Kancha Ilaiah brings focus on Shudra castes in his latest The Shudra Rebellion

The author explains how Kancha Ilaiah, in his latest book ‘The Shudra Rebellion’, posits the link with labour of different caste communities as a more credible way of reading caste both in the present and historically.

Going against the obvious but misinformed approach of focussing the discourse on caste entirely on either Brahmins or Dalits, Professor Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd brings Shudra castes squarely into the discussion in his recent book The Shudra Rebellion. He reinterprets the historically servile Shudras as the productive communities and civilisational builders.

Often termed an ‘internal matter’, caste inequalities within the rubric of Hinduism are reduced to a non-issue by those who claim spiritual leadership, and by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Historically, caste has been fought on the grounds of religious freedom, social equality, and human dignity, often involving mass struggles by the oppressed community.

Emerging out of that rebellious tradition, Kancha Ilaiah argues that one cannot envision a post-caste world where the Shudra castes are not involved in a historically-informed and politically-sound churning, as they constitute the majority.

In the past two centuries, social activists, political and spiritual leaders from the untouchables, Shudras, Adivasis, and the missionary community have been analysing the caste system from different vantage points. Ambedkar, Phule, and Periyar, have strongly highlighted the economic cost of caste for the oppressed.

In a significant move, Kancha Ilaiah attempts to integrate into the caste discourse the involvement of different castes in the production process that could make or break a civilisation. In The Shudra Rebellion, he posits the link with labour of different caste communities as a more credible way of reading caste both in the present and historically.

The binary between the spade and the book is central here. The spade represents the collective labour that powers the political economy of a given civilisation. Making obvious the contradiction between Harappan civilisation and the later Aryan wave backed by recent findings by Tony Joseph’s Early Indians, Kancha Ilaiah argues that the Harappan civilisation’s base is spade, representing the labour power that is the preserve of the historical communities of Dalits, Shudras, and Adivasis. In contrast, the Aryan culture, which is said to be the last migration into the subcontinent, centres itself around the Brahminical Sanskrit texts and ritualism, which were mythicised. Kancha Ilaiah questions how a civilisation can establish itself or survive if not for the labour of its members or their participation in the production process.

It needs to be noted here that Kancha Ilaiah has often been criticised for painting historical narratives into grand binary oppositions. The scholarly community is quick to dismiss his scholarship, merely because they could trace a line of the counterfactual. But when fundamental civilisational truths are at stake, we need to steer clear of cherry-picking faults, and have to approach the text – or even the author – in a holistic way.

From a structural-historical point of view, the contribution of Dwijas is net negative towards civilisational building — they have a parasitic existence in terms of their relationship with productive classes. As per the hegemonic Sanskrit texts, manual labour and agriculture are seen as ‘polluting’ tasks. This enables the Dwijas’ artificial alienation from organic labour and forms the basis for the economic appropriation and exploitation that powers the grand illusion of Hindu spirituality. In fact, spiritual and social hierarchy is powered and rendered legitimate by the economic appropriation inbuilt in the Varna system.

Spirituality is supposed to lead the society to a higher moral state. Trapped within the ego-centric – caste can be seen as the collective ego of a community – power politics of religious Brahmins, the real victims are the Shudras and Dalits who look up to Brahminism for spiritual progress. The economic and socio-psychological cost that the Dalit-Shudra, and recently Adivasis, pay for investing spiritually in the Aryan culture is debilitating as it offers no spiritual equality. Even to this day, Shudras and Dalits cannot become priests of Brahminical temples, even if they are as qualified as the Brahmin aspirant.

Despite the obvious spiritual inequality, why do masses still identify themselves with the Aryan religious traditions?

To show the deep rootedness of the Shudra slavery, Kancha Ilaiah goes back in history to show that Shudras, even if they were kings, were under the thumb of Brahmins and the literature they have produced. He accuses Shudra kings of “surrender[ing] the written word to the Brahmin”. Educated Shudra rulers such as Shahu Maharaj are seen complaining to the then Governor of Bombay about how deep and widespread the Brahmin monopoly and hegemony were.

A tradition of literary and written records is crucial for a community to evolve its spiritual traditions as it will enable discussions, debate, and continuing presence over centuries, as Kancha Ilaiah has himself noted elsewhere. The unfortunate state of Shudra castes is that, despite owning significant tracts of agricultural lands, they do not possess a written record of the spiritual and productive lives of their ancestors.

The majority of Shudra castes have their own gods such as Mariamman, Ayyannar, Berappa, or Pochamma. However, these communities are not aware of their traditions older than two or three generations, making it quite easy for RSS-BJP to co-opt the Shudras to Aryan religious traditions and use them as fodder in their political ascendance and periodical aggression against Muslims and Christians.

For this to change, Kancha Ilaiah proposes a radical solution — Shudras, Dalits, and Adivasis should embrace English education to empower themselves on a global scale and engage in philosophically significant issues of our times, rather than focus only on material gain or political power.

This work goes beyond the conventional academic framework by engaging with the spiritual, cognitive, and generational aspects of Shudra consciousness. The free spirit and mind of those labelled as Shudras has been tamed into servility and inferiority for several generations. The state of historical Chandalas and Nishadas and the contemporary Dalits and Adivasis is even more inhumane.

While Brahmins and Dalits constitute the extremes of the hierarchical Aryan spiritual imagination, it was Shudras who were the servile castes who were forced to serve the so-called twice-born Varnas. But how the servile caste, even after having gained relative material progress, still lacks the spiritual and philosophical imagination to break free of the Brahminical worldview is a moot question.

It’s also puzzling why the historical oppression meted out to Shudras did not convince them to accept contemporary Dalit communities as their brothers and sisters in their spiritual and material quest for freedom, equality, and dignity.

For sure, The Shudra Rebellion has the potential to raise more questions than it could answer. As the system of graded inequality is sophisticated, seamlessly subtle and violent at times, the best minds have to face these questions and guide us to an egalitarian future. A communion of the spade with the book – labour with philosophy – is a worthwhile experiment that could enable society to tolerate, if not enable and embrace a human consciousness that is just, kind, and free.

Courtesy: The News Minute

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