The increasing number of youths from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes are breaking the glass ceiling imposed by the Brahminical Hinduism. They are not just excelling in academics, but are excelling in their vocations. This will continue to go on. The so called upper castes in India (read Brahmins) have barred the Bahujans (read SC, ST, OBCs) from acquiring knowledge, but that knowledge was the knowledge of books, the Vedas. At the time of Ashoka, the literacy in India must be the highest judging by the rock edicts he placed all over the Indian subcontinent, one can surmise that a large number of people could read and write the royal edicts. Reciting the Vedas had been the privilege of the Brahmins, and writing was considered so low that a special caste came into being to write: the Kayasthas. So when the British came to India, they needed clerks and they turned to the Kayasthas. That is how the Kayasthas began to dominate India’s Civil services and rose their social status due to access to the British bureaucracy. Soon, the Brahmins joined this bandwagon and could get access to government posts and other important positions. Though the education was accessible to all under the British rule, the Brahmins stopped the Shudras, Ati-Shudras, and women from coming to the schools. They discriminated young boys (girls could not go to schools because of the social system) from the so-called lower castes. So the dominance of the Brahmins and Kayastas in different organs of the Government has nothing to with their inherent supremacy over others, but it is the result of historical advantage they had and the disadvantage they posed to the majority of Indians.

Merit is all about opportunity. It has nothing to do with any inherent talent in any cultural groups.

Despite so much access to higher education and higher education, the Brahmins have not produced any knowledge worth the humanity. The Brahmins have been running this country for a long time, but the results are dismal. They couldn’t do anything to challenge the caste system or upgrade the status of the women in the society. In fact, they only worked to safeguard the interests of their caste. Be it Tilak, or Savarkar. They always kept Brahmin interest ahead of national interest. A nationalist Brahmin is a contradiction in terms. They had no audacity to sacrifice their privilege for building the new nation on the basis of fraternity, equality, and liberty. Their score on nationalism is not only zero, but in many cases negative.

This parasite of the privileged caste always survived on the efforts and hard work of India’s majority of the oppressed. The artisan classes were the real producers of the knowledge because they were at the forefront of creating things. The intelligence of the India’s majority of the oppressed is grounded into practical affairs and action and the practical affairs and the action leads to creative thinking. In fact, action has been the precursor of thinking if we trace the evolutionary history of humankind. Brahmins did not act or worked; they played on the basic human emotions fear of unknown and fear of death. And they only recited mantras which had no practical use except acting as a drug to delude the masses.

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Merit is all about opportunity. It has nothing to do with any inherent talent in any cultural groups. The new framework that Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar brought in India created opportunities for all the people irrespective of the caste, gender, and place of birth. The new framework has to take into consideration the historical injustice, and it has to level the privileges of the privileged and upgrade the accessibility of the underprivileged. This system is unfortunately called reservations in India. It is not reservation but the mechanism to level the society so that those who have been denied opportunities by the Hindu social order will have opportunities to access the educational institutes and jobs.

Merit is a fake concept designed by Manuwadis to deprive equal opportunities to all.

But the Brahmins who lack basic merit of humanity have been trumpeting that they are more meritorious than the India’s oppressed majority. Of course, they are not, far from meritorious they are mediocre. Given a number of privileges the Brahmins had and have, they had in their power everything to lead this country forward, but by practicing divisive politics, by maligning the poor and backward class Muslims, and opposing the human and constitutional rights of India’s SC, ST, and OBCs, they have become the greatest stumbling block in the nation’s progress.

The country should be led by the people who have technical knowledge of doing things and not merely contemplating the things. If one day India is ruled by the Dalit or an enlightened Shudra, that will be a beginning of great stride forward. If Babasaheb Ambedkar does so much with his little portfolio of labor for this country, just imagine what would have happened had he come to the Prime Minister of India. He was head and shoulders above all the leaders of that time. With my brief encounter with the founder of BSP, Kanshiram Saheb, I realized quickly that his scientific bend of mind and intensive field work throughout India was the qualification not possessed by any Indian leader of any party that time and had he become the Prime Minister of India, it would have been a different India. It is time for India’s oppressed to not only capture the positions in the academic institutes but claim their stake on the highest positions in all the organs of the Government and create India of the dreams of Babasaheb Ambedkar!

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist

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