We are a nation divided by caste, which is antithetical to the tenets of the Upanishads. Caste has stained our civilisational pantheistic ethos, and untouchability is still prevalent in many states. Let me recount two anecdotes.
After I retired prematurely from the Army, I decided to plunge into farming. My family in Karnataka had been compensated for land submerged under the Hemavathy dam in Gorur with a few acres of unreclaimed shrub land in a remote area of Hassan district. I bought a second-hand army tent, a Doberman pup, cooking utensils and some farming tools. I loaded everything on a lorry and ventured out in January 1979 to set up camp, along with a couple of hired carpenters and labourers, and a dalit boy who used to graze cattle in Gorur. We had to head-load all the material nearly a kilometre across the stream to reach the top of a small hillock to pitch my tent.
We reached just as the sun set, with the countryside bathed in an orange glow. None of us had eaten lunch, and we were ravenously hungry. We bathed in the stream, and I asked the boy to gather brushwood, light a fire and cook food. The crackling fire, the wafting fragrance of the smoke and the heady flavours of the steaming curry whetted the appetite. I sat on the ground with a banana leaf under the starlit sky, waiting to be served, and asked everyone to join me, just as in my Army camp days. As the dalit boy served me, one man whispered in my ear that they would not eat food cooked by a dalit and were expecting to be served food that they thought I had brought for myself from home.
For a moment, I was in disbelief. I began eating and urged them to take a leaf and sit down to eat with me, as it was already late and we had to rise early the next morning. They looked at each other knowingly, and the overpowering primeval hunger subsumed ingrained prejudices. Realising there was no other food in that remote area, and unable to bear their hunger pangs, they devoured what was served, turning the simple meal into a hearty repast. I recalled Kannada poet Sarvajna’s words: “Is there any deity before or above bread? There is no life without bread. Bread is the supreme deity of the universe.”
There were several castes among us: a Lingayat, a Gowda, a Kuruba, a Vishwakarma and a Brahmin, besides the dalit. I realised that not only the orthodox Brahmin but also other castes would not eat or drink what a dalit had touched. I understood why dalits feel a greater kinship with Muslims, Christians, Sikhs or Buddhists. None of those religions has the inhuman practice of untouchability. When Hindus shut their temples to dalits, should they be surprised if dalits embrace other faiths?
A few years later, as a mulberry silk farmer, I loaded my harvest of silkworm cocoons on a night bus to the famous Ramanagar cocoon auction market. When I alighted from the bus at 6 am, the normally bustling auction yard looked like a ghost town. I was told that there had been a communal clash between Hindus and Muslims, and a prohibitory order was in place. The reelers had boycotted the market. The cocoons, with living pupae inside, are perishable, and the thousands of farmers like me who had come from many parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh were in panic, staring at an irreparable loss. For the silk farmers, who are mainly Hindus, the reelers who buy their cocoons are God. The reelers, who are Muslims, consider the weavers who buy their silk yarn as divine beings. For the weavers, the wholesalers who purchase their fabric are their deities. The wholesalers, who are largely Marwaris and Gujaratis and are Jains, regard the retailers, mostly from the Bania caste, as their Bhagwan. In the end, the supreme lord for all is the customer, from every caste and community. Society is a complex, symbiotic web of interconnected and interdependent sections, as intricate, variegated and fragile as a Kancheepuram or Banarasi sari. How foolish we are to view ourselves through the prism of caste, creed and colour.
The Kannada poet Pampa, more than a thousand years ago, said, “Manushya Jati Taanonde Valam (There is only one caste: the human being.)” Appeasement of Muslims, with an eye on their vote bank by the Congress and the regional parties, without genuine concern for their welfare, has resulted in a majoritarian backlash, paving the way for the consolidation of Hindu votes, which were always divided. The BJP seized this opportunity. The impetus provided by the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Ram Temple movement has polarised our society along communal lines, corroding its vitals. Spewing of venom against Muslims, vigilante justice and state terrorism have become routine. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Hate is too big a burden to bear.” If we cannot aspire to be one nation, one people, will we have any future?
―The writer is a soldier, farmer and entrepreneur