The Brahmin and the Hindu

Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer

As Swami Jayendra Saraswati stoically braves the onslaught of secular oppression unleashed by an unholy alliance of Government and media, it is clear that his tormentors have no case, have failed hopelessly in their nation-wide fishing expedition, but are nonetheless determined to keep him incarcerated. Nothing the judiciary has done so far gives ground for hope, so Swamigal's devotees may well prepare for a long eclipse of justice.

There is no legitimate cause to believe that the Kanchi Peetham's lawyers are not up to the mark, as was initially feared when bail did not materialize on the first day, as it should have. The Matham's meticulously drafted public statement, which appeared in select newspapers on 7 December 2004, reflects the professional skill of those engaged in defending the Swami. We must, therefore, take it in the spirit that the scales are tilted against us.

The Hindu-hating media has noted with satisfaction that adherents of sannatan dharma lack the terrorizing talents of Abrahamic faiths, and we may concede this. We have tolerated blasphemies such as the Shankaracharya's "plans" to flee to Nepal, but we have not asked how the Snam Progetti employee who became a political embarrassment to Signora Sonia Gandhi successfully escaped from the capital in a most timely fashion.

Meanwhile, Brahmin-bashers have rushed to fish in troubled waters. It is being said that Ms. Jayalalithaa ordered the action against the Shankaracharya because she needed to shed her pro-Brahmin image and curry favour with the Dravidian masses. It is being insinuated that the Brahmin community is an ogre that has been sucking the blood of the Hindu people for centuries. As the attempt to de-link the Hindu community from the Brahmin preceptor who preserved Dharma through a thousand years of oppression instantly reminds one of the mischief of the British Raj, it is worth scrutinizing the language of its modern advocates.

The Aryan Invasion Theory, raison d'etre for the north-south divide, has been debunked internationally. Brahmin-bashing, however, is one of the corrosive legacies of the Raj that has not been challenged head-on. It is therefore instructive to ask if Brahmins truly monopolized all access to education in the pre-British era, and thus cornered all avenues of employment. What kind of access did non-Brahmin castes have to education in south India before the British liberated them (sic) from the stranglehold of Brahmin control?

Dharampal (The Beautiful Tree) has effectively debunked the myth that Dalits had no place in the indigenous system of education. Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras, ordered a mammoth survey in June 1822, whereby the district collectors furnished the caste-wise division of students in four categories, viz., Brahmins, Vysyas (Vaishyas), Shoodras (Shudras) and other castes (broadly the modern scheduled castes). While the percentages of the different castes varied in each district, the results were revealing to the extent that they showed an impressive presence of the so-called lower castes in the school system.

Thus, in Vizagapatam, Brahmins and Vaishyas together accounted for 47% of the students, Shudras comprised 21% and the other castes (scheduled) were 20%; the remaining 12% were Muslims. In Tinnevelly, Brahmins were 21.8% of the total number of students, Shudras were 31.2% and other castes 38.4% (by no means a low figure). In South Arcot, Shudras and other castes together comprised more than 84% of the students!

In the realm of higher education as well, there were regional variations. Brahmins appear to have dominated in the Andhra and Tamil Nadu regions, but in the Malabar area, theology and law were Brahmin preserves, but astronomy and medicine were dominated by Shudras and other castes. Thus, of a total of 808 students in astronomy, only 78 were Brahmins, while 195 were Shudras and 510 belonged to the other castes (scheduled). In medicine, out of a total of 194 students, only 31 were Brahmins, 59 were Shudras and 100 belonged to the other castes. Even subjects like metaphysics and ethics that we generally associate with Brahmin supremacy, were dominated by the other castes (62) as opposed to merely 56 Brahmin students. It bears mentioning that this higher education was in the form of private tuition (or education at home), and to that extent also reflects the near equal economic power of the concerned groups.

As a concerned reader informed me, the 'Survey of Indigenous Education in the Province of Bombay (1820-1830)' showed that Brahmins were only 30% of the total students there. What is more, when William Adam surveyed Bengal and Bihar, he found that Brahmins and Kayasthas together comprised less than 40% of the total students, and that forty castes like Tanti, Teli, Napit, Sadgop, Tamli etc. were well represented in the student body. The Adam report mentions that in Burdwan district, while native schools had 674 students from the lowest thirty castes, the 13 missionary schools in the district together had only 86 students from those castes. Coming to teachers, Kayasthas triumphed with about 50% of the jobs and there were only six Chandal teachers; but Rajputs, Kshatriyas and Chattris (Khatris) together had only five teachers.

Even Dalit intellectuals have questioned what the British meant when they spoke of 'education' and 'learning'. Dr. D.R. Nagaraj, a leading Dalit leader of Karnataka, wrote that it was the British, particularly Lord Wellesley, who declared the Vedantic Hinduism of the Brahmins of Benares and Navadweep as "the standard Hinduism," because they realized that the vitality of the Hindu dharma of the lower castes was a threat to the empire. Fort William College, founded by Wellesley in 1800, played a major role in investing Vedantic learning with a prominence it probably hadn't had for centuries. In the process, the cultural heritage of the lower castes was successfully marginalized, and this remains an enduring legacy of colonialism.

Examining Dharampal's "Indian science and technology in the eighteenth century," Nagaraj observed that most of the native skills and technologies that perished as a result of British policies were those of the Dalit and artisan castes. This effectively debunks the fiction of Hindu-hating secularists that the so-called lower castes made no contribution to India's cultural heritage and needed deliverance from wily Brahmins.

Indeed, given the desperate manner in which the British vilified the Brahmin, it is worth examining what so annoyed them. As early as 1871-72, Sir John Campbell objected to Brahmins facilitating upward mobility: ".the Brahmans are always ready to receive all who will submit to them. The process of manufacturing Rajputs from ambitious aborigines (tribals) goes on before our eyes."

Sir Alfred Lyall was unhappy that ".more persons in India become every year Brahmanists than all the converts to all the other religions in India put together... these teachers address themselves to every one without distinction of caste or of creed; they preach to low-caste men and to the aboriginal tribes. in fact, they succeed largely in those ranks of the population which would lean towards Christianity and Mohammedanism if they were not drawn into Brahmanism." So much for the British public denunciation of the exclusion practiced by Brahmins!

Swami Jayendra Saraswati belonged to this league of Brahmin preceptor so hated by proselytizers. He even rebelled against Paramacharya Chandrashekharendra Saraswati in order to serve the Dalits. He became vulnerable to the present conspiracy because of the liberal access he permitted to himself.