Apropos of the column The Left’s Untouchable (Apr 23), mainstream Marxism remains Brahminical in India. From M.N. Roy, alias Narendranath Bhattacharya (founder of the Communist Party of India in Tashkent), down to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Sitaram Yechury and the Karats all vouch for what is true about ‘ideology’ in India. They have been merely using the lower castes as a ladder to capture power, and enjoy its fruits.

Sanket Biswas, Calcutta

EMS was a Brahmin who did not think caste was an issue purely because he was a devout following the tenets of Communism. The Communists failed in India not because of the class-caste conundrum, but because they were plain stupid. If Mao could change his base from the urban proletariat to the peasantry, Indian commies could have done some lateral thinking as well!

Abhishek S., on e-mail

In today’s Dalit politics, Gandhi is an unwanted personality and Left ideals are mostly irrelevant. An unfortunate casualty of this is the lack of a frank discussion about the true emancipatory potential of the politics being carried out in Ambedkar’s name.

Narendra M. Apte, Pune

The author might want to check with the CPI(M) in Kerala: for decades, they’ve won power on the back of their backward and Dalit workers.

D. Anjaneyulu, Chennai

 There are so many untouchables within the untouchable.....

The knowall author would do well to reflect on the fact that the CPI(M) in Kerala has for decades won power led by Dalit leaders and Dalit workers, who form a majority of its membership in the state.

 RAMKI
DELHI, INDIA

The bell didn't ring. Or may be the postman has to always ring the bell twice. 

Ironically, I apologize for the last comment. 

 Many many genuinely humanitarian persons who hated oppression and injustice have in the past been drawn into the left, and especially into the Marxist stream of politics in India. Some of them who found themselves in leadership positions have misdirected the movement by their simplistic and dogmatic understanding of the Indian reality. But there is no doubt about the sincerity and commitment of such leaders who sacrificed a lot. 

But one senses the deep caste prejudice of certain other left leaders who unconsciously perhaps chose to ignore the injustice of the caste system. It so happened that such leaders had the upper hand as ideologues in shaping the thinking of the  Party as a whole.

Fortunately today such grey eminences are no more.

The Left can even now make a determined effort and change course. For this to take place the Stalinist mindset must be discarded. A willingness to engage is indispensable. 

Unfortunately it seems that Mamata is the one who is learning from the Left and what she is learning is the Stalinist method which we want the leftists to unlearn.

 YHWH >>  It is Brahmins who know only to procreate and increase their number.

Ha ha...for a caste which was neither a martial race (meaning a warrior community/ruling community) and neither a mercantile race, which entirely had to depend on getting the grants from others and serving (be it religious blah blah or things like ayurvedha etc), procreation is simply ruled out. Kind of also explains despite being 2500 years on top of social order, only 5% of Indians belong to this caste. Not to forget that this community was the first target for any invader who did not agree with their culture (am referring to era from mohammed ghazni). And that continuesto date. Partition violence on Pakistan side was centred on hate of baniyas and  brahmins.And we had right  in secular India,  Kashmir Pandits cleansed. Evenin buddhist sinhalese sri lanka, when race riots began in early 1980s, the first target of the sri lankan army was those umpteen murugan temples and the priestly families who managed them. 

Not telling all this to make any case for martyrhood  here, merely telling that India's caste system and consequent cruelties happened not because of one caste but because the elite across all communities found it useful to perpetrate their hold.

 To Sanket Biswas and those who  support his worldview....

You would need to take your history lessons seriously. May i inform you somebasic fact? Brahmins In India, over last 2500 years were neither a martial community nor a mercantile community, meaning they neither had the ruling power nor they had the money power.The chaturvarna system was actually a dice loaded against brahmins but it appeared as if it put the caste in top place. Religion mumbo jumbo and ownership of temples really meant nothing in a realworld where you had invaders from other nations/cultures and you had famines and deprivation.That probably would also  explain why despite supposed 2500 years of advantage, people of the caste you folks hate are physically weaker and dont own much physical assets (except maybe UP ) and are just 50 million and are not large in numbers.

From 1500 BC, India was for long durations ruled by those who rejected Vedic Hinduism - It was buddhists and jain rulers for over 1000 years and then 800 years of Muslim rule and then 250 years of British rule.Now we have democracy for 65 years post 1970s, most state level power (from UP/Bihar to TN) has passed away to OBCs .

Given this if you still think that brahmins are behind every evil that has happened in India and will happen in India  you should go and ask what were the rulers , be it Jains and Buddhists and Muslims and British  and present day OBC CMs doing . Caste System in India has survived , not because one caste wanted it, but because the powerful rulers over all these years, including those who were not part of vedic hinduism, found it useful to sustain their regime.This is the simple but harsh fact.

 To Sanket Biswas and people who support his world view - Reg Namboodhri Brahmins, May i point out that Namboodhiri Brahmins are not representative of the 50 million or more brahmins of India, since they are just 2% of the supposed brahmin population of India. Yes, kerala of 19th century was a hellhole and role of namboodhris was not something pleasant, but to extrapolate same to rest of India is like telling that Bush is representative of all americans or bin laden is representative of all Muslims.

{May I ask him to point out an instance of solitary}

Yes, Mr. Biswas, it was Dalits  who fought the Muslim invaders in 11 century. It was Dalits who fought in 1857 anti British revolt. It was only Dalits who have contributed to literature, drama, poetry, civlization of India. It is Brahmins who know only to procreate and increase their number. Rings a bell? 

{A neglible few manipulated the whole nation}

Yes, these few continue with their shenanigans and see Dalits are doing everything for the country. The reservation provided to Dalits is a charade because Brahmins keep Dalits under submission using divine curse, fatalism, etc. The innocent Dalits don't understand Brahminical brain and the reservations for Dalits every year go waste. Brahmins very well understand that there is no God, no reincarnation, no caste but uses these wicked lies to manipulate the humble Dalit. 

Dalits don't fight in the name of caste, creed and just let these evil Brahmins do all these dirty tricks. 

See what they did to the first Dalit CM of the state. She just wanted her slippers delivered through plane and a Kangaroo started crying hoarse about it. 

This is the same analogy like whites and blacks in USA. Blacks did all the manual work and whites just manipulated them. So sad. It was actually blacks who created the 'greatest nation in the world'. Whites only know how to manipulate. 

DC, New York has felt I've been  biased against the Brahmans. May I ask him to point out an instance of solitary public contribution, in living memory, they have made for the people of India, save and except self-service and perpetuation of their own regime? And for doing so, what didn't they do to the country in general? They have treated the masses as dirt and abused everything for their own interest.  A vast section of Indians  remains outside he perview of civilized or human treatment, consideration or fariplay, justice. Any scriptural ordinance will reveal this even to the blind. Parade of vanity on abuses of human dignity on one hand and humiliation and discrimination on the other has been the hallmark of that cultural vanity.

A neglible few manipulated the whole nation to submission by threats and blackmail of divine curse, fatalism, sins of previous birth to explain his miserable, troublesome, or shaky present. Thereby they ubdoubtedly resorted to ensure perpetuation of grotesque self interest.

It must end.

As expected Sanket Biswas came up with his caste fixated  opinions. Since he has never learned to view anything beyond casteism, for him the Indian left's failure to identify caste issue is a reflection of the caste identity of the leaders. (He was against political parties of West Bengal because both Buddhadev Bhattacharya of CPM and Mamata Banerjee of TMC with their Bramhinical last names represent casteist tyrranies, no matter how much disdain they have toward each other.)

On the contrary the Indian left has always been parroting His Master's Voice from overseas-  the Marxism-Leninism and Maoism dealt with the economic class not castes ( which is a very unique Indian/Hindu concept).  You can argue about the flaws of the theory of class struggle in the context of Indian political system, you cannot blame them for not following what is written in their text books. And like Sanket their class-fixated ideas do not have any rooom for identity politics.

While caste is an extremely important factor it is not the be all and end all in Indian polity. While class based politics fails to recognize social discriminations that are not necessarily economic, the limitation of an identity- based politics is its inability to recognize multiple facets of identities. (Amartya Sen wrote a great book on the issue of multiple identities.) Jinnah and his Muslim League also expressed their blinkered political view - reductionist and unilateral for partitioning India . However,unlike Sanket's, their political belief was  fixated on religion alone instead of caste. The two nation theory based on purely religious differences to create a Pakistan failed to recognize the linguistic , cultural and ethnic diffrences of the polity. The creation of Bangladesh at a later date fuelled by Bengali nationalism and the current trouble in Baluchistan and in the tribal areas of Pakistan highlight the flaws in the one dimensional identity poltics of a two-nation- theory.

Sanket's explanation of Mayawati's defeat in the UP is equally ridiculous. (I  read elsewhere that Raja's indictment for the telecom scam was  explained as caste based oppression targetted at Dalit dominated DMK leadership.) Mayawati lost elections due to her loss of popularity to her electorate and not as a reaction from the forward caste. The same electorate supported her last time around.

In reality, in India different people vote for different reasons- economic developmental issues, political ideology, caste, creed, religion, gender, ethnicity, local issues, provincialism etc. - they all have their role to play. In a pluralist democracy it is the interaction of these factors that determine the direction of politics and a compromise of apparently contradictory opinions of the voters leads to state policies.

At least for now the reductionist one track minds are not winning in their ideas.

The question posed by the author and the use of Namboodiripad's quotation in the context should be looked at without getting angry or emotional or for that matter apologetic.

As on date we can safely say that the traditional Indian society is getting churned and all it's traditional ideas of caste/religion getting upstaged by reality.

Reality of growth and trade, reality of democracy in practice, reality of revolution in communication, reality of globalisation and the inroads by multiple philosophies and ways of social governance,reality of social activism both by proveleged and non-priveleged to define and achieve what could be an inclusive society.

Above all, the reality of Redifining of 'identity", as relevant in the "global society" which appears quite realistically beginning to shape up.

This redrawing of 'relevant identity' is today realistically a possibility where the social group can find it to completely reverse it's earlier 'given' identity' by a 'chosen' one'.

Examples of Dalit entrepreneurs and other non-Brahmin leaders of society are getting numerous everyday.

My reason for the long introduction above is to focus on the concept of "Dignity of Labour".

The Communist unease with Dr Ambedkar and Namboodaripad's comnents as the view of Communist Philosophy can be appreciated if we examine the idea of Dignity of Labour as being an ideal separate from merely economic reasons.

India and Indians have probably never considered this as an ideal and do not do so even today. Nor, I suspect have the communists.

However, the dynamics of churn are adding new 'economic values' to 'labour' and the inability of established 'orders and thoughts' to prevent mobility from one form of labour to another as well as inability to ensure priveleges for the progenies of the priveleged is doing its bit.

So, though in an convoluted way-perhaps, Namoodaripad was not totally wrong.

 The language of class, pure and simple, does not make sense in India. Added to that, in today's world as a whole, the theory of class struggle does not hold good in its original sense.

At the same time caste identities if adhered to uncompromisingly by any community whatsoever including the dalits will lead nowhere. 

How to practice inclusiveness and on what basis--that is the basic problem for the future development of India.

<< It is time to give a goobdbye to the joint electorate system>>

How about saying goodbye to democracy. No democracy can survive on separate electorates. The moment India says goodbye to democracy, Indians must say adieu to the State called India as well. BSP won 15 seats out of 85 reserved seats and there was 7 percent loss of dalit vote for her in UP 2012. This happens to magalomaniacs who see their legacy in statues. 

 EMS was a brahmin who didn't think that caste is major issue was purely based on the tennets of communism. In Communism, the two major issues are class and imperialism since Karl Marx wasn't aware of caste equations that much. The communists failed in India not because of class- caste conundrum but because they were plainly stupid. If that uncouth Mao change his base from urban proletariat to peasants, Indian communists could have done some lateral thinking as well. 

In today’s ‘Dalit’ politics Mahatma Gandhi is an unwanted personality and the left politics is irrelevant to most of the activists. This is so because of the perception that Mahatma Gandhi supported the ‘Chaturvarna’ or the caste system. The left ideology does not appeal to most of today’s Dalit activists as I feel that it has simply not been able to capture their minds. But unfortunate casualty of this development, if I may say so, is lack of a frank discussion about future of Dalits’ political activism of the kind envisaged by Dr. Ambedkar. He wanted the Dalits to increase their clout by educating themselves. It is for Dalits to say whether they have done justice to his legacy.
In an article by an American professor about Dalit participation in today’s media industry, the conclusion was that it was negligible. But strangely, the blame was laid on high castes for this state of affairs.
I always feel that if an individual wants to join any discussion on Dalit politics of today or of the past, that individual’s right to have a contrary view must fist be recognized. In the recent past, I have noticed on many occasions that Dalit activists are not always ready to accept that right. Hence a free and frank discussion does not take place.

EMS Nambudiripad's love for caste issue understandable---he was in favour of perpetuation of  vested interest. His forefathers, if not he himself, roamed around the country and had sex with women of other castes with impunity,  no shame attached to it nor was a demur heard from their husbands. Even the non-Brahman Raja of Malabar  invited Nambudiri Brahman to spend first night with the King's wife after his marriage and had her deflowered by the rogue. Then only her legitimate husband had opportunity to sleep with his newly wed bride. More inquisitive men may read Malabar Manual by Logan. And I refrain from naming the caste who happily allowed the Nambudiri Brahmans for the grotesque job for his wife. So much was the blighting influences of caste. Why does anybody expects  EMS to forego the advantages of caste?

Marxism has remained a Brahminical party without exception. From Manabendra Roy alias Narendranath Bhattacharya, [founder of Communist Party of India in Taskent] down to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Sitararm Yechury, Prakash & Brinda Karat all vouch for what is true about the ideology in India. They have been using the lowest castes as ladder to capture power  and enjoying fruits of it.

The sooner the Marxian parties is thrown to the occean the better. They are sleek white color exploiters.

As for Poona Pact and reservation under it, one word is enough to explain, the machanism put in place has made dalit/tribal communities political slaves of the upper castes. Their MLAs, MPs, Ministers, elected on joint electorates  have no voice. They are shunted out if and when they fight for the rights of the dalits/tribal communities. Their rights can be redeemed but it invariably militates againsty non-dalit interest. Hence the reserved seat representatives do not do anything for their communities. Any attempt will bring casteist level for them. But this does happen with Brahman, Kayasth or Rajput etc. if they promote their own caste men with impunity. 

It is time to give a goobdbye to the joint electorate system. In UP Mayawati Government won less reserved seats than SP or Congress because upper caste who are majority in every constituency had opposed BSP. Hence BSP got less reserved seats. The liberal, patriotic and foresighted people of this country should raise voice to end joint electorates and bring in its place separate electorates for uplift of the dalit and tribal communities. This is why no national political parties ever nominate any educated and articulate dalit or tribal for any elective post.  All reserved seat representatives are indolent, ignorant and useless as people's representatives.

EMS Nambudiripad's love for caste issue understandable---he was in favour of perpetuation of  vested interest. His forefathers, if not he himself, roamed around the country and had sex with women of other castes with impunity,  no shame attached to it nor was a demur heard from their husbands. Even the non-Brahman Raja of Malabar  invited Nambudiri Brahman to spend first night with the King's wife after his marriage and had her deflowered by the rogue. Then only her legitimate husband had opportunity to sleep with his newly wed bride. More inquisitive men may read Malabar Manual by Logan. And I refrain from naming the caste who happily allowed the Nambudiri Brahmans for the grotesque job for his wife. So much was the blighting influences of caste. Why does anybody expects  EMS to forego the advantages of caste?

Marxism has remained a Brahminical party without exception. From Manabendra Roy alias Narendranath Bhattacharya, [founder of Communist Party of India in Taskent] down to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Sitararm Yechury, Prakash & Brinda Karat all vouch for what is true about the ideology in India. They have been using the lowest castes as ladder to capture power  and enjoying fruits of it.

The sooner the Marxian parties is thrown to the occean the better. They are sleek white color exploiters.

As for Poona Pact and reservation under it, one word is enough to explain, the machanism put in place has made dalit/tribal communities political slaves of the upper castes. Their MLAs, MPs, Ministers, elected on joint electorates  have no voice. They are shunted out if and when they fight for the rights of the dalits/tribal communities. Their rights can be redeemed but it invariably militates againsty non-dalit interest. Hence the reserved seat representatives do not do anything for their communities. Any attempt will bring casteist level for them. But this does happen with Brahman, Kayasth or Rajput etc. if they promote their own caste men with impunity. 

It is time to give a goobdbye to the joint electorate system. In UP Mayawati Government won less reserved seats than SP or Congress because upper caste who are majority in every constituency had opposed BSP. Hence BSP got less reserved seats. The liberal, patriotic and foresighted people of this country should raise voice to end joint electorates and bring in its place separate electorates for uplift of the dalit and tribal communities. This is why no national political parties ever nominate any educated and articulate dalit or tribal for any elective post.  All reserved seat representatives are indolent, ignorant and useless as people's representatives.

In today’s ‘Dalit’ politics Mahatma Gandhi is an unwanted personality and the left politics is irrelevant to most of the activists. This is so because of the perception that Mahatma Gandhi supported the ‘Chaturvarna’ or the caste system. The left ideology does not appeal to most of today’s Dalit activists as I feel that it has simply not been able to capture their minds. But unfortunate casualty of this development, if I may say so, is lack of a frank discussion about future of Dalits’ political activism of the kind envisaged by Dr. Ambedkar. He wanted the Dalits to increase their clout by educating themselves. It is for Dalits to say whether they have done justice to his legacy.
In an article by an American professor about Dalit participation in today’s media industry, the conclusion was that it was negligible. But strangely, the blame was laid on high castes for this state of affairs.
I always feel that if an individual wants to join any discussion on Dalit politics of today or of the past, that individual’s right to have a contrary view must fist be recognized. In the recent past, I have noticed on many occasions that Dalit activists are not always ready to accept that right. Hence a free and frank discussion does not take place.

<< It is time to give a goobdbye to the joint electorate system>>

How about saying goodbye to democracy. No democracy can survive on separate electorates. The moment India says goodbye to democracy, Indians must say adieu to the State called India as well. BSP won 15 seats out of 85 reserved seats and there was 7 percent loss of dalit vote for her in UP 2012. This happens to magalomaniacs who see their legacy in statues. 

 EMS was a brahmin who didn't think that caste is major issue was purely based on the tennets of communism. In Communism, the two major issues are class and imperialism since Karl Marx wasn't aware of caste equations that much. The communists failed in India not because of class- caste conundrum but because they were plainly stupid. If that uncouth Mao change his base from urban proletariat to peasants, Indian communists could have done some lateral thinking as well. 

 The language of class, pure and simple, does not make sense in India. Added to that, in today's world as a whole, the theory of class struggle does not hold good in its original sense.

At the same time caste identities if adhered to uncompromisingly by any community whatsoever including the dalits will lead nowhere. 

How to practice inclusiveness and on what basis--that is the basic problem for the future development of India.

The question posed by the author and the use of Namboodiripad's quotation in the context should be looked at without getting angry or emotional or for that matter apologetic.

As on date we can safely say that the traditional Indian society is getting churned and all it's traditional ideas of caste/religion getting upstaged by reality.

Reality of growth and trade, reality of democracy in practice, reality of revolution in communication, reality of globalisation and the inroads by multiple philosophies and ways of social governance,reality of social activism both by proveleged and non-priveleged to define and achieve what could be an inclusive society.

Above all, the reality of Redifining of 'identity", as relevant in the "global society" which appears quite realistically beginning to shape up.

This redrawing of 'relevant identity' is today realistically a possibility where the social group can find it to completely reverse it's earlier 'given' identity' by a 'chosen' one'.

Examples of Dalit entrepreneurs and other non-Brahmin leaders of society are getting numerous everyday.

My reason for the long introduction above is to focus on the concept of "Dignity of Labour".

The Communist unease with Dr Ambedkar and Namboodaripad's comnents as the view of Communist Philosophy can be appreciated if we examine the idea of Dignity of Labour as being an ideal separate from merely economic reasons.

India and Indians have probably never considered this as an ideal and do not do so even today. Nor, I suspect have the communists.

However, the dynamics of churn are adding new 'economic values' to 'labour' and the inability of established 'orders and thoughts' to prevent mobility from one form of labour to another as well as inability to ensure priveleges for the progenies of the priveleged is doing its bit.

So, though in an convoluted way-perhaps, Namoodaripad was not totally wrong.

As expected Sanket Biswas came up with his caste fixated  opinions. Since he has never learned to view anything beyond casteism, for him the Indian left's failure to identify caste issue is a reflection of the caste identity of the leaders. (He was against political parties of West Bengal because both Buddhadev Bhattacharya of CPM and Mamata Banerjee of TMC with their Bramhinical last names represent casteist tyrranies, no matter how much disdain they have toward each other.)

On the contrary the Indian left has always been parroting His Master's Voice from overseas-  the Marxism-Leninism and Maoism dealt with the economic class not castes ( which is a very unique Indian/Hindu concept).  You can argue about the flaws of the theory of class struggle in the context of Indian political system, you cannot blame them for not following what is written in their text books. And like Sanket their class-fixated ideas do not have any rooom for identity politics.

While caste is an extremely important factor it is not the be all and end all in Indian polity. While class based politics fails to recognize social discriminations that are not necessarily economic, the limitation of an identity- based politics is its inability to recognize multiple facets of identities. (Amartya Sen wrote a great book on the issue of multiple identities.) Jinnah and his Muslim League also expressed their blinkered political view - reductionist and unilateral for partitioning India . However,unlike Sanket's, their political belief was  fixated on religion alone instead of caste. The two nation theory based on purely religious differences to create a Pakistan failed to recognize the linguistic , cultural and ethnic diffrences of the polity. The creation of Bangladesh at a later date fuelled by Bengali nationalism and the current trouble in Baluchistan and in the tribal areas of Pakistan highlight the flaws in the one dimensional identity poltics of a two-nation- theory.

Sanket's explanation of Mayawati's defeat in the UP is equally ridiculous. (I  read elsewhere that Raja's indictment for the telecom scam was  explained as caste based oppression targetted at Dalit dominated DMK leadership.) Mayawati lost elections due to her loss of popularity to her electorate and not as a reaction from the forward caste. The same electorate supported her last time around.

In reality, in India different people vote for different reasons- economic developmental issues, political ideology, caste, creed, religion, gender, ethnicity, local issues, provincialism etc. - they all have their role to play. In a pluralist democracy it is the interaction of these factors that determine the direction of politics and a compromise of apparently contradictory opinions of the voters leads to state policies.

At least for now the reductionist one track minds are not winning in their ideas.

DC, New York has felt I've been  biased against the Brahmans. May I ask him to point out an instance of solitary public contribution, in living memory, they have made for the people of India, save and except self-service and perpetuation of their own regime? And for doing so, what didn't they do to the country in general? They have treated the masses as dirt and abused everything for their own interest.  A vast section of Indians  remains outside he perview of civilized or human treatment, consideration or fariplay, justice. Any scriptural ordinance will reveal this even to the blind. Parade of vanity on abuses of human dignity on one hand and humiliation and discrimination on the other has been the hallmark of that cultural vanity.

A neglible few manipulated the whole nation to submission by threats and blackmail of divine curse, fatalism, sins of previous birth to explain his miserable, troublesome, or shaky present. Thereby they ubdoubtedly resorted to ensure perpetuation of grotesque self interest.

It must end.

{May I ask him to point out an instance of solitary}

Yes, Mr. Biswas, it was Dalits  who fought the Muslim invaders in 11 century. It was Dalits who fought in 1857 anti British revolt. It was only Dalits who have contributed to literature, drama, poetry, civlization of India. It is Brahmins who know only to procreate and increase their number. Rings a bell? 

{A neglible few manipulated the whole nation}

Yes, these few continue with their shenanigans and see Dalits are doing everything for the country. The reservation provided to Dalits is a charade because Brahmins keep Dalits under submission using divine curse, fatalism, etc. The innocent Dalits don't understand Brahminical brain and the reservations for Dalits every year go waste. Brahmins very well understand that there is no God, no reincarnation, no caste but uses these wicked lies to manipulate the humble Dalit. 

Dalits don't fight in the name of caste, creed and just let these evil Brahmins do all these dirty tricks. 

See what they did to the first Dalit CM of the state. She just wanted her slippers delivered through plane and a Kangaroo started crying hoarse about it. 

This is the same analogy like whites and blacks in USA. Blacks did all the manual work and whites just manipulated them. So sad. It was actually blacks who created the 'greatest nation in the world'. Whites only know how to manipulate. 

 To Sanket Biswas and people who support his world view - Reg Namboodhri Brahmins, May i point out that Namboodhiri Brahmins are not representative of the 50 million or more brahmins of India, since they are just 2% of the supposed brahmin population of India. Yes, kerala of 19th century was a hellhole and role of namboodhris was not something pleasant, but to extrapolate same to rest of India is like telling that Bush is representative of all americans or bin laden is representative of all Muslims.

 To Sanket Biswas and those who  support his worldview....

You would need to take your history lessons seriously. May i inform you somebasic fact? Brahmins In India, over last 2500 years were neither a martial community nor a mercantile community, meaning they neither had the ruling power nor they had the money power.The chaturvarna system was actually a dice loaded against brahmins but it appeared as if it put the caste in top place. Religion mumbo jumbo and ownership of temples really meant nothing in a realworld where you had invaders from other nations/cultures and you had famines and deprivation.That probably would also  explain why despite supposed 2500 years of advantage, people of the caste you folks hate are physically weaker and dont own much physical assets (except maybe UP ) and are just 50 million and are not large in numbers.

From 1500 BC, India was for long durations ruled by those who rejected Vedic Hinduism - It was buddhists and jain rulers for over 1000 years and then 800 years of Muslim rule and then 250 years of British rule.Now we have democracy for 65 years post 1970s, most state level power (from UP/Bihar to TN) has passed away to OBCs .

Given this if you still think that brahmins are behind every evil that has happened in India and will happen in India  you should go and ask what were the rulers , be it Jains and Buddhists and Muslims and British  and present day OBC CMs doing . Caste System in India has survived , not because one caste wanted it, but because the powerful rulers over all these years, including those who were not part of vedic hinduism, found it useful to sustain their regime.This is the simple but harsh fact.

 YHWH >>  It is Brahmins who know only to procreate and increase their number.

Ha ha...for a caste which was neither a martial race (meaning a warrior community/ruling community) and neither a mercantile race, which entirely had to depend on getting the grants from others and serving (be it religious blah blah or things like ayurvedha etc), procreation is simply ruled out. Kind of also explains despite being 2500 years on top of social order, only 5% of Indians belong to this caste. Not to forget that this community was the first target for any invader who did not agree with their culture (am referring to era from mohammed ghazni). And that continuesto date. Partition violence on Pakistan side was centred on hate of baniyas and  brahmins.And we had right  in secular India,  Kashmir Pandits cleansed. Evenin buddhist sinhalese sri lanka, when race riots began in early 1980s, the first target of the sri lankan army was those umpteen murugan temples and the priestly families who managed them. 

Not telling all this to make any case for martyrhood  here, merely telling that India's caste system and consequent cruelties happened not because of one caste but because the elite across all communities found it useful to perpetrate their hold.

 Many many genuinely humanitarian persons who hated oppression and injustice have in the past been drawn into the left, and especially into the Marxist stream of politics in India. Some of them who found themselves in leadership positions have misdirected the movement by their simplistic and dogmatic understanding of the Indian reality. But there is no doubt about the sincerity and commitment of such leaders who sacrificed a lot. 

But one senses the deep caste prejudice of certain other left leaders who unconsciously perhaps chose to ignore the injustice of the caste system. It so happened that such leaders had the upper hand as ideologues in shaping the thinking of the  Party as a whole.

Fortunately today such grey eminences are no more.

The Left can even now make a determined effort and change course. For this to take place the Stalinist mindset must be discarded. A willingness to engage is indispensable. 

Unfortunately it seems that Mamata is the one who is learning from the Left and what she is learning is the Stalinist method which we want the leftists to unlearn.

 RAMKI
DELHI, INDIA

The bell didn't ring. Or may be the postman has to always ring the bell twice. 

Ironically, I apologize for the last comment. 

The knowall author would do well to reflect on the fact that the CPI(M) in Kerala has for decades won power led by Dalit leaders and Dalit workers, who form a majority of its membership in the state.

 There are so many untouchables within the untouchable.....