Śambuka-Bashing — or The Confluence of Brown Racism and Casteism among the Hate-Rightists Masquerading as Hindus or Hindutvites

 

 

Śambuka-Bashing — or The Confluence of Brown Racism and Casteism among the Hate-Rightists Masquerading as Hindus or Hindutvites

Shrikant G. Talageri

Hindus are the most abused and reviled people on earth today. As I pointed out in my last blog (on "Hindutvawatch…"), the powerful armies of leftist wokism (or should I call it woke leftism) who straddle the expanse of the cyber-world as well all the most powerful channels of media and academia today, and hold the power to ostracize and persecute to the nth degree all those who seem to deviate by even a centimeter from the lakshman rekhas that they have set out for discourse on any and every subject under the sun (the massive international demonization campaign against the writer J K Rowling in recent times for making a statement which these totalitarian gurus found politically incorrect as per their guidelines is a prime example of their gargantuan power), and who pretend to stand against hate-speech and hate-ideologies of every kind, have only one major exception/exclusion in their long list of hate-ideologies to oppose: viz. anti-Hinduism. Hate-ideologies targeting Hindus (i.e. Brahmins, Hindus, Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindutvites) and hate-speech reviling Hindus (to repeat: Brahmins, Hindus, Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindutvites) are the only fully permissible forms of hate-ideology and hate-speech, and they are not only permitted and permissible, they are compulsory and mandatory. In fact, the more intense and vicious the hate ideology and hate-speech directed against Hindus (…), the more "liberal" the hate-speaker is to be deemed, as per the consensus!

But this article is not about these vicious anti-Hindu leftist "liberals", it is about their rightist counterparts among the vicious rightist Hindu extremists in India. Let me point out here, to begin with, that I have repeatedly in my writings stressed that I am not a Rightist. Rightism and Leftism are two of the three vertices of the political Ideology-Triangle: the third vertex is (in the Indian context) Hindutva, which is neither Right nor Left. In my article "Leftists and Rightists", I showed this in the form of a diagram or graph as follows:

 

IDEOLOGIES	TYPOLOGY	INSPIRING MOTIVES OR CHARACTERISTICS	CLAIMED AND ACTUAL AIMS
Hindu Nationalism	Sāttvik   Elevating Ideology ↑	ETHICS 1.Truth. 2.Justice. 3.Humanitarianism.	Claimed: Cultural Justice. Socio-Economic Justice.   Actual: SAME
Rightism	Rājasik   Expansive Ideology ← →	MATERIALISM 1.Greed. 2. Lust for Power. 3. Exploitation.	Claimed: Cultural Justice.   Actual: Economic Exploitation.
Leftism	Tāmasik   Degrading Ideology ↓	DARK EMOTIONS 1. Hatred. 2. Terror. 3. Anarchy.	Claimed: Socio-Economic Justice.   Actual: Cultural Hatred.

 

And, in that article ("Leftists and Rightists") I expressed the difference as follows:

"As far back as 1978, in an unpublished article written by me in a notebook (during the days of Janata Party rule, when I was in college) based on my observations of the proclivities of the "Hindu" politicians of the day, I had defined the three categories of ideologies in India as:

1. Leftism: claiming to fight for socio-economic justice while actually being a front for Hindu-haters.

2. Rightism: claiming to fight for Hinduism and Indian culture and heritage while actually being a front for the forces of socio-economic exploitation and obscurantism.

3. Hindu Nationalism: actually fighting for both Hinduism and Indian culture and heritage as well as for socio-economic justice.

Now, 41 years later, I still stick to this classification".

Therefore, I am as aware of the vicious Rightist elements masquerading as "Hindutvites" as I am of the vicious Leftist elements arraigned against Hindus, Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindutvites. Which is why my list of overt and covert enemies, ill-wishers and haters include not just the vicious Leftist elements, but also the vicious Rightist elements: those who function in the name of Hinduism/Hindutva only for the sake of votes and electoral victories or in pursuit of vicious socio-economic agendas (primarily obscurantism, misogyny and casteism). The Rightists and Leftists know that their main adversaries are those who stand for Hindutva; and hence, even as they preserve the outward drama of conflict with each other, their main targets are always those who are working for Hindutva, and both these elements coordinate their activities to strengthen each other and weaken Hindutva interests.    

Why am I writing all this now?

It is because of a recent trend that I have noticed — no, "recent" is the wrong word: this trend has always been there, but has intensified recently with the increasing power of social media and political gangsterism: the trend of Rightist troll armies attacking, in perfect coordination, those who are genuinely working for Hindutva. And these attacks are becoming more and more openly Rightist in their very clear demonstration of their racist, casteist or misogynistic motivations.

And the particular trigger for this article is a troll-campaign taking place in the last few days, directed against Koenraad Elst, which was brought to my notice by a well-wisher.

I will, for reasons that should be clear from the context, divide this article into two-sections:

 

A. Brown Racism and Koenraad Elst.

B. Obscurantism Disguised as Hindutva.

 

A. Brown Racism and Koenraad Elst.

Like all societies/people under siege, Hindus have produced their fair share of Quislings who cooperate with their attackers, and at the same time also of people who hate those "others" who come to their support. George Orwell (in his book "Down and Out in Paris and London", 1933) wrote: "A man receiving charity practically always hates his benefactor — it is a fixed characteristic of human nature; and, when he has fifty or a hundred others to back him, he will show it". Likewise, there are indeed certain types of Hindus who feel nothing but resentment of and hatred towards "outsiders" who come to their support in their civilizational battle for survival, and in recent times this hatred has come out in full force against Elst as the Trolls gather together for attack in Cyber Space.

 

Koenraad Elst has been the foremost "westerner" who has fought the ideological war for Hindus in recent memory, and because of his very erudite work in every field of Hindu ideological studies (history, religion, politics, culture) where he has adopted an objective stand sympathetic to the Hindu Cause, he has been ostracized in most western academic circles where anti-Hindu Leftism is the rule. The result of his deep and exhaustive intellectual work for Hindus (I should point out at this point that all the intellectual presentation of the Ram Mandir Case during the whole of the Ayodhya controversy by the Hindu side, including the VHP, was prepared by Elst), and the punishment he has had to face for all this on his home turf in the west has been the total disruption and destruction of his family life, his health and his financial situation.

Does all this endear him to Hindus?

Yes, it has indeed endeared him to all thinking Hindus, who have the greatest respect and affection for him and for his contribution to the Hindu/Indic Cause.

But two other characteristics of Elst which have earned him the respect of these thinking Hindus but also the unremitting hatred of certain more vicious sections among the Rightist elements masquerading as ardent Hindus/Hindutvites are:

1. His frankness and outspokenness, and his tendency to call a spade a spade, often without bothering to sugar-coat his words and opinions.

2. His lack of political shrewdness, or rather his inability to indulge in the necessary sycophancy and obsequiousness to be able to flatter the "Hindu" powers that be into giving him their political, institutional and economic support and backing.

One can have differences of opinion on particular issues, but this vicious hatred comes out to the fore on all the social media platforms where the trolls congregate. And the particular Rightist tendency that comes to the fore in this context is that of Racism: in fact what we may call Brown Racism.

 

The present attack (the one on Twitter that I referred to above) seems to have started with this tweet:

That this "thread" should have started with the reference to the story of Śambuka in the Valmiki Ramayana is significant: the story in the text is based on a casteist viewpoint or perspective according to which people of "lower" caste have no right to perform certain religious acts. It is not surprising that the obscurantist Rightist elements posing as representatives of Hinduism/Hindutva should find this particular story so pivotal in their attacks on Elst: he represents the modern or present-day Śambuka, a person who has no Right or Authority or Sanction to do certain things in respect of Hinduism or any Hindu issue. He is not a "lower caste" person, of course, but he is that other present Rightist "Hindu" category of Persons-Who-Have-No-Right: the "Outsider". In this particular thread, one "Hindu" tweeter talks of Elst's "European Christian upbringing", and another calls him an "indecent ignorant mlecha" who does not deserve respect:

This is of course nothing new: "Hindus" have been abusing Elst for years for being an "Outsider", a person who "has no adhikāra"  (it is fashionable to try to sound Sanskritic/Hindu/Indian, while making such statements, by using the phrase "adhikāra") to speak on Hindu or Indian issues, a "white-skinned foreigner", and many other things, some of them even more abusive.

So let us be very clear: Elst has every right to express his opinions and conclusions. He cannot be an "Outsider" under any circumstance in this matter. Those who call him an "Outsider" to Hinduism/India and therefore as not having the right to criticize or undertake critical analysis of Hindu/Indian issues are straightaway and outright insulting not only Elst but also the two greatest Father Figures of Hindutva Ideology: Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swaroop (and also others like Arun Shourie, apart from countless other Hindu scholars, writers and speakers of the present day, many of them featuring prominently on youtube for example, who are indulging in critical analysis of Islam and Christianity). All these revered scholars have indulged in deep and extremely path-breaking analyses of Islam and Christianity (the texts, history, theology, personalities, etc.), but, using similar brainless and biased logic, they can also be dismissed contemptuously as "Outsiders" to the two religions who have no "right" or "authority" to criticize them.

Let us be clear about another point: anyone — I repeat, anyone — has the right to criticize something which is wrong. When criticizing something in Hinduism, anyone, not just Hindu-friendly people like Elst, but anyone, can criticize whatever is wrong. Any question about their "right" to do so arises not on the grounds of their caste, race, nationality, gender, language, religion, skin-color, or any other personal criterion of this kind (including even their political ideology). It arises on the grounds of their degree of neutrality, objectivity, sincerity and honesty in such matters: the leftists (including western or Indian "academicians") and others of their ilk (Christian missionaries, casteist elements, etc.) do not have any right to criticize anything in Hinduism because they criticize (as I put it in an earlier article) the tiny molehills in Hinduism, while failing or refusing to criticize, or stonewalling debate on, or even defending, whitewashing or glorifying, the massive mountains in Christianity and Islam.

Koenraad Elst's highly critical studies and writings on Islam and Christianity, even more than his pro-Hindu writings and activities, give him the right to criticize things in Hinduism. The same goes for people like Dr. Ambedkar, Hamid Dalwai, and even people like Salman Rushdie when they criticize Hinduism — but not (and I don't care for political correctness) people like Jyotiba Phule (whose social zeal I will respect, but not his criticism of Hinduism since this criticism was accompanied by unwarranted praise and adulation for Christianity).

So let me say once again: Hindutva has no place for Brown Racists and Obscurantists who militantly promote casteist and misogynistic ideas.

With that, let us turn to the subject of the Valmiki Ramayana, or specifically the story of Śambuka in it, which was apparently the subject which caused this particular bout of name-calling and abuse on Twitter in the last few days.

 

B. Obscurantism Disguised as Hindutva.

The twitter thread above started with criticism of Elst's statement that "the story of Shambuka was not in the Ramayana previously but later added by people of casteist mindset". This criticism seems to imply either that the story of Shambuka is not an interpolation, or that it does not represent a casteist mindset, or both. But strangely, on going through the whole thread, it actually reveals other dimensions: here the critic additionally seems to imply that casteism was there throughout the Ramayana and even throughout the Rigveda. And then at the same time he seems to be trying to show how this casteism was in fact justified!

So far as I can see, this represents multiple aspects, propositions or arguments which require separate examination:

 

1. First, let us see whether the story of Śambuka represents discriminative casteism or not. The story (in the Valmiki Ramayana, Uttara Kanda, 73-76) is as follows:

One day, an aged Brahmin, carrying his dead child in his arms, appears at the gate of Rāma's palace, wailing and bemoaning the premature death of his son. According to him, it was not natural for a Brahmin boy to die, since neither he nor his son had committed any sins. Hence it could only be that his son died, in the kingdom of Rāma, because Rāma was guilty of allowing some serious sins to go unpunished within his realm. Rāma is disturbed by this accusation, and he summons ten pious Brahmins to find out what sin could have been committed within his kingdom. Their verdict is that the only sin which could have resulted in the untimely death of a Brahmin boy is the performance of the practice of "penance" within the kingdom by a Shudra, since a Shudra in that age (the dvāpara yuga) is not permitted to perform penance, and if he does so then it results in such incidents taking place in the kingdom. Hence they advice that Rāma should investigate the matter and punish the Shudra guilty of this sin.

Rāma immediately picks up his bow and arrows, and his sword, mounts his golden chariot, and sets off on a tour of his kingdom to find and punish the penance-performing Shudra. After touring his kingdom west, north and east, he finally comes to the banks of a lake beside a mountain in the southern part of his kingdom and comes upon an ascetic performing austerities.

Rāma asks the ascetic his caste and the purpose of his austerities, and the ascetic truthfully answers that he is a Shudra named Śambuka, and that he is performing austerities in order to attain heaven. Immediately, Rāma unsheathes his sword and cuts off the head of the ascetic. As soon as the ascetic is beheaded, all the Gods in heaven shower Rāma with a rain of celestial flowers and express their gratitude for having saved them from the ignominy of having a Shudra enter heaven. Rāma requests the Gods to bring the dead Brahmin boy back to life, which they joyfully agree to, and Rāma later returns to his kingdom after an extended tour of the ashramas of various rishis where he is praised for his glorious deed of slaying the Shudra Śambuka, and returns to his kingdom amidst acclamations from one and all.

This is the whole of the story of the slaying of Śambuka as it appears in the Valmiki Ramayana. The only point of the story is that a person belonging to the Shudra caste is performing a religious act (for the purpose of attaining heaven, an objective which the story tells us is disapproved of by the Gods who do not want a Shudra entering heaven), and that Rāma cuts off his head for this act. That this represents Casteism with a capital C, and nothing else, should be clear to the meanest intelligence.

Nowhere in the text is there any other angle by which the slaying of Śambuka can be justified on grounds other than casteist ones. And yet so many Hindus see the need to justify the story with hyper-imaginative fabrications. At the height of the Ayodhya movement, I remember reading an RSS publication (in the local RSS karyalaya) which justified this story by claiming that Śambuka was planning to attack heaven with an army, kill Indra, and occupy the throne of Indraloka, and it was to prevent this that Rāma killed him: the book also showed a picture of this Śambuka, in royal attire with a gleaming sword held aloft, as he set off for heaven at the head of an army!

This particular critic of Koenraad Elst (in the twitter attack under discussion) tells us that Rāma killed Śambuka not because he was a Shudra but because he was a "demon" performing dark rites which caused the deaths of several children:

But the story is definitely casteist, and here the phrase "Brahminical" would appear to be partially correct, since the stories are meant to promote exclusive powers and rights to Brahmins: however the word is not actually appropriate as a criticism for either Hinduism or Hindutva or even for members of any Brahmin caste (I am one myself), since this tendency to allot special powers, privileges and rights to the priestly classes is sadly an intrinsic part of religious cultures all over the human world: from the Abrahamic religions to the Pagan ones (tribal as well as Civilizational).

And that this kind of blatant casteism is regularly extolled in the Uttara Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana is proved by the even more blatantly casteist incident of the dog (Valmiki Ramayana, Uttara Kanda, 59-60):

One day, a dog stands howling continuously outside the gate of Rāma's palace, in quest of justice. Rāma sends Lakṣmaṇa out to find out what the problem is, and the dog relates that a Brahmin named Sarvathasiddha, angry at not having received any alms for the day, saw him lying in the middle of the road and vented his anger on the dog by striking it on the head with a stone. The wounded dog was now at death's door and wanted justice from the king. Rāma is nonplussed and asks his Brahmin advisers (presumably the same gaggle of advisers who decreed the death sentence on Śambuka) what punishment can be given to the Brahmin for his misdeed. The advisers give a single-line judgment which is the first of two laws that this story is intended to establish: they declare that "a Brahmin is exempt from punishment".

Rāma then asks the dog himself as to how he can give justice to him as the Brahmin is exempt from punishment. The dog gives him a strange reply: he tells him that the Brahmin should be appointed as the Head of the Kalanjava monastery within the kingdom, since the Head of the monastery had recently passed away and his successor was yet to be appointed.

As the head of the Kalanjava monastery was a highly respected and coveted post, everyone is astonished that the dog asks that the Brahmin be favored in this way rather than be made to face any punishment, and they ask the dog for an explanation.

The dog reveals that he himself was the head of that monastery in his earlier life. He was an ideal and pious head, and discharged all his duties selflessly and diligently without committing any lapses. In spite of that, there may have been some inadvertent lapses in his conduct which resulted in some shortcomings in his hospitality towards Brahmin guests visiting the monastery, and as a result of those inadvertent shortcomings he was born as a dog and had to suffer so much.

The dog points out that this Brahmin Sarvathasiddha was impious, harsh and cruel, and given to uncontrolled anger. So, as the head of the monastery, he would commit plenty of deliberate lapses in the discharge of his duties and in his treatment of the Brahmin guests; and as a person depriving Brahmins of their legitimate rights to hospitality, he would descend to the lowest hell in his next life, and suffer much more tortures than he (the dog) himself had suffered.

This second law, or moral of the story, is that even the smallest lapse in hospitable treatment of a Brahmin guest can lead anyone (even another Brahmin who is otherwise exempt from any punishment in this life) to suffer the most horrible punishments in his next life. So: be very careful never to allow even the smallest shortcoming in the hospitality offered to a Brahmin guest that could leave him anything less than fully satisfied. (This moral clearly forms the basis of countless Epic-Puranic stories where fulfilling the Brahmin guest's wishes — even the most bizarre and unjust wishes — constitutes the highest virtue, such as the stories of Anusūyā, Cilaya, Hariścandra, etc.). And the only way in which a Brahmin can lay himself open for punishment (even if only in the next life) is by committing such a "sin" against another Brahmin.

 

So,  yes: the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana is indeed a storehouse of some weird casteist stories (of which the Śambuka story is one) concocted solely for the glorification, enrichment and super-empowerment of Brahmins.

 

2. Secondly, are these stories in the Uttara Kanda interpolations or not?

Needless to say, the question of whether these incidents (the two named above for example) are stories, or they are actual historical events which actually took place in the time of Rāma, should not be a subject of serious discussion because things like children dying because someone is performing austerities and coming back to life when the person performing austerities is killed, or wounded dogs talking and giving advice as to the punishment to be meted out to their assailant, cannot be historical events which actually took place in the life of a historical Rāma (except in the eyes of extremely credulous religious believers). They are clearly stories.

So anyone who accepts that there was a historical Rāma and that the text records his history (and I assume the Hindu critics of Elst belong to this category) should naturally accept that there was an original historical text which recorded only the actual historical events in the life of Rāma, and (unless they feel that the whole of the Ramayana is a fabricated story) that such stories as the two above cannot have been a part of that original historical text and are therefore by definition interpolations added later into the text. So it is intrinsically self-contradictory that Koenraad Elst's twitter critic above (like so many other staunch "Hindus") insists that they are not interpolations instead of insisting that they are!

And it is intrinsically strange that these "Hindus" object to the idea that the story of Śambuka was added later by people with a casteist mindset, and prefer to believe that it is Rāma, rather than later interpolators, who had a casteist mindset. And further, they believe that by thus indicting Rāma under the guise of defending his casteist act, they are proving themselves to be good Hindus, and the person denying that Rāma performed this grossly casteist act is someone to be abused for showing an anti-Hindu bias!

It must be first understood that this question of "original" vs. "interpolated" in respect of the Valmiki Ramayana involves many chronological questions: the date of the actual Ramayana events, the date of the original Valmiki Ramayana text, and the possible dates of various real or interpolated parts within the text as we know it. Those Hindus who insist that the Valmiki Ramayana is an original text without any interpolations, and that it was written by a Valmiki who lived during the actual lifetime of Rāma, land themselves in a real soup, because it is clear from many important things mentioned in the Valmiki Ramayana (even apart from the language of the text, which many of these patriots will insist cannot be a criterion because Linguistics is a "western" ploy) that the text of the Valmiki Ramayana (or definitely many particular parts within that text) clearly represents a situation which prevailed in a post-Mauryan period around 300 BCE or so.

Now no-one — not even the most sceptical, conservative or hostile historian or scholar — dates the events in the Ramayana (leaving aside those who simply reject the whole saga as a myth or story rather than history) to the post-Mauryan period. Right from those who date the Ramayana events to lakhs of years ago to those who date them to a post-Mahabharata period (taking the Mahabharata events themselves as 900 BCE or so), no-one would accept that the actual events constituting the core story of the Ramayana took place in a post-Mauryan period.

But the indications in the text (to name only the most vital ones) show that the text itself definitely points to a composition or finalization in a Mauryan or post-Mauryan period:

1. The text names Yavanas (Ionian=Greeks). That the word Yona/Yavana refers to the Greeks, who were very well-known in North India in Mauryan and post-Mauryan times is beyond doubt: among other things, an Ashoka edict refers to a historical Greek king Antiochus as the Yavana king Antiyoka, and the Yavana Jataka (an astronomical text) uses many technical words borrowed from Greek astronomy. Many Hindus doggedly refuse to accept the references to Yavana and Romaka as references to Greeks and Romans, and insist that the words refer to two ancient Indian tribes/peoples/kingdoms unconnected with Greeks and Romans.

2. But the text also names Cholas, Pandyas and Keralas/Cheras as southern kingdoms: now it is a historical fact that these kingdoms came into existence around Mauryan or post-Mauryan times, and postulating that they (or different kingdoms unconnected with the historical kingdoms but with the same names) also existed at the time of the actual Ramayana events (centuries or millenniums earlier) would be extremely special pleading.

3. Most significant of all, the text (in the Ayodhya Kanda speech attributed to a courtier of Ayodhya named Jabali) also refers not only to Charvaka but also to the Buddha. Now even the most ardent Hindu revisionists of Indian historical chronology do not place the Buddha before 2000 BCE, and certainly no traditionalist would place the Buddha chronologically before Rāma. So it is clear that this is a reference which even the strongest protagonist of the no-interpolations-in the-Valmiki-Ramayana school would not be able to deny as an interpolation of the post-Mauryan period.

So (although rational thinking is never to be expected from those with religious biases or agendas) it is impossible for anyone to deny that the text of the Valmiki Ramayana contains interpolations. And once that is admitted, the identification of the exact parts which are to be treated as interpolations is a matter of scholarly debate or (to many) of wishful thinking.

 

Certainly, no-one can adopt an anti-interpolation stand claiming to be Hindus and accuse those who identify interpolations as somehow working against Hindu interests, since it is the former indeed who:

1. Readily believe that Rāma was a casteist and a performer of indefensible acts.

2. Readily accept the originality of fairy-tale stories within the text, laying the case open for the entire text (if it is to treated as original and bereft of interpolations) to be treated as an extended fairy-tale.

In short:

1. The reality of the chronological facts about the Ramayana and Mahabharata texts is that they were set down in writing, from the traditional oral histories of the two events, around Mauryan and post-Mauryan times (roughly around 300 BCE) and contain all kinds of interpolations and additions which had accrued in the original accounts till the time they were first set down in writing, and, in the course of time many more additions and interpolations continued to be made in the texts in many layers before their form was standardized (at some time after the first setting down in writing).

2. The actual events took place much earlier: the Mahabharata took place somewhere in the mid-second millennium BCE. The Ramayana took place earlier than that, but it cannot be pinpointed how much earlier since, unlike in the case of the Mahabharata (whose area is the same as the area of the earliest Vedic texts, and therefore it is possible to roughly arrive at its chronology by comparative analysis with those texts), the Ramayana events took place far to the east of the earliest areas represented in the Vedic texts (mainly in eastern UP and Bihar) and there is therefore no solid evidence to pinpoint their chronology.

3. Is casteism prevalent in all parts of the Ramayana text?

For some reason, the tweeter (kaundabhatta) in his thread on the subject insists that casteism is found in all parts of the text and not only in the Uttara Kanda. Even if that is so, that still does not refute Elst's statement that the Śambuka story (and for that matter the story of the dog) are later interpolations in the text by later writers (obviously Brahmins) deliberately inserted with a casteist agenda in mind.

Scholars studying the internal chronology of the Ramayana have been unanimous in identifying the Uttara Kanda as well as certain parts of the (first) Bala Kanda as interpolations. However I will not bother to waste my time here trying to demonstrate why they are right, not because this kind of classification by outsider "mlecchas" makes insider "Hindus" see red, but because this is a distinction which really serves little purpose as a distinction in the historical analysis of the text because both the main text as well as these interpolated parts of the text (only more so) are post-Mauryan. It is somewhat like the distinction between Maṇḍala 8 (of the Rigveda) as a whole and the Vālakhilya hymns within that Maṇḍala: the Vālakhilya hymns are definitely later additions into Maṇḍala 8, but both these 11 hymns (VIII.49-59) as well as the other 92 hymns (VIII.1-48, 60-103) in Maṇḍala 8 belong to the New Rigvedic period (albeit two different sub-periods within that period), and the distinction does not help in any particular way in the historical analysis of the Rigveda.

Now the fact is that the Mauryan and post-Mauryan periods saw a major churning, particularly in North India, with the arrival of, and temporary important historical role played by, barbaric as well as civilized foreigners like Huns, Scythians, Persians and Greeks. This led to a sort of identity issue in Indians which probably led to a fossilization of caste consciousness and endogamy —  certainly this is also apparently what genetic studies show: that the intermixing of people of different castes  started grinding to a halt around 300 BCE or so, and this probably was also the time that each individual castes (which were till then practically tribes, as affirmed by Dr. Ambedkar, with all four varṇas found within every tribe) started identifying or being identified with a particular one of the four varṇas.

Before this, the Vedic texts, and the older Puranic stories, show a free crossover of individuals from one varṇa to another. But this period (which also saw the first setting down in writing of the Epics and Puranas, and the composition of the dharma sutras and other texts) led to powerful castes (originally tribes) gradually transforming the originally non-hierarchical, non-hereditary and non-discriminative varṇa system into a hierarchical, hereditary and discriminative system with themselves at the top of the ladder.

Therefore while the main text of the Ramayana was composed in the earlier parts of this transformative period and shows milder strains of this transformation, the interpolated parts like the Uttara Kanda (which came later on in time) show the increasing stranglehold of the beneficiaries of this transformation, with the Brahmins (now at the top of the hierarchy) introducing casteist stories, rules and procedures of the kind discussed above to consolidate the hierarchical, hereditary and discriminative nature of this new varṇa system.

I know all this will anger large sections of militant "Hindus", but that cannot be helped.

 

4. Is casteism also prevalent in all parts of the Rigveda?

Weirdly, the tweeter (kaundabhatta) who started this whole discussion also insists that casteism (in the present sense of the term) is found in the Rigveda, and not only in the much-maligned, and admittedly late, Puruṣa Sūkta (Rigveda X.90), but in all parts of the Rigveda:

Let us start with the very late Puruṣa Sūkta: this is the only place in the whole of the Rigveda where, in one verse, X.90.12, all the four "castes" (i.e. varṇas) of the present day are mentioned together. But it is also the only place in the whole of the Rigveda which mentions the two "lower" of the varṇas: Śūdra and Vaiśya: those two words do not occur anywhere else in the entire Rigveda (which would be strange indeed if this four-"caste" system was existing throughout the period of the Rigveda). Therefore there has been a universal scholarly consensus that the varṇa system with the four present-day "castes" came into existence very late in time in the closing period of the composition of the Rigveda.

However, kaundabhatta is not restrained by facts: he locates the word kṣatra ("vigor" or "power") and its derivative form kṣatriya ("powerful ruler/king"), both together occurring a total of 8 times in the whole of the Rigveda, rejects the translation of the first word as "vigor"/power, and treats the derivative form as a reference to the second of the four varṇas. It does not matter to him that if it really referred in the Rigveda to the second of the four varṇas, it would have been found in X.90.12 as well: however, in that verse, which refers to the four varṇas together, the second varṇa is called Rājanya! And this word Rājanya, like the words Śūdra and Vaiśya, is not found anywhere else in the whole of the Rigveda.

So the sole word Brāhmaṇa, which is used in X.90.12 for the first of the four varṇas, and is found throughout the Rigveda as a word referring to priests/rishis becomes the sole evidence for "proving" that the four-varṇa system (which he interprets as "casteism") is found throughout the Rigvedic period!

And then, to add insult to injury (or is it the other way round?), kaundabhatta (in the rest of his twitter thread) "proves" that the caste-system existed in the Rigvedic period by borrowing a polemical device from the AIT scholars: in the absence of the word Śūdra in the rest of the Rigveda, he picks up references to dāsa and dasyu in the Rigveda and treats these words as actually referring to the fourth Śūdra varṇa! As I have repeatedly dealt with the meanings of these words in the Rigveda (see for example my blog article "Āryas, Dāsas and Dasyus in the Rigveda"), I will not waste my readers' time or my own by quoting his tweets on this matter or my above blog article in reply to his tweets.   

A word about the four varṇas in the Puruṣa Sūkta: while this hymn does indeed refer to the four varṇas (in a ritual hymn which describes a giant Primordial Man sacrificed by the Gods, from whom came into being the four divisions of a functioning human society), this sole reference nowhere indicates the hierarchical, hereditary and discriminative system which started evolving in post-Mauryan times. Nowhere does it indicate that any one of the four varṇas is inferior to another one, or that these four divisions are hereditary, or that discrimination against any one of the four varṇas forms a part of the narrative. It simply shows the four natural divisions of any human society in the world (tribal or civilizational): every society in the world has a priestly class, a ruling class, a commercial class, and the others, the working classes who constitute the other sections of society which make the society function smoothly.

Much is made of the fact that the fourth varṇa, Śūdra, is supposed to have emanated from the feet of the Primordial Man, as if this automatically shows contempt. But the connections are very logical: no human society can exist, function and progress without these four parts of human society:

a) the intellectual or thinking classes (who represent the mouth which guides any society with wisdom, and scientific and scholarly thought, emanating from the mouth),

b) the military classes (who represent the arm which rules the society and protects it from external enemies),

c) the trading and commercial classes (who represent the thighs or the forward movement of the society in material terms),

d) the other working classes (who represent the feet, on the strength of whose actual work rests the entire edifice of any functioning society).

 

The notion that the reference to feet is automatically an offensive reference represents a hyper-sensitiveness not warranted by anything in the hymn or anything anywhere else in the Rigveda or Vedic literature. No part of the body (and certainly not the feet which bear the entire burden of the body and without which the body would collapse) is inferior to another, except to those determined to deliberately misinterpret or misrepresent with ulterior motives. Two verses after the reference to the Śūdra emanating from the two feet, we are told in X.90.14 that the Earth emanated from the two feet: is this also a degradation of the Earth or an indication of the inferiority of the Earth?

A fable occurs in many ancient texts, emphasizing the equal importance of each and every part of the human body, the version in Aesop's tales is as follows: "One day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work while the Belly had all the food. So they held a meeting and decided to strike till the Belly consented to its proper share of the work. For a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. After a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were in poor condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. Thus even the Belly was doing necessary work for the Body, and all must work together or the Body will go to pieces".

https://fablesofaesop.com/the-belly-and-the-members.html

Strangely, in some versions of the fable, it is the feet, considering themselves one of the most important parts of the body, which first raise the objection against the stomach. The wikipedia article on "the Belly and the Members" tells us "There are several versions of the fable. In early Greek sources it concerns a dispute between the stomach and the feet"!

So, it is time to abandon narrow-minded and bigoted interpretations of the Puruṣa Sūkta, and to learn to view it from the point of view from which it was composed; that of a mystical-philosophical creation-myth of a functioning human society.

For the purpose of this article and the subject of this article, it is sufficient to note that the present-day hierarchical, hereditary and discriminative version of social divisions which comes to mind at the word "casteist" was totally unknown in the period of the Rigveda.

I will end the article at this point.

 

APPENDIX Added 7-12-2021

THE SANGH/BJP AND BROWN RACISM/CASTEISM:

I should get out of the habit of responding to tweets and of adding appendices to completed articles. But at the moment I am doing both, in this case because it is possible that a juxtaposition of sentences may have given rise to a wrong impression in the above article.

The following tweet has been brought to my notice:

I don't mind being accused of "Sangh/BJP Bashing" (though the term is not right), because in my opinion the BJP Pariwar (this is the correct phrase, since the BJP is not part of a Sangh Pariwar, but the Sangh is a part of the BJP Pariwar, in reality if not in historical chronology) is more dangerous for Hinduism and Hindutva than any secular formation. This Pariwar can continue every single anti-Hindu measure of the secularists (I refuse to discuss the token political gestures of quasi-Hindutva which they pretend to make on occasion, especially before any elections), and initiate many more (and more deadly) ones, and the "Hindutva"-brigades which rise up in protest if the same things are done by secularists will largely ignore, defend, whitewash or even glorify these anti-Hindu acts (or make token protests but tell us "T.I.N.A. to the BJP"), which I find much more dangerous than the actions of the open enemies of Hinduism and Hindutva.

Also, in the socio-economic sphere, I think the BJP Pariwar is more harmful to the interests of the common man than almost any other political formation. Also, Corruption: Electoral Bonds; Anti-Nationalism: the 2018 Amendments to the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act; etc. etc.

However, in my above article I have not claimed that "the trads are attack dogs of the Sangh" as claimed in the above tweet.

It just happens that both the "trads" and the BJP Pariwar are both Rightists as per my definition given above. However, in the social media there may be as many "trads" who are anti-BJP because of the anti-Hindu acts of the BJP (or, occasionally, because the BJP as a political party with political compulsions is practically unable to cater to certain obscurantist demands), as there are "trads" who are pro-BJP because of their (wrong) perception that the BJP is pro-Hindu. So there is really no direct equation between "trads" and the BJP Pariwar.

In the matter of  casteism, in fact, the record of the Sangh Pariwar (here I must use this term, excluding the BJP which has done its fair share of casteist politics) is very good: it is actually less caste-ridden than all other political formations. Its problem is that it encourages anti-intellectualism and frowns on intellectual activities and serious non-juvenile thinking on any subject and prefers unintellectual and juvenile jingoist discourse: Guru Golwalkar apparently even discouraged swayamsewaks from reading books ("Just take part in Sangh shakha activities and everything will automatically fall into place" is their motto — somewhat like Maharshi Mahesh Yogi who claimed that if a certain percentage of the population practiced TM all crime would vanish from society).

And in the matter of Brown Racism, the BJP Pariwar as a whole is, on the contrary, quite in awe of White Racists.

So the "trad" armies in the social media are not necessarily "Sangh/BJP" people, though some of them may happen to be so.

Yes, the BJP Pariwar (as befitting its Orwellian Animal Farm nature) has "attack dogs", but they are not concerned with religious or historical issues, only with Political, Electoral, Party, and Leadership/Hero-worship issues.