How many more years can our \u201cidentity\u201d politics continue like this? No one knows the answer. More than a century ago, a process of permanently and socially dividing the Indian people was initiated by Europeans and Marxists. Even though five or six new generations have risen since then, we are still revolving in the whirlpool of the arguments and controversies of the 19th and 20th centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new development is that digital and artificial intelligence technologies are now being used to divide people psychologically and culturally. We do not yet have an idea of what kinds of upheavals and turmoil biased artificial intelligence bots could create in the economic, social, and political spheres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People are fighting with one another for their immediate gains. Foresight has disappeared. We are living in an era in which one country wants the people of another country to fight among themselves and destroy one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United States, Pakistan, and China are working to create internal divisions within India and to deepen existing ones. Earlier, this work was carried out by British MI6, the Soviet KGB, and the American CIA agencies. Later, Pakistan\u2019s ISI and China\u2019s MSS entered the field. Now, it is said that agencies from various countries (Germany, Norway, Turkey, etc.) have entered the arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Attempts to create internal divisions within India began as early as the 19th century. European \u201cIndologists\u201d propagated the fictional story of Aryan-Dravidian divisions. Marxists later used it for their own benefit. Missionaries also used it. During British rule, the divisive social theory of \u201cDravidianism,\u201d created by a missionary named Bishop Robert Caldwell, changed the very nature of Indian politics. After independence, politics based on castes and sub-castes was deeply entrenched. Later, woke ideologies developed \u201crace theory\u201d in newer forms. The politics of various labels was brought into education as racialism. The academic sphere became polluted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, political organization took place among politically powerful groups under the name of \u201cOther Backward Classes.\u201d In some places, the \u201cbackward\u201d began agitating to have themselves considered \u201cmost backward.\u201d Developments began in which the \u201cmost backward\u201d demanded to be included among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were even instances in which communities that had been identified as \u201cnot backward\u201d in the reports of the \u201cBackward Classes Commission\u201d rose in protest. As time progressed in the world, the number of \u201cbackward\u201d people in India increased!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the beginning of the 20th century, only a few castes were said to be backward in the country. Thanks to the Mandal Commission, in the 1980s more than 3,000 castes gained the \u201cfortune\u201d of being classified as backward. Now the number of backward castes is more than 5,000. This competitive trend continues. It would not be surprising if, within a few years, most of the castes in the country were declared \u201cbackward.\u201d In some places, even several Brahmin sub-sects have been included in the \u201cbackward\u201d list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The argument that \u201cseats and positions in the cabinet should be distributed according to the population proportions of different communities\u201d is being developed and firmly established in everyone\u2019s minds. All political parties have been pursuing quota politics based on caste and sub-castes. The country has changed to such an extent that without it, they seem to believe that votes cannot be obtained in elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few years ago, the Communist Party of India (CPI) of Tamil Nadu even made a statement against the Supreme Court, saying that \u201cParliament must demonstrate to the Court what its sovereignty and primacy mean by implementing the 27 percent OBC quota immediately.\u201d Even for communists in India, caste is their lifeline!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The issue of caste has now become extremely sensitive. No one wants to discuss it in a serious atmosphere without conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Courts have often asked people who cause riots and the politicians who support them, \u201cWhy such haste on this issue?\u201d Even so, on many occasions courts have also delivered judgments in ways that permanently entrench caste-based perceptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is also a view that some Supreme Court judgments have created new interpretations and perceptions, thereby increasing caste conflicts. In Arun Shourie\u2019s book Falling Over Backwards<\/em>, one can find analyses of many such judgments. He has called this mentality of the courts \u201cjudicial populism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless of the community, there are few examples of benefits reaching the poor within it. Within every category there is a \u201ccreamy layer,\u201d an upper stratum. Those people themselves reap the benefits. The affluent, their children, their grandchildren; influential people, their children, their grandchildren, and so on. The current policy is that all OBC families with an annual income of up to eight lakh rupees should receive reservation benefits and should not be considered part of the \u201ccreamy layer.\u201d There is an ongoing argument that this income limit should be increased further. Discussions are taking place about raising it to 12\u201324 lakh rupees. If people earning lakhs of rupees a month and paying substantial income tax are considered \u201cbackward,\u201d then the children of those people, who have access to facilities such as tuition, will have to compete with children from the same community whose parents earn \u20b910,000 a month. The higher the qualifying income limit for the creamy layer is raised, the less likely it is that the truly poor will receive the benefits. The \u201ccream-layer advocates\u201d do not accept the argument that \u201cbenefits should be provided on the basis of economic status.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n India has reached this point. International forces eager to increase internal conflict within India are watching the spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is noteworthy that the \u201cDravidian movement\u201d and \u201cDravidian parties\u201d emerged in Tamil Nadu based on the racist falsehood written by Bishop Robert Caldwell. This even went as far as the separatist demand by E. V. Ramasamy Naicker that \u201ca separate nation should be given to the Dravidians.\u201d Caste riots took place. In subsequent decades, the \u201cAfro-Dalit\u201d argument was created, claiming that, like the Black people of Africa, India\u2019s \u201cDalits<\/em>\u201d are the Black people of India, while the \u201cAryans\u201d<\/em> are white people! Agitation was also created demanding a separate country called \u201cDalitstan<\/em>.\u201d These plans were all designed and managed by foreign powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amid all this, another strange concept that has inflamed and increased divisions in India is that of \u201creligious minority.\u201d Although this too is a product of Western thought, it is not followed in the same way in the West as it is in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In India, \u201cminority rights\u201d means extremely special rights available only to \u201creligious minorities\u201d and unavailable to the community described as the \u201cmajority\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, a strange policy is in force that only religious minorities should have \u201cspecial rights,\u201d while other citizens should not have those rights. If someone converts, individually or collectively, from a \u201cmajority\u201d Dharma to a \u201cminority\u201d community, it is praised as \u201creligious freedom.\u201d But if minorities convert to the majority Dharma, a political struggle begins!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some Western countries that have introduced the concept of \u201cminority rights\u201d into India\u2019s mental landscape interpret it very differently within their own countries. There, only the concept of an \u201cethnic minority\u201d is recognized. That means a group of people that is not indigenous to the country. The position is merely that the government should allow members of such communities to preserve their indigenous communal identity. The expectation there is simply that they should not be discriminated against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember, the basic meaning of the concept of \u201cethnic minority rights\u201d is only that they should not be subjected to discrimination. It does not mean that ethnic minorities should be given special rights and special privileges that even indigenous citizens do not have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In India, the category of ethnic minorities is very small: Parsis, immigrant Jews, the Anglo-Indian community, the Tibetan community, and so on. Otherwise, most of India\u2019s religious communities are themselves people of this land. They are indigenous to this place. Therefore, none of them are ethnic minorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even so, in our country, religious identities such as Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist have also been given the status of \u201cminority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In democratic countries, all religions have equal opportunity to exist. People have the freedom to follow whatever religion they wish in their private lives, or to follow none and simply live by obeying the laws of the country. They also have the freedom to voluntarily convert from one religion to another. That is the concept of \u201creligious freedom.\u201d Religion is a personal belief. It can change from time to time. Someone who is Muslim today can become Christian tomorrow. The same person could become Hindu the day after tomorrow; when will the understanding arise in our country that religion is not a permanent criterion and is not an unchanging identity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a person converts to a different religion every year, can the government keep changing its recognition continuously, declaring that the person is a majority member today, a minority member tomorrow, and a majority member again the day after tomorrow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We cannot forget that the mentality of turning every caste and religion into a vote bank has become deeply rooted among us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Historically, the \u201cvote-bank concept\u201d first took root by creating a \u201cMuslim vote bank.\u201d Alongside it, efforts were also made to create a \u201cDalit vote bank.\u201d In response, a demand arose that a \u201cunified Hindu vote bank\u201d should also be established. Strategies also developed around the idea that \u201cthere should be separate vote banks for individual castes, but there should not be an entire Hindu vote bank.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of viewing people as \u201ccitizens of the country,\u201d looking at them through various forms of \u201cvote-bank\u201d thinking has gone too far. Indian life has been moving amid many kinds of divisions and adversities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Instead of viewing people as \u201ccitizens of the country,\u201d looking at them through various forms of \u201cvote-bank\u201d thinking has gone too far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[330,331,332,144,333,334,335,336,337,338,339,340,341,342,343,344,345,346],"class_list":["post-4611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-society-religion","tag-aryan","tag-backward","tag-caldwell","tag-caste","tag-division","tag-dravidian","tag-majority","tag-minority","tag-obc","tag-protests","tag-quotas","tag-religion","tag-reservations","tag-rights","tag-riots","tag-sc","tag-st","tag-vote-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bharatreview.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}