Kancha Ilaiah: Cast

“Large number of tribes, Dalits and Backward Castes have a historical food culture of beef. The anti-beef agenda has been in the Brahmanical fold. It began with the South Indian Brahmins and then spread to the North and became part of the Gandhian movement. My question is, how can the state impose a certain food culture on people? The state has nothing to do with food. They can give certain food to people depending on the market, but cannot impose that you can or cannot eat certain food items. If beef eating is bad for Brahmins or Baniyas or certain upper castes, then the state is imposing that on the rest of the society. So the state is actually becoming a theocratic state.”

Kancha Ilaiah

Quoted in DNA India (04 March 2015) http://www.dnaindia.com/india/interview-maharashtra-s-beef-ban-is-not-merely-communal-it-is-theocratic-kancha-ilaiah-2066223.

People , Food , Question , Parting

“The fight for rights and assertion is almost over. Now the fight is for intellectual equality, and that is where everything becomes controversial or problematic for upper castes.”

Kancha Ilaiah

Quoted in "Caste discrimination: Invisible but omnipresent" in The Indian Express (01 February 2016) http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/caste-discrimination-invisible-but-omnipresent/.

Fight

“How do you change ancient prejudices in any society? You do it through repositioning caste at childhood. If young children are taught respect over a bedtime story or in class, that could help enormously”

Kancha Ilaiah

Quoted in "One Man Takes Aim At Prejudice With Storybook" at The Washington Post (20 January 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902412.html.

Children , Change , Help , Childhood

“Reform your texts, reform your history. Say leather is not untouchable to God, the barber's knife is not untouchable to God. Take a Dalit priest and a Brahmin priest to celebrations. Do these symbolic things. Let them (high-caste Hindus) come and sit with Dalits in their huts and eat with them”

Kancha Ilaiah

Quoted in "War against Ignorance" at The Hindu (01 February 2010) http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/war-against-ignorance/article98547.ece.

God , History

“A careful reading of the Gita would show anyone that it fully supports the enslavement of Shudras and OBCs, a process initiated by the Rig Veda itself. Rig Veda formulated the caste structure in Purusha Suktha and the Gita upheld it.”

Kancha Ilaiah

"The Gita and OBCs" in Deccan Chronicle (20 December 2014) http://www.deccanchronicle.com/141220/commentary-op-ed/article/gita-and-obcs.

Support , Reading

“Hinduism has destroyed all positive elements that normally exist in a human being. During the post-colonial period their energies were diverted to manipulate education, employment, production and development subtly. Their minds are poisoned with the notion that productive work is mean and that productive castes are inferior. No ruling class in the world is as dehumanized as the Indian brahminical castes. They can be rehumanized only by pushing them into productive work and by completely diverting their attention from the temple, the office, power-seeking, and so on.”

Kancha Ilaiah

Excerpt from Why I Am Not A Hindu : A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy (1996) http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resources_ilaiah.htm.

World , Education

“For centuries the so called goddess of education was against the dalit learning, reading and writing in any language. She was the goddess of education of only the high castes — mainly of the brahmins and baniayas.”

Kancha Ilaiah

"Dalits and English" in Tehelka (15 February 2011) http://www.deccanherald.com/content/137777/dalits-english.html.

Education , Learning , Reading

“Where is the honour in killing someone? Why are caste-based murders being labelled as honour killings? Dalits are being killed for their caste, so these are caste hatred killings and they should be called that.”

Kancha Ilaiah

Quoted in Scroll.in (21 September 2018) https://scroll.in/latest/895332/telangana-do-not-describe-caste-based-murders-as-honour-killings-say-activists.