South Asia is the most intellectually deprived region on Earth and the most unjust and most oppressive. Seems there is something in the air and waters of South Asia that renders many people cruel, apathetic, competitive and dog-like. They use every possible means to inflict cruelty on each other. 132 years ago in what is now India there was born a man who was a thinking man, a revolutionary who uplifted a large community of Indians who had been genetically oppressed for 3000 years by Brahmanvaadi thought. Brahmans are the priest-leaders in Hinduism who 3000 years ago came to India from Iran and instituted the most oppressive Apartheid system called Caste System where they made themselves the top cream and a few others as the two lower "upper" creams and the rest of Indians as "dirty" Shudras and the untouchable Dalits who were relegated to cleaning the gutters, sweeping the roads and being servants of the upper castes.
Ambedkar rebelled against this system as he himself being an "untouchable" experienced such things in his young age as his "upper caste" teacher not handing him the glass of water but pushing it with a pen so that he, the upper caste teacher, not be "defiled" by the "dirty" touch of the untouchable boy Bhimrao Ambedkar. One may ask, how does the touch of a person be dirty and what would have been the feeling of a thirsty person who was considered so "impure" that a pen was used to push the water glass to him instead of a hand as would be normal. Yes, in modern India there are burqa-wearing women like Muskan bibi who voluntarily feel defiled if a man were to catch glimpse of their face but these women are insane and go against Nature. Ambedkar wasn't insane, he was a questioner, a rebel.
In time Ambedkar became a leader of the Dalits and the Shudras and gave them the slogan "Educate, Agitate, Organize". In 1927 he led the lower castes to the lake in Mahad town and drank from it. His followers drank from it. This was to signify breaking of the casteist tradition where the lower castes were forbidden to use water from this lake. Imagine, the water in this lake was created by Nature and Nature doesn't discriminate between humans. Water doesn't become poison if a person is money-poor or is 10th class fail like me or was born in a lower caste or is politically oppressed or is of female gender or doesn't obey his fool parents. Water remains same because water is from Nature. It is humans who have created walls. Ambedkar and his followers drank this lake and declared their equality in humankind. At the lake Ambedkar
said :
Look at the above painting. The dog could drink from this lake and the Brahmans had no objection but should a lower caste human drink from it the Brahmans would rise up in anger and would "purify it" with
cow dung and cow urine. Strange are the ways of India :
Baba Ambedkar gave years to the Hindu upper caste casteist practitioners to discard their anti-human thinking but they didn't so in 1956 he stood among hundreds of thousands of his lower caste followers and all converted to Buddhism in that ceremony.
But before 1956 he had been given the responsibility of drafting the constitution of independent India. Ambedkar wrote a generally progressive constitution where the citizens of India were exhorted to be of Humanist thought and of Scientific Temper. Indians were given the right to life and liberty and the right to freedom of speech. Indian workers were given the right to establish or join workers unions. Women were given rights. Many such things. However in 2023 i.e. now, none of these wonderful thoughts are in practice. India has become a den of honor killing, urban feudalism ( the "corporates" ), irrationalism, utter misogyny, casteism, mindless religious violence, State oppression, oppression within family, utter Capitalism even within family, etc. India continues to remain true to Baba Ambedkar's saying "Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic."
However, hope remains. India and the world will walk over these difficult times and become evolved.
Jai Bheem, Jai Insaaniyat, Laal Salaam, Zan Zindagi Aazaadi.
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