Dr. Ambedkar & Mr. Hyde

Scroll India, which is part of the Omidyar network, has an opinion piece by Ajaz Ashraf- who also does some work for Al Jazeera- titled- Do Ambedkar’s writings about a Brahmin counter-revolution in 187 BCE hold a glimpse of India today?

The answer is, no- don't be silly! unless you happen to believe 'Brahmins have super-powers which they may use for evil'. 

Clearly Ajaz Ashraf- a smart guy who writes well and is probably quite close to me in age- has been the beneficiary of India's long tradition of Secularism- i.e. his brains have turned to mush.

Prior to the ascendancy of the Dynasty, Ashraf people, like Ajaz, did not think Brahmans had any sort of super-power. Jinnah and Iqbal were worried about Baniyas- Hindu merchants- out competing Muslim Business Houses (because the latter's inheritance laws were less suited to modern commerce) but were not frightened of Brahman magic. It is a remarkable achievement of the Dynasty's long sway in New Delhi that a highly educated Ashraf Muslim now believes that the Hindu priests whom his own ancestors had no difficulty crushing into insignificance nevertheless possess some occult power which operates in a univocal manner over Millennia.

You don't believe me? Judge for yourself-

In his incomplete work Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Ancient India, Dr BR Ambedkar credits Buddha and his teachings for laying the foundation of a revolution more than two millenniums ago. Buddha (died 486 BCE) repudiated the authority of the Vedas, harped on good conduct for salvation, and denounced the caste system as well as the ghastly, expensive ritual of animal sacrifice.

The first sentence is alethic. Ajaz has ably summarised Ambedkar. But look what happens in his second sentence where he is speaking in propria persona. This Ashraf Muslim- descended from Arab or Persian or Turkish, Noblemen and Jurists and Scholars equal to any to be found in Cairo or Damascus- says 'animal sacrifice' is 'ghastly'. He does not qualify this statement by saying animal sacrifice to idols or false gods is ghastly. He says the thing itself is ghastly.

Ajaz Ashraf is condemning a practice central to Islam. This is what Secularism has done to him. No doubt, he thinks Eid should be celebrated by eating grass. Goats should have equal rights and opportunities to enter the Civil Service. It is simply ghastly to chop them up and turn them into a delicious curry.


The Holy Quran says - [13:38] We have sent messengers before you (O Rashad), and we made them husbands with wives and children. No messenger can produce a miracle without GOD's authorization, and in accordance with a specific, predetermined time.

Lord Buddha did have a wife and a son. The Vedic Rishis too had progeny. That is why many Indian Muslim Jurists consider Buddhism and Hinduism to be 'Religions of the Book'.

However, the hadith of the Prophet (pbuh) is clear- there are no monks or nuns in Islam. No self perpetuating celibate monastic or priestly order is permitted in Islam. Toleration is another matter- however it is not incumbent on any Muslim to praise or show veneration for any such institution.

Ajaz, however, having been brainwashed by the Dynasty's brand of Secularism, thinks monastic orders can bring about a Revolution of a condign or salutary type.

He says- 

Under the Buddhist revolution, knowledge was not deemed the monopoly of the twice-born. Into the sangha, the monastic order Buddha founded, the Shudras were admitted – they could become bhikku, the Buddhist equivalent of Brahmins. Salvation was not ruled out for women, who had their own order, the bhikkhuni sangha.

He does not say that some Brahmans were admitted to the Sangha purely by virtue of their birth whereas no fishermen, hunter, boatman, scavenger etc. could be admitted at all. Moreover, nuns had to first be reborn as monks before attaining Salvation. Since Brahmins and Kshatriyas (Buddha's own caste, which he considered the highest) monopolised the best positions within the Sangha, Buddhism was most attractive to those who were already privileged. Moreover, it was Buddhism, not Hinduism, which spread the evil of untouchability to far off countries like Japan where it continues to be a problem to this day.

Ajaz is an Ashraf- i.e. highest caste (because non Indian origin) Muslim. Why is he condoning a monastic religion which linked caste explicitly to karma? Women and Dalits had to be reborn as high caste men in order to become Monks and then attain Salvation.

Ajaz probably has ancestors who came from countries where Buddhism was wholly uprooted and destroyed by Islamic invaders. In Bihar, we know, Buddhism wholly disappeared thanks to Muslim invaders, not a Brahmin counter-revolution.
Why is Ajaz quoting Ambedkar as saying-  The whole history of India is made to appear as though the only important thing in it is a catalogue of Muslim invasion,” & “If Hindu India was invaded by the Muslim invaders so was Buddhist India invaded by Brahmanic India.”
Ambedkar knew that Brahmins pre-existed Buddhism. So Buddhism stopped being the hegemonic Imperial Religion not because of an invasion but because of a counter-revolution. 
What Ambedkar was doing was the same thing as what the RSS was doing- viz. disintermediating the Brahman Mimasaka so that people and institutions could develop rapidly and on the basis of scientific rationality- not ancient customs and superstitions. Ambedkar made no scruple in marrying a Brahman- but she was a Doctor who could help him manage his diabetes. Unlike Jogendranath Mandal, Ambedkar spurned the Muslim League. He knew that Muslims would treat his people worse than the Hindus- as in fact has happened in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Mandal himself had to run away from Pakistan where he had been made a Minister.

Ajaz is aware that Pakistan and Bangladesh have mercilessly crushed and ethnically cleansed Hindus and Buddhists. He knows that ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims is a feature of most Islamic states.

Yet he writes-

There are many similarities between the two invasions (i.e. the Muslim one which featured a genuine invasion, and the supposed Brahminical one which was wholly indigenous), but also one crucial difference – Islam did not supplant Hinduism, but Brahmanism drove out Buddhism and occupied its place.

Of course Islam did not supplant Hinduism! That is why Pakistan and Bangladesh are Hindu majority countries.
No doubt, a corrupt bunch of Buddhist monks were chased out and replaced by some other bunch of charlatans claiming superior magical powers at some times and some places in India. So what? All those indigenous Empires or Kingdoms were either obliterated by Islamic invasions or else bent the knee to the British for a hundred years.

Why is Ajaz dredging up all this ancient history? Is he saying 'Islam knows how to uproot a Religion'?
'Buddhism didn't. It was supplanted by Brahmanism because the latter, like Islam, eschews celibacy. Moreover, just as Muslims have a strict code of conduct, so do the Brahmans in 'Manu' and other Smriti literature. However, to fully supplant another religion you  have to kill its leaders and ethnically cleanse its adherents. That's what works. After all, according to Ambedkar, some General who killed a lot of monks and who usurped the throne was the guy who put Buddhism on the back foot. So that's what needed for a 'counter revolution'. Targeted killing followed by ethnic cleansing.'

A new counter-revolution?
On this day of Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, a question therefore: is India in 2018 witnessing a counter-revolution of the kind Pushyamitra ushered in so violently in 187 BCE?

Of course! Amit Shah has placed a bounty of 100 gold pieces upon the head of every jhollawallah JNU type bhikku.

This question needs to be asked not just because of the spurt in atrocities committed on Dalits and the denial of their rights. It should be raised because the legal basis for establishing equality seems threatened.

Did Pushyamitra kill monks or did he cause atrocities against Dalits? Ambedkar may have pretended to believe that Dalits are the descendants of decapitated monks coz....urm... monks have babies in some magical manner while retaining their celibacy, but does Ajaz Ashraf- a Muslim from a learned family which has never accepted the magical or supernatural claims of Hindus or Buddhists or Catholics or whatever- really believe that Dalits were Monks 2200 years ago?

What about his second assertion- viz. that the 'legal basis for establishing equality' seems threatened? Is there any truth in this view? The fact of the matter is that, back in 2006, a store keeper in a Pharmacy College was given an adverse Annual Confidential report by two of his superiors. Since the storekeeper was SC, he filed a complained against his two superiors under the Anti Atrocities act- because, dude, getting a bad ACR is too an atrocity. Nothing happened. Ten years later, the storekeeper filed another complaint, this time against other officers including the senior most official in the Department concerned. They too had committed an atrocity against a Dalit because they had not taken action against some other dudes who had put something the Dalit didn't like into his ACR.

 The plain fact of the matter is that no atrocity arises where a boss criticises you or gives you a bad confidential report. The Law had been misused. Equality is not established by arresting innocent people who haven't committed an atrocity just because someone makes a prima facie absurd allegation against them.

How is the 'legal basis of establishing equality' threatened by clamping down on a loophole which allows bureaucrats to sue each other under an act that is supposed to prevent Atrocities against poor, illiterate, people?

What about affirmative action in Academia and the Civil Service? It is wholly unconnected with the plight of the vast majority of Dalits. How did they benefit from Devyani Khobargarde's getting immunity from a charge of domestic slavery in New York? If this lady's children get into an IIT or IIM with low marks, must they dance joyfully in the streets?

For instance, the Supreme Court has decreed that the college, not the department, should be taken as a unit for calculating reserved posts, the number of which is consequently expected to dwindle.

How terrible! The emaciated Dalit labouring in the Landlord's fields will now not get the Professorship in Quantum Computing he was hankering after! He will have to settle for a sinecure in some less prestigious Department instead.

Then on March 20, the court infamously diluted the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, by giving the accused a degree of protection from arrest, with an aim to curb misuse of the law.

Infamy! How dare the court give an accused 'a degree of protection from arrest'! They should just hang the fellow right away!  Courts have no business curbing 'misuse of the law'.

This goaded Dalits to call a Bharat Bandh on April 2.

Dalits were goaded because they were told that atrocities against them would be legalised. They weren't told that a law meant to help them was being used by bureaucrats for a wholly different purpose. Thus, if an official who was embezzling funds meant for destitute Dalits was called to account, he could halt proceedings by getting the whistle-blower arrested on a false charge.

It saw the upper castes mobilise and attack Dalits.

Indeed. The Atrocities Act becomes a dead letter where this type of communal violence becomes endemic. Police Stations won't register f.i.rs and District Courts won't convict under the provisions of the Act.
The 'creamy layer' of Dalits may, thanks to the Government panic, continue to enjoy immunity thanks to the provisions of the Act- but its whole purpose has been defeated.

In a throwback to the 1990 protest against the VP Singh government’s decision to provide job quotas for Other Backward Classes, the upper castes organised a bandh of their own against reservations on April 10.

Reservations can't solve the underlying problem of any community- let alone those traditionally engaged in productive labour. However, anti-Reservation mob violence can dramatically change the Law & Order picture in the Districts. Those worst affected are Dalits and ex-Dalit Muslims.

In the short run, Caste based and Dynastic parties can gain salience because of a rising tide of violence and deteriorating Governance. Why? Their own established networks of corruption and criminality can afford desperate voters a degree of security. However, medium to long term, everybody loses. What happens next? The one anti-Caste, non-dynastic, political force in the country- viz. the BJP in its more purely RSS incarnation- becomes Schelling focal as the Nation's only hope of Salvation.

It is the Sangh Parivar that has sustained upper caste hopes on rolling back reservation. For instance, before the 2015 Bihar elections, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat spoke of reviewing the policy of affirmative action.

But the BJP resiled from that position and are now in bed with Nitish. Ajaz isn't speaking of ground reality- he is prescribing an ideal trajectory, not for any particular political party, but rather for Caste Hinduism itself.

Or take the position the Narendra Modi government took on K Mahajan versus State of Maharashtra, the case that led to the March 20 Supreme Court order. Amarendra Sharan, amicus curiae (adviser to the court) in the case, accused the government of agreeing that “anticipatory bail could be given in case there is no prima facie case being made out under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act”. He also said it was the additional solicitor general who had supplied data on misuse of the Act.

Why is Mr. Ashraf pointing out that the BJP is doing something good- viz. preventing the Law being used to arrest innocent people? Does he not realize that every Muslim in the administration is endangered by a Law which permits a client of the ruling party to say 'this officer uttered a casteist slur. He has committed an atrocity on me. Lock him up!'.

Obviously, a powerful person is immune to any such charge because any genuine complainant will have been beaten to death already as part of the sort of atrocity the Act was supposed to prevent.

Does Mr. Ashraf think anticipatory bail should not be given to a Muslim accused by an Islamophobic member of an S.C or S.T community? Suppose the President, who happens to be SC, lodges a complaint against every single Muslim officer in the country alleging that they have all forced him to move the carcass of a cow. Prima facie, this is an absurd allegation. Currently, the Supreme Court is permitting anticipatory bail. Mr. Ashraf says this is because of the BJP. Does he not understand that if the BJP can make the Court cancel anticipatory bail in such cases, then it can simply imprison anyone it likes?

The luminaries of the Bharatiya Janata Party – Union minister Anant Kumar Hegde, for instance – have repeatedly spoken of framing a new Constitution.

So what? Does Mr. Ashraf think the Communists wouldn't have changed the Constitution or that the Dynasty did not actually change it?

To achieve such a goal, the BJP needs to win majority in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This mission, the government’s position on K Mahajan services – it polarised the upper castes and sections of Shudras against Dalits.

Wow! The Govt. should have supported locking people up even on prima facie absurd charges! Suppose any such thing happened; then, for sure, there would be a backlash against Dalits.

Indeed, when Manmohan Singh said 'henceforth, Muslims will have first call on the Government's resources', there was a backlash against Muslims. However, it is not the BJP but the caste based and dynastic parties which are playing this game. Already it has backfired. This means, once the BJP is ousted because of poor Economic performance, a High Caste consolidation against Dalits, similar to the Hindu consolidation against Muslims, will lead to a more Brahmanical BJP becoming hegemonic.

No doubt, the Dalits will have a role- that of accusing Muslims of atrocities and getting them locked up till they pay up- but then they are part of the Hindu fold.

Mr. Ashraf concludes that the 'Brahman counter-revolution' will end once the BJP wins the next election. They will change the Constitution depriving Muslims and Dalits of the wonderful paradise they currently enjoy.

How will the BJP do it?

The answer is 'graded inequality'

‘Graded inequality’
It may seem bewildering that the Sangh, undeniably the principal sponsor of 21st-century Brahmanic thought, should repeatedly win the support of non-upper castes.

Isn't it wonderful how an Ashraf Muslim can know '21st-century Brahmanic thought' whereas mere Brahmans by birth and upbringing and strict religious observance deny that any such cohesive entity exists?
Moreover, isn't it amazing that this Ashraf Muslim can implicitly attribute supernatural powers to descendants of the priestly caste of a Religion quite different from his own?

True, he does offer a naturalistic explanation but it is such obvious nonsense that either the man is a fool or what he's really doing is committing an anti Dalit atrocity by suggesting that even one of their greatest thinkers was as stupid as shit.

Ambedkar’s “graded inequality” explains the phenomenon well:
“… Inequality is not half so dangerous as graded inequality. Inequality does not last long. Under pure and simple inequality two things happen. It creates general discontent which forms the seed of revolution. It makes the sufferers combine against a common foe on a common grievance.”
By contrast, graded inequality, of which the caste system is an example, prevents the rise of general discontent that can become the “storm centre of revolution”. Ambedkar explains: “[With] the sufferers… becoming unequal both in terms of the benefit and the burden there is no possibility of a general combination of all classes to overthrow the inequity.”

Ashraf knows that we know that Ambedkar did well under the 'graded inequality' of the British Raj. He had an English girlfriend, a Brahman wife, and held high positions of a tokenist sort both before and after independence.
There was no revolution in India. There were revolutions in Russia and China and so on- but we all know how those turned out.
In India, a Revolution would mean dominant castes would ethnically cleanse or otherwise subjugate minorities and vulnerable sections of society.
The same thing has happened even without any Revolution though no doubt every party talks krap about 'kranti'.

This possibility is further reduced because the ruler adopts the divide and rule policy, of which the Modi government’s position on K Mahajan is an instance.

Yes! It is divide and rule to pretend to allow Dalits to throw anybody they like into jail though every one knows they can do no such thing.

It will soon sub-categorise the Other Backward Classes into three groups and slice and distribute the 27% reservation unequally among them.

So the BJP will carry on doing the same sorts of things previous administrations have done.

The government is also keen on passing the National Commission for Backward Classes Bill, which will vest in Parliament the power to exclude and include a social group from the reservation pool. This may just become the route to squeeze in Jats, Marathas and Kapus into the Other Backward Classes for reservation.

As is already happening.

The phenomenon of graded inequality will prompt the Shudras to fight among themselves; the beneficiaries will likely swing behind the BJP.

Wow! What an incredible discovery! There is a phenomenon called 'graded inequality' which can keep any Government in power no matter how badly it governs. Take Theresa May. In order to become Empress of England all she needs to do is to introduce Reservations and force English Shudras to fight among themselves. No doubt, the BJP could send her some Brahmans to show her how to work it. After all, only Brahmans have the super-power which turns some people into Shudras.

Mr. Ashraf concludes by making another great discovery- viz. the magical power of

Co-option and communal tension
The other method of ushering in counter-revolution is through co-option of radical forces. A resurgent Brahmanism co-opted Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, blunting whatever edge Buddhism retained after attacks from Pushyamitra, Mihirakula, and Shashanka. Likewise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has concertedly sought to appropriate Ambedkar.

Buddhism was such a radical force that it turned votaries of religions which require animal sacrifice- religions like Islam- into untouchables or barbarians who must be ethnically cleansed- as if happening right now in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Ambedkar was less stupid and ignorant than Gandhi or Nehru. Everyone seeks to 'appropriate Ambedkar' because his followers have done well for themselves. They are smart. They are talented. They are pragmatic- i.e. corrupt- but then wheels do need to be greased.

They are very radical because...urm...well they just are, okay?

Another favoured method of counter-revolution is to fan communal tension to spawn affinity among castes. In his Annihilation of Caste, Ambedkar notes, “A caste has no feeling that it is affiliated to other castes, except when there is a Hindu-Moslem riot. On all other occasions each caste endeavours to segregate itself and distinguish itself from other castes.” It is to forge a bond among castes that Sangh footsoldiers target Muslims in the hope the BJP will benefit from it electorally.

No question, the rise of radical Islam has consolidated non-Muslim votes along xenophobic lines across the globe.
Articles like Mr. Ashraf's serve a further purpose- viz. that of showing Muslim support for SC political outfits to be wholly hypocritical. The real aim is to destroy the cohesiveness of the indigenous Religion so that the invader's creed triumph.
Had Mr. Ashraf really cared about Dalits, he would have highlighted the fact that the Anti-Atrocity act isn't used to protect the helpless but to protect the corrupt. Instead of condemning a salutary move by the Supreme Court which merely recognises the existing reality (which is that no Government officer is ever jailed on a prima facie absurd allegation by a Dalit), Mr. Ashraf says that Dalits should have a power which, if exercised, will quickly lead to a huge backlash against them. Clearly, he is either a fool or is seeking to foment mischief against Dalits.

What is Mr. Ashraf's motivation? We don't know for sure but can only judge him by the arguments he makes.
We note that he has shown animus against the hereditary priests  of a Religion not his own. Why? Is it because he is a Buddhist and resents the decline of that Religion? Ambedkar was a Buddhist. He was perfectly entitled to mourn its departed glory. But Mr. Ashraf is Muslim. He is angry with Brahmanism not because Buddhism failed but because Islam did not prevail. This, at any rate, is the logical view of this Ashraf's article.

Commentators have often spoken of the “Muslim question”, the “Dalit question” and such like. It is strange that they have never thought of discussing the “upper caste question”. It is to the reactionary elements among the upper castes that commentators should turn to preach, for it is their conduct that imperils the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity enshrined in our Constitution. The very ideas, however rudimentary, that Pushyamitra’s counter-revolution of 187 BCE undermined.

The upper caste Hindus are the majority in most parts of India. They have changed their habitus quite significantly and are now responding to rational economic signals. There is no need for reform movements to question absurd or irrational practices- e.g. refusal to cross the 'black water', study English, train to be a surgeon or a soldier, wear dhoti instead of trousers etc, etc.

Preaching at people does no good. Incentives matter. Words are worthless. Perhaps Mr. Ashraf is tired of being lectured about the backwardness and fanaticism of Indian Muslims. But who is delivering such lectures? Why is he obliged to listen to them? He doesn't say. Still, thanks to Omidyar's generosity, this Ashraf has been given a chance to lecture 'reactionary elements among the upper castes.' Has Mr. Ashraf succeeded in his aim? Has he given a good lecture?

No. This Buddhism he praises as 'radical' is busy slaughtering Muslims on India's borders. Pushyamitra- whom most Indians have never heard of- clearly did us all a favour by cutting down to size a stupid, casteist, misogynistic religion which claims all sorts of supernatural powers for its deeply corrupt Abbots and Lamas. In 1997, a senior Buddhist Abbot recognised Stephen Segal as the tulku of some other great Lama. Why is an Ashraf Muslim- not an utter fool by the looks of things- endorsing such nonsense? What is the point of belonging to a great Religion, with a glorious tradition of rational jurisprudence, if you are going to make so absurd an argument? Our Sarkari Secularism does rot the brain, but nobody is obliged to let it do so. Similarly, there are ways to pay lip service to Dr. Ambedkar without running amok like Mr. Hyde.