Letter to BS: Will RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat promote inter-caste marriages?

Rashtriya Swayamsevak (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s counsel to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to shun the drama of eating in Dalit homes was timely, sane and worth heeding. It must be made clear right at the outset that today’s Dalits do not want a patronising gesture of this kind. Gone are the days when the members of the lower castes cringed in awe of the members of upper castes for their wealth and privilege. 

The camera is the motivation for the saffron-clad netas to visit Dalit homes. Interestingly, Mohan Bhagwat did not react to a Dalit bridegroom not being allowed to ride a horse and pass through “upper caste localities”, police-aspirants from among the Dalits being “branded” and a Dalit farmer being tied to a tree, beaten with slippers and made to drink urine for refusing to work on the fields of upper castes in preference to his own. Mohan Bhagwat’s views on reservation are well known. Clearly, the problem runs deeper than eating or not eating at a Dalit home. Will Bhagwat repudiate the anti-Dalit scriptures as Dr B R Ambedkar did as a precondition for the “annihilation of caste”? Will he make Dalits priests at temples for once in a reversal of roles? And, will he promote inter-caste marriages?

G David Milton  Tamil Nadu 

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