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Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy

Author(s): Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd  

Publisher: Sage Publications, Year: 2019   

                                        

 Description: 

The most gratifying thing for me[is] that, along with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste,[this book] was classified as a millennium book[by The Pioneer]. In addition, many Indian languages have been translated into it. In a way, in the hands of Dalitbahujan activists, it has become a tool. - from the Epilogue of the second edition.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd writes about the caste system and Indian culture with passionate indignation, laced with sarcasm. In the sense of youth, family life, business relations, power relations, Gods and Goddesses, death and, not least, Hindutva, he looks at the social and cultural disparities between the Dalitbahujans and Hindus. He discusses their view of a more just world, synthesizing much of the ideals of the Bahujans.

Ilaiah Shepherd adds an afterword in this second edition that explores the past of this novel, also used as the downtrodden Dalitbahujans' manifesto. He speaks about his ratings as well as the criticism from his critics he has got. He reminds us of the need for dialogue to continue. He wrote the novel, as he says,' for those who have open minds. My request to the [upper-class Sudras] Brahmin, Baniya and neo-Kshatriyas is this: you have just learned what to tell others, the Dalitbahujans. Now you must learn to listen and to read what we have to say, in your own interest and in the interest of this great nation.'

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