“Despite being born in an orthodox and religious Chitpawan Brahmin community, Vinayak despised the caste system right from childhood. This has been illustrated in the kinships he developed with children from various castes and strata of society, and how he dined at their homes. At a time when most members of his community forbade sea travel for fear of a loss of caste, Vinayak was among the few Brahmins who travelled to London for his education. He had no qualms about going non-vegetarian as well, unlike most Brahmins of the time. As his political thoughts matured during his long years of incarceration, he penned essays on the abhorrent practice of the caste system and untouchability and how these sapped the nation of all vitality. Advocating a strong case for their total, complete and unconditional eradication at a time when these ideas were not yet a part of the political discourse popularized by either Gandhi or Ambedkar, he was the first to envision a casteless India.”

Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Despite being born in an orthodox and religious Chitpawan Brahmin community, Vinayak despised the caste system right fr…" by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar?

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar24

Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, … 1883–1966

Related quotes

“Right from his childhood, Vinayak found the caste system that plagued Hindu society reprehensible. In his own little way he broke these barriers. Despite being an upper-caste Brahmin, and a landlord at that, all his childhood friends were from poor backgrounds and belonged to the supposed lower castes.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past

“A man who knows neither how to travel nor how to keep a journal has put together this travel journal. But at the moment of signing he is suddenly afraid. So he casts the first stone. Here.”

Henri Michaux (1899–1984) painter, poet, writer

Preface to Ecuador (1929)

“How will he see to cast out the mote from his brother's eye, who has the beam of anger in his own eye?”

John Cassian (360–435) Christian monk and theologian

Book VIII, Chapter V
Institutes of the Coenobia (c. 420 AD)

“(He remarked) that anyone who truly wished to develop tolerance toward other human beings should start by casting aside any and all religious affiliation. When challenged by one of the other guests, he had asked innocently whether anyone could name a single person put to death or driven from his home by an atheist over theological matters.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Deepsix (2001), Chapter 4 (pp. 72-73)

“Arun Shourie tells us that a lot can be learned from the case of Narayan Guru who, early this century, as a member of the unapproachable Ezhava caste in Kerala, became an acknowledged religious leader and profoundly changed caste relations in Kerala for the better. He 'attained the highest spiritual states, thereby acquired unquestioned authority, and transformed society from within the tradition'. He made use of a major loophole in the rigidities of the caste system, a loophole which Hindu society deliberately maintained precisely because Hinduism was not merely a social system but, among other things, also a spiritual system: renunciates in general, and sages with acknowledged yogic realization in particular, are above the worldly divisions such as caste. They also have the authority to herald social transformations which Hindus would never accept from purely political busybodies.”

Narayana Guru (1855–1928) Indian social reformer

Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

“Born in a devotional Brahmin family, I instinctively came to revere Hindu religion, Hindu history and Hindu culture. I had, therefore, been intensely proud of Hinduism as a whole. As I grew up I developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. That is why I worked actively for the eradication of untouchability and the caste system based on birth alone. I openly joined RSS wing of anti-caste movements and maintained that all Hindus were of equal status as to rights, social and religious and should be considered high or low on merit alone and not through the accident of birth in a particular caste or profession.”

Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi

Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)

“The Brahmins are a dynasty and a caste. Brahma is the sun and its rays Brahmins. The Brahmans left the mouth of God as the purest of their verbs, and the Sudras were born from the feet, as the vilest dust. It is not for the sudra or touch the outcast Brahmins, is not given as the roots touch the flowers, or the sole of the foot touching the mouth. The hands that touch the outcast Brahmin in print in him the indelible stamp of hell, the purity of the Brahmin is like the dew drop on the sheet, which only disappears forever when you touch him.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Os Brâmanes, p. 474
Os Brâmanes (1866)

“Both intellectually and morally, he was indeed far beyond his country and equals in rank; in both respects he might have taken a high place among the most enlightened of European Sovereigns had his destiny been so cast.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

Obituary in Allen’s Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence of British &Foreign India, China, & All Parts of the East on Swati Tirunal's death, quoted in "The Monarch musician"
About Swathi Thirunal

“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 (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

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

“The Unseasonable man is one who will go up to a busy person, and open his heart to him. He will serenade his mistress when she has a fever. He will address himself to a man who has been cast in a surety-suit, and request him to become his security. He will come to give evidence when the trial is over.”

Theophrastus (-371–-287 BC) ancient greek philosopher

Characters, ch. 9 (12); translation from R. C. Jebb and J. E. Sandys (trans.), The Characters of Theophrastus (London: Macmillan, 1909), p. 75.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar24

Related quotes

Related topics