Reforming Hinduism From Within

It is a great pity that the radical spiritual legacy that Swami Dayanand enunciated as the Arya Samajmovement more than a century ago could not be nurtured into a source of empowerment for the Dalits.

Significantly, everyone in the past who has had any spiritual sensitivity realised that the perpetuation ofthe degradation of Dalits, legitimised through the caste system, was a blemish on those who claim the Vedicvision of life. Nanak, Kabir, Buddha, Mahavir, Dayanand, Vivekanand, Gandhi and Ambedkar, each had his owndistinctive vision. But all of them shared the conviction that unless Dalits were liberated, Indian societycould not be truly itself. It is an astonishing reality that despite the admirable work of these greatreformers, no dent could be made on the caste system.

There are encouraging signs that the Dalits are running out of patience. In this they cannot be blamed.They have waited long enough; if anything, they have waited too long. It is the bigoted resistance from thekeepers of upper caste power to religious reform and social justice that forced a social prophet like Ambedkarto conclude that Dalits had no hope for rehabilitation within the Hindi fold. This led him to convert, alongwith 3,00,000 of his followers, to Buddhism. The background to the Tamil Nadu anti-conversion ordinance isclearly mounting unrest in the lower castes.

Those familiar with the Dalit predicament cannot pretend to be surprised by this. Poverty is endemic totheir way of life. They are largely illiterate, unemployed, exploited. They are not perceived as human beings.To make matters worse, they rarely get justice. Given this reality, it is only a matter of time before theirfrustration and resentment reach explosive proportions.

 Indeed, as far as the Dalits are concerned, theirplight is like that of a man inside a house on fire. Either someone must put out the fire or he must beallowed to escape. Unfortunately, so far the only option before them was to flee from the Hindu fold. Henceconversions to Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity continue to happen. At the same time, the volume of theseconversions is strangely negligible as demographic data prove. 

Given the plight of Dalits, there should havebeen a massive exodus — but for the fact that they know that the promise of equality and empowerment heldout by these religious systems remains unfulfilled because even within these supposedly egalitarian,caste-free faiths, Dalits are never accepted as equals. All religious communities are infected by the scandalof caste. It is dishonest on the part of anyone to hold out the carrot of conversion to the Dalit withoutpurging his own faith of caste practices. Thanks to the barely masked hypocrisy and commercial undertones ofconversions, Dalits remain Dalits even after they’ve left the fold. This is the fraud inherent inconversion.

But this should not breed complacency in those who cherish the Vedic faith. The fact that other religionstoo are caste-ridden does not justify its perpetuation in the Hindu fold. Hindus invented the system, theymust dismantle it first. The cheap and dishonest alternative is to push through laws or executive measures toprevent conversion. The only valid way forward is to offer to the victims of caste oppression a new hope. Thatalternative is available in the form of the Arya Samaj. 

Swami Dayanand’s concern for Dalits exceeded that ofGandhi’s by far. While Gandhi simply sought to use a plaster to cover the socio-economic wounds of Dalits,Dayanand went all out to bring about their social and religious transformation. The Arya Samaj was notenvisaged as a religion, but as a spiritual and liberating movement. Those who embraced it were to be totallyfreed from their caste antecedents and made new entities as Aryas. This was based on Dayanand’s insight thatthe caste system was a post-Vaidic aberration and a blot on the spiritual greatness of the Vedic vision.

But the Arya Samaj movement has not been able to fulfill its spiritual mission with the requiredcommitment. Its liberative agenda has been diluted by a spirit of compromise with the caste agenda. Casteinterests have infiltrated it. So when the Dalits look around for alternatives, they see no difference betweenwhat the upper caste practices and the Arya Samaj offers.

This needs to change. From a realistic perspective, the Arya Samaj is the best bet for Dalits today. As forthe Samaj itself, this needs to be seen not as a means for swelling its ranks but as a historic challenge thatit is so eminently suited and specially mandated to address.