Recent research and surveys confirm that the contemporary popular Western image of the “caste system” is poles apart from reality. The chasm results from many facts ignored or hidden from the public by vested interests. This series of six articles exposes these “secrets.”
The Caste System You Know
In a June 2020 lawsuit against alleged caste discrimination[1], the California State Civil Rights Department, citing the Encyclopedia Britannica, states:
“As a strict Hindu social and religious hierarchy, India’s caste system defines a person’s status based on…. the caste into which they are born—and will remain until death. At the bottom of the Indian hierarchy is the Dalit, typically the darkest complexion caste..”
The most liberal state in America claims that a Hindu’s caste is assigned at birth and fixed until death. A Dalit, born at the bottom, is stuck there forever — even if he becomes a sought-after software engineer, or she becomes President.
An Amnesty UK website states, “Caste is a social hierarchy. A very extreme social hierarchy. The caste you are born into decides your job, your role in society, and how people treat you. This is lifelong. You are born into a caste and you die in that caste.”
The 2007 report[2] “Hidden Apartheid” by Human Right Watch, and a report by the Dalit Solidarity Network[3], to take just two examples, claim horrifying large-scale, routine, abuse and torture of Dalits in India, presenting rare incidents as the norm, and completely ignore the gargantuan, successful, relief efforts over 70 years.
A June 2021 report in the Harvard Law Review[4], privileging the disconcerting claims of a single militant Dalit group, cites 19th-century colonial tropes, presents past practices as current, admits that caste discrimination is already covered by Title VII, but still recommends new rules/laws and bureaucracy to police caste discrimination.
It will be shown later how 19th-century Anglican evangelists destroyed Hinduism’s public image by harping on and exaggerating its flaws and excluding everything else. In the 21st century, their secularized descendants are using the same tactic. The only difference is that they pay lip service in passing to the Hindu viewpoint.
The Secrets You Don’t Know
Unfortunately, these images of “caste” current in the West are FALSE. What Western popular literature and media, books, textbooks, governments, policies, and political parties are led to believe does NOT reflect the reality of Hindu society. The reasons behind this stunning claim go to the very roots of Western civilization.
This series of articles will expose the dirty secrets behind misrepresenting the Hindu social order as an evil system worse than slavery (yes, it’s been said).
- Secret No. 1: Myths of the “Caste System” and Their Impact – How Varnas and Jatis were blatantly twisted and the resulting damage.
- Secret No. 2: The Real Social Organization: Varnas and Jatis – The ingenious organization of Hindu society to achieve unity in diversity
- Secret No. 3: How Varnas and Jatis Morphed into the Caste System – The sordid story of colonial and evangelical tricks and travesties about caste
- Secret No. 4: Fallacies or the Emperor has no Clothes – Popular Western parables about caste that just don’t hold water
- Secret No. 5: Caste System Side-Effects and After-Effects – Hindu society’s response to caste myths during and after British rule
- Secret No. 6: Finally, The Truth About Hindus – Without being mangled by the colonial, evangelical, and Marxist machine
These six essays, it is hoped, will spur the reader to further investigate the hateful, baseless, agenda-driven defamation of Hindu society and religion in general. Recent books and papers have somewhat thawed the artificial stigma against Hindus, but the news hasn’t reached the State of California or the USCIRF.
Citations
- California Department of Fair Employment and Housing vs. Cisco Systems, Inc., Footnotes 1 and 2. https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/07/01/cisco.pdf
- India: Hidden Apartheid, Report by New York University Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, 2007 – to inject bias before an Indian government report. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/india0207/india0207webwcover.pdf
- Caste in the UK, by Dalit Network UK. https://dsnuk.org/caste-in-the-uk/
- Title VII and Caste Discrimination, by Charanya Krishnaswamy and Guha Krishnamurthy, [1A and B] Harvard Law Review, June 2021. https://harvardlawreview.org/2021/06/title-vii-and-caste-discrimination/
