Ours is a secular country. One can follow any religion he likes. But Ilaiah’s target is to destroy Hinduism and the method he employed is to invoke the dormant caste enimosities
Rakesh Reddy
Interesting anecdote that was once shared by Osho. The story explains the proverb, “When elephants walk through the street, dogs bark.” Whenever an elephant passes through, all the dogs gather and the mere size of elephant hurt their ego badly. To bark and bark till elephant passes the street. Once the elephant departs, they think that happened because of their barking. But what will an elephant do? It ignores the dogs, it pays no attention for it knows that any tussle is senseless. Isn't Elephant wise? Can’t we be wiser by ignoring the random, pseudo intellect and hate monger Kancha Ilaiah?
Kancha seems to me like an insecure individual who always tries to be in the limelight by creating controversies. Shepherd created controversy yet again with his book ‘Samajika Smugglerlu Komatollu’ which means Vyshyas are social smugglers..He defines the concept of “Social Smuggling” as the phenomenon of earning money and not giving back to the society. One flaw in his logic is that all the traders are Vyshyas and vice versa. Does he mean only vyshya traders are smugglers or every vyshya no matter his
profession is a smuggler? What about traders from other varnas? What does Kancha Ilaiah mean? It’s very interesting that he praises and looks up to the British who colonised many countries in different continents and did nothing but loot the natives. Vyshyas, the trader community of Hindus, have a long history of doing business with different countries even during the times when Europe was yet to be see huge wealth. He shows his hypocrisy by calling such Vyshyas as smugglers all the while praising the looters i.e. the British as
achievers.
Kanchas says Vyshyas are smugglers because they are not producing anything unlike farmers or other artisans. They are only earning by selling others produce and hence they are smugglers. What an ideology? Isn't Ilaiah who doesn't produce anything but offers service as a professor also a smuggler? Does he know how much is the services sector contributing to Indian GDP? Didn't countries that he loves become great by services and by trade?
He seems to have become a serious repeat offender to abuse the freedom of speech. He did it during Godavari Pushkaralu as well back in 2015. He mocked Hindus for taking a dip in the river Godavari when people of other countries don’t do the same in their rivers, be it river Nile or river Thames in London. He displayed his profound ignorance with this very assumption that Hindus in India should do something only if it’s done by the religions in the west.
He expects people to blindly ape the west and looks down upon India’s traditional wear like saree or dhoti terming them “half-naked”. In a programme called ‘Bheem Drum’, he said that singing songs in the name of revolution by “half-naked” people shouldn't be allowed. All the leaders of backward castes shouldn't be half naked like Gandhi, but wear suits like Ambedkar. Henceforth, even women who perform on the stage should wear jeans. They shouldn’t wear saree and blouse as they only gave “half nakedness” to our women.”
Ilaiah has the habit of spreading untruths and distorts and defrauds mythology. In his irrational and a baseless book, “Why I am not a Hindu”, Ilaiah accuses that Goddess Saraswati prevented the downtrodden Hindu women from getting educated, while Goddess Lakshmi prevented them from becoming rich. Ilaiah states that Lord Vishnu’s skin colour is due to miscegenation between Kshatriya tribe and Brahmin tribe.He also says that Indra enslaves the downtrodden women, Urvasi, Menaka and Tilottama, for his sexual pleasure. All these are uncorroborated writings which have no evidence in any of the Sanskrit sacred texts
of Hindus.
There are two kinds of people in the society, one like Dr B R Ambedkar who stand up against the evils of society and try to fight it with dignity, like Mandha Krishna who fight for the rights of the downtrodden Dalits. Second, like Kancha who makes a mountain out of a hole and live on cheap publicity.
Major Evil
Casteism is the major evil afflicting all religious communities in India. This evil must be fought continuously till it disappears from the Indian society. But mere hatred and spewing venom against other communities is not a solution. Kanchas controversial and inflammatory remarks on certain Hindu communities may score some brownies points for him in the western world which wants to break India. They may help him earn lakhs of dollars but how does that help our downtrodden communities?
His constant emphasis on mimicking the west is only an effect of a much bigger cause. He works with USA- based Dalit Freedom Network, an evangelical Christian Organisation founded by Joseph D'souza, who also heads AICC i.e, All India Christian Council. In his book ‘Buffalo Nationalism: A Critique of Spiritual Fascism, KanchaIlaiah blames the then Government of India for denying permission for a meeting of Dalits embracing Buddhism. This event was organised with the help of AICC. How does AICC relate to this event? What is the connection? One wonders what does he stand to gain by involving AICC in these activities? Anything that breaks the Hinduism has his support. He constantly peddles Aryan Invasion Theory that is disproved multiple times. He uses the theory to divide Indians into Aryans and Dravidians. It clearly shows the constant attempt of Break India Forces like Kancha Ilaiah, to move people away from Hinduism even at the cost of colluding with the organizations that receive funds from and based abroad. Kanchas words in his interview to Christian Today, “…I have been asking the Christian world to give our children the Bible and pound so that some health and wealth of Jesus can come to them. Jesus should bring wealth to India also. Please come and give both….” speaks volumes about what he trying to do.
Ours is a secular country. One can follow any religion he likes. But Ilaiah’s target is to destroy Hinduism and the method he employed is to awaken the dormant caste system of the past. He wants every other community to look down upon Dalits so that he can perform his theatrics. The only reason why he supports Buddhism is because B R Ambedkar has chosen Buddhism and so he cannot vilify it. But Ilaiah doesn’t receive kickbacks for converting you to Buddhism and hence the drama.
Kancha finds an opportunity to create controversy in each and every situation. When Shri Ram Nath Kovind was elected as president, he criticized the move and said that Kovind appears a submissive Hindu by accepting all the caste rules including worshipping of cows and his presence in Rashtrapathi Bhavan doesn't make any difference to Dalits.
Recently in TV9 debate,
Kancha grossly insulted Shri Paripoornananda Swamiji Swamiji by repeatedly questioning about who Swamiji,s mother is and if Swamiji is a Pakistani or a Bangladeshi. It goes to show his mindless vitriol against Hindus or Hindu philosophy. He appears to be just a puppet of the west who seems to be trying to break the Hindu society in the name of castes and enslave people to his western masters.
(The writer is a Telangana-based Columnist)
