In earlier posts -
“Delegitimization of Lokavidya:The basis of the demand for
reservations/special assistance” and “Social Exclusion-A
Lokavidya Perspective” the idea that knowledge hierarchy led to
caste hierarchy and the subsequent delegitimization of Lokavidya
(intensively in the colonial era) setting the stage for a demand for
reservations/special assistance; has been proposed as a perspective
on the important question of inequality in social and economic life
of Indian society.
Some insightful inputs on this question
In the recent past, Gandhiji also believed that it was not right to
place one varna above the other.In fact he said “A
lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's, as all have the
right of earning their livelihood from their work”, reiterating his
fundamental belief in equality of all labour. He wrote and spoke a
great deal on this subject quite early on his return to India from
Africa but his efforts appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
While analysing the dynamics of
“knowledge-evolution” in the Indian context Dharampalji
in his Bharatiya Chitta,
Manas and Kala has stated
the following:
“Differentiation between what is
called the para vidya(knowledge
of the sacred) and apara vidya (knowledge
of the mundane) is one aspect of the Indian ways of organising
physical and social reality.
When this division between para
and apara knowledge
occured in the Indian tradition cannot be said with any
certainity...this sharp division may have arisen sometime during the
end of Treta (yuga)
and the beginning of Dvapara,
with a variety of skills and crafts appearing on the earth to help
man live with the increasing complexity of the universe..
It is commonly believed that the
four Vedas along with
their various branches and connected Brahmanas,
Upanishadas, etc form the
repository of para vidya
..and the Puranas,
Ithihasas etc as also
the various canonical texts of different sciences and crafts like
Ayurveda, Jyotisha etc
deal with the apara vidya.
In spite of the presence of both
streams of knowledge together in almost all canonical texts, the
dividing line between para vidya
and apara vidya seems
to be etched rather deeply in the minds of the Indian people..... It
seems that the Indian mind has somehow come to believe that all that
is connected with apara vidya
is rather low, and that knowledge of the para
alone is true knowledge.
...What the Indians realised was the
imperative need to keep the awareness of the para,
of ultimate reality, intact while going through the complex routine
of daily life.
With the passage of time, this
emphasis on regulating apara vidya
through our understanding of the para vidya
turned into a contempt for the apara....
this imbalance has affected our thinking on numerous subjects and
issues, for instance, take our understanding of the varna
vyavastha. In interpreting this
vyavastha, we have
somehow assumed that the varnas
connected with textutal parctices and rituals of the para
vidya are higher, and those
involved in the apara
are lower. Closeness of association with what are defined to be para
practices becomes the criterion for determining the status of a varna
and evolving a hierarchy between them. Thus the Brahmanas
associated with the recitation and study of the Vedas
become the highest, and the Sudras
engaged in the practice of the arts and crafts of ordinary living
become the lowest.
The issue of the hierarchy of the
varnas is not ,
however, a closed question in the Indian tradition. During the last
two thousand years, there have occured numerous debates on this
question.
(Maharishi)
Vyasa..felt a sadness
in his heart..he noticed that women and Sudras
had been deprived of the Vedas,...
to make up for these deficiencies (he) .. composed the (Vishnu)
Purana..where he
proclaims the Kali yuga
to be the yuga of the
women and the Sudras.
Perhaps in the Kali yuga,
everyone turns into a Sudra....in
this yuga of the
ascendence of the apara vidya,
the role of women and Sudras,
the major practitiners of the apara vidya,
of practical arts and crafts of sustaining life, becomes the most
valuable. In our own times, Mahatma Gandhi expressed the same
thought...that in this yuga
everyone must become a Sudra”.
What does this tell us
In
the post on 'Social exclusion' , it was stated that the
history of 'social reform' movements (revolutions) “can be seen as
a continuing flux in Lokavidya....
every time a certain knowledge thread came into ascendency and sought
to radically alter Lokavidya Samaj(the
society that lived by Lokavidya)
there was a movement within Lokavidya Samaj
to relegitimise or redefine a 'relegated' thread of Lokavidya
and ensure inclusion of those sections that were(being) 'excluded'
from Lokavidya Samaj”. Seen
in the light of Dharampalji's summary, this 'flux in Lokavidya'
appears to bear close resemblance to the 'tussle' for ascendency
between para and apara
vidya. And Gandhiji's wish
that “in
this yuga
everyone must become a Sudra”,
appears to point to the relegitimisation of Lokavidya.
It
has been argued in the post on 'Delegitimization of Lokavidya....' ,
that the way forward would be to re-establish the fundamental basis
of equality between different streams of knowledge/skills in the
local market, while the
demand for equal wages for all work/labour on par with government
employment will kick-start a movement for the removal of inequality
between Lokavidya-based labour and University-knowledge-based labour.
It
appears that knowledge hierarchy has all along driven social and
economic inequality and the way forward to a more equal
socio-economic order would be to address the oppressive aspects of
knowledge hierarchy with all resources at our command.
Krishnarajulu
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