Hindutva invents an external cause for social evils

Sandhya Jain in her latest column titled "Sunset in Sacramento" in The Pioneer (7 March 2006) is taking Hindutva’s penchant for history revisionism to new heights.

What can beat the following sentence that is embedded towards the end of her report:

“Most dishonest is the politically motivated attempt to project social evils like untouchability and rigid caste divisions upon India's ancient civilization, when both are products of the medieval encounter with Islam.”

Sandhya acknowledges that untouchability and rigid caste divisions are “social evils”. But she goes on to suggest that these “social evils” were introduced into India by Islam OR came about as result of India’s “encounter with Islam”.

Would this not be denying Manusmrti – undoubtedly a pre-Islamic text – its due (dis-)credit?


Related blogs:

Social inequalities: the Varnashramic difference (18 Feb 2006)

Teaching Hinduism without the facts (14 Feb 2006)

Ancient Tamil society (14 July 2005)

Hinduism: its caste system & priesthood (18 June 2005)


Related reports:

San Francisco Chronicle
How Does California Teach about Hinduism? A different agenda
Romila Thapar, Michael Witzel
Monday, March 6, 2006
….. The textbook revisions whitewash the plight of women and the so-called lower castes. Women's history was reduced to "different" rights while the caste system, which subjugated millions of Indians as virtual slaves in the untouchable caste, was simply a division of labor…….

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