On 30th November slogans like “Brahmano – Baniyas We are coming for you!! We will avenge you”, “Brahmins leave the campus”, “There will be blood”. These slogans made me remind of the slogans that were written for Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir Valley “Raliv Galiv Chaliv” i.e. Run Convert to Islam or Die. This was a call for ethnic genocide of Hindus living in the valley this was not the first time things like this have come in public domain.
If we see the history in our country Brahmins have suffered the most during medieval and modern time’s in Indian History. Whether it was the killing of Brahmins during the Islamic Rule from 12th to 17th Century when they were barbarically put to sword in the worst possible manner when their “shikhas” were chopped off religious and educational institution were razed to soil or the destruction of the “Pathshalas” by the British in the name of modern education. Brahmins who were the torch bearers of Sanatanic Civilization in modern times were merely considered foot dust.
In Post independent India atrocities didn’t lessened whether killing of “Chitpavin Brahmins” in Bombay Presidency or if we talk in details about the genocide of Brahmins in Tamil Nadu on the call of E.V. RAMASAMY NAICKER (EVR), unfathomably known as “Periyar” who is worshiped by the left as their father just because of his Hatred Against Brahmins “he holds the credit for initiating, instigating and executing perhaps the first known act of political thuggery in pre-independence India”.
EVR also has another first to his credit: of using street-level hooliganism as a means to acquire state power, which would then be used for propagating a specific political ideology. It was the first of its kind in the 7000-year-long history of India. The Communists followed closely but theirs was an imported ideology whereas EVR’s brand was wholly home-grown, a product of his visceral malice against Brahmins
The Collected Works of Periyar E.V.R., compiled by the ferocious Dravidian ideologue, K. Veeramani is a primary source of EVR’s Brahmin-hatred. Putting it mildly, the work, in EVR’s own words, is a chilling treatise of xenophobia. There’s nothing that EVR does not hate about Brahmins.
He hates the Manusmriti. He hates the Ramayana. He hates the Mahabharata. He hates the Puranas. He hates the Tamil Periyapuranam. He hates both the Shaivaite and Vaishnavaite sacred literature. He hates the Alwars and the Nayanmars. He hates the Swaraj movement. He hates Gandhi. He hates Rajagopalachari. He hates the Indian National Congress. He hates the Communists. He hates Hindi. In his eyes, all these are components deliberately assembled by Brahmins into a gigantic oppression-machine.
His solution: burn all the books that Hindus regard as sacred. Destroy every symbol and belief and practice and tradition and structure that Hindus have worshipped since time immemorial. And EVR did not disappoint. He garlanded a picture of Sri Rama with footwear and took it out in a public procession. He later burned his pictures. In 1952, he launched a statewide campaign in which Murtis of Ganesha were publicly broken across Tamil Nadu. The less said about his other derogatory actions against Hindu deities, the better.
BUT TO STATE THE BLUNT TRUTH bluntly, Brahmins have remained the real minorities throughout Indian history. Till date. I use the word “minorities” in the same perverted sense that it has been used by the Nehruvian vote-bank apparatus. In its most profound and highly original conception and practice, the Brahmin is actually a twofold ideal, broadly speaking: (1) that the brightest class of people (not necessarily Brahmins by birth) should voluntarily embrace a life of frugality if not poverty and engage themselves in a lifelong vow of penance, pursuit of spiritual knowledge and teaching (2) that they should undergo the severest punishment for the most minor transgression from these lofty ideals.
The social and cultural history of India has thousands of examples to testify for this lived reality. Even the most fanatical enemies of Hindus, historically, have been unanimous on this point. To cite a comparably recent evidence, all pre and post-colonial European accounts mention the reverence and respect that the Hindu society innately showed towards Brahmins precisely because they lived such lives.
Brahmins were the first to be butchered mercilessly during the tidal waves of Islamic invasions. Muslim invaders took pride and delight in measuring the sacred threads of the slaughtered Brahmins by weight— specifically, in maunds (1 maund = about 15 Kg in the medieval era). Brahmins also continue to remain the prized target of missionary attacks — since the days of Robert De Nobili in the 16th century. Every missionary who followed him in India have come to the unanimous conclusion: that unless the backbone of the Brahmins was broken, unless the rest of the Hindu society shunned the Brahmin, converting the rest of the idol-worshipping, heathen Hindus would be impossible.
And Tamil Nadu was one of the first states where this vile project succeeded first on the intellectual and later, the societal plane. And EVR was the greatest catch of this missionary enterprise. In his own mind, in his formulations, in his activism and its execution, EVR was fighting against Brahmins. To the missionary machinery, he was just another heathen fighting against fellow heathens. And they were only happy to help. The long-term consequence: since the last three and half decades, the DMK has been severely beholden to its Christian vote bank.
Christians, who were formerly Hindus. The sad reality of Brahmins in Tamil Nadu is that there is nothing really left for the DMK or anyone else to persecute them. They neither have political power in the state nor do they count for much in public life. To conclude it I would say that political groups, parties everyone speaks up for the rights of minority does anyone have courage to speak up for the rights of majority too?
