My take on anti-Brahmanism

I would like to make one thing clear before you proceed to read this post: I do not believe in any caste or religious systems; I am a true believer that any and all the religions have, in the due course of their evolution, either suppressed or altered the 'original' message.

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Of late, reservation and quota systems have been attracting a lot of attention in India. As an offshoot of this, anti-Brahmanism has also been brought into the limelight. Too many people in India have too many prejudices, viewing many a thing with jaundiced eyes.

It is true that the Brahmins and other "higher" castes WERE the proponents of discrimination, untouchability and the like. But it is to be noted that the original intentions of the caste system were different and they were lost somewhere in the middle ages (w.r.t India). Originally, each caste was assigned a specific role - the Kshathriyas were warriors, the Brahmins were priests and highly educated and so on. According to the Vedas, "the Brahmins are priests, the Kshathriyas are warriors, the Vaisyas are artisans and the Sudras are servants". Just because the Sudras and Vaisyas were assigned tasks that weren't as noble as those of priests or warriors, it does not mean that they were treated like slaves. In every society, such task-assignments existed and still continue to exist. To quote a few examples from Europe, even now, there are people with family names that demonstrate their profession - German Schuhmacher means shoe-maker; German Zimmermann means carpenter; Dutch Boer or Meier means farmer and so on (it is to be noted that in the modern era, they may or may not be involved in the professions corresponding to their family names). These professions were and are as important to the society as other professions. So, in the vedic period, the idea behind the classification was not discrimination, but organisation, to ensure that all the tasks were performed effectively. As centuries went by, discrimination evolved out of this somehow. And for this, the whole cross-section of the society was responsible! By trying to gouge out an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we are only demeaning ourselves - we are debasing India as a whole! I am not saying that the "higher" castes were/are blameless, but let's think ahead!

One more thing: Indians, in general, are intent on blaming the weakest. We were pillaged and plundered by the Muslim invaders, who, over a period spanning centuries, looted billions, if not trillions worth of gold and other valuables, resulting in the wretched living conditions in which more than half the Indian population finds itself. But now, the Muslims in India, who are the followers of the faith cultivated by these invaders, or in some cases, descendants of these invaders, are being given good privileges (again, the quota system). I am not against it; in fact, I appreciate the fact that so many Indian leaders were/are Muslims. But my question is, why blame the Brahmins and other "higher" castes alone? Surely, they didn't commit mass-murders, they didn't commit extensive crimes and didn't loot anyone's wealth - at least not in large scales. Why don't the same people, who're magnanimous enough to forgive the crimes of the Muslims, extend the same tendency to others too? Also, the arrival of Christianity to India paved way for centuries of colonialisation. But we tend to accept the Christians in India without any problems, which, in my view, is admirable. But why not accept the Brahmins and other "higher" castes? Similarly, no one talks about China-occupied Kashmir (yes, China occupied quite a big chunk of Kashmir, over which there was a war in the sixties, between India and China, in which the Chinese had the upper hand. Since then that region has been under Chinese control). Then why do we talk about the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir all the time? Is it because China is too strong? Let's treat all things, religions and people equally and live rationally! Let's remember and try to practise the age-old Indian virtue of treating things without prejudice!