Here.
It turns that the great Mahatma Gandhi was bit of a monster. Or maybe more than a bit of one. I had heard before that Gandhi defended the castes system. That made him suspect in my eyes right there. Now it turns out that in 1933, the British attempted to put in place something called the Poona Act. This would have, among other things, set aside affirmative action style reservations allowing Dalits and other low castes positions, including top positions, in government at all levels. There were also some more controversial aspects to it, but let’s leave it at that for now.
Dr. Ambedkar, the great Dalit leader who wrote India’s Constitution, wrote the Poona Act. However, many high caste Indian leaders protested this Act, and Gandhi went on a hunger strike, vowing to hunger strike until death of lower castes were allowed reserved positions in the Indian government. What a monster! A wild raging debate was set off in India, and tens of thousands of Dalits and other low castes were slaughtered in communal riots all across the land. The communal massacres were so bad that Ambedkar went to Gandhi and promised to remove his proposal, and Gandhi then ended his hunger strike. And Gandhi nearly died in his strike.
And it is for this reason that Dalits and other lower castes hate Gandhi so much.
The article also notes that although reservations have been set aside for Dalits and other low castes at universities and government jobs, the large majority of them have yet gone unfilled. Further, although the Indian Constitution outlaws caste discrimination, effectively, this is not enforced, and India’s courts which are filled with high caste Indians refuse to enforce the laws.
The article states that high castes are only 10-15% of the population and implies that lower or low castes are 85-90% of the population. Are those figures true. They seem on the low side for high castes and on the high side for low castes, but I suppose it is a matter of definition.
PS Countercurrents is a superb publication with a lot of progressive focus on Indian issues.
