THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY
NOTES FROM A BROTHER IN INDIA
By INIYAN ELANGO, M.D.
Edited and Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI
HISTORY AND HERITAGE
The first thing those who enslaved the Black people did was to erase all records and memories of our great heritage and history. This is because a rootless people will always wallow in self-pity and self-destruction. For example, the first thing that was done by the Sinhalese (the majority people in Sri Lanka who find kinship with the North Indian Hindus, Sanskrit language and their Aryan heritage), when they started a civil war with Sri Lanka's minority Tamil people two decades ago, was to burn down the centuries old library in a city called Jaffna which housed priceless Tamil books which were hundreds of years old. The civil war still wages in Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), are fighting for "Tamil Eelam", a separate Tamil homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.
So that is why I consider it very important to make our people very proud of themselves again because we are the owners of the richest and the oldest civilization and culture. We were civilized, cultured and humane when the Aryan hordes were plundering, killing and amusing themselves in barbarism all over Europe and Central Asia.
I think you know about the erstwhile "Lemuria" continent which bridged the Indian sub-continent and Australia, where the pre-historic Tamil (Black) people lived. Much of Lemuria was lost to the sea during a massive oceanic upheaval. But the aborigines of Australia are supposed to be the descendants of the pre-historic Tamils. Much of the customs and the language of the aborigines of Australia is similar to those of the rural Tamil folk. Even the facial features of the Australian aborigines and the Melanesian people is very similar to that of Tamil "Pariah" (Dalit) people.
I am very interested in the visual media. When I was in the USA I studied film for a short time at the Los Angeles City College. I feel the global visual media, including American cinema, is extremely Euro-centric" culturally. Movies are modern day cultural icons and we don't have any motion pictures to preserve the glory of the global Black history and culture. Even disaster movies like the Titanic showcased European culture and manners. Even movies made with Black stars such as Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington or Will Smith are made for the consumption of White audiences and never deal with Black history or culture. Even Spike Lee is too obsessed with the negative side of the Black experience in America and never bothers about showcasing Black history and culture, with the possible exception of the motion picture Malcolm X. I have a dream of making films that will be widely seen by people all over the world which will deal with the positive side of Black life.
Even the media madness over the end of this millennium (as counted from the birth of Jesus Christ) is being celebrated with European artistic and cultural flair with the total exclusion of Black arts and culture. I have formed a troupe to perform Dalit arts, folk music and street theatre to keep the arts of the Indian Black people alive. In India the arts and music of the Hindus is passed off as the culture of India by totally excluding the native music and performing arts of the Dalit people.
In America people usually associate "Black" with Africa while being oblivious to the fact that Black people live in very large numbers in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Gautama Buddha, the Black revolutionary who founded the egalitarian religion of Buddhism to counter and destroy the bigotry of Hinduism, was a Black prince. But the Hindus highjacked Buddhism and killed Buddhists in large numbers. The Buddhist missionaries fled to other parts of Asia and spread the message of the Buddha in China and other parts of Asia. Those indigenous Dravidians who were loyal to Buddha and resisted the caste system became the untouchable outcastes (Dalits). That is why Dr. Ambedkar called upon his people to embrace Buddhism. But unfortunately, the brand of Buddhism that is practiced by the Dalai Lama and other Asians such as the Chinese, Japanese and Sinhalese are all corrupted forms of the real Buddhism. To learn about the original message of the Buddha one should read the works of Dr. Ambedkar.
So long for now. Let us make the new millennium the millennium of the Black human beings of this World! Let us work towards that earnestly, intelligently and with unity. Let peace and prosperity rule over our people.
With love.
SOURCES:
Without Malice: The Truth About India, by Iniyan Elango
THE BIGOTRY OF HINDUS WITH REGARD TO SKIN COLOUR
I would like to add some observations to our previous exchange on the bigotry of Hindus with regard to skin colour.
Most Hindus (whether upper or lower caste) are "brown" skinned (with shades from dark to very fair) with "caucasoid" features. Dalits all over India and a few lower caste Hindus in South India are those with black skin and indigenous features.
Lower caste Hindus in South India (Tamil Nadu) tend to be black skinned because, unlike the rest of India where the caste system was introduced by the Aryans by enslaving the indigenous Dravidians, the caste system was introduced in Tamil Nadu by making the Dravidians (Tamilians) accept the caste system under the garb of "religious conversion" by making the black Tamil kings convert from Buddhism and Jainism to Hindu caste religion.
Tamil kings in the south successfully resisted Aryan invasion for centuries. While the Tamils (Dravidians) in the rest of India succumbed to the Aryan invasion, the Tamil kings in the south held out against the Aryans for many centuries. The Brahmans, the wily priestly caste people of the Aryan Hindus, decided to quell the Tamil resistance through a cunning mixture of spirituality and sex a millennium ago. (The Aryan invasion is said to have occurred in India 3,500 years ago around 1500 BC). Tamil kings desiring Aryan princesses married them and in the process bringing in the Brahmin priests and the bigoted Hindu caste religion in the Tamil kingdoms of the Cholas, Pandyas and the Cheras in the South of India a millennium ago. Thus the Tamil kings were done in by their sexual desire and religious tolerance. Recorded Tamil history and literature is itself 2,500 years old. The Tamil language is dated to be several millenniums old. Tamil is the language of the Black people and is considered as the oldest language of India.
Therefore the Aryan castes of "Kshatriyas" (royals) and Vysyas (traders) are absent in Tamil Nadu. But the Aryan caste of Brahmans are present in Tamil Nadu. These Tamil Nadu Brahmans are a wily lot who are vehement in preserving the bigoted values of Hinduism. These Brahmans have been divided the Tamils into the touchable "Shudras" (the lower caste Hindus who are landlords and traders) and the untouchable outcaste Panchamas (Dalits). Thus the lower caste Hindu Tamils who are also Dravidian have been made slaves of the Hindu values and willingly accept the superiority of the Brahmans and the caste system. In the Tamil Nadu region it is mostly the Dravidian lower caste Hindus who attack and torment Black Dalits.
Historian Romila Thapar, in volume one of A History of India, observes as follows:
"The main stress in the ordering of castes appears to have been the division of society into brahmans and non-bramans (in Tamil Nadu). Among the non-brahmans there is as compared to north India, little mention of the `Kshatriyas' and the Vysyas' but the `shudras' are prominent. The `Shudras' were divided (in south India) into the clean Shudras whose touch was not polluting and the unclean Shudras (Panchamas-Dalits) who were debarred from entry into the temple. The picture which emerges suggests that the Brahmans were in control of powerful positions and that the non-Brahmans were more or less working for them. The Brahmans naturally emphasized caste loyalties and caste assemblies, since this would prevent a wider basis of unity developing amongst the the non-brahmans (Tamils)."
The above phenomena is peculiar to the region of Tamil Nadu where the Dravidians have been pitted against fellow Dravidians by the cunning and wily Brahmans who spearhead the Hindu caste religion. In the rest of India all caste Hindus, where upper or lower caste, are all caucasoid and brown skinned. Dalits are all starkly differentiated by their indigenous features and black skin. It is not uncommon to find fair skinned people among Dalits, just like some fair skinned African-Americans. But it should be observed that even fair skinned Dalits are differentiated by their indigenous features, while Hindus whose colour varies from dark brown to ivory are easily differentiated by their caucasoid features.
SOURCES:
Without Malice: The Truth About India, by Iniyan Elango
A History of India, by Romila Thapar
Iniyan Elango, M.D. graduated from the Madra Medical College in 1989 with a degree in Medicine and Surgery. He subsequently studies and traveled extensively in Europe and the United States for three years. He is the author of Without Malice: The Truth About India. Dr. Elango can be contacted at tamilhumanrights@hotmail.com
Also see following:
HISTORY NOTES: CASTE AND RACE IN INDIA
LECTURE NOTES: THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN INDIA - A PHOTO ESSAY
HISTORY NOTES: THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN INDIAN ANTIQUITY
NOTES FROM A BROTHER IN INDIA: HISTORY AND HERITAGE
NOTES FROM A BROTHER IN INDIA: THE BIGOTRY OF HINDUS WITH REGARD TO SKIN COLOUR
HISTORY NOTES: DR. CHEIKH ANTA DIOP AND THE CULTURAL ROOTS OF THE DALITS: INDIA'S BLACK UNTOUCHABLES
HISTORY NOTES: A PLEA FOR FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AT THE WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM
TRAVEL NOTES: LOOKING AT INDIA THROUGH AFRICAN EYES
HISTORY NOTES: PAN-AFRICANISM IN SOUTH ASIA
HISTORY NOTES: THE BLACKS OF THE EAST BENGAL: A NATIVE'S PERSPECTIVE
Copyright © 1998 Runoko Rashidi. All rights reserved.
Revised: August 08, 2002.
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