Dalits and Islam. How the Muslim number in India grew?

The national resolve

By Kancha Ilaiah

Hinduism must realise that the caste system is sounding its death knell by brewing intolerance and division.

India as a nation has not yet declared its resolve on the question of abolition of caste. The half hearted efforts to improve the social life of Dalits, tribals and the Other Backward Castes is not going to make any significant change in national life. The abolition of caste is not just a political question. It cannot be abolished by constitutional means. The attempt of the chairman of the SC, ST commission, Suraj Bhan, to abolish this through constitutional means is putting the cart before the horse. It can be abolished only through spiritual means. It was constructed and nurtured and maintained only through Hindu spiritual means. If Hinduism does not abolish caste it cannot abolish untouchability. It will walk into the trap of its own death. As of now it does not seem to have any history of abolition of caste on its own. The Hindu spiritual punditry is too rigid and archaic.

Construction or destruction of a religious culture does not depend on the national constitution. Religious cultures are global in nature. Hinduism as a religion developed a similar caste system in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh regions, as they were part of the so called Akhand Bharat. It was caste that pushed the Chandala (modern Dalits) , tribal and Sudra masses of those regions into Islam creating new Islamic states. The Hindu priests and the so called Acharyas and the Hindutva political forces never realised that the expansion of Islam in present Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh took place because of caste and violence that the Hindu caste system inflicted on the Untouchables, Tribals and Sudras in their pre-Islamic life.

No human being tolerates spiritual humiliation. When human beings are treated much less than animals by those who are handling the religious institutions no Karma theory can contain them within the fold of that religion. The suppressed people, who walked into Islam, became riotous after they got out of the fold of that religion. The social base of violent Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be read into its transitional phase of the caste-tribal groups into an advanced homogenised Islamic social force. Some amount of violence is bound to be generated, when the groups that were living unequally begin to become equal. That is an inevitable evil. Societies may have to pass through that phase. Even the European Christian societies that were spiritually egalitarian had to go through that process of violent formations of nations in the late medieval periods. The historical caste societies might produce more violence, because caste itself survives through violent means.

Examples of divisive demands

Once the religious composition of the social mass changes the demand for separate nationhood becomes inevitable. We have had two such examples. Pakistan along with Bangladesh became independent in 1947 because by then the social mass in those regions had already become Islamic. Assuming that the lower caste masses of that region were happy Hindus as some Brahminical intellectuals are claiming, such vast social mass would not have become Islamic. No forceful conversion can change such a vast social mass into another religion. Having become Islamic the masses were also convinced that they cannot co-exist with the Hindu nation which did not have any respect for spiritual equality. It was because of this process that the two nation theory came into vogue.

One of the reasons for such a demand for separate nationhood was that all the lower castes, who became Muslims, did not want to do anything with the Hindu caste system and its practices. Islam changed their relation to caste both in the name and form. That is the reason why the Indian Muslims today are asking for reservations as a religious group but not as caste groups. There are no such markedly identifiable castes within Islam. This was the reason why Islam became more attractive to the suppressed castes and more of them moved into that religion.

The second example is that of Kashmir. By 1947 the estimate was that in Kashmir about 40 per cent population was non-Muslim, of which a small percentage was that of Brahmins-- called Pundits. But by the end of the twentieth century almost all the Non-Muslims had embraced Islam. The exodus of Kashmiri lower castes into Islam was gradual. Only the Pundits were left within the fold of Hinduism by 1990. Today the whole of Kashmir has become Islamic. The Pundits have been forced out of that region because religious exclusivism and religious inclusivism cannot co-exist. Co-existence of two or more religions at one place becomes possible if the social mass living in those religions is totally content with their spiritual life. With the kind of spiritual discontentment among the SC, ST and OBCs and with the kind of spiritual control that Brahminism has over Hinduism, there is always a fear that the discontented social mass would go into some other religion.

As the religious identity is central to nationhood the change of the religious composition would bring in a demand for separate nationhood in every region. Three Northeastern states, who have become predominantly Christian, are already in that mood. Banning of cow slaughter nationwide would force such states for greater autonomy and gradually ask for the right to nationhood. The Kashmiri Islamic nationhood became a possible proposition within our life time. The state of the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, a Kashmiri Pundit, has become Islamic under the nose of its own family administration within a very short span.

The Hindu pundits who have been preaching tolerance in Hinduism must realise that the very existence of caste in the religion is an indication of its intolerance. And that very caste system drives Hinduism into a death trap. The choice before Hinduism is between allowing people to become totally spiritually egalitarian or go into oblivion as happened in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and Kashmir.