and academic presence in India.

Just as you would give good weightage to the workers and the labor class to formulate your opinion about capitalism - or to be neutral you would study both the sides - you should also read the works by Dr. Ambedkar, Phule, etc. They were untouchables or from the low caste, and they have gone through everything.


Most of the Brahmanic propaganda in the media today about caste system comes from the elite high caste who are either the apologists of caste system or, in some cases, advocates of it. In fact, many of them don't even given any credit to Dr. Ambedkar for his devotion to his depressed classes, and rather impose their own hero in the form of Gandhi (who is generally hated by the dalits; at least the "awakened" ones and educated ones).

[red cat]

himalayanspirit's posts are very informative about the true face of Hinduism and the persecution of Buddhists in India, but it also tends to almost glorify Buddhism.

In reality, in practice, Buddhists do not believe in equality. In places like Tibet, it too had become the main cultural tool of the ruling classes for oppressing people. Also, Buddhists believe in "Karma" as the cause of sufferings, and reincarnation.

[Random Precision]

The other fact is that most of the North Indians of the warrior and land-owning castes are their descendants. According to the evidence from the scriptures, this is roughly the chronology of the events:-

1. Initially when they came to India and started invading India, they were called by the Hindu Brahmins as "Mlecchhas" (foreigners/barbarians). Some Hindu puranas attest to this fact.
2. Later the Hindu Brahmins realized that these group of people can be used to obliterate their competition in the form of the Shramanic religions (most prominently, Buddhism) from India. So, they plotted a conspiracy.
3. Therefore, the Brahmins 'upgraded' their status as Kshatriyas (or warriors) and connived along with them to reduce or eliminate the influence of Buddhism which had been giving serious competition to them.
4. The people belonging to the Rajput caste themselves agree of their origin; although they also believe in their purity as a human race and their higher position compared to the other masses of India. They call themselves as belonging to the solar race (Suryavanshi). There are other Kshatriyas who call themselves of the Lunar race (Chandravanshi).

This is all very interesting, and I've not seen any mention of it in my readings on Indian history. Could you recommend some works that talk about it?


If the Indian Buddhist literature has ever criticized any one people for being too virulent towards the Buddhists and the dhamma

If you're talking about Ashoka's dhamma, it's not exactly Buddhist, and it was history for hundreds of years before the Huns arrived in India.

But, I am curious, what are your thoughts on Ashoka?


Why only the Buddhist monasteries? Why do you think that they saved the Hindus? Any bias?

I would think that at least part of it was because large amounts of wealth were concentrated in Buddhist monasteries and they were heavily patronized around the time. But of course I don't know how their raiding of Hindu temples compared to that.


In the north, it was the white Hunas, under the direction of Brahmins, who were persecuting the Buddhists and in the south, it was the Brahmins and other Shaivites and Vaishnavites who were directly conspiring against the Buddhists.
If you go to the famous Meenakshi temple of Madurai, you would see the beautiful sculptures depicting the ancient Jain past of Tamil Nadu, which is still remembered in the form of folk stories by the peasantry there. The sculptures depict a famous Shaiva Brahmin massacring 8000 Jaina monks within a week.

Now I have heard a similar story from the Periya Purana, which perhaps you are referring to. Essentially it's that Campantar, a Shaivite saint, challenged the Jainas to a theological debate and a contest of miracles. The Jainas swore that if they lost they would have themselves impaled (there were 8000 of them). They lost the contest and were impaled, and this event is depicted on a frieze in a temple to Shiva in Taracuram. However the story is of questionable veracity, since neither Campantar nor other contemporary sources discuss it. If you're talking about something different, I apologize.

Of course Jainas and Buddhists were persecuted, I am not taking issue with that, however the persecution and Hindu reconquest did not always take the form of violence, that is all I'm saying.


If some hundred years ago, before the advent of media and fast forms of communication, you had asked anyone about "Jain" or "Jainism", they would have no clue at all. Such has been the complete persecution there. Did the Moghuls and Muslims persecute them? No, they didnt even reach south India by as late as the British invasion.

If you want to get technical, there were sultanates as far south as northern Tamil Nadu in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, your point is well taken.


Wrong again. Buddhists believe in equality of all humans. Buddha himself is supposed to have said so, as is recorded in the pali canon, that all humans are equal and there should be no discrimination against each other. He taught compassion towards the poor and needy; not the sadistic oppression of them, and their expulsion from society, as is taught by Hinduism.
Moreover, Buddha taught about the equality of men and women. He never asked anyone to force their widows to burn if their husbands die.

Hinduism did take many things from Buddhism, but most of it was for their conspiracy to defeat it and increase their (Brahmins) own influence over people. Vaishnavites included Buddha as avatar for this purpose. Sankara created Advaita for this purpose. There must have been some genuine and positive influence too, but it is overshadowed by these evil motives.

I don't know if the "conspiracy" that you are talking about can be historically supported. It would require a lot of coordination across the whole subcontinent, which was of course quite politically fractured during the time you're talking about. Plus it ignores the fact that for hundreds of years after the Buddha's death, his teachings were considered merely one of the paths to follow, which also included Vedic orthopraxy and Jainism. This is why Ashoka was able to remain "the beloved of the gods" while becoming the greatest patron of Buddhism in history (comparable to what Constantine did for Christianity) and even invented the doctrine of dhamma which took concepts from Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism and sort of mashed them up into an ideology that was thought to be unobjectionable to all.


There is nothing "original" about it, because it is still the term in existence.

All I meant was that varna as a term came before jati.


Caste is different from varna.

Can you elaborate?


Caste is translated into Hindi as "jati". And the puranas, smritis and Brahmans that preach the caste laws use this term along with the varna term.

Don't know where it originated, but in Buddhist as well as Hindu texts, "jati" strictly means "species". In the Buddhist scriptures "jati" is used as in "jati of all different animals"; but in Hinduism, "jati" is used to exclusive show that humans belong to different species and thus further their agenda that different caste should live with several rules so as to not intermix and impurify each other.

Well funnily enough I will start learning Hindi in less than a week now, but for now I will have to rely on my trusty Oxford Hindi-English dictionary, which translates जाति as "birth" or more accurately "births". If it is used as "species" in India, I would not be aware of that.


And as I have observed, you're still bent over reading about caste system from the sources of the elites; those who have never been low caste or untouchable and those who themselves control most of the media and intellectual and academic presence in India.

Just as you would give good weightage to the workers and the labor class to formulate your opinion about capitalism - or to be neutral you would study both the sides - you should also read the works by Dr. Ambedkar, Phule, etc. They were untouchables or from the low caste, and they have gone through everything.

I would very much like to do so. Can you recommend me some work from either of those authors to start out with? (In English would be better, since I won't be able to read Hindi or other Indian languages :()

[himalayanspirit]

This is all very interesting, and I've not seen any mention of it in my readings on Indian history. Could you recommend some works that talk about it?


There is no single work that I am aware of, that directly deduces this. However, I have myself infered this from the chronology of events that I showed you. What you need to verify is whether the white Hunas are the ancestors of the Rajputs and other such landowing warrior castes of India or not, whether the Buddhist canon criticises the white Hunas for their persecution of Buddhism, whether they were called as "mlecchhas" before they were established in India (by the Brahmins), whether they call themselves of being of the Solar race and of the Lunar race. Of course, I can provide you with authentic sources to prove the above.




If you're talking about Ashoka's dhamma, it's not exactly Buddhist, and it was history for hundreds of years before the Huns arrived in India.

No, I am talking about "Indian Buddhist literature". Not exactly India, but about India. For example, Taranatha's history of Buddhism in India is one such work (it is Tibetan). Kalhana's "Rajatarangini" which is about the history of Kashmir, talks in detail about the role of white Hunas in persecuting Buddhists. Huang Tsuan's, and the works of the later chinese travellers also mention the persecution of Buddhism. There are many such books. The Buddhist "Ashokavandana", which is found in Sri Lanka nowadays, strongly criticize Pushyamitra Sunga, the Brahmin Commander of the Mauryas, for persecuting Buddhists. But as usual, since you are in the habit of reading Indian history from the viewpoint of the "higher" Hindu castes, you will only find versions where they are apolgetic or even escapist in explaining that Hindus had no role in persecuting Buddhists. Thats obvious. But you have your own taste.....


I would think that at least part of it was because large amounts of wealth were concentrated in Buddhist monasteries and they were heavily patronized around the time. But of course I don't know how their raiding of Hindu temples compared to that.

This is the error that most of the Hindus and scholars in general commit while studying the extinct Buddhism in India and its history. You need to understand that all the Buddhists didn't live in monasteries; nor were all monks. Monks constitute only a little portion of the Buddhist societies. There were many more lay disciples, or as called in the pali language, as "upasaka". Surely, Muslims only hated all the Buddhists, both monks and laity, to have expunged them, right? However, its quite interesting that you believe that temples do not have wealth accumulated in them. Perhaps, I might point you to the famous temples of India like Tirupati, Puri, etc, which have accumulated unaccounted wealth in crores (in billions).



If you're talking about something different, I apologize.


I do not know what you are talking about, because you are talking about some story that you read in some purana. However, I am talking about the folk stories that are remembered by the Tamil peasantry of Madurai and that is supported by the sculptural depiction on the walls of the famous Meenakshi temple of Madurai, of a certain Brahmin Shaivite (called "Thiruguna" perhaps) having impaled thousands of Jain monks.

Considering your Hindu inclination, I am not surprised that you are not amazed at something more apparent, that there are no Jains left in South India today. This is something that a serious unbiased researcher wouldn't overlook.


however the persecution and Hindu reconquest did not always take the form of violence, that is all I'm saying.


On the contrary, there are thousands of evidence of violent persection of Buddhists. What is even more intriguining is that Buddhism (and Jainism) simply left no apparent and distinct traces even if the Hindus simply, peacefully converted all the Buddhists into their relgion; which I think is not possible because a peaceful conversion doesn't really annihilate the original religion to such an extent that people completely forget about it, abandon its monasteries, caves and pagodas, loose all the scriptures into oblivion, and even forget the founders of that religion. For example, Buddhist missionaries converted many people in Japan, and this was done peacefully (more or less). Yet the traces of its original religion of Shintoism is still found everywhere. Same is the case with the Bon religion of Tibet. On the contrary, in case of Afghanistan, where people of Buddhist faith were in majority once, violent persecution had led to a complete obliteration of Buddhism to the same extent of complete forgotten past as in India (especially South India). Think about this. The Hindu historians will never admit this. Only the Marxist historians of India, like Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib etc, write the truth about this; but even they never really concentrate deeply only on this particular field of research.



If you want to get technical, there were sultanates as far south as northern Tamil Nadu in the 16th and 17th centuries

Buddhism was extinct in Kerela by 12th century. In other parts of South India it was already gone before Kerela. So, its certainly not the Muslims who killed all the Buddhists.



Plus it ignores the fact that for hundreds of years after the Buddha's death, his teachings were considered merely one of the paths to follow, which also included Vedic orthopraxy and Jainism.

Even now his teachings are considered as mainly one of the paths to follow along with others; and not only in India but everywhere in the world. In the USA also Buddhism is considered merely one of the paths to follow along with others, just as in India. So whats so important about it? I sense that you belong to the school of thought that considers "Buddhism as merely a sect of Hinduism", which I think is quite stupid to begin with, as there was no such thing as "Hinduism" or "Hindu" when Buddhism was flourishing. Even the differences between the Shaivites and Vaishnavites were so prominent as to lead to violence between them. "Hinduism" is the creation of the modern "higher" caste Hindu of the independent India.



Can you elaborate?

Sure, I can. You see, varna is a four-fold classification according to the Hindu scriptures. Caste, on the other hand, is simply the name of the clan/tribe or a community of intra-marrying people with certain distinct historical or mythical origins as per themselves.

For example, these are castes : Jat, Rajput, Chamar, Mahar, Brahmin, Nair etc etc (at least 3500 are there that are identified as castes).

These are the examples of varna : Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra, and a fourth one is identified as untouchable.

In the HIndu society caste and varna are mapped together, and this is done by the Brahmins since historical times. For example, Jat caste has the varna of Sudra, Rajput has the varna of Kshatriya, Mahar has the varna of untouchable (or the fifth varna) etc etc. Only Brahmins are there that have the same term for both caste and varna.

Castes have origins on the basis of tribes or professions or different racial origins etc. But the fourfold varna system is defined by the Brahmins. Therea are even some castes that have no varna associated with them or who have ambiguous varna associated with them. For example, the Patels are simply a caste and they do not belong to any varna (although the Brahmins would claim them to be Sudra). There are also examples of one caste having different varnas in different regions.

So, basically, caste and varna are mapped together by the Brahmins because they had the sole power to do so, after the authority of the Vedic religion was established in a kindgom by the King. It is in this respect that I was saying that the Brahmins convered the white Hunas from Mlecchhas to "Kshatriyas", where as at the same time they downgraded the Licchhavis, Shakyans etc, whom they originally considered Kshatriyas, as Vrtyas (the fallen ones; perhaps because they completely converted to Buddhism or Jainism).




I would very much like to do so. Can you recommend me some work from either of those authors to start out with? (In English would be better, since I won't be able to read Hindi or other Indian languages

Sure I will. Read the work of Dr. Ambedkar himself:

"Riddles in Hinduism"
http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/

"Philosophy of Hinduism"
http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/17.Philosophy%20of%20Hinduism.htm

"Annihilation of Caste"
http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/02.Annihilation%20of%20Caste.htm

There are others that can be found there. And there are also articles by modern dalit scholars about the subject. If you explore, you will be able to read them.

[manic expression]

True. And as I said, Hinduism is forcibly defined as a religion; in reality, it is not. It is just a group of religions and the term "Hindu" is geographic in origin, not religious. As much as the content of Vedas have no relevance today in "Hinduism", it always had symbolic significance. The Brahmins claimed the Vedas to be the ultimate knowledge, and the Vedas themselves say that these can only be passed down from among the Brahmins. This was the symbolism that was used to mock the indigenous people. They were considered inferior and ineligible of this "sacred knowledge".

This isn't about indigenous vs alien. Let's get that straight. We all know the Aryan Invasion Theory is garbage, but even ignoring that, the Aryans became Indian and a part of India's traditions. You keep trying to paint Hinduism as alien, when this is simply not true.


And leave out the printing press, don't you think that it would be better to preserve some oral traditions by imparting the "knowledge" to as many as possible? Even if it was passed down to only a few, say 10 or 20, why were these only selected among the Brahmins? I think it's impractical to have a large amount of people spending their time memorizing religious tomes when farms need to be planted. Plus, the way they did it was just fine for their purposes, since the Vedas survived the era intact. The transmission of the Vedas was fitting for the mode of production of the day, any Marxist will understand this.


In the medieval times in India, again this symbolism was used to oppress the indigenous people. As Manu Smriti says, if any aborigine reads the Vedas his eyes should be gouged out; if he hears it, hot oil should be poured on his ears etc. This Manu Smriti was written around 4 A.D, and it has been almost two millennia since then.Yes, but again, the Laws of Manu were a departure from what was practiced in the Vedic Period. In the Mahajanapadas, caste was extremely fluid, you weren't born into your profession during that epoch. The Laws of Manu were a law code, and have very little relevance to Hinduism today. Like the Vedas. Using these scriptures to define Hinduism is unhelpful and simply misleading.


Well, you did not get it. Its true that most of the masses in all religions are not versed in their religions. But what if someone wanted to learn the scriptures? Would he/she be banned to read it? In Hinduism, a certain class of people are banned to read it even if they wanted to and even if there was really something worthy in the Vedas. THIS is the problem. This is discrimination.Yes, of course it's discrimination, no one's arguing that it isn't. However, I'm saying that these are caused by social factors, not religious ones. This is the materialist position, that religions change as the societies they exist in change around them. You, on the other hand, are trying to color Hinduism as the source of problems, which is anti-Marxist, anti-scientific and just plain anti-historical.


Ya, thats only when you are allowed inside the temple! Remember that the indigenous people are NOT allowed inside the temple. And even if the law of today allows them to go inside the temple, the scriptures themselves ban them to do so! Thats a big contradiction here!What scriptures? I don't think the Vedas dealt with temples, they were all about fire rituals; what we know as a Mandir didn't exist. The Laws of Manu are laws, they've thankfully been tossed aside by the march of history, and Hinduism has marched with it. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana don't deal with such regulations, do they? The Upanishads definitely don't. What scriptures bar "indigenous" people from temple worship?

Plus, I know for a fact that Americans are allowed into temples. According to the caste system, they're as much outcastes as the outcastes.

And on top of that, Catholicism did the exact same thing until the counterreformation. Religions change.


I do not know what you mean by "Hindus" here. People didn't know the existence of such a word even in India during the time of Buddhism. You must be knowing that the concept of idol-worship is quite recent compared to the days of the Vedas. Buddhism was demolished because of persecution by the Hunas (who were HIndus), the Shaivites, the Vaishnavites and lastly by the Muslims. I can PROVE to you that the Hindus (Shaivites and Vaishnavites) had a big hand in the obliteration of Buddhism from India; and I can bring you evidence of the hatred that is spewed against the Buddhists and their religion in the puranas, smritis, and other "Hindu" scriptures. I have done deep personal research on both the religions.A few things. Buddhism is also "quite recent compared to the days of the Vedas". Buddhism was not demolished by Hindus, the Buddhist centers at Nalanda, Vikramshila and elsewhere were destroyed or forced into decline by Islamic forces. If you want to prove that Hinduism destroyed Buddhism in India, do so. I'd be interested in seeing how someone could do this without some serious underestimation of Islamic influence. Listen, if Buddhism flourished in India from around 250 BCE to 1100 CE, what do you think changed the most during that time? The entry of Islam into the Indian subcontinent was far and away the most momentous in terms of tolerance.


The difference is that the Christian and Muslim scriptures do not preach that human beings belong to different species (the hindi term for caste, "jati", when translated to English, means "species"). Hinduism does. Hindu scriptures lay down the rules and protocols for the interraction of these different "species" of humans. As much as I know Christianity and Islam, their first law is that human beings are equal.Yeah, ok. From your discourse with Random Precision:


There is no single work that I am aware of, that directly deduces this.That doesn't surprise me one bit, because it sounds absurd.


However, I have myself infered this from the chronology of events that I showed you. What you need to verify is whether the white Hunas are the ancestors of the Rajputs and other such landowing warrior castes of India or not, whether the Buddhist canon criticises the white Hunas for their persecution of Buddhism, whether they were called as "mlecchhas" before they were established in India (by the Brahmins), whether they call themselves of being of the Solar race and of the Lunar race. Of course, I can provide you with authentic sources to prove the above.I call shenanigans, this is conspiracy theory-esque. In fact, it actually sounds like the Aryan Invasion Theory. Huns weren't really white, just so you know. Also, it doesn't matter who the Rajputs THINK were their ancestors, history is far more complicated then the claims of an aristocracy. If we were to believe that, then I guess Clovis really did come from a sea monster after all. :rolleyes:


I live in the "ground zero" of Hinduism, and I don;t see any change. I assure you, caste system will remain for at least a few more centuries.And how would you know this?


I have been to Rajasthan, and I can assure you that if Sati is again decriminilized now by the Indian government, the people of the warrior castes will start practicing it even from today itself. Even untouchability is banned by the government, but it is an everyday practice; though not in a horrific way as in the earlier days.I appreciate your opinion.


Well, you should read without anxiety. I didn't say "Hinduism" came out of India; I only said that the Vedas came out of India and also the religion based on it.Right. So you think Hinduism is alien to India.

Let me address this as well:


Considering your Hindu inclination, I am not surprised that you are not amazed at something more apparent, that there are no Jains left in South India today. This is something that a serious unbiased researcher wouldn't overlook.So people who agree with what most historians have to say about India have a "Hindu inclination"? What's the logic in that?

Jainism was never strong in South India, it was strong in West India, and the influence of Jainism is very palpable there (in the form of vegetarianism).

[manic expression]

Again, you ignore the reality of the caste system that makes it "illegal" or "profane" for non-Aryan castes to read the Vedas.

For some examples of the cruelty prescribed in Hindu texts, read the Manu Smriti (http://www.bergen.edu/phr/121/ManuGC.pdf).
80-81. Let him not give to a Shudra advice, nor the remnants of his meal, nor food offered to the gods; nor let him explain the sacred law to such a man, nor impose upon him a penance. For he who explains the sacred law to a Shudra or dictates to him a penance, will sink together with that man into the [dreadful] hell called Asamvrita.

91. One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Shudra, to serve meekly . . . these other three castes.

31. Let the first part of a Brahmin's name denote something auspicious, a Kshatriya's be connected with power, and a Vaisya's with wealth, but a Shudra's express something contemptible.

61. Let him not dwell in a country where the rulers are Shudras, nor in one which is surrounded by unrighteous men, nor in one which has become subject to heretics, nor in one swarming with men of the lowest castes.
The above is nothing compared to the state of the "untouchable" or Dalit caste in Indian society:

I've been over the Laws of Manu, and it does not lie at the heart of the issue. The Laws of Manu are a product of a feudalistic application of Hinduism. It would be like me posting John Locke and concluding that all Christianity supports free market economies.

You do know that the modern caste system developed very recently in the history of Hinduism, right? You do know that the Laws of Manu are a law code first and foremost? Hinduism predates them and moved past them long ago.

Your entire argument is that the Laws of Manu define Hinduism, and that the treatment of untouchables is inherent in the religion. This is anti-Marxist.

[himalayanspirit]

This isn't about indigenous vs alien. Let's get that straight. We all know the Aryan Invasion Theory is garbage, but even ignoring that, the Aryans became Indian and a part of India's traditions. You keep trying to paint Hinduism as alien, when this is simply not true.


Aryan invasion theory is garbage. Aryan Migration theory is what is the closest picture of the historical events. One thousand years later, white Americans will become true indigenous Americans; but that doesn't mean that the native Americans should always remain discriminated, even as they are more indigenous.


I think it's impractical to have a large amount of people spending their time memorizing religious tomes when farms need to be planted. Plus, the way they did it was just fine for their purposes, since the Vedas survived the era intact. The transmission of the Vedas was fitting for the mode of production of the day, any Marxist will understand this.You keep trying to argue that the fact that Vedas were and are only allowed to be passed on from Brahmin to Brahmin, is because of some impracticality of teaching it to the masses or whatever. Even if it was true, then what is still much more important that for at least two thousand years, the untouchables and Sudras have been strictly banned from reading it and there have been punishments laid out for the violation of this law in various smriti. And this is not some unverifiable myth from the past. This is history. I hope I do not need to prove you some history. In fact, this is not even history. There is still no temple institution in India, under the Brahmins, that will teach any Sudra or untouchable the "Holy" scriptures at any cost. In any case, as I said earlier, there isn't much of worth in them already, for the masses to vouch to study them now. As an example, Valmiki's and later Ramayana have a story about the Hindu god Rama who beheads a Sudra for attempting to practice penances (or study Vedas perhaps) because the Brahmins told him to do so.


Brahmins have every right to pass on their scriptures onto their own community for generations and for years. Thats not the problem. The problem comes when they impose their definitions of caste onto other people and also when the whole laws of the land are based on caste system. If Brahmins didn't discriminate against anyone else, and just kept on passing their "Sacred knowledge" amongst themselves, then no one would have objected.

And its not the learning of the Vedas or any other Hindu scriptures that the untouchables and Sudras have been demanding since such a long time. All they need is the right to have property, right to believe in any religion that they like, access to the public water resources (like ponds), and the right to be not discriminated and taunted for their birth of origin or race or ethnicity. This is all they want. And much of this, they are still fighting for even today.


In the Mahajanapadas, caste was extremely fluid, you weren't born into your profession during that epoch.Then leave that epoch there itself. There were no castes some 2000 years ago in India. But the reality of the present is different, and that is what we need to confront. In any case, it simple common sense that there were no castes at one point of time, or in other words, caste system is not a beginningless and natural feature of mankind.

And remember that the stateme "caste was extremely fluid" is still different from the statement "there were no castes".



Using these scriptures to define Hinduism is unhelpful and simply misleading.Hello? Where have you been? I have cleared this in the beginning of my earlier posts itself that Hinduism is not a religion defined on the basis of what is written in the scriptures (there are contradictory scriptures out there in HInduism), but it is defined on the basis of what the people actually follow and believe in everyday life. People of India staunchly believe in caste system, and also give religious justification to it. Therefore, this is a part of Hinduism, regardless of the scriptures.

The scriptures are only the origin. They are only to show from where these ideas too shape from. And even the stand of scriptures in defining castes is quite ambiguous and contradictory. No matter they were desperate to lay down the caste system so as to protect their exclusive rights and rule forever (literally). Read the debate between Buddhists and Brahmins in India regarding caste system [http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/tr03-08.htm] (http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/tr03-08.htm%5D). The arguments might sound trivial and funny, but thats only because the Brahmins could never give any argument for their caste system.


What scriptures?The puranas, smritis, Brahmanas, and epics (which number in hundreds). These are the scriptures I am talking about. Vedas are a very old scripture that have some hymns for everyday life in them. They are not really followed nowadays. Heck! The Vedas have the modern Hindu god Vishnu as merely a secondary and unimportant brother of Indra! Hindus consider Vishnu as the highest god now (Vaishnavites at least). So you see, there has been a lot of changes. What is being followed nowadays might have originated in the first few centuries after the birth of Christ.


The Mahabharata and the Ramayana don't deal with such regulations, do they?You've never really read them, have you? If you read them, then you will come to know the kind of stupidity with regards to caste system found in those scriptures. Heck! Krishna, the HIndu god, asks Arjun, in Mahabharata, to go on killing like a warrior in the battlefield (even though he resented), just because that is his "dharma". In other words, he was born into it!!



According to the caste system, they're as much outcastes as the outcastes.
Nope, not exactly. The "whites" (Britishers, Portugese, French etc) have invaded India and lived their for almost two centuries or even more. Hindus happily served them. There was no issue. And even today, most of the upper caste Hindus vouch to settle in "white" countries like UK, USA, Australia etc. People sell their land here to migrate there. SO, they actually love the "white people".

And its even more disturbing for us untouchables, because the cruel Brahmins allow the foreigners (the whites) inside their temples, even though they might be outcasts according to their caste system, and yet they refuse entrance to the real indigenous Indians. Just saying.


And on top of that, Catholicism did the exact same thing until the counterreformation. Religions change.
I have no interest in Catholicism. It must have been the most evil religion according to you, and I have no opinion about it. All I care is about the discrimination my people face everyday.
Religions change?
Yes they do. But people just dont assume that religions change and then sit silently and wait for them to change. People change the religions through their efforts. 90% of the Hindus believe in caste system. And we the untouchables are not fighting to change their religion "Hinduisnm", but just to win our rights back.

Most of the educated low caste Hindus nowadays realize that they are not in fact Hindus at all! So, it hardly matters to me whether Hinduism changes or not. I just want to come out of it, not change it. Its not our responsibility to change it. We are OUTCASTS, we are already outside this religion.



I will reply to the rest of your post later, as I have no time now.

[manic expression]

Aryan invasion theory is garbage. Aryan Migration theory is what is the closest picture of the historical events. One thousand years later, white Americans will become true indigenous Americans; but that doesn't mean that the native Americans should always remain discriminated, even as they are more indigenous.

Agreed. However, the American Indians aren't fully indigenous either from what we can tell. The point is moot.


You keep trying to argue that the fact that Vedas were and are only allowed to be passed on from Brahmin to Brahmin, is because of some impracticality of teaching it to the masses or whatever. Even if it was true, then what is still much more important that for at least two thousand years, the untouchables and Sudras have been strictly banned from reading it and there have been punishments laid out for the violation of this law in various smriti. And this is not some unverifiable myth from the past. This is history. I hope I do not need to prove you some history. In fact, this is not even history. There is still no temple institution in India, under the Brahmins, that will teach any Sudra or untouchable the "Holy" scriptures at any cost. In any case, as I said earlier, there isn't much of worth in them already, for the masses to vouch to study them now. As an example, Valmiki's and later Ramayana have a story about the Hindu god Rama who beheads a Sudra for attempting to practice penances (or study Vedas perhaps) because the Brahmins told him to do so.

Himalayanspirit, Hinduism can be practiced and is practiced without the "Holy scriptures". Most Hindus deal with rituals and the stories of gods, and even I have the ability to learn the Upanishads in this day and age.


Brahmins have every right to pass on their scriptures onto their own community for generations and for years. Thats not the problem. The problem comes when they impose their definitions of caste onto other people and also when the whole laws of the land are based on caste system. If Brahmins didn't discriminate against anyone else, and just kept on passing their "Sacred knowledge" amongst themselves, then no one would have objected.

Right, that is the problem, but it is a problem of feudalistic social structures that are even now being broken down by the march of history. Hinduism can and is marching along with it.


And its not the learning of the Vedas or any other Hindu scriptures that the untouchables and Sudras have been demanding since such a long time. All they need is the right to have property, right to believe in any religion that they like, access to the public water resources (like ponds), and the right to be not discriminated and taunted for their birth of origin or race or ethnicity. This is all they want. And much of this, they are still fighting for even today.

That's the idea, well said.


Then leave that epoch there itself. There were no castes some 2000 years ago in India. But the reality of the present is different, and that is what we need to confront. In any case, it simple common sense that there were no castes at one point of time, or in other words, caste system is not a beginningless and natural feature of mankind.

And remember that the stateme "caste was extremely fluid" is still different from the statement "there were no castes".

Well, I said the caste system as we know it today did not exist, and that is true. Priests in the Vedic Period would take on students regardless of birth and teach them their portion of the Vedas. This practice became more and more rigid and was enforced with more and more brutality as India entered new modes of production. As India enters a new era, these structures are changing.

I can't agree more, however, when you say "leave the epoch there". India and Hindus are leaving their feudal past behind.


Hello? Where have you been? I have cleared this in the beginning of my earlier posts itself that Hinduism is not a religion defined on the basis of what is written in the scriptures (there are contradictory scriptures out there in HInduism), but it is defined on the basis of what the people actually follow and believe in everyday life. People of India staunchly believe in caste system, and also give religious justification to it. Therefore, this is a part of Hinduism, regardless of the scriptures.

Is it inherent to Hinduism? That's my question.

And if I did misinterpret you, I'll try not to do that next time.


The scriptures are only the origin. They are only to show from where these ideas too shape from. And even the stand of scriptures in defining castes is quite ambiguous and contradictory. No matter they were desperate to lay down the caste system so as to protect their exclusive rights and rule forever (literally). Read the debate between Buddhists and Brahmins in India regarding caste system [http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/tr03-08.htm] (http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/tr03-08.htm%5D). The arguments might sound trivial and funny, but thats only because the Brahmins could never give any argument for their caste system.

I would agree with this, and add that every ruling class has made such frantic, clumsy and ridiculous arguments. The arguments of the European aristocracy, our very own capitalist class, the Roman patricians and countless other ruling classes did the same. But remember, this is a political factor, religion is only brought in as a hasty and paper-thin justification.

I'll try to check out that link a bit later.


The puranas, smritis, Brahmanas, and epics (which number in hundreds). These are the scriptures I am talking about. Vedas are a very old scripture that have some hymns for everyday life in them. They are not really followed nowadays. Heck! The Vedas have the modern Hindu god Vishnu as merely a secondary and unimportant brother of Indra! Hindus consider Vishnu as the highest god now (Vaishnavites at least). So you see, there has been a lot of changes. What is being followed nowadays might have originated in the first few centuries after the birth of Christ.

Are there justifications for caste in the puranas or upanishads? Of course the epics oftentimes view caste (dharma, etc.) positively, but they were stories of their time and place.


You've never really read them, have you? If you read them, then you will come to know the kind of stupidity with regards to caste system found in those scriptures. Heck! Krishna, the HIndu god, asks Arjun, in Mahabharata, to go on killing like a warrior in the battlefield (even though he resented), just because that is his "dharma". In other words, he was born into it!!

I've read the Gita, which is what you just brought up. That can be interpreted to support caste, but that's not a necessary conclusion. It really just deals with duty, it asks Arjuna to fight a justified (in the eyes of Krishna) war.

To be honest, the most reactionary part of the Mahabharata isn't the emphasis on dharma (which, taken in the abstract, could serve to justify just about anything), it's in its support to feudalist rulership: Arjuna is a prince who's trying to take the crown (IIRC). But again, this is because all art and all scripture is a product of its time and place.


Nope, not exactly. The "whites" (Britishers, Portugese, French etc) have invaded India and lived their for almost two centuries or even more. Hindus happily served them. There was no issue. And even today, most of the upper caste Hindus vouch to settle in "white" countries like UK, USA, Australia etc. People sell their land here to migrate there. SO, they actually love the "white people".

The Sikhs happily served the British, too.

Hindus settle in South Africa, too.

Why do I get the feeling that the basis for half your positions is some personal grudge against Hindus?


And its even more disturbing for us untouchables, because the cruel Brahmins allow the foreigners (the whites) inside their temples, even though they might be outcasts according to their caste system, and yet they refuse entrance to the real indigenous Indians. Just saying.

Brahmins are Indians. This whole "real indigenous" stuff stinks of cheap chauvinism, and furthermore it's just historically obtuse.

Whites are allowed inside Hindu temples, I'm white and I've been inside a couple Mandirs (in the US) and I personally know a few whites who had no problems going into Mandirs in India.


I have no interest in Catholicism. It must have been the most evil religion according to you, and I have no opinion about it. All I care is about the discrimination my people face everyday.

Of course Catholicism isn't the most evil religion, because it's anti-Marxist to endeavor to make such a silly categorization. Religions aren't evil, the ruling classes which control their institutions are self-serving and exploitative, but evil doesn't belong in the vocabulary of scientific socialists.

You have every right to care about the discrimination against your people, my only issue is that you're channeling your anger into an anti-Hindu ideology. This is contrary to the principles of communism.


Religions change?
Yes they do. But people just dont assume that religions change and then sit silently and wait for them to change. People change the religions through their efforts. 90% of the Hindus believe in caste system. And we the untouchables are not fighting to change their religion "Hinduisnm", but just to win our rights back.

Very fair point.


Most of the educated low caste Hindus nowadays realize that they are not in fact Hindus at all! So, it hardly matters to me whether Hinduism changes or not. I just want to come out of it, not change it. Its not our responsibility to change it. We are OUTCASTS, we are already outside this religion.

You can come out of it as you wish, but you must realize that you will be forced to contend with the ruling classes' discrimination one way or the other. If you destroyed Hinduism tomorrow, caste would not go away and neither would the ills that stricken workers the world over. If you destroyed capitalism tomorrow, everything concrete that you're against would be destroyed with it. Hinduism has a place in socialist society.

Remember, your anger against the ruling class' crimes cannot be aimed at Hindus, you're only doing the capitalists a favor by drawing lines across religious boundaries.

You say that most Hindus believe in the caste system. It is your responsibility as a revolutionary to engage with these fellow workers to unite against the real enemy: the bourgeoisie. This is what communists do, they overcome the mental residues of feudalism in order to make progress. Having a chip on your shoulder against Hindus won't help you in this, and it'll actually hinder you.


I will reply to the rest of your post later, as I have no time now.

Understood, there's no rush.

[Random Precision]

There is no single work that I am aware of, that directly deduces this. However, I have myself infered this from the chronology of events that I showed you. What you need to verify is whether the white Hunas are the ancestors of the Rajputs and other such landowing warrior castes of India or not, whether the Buddhist canon criticises the white Hunas for their persecution of Buddhism, whether they were called as "mlecchhas" before they were established in India (by the Brahmins), whether they call themselves of being of the Solar race and of the Lunar race. Of course, I can provide you with authentic sources to prove the above.

As manic pointed out, it doesn't really matter who the rajputs happened to believe their ancestors came from. In any case, a claim that one class of an entire country conspired to eliminate a religion is highly problematic, whether you have sources to "infer" it or not, this is quite a bold claim that I cannot avoid thinking is historical revisionism.


No, I am talking about "Indian Buddhist literature". Not exactly India, but about India. For example, Taranatha's history of Buddhism in India is one such work (it is Tibetan). Kalhana's "Rajatarangini" which is about the history of Kashmir, talks in detail about the role of white Hunas in persecuting Buddhists. Huang Tsuan's, and the works of the later chinese travellers also mention the persecution of Buddhism. There are many such books. The Buddhist "Ashokavandana", which is found in Sri Lanka nowadays, strongly criticize Pushyamitra Sunga, the Brahmin Commander of the Mauryas, for persecuting Buddhists.

But as usual, since you are in the habit of reading Indian history from the viewpoint of the "higher" Hindu castes, you will only find versions where they are apolgetic or even escapist in explaining that Hindus had no role in persecuting Buddhists. Thats obvious. But you have your own taste.....

I'm a bit offended that you accuse me of reading only from the viewpoint of the upper castes or being pro-Hindu or whatever, without knowing me or what I have been reading on the subject.


This is the error that most of the Hindus and scholars in general commit while studying the extinct Buddhism in India and its history. You need to understand that all the Buddhists didn't live in monasteries; nor were all monks. Monks constitute only a little portion of the Buddhist societies. There were many more lay disciples, or as called in the pali language, as "upasaka". Surely, Muslims only hated all the Buddhists, both monks and laity, to have expunged them, right?

Well, Muhammad of Ghazni and those who followed him persecuted all "infidel" religions, Hinduism as well as Buddhism. If the latter was a minority religion, could not it have been much harder hit?


However, its quite interesting that you believe that temples do not have wealth accumulated in them. Perhaps, I might point you to the famous temples of India like Tirupati, Puri, etc, which have accumulated unaccounted wealth in crores (in billions).

I never said anything of the sort.


I do not know what you are talking about, because you are talking about some story that you read in some purana. However, I am talking about the folk stories that are remembered by the Tamil peasantry of Madurai and that is supported by the sculptural depiction on the walls of the famous Meenakshi temple of Madurai, of a certain Brahmin Shaivite (called "Thiruguna" perhaps) having impaled thousands of Jain monks.

The story sounded very similar, in both there are 8000 Jains, in both they are impaled, in both by a Shaivite brahman, so I thought you might have heard a different version of it.

So, you have a sculpture of thousands of Jainas being impaled by a Shaivite brahmin. But how likely do you think it is that he actually did this? Could there not have been some exaggeration, which are very common in folk stories? And are there any historical sources that support this event besides a sculpture in a temple?


Considering your Hindu inclination, I am not surprised that you are not amazed at something more apparent, that there are no Jains left in South India today. This is something that a serious unbiased researcher wouldn't overlook.

I'm not overlooking anything. I just find it improbable that the extinction of Jainism in south India (where it was never very popular anyway) came about exclusively through violence.

I mean, there are very few Christians left in Turkey these days, but no serious historian would claim that was because the Ottomans had a policy of exterminating all Christians in Anatolia. This is more or less equal to what you are trying to claim.


On the contrary, in case of Afghanistan, where people of Buddhist faith were in majority once, violent persecution had led to a complete obliteration of Buddhism to the same extent of complete forgotten past as in India (especially South India).

But, Afghanistan was not taken over by Hindus after the Greco-Bactrians folded up, it was taken over by Turkish tribes who eventually became Muslim.


I sense that you belong to the school of thought that considers "Buddhism as merely a sect of Hinduism", which I think is quite stupid to begin with

I don't belong to that "school of thought" at all.


Sure, I can. You see, varna is a four-fold classification according to the Hindu scriptures. Caste, on the other hand, is simply the name of the clan/tribe or a community of intra-marrying people with certain distinct historical or mythical origins as per themselves.

For example, these are castes : Jat, Rajput, Chamar, Mahar, Brahmin, Nair etc etc (at least 3500 are there that are identified as castes).

These are the examples of varna : Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra, and a fourth one is identified as untouchable.

In the HIndu society caste and varna are mapped together, and this is done by the Brahmins since historical times. For example, Jat caste has the varna of Sudra, Rajput has the varna of Kshatriya, Mahar has the varna of untouchable (or the fifth varna) etc etc. Only Brahmins are there that have the same term for both caste and varna.

Castes have origins on the basis of tribes or professions or different racial origins etc. But the fourfold varna system is defined by the Brahmins. Therea are even some castes that have no varna associated with them or who have ambiguous varna associated with them. For example, the Patels are simply a caste and they do not belong to any varna (although the Brahmins would claim them to be Sudra). There are also examples of one caste having different varnas in different regions.

So, basically, caste and varna are mapped together by the Brahmins because they had the sole power to do so, after the authority of the Vedic religion was established in a kindgom by the King. It is in this respect that I was saying that the Brahmins convered the white Hunas from Mlecchhas to "Kshatriyas", where as at the same time they downgraded the Licchhavis, Shakyans etc, whom they originally considered Kshatriyas, as Vrtyas (the fallen ones; perhaps because they completely converted to Buddhism or Jainism).

I already knew this, it is what the quote I provided was saying.


Sure I will. Read the work of Dr. Ambedkar himself:

"Riddles in Hinduism"
http://www.ambedkar.org/riddleinhinduism/

"Philosophy of Hinduism"
http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/17.Philosophy%20of%20Hinduism.htm

"Annihilation of Caste"
http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/02.Annihilation%20of%20Caste.htm

There are others that can be found there. And there are also articles by modern dalit scholars about the subject. If you explore, you will be able to read them.

Thanks.

[amandevsingh]

The Sikhs happily served the British, too.

Not necessarily true, Punjab was a source of much agitation against the British. Same with Bengal. The point is lame, in reality. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all had major contributions.

Keep your hate and pathos to yourself, reason and objectivity are where the party's at.

[manic expression]

Not necessarily true, Punjab was a source of much agitation against the British. Same with Bengal. The point is lame, in reality. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs all had major contributions.

Keep your hate and pathos to yourself, reason and objectivity are where the party's at.

Good point, I apologize for the generalization. I should have said "Many Sikhs happily served the British".

[amandevsingh]

"Keep your hate and pathos to yourself, reason and objectivity are where the party's at."

That was for himalyanspirit, by the way, who has much bias. Even if it is justified, bias is wrong for our purposes. ;)

For example, I want to deny this claim outright: "Many Sikhs happily served the British". But that would bring bias (not mention lying) to a whole new level. :D

[himalayanspirit]

Agreed. However, the American Indians aren't fully indigenous either from what we can tell. The point is moot.


They are. They didn't displace any original people to go there. They occupied a free land and developed there.



Himalayanspirit, Hinduism can be practiced and is practiced without the "Holy scriptures". Most Hindus deal with rituals and the stories of gods, and even I have the ability to learn the Upanishads in this day and age.


Again you're getting confused with this point. I never disagreed that Hinduism require scriptures to practice their religion. I, on the contrary, have been emphasizing again and again the Hinduism, by its very definition, a religion based on what people follow, and not what is written in the scriptures. However, your effort is in absolving the scriptures for what the people follow today - caste system. This is wrong too. Because scriptures may not be followed today exactly the way they were meant to be, but they do happen to be the origin of this mess.



Right, that is the problem, but it is a problem of feudalistic social structures that are even now being broken down by the march of history

You live in the USA. Can you tell me how you deduced this? You're surely trying to condone Hinduism for its crimes. You believe that Hinduism is a great religion, and the mess that is today, is only because of some feudal societal dynamics. This is clearly not true. Because I have already shown you that the scriptures are the origin of this.


India and Hindus are leaving their feudal past behind.


It concerns me more than you. And I can assure you that what you are saying is wrong. The Indian mentality (Hindu mentality) will not change for the next few centuries. Most of the Indians live in rural areas and depend on agriculture; at least 70% of them. Caste rules are followed strictly there. And one example I have already shown you (the khap panchayat of the Jats). As for the urban areas, even there caste system is followed.


But remember, this is a political factor, religion is only brought in as a hasty and paper-thin justification.

Religion is the ultimate root of all causes. Its only because of religion - Hinduism justified caste system (at least the later medieval Hinduism comprising of puranas, smritis, Brahamanas and epics, which number in hundreds; Vedas have no relevance today, except being used for ritual chanting) - that people strictly followed caste system, devadasi (religious prostitution), sati, untouchability, male chauvinism, arranged/forced marriages, child marriages etc etc.



Of course the epics oftentimes view caste (dharma, etc.) positively, but they were stories of their time and place.


They are followed even today, and perhaps even more strictly. Are you telling me that caste system has vanished? I belong to the untouchable community and I have seen it everywhere. Its like you are telling an African-American that slavery never existed. Worse, you are like justifying whatever happened in the past by condoning Hinduism.



I've read the Gita, which is what you just brought up.

There are different versions of Gita. Of course, no doubt, you must have read the ISKON version. And even in that, Krishna does say that Arjuna should simply fight in battle, even against his own resentment towards violence, just because he happens to be born in the Kshatriya community (thats his "dharma"). Of course, its your bias for Hinduism that is making you think that there is some alternative and deeper and greater explanation to those verses. This is not something new.

Often I have debated with the Hindus about the Vedas, and I have directly quoted the english translations from sacred-texts site, to make my arguments. And the Hindus have always replied by saying that those translations are wrong, and there is a deeper and mysterious meaning to them. If thats the case, then its even worse. Because now you are following a book that you believe has never been truly translated or understood. This is BLIND FAITH. What is written in the scripture is not some ancient undeciphered script or language. What is written is what is meant.



Why do I get the feeling that the basis for half your positions is some personal grudge against Hindus?


Of course it is. They call me an inferior race and most of the Hindus would hate me for that. When I justify my case, and refute them, it can certainly be called as a "grudge against them", but it would also be justified.


Brahmins are Indians. This whole "real indigenous" stuff stinks of cheap chauvinism, and furthermore it's just historically obtuse.


My only emphasis in bringing "indigenous" part is to correlate our case with other similar situations around the world. In America, Australia and Africa also the colonialists came and ruled the indigenous people. You wouldn't justify that either.

Moreover, the basic fact I want to clear is the normal western thinking that British invasion of India was just like their invasion of Africa or Australia or whatever. It is not. Many Indians never really cared whether the British invaded or not. Because they had already been invaded for four centuries by the Muslims and Moghuls. And even before that, the white Hunas (Indo-Scythians) were invading India. So, most of the Indians are imperialists themselves. And there is no reason to sideline and blame only the British for it.

If India was really a nation, then the British wouldn't have invaded to begin with. Because, with a population of a billion, even if a few hundred thousand Indians had just fought with their fists (empty handed), they would have still defeated a few thousand British wielding the old guns. The truth is that the Indians weren't themselves so peaceful. There were people fighting each other for territory. And both the British and the Muslims exploited this fact - that the Indians are heavily divided.
In fact if you take the example of Muslim invasion of the present Bangladesh (it was Bengal then), most of the Buddhists (low castes) readily invited the Muslims to help overthrow the oppressive rule of the Bengal Sena Brahmins. And they volunteerily converted to Islam after that, without the Muslims having to use their swords.
Ashoka, the great Indian emperor, himself massacred lakhs of soldiers and civilians of Kalinga for his sole motive of invading them (imperialism).

So, if you are opposing only the British or having the wrong notion that the British once invaded a "nation" of peaceful and homogeneous people of India", then you are wrong. I, for one, am glad that British came and brought industrialization and education here. And for me, it doesn't matter whether British invaded us, or Muslims did, or white Hunas or whoever. That was history.




Whites are allowed inside Hindu temples, I'm white and I've been inside a couple Mandirs (in the US) and I personally know a few whites who had no problems going into Mandirs in India.


In the US, even I can go inside the Hindu temples, even while I have "Hindu untouchable caste" written on my T-shirt to identify me. They can't discriminate against me there. Thanks to your liberal laws.


You have every right to care about the discrimination against your people, my only issue is that you're channeling your anger into an anti-Hindu ideology.

Thats not as simple as that. My being anti-Hindu is completely conformal with the Marxist ideas. For example, in Bihar, merely 2% of the population ("upper" caste Hindus) own almost 70% of the cultivable land. Other regions have similar statistics. And why didn't the people ever create a revolution against them? Here religion comes to play its role. Hinduism comes here. So, its truly anti-Marxist too.



You say that most Hindus believe in the caste system. It is your responsibility as a revolutionary to engage with these fellow workers to unite against the real enemy: the bourgeoisie.


Its not my responsibility. I am not a Hindu. Let the religion remain like that, let the Hindus follow caste rules amongst each other; I have no interest in that, its none of my business. If they change their religion, good for them. (Isn't it funny that humans themselves can change and modify religions at will, whenever they want?What's so divine about religion then?) But their practices affect my people. That is what I am fighting for.



After debating with you, I am pretty much convinced that you have lots of friends who are Hindus; and even among them, you are in the company of elite "upper" caste Hindus (because its usually the "upper" caste Hindus who are rich, who tend to migrate to the developed world). Thats why everything with Hinduism looks fine to you. If you really want to see the consequences of Hinduism, just come to India once and go through all the slums in major city, where a very significant part of the population lives.



Well, caste system is not the only problem of Hinduism. As such, there are many beliefs of Hinduism that are quite pervert and beyond common sense.
For example, did you know that the Hindu god Brahma, who is the creator of everything according to Hinduism (thus equivalent to "Allah" or "God" or "G-d"), actually got lusty after looking at his own daughter and sex with her, and also with his grand daughter? Funny belief, isn't it? And no, I am not making this up. [Ref http://vedabase.net/sb/3/12/28/en ]

Do you know why Shiva, the ultimate god of the Shaivites, and the secondary god of the Vaishnavite, is worshipped in the form of a Penis? Well, there is a story behind it, as given in the Shiva Purana. Basically, Shiva was caught by some sages while seducing their wives, and in anger the sages cursed the "god" that he will always be worshiped as a penis/phallus by all his followers. Strange, isn't it?

Krishna, the avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu of the Vaishnavites, actually was a play boy according to scriptures. He used to steal the clothes women bathing in the ponds, and ask them to come out without covering their bosom, if they want their clothes back, and so that he could enjoy the view. Not only that, Krishna had 16008 wives, and with each wife he had 16 sons and only one daughter. (male-female inequality of Hinduism) Thats why you find many urban Hindus aborting the foeteses if it was found to be female. They prefer sons.

Do you know how the god Ayyappan of South Indian Hindus, born? Actually, the story goes that Vishnu had actually transformed into his female avatar of Mohini. Shiva, the other god, happened to have seen her, and was seduced immediately. They both had sex, and thus was born the lord Ayyappan.

The Vishnu scriptures talk about Shiva in derogatory sense, and the Shiva scriptures(smriti) talk about Vishnu in a way to mock him. So, even the Hindu gods themselves are always fighting.


Rama, the most famous North Indian Hindu god, also featured as the hero in Ramayana, is considered as the most ethical god ever to have taken birth on Earth. You want to get a glimpse of his ethics? According to Ramayana, after Rama returned back from a 14 year excursion to the jungles and also after rescuing his wife Sita, who had been kidnapped by Ravana (the main villain), a random washerman tells the god Rama that Sita must have had some affair with Ravana all the while she was in Lanka. Rama simply threw out the pregnant Sita out to the jungles. That is the ethics of the most "ethical" Hindu god Rama.


Do you know that even till the time of the Britishers there was a cult of Kali in the Bengal area, and it was pretty famous there, the followers of which had the tradition of sacrificing virgin young girls to the goddess Kali, for their own prosperity? This is Hinduism. Moreover, the girl was always taken from the low caste society, and the ignorant people even gave their girls for the same. A similar tradition existed in the Himalayan states, where the human sacrifice victim was taken from the low castes; and it could be either boy or girl. This is practical Hinduism for you.

Have you heard of child marriages? Even the famous gandhi had married when he was just a boy, and he even impregnated his wife while she was only 14. And child marriages are a direct consequence of caste system.


Have you ever heard of the devadasi system? Its also called Yellamma cult. And its not just a social tradition, the Hindu scriptures also have justification for it. Basically, young girls from the low caste were gifted by their parents (out of ignorance) to the Brahmins and these girls were then trained in dancing and prostitutions. Devadasi literally means "slave of god", and so were they. In reality, since the gods can't come and have sex with them, it was the priests (Brahmins) who had sex with these girls as much as they wanted. And this is not simply a peculair tradition of some particular region of India. Its found in Nepal and even in South Indian states like Karnataka, even today.

In the left handed tantra, the practitioners are advised to eat dog's shit and dead human bodies in the crematoriums for their salvation.

There exists a ritual in some random part of South India, where in the devotees come and actually lick the genitals of the goddess' statue, to worship her.[Ref http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPYURqsmQ6U ]

Hinduism is filled with such pervert stories about the sexual adventures of various Hindu gods and goddesses, and if I start reciting each one of them, it will at least take me a thousand posts more to cover only the ones that are widely believed (exluding those that exist in scriptures only or are not widely practiced).

This is the alternate reality of Hinduism :-

http://images.lightstalkers.org/images/329162/MI0N1155.jpg



Hinduism is a result of perversion of some priests nothing more. Right from the days of the Vedas (where the prominent gods were Indra, Agni, Maruts etc, who were involved in sexual perverions), to the most modern Hindu gods, each one of them have many colorful stories related to them. And in fact, many of the urban and modern educated Hindus (blind followers) wouldn't be aware of that.

So, if you think that Hinduism is something really great, just because some people happen to be good in the west, then you are really wrong. You should survey the beliefs of Hinduism and only then have a conclusion.




Of course, you might find some things of worth here and there in the Hindu belief sets, but thats just like Christianity or Islam or any othe religion. That doesn't make it a great religion.

[himalayanspirit]

Random Precision,


Each argument of yours is flawed. And if I begin even debating with, it will take me many months to completely refute each and every argument. And thats because your notions of Hinduism, its mythology, its society and its history are not up to the mark. You only know as much as is made available everywhere. And each subject like history, or mythology, or religion, etc would requite a specialist to deal with it. And I am in no mood of this.

I will basically summarize my main points here:-

1. Caste system is widely practiced in India today, and it was widely practiced in history.
2. Hinduism is the origin of this caste system, which spans people as diverse as of speaking languages of different linguistic families, having different cultural and traditional beliefs. So, caste system is not a feature of a particular society. Its a feature of the religion, because religion is the only thing common among all the people of India.
(Read Dr. Ambedkar's "Riddles in Hinduism" for more).
3. Hinduism is an evil of society.


This is what I believe in, and call it my bias of fanaticism, but you will never convince me that Hinduism is good religion (after me having its practical experience in the receiving end, and after painstakingly studied its scriptures quite deeply).

And you will never be able to experience what we, as the dalits of India, face in our lives everyday. Nor do we care if someone tells us in our face that all the oppression and discrimination that we face, actually does not exist. I really do not care. My intention is not to convince my enemy that they are my enemy. Because, usually even the Hindus - the ignorant modern and urban ones - also say the same thing: that discrimination is going away (just because they do not see it around them, or it is not directed towards them).


AmandevSingh,


Keep your hate and pathos to yourself, reason and objectivity are where the party's at.

Easier said then done. Try not hating the capitalists, imperialsts and fascists. The day you stop opposing them, I will think of removing my hate for my oppressors. Till then you can keep your elite, "upper" caste opinion to yourself. In fact, perhaps you might really end up not hating the fascists, because you are not a victim of theirs directly. YOu live a happy life in Canada and your only interest in Marxism is perhaps due to your intellectual boredom with other things. You do not suffer from capitalism.

[amandevsingh]

Easier said then done. Try not hating the capitalists, imperialsts and fascists. The day you stop opposing them, I will think of removing my hate for my oppressors. Till then you can keep your elite, "upper" caste opinion to yourself. In fact, perhaps you might really end up not hating the fascists, because you are not a victim of theirs directly. YOu live a happy life in Canada and your only interest in Marxism is perhaps due to your intellectual boredom with other things. You do not suffer from capitalism.Here is a difference, I don't let my hate come out in fallacious arguments. When explaining conditions in British India to my friends, I don't say they are the devils they really were to our people. I defeat their Imperialist ideas with Socialist ones. This is infinitely stronger then pathos arguments.

Sure I hate fascists, I have Neo-Nazi movements in my neighbourhood. I won't let them bend my arguments to be based on pathos rather then facts, that would be letting them win.

I have intentions of moving back to India, and becoming involved with the Communist movement there. Marxism is my life: I haven't suffered, but I know those who have. My friends are Jatts, Rajputs and Dalits. I know all types, but I WON'T let them affect my objectivity.

Hate them, you have the right, comrade. But don't let it consume you to the point were it blurs your power of reason.

[manic expression]

In the US, even I can go inside the Hindu temples, even while I have "Hindu untouchable caste" written on my T-shirt to identify me. They can't discriminate against me there. Thanks to your liberal laws.

I'm at least glad that you agree with my fundamental position. It's just a shame you hate Hindus while simultaneously knowing that social and political change changes religion with it, but then again you're not a Marxist so it doesn't really bother me.

By the way, I might deal with the rest of your anti-Hindu rants later (omg, some Hindus walk around naked! :lol:), but it's not really important because you've already proved my entire point: religions change depending upon the social relations in which they exist.


Its not my responsibility.

No, it is not, for you are neither a revolutionary nor a progressive.

[himalayanspirit]

It's just a shame you hate Hindus while simultaneously knowing that social and political change changes religion with it

1. Social, political change did not change religion (Hinduism), it only transformed the method of discrimination. For example, there were different methods of discrimination against the indigenous Indians in different eras of the last 2000 years of caste history of Hinduism. Discrimination has not stopped. It has only taken different form in the present times. The underlying beliefs remain the same.

2. If political and social forces drive the creation or modification of religions, then that religion is no more "divine" or in other words, its no longer a religion. If men can change religion according to their will and interests, then why need religion itself? Religions is after all to explain things that humanity doesn't understand.


but then again you're not a Marxist so it doesn't really bother me.

True, I admit I am not a Marxist. And I wouldn't call myself one unless I read the whole Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. However, my interest in Marxism is only sparked by two things:-

1. I hate capitalism and imperialism.
2. Communism talks about equality of human beings.
3. There is no place for dogmatic religion in communism.


No, it is not, for you are neither a revolutionary nor a progressive.

Hah, I am not a progressive? "Kettle calling pot black". It is you in fact, who thinks that social and political dynamics will naturally change the religion (Hinduism) so as to eliminate discrimination, while living in some fantasy dreams of yours that it is really happening here in India (while, ironically, you sitting there in the US!). Moreover, you aske me to just wait and watch (and patiently suffer the discrimination), while waiting for Hinduism to progress.

I am for change. Change is the basic characteristic of human societies. How much I wish that the Hindu society progresses fast!

[manic expression]

Hey Himalayanspirit, thanks for still agreeing with me that social and political context has changed Hinduism significantly. It's very kind of you to endorse my arguments, even if you aren't a revolutionary.

Now, a few comments. While Himalayanspirit continues to cling to his debunked theories of Aryan "aliens", while he tries to convince us that while Hinduism somehow can't change (even though he clearly admitted it HAS ALREADY changed and gotten rid of its discrimination in many contexts) Buddhism is a-ok (just don't think about Buddhism's feudal ambitions in Tibet), while he fully and proudly rejects revolutionary politics and activity, he still calls himself a progressive! A few curious contradictions, to say the least.

Perhaps he would do well to read the history of religion in my country, where Christianity was once used to justify slavery and then used to abolish it. Or perhaps he can simply consider the direction of Hinduism in my country, where discrimination is not tolerated and entrance to Mandirs is open to one and all. Maybe he can even learn the history of Hinduism in his own country, where the caste discrimination he hates so much is largely a recent development and not inherent in Hinduism by a long shot.

But then again, his primary motivation is an irrational hatred for his "fellow" workers. Hindus are horrible, Buddhists are good. This is the rhetoric of the preacher, they are the words of the missionary; what is obviosly missing is the slightest understanding of what revolution means and entails.

By the way, notice how he accuses me of "waiting" and doing nothing, except that I'm the one who proposed that communists engage with Hindu workers in order to build solidarity and a unified struggle against the capitalist class and its clerical allies. So really, while I have a proven revolutionary platform, he has a bunch of bigoted hot air.

In the end, Himalayanspirit has shown what anti-Marxists are really good for: nothing.

[himalayanspirit]

Manic expression,



Before beginning to refute your wrong conclusions about me and my views, let me make some facts pretty much clear.
I am basically an ex-Hindu. My parents are devout Hindu believers, even though my views are against their views (my mom recently got some Hindu yagna conducted at her home). I have lived in India my whole life, and have lived significant amount in both the Northern as well as Southern cities. Therefore, I have experience of diverse cultures of North India and South India. I have ready thoroughly many of the Hindu scriptures and have researched over the beliefs that are followed by Hindus that are not in the scriptures. Even though I am an engineering student, I have taken elective courses in Indian philosophy.
Most important of all, I am an outcast of the Hindu caste system, which means that I am the equivalent of African-Americans in India. So, I have experience in facing the discrimination.

Now about you. You are an American living in USA, a developed nation. You base your opinions about Hinduism on the Hindus that you see in the US (the elite "upper" caste Hindus mostly). You have no experience of facing religious discrimination. And since you live in the USA, you have lesser knowledge of the culture and traditions that are practiced here.

You believe the Hinduism is conformal with Marxism. This I have already refuted. Because Hinduism is a dogmatic religion and its beliefs are responsible for the wide ignorance of the Indians because of which they still staunchly follow its tenets such as caste-ism.


Maybe he can even learn the history of Hinduism in his own country, where the caste discrimination he hates so much is largely a recent development and not inherent in Hinduism by a long shot.

You have any proof? As I said earlier, the caste discrimination in India is not a "recent" phenomena; unless you consider 2000 years as recent.
Manu Smriti, which you would also consider to be the most hateful Hindu religious against the Sudras and the untouchables, dates to around 4th A.D. Perhaps you consider it as recent. But thats your own problem. Don't impose your definitions upon the real Indians.

You are doing a gross injustice to the millions of oppressed people of India who have faced this discrimination for so many long years (and who still continue to face), by simply and outrightly denying that caste discrimination is an ancient Hindu practice (and quite arrogantly too, because you give no proof). You want statistics of caste discrimination?

Here they are:-

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.idsn.org%2Ffileadmin%2Fuser_f older%2Fpdf%2FOld_files%2Fasia%2Fpdf%2FCastAnEye.p df&ei=xYCRStHKA4GIkQXQh827Cg&rct=j&q=crime+against+dalits+statistics&usg=AFQjCNG3YVDq9InSfa6Egw1uSRoJA1Co4A



Or perhaps he can simply consider the direction of Hinduism in my country, where discrimination is not tolerated and entrance to Mandirs is open to one and all.

"Hinduism" is not the same even in different parts of India. You will find a different diety being propitiated with different beliefs and traditions in India at every 100 km. So, whats your point?
But wait! Even with all so diversity in the religious beliefs, there is one thing that is common among all the Hindus - caste system. A co-incidence according to you, isn't it?


As for my position regarding Buddhism, since I am an atheist, and since Buddhism is relatively peaceful with less hate-ful tenets, I consider it superior to Hinduism any day. Moreover, Buddhism only comes into my analysis when history is being considered. Its important to show that Hindus themselves persecuted the Buddhists.



In the end, Himalayanspirit has shown what anti-Marxists are really good for: nothing.

Wow, since I am anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist (I would rather consider myself less learned in Marxism, rather than being anti-Marxist), what am I?


If you love your religion Hinduism, then good for you. But don't call what you practice and what you believe as Hinduism. Because it is not. What the people of India believe and practice is called Hinduism (by definition). Perhaps you are easily trapped by the goodyg-goody message of the Hindus of the brotherhood and non-violence and blah blah blah......which remains always a message, and which doesn't require Hinduism to be preached to people. These are things that everyone should believe in. Its not a feature of HInduism.

[himalayanspirit]

For others in this board who are not anti-labour class anti-oppressed people, and who are not racists, I will write down some statistics regarding the discrimination faced by the dalits in India (as given inthe link posted by me in my earlier post):-


...IN GOVERNMENT SERVICES
Despite being charged with a constitutional mandate to promote social justice, various local institutions of the Indian
clearly tolerate and even facilitate the practice of untouchability

37.8% of the villages: Dalits made to sit separately in government schools
27.6% of the villages: of Dalits: prevented from entering police stations
25.7% of the villages: of Dalits: prevented from entering ration shops
33% of the villages: public health workers refuse to visit Dalit homes
23.5% of the Dalit villages: don’t get mail delivered to their homes
14.4% of the Dalit villages: Dalits not permitted to enter the ‘panchayat’

Local Government building

12% of the Dalit villages: Dalits denied access to or forced to form separate lines at polling booths
48.4% of the Dalit villages: denied access to water sources






...IN MARKET ACCESS
35% of villages surveyed: Dalits barred from selling produce in local markets
47% of villages with milk cooperatives prevent Dalits from selling milk, and 25% prevent Dalits from buying milk




..IN WORK
25% of villages: Dalits paid lower wages than non-Dalits,
work longer hours, have more delayed waged and suffer more verbal and physical abuse
37% of villages: Dalit workers paid wages from a distance to avoid physical co


..IN RELIGION AND RITES

64% of Dalits: restricted from entering Hindu temples
Almost 50% of villages: Dalits prevented from accessing cremation grounds


..IN THE PRIVATE SPHERE

73% of villages: Dalits not permitted to enter non-Dalit homes
70% of villages: Dalits and non-Dalits cannot eat together
35.8% of Dalits: denied entry into village shops



These are only statistics and do not include the regular discrimination like simply cursing or abusing, discrimination faced in public places etc etc.

[manic expression]

(Warning: Anti-Stalinist rant)

Do you really need a warning for that? It's almost to be expected.


@manic: Wow, a bourgeois leftist blindly applying the Christian liberation theology and state capitalism in Latin American countries to the other "brown peoples" in India, how refreshing.:rolleyes: When brown people in Cuba did reform Christianity, why don't the brown people in India do it to Hinduism???:crying: A typical Stalinist-racist approach to the issues of Third World countries. I bet you'd approve of dictators like Fidel Castro setting up a tyranny in "Third World countries" too. After all, isn't that what the "anti-imperialist" brown peoples good for: being ruled by state capitalist/nationalist/chauvinist regimes like the one in Cuba? Its no surprise that you are a nationalist Hindu chauvinist yourself too since the regime in Cuba is essentially a nationalist one ("Fatherland or death" being their slogan).

I never applied Liberation Theology or the politics of Latin America. In fact, Liberation Theology didn't play a decisive role in the Cuban Revolution (although it had more of an impact in other Latin American struggles). I cited evangelical Christian movements of 19th Century US and contrasted this use of American Christianity with the southern slave-owning class' pro-slavery use of Christianity. Is Christianity pro-slavery or abolitionist? It was used as both, and today you will find few Christians defending slavery. The point is that religions can and do change.

But you're too obsessed with my support for revolutionary Cuba to bother figuring out what I was saying. Since you're too intellectually incompetent to do that, I won't directly respond to your slanderous crap.

Oh, and by the way, Liberation Theology is an ally to the socialist movement. Rejecting them because they're religious is prejudiced and ultra-leftist.

So, for all of your self-righteous bluster, you actually have no idea what you're criticizing. Time to hit the books!


Basically because some Buddhists dare to challenge the oppressive state capitalist regime in China, you paint all Buddhists as "feudalists". Your kookiness just becomes more evident everytime I read your posts.

So Buddhists weren't part-in-parcel of the feudalist state of the Dalai Lama? Buddhist clerical structures played a large role in that unfortunate regime, and Buddhists now make up a good number of the anti-PRC chorus.

The PRC has brought progress and improvement to Tibet, and your parroting of western bourgeois media mouthpieces just underlines your inability to support the empowerment of the working class.


Your Marcyite interpretation of the world as divided into nice little "anti-imperialist" peoples and the nasty imperialist Americans is so infantile that I don't know where to begin criticizing it but I'd recommend you to think of this: "the enemy is at home applies even to countries other than the USA". The capitalist system is global. One cannot possibly avoid being capitalist if you have the title of "socialist" or "communist" attached to their party, as it is in the case of Cuba.

I brought up American Christianity as a positive example of a progressive change within a religion. Obviously I don't see Americans as "nasty imperialist[s]".

I'm the one who's promoting class war against the ruling class of India instead of blindly spewing hatred against working-class Hindus. You can call that Marcyite, the rest of the socialist movement calls it Marxist.


The Hindu religion is the most oppressive religion in the world currently. Noone but patriots or national chauvinists would even begin to defend it. It doesn't matter if you have been told that Hinduism is not reaalllyyy casteist. The Hindu scriptures are full of casteist references. Have you ever read any Hindu scripture yourself?

Himalayanspirit and I talked of the scriptures, and he was unable to show that caste is an inherent part of Hindu spirituality. Dharma is not necessarily an endorsement of caste, and in fact it's a big part of Buddhism.

And even if the scriptures are full of casteist references, it's meaningless when one takes into account social relations (you know, what Marxists do instead of what you do): the Bible justifies slavery, burning people alive, stoning people for trivial "sins" and worse. How many Christians actively promote slavery? How many burn people alive? How many have weekly stonings?

Obviously you know absolutely nothing about the development of religion. I suggest you get used to the idea that religions change, because they do.


Casteism has been firmly ingrained into the minds of nearly all Hindus because it has been the ruling class ideology in India since the time of Gandhi. If you are any kind of progressive, your understanding of India has to start from the way Hindu society has been structured since ancient times and caste has unfortunately been a part of our society since then.

The fact that you vaguely say "ancient times" without any sophisticated historical context is to be expected. As you would know if you read my posts (which, judging by your first comment here, you didn't), Vedic society did not have caste in its feudalist/present form. Caste was very fluid, individuals would decide upon their caste (read: job) during their lifetime, and changing it wasn't forbidden. By 200 BCE (when the Laws of Manu were written), this had changed, and caste had become more entrenched, more rigid and more dependent upon discrimination.

Now, you say that casteism is ingrained into the minds of most Hindus. That may be the case. However, it is fair to say that capitalism (or at least anti-socialism) has been ingrained into the minds of most Americans. Should American communists abandon the struggle for revolution? Should we just throw up our hands and say, as you do, "well, since the majority of Americans have always been anti-socialist from the founding of our country, the only way to move forward is to destroy America"? That would be reactionary, anti-worker, stupid and unnecessary. Instead, American communists say, "it is our responsibility to engage American workers, to win them over to the cause of progress". The same must be said of Hindus.

Again, it is the RESPONSIBILITY of communists to engage with the Hindu masses, to show them that their fight is against the capitalists and not this or that caste-defined group. If anyone is unwilling to fulfill this responsibility, then they are not revolutionaries, they are petty sectarians who promote religious hatred of the worst sort.

It is your anti-worker ultra-leftism that makes you condemn Hindus outright. Communism has no place for childish vendettas.

[manic expression]

Now about you. You are an American living in USA, a developed nation. You base your opinions about Hinduism on the Hindus that you see in the US (the elite "upper" caste Hindus mostly). You have no experience of facing religious discrimination. And since you live in the USA, you have lesser knowledge of the culture and traditions that are practiced here.

I base my opinions about Hinduism on the history of the religion, its development and the experiences of myself and people who have gone to India. So no, it's quite more than that.


You believe the Hinduism is conformal with Marxism. This I have already refuted. Because Hinduism is a dogmatic religion and its beliefs are responsible for the wide ignorance of the Indians because of which they still staunchly follow its tenets such as caste-ism.

Where did I say that "Hinduism is conformal with Marxism"? It is my position that religion, all religions, are irrelevant to the conclusions of Marxism. The point, however, is that we are fooling ourselves if we think that religions cannot change.

Christianity is a dogmatic religion. Its beliefs are responsible for the wide ignorance of Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans, Asians and so on and so forth. These beliefs are still staunchly followed. Will you, in order to be at least consistent with your points on Hinduism, promote the destruction of Christianity?


You have any proof? As I said earlier, the caste discrimination in India is not a "recent" phenomena; unless you consider 2000 years as recent.

In terms of Hinduism, 2000 years is actually quite recent. Vedic society existed around at least 1000 years before that. In fact, Jainism began about 600 years BEFORE your sarcastic expiration date on what is recent, and as a reform movement within what is now known as Hinduism.

Moreover, the treatment of caste, as it stands today, was strongly affected by the reaction to colonialism. To pretend that the extreme caste discrimination you've talked of has existed from time immemorial is just incorrect.


Manu Smriti, which you would also consider to be the most hateful Hindu religious against the Sudras and the untouchables, dates to around 4th A.D. Perhaps you consider it as recent. But thats your own problem. Don't impose your definitions upon the real Indians.

Right, Manu Smirti post-dates the emergence of what is now known as Hinduism by what, at least a millenia?

And who are "real Indians"?


You are doing a gross injustice to the millions of oppressed people of India who have faced this discrimination for so many long years (and who still continue to face), by simply and outrightly denying that caste discrimination is an ancient Hindu practice (and quite arrogantly too, because you give no proof).

Caste discrimination, as you know it, is not inherent in Hinduism. History backs me up on this quite well, and you'd agree if you read more about the development of the religion.


You want statistics of caste discrimination?

That's informative.

Even though it has no bearing on what I've said.


"Hinduism" is not the same even in different parts of India. You will find a different diety being propitiated with different beliefs and traditions in India at every 100 km. So, whats your point?

My point is that Hinduism is practiced without significant caste discrimination. If it can happen in the US, why can't it happen in India?


But wait! Even with all so diversity in the religious beliefs, there is one thing that is common among all the Hindus - caste system. A co-incidence according to you, isn't it?

To me, it's no coincidence that caste has no place among Hindus in the US. It's no coincidence that I've walked into a Mandir and gotten no bad treatment at all (remember, according to the caste system, I'm an untouchable). It's no coincidence that parallel discrimination in Catholicism no longer exists because of shifts in social relations.


As for my position regarding Buddhism, since I am an atheist, and since Buddhism is relatively peaceful with less hate-ful tenets, I consider it superior to Hinduism any day. Moreover, Buddhism only comes into my analysis when history is being considered. Its important to show that Hindus themselves persecuted the Buddhists.

It's important to show, as history does, that Hindus practiced alongside Buddhists and tolerated their religion throughout many different periods. The same can be said of Jainism or Sikhism, IIRC.


Wow, since I am anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist (I would rather consider myself less learned in Marxism, rather than being anti-Marxist), what am I?

Well, hopefully your views will become more accurate as you learn more about Marxism.


These are things that everyone should believe in. Its not a feature of HInduism.

It can be if the right social conditions are introduced. Just as Christianity was formerly used to justify slavery and then used to abolish it, so too can Hinduism march with the progress of history.

[amandevsingh]

I agree and disagree with Maniac in a few places.


Where did I say that "Hinduism is conformal with Marxism"? It is my position that religion, all religions, are irrelevant to the conclusions of Marxism. The point, however, is that we are fooling ourselves if we think that religions cannot change.

Christianity is a dogmatic religion. Its beliefs are responsible for the wide ignorance of Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans, Asians and so on and so forth. These beliefs are still staunchly followed. Will you, in order to be at least consistent with your points on Hinduism, promote the destruction of Christianity?

HInduism is a dogmatic religion, all are, by nature. Religions won't have to eradicated under a Marxism even Hinduism. Hinduism can exist without caste discrimination, just like Christianity can exist without racism. Religions change based on social and economic values.

It is unfair to the Dalits, etc. to say that caste discrimination has never existed. Caste discrimination has always been present, but it may change. That is my point: Religions can change based on social values.

[manic expression]

No. Nationalism did.

I never brought up Liberation Theology in the Cuban Revolution, and yet you somehow came to the conclusion that I did. However, working-class revolution was decisive in the Cuban Revolution. You might not like their slogan (!), but it doesn't change facts.


Who rejected it? Stop putting words into my mouth.:cursing: My point was that there is no parallel "Liberation Hinduism" to liberation theology of Christianity. I wish there was though. Vivekananda had some good ideas and supported some form of "socialism". Unfortunately his legacy has been mostly coopted by Hindu chauvunists. This is something that needs to be fought against.

Just because there isn't, doesn't mean there cannot be. The responsibilities of communists are never easy, and winning over Hindu workers to working-class unity (regardless of religion) is no exception. In fact, it may be one of the hardest tasks asked of communists in the world.

I would think that as communists gain more ground in India, progressive and pro-socialist Hindu groups will emerge, and Hindus could very well contribute to the revolutionary vanguard. Of course, time and struggle will tell.


Buddhism has a long history of thousands of years before your precious "worker's paradise" of PRC was created. In India, it had a very progressive impact of rejecting caste as well as the myriad sacrifices and superstitions of the Brahmanic/Vedic religion. Of course that it came to have obscurantist practices of its own is probably an indication of the failure of religion in general to solve humanity's problems.

Buddhism may have been progressive in the past, but today it is playing decidedly reactionary roles in some crucial instances.

Luckily for Buddhists, their religion can change and be accepted in socialist society. Case in point: Buddhism is presently practiced in the PRC, even though many Buddhists are pro-feudalist.


Pot. Kettle. Black.

When was the last time FOX News (or, ironically enough, The Hindu) promoted the PRC's activity in Tibet? I thought so. Whatever your reasons, you're on the side of the western bourgeoisie on this issue, while I'm not.


You parrot the Chinese bourgeois media mouthpieces and expect to be taken seriously in your "defense" of PRC. I do not say that the bourgeois media of the west has to be trusted though, nor should we ignore the real class struggles that Chinese workers are fighting daily today in the "workers paradise".

Do CPC members own businesses? Stocks and bonds?

The CPC is an organization that, whether or not you like it, has the greatest potential to move the peoples of China forward. It has done so in the past and it can (and most likely will) do so in the future.


How does one "promote" class war by being a raging Hindu chauvinist? Its beyond me but, again, its your bourgeois world view that prevents you from actually fighting against capitalism. There's no way you can support national bourgeois of certain nations like Cuba, China, North Korea etc while claiming to promote class war.

When was I a "raging Hindu chauvinist"? Oh, right, it must have been when I directly compared modern practices of Hinduism to pro-slavery uses of Christianity? :rolleyes:

I don't think you don't understand the role of the DPRK, for instance. The DPRK is opposed to imperialism and has fought that capitalists at every step. Its society may not be perfect, its leadership may not be as pure as you would like, but that does not make it capitalist; the revolutionary gains made by the working class have not been destroyed, much to your chagrin.


Note that it wasn't me who spewed hatred against working class Hindus. My skepticism of Hinduism doesn't make me anti-Hindu worker.:rolleyes: However your brand of Hindu chauvinism would only appeal to a tiny minority of upper caste Hindus.

You're not a "skeptic" of Hinduism, you call it the most evil religion in the world. Big difference.


Oh please! If I want to discuss Hindu spirituality, I'd contact my local priest for that. But since I am the one who actually went to Hindu schools and learnt scriptures from Hindu gurus, I very well know that caste is an essential part of Hinduism. In fact, by dharma, most of the Hindu scriptures mean Varnashrama dharma (=caste rules).

Well, I won't quote scripture because it would take up space, but the laws that the anti-Hindus here have been railing about include the Laws of Manu first and foremost. Those laws were a law code made in the Common Era (after 0), which means it both post-dates much of the religion itself and is the product of a society developing feudalist institutions. And from this you condemn the whole horse and buggy. Is that materialist?

Plus, most Christian scriptures promote quite stunning male oppression of females. There are many Christians who actively fight for male-female equality (oftentimes in the face of capitalist intimidation). That's a good thing that can be duplicated in Hinduism.


Please provide references.

From my college's course on Indian history. Check your PM for greater detail.


The example you quoted above is actually quite enlightening. If we actually analyze your analogy between Hindus and Hinduism and Americans and capitalism, I'm saying that American workers should stop believing in capitalism not that they should believe in a reformed version of it. The same applies to Hindu workers. They should stop believing in casteist Hinduism not that they should believe in a reformed version of casteism.

Well, I was comparing capitalism to casteism. If many Hindu workers drop Hinduism as part of their support for revolution (which is what happened in Cuba, membership in the Catholic church hovers at 50% presently), that's no problem, my interest is that workers of all religions and caste definitions stand together against the bourgeoisie.


Not surprisingly, I agree with the above.

If so, I greatly respect this.


Again, stop putting words in my mouth. Condemning the casteist Hindu religion is not the equivalent of condemning Hindus outright. Its your pro-bourgeois mindset that doesn't allow you to grasp this subtle difference.

Then why call Hinduism the most evil religion on earth if casteism isn't inherently part of the Hindu way of life? It would make far more sense to call the ruling classes the most evil, or the most reactionary, or the most horrible instead of the religion.

[himalayanspirit]

Manic Expression,



Vedic society existed around at least 1000 years before that.

Yes, it did. But only in some small pockets in North Western India and Pakistan. Vedic society did not exist all over India. Many of the Indigenous people like the Mon-Khmer languages speaking Mundas, Gonds etc, or the Dravidian language speaking people or the Tibeto-Burman people of the North East India. They had their own kingdoms much before the Vedic society came.
In fact, much of the Hindu culture is actually based upon the beliefs of these indigenous peoples, and not the Vedic people.

For example, the Vedics used to call the phallus worshiping indigenous by derogatory words like "sisna-worshipers", which is evident from the Vedas. On the contrary, phallic worship is a major part of Hindu belief now. Vedas have references of cow/oxen slaughter, but now Hindus revere cows like mother. So, your glorious "Vedic" society still has not much relevance to most of the Indians.



In fact, Jainism began about 600 years BEFORE your sarcastic expiration date on what is recent, and as a reform movement within what is now known as Hinduism.


Haha, I do not want to insult your intelligence. But how could something that precedes another thing be the reform movement of the latter? (concentrate on your "now"). Jainas (or nigranthas, as they were called then) perhaps didn't even know what is a "Hindu" or what is "Hinduism". Have you forgotten the incidence of a Brahmin Shaivite slaughtering thousands of Jainas in a single day? Moreover, there are inimical references to Jainas in the Brahmanic scriptures and texts.


To pretend that the extreme caste discrimination you've talked of has existed from time immemorial is just incorrect.


There's nothing to pretend here. The Indians say so themselves. The scholars say this. Only the Hindu chauvanists and Brahmanists say otherwise. Moreover, Buddha is said to have invited the Hindu outcasts into his order of monks, and the last time I checked, Buddha was born around 2500 years ago. And thats not quite "recent" according to me.



Caste discrimination, as you know it, is not inherent in Hinduism.

Says who? Blind faith, simply blind faith. Go and read the scriptures first. Read all the smritis, the Vishnu Purana, Shiva Purana, Brahma puranas and all other puranas, read Mahabharata in detail, read all versions of Ramayana, Read all versions of Gita, read the Brahamanas. These scriptures together constitute at least 70% of the whole Brahmanic texts that you would call "Hindu scriptures" today. Vedas are more or less irrelevant, because they aren't followed nowadays (only recited sometimes, and without any regard to its content!).



If it can happen in the US, why can't it happen in India?

Can the muslims practice their Sharia in USA?




All throughout the debate, you have consistently proved your Brahmanistic inclination with regard to Hinduism. I had never thought that I would find someone with Brahmanistic beliefs and chauvanism in the west, because I thought you people are quite rational and do not ignorantly believe in everything. But thanks for opening my eyes. Its fruitless to debate with someone who has become a Brahmanist and who believes in the superiority of his/her own dharma.

As a gift, I have these hymns from the Vedas for you:-




17 Indra himself hath said, The mind of woman brooks not discipline,
Her intellect hath little weight.
[8.33.17]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv08033.htm




15 Nay, do not die, Purūravas, nor vanish: let not the evil-omened wolves devour thee.
With women there can be no lasting friendship: hearts of hyenas are the hearts of women.
[10.95.15]
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10095.htm




There is no creature more sinful, O son, than women. Woman is a blazing fire. She is the illusion, O king, that the Daitya Maya created. She is the sharp edge of the razor. She is poison. She is a snake. She is fire. She is, verily, all these united together.[13:40]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m13/m13b005.htm


I hope you are okay with the fact that your glorious religion Hinduism's most holy scripture, Rig Veda, considers your heart to be worse than that of Hyenas. But then, you are a "sati savitri" and obedient Hindu women, so you will confess to be one. Be happy with your glorious religion.

I am happy to have left it.

[manic expression]

I hope you are okay with the fact that your glorious religion Hinduism's most holy scripture, Rig Veda, considers your heart to be worse than that of Hyenas. But then, you are a "sati savitri" and obedient Hindu women, so you will confess to be one. Be happy with your glorious religion.

This is what the argument boils down to. You trot out outdated and irrelevant texts from about 3,000 years ago, most of which hasn't been followed in more than 2,000 years, whereas I talk of what Hinduism actually was, what it actually is and what it actually can be.

One of those arguments is materialist, in line with Marxism and reasonable. The other is the result of a childish grudge. No prizes for the winner.

Oh, and just in case anyone's keeping score, Himalayanspirit already conceded my main (and only) point. Don't tell him, though, he's on a roll. Now let's see what kind of temper tantrum he can conjure this time.

[himalayanspirit]

This is what the argument boils down to. You trot out outdated and irrelevant texts from about 3,000 years ago, most of which hasn't been followed in more than 2,000 years, whereas I talk of what Hinduism actually was, what it actually is and what it actually can be.



You always give escapist arguments.


Lets see what you actually believe:-

1. The Vedas (from which I quoted two verses for you) is NOT the foundation of "Hinduism". It is "outdated" and "irrelevant".

2. Lets forget about present and what Hinduism can be in future. You DENY that in the past Vedas did not constitute Hinduism. This is obviously wrong. Any priest from any Hindu temple can tell you how important Vedas wer, and even are today.

3. Now about what Hinduism "actually" is in the present times. Since you have already discarded the fact that Hinduism is not what it was in the past - that is the teachings of ancient Hindu scriptures like Vedas - and which I have myself been telling you all through out this thread, Hinduism must be something that the people follow in the present. And all Hindus follow caste system unanimously regardless of their different and contradictory regional/personal beliefs. Therefore, according to your "logic" caste system should be a part of Hinduism as it "actually" is in the present. However, you even deny that.

So basically, you deny that anything written in the scriptures is NOT Hinduism.
And you also deny that whatever Hindus follow and practice (regardless of scriptures) is part of Hinduism.

So what, according to you, is actually Hinduism? Some fantasy of yours?



As for what Hinduism actually can be in future, according to you, if you can simply pull out any belief and advertise it as Hinduism, then you might as well simply not teach any religion at all, right? Whats the purpose of preaching Hinduism in the first place when you create something new by yourself? In fact, you might rather want to teach Marxism to people instead of Hinduism. Of course, as long as your not a classist and a racist.

[manic expression]

So basically, you deny that anything written in the scriptures is NOT Hinduism.

That would mean I think anything in the scriptures IS Hinduism, which is untrue and silly, and that's precisely what you're trying to argue.

Let me ask you, is everything in the Bible part of modern Christianity (ie slavery, burning people alive, stonings)? I didn't think so. You lose again, thanks for playing!


So what, according to you, is actually Hinduism? Some fantasy of yours?

Read my posts for a change. Thanks.

[red cat]

Good for you.

Vivekananda had some good ideas and supported some form of "socialism". Unfortunately his legacy has been mostly coopted by Hindu chauvunists. This is something that needs to be fought against.



Vivekananda did mouth some phrases about social equality and "shudra jagaran" etc. But in practice he supported the feudal lords and kings in return for handsome wages. Read some of his several biographies and you will find that wherever he went he was generally a guest of the local king or feudal lord. He also opposed the nationalist armed struggle against British imperialism. Also, note his silence on the several tribal resistances during his time.



Buddhism has a long history of thousands of years before your precious "worker's paradise" of PRC was created. In India, it had a very progressive impact of rejecting caste as well as the myriad sacrifices and superstitions of the Brahmanic/Vedic religion. Of course that it came to have obscurantist practices of its own is probably an indication of the failure of religion in general to solve humanity's problems.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

You parrot the Chinese bourgeois media mouthpieces and expect to be taken seriously in your "defense" of PRC. I do not say that the bourgeois media of the west has to be trusted though, nor should we ignore the real class struggles that Chinese workers are fighting daily today in the "workers paradise".Of course, but those thousands of years of Buddhism were indeed reflected in Tibet's social structure before the rebellion of the 1950's. Presently, since the Chinese counter-revolution after Mao's death, the movement of the Tibetan masses is justified, but not at the cost of painting the Dalai Lama with glory. He is the former leader of Tibetan feudalism that enslaved chunks of the population. Also, by your own logic, as any religion is bound to fail, you cannot deny that Buddhism also becomes a machinery of class oppression wherever it is adopted widely.




How does one "promote" class war by being a raging Hindu chauvinist? Its beyond me but, again, its your bourgeois world view that prevents you from actually fighting against capitalism. There's no way you can support national bourgeois of certain nations like Cuba, China, North Korea etc while claiming to promote class war.

Note that it wasn't me who spewed hatred against working class Hindus. My skepticism of Hinduism doesn't make me anti-Hindu worker. However your brand of Hindu chauvinism would only appeal to a tiny minority of upper caste Hindus.

Oh please! If I want to discuss Hindu spirituality, I'd contact my local priest for that. But since I am the one who actually went to Hindu schools and learnt scriptures from Hindu gurus, I very well know that caste is an essential part of Hinduism. In fact, by dharma, most of the Hindu scriptures mean Varnashrama dharma (=caste rules).

We are quite correct in attacking Hinduism, since it forms the main socio-cultural organ in India for support and justification of brutal class-oppression. But let us not glorify any other religion, be it Buddhism, Islam or Christianity, just for the sake of comparison with Hinduism. Each religion has played a major role in class oppression in some country or the other.