Since caste is at the heart of the problems within Hinduism, this is a classic statement of what to do about it.
B.R.Ambedkar Philosophy of Hinduism
A hard-hitting and eminently scholarly masterpiece that is a must read for a Hindu wishing to be a progressive and make Hinduism progressive. This is not a piece for those Hindus who are insecure in their Hinduism and become defensive immediately.
Welcome to the Annihilation of Caste Multimedia Study Environment (MSE) which was produced by Frances Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages, Columbia University and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, with additional sponsorship and funding from the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was the first highly educated (Ph.D., Columbia University), politically prominent member of the ritually-polluted Hindu "Untouchable" castes. Dr. Ambedkar wrote the "Annihilation of Caste" for the 1936 meeting of a group of liberal Hindu caste-reformers in Lahore. After reviewing the speech, conference organizers revoked Ambedkar's invitation. He then self-published the work, which became an immediate classic. Gandhi wrote a refutation in his own newspaper. Ambedkar then answered Gandhi's refutation, and included the whole thing in appendices. The Multimedia Study Environment includes the Annihilation of Caste, edited for classroom use by Fran Pritchett; her explanatory annotations; and several other major texts by Ambedkar, including The Buddha and His Dhamma; Pakistan, or, the Partition of India; and the Indian Constitution.
The text source for this version of the Annihilation of Caste is reprinted from: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 1. Bombay: Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1979, pp. 25-96. Annihilation of Caste was first published in Bombay, 1936; 2nd ed. 1937; 3rd ed. 1944.
Click on the following link to read "The Annihilation of caste by Dr.B.R.Ambedkar" Before going in to the review of the Jan lokapal bill we must know about the persons involved in drafting this lokpal bill and the hidden agenda behind this bill. Even some of the members in the Anna team have a point to prove on their integrity. This article cannot be seen as a attack on some individuals, i am trying to emphasise the facts surrounding this protests and the true intentions of these corrupt individuals. Since most of the English media (corporate sponsored) and some regional media are portraying this fast by Anna as another freedom struggle. It’s high time we all must stop this kind of news (nonsense), because it directly insults the true freedom fighters of the Indian nation. Here are the serious integrity issues relating to the Anna team:
1. Anna Hazare: Termed as another Gandhi he is accused of misusing his trust money for celebrating his B’day. To add up to these allegations- I request the readers to look in to the following links about Anna`s atrocities in His own village.
I'd rather not be Anna- Arundhati Roy
2. Arvind Kejriwal: This former IIT student is being projected as next youth icon (next to/instead of Rahul!). Soon after getting a capitalists sponsored award he rose to prominence. Later he started a NGO called kabir. He is a key member in the Anna team. His NGO is said to have got donations from Ford foundation and several other unknown persons to the tune of 250,000 $. Till now the identity of the donors are not being disclosed in the organization’s official website. Here is an excerpt of the interview given by Arvind Kejriwal to THE HINDU on the donations received from outsiders. Arvind Kejriwal himself does not follow transparency in his own organization. But he is advocating transparency to the government?
THE HINDU: “Another of your NGOs, Kabir, received grants from the Ford Foundation (FF). According to the FF, Kabir received $172,000 in 2005 and $197,000 in 2008. The FF also sanctioned an “in-principle” grant of $200,000 for 2011, which you have not accepted so far. Why does Kabir not mention the FF and these specific details on its website?
Arvind Kejriwal: We did not give the specific details because we also got some other NRI contributions and these were clubbed together. I will make sure that the website gives the break-up.”
3. Kiran bedi: Abusive use of power is also a corrupt practice. So kiran bedi itself guilty of this corrupt practice. She has been projected as a straight forward IPS officer but her official work record speaks the other way! She has derailed from her duties several times. She has used her power to secure her daughter’s admission at Delhi’s Lady Hardinge College for an MBBS course through the Mizoram quota. I request the readers to read the following links to know more about it.
It’s very clear that the main leaders of the campaign itself corrupt and we are following the wrong person/ group of people and portraying them as crusaders of corruption. So it’s high time that we all must think about their true intentions and the supporting force behind the Anna teams’s protests. Maoists are seen as a terrorist outfit because they don’t believe in the Indian state and they seek to over throw the Indian state by armed struggle. Same is the case in the Anna team and its supporters –They don’t believe in the constitution of India. They seek to control the entire government under a dictatorship kind of bill. So in a way Anna team should also be seen considered as a dangerous outfit. Many of the supporting organization of the Anna team are right wing saffron terrorist’s organization like RSS, VHP and many anti reservation outfits like youth for equality team. Thus one can easily conclude that these short minded persons don’t recognize the “right to equality” clause mentioned in the constitution of India.
Will Jan lokpal bill eradicate corruption?
The answer is NO! because one must keep in mind that there are numerous laws are in place to tackle the corruption practice in India. But the fact is these laws are not being properly implemented and executed by the law enforcing agencies. If we can find a proper way and will to implement this already existing law we can eradicate corruption at the grass root levels. But as far as the big scams involving the corporate companies the government must come with a new law such as “if a company is found to involve in corrupt practices it should be nationalized or banned from any other future business, hefty fine should be imposed on them or one must make it as a non-bailable offence”. The entire lokpal bill is critical in giving punishment to the bribe accepting politicians and government servants but it does not have a mention on the extent of punishment that would be given to bribe giving capitalists and industrialists. A person who induces another to indulge in wrong doings deserves better punishment than the other. Lokpal bill deserves to be in trash it deserves nothing more than that! There are numerous articles written about the flaws in the lokpal bill some are given in the references section do please read it and spread awareness about it.
The root cause of corruption can be understood clearly when we look in to the liberalization policies that are implemented in India after the 1990`s. The primary reason said for its implementation is that it would reduce corruption in India. At that time it was widely believed that the biggest corruption takes place at the government run institutions, hence the role of private institutions is seen as an alternative to combat corruption. But after the liberalization policies were implemented the corruptions and scams grow even bigger. The amount of money associated with each scams accounted for more than thousand crores or lakhs of crores. Although before liberalization India saw some big corruptions, the scams in that period was very few and the money involved in it was very meager when compared to the present cases.
A few notable Scams before liberalization:
Jeep Scandal of 1948-Rs 80 lakh.
Bofors in 1985-86-Rs 64 crore.
Liberal Benefits?
The opening up of the economy post-’91 boosted scam monies into the stratosphere
Total scam money (approx) in Rs crore since 1992:
73000000000000
Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262842
It must be noted that the above stats does not include the 2G, CWG scam, the KG basin scam and the illegal mining scam etc. If we add up the scam money involved in these scams the total scam money would grow up even bigger. Thus from the above facts we can clearly say that the root cause of the corruption lies in the liberalization policies carried out by the Government of India. The root cause of corruption is privatization policy! A classic example is the health sector. In India hospital business is seen as a great oppurtunity to earn huge amount of profits. In the name of improving the quality of health sector the GOI opened up the health sectors to the private players. But instead of improving the quality of health sector it has driven millions of poor Indian people to debt by indiscriminate collection of fees. The main slogan of private ownership is to “earn profit-no matter how they come by”. So in such a scenario no private involvement is required in key sectors such as agriculture, education, food distribution (PDS), transport, health and other social sectors. Without eliminating corporates from these key sectors we cannot eradicate corruption no matter how many laws/bills are tabled.
With most of the politicians is either coming from a business family or a corporate sponsored person, it’s up to the voters of India to prevent them from winning the elections. Without preventing the corporate-politician nexus it’s difficult to achieve a corruption free society. The Lokpal bill does not highlight the key issue of corruption involving big MNC`s, corporate sectors etc. and it remain silent on corporate scams. Even some of the English media like Times now, CNN-IBN and NDTV 24x7 that supports this Anna Team campaign is also facing serious allegations in various issues such as paid news and Redia tape case etc. When more than 50,000 trible people protested against the wrongful acquisition of their home land for a foreign company POSCO at Orissa, no one from the Anna team or the media highlighted it (this protest also happened at the same time of Anna’s so called protest!). Also till now the villagers of kudumkulam of Tamilnadu are staging a marathon protest against the building up of nuclear power plant but no one highlighted this issue. So, it’s not wise on our part to support the Anna team blindly because their true motives are even more dangerous than the corruption issue. By the time I finish writing this article a new illegal mining scam at Goa to the tune of Rs.4000 cr is being reported!!!! The so called corruption crusader ANNA HAZARE again started to give ultimatum to the union government of India to pass the lokpal bill!
Arundhati Roy on Anna Hazare's campaign:
part one:
part two:
An NGO's view on ANNA HAZARE:
Further reading:
1. I'd rather not be Anna- Arundhati Roy
2. The True Face of Kiran Bedi by Subir Ghosh
3. Liberal benefits The opening up of the economy post-’91
5. Many Avatars of Indian Corruption
6. Lokpal bill of the Anna Team
IMPORTANT NOTE:
India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report. The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests to the Google. So it’s clear that the government of India is keeping an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have acquired the privacy details of the internet users to intimidate them. The important fact is that the Indian government seeks censorship to political views, hate speech, Government Criticism etc. It is clear we the Indians don’t have freedom of speech when it comes to criticizing government in key issues.
DISCLOSURE:
Hence I hereby declare that the above article is my personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other Internet/anti-India websites.
I am posting this article in support of Samacheer Kalvi. On seeing some of the capitalist run news paper I am of the opinion that most of them are completely against the implementation of “Samacheer Klavi”. Most of the English,(some) Tamil news paper opinion looks like as if it was written by the PRO of all private schools association of Tamilnadu and their views are in support of the private schools. In my view the syllabus of the private schools are not superior to the government schools. The reason behind the success of the private school is that they have better infrastructure facilities when compared to that of the government schools. Private schools produce students with high marks by simply giving them tests and coaching classes. For eg: private schools teach (in the name of quality education) syllabuses that are meant for higher classes (say for 8th standard) to (6th class students) smaller classes and burden the children. This is done because private schools see education as a lucrative business opportunity. Most of the private schools don’t even have qualified teachers. When a common platform such as samacheer kalvi is implemented the private schools cannot run matriculation schools under the guise of giving quality education and thereby they may not earn profits. A good government should provide its children equal platform to perform. In India only the rich is blessed with quality education. Whereas majority of the poor children are made to sit under the tree as their class room. That's why the admission of Erode collector's daughter in a local government school is published as big news. This vast divide cannot be cleared on a single day but a scheme like samacheer kalvi at least provide some sorts of equal platform for the students from both private and government schools.
The so called expert committee formed by the State government is an eye wash because some of the expert committee members are indeed not subject/educational experts but they are owners of private schools. A clear case of conflict of interest. How can one accept the report of this one sided expert committee. We all must remember great scientists namely Dr.A.P.J.Abdul kalam, Dr.Mayilsamy Annadurai and Dr.Sivadhanu pillai had their school education at Government schools only. How can one term the government syllabus as low quality when it produces such great scientists to the nation? The thing is not with the quality of syllabus its all about good educational environment, infrastructure, and quality teachers. Parents also should come out of the myth that only private schools are superior to the government schools. Thus in my opinion the government’s priority in education should be to nationalize the educational system and it should completely abolish the private run educational institutions
IMPORTANT NOTE:
India third 'snoopiest' country: Google Transparency Report.The GOI have requested Google to censor the internet contents/opinions of many users who speak against the Indian government. Even dictatorship countries haven't placed such a number of censor requests to the Google. So its clear that the government of India is keeping an eye on its internet users and with the help of Google, GOI have acquired the internet users privacy details to intimidate them. The important fact is that the Indian government seek censorship to political views,hate speech,Government Criticism etc.It is clear that We the Indians don’t have freedom of speech here in India when it comes to government criticism in key issues.
DISCLOSURE:
Hence I hereby declare that the above article is My personal opinion and it is not being copied from any other Internet/anti-India websites.
Main stream media and news print agencies such as THE HINDU, INDIAN EXPRESS, NDTV and DINAMALAR etc are still lending a helping hand to the Lankan government by publishing articles in support of the Lankan government. The main stream media is one sided and is continually keeping the people of Tamilnadu and India in dark by hiding the war crimes of the Lankan army against the innocent Tamil people in refugee camps. Although fault lie on both the Lankan and LTTE sides, lakhs of innocent Tamil people were made to pay a big price for this bloody war. Even during the war or be it now the main stream media systematically black out the Human rights violations news that is still prevalent in IDP (internally displaced people (Tamil)) camps run under the Lankan army. According to the Human rights watch more than 1 Lakh 20 thousand Tamil people were brutally killed by the Lankan army with the support of India (primarily) and China. One need not be a Tamil to condemn this war crime but all real Human beings irrespective of the religion, geographical location would/should condemn this war crime.
I am writing this because I got shocked and emotionally moved after seeing the Channel 4 documentary film, “Srilankan killing fields” that was telecasted last week in Headlines Today news channel. I feel ashamed to say we live in a civilized society/world.
In this post I would like to share my mail sent to THE HINDU and Col.Hari, Chief of the Intelligence unit of the Indian peace keeping force (IPKF) in response to his article "The moment of truth for the LTTE". At that time the civil war between the Srilankan government and the LTTE was fought fiercely. Also during that period the main stream media in India are busy in hiding the true facts of the bloody war. They did not point out the human rights violation of the Lankan army instead they published what the Lankan government has told them.
Saturday, 7 February, 2009 1:22 AM
From:
"selva sharma"
To:
colhari@yahoo.com
| Respected sir,
Regards, A.Selvasharma, M.Sc.Chemisrty, Department of Chemistry, Bharathiar university Tamilnadu. |
The reply to the above mail from Col.Hari was mere “Thanks for your feedbacks”. I sent a modified mail to THE HINDU too but it never got published.
I am sharing this mail and views because many innocent Children, Women and Men are brutally killed everyday all around the world in the name of war against terrorism. Its high time we all must and should join hands in condemning violence or army action against innocent people wheather it happens in our country or in Palestine, Sudan Afghanistan, Srilanka or Pakistan. I also request you to dedicate some time for the social issues and spread awareness among many educated (there are many educated illiterates in India!) and uneducated persons. Changes don't happen in a day. But if we don't start today, change may never happen. After all Revolutions don’t happen within a day…….!
Sudipta Sengupta,
Delhi: B P Baloo, a Dalit cricketer, earned glory for India during the pre-independence period. But, the issue is why there are not many players from lower castes in the Indian team.
BABAJI PALWANKAR BALOO: not many cricket fans will be aware of this name. And, if I go ahead with this article without giving a brief background about him, then perhaps it will sound like talking in the national language of Timbaktoo. So, let me start with a brief introduction of Baloo.
He was a left-arm orthodox spinner, who played cricket for India from 1906 to 1920. Born in Dharwad in Karnataka, he was perhaps the first Dalit cricketer of India. With an exceptional ability to turn the ball both ways he managed to claim 179 wickets in his career. Now, for all those who are wondering what is so special about this cricketer from the Chamar caste, let me remind them that this was the time when caste discrimination was predominant in India. This was also the time when the British ruled the Indians and in many areas ‘dogs and Indians were not allowed’.
However, it was the sheer talent of Baloo that never allowed the upper castes to dominate him. Most of us are aware of the fact that Vinoo Mankad claimed 100 wickets in 1946 in England. But, we might not know that Baloo achieved the same feat in 1911 when he toured England. He ended the year with a total of 114 wickets at an average of 18.84.
Can you imagine a Dalit cricketer in the pre-independence era going to England and beating the English batsmen in their own game? Also, do not forget to take into account the limitations of training and grooming available in India compared to what the English got, who started playing the game much before us. Many believe that Baloo was an inspiration for Dr B R Ambedkar.
The name of Baloo, however, is not new to many. The author Ramchandra Guha has written a famous book A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History on Baloo’s life. Another author, Boria Majumdar, has also covered the player’s life well in his writings.
Many questions came to my mind about Balo and caste in Indian cricket. In fact, I would have loved to get answers for some of my questions mentioned below from either Guha or Majumdar. But it is my bad luck that none of them were available for an interview with a citizen journalist. Hence, I pass on the entire set of unanswered questions to the intelligent web community.
Here they follow.
Question 1: Babaji Palwankar Baloo, played in 1906. He was a good player. But, amazingly, till date we can hardly count any other Dalit cricketer in the Indian cricket team. Is it because Dalits are still financially weak and cannot pay to get groomed for the competitive selection process or is there a hidden social bias against them?
Question 2 (a): Unlike old days when cricket field was a forte of the city-dwelling rich and mighty, we have seen a number of star cricketers emerging from smaller cities in recent days, namely Mahendra Singh Dhoni from Jharkhand, R P Singh from Rai Bareilly, etc. Even the ones coming from cities belong to the lower class. Does it show a shift in the Indian cricket from big cities to small towns and across classes? What effect does it have on the caste composition of the team?
(b): Is there a regional trend in caste in cricket? The cricketers from the south – Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and V V S Laxman – and Maharashtra – Sachin Tendulkar and Ajit Agarkar – are Brahmins and urban. The cricketers from the north – Virendra Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh – and smaller towns are either lower or middle caste Hindus or non-Hinus. Is caste hierarchy more rigidly placed in the south?
Question 3: All selectors in Tamil Nadu Cricket Board are Brahmins, and the most recent player to emerge from the state is Murli Karthik, who is also a Brahmin. Does it reflect a caste bias in cricket?
Question 4: Is it a mere coincidence that Sunil Gavaskar, Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Kumble, Tendulkar, Laxman and many other stalwarts of the Indian cricket are Brahmins?
Question 5: Everytime there is a small town guy displacing a big-city Brahmin from a position of prominence, the Brahmin lobby in cricket gets furious. Sunil Gavaskar could not digest the success of Kapil Dev. Tendulakar had problems with Sehwag taking his opener’s slot. The initial success of Harbhajan Singh displaced Kumble from the team in situations where only one spinner is required, and it created some murmers of discontent in the Karnataka cricketing lobby. Is this cold war castist in character?
Question 6: What can be the future trends in Indian cricket team with respect to caste and class of players across regions?
Question 7: Some writers have pointed out Baloo inspired Ambedkar, something that Ambedkar has acknowledged. Can there be more Ambedkars if there are more Baloos?
I will like to put a disclaimer here that my intentions are neither to engage the fanatic cricket fans in a brainless debate nor to point a finger to the worthiness of any of the big cricketers I have named. Rather, with this article, I just want to dig into the truth and find out if India is really free of caste bias. If yes, then why is it that the eleven-member team of our most popular sport is not big enough to fit in a Dalit member? Or, does the problem lie somewhere else?
Many students and teachers stamp Dalit students as reserved or quota student. Quota is not an offer or an election time freebies given to dalits it is given to them in response to the century old slave like treatment meted out to them by the upper castes of India. Dalits got this reservation rights by several protests and fight.
The only way to bring social upliftment of dalits is to give them access to jobs and education hence the reservation policy has come. India alone is not the first country to offer reservation to the oppressed, countries like USA (red Indians, African black), Australia (Aborigines) offer reservation to the oppressed community. If a student get seat by money we don’t dare to discriminate him/her but the students coming through reservation alone is discriminated by upper caste students and teachers.
So friends, I request you to lend your support to the dalit students facing discrimination at your educational institution or work place.
Also I appeal to all the dalit students not to take the extreme step of suicide. If you come across any discrimination from the student or faculty side face them boldly you have nothing to lose.....!
