On casteism and the violence of godlessness || Acharya Prashant (2016)
Questioner (Q): Please throw some light on the caste problem in India.
Acharya Prashant (AP): It is very visible, but there are ‘n’ number of other things that are not so visible. In fact, there are other things also that are very visible, but this problem is so easy to talk about. This problem is easy to talk about because it fits the agenda of those who talk about it.
You look at the man who is casteist. He is also bound to be violent in many other ways. To talk only about casteism is to give a tacit endorsement to other ways of cruelty. You see, if I am a wife-beater, a child beater, a neighbour beater, an animal beater; and if one only talks about my wife- “Why do you keep hitting this lady? Why do you keep beating this lady?” He does not talk about the kid that I keep hammering every day. Then surely the fellow has something to do with my wife. It is not out of compassion that he is talking. Had it been out of compassion then he would have talked about violence in its totality, not just one aspect of it. So, you know, you like my wife I understand. And that would give me the license to beat you too.
(Laughter)
For example, these days, you know, there is a group of people- the leftists. They talk very forcefully about the caste problem. There has been an unfortunate suicide in Hyderabad university. So caste is all over the news again. It is always there in news in some way or the other. What we don’t realize is that caste is just one aspect, one manifestation of a much deeper problem. Unless that much deeper problem is corrected, many problems like caste will continue to hang around. But, it is fashionable to talk about caste especially in the leftists circles. What bothers me is that why don’t they talk about the hundreds of other kinds of violence, especially the violence of Godlessness, which is the biggest violence.
Q: This is a big problem because Godlessness is, in their way, of the modern culture. It’s not that they are not only men, this is a whole culture – Godless structures.
AP: Yes. Yes. Yes. This camera, this light, this language, all are products of a Godless mind. There is no doubt about it.
Q: Sir, so the God-full mind would not produce these things?
AP: Not these things. And don’t go into the question of ‘what then?’ The difference might have been just subtle. Just subtle. As subtle as the difference between a kitchen knife and the knife of a murderer. So, the camera might have remained very much a similar camera, yet there would have been a lot of difference.
