To:guyanese@yahoogroups.com
Wed., Feb. 27, 2002 at 5:16 p.m.
<tt>The White tribes that invaded India and disrupted Black civilization
there are known as Aryans. The Aryans were not necessarily superior
warriors to the Blacks but they were aggesssive, developed
sophisticated military technologies and glorified military virtues.
After hundreds of years of intense martial conflict the Aryans
succeeded in subjugating most of northern India. Throughout the
vanquished territories a rigid, caste-segmented social order was
established with the masses of conquered Blacks (called Shudras)
essentially reduced to slaves to the Whites and imposed upon for
service in any capacity required by their White conquerors. This
vicious new world order was cold-bloodely racist, with the Whites on
top, the mixed races in the middle, and the overwhelming majority of
Black people on the very bottom. In fact, the Aryan term varna,
denoting one's societal status and used interchangeably with caste,
literally means color or complexion and reflects a prevalent racial
hierarchy. Truly,India is still a racist country. White supremacist
David Duke claimed "that his 1970's visit to India was a turning
point in his views on the superiority of the White race."
Caste law in India, based originally on race, regulated all aspects of
life, including marriage, diet, education, place of residence and
occupation. This is not to deny that there were certain elements of
the Black aristocracy that managed to gain prominence in the dominant
White social structure. The masses of conquered Black people,however,
were regarded by the Whites as Untruth itself. The Whites claimed to
have emerged from the mouth of God; the Blacks, on the other hand,
were said: Servitude to Whites became the basis of the lives of the
Black people of India for generation after generation after
generation. With the passage of time, this brutally harsh,
color-oriented, racially-based caste system became the
foundation of the religion that is now practiced throughout all India.
This is the religion known as Hinduism.
The greatest victims of Hinduism have been the Untouchables. Indeed,
probably the most substantial percentage of all the Black people of
Asia can be identified among India's 160 Untouchables. These people
are the long-suffering descendants of Aryan-Sudra unions and native
Black populations who retreated into the hinterlands of India in their
efforts to escape the advancing Aryan sphere of influence to which
they ultimately succumbed.
India's Untouchables number more than the combined populations of
England, France, Belgium and Spain.
The existence of Untouchability has been justified within the context
of Hindu religious thought as the ultimate and logical extensions of
Karma and rebirth. Indus believe that persons are born Untouchables
because of the accumulation of sins in previous lives. Hindu texts
describe these people as foul and loathsome, and any physical contact
with them was regarded as polluting.
The basis status of India's Untouchables has changed littled since
ancient times, and it has recently been observed that "Caste Hindus
donot allow Untouchables to wear shoes, ride bicycles, use umbrellas
or hold their heads up while walking in the street." Untouchables in
urban India are crowded together in squalid slums, while in rural
India, where the vast majority of Untouchables live, they are
exploited as landless agricultural laborers and ruled by terror and
intimidation. As evidence of this, several cases from 1991 can be
cited: On June 23, 1991 fourteen Untouchables were slaughtered in the
estern state of Bihar. On August 10, 1991 six Untouchables were shot
to death in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. On August 16, 1991,
an Untouchable woman was stripped in public and savagely beaten in the
southern state of Andra Pradesh. On September 6, 1991, in the western
state of Maharastra, an Untouchable policeman was killed for entering
a Hindu temple. Official Indian figures on violent crimes by caste
Hindus against Untouchables have averaged more than 10,000 cases per
year, with the figures continuing to rise. The Indian government
listed 14,269 cases of atrocities by caste Hindus against Untouchables
in 1989 alone. However, Indian human rights workers report that a
large number of atrocities against Untouchables, including beatings,
gang-rapes, arson and murders, are never recorded. Even when charges
are formally filed, justice for Untouchables is rarely dispensed.
Possibly the most substantial percentage of Asia's Blacks can be
identified among India's 160 million "Untouchables" or "Dalits."
Frequently they are called "Outcastes." Indian nationalist leader and
devout Hindu Mohandas K. Gandhi called them "Harijans," meaning
"children of god." The official name given them in India's
constitution (1951) is "Scheduled Castes." "Dalit," meaning "crushed
and broken," is a name that has come into prominence only within the
last four decades. "Dalit" reflects a radically different response to
oppression.
The Dalit are demonstrating a rapidly expanding awareness of
their African ancestry and their relationship to the stuggle of Black
people throughout the world. They seem particularly enamored of
African-Americans.
African-Americans, in general, seem almost idolized by the Dalit,
and the Black Panther Party, in particular, is virtually revered. In
April 1972, for example, the Dalit Panther Party was formed in Bombay,
India. This organization takes its pride and inspiration directly from
the Black Panther Party of the United States. This is a highly
important development due to the fact that the Untouchables have
historically been so systematically terrorized that many of them, even
today, live in a perpetual state of extreme fear of their upper caste
oppressors.
This is especially evident in the villages. The formation of the
Dalit Panthers and the corresponding philosophy that accompanies it
signals a fundamental change in the annals of resistance, and Dalit
Panther oganizations have subsequently spread to other parts of India.
In August 1972, the Dalit Panthers announced that the 25th anniversary
of Indian independence would be celebrated as a day of mourning. In
1981, in Bangalore, India Dravidian journalist V.T. Rajshekar
published the first issue of Dalit Voice--the major English journal of
the Black Untouchables. In a 1987 publication entitled the African
Presence in Early Asia, Rajshekar stated that:
"The African-Americans also must know that their liberation
struggle cannot be complete as long as their own blood-brothers and
sisters living in far off Asia are suffering. It is true that
African-Americans are also suffering, but our people here today are
where African-Americans were two hundred years ago. African-American
leaders can give our struggle tremendous support by bringing forth
knowledge of the existence of such a huge chunk of Asian Blacks to the
notice of both the American Black masses and the Black masses who
dwell within the African continent itself."
</tt>
