Savarkar on Caste system

 

Savarkar on Caste system

Dr Vivek Arya

Veer Savarkar is being targeted by few lobbies with vested political interest on issue of caste system. Their methodology of fake narrative is very clear. Make voice so loud that the truth will hide beneath. They never mention that It was none other then Veer Savarkar who started interdining among different castes in Andeman Jail thus abolishing untouchability. It was Savarkar who established 'Patit Pawan Mandir' in Mahrashtra where all the daily duties will be carried out by a Dalit Priest and anyone irresepctive of caste, creed and status enjoyed full rights to enter and worship in the temple.

I am hereby quoting few quotes from the writings of Veer Savarkar against Caste system. The readers will be enlightened to learn that the majority of the ideas of Veer Savarkar about Nationhood, Religious rights, Caste System, Shuddhi and Hindu Sangthan, dealing with semetic sects, issue of conversion, population census etc. are dervived from the great reformer of 19th Century Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Aryasamaj. Also, Savarkar was disciple of Shyam Ji krishan Verma who was ardent follower of Swami Dayanand.

Here are few quotes of Savarkar from his writings-

1. When I refuse to touch someone because he was born in a particular community but play with cats and dogs, I am committing a most heinous crime against humanity. Untouchability should be eradicated not only because it is incumbent on us but because it is impossible to justify this inhuman custom when we consider any aspect of dharma. Hence this custom should be eradicated as a command of dharma. From the point of view of justice, dharma and humanism, fighting untouchability is a duty and we Hindus should completely eradicate it. In the present circumstances, how we will benefit by fighting it is a secondary consideration. This question of benefit is an aapaddharma (duty to be done in certain exceptional circumstances) and eradication of untouchability is the foremost and absolute dharma.

[Samagra Savarkar vangmaya, vol.3, p.483, 1927]

2.After all there is throughout this world so far as man is concerned but a single race—the human race kept alive by one common blood, the human blood. All other talk is at best provisional, a makeshift and only relatively true. Nature is constantly trying to overthrow the artificial barriers you raise between race and race. To try to prevent the commingling of blood is to build on sand. Sexual attraction has proved more powerful than all the commands of all the prophets put together. Even as it is, not even the aborigines of the Andamans are without some sprinkling of the so-called Aryan blood in their veins and vice versa. Truly speaking all that anyone of us can claim, all that history entitles one to claim, is that one has the blood of all mankind in one’s veins. The fundamental unity of man from pole to pole is true, all else only relatively so.

[Essentials of Hindutva’ written in 1923]

3. So far as the untouchables are concerned they shall have equal rights with other, to all Government institutions, Government public services, Government building, public roads, public conveyances, public courts, protection under public law, Government schools, and educational institutions. The guiding principle should be that in no case a Hindu who is customarily said to belong to the untouchable castes will be denied the rights and privileges in public life on ground of birth alone which a non-Hindu is allowed to exercise by the 'touchable' Hindus. On the other hand beyond this public and Government sphere our Sanatani brothers are free to observe their ancient customs without the least molestations in their personal life or their special collective institutions ... They should grant the same liberty of action to the Reformists within similar limits.

Now let us take the 1941 passage he quotes. What he leaves out is significant:

... but the Sanatanis on the contrary should recognise that in public life all Hindus must be looked upon the basis of equality and should leave the reformation free to bring about their religious reforms etc. by means of persuasion and mental change. If in spite of this arrangement any question comes upon which the two cannot but differ then only on that question both of them should be free to act as they please.

[ Whirlwind Propaganda: Extracts from the President’s Diary of his Propagandist Tours Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941]

4.... but the Sanatanis on the contrary should recognise that in public life all Hindus must be looked upon the basis of equality and should leave the reformation free to bring about their religious reforms etc. by means of persuasion and mental change. If in spite of this arrangement any question comes upon which the two cannot but differ then only on that question both of them should be free to act as they please.[ibid]

5.Barrister Savarkar President of the Mahasabha even after he became the President addressed three or four hundred meetings throughout Hindustan and exhorted not less than one hundred thousand people to remove untouchability and as a piece of public demonstration to prove how he personally held all Hindus equal, made untouchable leaders in almost every meeting to offer him water or food and participated of it in the presence of all. ... Even the intercaste marriages between touchables and untouchables received his public support for example in the case of the Kolhapur inter-caste marriage. ... (Hindu Mahasabha) does not expect any thanks as whatever it has done it was dutybound to do.

emphasis added: Whirlwind Propaganda 28-06-1938 (pp.19-23)

6. Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worshippable [sic] after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law. That is fundamental.

We may find many passages in Manusmriti which can provide valuable guidance to today's problems but we should accept them because they are beneficial today, not because they were found in an ancient text and certainly not because Manu's orders are not to be transgressed. Whatever we find in Manusmriti to be harmful or ridiculous today should not be followed, but that does not make Manusmriti harmful or ridiculous.

[On Manusmriti in a magazine called Kirloskar in 1933]

7.… The Varnas represent the four human tendencies of learning, fighting, trading and serving. These four Varnas were determined by merit and actions and not by birth. … Both chaturvarna and caste divisions are but practices. They are not coterminous with Sanatana Dharma. The practice of caste division arose from a tectonic change in the practice of chaturvarna. As the Sanatana Dharma did not die due to this tectonic change, so too it will not die if the present-day distortion that is caste division is destroyed. … Caste division is not the conspiracy of a handful of Brahmins…it is not the joint conspiracy of the Brahmins and Kshatriyas. ... No one should ever think that a certain Hindu caste is high or that another is low. The notion of high and low will be determined by overt merit of individuals. Every Hindu child has but one caste at birth- Hindu. Other than that, consider no other sub-caste. ‘Janmanaa jaayate Hinduhu’ (‘every one is a Hindu by birth’)! In truth, every man has but one caste at birth- human.

On Abolition of Caste, 1930 in Samagra Savarkar vangmaya, Vol. 3, 440-479

Savarkar identified ‘seven shackles’ which should be broken to liberate Hindu society from the stranglehold of caste. These seven shackles he identified were:

1. Prevention of Vedic chanting;

2. Prevention of entering into certain occupations;

3. Untouchability;

4. Forbidding the crossing of sea;

5. Denial of reconversion or Shuddhi;

6. Absence of inter-dining and.

7. Prohibition of inter-caste marriages.

Even Dr Ambedkar agreeed with what Savarkar mentioned on Jati Vs Varna. Ambedkar in Annihilation of Caste wrote:

While I reject the Vedic Varnavyavastha … I must admit that the Vedic theory of Varna as interpreted by Swami Dayanand and some others is a sensible and an inoffensive thing. It did not admit birth as a determining factor in fixing the place of an individual in society. It only recognized worth. … Varna and Caste are two very different concepts. Varna is based on the principle of each according to his worth, while Caste is based on the principle of each according to his birth. The two are as distinct as chalk is from cheese. In fact there is an antithesis between the two.

[With inputs from article by Aravindan Neelakandan named Savarkar And Caste: Facts Beyond Propaganda published on Swarajyamag.]