Hinduism’s evolving social constitutions have survived centuries of adaptation. Even today, the religion’s customs dominate one of the most advanced nations on the planet. Before a launch, Indian rocket scientists seek spiritual guidance in Thiruppathy, at a temple second in wealth only to the Vatican. The Goddess of Education, Saraswathi, and the Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi, adorn walls of elementary classrooms. Many Hindus begin the day by worshipping the elephant god Ganesha, who, according to the Hindu tale, received an elephant head from an altercation with the god Shiva. When young Ganesha prevented Shiva from approaching his bathing mother, Shiva punished him by severing his head from his body; after the mother’s subsequent pleadings, he attached an elephant’s head to Ganesha’s body to appease her. Even in the more than 200 Hindu temples in the United States, many contemporary Hindus believe this story. Recently, Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi boasted that ancient Indians practiced plastic surgery, and used Ganesha’s elephant head as an example (Rahman 2014).

Some aspects of Hindu ideology strengthen a well-preserved community of faith, but others support divisions and perpetrate social injustice. The Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s predominant text, divides the community into four varnas, which continue to inform social divisions today (Veeramani 2001). India’s highest caste, the Brahmin or priest class, makes up 3% of India’s population and experiences little fluctuation due to the familial passing of caste. This caste possesses the greatest privileges professionally and academically, while the three lower classes, Kshatriyas (warriors), Vysyas (merchants), and Sudhras (servants), occupy lower social positions and possess fewer opportunities. In educational settings, Brahmin teachers actively discouraged non-Brahmins from academic pursuits. After the Indian Independence Act of 1947, the Brahmin Chief Minister in Tamil Nadu closed more than 10,000 village schools so that non-Brahmin children would turn to family trades like farming, cobbling, and cow herding. In addition to facing educational hindrances, non-Brahmins are prevented from entering the sanctums of Hindu temples. When lower castes provide offerings, priests do not touch their hands to avoid contamination.

Non-Brahmins, despite ill-treatment by the priest class, typically adhere to the same caste system that displaces them. They treat the lowest members of society (and a major part of the population) with even less dignity than the system allocates to them as non-Brahmins, often banning Untouchables from their homes. Members of this class work as farm hands and in sanitation, removing waste from houses and streets. Untouchable children usually do not go to school, and while the Indian government has attempted to address discrimination against Untouchables, discriminatory practices continue. Even beneath the Untouchables were Unseeables, who must hide from sight before dawn (Paswan 2002, p. 286).

Apart from caste injustice, other outdated practices such as gender oppression and extreme superstition in the name of holy rituals are still normative in India (Veeramani 2007, pp. 451-462). Some examples of religion-based rituals occurring today are walking on fire, animal sacrifices, and special rituals instigated by Brahmin priests to appease the gods and planetary powers (Veeramani 2014, p. 369).

Modern Hinduism and its surviving customs developed from a mixture of Aryan and Dravidian and indigenous faiths. Early Vedic Aryan ideas merged over time with an amalgamation of earlier ideas and beliefs to create what is now called Hinduism. The caste system originates from the story of Arjuna, who did not want to take part in a civil war against teachers, relatives, and friends until Lord Krishna cajoled him into action on the battlefield. Hindus orally transmitted this story for centuries before transcribing it in The Bhagavad Gita. According to the text, Krishna established the varna. The varna consisted of the division of society into four ranks, as per the Rig Veda. The four varnas are: (1) the Brahmins from the face of the Hindu God Brahma, who are priests and teachers, (2) the Kshatriyas from the shoulder, who are kings and warriors, (3) the Vaishyas from the thighs, who are business people, and (4) the Shudras from the feet, who are the labourers. Any mixture of these varnas is declared disastrous, as given social roles are crucial to maintaining communal structure. This classification first began in the Vedic age, between 1200 B.C.E. and 600 C.E., and lasted several centuries (Dayanandan 1989). Oppressed people such as the Shudhras found some liberation from this system by adopting new religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

Buddha was India’s first rational thinker. He was a prince named Siddhartha Gauthama, who saw the rampant animal sacrifices sponsored by the kings and officiated by Brahmins, as well as the inequities associated with varna dharma. He sought through various religious leaders and did not find answers (Kamath 2011). After discarding royal life to seek a cure for human suffering, he preached compassion and equal rights, challenging Brahmin authority over Indian culture. His rational message inspired India and neighboring countries to adopt rationalist ideologies, transforming them into Buddhist nations (Veeramani 2009). During the 5th century C.E., a Buddhist institution called Nalanda had more than 10,000 students enrolled in courses ranging from public health to mathematics. However, in the 11th century, a collapse in Buddhist ideology caused the institution’s destruction. Rationalist Buddhism suffered at the hands of ongoing Aryan rule, and ultimately the majority of India’s population returned to Hinduism. In countries still predominantly Buddhist, such as Cambodia and Tibet, Hindu rituals and superstitions have been assimilated into the Buddhist ideology.

Although his religion is no longer the dominant one in India, Buddha’s teachings inspired a wave of rational thought that paved the way for many Indian rationalists. Rational leaders taught forward thinking to the public by holding peaceful protests and leading public education meetings (Veeramani 1994; Kandasamy 2005). The notable 20th century rationalist, Periyar E.Y. Ramasamy, campaigned against such customs as child marriages, dowry systems, and ill-treatment of downtrodden people and widows. Ramasamy vehemently spoke out against traditionalist community leaders and passed resolutions at Chengalpattu Women’s Convention, Tamil Nadu India, November 1938, in favor of women’s societal and academic empowerment at self-respect conferences across the nation (Veeramani 2014, pp. 164-181). His rationalist educational movement began in the 1920s, at a time when India’s doctrines, or Sastras, claimed that unmarried girls would succumb to prostitution by the age of ten in the name of service to God in temples (Veeramani 2007, pp. 354-372). His efforts stimulated the construction of a teacher training institute in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India that evolved into the College of Pharmacy for Girls and the Engineering College for Women, now Periyar Maniammai University.

In addition to gender oppression, Hindu beliefs promoted class oppression that hindered access to education in the 20th century and into the 21st century. The Brahmin class, almost 100% literate, controlled all major educational institutions. India’s government, made up of 90% Brahmin employees in the highest positions as of 1939, showed a blind eye to the oppression. The lower castes, almost 95% illiterate, consistently encountered hurdles when pursuing education. At least primary and secondary school education is compulsory now, so the remaining barriers they face are to access to higher education (Kandasamy, p. 196). Within non-Brahmin classes in South India, Ramasamy spread the message that education was integral to self-respect and economic freedom. He empowered non-Brahmins to fight for opportunities in education, research, and jobs, and to accelerate the suppressed castes’ forward movement in society.

Ramasamy was born into a wealthy and strictly religious Hindu family. Despite receiving little schooling, he became a voracious reader, writer, and speaker, later becoming Chairman of Erode Municipality. When colleagues asked him to join the Gandhian movement, he resigned all 29 positions of authority and committed to a simple Gandhian life. He was joined by his wife, who was the first leader in Gandhi’s anti-alcohol campaign. Ramasamy eventually split with the Gandhi movement over a disagreement concerning equality and individual rights; he believed human freedom should come before the freedom of the country. Gods, he claimed, were excuses for superstition and irrationality. He boldly stated, “There is no god, no god at all. He who invented god is a fool. He who propagates god is a knave. He who worships god is a primitive” (Periyar 1967; Veeramani 1996). Along his travels across India, he shared Western articles on advances in science and logic. Followers named him “Periyar,” meaning “great man.” He took his ideologies and non-violent protests across England, Russia, France, Turkey, Italy, and Spain. At protests, his followers carried statues of Ganesha and broke them, symbolically debunking the omnipotent god. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization presented him with a citation on June 27, 1970, which read, “Periyar the prophet of the new age, the Socrates of South East Asia, father of the social reform movement, and arch enemy of ignorance, superstitions, meaningless customs and base manners.”

Ramasamy’s equal education movement weakened one of Hinduism’s central components, caste systems, and furthered a rationalist agenda in India. His efforts in public education brought attention to the cruel treatment of young girls, such as the denial of education and compulsory arranged marriage at a young age. Early marriages for female children often left them widowed before puberty. For many centuries, Indians considered widows valueless in society. Remarriage was not permitted, and many widows were sacrificed in the funeral pyre of their husbands. This custom was eradicated during British rule in India; however, child marriages and child widows continued to be prevalent. According to a report on Indian child widows, in 1921 there were 2,631,788 widows between the ages of one and thirty, 85,937 of which were between the ages of five and ten. Ramasamy’s public awareness meetings put pressure on the Indian government, and eventually the government raised the marriage age to 18 (Prohibition 2006). On rare occasions, child marriages still occur in remote parts of India, but in most places the custom no longer exists (Veeramani 2014, pp. 70-86).

Ramasamy and other rationalists fought for women’s rights in all areas of society. Within families, Ramasamy encouraged men and women to limit reproduction in order to help the country economically and avoid over-burdening mothers (Veeramani 2014, pp. 164-181). In some communities, only the eldest male children could acquire property, while women had no rights to hold property aside from paternal gifts at the time of marriage. Rationalists like Ramasamy fought for years against this custom, and only in 2005 did the Indian government give women the right to inherit family property. Female infanticide was a common practice in the last century, and at one point female births were far less common than male births. Indian families considered raising a girl to marriage to be a financial burden, especially in middle and lower-income populations. Ultrasound determinations of female gender often led to abortions. Rationalist pressure caused the Indian government to address this issue, and after a few years, the government instituted a law banning ultrasound gender screening.

Ramasamy became known as modern India’s leading rationalist thinker and activist, but others also played important roles. Most rational thinking leaders came from India’s upper classes and fought for change under the influence of Western intellectuals like Robert Ingersoll and George Holyoake. Even though they enjoyed privileged lives, their compassion led them to steer great movements for justice. Two in particular bear special mention. Jyotirao Govindarao Phule, born in 1827 in the present-day Maharastra State, was a social reformer and educationist. He and his wife started India’s first school for girls and in 1873 formed the organization Society Seekers of Truth. The organization sought equal rights for peasants and lower castes. Thomas Paine’s 18th century book Rights of Man was a great influence on Phule’s ideology. Phule, who criticized Vedas as “idle fantasies,” received the title of “Mahatma” in 1888, long before Mahatma Gandhi. A second notable rationalist, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, was the first from the Untouchable community to graduate from college, earning a doctorate in economics and law from Columbia University and the London School of Economics (Keer, p. 247). A colleague of Ramasamy, he advocated for constitutional rights for lower castes, extending to education, employment, and representation in Parliament.

Ramasamy, in the spirit of India’s first rational thinker, Buddha, left behind a legacy of progress that continues in India today. Today, a rationalist-led organization, Periyar International, operates in several countries. Indian rationalists continue to fight for job rights, accurate and religiously unbiased translations of Hindu scriptures, the removal of the caste system from the Indian Constitution, and the liberation of young Indian minds in a predominantly Hindu society.

References

Dayanandan, T. Francis. 1989. The Relevance of Hindu Ethos for Christian Presence: A Tamil Perspective (Madras: Christian Literary Society).

Kamath, Prabhakar. 2011. “Buddha, The Sensible Rationalist,” Nimukta (January 26).

Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha, Florentin Smarandache, and K. Kandasamy. 2005. Fuzzy and Neutrosophic Analysis of Periyar’s Views on Untouchability (Phoenix: Hexis).

Keer, Dhanajay. 1974. Mahatma Jotirao Phule: Father of Indian Social Revolution (Bombay: Popular Prakashan Ltd).

Paswan, Sanjay, and Paramanshi Jaideva. 2002. Encyclopedia of Dalits in India: Human Rights: New Dimensions in Dalit Problems (Gyan Publishing House). Volume 14.

Periyar, EV.R. 1967. “There is no God,” Viduthalai (May 24).

The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. 2006. No.6, Acts of Parliament, 2007 (India).

Rahman, Maseeh. 2014. “Indian prime minister claims genetic science existed in ancient times,” The Guardian (October 28).

Veeramani, K. 1994. Religion and Society: Selections from Periyar’s Speeches and Writings (Madras: Emerald Publishers).

Veeramani, K. 1996. Periyar – Is There a God? (Chennai: Darvidar Kazham Publications).

Veeramani, K. 2001. Bhagavad Giia: Myth or Mirage (Chennai: Darvidar Kazham Publications).

Veeramani, K. 2007. Collected Works of Periyar E.V.R. (Chennai: The Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution).

Veeramani, K. 2009. “Buddhist Principles and Periyar.” The Modem Rationalist. March 30.

Veeramani, K. 2014. Periyar Feminism (Chennai: The Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution).