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:: page 11 ::
It is thus,” Bhagvatism started spreading from Mathura as
propaganda of the belief in one of the indigenous Gods of
local and non – Aryan settlement and as an expression of
anti-Aryan, anti-Brahaman and anti caste movement. This
movement must invariably have developed and did develop in the
environment of pre Aryan settlement which was in overwhelming
majority in the position of low, oppressed castes.” Therefore,
Dr. Guseva concludes: “from the pattern of legend about
Krishna, who, after seizing the throne became the head of the
ruling Ksatriya king and later became famous as the greatest
of the Ksatriyas, it is clearly seen how non-Aryan warriors
and leaders could have historically been reckoned and were
undoubtedly reckoned in the cast of Ksatriyas and how the
inclusion of local cults in the system of Brahmanism came
about.”
Dr.Ambedkar’s ‘Who Were the Shudras?
How snugly this finding corroborates Dr. Ambedkar’s thesis in
Who were the Shudras ? In this book Dr. Ambedkar propounds the
thesis that the Shudras were originally “one of the Aryan
communities of the solar race.” (cf.Dr. Guseva’s hypothesis
about two Manus genealogies above) who later came to be
degraded by the Brahmans, who heaped such disabilities on the
Shudras as cited from the Manu Smriti above as have no
parallel in the world. He proves this by the comparison of the
Brahmanic law with the Roman law.
Under the Roman law there was distribution of rights and
disabilities according to communal distinction of several
categories of men such as Patricians, and Plebians, Freeman
and Slaves and Citizens and Foreigners. But these conditions
were not fixed forever so as to perpetuate the disabilities.
As Dr. Ambedkar points out the Roman law was always ready “to
remove the conditions to which these disabilities were
attached as is evident in the case of the Plebian the Slaves,
the Foreigners and the pagans.”
Thus one can see, Dr. Ambedkar tells us, what mischief the
Dharma Sutras and the Smritis have done in imposing the
disabilities upon the Shudras”. As put in an inimitably
poignat manner by him.
“The imposition of disabilities would not have been so
atrocious if the disabilities were dependent upon conditions
and if the disabled had the freedom to outgrow those
conditions. But it tries to fix the conditions by making an
act which amounts to a breach of those conditions to be a
crime involving dire punishment. Thus the Brahmanic law not
only seeks to impose disabilities but also to make them
permanent.
“One illustration will suffice. A Shudra is not entitled to
perform Vedic sacrifices as he is not able to repeat the Vedic
Mantras. Nobody would quarrel with such a disability . But the
Dharma Sutras do not stop here. They go further and say that
it will be a crime for a Shudra to study the Vedas or hear it
being pronounced and if he does commit such a crime, his
tongue should be cut or molten lead should be poured into his
ear. Can anything be more barbarous than preventing a man to
grow out of his disabilities?”
I have cited Dr.Ambedkar’s view at length to bring out the
brutally discriminatory nature of the Brahmanic law. There was
rule of law in ancient India but it was essentially rooted in
Dharma, and the Law of Dharma as laid down in various Smritis
(regardless of other countervailing injunctions about true
Brahmins cited above found in the self same scriptures and
Puranas) we must remember, was confined in the unalterable,
casteist, straitjacket. The doctrine of sovereignty in the
Indian context, if at all there was one, was always subject to
this overriding Brahmanic superiority: the Brahmns were always
above the law.
Shahu:Iconoclastic Reformer-Ruler of Modern India
I regard Shahu as a fearless inconoclast ruler modern India
produced and his crusade against this age old stigma of
casteism as a high watermark in the social reformist struggle
which was pioneered by Mahatma Phule. Shahu appeals to me as a
true secularist, republican and a modern ruler in the real
Platonic tradition because he was concerned above all with
making enlightenment a public property and denounce ignorance
a a curse. Shahu was in the real sense of the term a builder
of modern India because he set people on a modernist quest.
... Continued
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