Saturday 20th April 2024,
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Caste games : Battleground India

Caste games : Battleground India

Caste discrimination has now been included as a provision within the Equality Act. At the outset there may seem nothing objectionable in this. But scratch the surface and a sinister agenda emerges. The prime movers behind the new laws are not actually those suffering from caste discrimination but in fact a powerful well funded apparatus which sees Hinduism as something that needs to be wiped out. Why is it that right-wing Christian fundamentalists have taken such an interest in the issue of caste?

Why are they so insistent on it when Britain already has an effective system of combating discrimination? While they hide behind the sickly sweet face of human rights these same forces use the issue of caste to denigrate and snuff out equality for Hindus in Britain. But that is just the beginning. The passing of anti-caste legislation is merely the stepping stone of using European legislation to ban freedom of conscience for Hindus. The next stage is to take it the international level. This is in fact already being done.

Yet anyone who thought that this was merely the case of vitriolic verbal assault through domination of media channels would get a rude shock. In order to enforce their dying creed devout Christians in India’s north-east have brandished their own intolerant from of nationalism in order to exterminate any hapless Hindus in their midst. This of course is helped by generous donations from ever dwindling congregations in western countries, under the disguise of ‘charity’. Caste is but the latest weapon for this ideology to force an intolerant religion down the throats of its victims by all means necessary.

Crucifying the Heathen Menace

Anti-caste lobbyists have urged the inclusion of caste in the equality legislation because discrimination based on caste is not explicitly mentioned in the present laws. Yet many of the existing elements exist to cover areas such as workplace harassment, bullying and other such inappropriate behaviour. The concept of ‘diversity’ is sacrosanct among responsible employers so much so that even those flouting it will broadcast their equal opportunities policy loudly in a bid to dispel any claims to the contrary. It is therefore ironic and disturbing that anti-caste lobbying groups actually dig up the muck of outdated colonial prejudice and racism which led to eugenics, genocide and ultimately the Holocaust.

Why do the supposed warriors for equality employ eliminationist language against the ‘Brahmins’ in particular and ‘Hindus’ in general? A cursory look at the organisations behind outlawing caste in Britain will unravel the mystery. DFN is closely linked to hardcore evangelical Christian outfit Operation Mobilisation. In fact they share the same address. On the board of DSN is Rev David Haslam who wrote in The Guardian about how Hinduism must do much more to get rid of caste. Haslam, a veteran anti-apartheid activist, now claims that Hinduism with caste has this same form of racial segregation. Equating caste with race.

That is what the colonialists used to do in justifying their rule over India’s inferior dark-skinned subhuman masses. It is an unquestioned belief among Hitler’s modern ideological offspring such as those menacing shaven headed youth who trawl Russia’s streets on their late mentor’s birthday looking for ‘non-Aryans’ to attack and kill. Ironic perhaps for someone like Haslam who has fought for racial equality and even received a knighthood. Yet while attacking Hinduism for caste perhaps he would like to look at is own faith at how the Jews are condemned for eternity in the Bible itself. This sacred text also speaks of the Ethiopian being unable to change his blackness and the woman who bemoans her black skin colour “like the tents of Kedar”. In Samuel an Israelite is struck down (“And the Lord did smite him!”) for daring to touch the Ark of the Covenant, because he was neither a Levite or a Cohenite (priestly caste). Add to that the acceptance of slavery and it is not exactly clear where Haslam has got his spiritual justification for equality in the first place.

It is quite nauseatin
g that he and many others use their supposed infallible word of a jealous male demiurge (referred to as ‘god’) in which anti-Semitism, inequality and slavery are sacrosanct principles in order to attack Hinduism. In reality what we have is the desperate clutching at straws by a religion that once defined western civilisation, yet is now about as relevance to people’s lives as the woolly mammoth which once roamed the same regions of Europe. Like that hairy elephant Rev Haslam’s creed is meeting its inevitable nemesis and for that very reason is desperate to stay alive by latching onto issues such as caste and showing how superior it is to polytheistic creeds such as Hinduism; which despite lip service to tolerance ultimately decries as backward heathen idol-worship. Just as Christianity once wiped out indigenous pagan beliefs in Europe through warfare and mass murder, so its modern crusaders employs softer techniques under the euphemism of human rights, tolerance and freedom of conscience.

 Jeremy Corbyn The attack of Hinduism in Britain using the unconvincing camouflage of tackling caste is also apparent when we look at the presence of Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn on the board of DSN. For an unreconstructed Marxist the political acceptance of Hindu-baiting is an atheistic godsend after the demise of the USSR. Caste is seen as merely another manifestation of class warfare so endemic to Marxist dialectics. Once again we are faced with yet another revamp of racist colonialist ideas. Marx saw foreign rule as not just desirable, but inevitable for India’s masses who were mired in superstition worshipping grotesque deities.

Marx shared the Christian missionary’s distaste for darker-skinned subhumans who were enthralled to hideous idols. In attacking Hinduism the atheist Left have long compromised their aversion to the Christian theology from which Marxism sprang (their holy prophet did after all only revamp the ideas of Hegel) in order to crush the deep spirituality and ancient civilisation of India which they regard as such an affront to their ideas of progress. In the countries where communism reigned supreme we should look at how non-monotheistic beliefs fared. The Soviets crushed shamanism in Siberia while they happily shared vodka and caviar with the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church. China encourages the spread of Christianity while it annihilates Tibetan Buddhism and the Falun Gong movement.

So it is the same with Hinduism where the Left in western countries finds eager collaborators in India’s Stalinist ‘professors’ such as Kishwar Desai who are themselves eager to get into the ‘imperialist’ countries in order to link arms with right-wing Christian extremists such as Rev Michael Lawson to fulminate against the Hindu cancer in their midst. However their ultimate aim is much bigger.

To get a glimpse of this horrifying nightmare world they envisage for the future one need only view one of Lawson’s vile anti-Hindu propaganda films where ‘Dalits’ are shown to be desperate for Christians to help free them from the Hindu caste system. To watch this nauseating stuff is much like watching Nazi propaganda films as how the SS and Wehrmacht was ‘liberating’ Eastern Europe from Judeo-Bolshevism. The attack on caste therefore is merely a stepping stone to crushing Hinduism by foul means, denying even the freedom to argue back against predatory missionary tactics, well funded by useful idiots in western countries. It is crusade which gets more desperate by the day. Declining church attendance means declining finances.

That means people like Lawson will have to get a proper job in order to just keep a roof over the heads let alone indulge in their macabre fantasies of Dalit ‘liberation’. So the funds are drying up. This really is an apocalypse but not the way it is foretold in the Bible. It is the ‘End-Times’ for intolerant monotheism. And where to people in western countries now turn to fill their much needed spiritual vacuum? To the traditions of India. Hence right-wing Christian extremists fear even yoga and meditation. The anti-caste posturing hides a much greater battle, one in which the churches attack Hinduism in order to avoid their impending Armageddon.

In this Final Conflict they yearn for a Final Solution, which is already happening when we look at how western-funded Christian terrorists in Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh have ethnically cleansed Hindus are gunpoint or forbidden the celebration of Hindu festivals at the end of a Kalashnikov. What happened to paganism in Europe is being repeated in India through use of hi-tech media and reference to human rights all covered up with cheesy sinister smiles.

Yet when all these fail, the quaint dying faith of modern Europe does not hesitate to employ its usual methods of violence and hatred.It is not as if Hindu groups were unaware of all this. For the last however decade HHR’s warning have fallen on deaf ears. Instead the existing Hindu organisations were obsessed with the ‘desification’ of ethnic minority political and social norms.

This meant less democracy and more cronyism and self-humiliation just to get a few pathetic photographs taken with MPs who had nothing better to do. After all if Hindus are obsessed with being so ‘passive’ then why bother to even worry about them?

This is the message which even the self-appointed Hindu leaders are in harmony with and which goes right to the heart of self-deprecating Hindu behaviour in Britain.In this dystopian nightmare world each person wants to become a ‘leader’ and speak on subjects they know next to nothing about. So for example, not content with being in Hindu Forum, Bharti Tailor formed the Hindu Forum of Europe. Are such organisations even qualified to speak on the issue of caste? Rather than leaders they are like bacteria infesting every tissue of Hindus in Britain, and the Alliance of Hindu Organisations (AHO) is nothing more than a superbug resistant to the antibiotics of reason and respect.

Kauravas versus Kauravas

Kurukshetra is of course the historic battlefield in the Mahabharata. The Pandavas are forced to fight their own relations the Kauravas for what has been snatched from them. This is often seen as a figth between good and evil. It is much more than that. The external battle is but a manifestation of the internal struggle which we all face. Arjuna is told by Shri Krishna to choose the path of Dharma. To explain this brings us into all sorts of dead-end debates, because Dharma cannot be easily translated.

That is because it cannot be understood out of context. To say that Arjuna must choose what is ‘good’ is too simplistic, a symptom of a monochrome terminology resultant from the monotheist mindset. In reality we are not just one-dimensional beings out of superhero comic books where the ‘goodies’ are clean shaven and wear tights; and where the ‘baddies’ are usually some unearthly monstrosity.

hindu Meeting-picThe Bhagavad Gita is a the result of the deep dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. It precisely that which is lacking in discussing the outlawing of caste discrimination. There is no deepness at all in the caste discourse. There is not even an actual dialogue. Just one-dimensional soundbites to create mindless sheep.

What is at stake here is in fact not the human rights of victims who have been victimised, bullies and had their lives made abject misery because of caste discrimination right here in Britain. Instead this is a battle for self-appointed ‘community’ leadership and the nice lavish state funding, official invites and other perks that entails.

As state funding is cut an ever more desperate battle ensues to get as much community handouts from the government as possible, at the expense of the taxpayer already burdened by stagnant wages, withdrawal of state benefits and price inflation. These same taxapayers are now bombarded with pleas to donate their hard earned income in order to make up the shortfall from the dearth of state funding.

hindu leadershipMuch of this money goes to line the pockets of community ‘leaders’ and on other wastage. When it comes to helping the actual target beneficiaries, the coffers are empty. This is in line with the corporatisation of charities where CEOs can command nauseatingly high salaries on a par with their counterparts in profit making capitalism. But to ask such inconvenient questions is to get labelled an enemy.

The totalitarian mindset never did like free speech and open enquiry. Instead it is better to feel that you are part of some privileged club or tribe, especially when the photo shoots are needed so that the sitting government can be impressed with the ‘numbers’. After all this is a culture which is obsessed with targets and yet more targets.

 To equate Castewatch with Alliance of Hindu Organisations will no doubt seem absurd. It will be laughed off. But when was laughter the antidote to inconvenient facts? The one-dimensional discourse holds that Hindu organisations and anti-caste groups are polar opposites. Conventional wisdom also held, and in many respects continues to hold, that communism and fascism are polar opposites. This despite the fact Stalin and Hitler were allied for two years as they raped and carved up Poland between them. For both the amorphous ‘liberal’ was the enemy, meaning anyone who thought deeply and valued liberty and freedom of speech and conscience. So it is that at both Hindu organisations and anti-caste discussions in Britain actual facts are dismissed. The methodology in both camps of the axis is eerily similar.

Caste Iron Jackboot

Satpal Muman, CasteWatchUK, and Mr Faquir Chand Sahota, President of Central Valmik SabhaAttending the Castewatch meeting in Coventry in 2009 the flaws were immediately apparent. Speaker after speaker was allotted 10 minutes. Unfortunately in Third World rentier states the person’s importance is dependent upon how long that individual is unable to control their larynx. Hence it went over the time limit. Now when you have an environment like this which puffs up the self-importance of even the most desperately ignorant it only adds to the already toxic mix.

Having spoken the self-appointed leaders gradually drifted off as the day progressed, especially after they had enjoyed the free meal provided. In fact so few of the audience were actual ‘lay’ people. Most were speakers in one form or another. This methodology was against freedom of speech from the outset as questions had to be left to the very end. This gave barely fifty minutes for actual scrutiny, probably the most important time of all if understanding was to be had of how to counter caste discrimination. By this time of course most people had left. Then again, that was the whole point.

The same flawed methodology is found with Hindu groups. Now in such meetings attendees are usually encouraged to sit at the front of the room so that when photographs were taken it would look more full than it really was. Questions were prefabricated so as it avoid exposing the mass ignorance that had by now been elevated to the highest virtue.

While not actually violent the atmosphere, as can be imagined, resembles something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Children of the Damned. It is a mentality which is found in other organisations which have formed part of the Alliance of Hindu Organisations. But this seems ridiculous. After all why would these Hindu groups want to go into self-destruct? The answer is that they are not there to actually serve their community.

Like politicians in Third World vampire state they are there to exploit ‘useful idiot’ in gaining state funding, private donations, an OBE and above all influence in the political and commercial spheres that will make them as much money with as little work as possible.

Inconvenient questions about caste threaten this just as inconvenient questions and deep thinking have always threatened these groups. Of course now with anti-caste legislation passed, and the anti-Hindu discourse which saturates the limited discussion on caste, these Hindu organisations stand to lose both prestige and money. No knighthoods. No state funding. No black tie dinners. No parties. No being violently sick after drinking several shots of vodka which someone else has paid for. No having photograph taken with MPs. This is a catastrophe not even worth contemplating.

If your prime motivation is highlighting human rights abuses and finding solutions, then you will have a very different mentality to that if your goal is to prostitute yourself for a few state handouts as if Britain was a rentier state. It is unfortunate that the latter is found in caste discourse. Which is why it never gets resolved. If it was resolved then the anti-caste groups would lose their reason to even exist. So here is the evil genius of it all. Caste discrimination cannot be solved because that would cut state and private funding. That would mean the end of their life blood.

The Way Forward

In what was to became a landmark legal case, a case for caste discrimination at an employment tribunal in February 2013 collapsed. Vijay Begraj, a former practice manager at the Coventry solicitors firm Heer Manak, and his wife Amardeep, a former solicitor at the same firm, had claimed that they were discriminated against because the latter is from a lower caste.

Begraj claimed a colleague told him that he was lucky to be a practice manager in the UK as his caste meant he would have been a cleaner in India. He also told the tribunal that he had been assaulted by two relatives of one of the firm’s partners and had been called derogatory names relating to his Dalit status. Heer Manak has described the claims as “ludicrous” and “outrageous”.

Now this was a case in which Castewatch was heavily involved. Yet the fundamental question not being asked with the Begraj case is why did the harassment based on caste take place? If it was am issue based on Hindu texts such as Manusmirti and Vedas, then was the causation factor? If not then we have to look elsewhere.

Anti-Hindu organisations who want caste discrimination outlawed often deny they are attacking ‘Hinduism’. They say the problem is culture and not religion. But what is the difference? Trying to blame sacred texts is like asking if writing came before speech, an utterly absurd exercise. Obviously the texts codify ideas at a certain point in time. Religion itself can only exist as part of culture. If we say that religion is text based and culture is unwritten lore, then before writing there was no difference. This is still the case with surviving traditions of groups such as Native Australians. The cosmology in these beliefs is deep and the customs are complex and all encompassing. But in the absence of religious texts do we say that they have no religion?

Therefore to look for a specific text to explain the harassment, bullying and sickening treatment meted out to Vijay and Amardeep Begraj is to ignore the obvious. Cases of caste prejudice can be attributed to transmission of ideas through cultural milieu and not reading sacred texts that are nowadays of little interest save for a decreasing number of scholars in institutions such as SOAS.

When Hindu organisations and anti-caste groups quote and counter quote text, this macabre scenario is pitiful in the extreme as it avoids the very essence of what needs to be addressed. Unfortunately that takes effort and meticulous research. In other words good old-fashioned hard work. Not exactly in accord with being addicted to begging for state handouts to produce reports of scant relevance to the real world.

It is also at odds with a culture of narcissism which demands we be non-judgemental, lest our views are deemed ‘backward’ and ‘regressive’. But unless the issues of family breakdown and social dysfunction are addressed, and a concerted effort made to tackle a despiritualised and Adharmic system which elevates the one-dimensional individualism as the physical manifestation of monotheistic poison, then caste prejudice will not be tackled.

Atomised individuals yearn for a tribe in their need to find a sense a belonging as previous social norms diminish. This could be the gang. It could be loyalty to postcode. It could be a racial or religious collective. It could be any combination of these. For that reason, it is often caste. But no taxpayer funded study will ever state that. It is much easier to blame Hindus as the easy scapegoat as well as a text that most of them do not even read.

How will this be done? Despite my exposing anti-caste groups as having less than pure agenda there is a fundamental difference between them and groups composing AHO. Anti-caste groups built from the ground up. They worked hard to get funding, to lobby and to research the matter. If we are going to be honest then it is a fact that both Castewatch and VODI have invited HHR to their events; in the latter case VODI leader Eugene Culas invited HHR twice.

On the other hand HHR was barred from attending the much Hindu Unity day last year, which as usual achieved nothing apart from a few unconvincing speeches and creating some rather ugly drawings on a whiteboard. This is because AHO and similar Hindu organisations however style themselves as an elite with a laughable superiority complex. Indeed if we compare the two sides one finds the Hindu side actually dismissive with its dealings with HHR.

Final Battleground

The use of caste issues by right-wing Christian extremists is merely a re-enactment of the carnage which was unleashed in Europe by a faith which has historically shown scant tolerance. In the thirteenth century the Teutonic Knights violently suppressed the last vestiges of traditional European beliefs they decried as pagans and heathens in their bloodbath against the Wends, Livonians, Estonians, Oeselians, Curonians and Semigallians. Lithuania valiantly held out until the end of the fourteenth century.

So even this idea that Christianity is the traditional religion of Europe needs to be challenged as that continent remained pagan actually after the point of modern state formation in the Baltic region. Now the wheel is turning full circle as Estonia is perhaps the most secularised country in Europe. However tis does not simply mean that the Estonians believe in nothing as is often the case where Christianity has lost ground elsewhere in Europe.

About half believe in some sort of life force. The Maavalla Koda movement is trying to revive the traditional beliefs that were suppressed by the Christian onslaught, mapping sacred sites and preserving Estonian folklore. This includes Taarausk, or Taaraism, whose god was worshiped in forest groves, and Maausk, which translates as “faith of the earth.” Christianity could not fully suppress the Estonian national culture.

It is this which drives the right-wing Christian extremists to such desperate measures. Losing influence in Europe which they once took fro granted, aggressive and intolerant missionary efforts are therefore ranged against India where poverty and a kleptocratic state mean easy pickings for those determined to wipe out Hinduism. Hindu culture does not just represent a rival creed and one whose adherents can provide easy conversion fodder. At its essence this Final Conflict is a the battle between two world views which have always opposed each other. The aggressive male demiurge of monotheism against the diversity and vibrancy which was once the spirituality of all humanity, but is now best preserved in Hinduism. That is explains the menacing machinations of Christian fundamentalists so keen to be involved in highlighting issues of caste. Behind the fake smile of friendship lies the evil grimace which once so terrorised the people of Lithuania and Estonia.

Also Read :

Hinduism is the Target, not Caste Discrimination

 

About The Author

Ranbir Singh : Writer and lecturer, HHR chairman : BA (Honours) History, MA History from School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London : , Have lectured previously at De Montfort University, London School of Economics, Contributor to various political and human rights discussion outfits.

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