RSS-linked weekly Panchjanya justifies caste system in India

Close on the heels of the controversy sparked by BJP MP Anurag Thakur’s alleged remarks on Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s caste in Parliament recently, the latest issue of the RSS-affiliated Panchjanya weekly has justified the caste system while terming it as a “unifying factor”.

“The caste system was a chain that kept various classes of India together after classifying them according to their profession and tradition. Following the industrial revolution, the capitalists saw the caste system as the guard of India,” said Hitesh Shankar, the weekly’s editor, in the editorial.

Shankar contended that the caste system was always the target of invaders. “The Mughals targeted it with the power of the sword and the missionaries under the guise of service and reform. In the form of caste, the Indian society understood one simple thing – betraying one’s caste was betrayal of the nation. The missionaries understood this unifying equation of India better than the Mughals: If India and its self-respect is to be broken, then first break the unifying factor of the caste system by calling it a constraint or chain,” Shankar wrote.

Justifying caste system

This justification of the caste system by Panchjanya assumes great significance as it comes at a time when the RSS is making all the effort to explain that it is not against reservations for the depressed classes. Addressing a gathering in Nagpur last year, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said if reservations have to continue for another 200 years to compensate for the discrimination lower castes have suffered for 2,000 years, he would support it.

“Apart from destroying India’s industries, invaders focused on conversion to alter India’s identity. When caste groups did not buckle, they were humiliated. These were the people who forced a proud community to carry human faeces on their heads. There is no record of such tradition in India before that,” the editorial said.

Congress on Sangh’s target

Shankar argued that Manchester’s mills could not produce quality products like the ones produced by Bengal’s weavers who had mastered the skills passed from generation to generation in a caste group. “The eyes that hurt seeing the generational talent of India are the same that dream of destroying the diversity, traditions and rituals of the Hindu religion,” Shankar added.

Flaying the Congress, the editorial said, “The Hindu life, which includes dignity, morality, responsibility and communal fraternity, revolves around caste. It is something that individual-centric missionaries could not understand. If missionaries saw caste as a roadblock to their conversion programme, the Congress sees it as a wedge in Hindu unity. On the lines of the British, it wants to divide Lok Sabha seats on the basis of caste and increase the division in the country. This is why it wants a caste census.”