Basawa was the 12th century Indian philosopher and Prime Minister of Kalachuri kingdom, who promoted lessons for harmony between human beings and fought against the caste system.
Why inspite of of continuous voices raised against caste system for centuries, society can’t get rid of this system?
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
perhaps illiteracy holds society back?
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
But its not the uneducated people who are at controlling end of this system. In this case, educated class is the exploiter. Brahmin (who are the most educated class) are the major promoter of this evil.
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
meh.. there have been no shortage of people or movements in india who spoke out against the caste system, but fact of the matter is whoever has been in power has relied heavily on the upper castes and kept the system intact to maintain their sway.
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
Elite and ruling class always use these discriminatory tools to exploit the masses.
Even people like Babasaheb Ambedkar (chairman drafting committee of Indian constitution) who were from lower caste (maleech) did contributed against this system, but still the educated class seem to stick on this discrimination. :(
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
the problem is that even those that mean well have had such lopsided understanding and methods of what to do.
Ambedkar and Gandhi never got along, even though Gandhi championed the rights of the lower castes. Ambedkar wasn't a diplomat and did not mince words about what he saw as wrong with hinduism and islam in encouraging the subduing and keeping people backwardly. he demanded caste based reservations for the oppressed classes, which gandhi opposed.
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
Muslim league itself supported elite class (mainly Nawabs and Nawabzadas). I read that there were rallies against these Nawabs in British India by Muslims. Irony is that these people and their families still rule the country :(
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
it is one complex khichri, but we only hear the mainstream narrative tailored to suit certain agendas. we've grown up listening in awe of mythical tales about congress and muslim league, and its perfect infallible leaders who gave their all for their countrymen. and then suddenly in a decade or two, the leadership magically has fallen to the lowest of the low of society. in a way maybe that is a good thing, our people just can't handle too much truth. ; )
Re: Basava - A voice against caste system
Basavanna as reverently called by his follower was 12[SUP]th[/SUP] century social reformer of Karnataka, he was first to accept inter caste marriage but later this inter caste married community became another caste called Lingayats:D, The priest in this caste is called Swami and every shiv temple in northern Karnataka is administered by them. Now in Karnataka there is tri partite struggle of politics between Brhamin, Lingayats and Gowdas:)
But its not the uneducated people who are at controlling end of this system. In this case, educated class is the exploiter. Brahmin (who are the most educated class) are the major promoter of this evil.
Often alleged of discrimination, Brahmins weren’t the main benefactor of Casteism, their landholding was between Zero to medium. Other forward castes like my community of landlords and Vaishyas (Banias) were original benefactors. Dalits worked almost as bonded labout in our fields all across India, all Brahmin mostly wanted that entire forward caste to come and touch their feet:D.
Majority of social reformers came from Brahmin community, Basavanna, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar but my community of landlords has not a single reformer because we knew reforming means losing control of majority backward community. Brahmin community produced bulk of freedom fighters, for every one freedom fighter from our community they have three, while bhagat was about to hang, pandit Rajguru was there and Pandit Chandrashekhar Azad was in field. But brhamins are to be blamed even though they hardly had got anything by discriminating, except Maharashtra and Bengal, Brahmins weren’t landlord anywhere, India’s highest politicized states UP,Bihar,Madhya Pradesh were entirely controlled by Thakurs/Rajput community. Brahmins had nothing there except their high social status. The biggest losers in democracy were princely and landlord class, nor they were interested much in independence as evident from their participation in freedom struggle and biggest benefactor of democracy are Backwards and Dalits. Chakbandi destroyed landholding of Jats, Rajputs,Thakurs, Gowdas and their political hegemony was in direct challenge from the community of Brahmins. In fact, if India is democracy it is because of ambitious Brahmin. I remember a line of Singh sahib, my boss in Kanpur “Hamra raaj hua karta thaa, janata hamse darrti thii, tum panditon ne hamara raj khatam kar diya” said to a mishraji.
The leaders produced by them are Nehru, Indira, PVN Rao, AB Vajpayee
The leaders produced by my landlord community are, Chodhary charan singh, Ajeet singh, digvijay singh, arjun singh, HD DeveGowda:D