Necessity of Dalit for sake of history, Dalit Vs Harijan, Caste and Race

The Oppressed (Or Dalit) and its necessity for predictive history :

Gandhi called them Harijan - Children of God. 

In the socialist world of Oppressor Vs Oppressed, the oppressed directly translates to "Dalit" . Dr BR Ambedkar, a London educated labor leaning politician, who for most of his life remained faithful to British govt, an opponent of Mahatma Gandhi , Ambedkar was the face of oppressed or a  "Dalit" . 

 After 250 years of Aurangzeb, 100+ years into British rule , The empire was plotting ideas to control India, sometimes in elite western universities.  Ideas of race, class, theoretical history, rudimentary philosophy was applied on India .

•  Whether India  can be described by progressive history - fight of oppressor Vs Oppressed as required by 
1. Social darwinism. 
2. All sister system of Hagel - including Marx where duality was needed for progress.
• Whether it is fight of Biblical races : Aryans driving into Dravidians.
1. Using Social Darwinism
2. Using theories of migration
• Whether India can be described by newly learnt linguistics ( Incidentally this subject was highly developed in India).
1. Languages as reflection of races as may be predicted from biblical studies.

  Communist Progressives fight with racists for idea. But they operate in very similar systems with a common requirement - The Black Or the Oppressed must exist for sake of history- Marxist and Race theories needed the Oppressed, defeated, black people to create and validate their version of theoretical history .   

  That is one idea of Dalit . Dalit is the one that was defeated by Aryans in racial history ( for racial anthropology). Dalit is the oppressed in the history class struggle against oppressors ( for socialist marxist). Sometimes one finds a passage here and there separating these two meanings of Dalit, but generally they overlapped.

   As an idea, this is different from Gandhi's Harijan. Gandhi's Harijan didn't require the Oppressor/Oprressed,  Aryan/Dravidian type of framework.

 For Govt both have lot of intersection - Scheduled Castes.

 Caste, Race and All strong cocktails :

  Caste is a european (spanish ? ) term for race. But Caste is synonymous by usage  with Indian communities called Jati.

  (1)Caste Vs Race  :  In principle One could be an out caste . Could one be racially exiled ? 

     Just as American by default  is by birth or decent, similarly default Caste is by birth. A child is borm to a community, he has to follow the rules.  Practical Caste is more defined by nature of work and disciplines, applied to social communities ( Similar to tribes ).

  The Race and Progressive theories work in a gross system that scales almost linearly  across the world,  and  through history. Indian Castes follow a different system of society, it doesn't scale arbitrarily across geography or time : 

      (a) An Aryan by conception could be civilized. A Brahmin could be civilized. Therefore a bunch of Aryans would create a civil society. Bunch of Brahmins ? By a saying they would argue with each other.

     (b) A hindu procession typically  lead by drummers  identified as Harijan .   Many offerings completed by Brahmin has to be procured by a Harijan.

     Race is description of a complete social group. A caste is a description of part of society. Aryan race didn't  mandate presence and tasks for a  Jew in his marriage as social custom.

  Many have felt the mystique of India through ages, including westerners to their bewilderment.  That mystique is real India that survived millenniums . Most Indians who are firmly opposed to caste even don't think in terms of race.

 (2)  Dalit/Harijan/Jatis Rights  Vs Slaves : Many find it easy to draw western attention by making castes equivalent to races .

•     All Castes are communities - they are not traded like slaves.

•    Castes as social groups has  inherent  traditions of family, marriage, honor ,social relations, religion and culture. 

•    The Highest Jati of Brahmin didn't have any economic rights other than begging and accepting gifts. A brahmin in many cases was barred to cultivate is own land, to trade etc. 

           The direct participation of Brahmin in economic and worldly activities institutionalized with relaxed caste norms. Practically economic activity would have been different at different times and places, however comparison of caste with slavery is misunderstanding. 

•     In a rural society, the Harijan castes did have certain rights for their living mainly through rights of fishing, poultry, eggs, liquor, certain agricultural products  and certain religious and agricultural  services. 

The traditional caste is  incomprehensible to  systems developed in west. Indian systems developed by Brahmins  are not intellectual  and distant. Intellectually People have found highest morals, amazing description of universe, great architecture, linguistics, mathematics and philosophy, powerful states  but in snippets.  Until late colonial period, Indian system was considered mystic. Indians might have  considered this preoccupation in colonizing and large business incompatible. 

  Theories of race and migration have been used by govt and powerful to administer, but they have been unsuccessful descriptions.

     

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 Another post from 2008 - Questions On methods of Indian intellectuals