Commission blames ‘Vedic philosophy’ for inequality, caste system

CM Bommai’s move ahead of assembly elections puts the BJP-led government in a fix. The CM accepted the recommendation of Justice Nagmohan Das Committee report which was submitted in July 2020 to raise the SC & ST quotas. BJP has an affinity with RSS’ Hindutva ideological agenda, which looks upon Brahminism and caste favourably

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: It has come to light that the Justice Nagmohan Das Committee – whose report was responsible for the increase in Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservation – has blamed the emergence of Vedic Philosophy for inequality and the caste system.

The observations were made in the chapter of the report entitled ‘Origin of Castes’ which argued that each caste group had an ethnic character. They eventually embraced endogamy and in time caste hierarchies. The report makes use of robust Ambedkarite thought and even cites Babasaheb’s work heavily.

This puts the BJP-led State government in a fix as Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai accepted the recommendation of the report submitted in July 2020 to raise the SC quota from 15 percent to 17 percent and the ST quota was to be raised from 3 percent to 7.5 percent.

BJP has an affinity with the RSS’ Hindutva ideological agenda, which looks upon Brahminism and caste favourably. “All these happened because of Brahmins, Upanishads, epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana,” the commission said. “The truth is that the ethnic system has disintegrated with the advent of the caste system. From its very inception, Karnataka came into contact with North India, and from there entered the Vedic system into Karnataka. It has been greater than that of other religions,” it added.

It has also claimed that Dravidian people lived in North India once and were driven down south by Aryan invaders. The commission also blamed the introduction of animal sacrifice, child marriage, prohibition of widow marriage, specific last rites and caste, among other practices, into Karnataka on Vedic philosophy.

The three castes that emerged from the influence were described as Jaina, Vaishnava and Lingayat. “These new castes emerged during the Aryan period. Attempts have been made to define the caste using the basis for conducting census,” the report said.

Babasaheb quoted Ambedkar was cited heavily in the chapter entitled ‘Caste Inequality’, wherein it is argued that it is not just the Brahmin place in the caste hierarchy and the chuturvarana system, but rather real-world privileges like access to resources that made them dominant.

“Education and knowledge have been made the monopoly of Brahmins,” the report said. Karnataka has been far ahead of most other states in terms of social justice and anti-caste thought, boasting of reformers like Basavanna in the mediaeval era and Havanur Commission, which was submitted in 1975. The latter gave backward classes (BCs) reservations in the civil services and the public sector.