Caste Discrimination to be Outlawed by Equality Law – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22267147
Is this a case of Karma being a bitch and the Lords getting bit by what they chose to ignore and seeing as “Not Our Problem mate”!!
So here is the whole story in brief:
Britishers ruled India, by virtue of which a lot of Indians ended up in the UK and not surprisingly about four hundred thousand Untouchables among them. Indians as you have grasped by now take their caste system wherever they go so even those in UK practice them hence the discriminate against Untouchables all forcing the Govt to acknowledge and outlaw Caste Discrimination by including it in the Equality Law.
Dalit organizations have hailed it as a win, and the govt of India and the other upper caste organizations didn’t think much of it and didn’t talk about it as that is how they let caste issues die. But what I wanted to look into was what are the Britishers (the Lords and the Commons) making out of all this. Are they asking the below questions …
- Why did this become their problem?
- Did they not know of this problem in their 400 year rule of India.
- Did they have a means to have squashed this problem when in its infancy?
- What could they have done to avert it?
I bet, it is no fun task to come up with a law like this and deal with such discrimination that is so hard to discern, unlike Race discrimination etc. So it makes it that much more interesting to find if in some way this whole ugly situation could have been avoided in the first place, so lets check the history in depth.
When Britishers came to India they were easily able to see the plight of the Untouchables and the social status they were given. They were able to discern the social system and not just understand it but exploit it to their advantage. Any of you ever wonder how Britishers were able to topple Indian kingdoms in no time and with very little need for military force from back home? They did so by using the untouchables. They realized the low status of the Untouchables in the Hindu society and their willingness to fight for a life of dignity. The first regiment started by Britishers was the Mahar regiment (untouchables around Mumbai) and made up 1/6th of the Company’s Bombay Regiment. They achieved many successes, most notably on 1 January 1818, when only 500 Soldiers of Mahar Regiment of the 2nd Battalion of 1st Regiment of the Bombay Native Light Infantry along with 250 cavalrymen and 24 cannon defeated 20,000 horsemen and 8,000 foot soldiers of the Peshwa Army in what would be called the Battle of Koregaon.
And Untouchables in this situation benefited from education, employment and a level of social acceptance that was never achieved by them. A mutually beneficial system I would say, Untouchables get a way out and the Britishers get a way into owning Indian.
However after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, this alliance seemed to have changed. in 1892, when it was decided to institute “class regiments” in the Indian Army. The Mahars were left out of these class regiments, and it was notified that the Mahars, among with some other classes, were no longer to be recruited. The Mahar troops, who included 104 Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers and a host of Non-commissioned officers and Sepoys were demobilized. For years, the Mahars regarded this event as a great betrayal of their loyalty by a government they had steadfastly served for over a hundred years.
The reason I share this is to show that Britishers used the untouchables for the purspose they had on hand but for some mysterious reason let go of them and suddenly plunged them back to the depths where they came from. And that is the reason I titled this post ‘Lords of the Castes’ on the lines of the movie/book trilogy ‘Lord of the Rings’ … in the movie!
Elrond leads Isildur deep into the fires of Mt. Doom where the ring could have been destroyed at the place it was forged. And Isildur instead of throwing it keeps it!!
In a similar way, Britishers were in the middle of the caste system, they had full awareness of it, and the means to end it. They had let the Untouchables out of their depths, given them employment, education much beyond that hope and dignity and all they had to do was continue their support for just a bit longer and they could have pulled the Untouchables out of those depths forever and would have made them strong and self sufficient and left them in a position where they could have truly claimed their fair share in the affairs of the country and more importantly their own lives. And where a caste free society could have been a possibility
But what did they choose to do, instead of continuing support to their most loyal subjects they withdrew it all and paralyzed them. They disbanded the Mahar Regiment, closed doors of employment in the army to them and relegated them to the social outcasts that they had always been. And much to the chagrin of the lower castes they recruited upper castes into all the civil and administrative posts thus creating a further barrier between them and the Untouchables. And all this while they had full access to the man who could have given then the ins and outs of the caste system and the way to annihilate it, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.
So when they had a chance to break up the caste system or at least get the Untouchables out of its wretched claws they dropped the ball. And for that they now have a “it has come to bite me in the back” situation. And for that I don’t feel an iota of pity for them. I definitely understand that the folks that are suffering the discrimination are my Untouchable brothers, and sisters, and I will wholeheartedly fight for their, and my emancipation but as far as the Britishers are considered I could care less for the troubles they are going through right now, because either they were dumb to not see the full picture, or were plain selfish to have ditched the Untouchables after they got what they needed from them.
I just hope that this serves as warning to the other countries like US, Canada and Australia where there is a large Indian populating and the issue of caste discrimination is right under the nose!
Be warned, if Indians live among you, so does Caste System ..!