Kancha Ilaiah Quotes

There is no caste in blood.

India’s great curse is caste; but English education has already proved a tremendous power in leveled the injurious distinctions of caste

In a superior civilization, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste... would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.

Brahmins cannot hope to claim a high and superior status forever. Times are changing. They have to come down.

There should be no differentiation amongst the people. All should be treated as equals. On this basis the Brahmin must give up his false prestige. In the interest of the society. I say that the blind beliefs should be given up

In India, cast not class … is what counts most in popular life.

If everyone simply ignores the caste system, it will go away overnight.

You have countries like India that have tried to help untouchables, with essentially affirmative-action programs, but it hasn't fundamentally changed the structure of their societies.

On the battlefield, there is no distinction between upper and lower class.

Traditionally, Indian society was divided into four main castes. At the top, Brahmins, as priests and teachers; second came the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers; third, Vaishyas, who were merchants; last, Shudras, the laborers. And below them all, the Dalits, or untouchables, called Harijans, or “children of God,” by Mahatma Gandhi

The idea of the nation [India] itself is incompatible with the institution of caste.

Some men say that they should be satisfied with the abolition of untouchability only, leaving the caste system alone. The aim of abolition of untouchability alone without trying to abolish the inequalities inherent in the caste system is a rather low aim.

I reject absolutely the idea that people should know their place, and know their class.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

Our aristocracy, unlike that of Europe, is open to all comers.

My feeling is, having lived in different classes, that people want equality of opportunity... that's the thing that makes me despair: the idea that people aren't given equality of opportunity.

Every society naturally divides itself into classes. The author of nature has bestowed on some greater capacities than on others--birth, education, talents and wealth, create distinctions among men as visible and of as much influence as titles, stars and garters. In every society, men of this class will command a superior degree of respect--and if the government is so constituted as to admit but few to exercise the powers of it, it will, according to the natural course of things, be in their hands.

We cannot put into the Constitution, owing to existing prejudices and existing institutions, an entire exclusion of all class distinctions.

A Brahmana shall be compelled to pay a fine of one thousand panas if he has intercourse with … females of those two lower castes; for offending with a … Sudra female a fine of one thousand.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.

To abolish class distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself.

There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in others, that a certain class of people are for the purpose of producing servants for another class of people, and that this servant-producing class has no right to give their children an education that is calculated to elevate them above the position of their parents. We are not in sympathy with this idea.

Any organized social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is "flat" and in which all members are equal.

I was also pained to notice an institution which I certainly did not expect to find in this country – I mean caste. Your rich people are really Brahmins, and your poor people are Sudras.

No one has yet been found resolute enough in dogmatizing to deny that Nature made man equal; that society has destroyed this equality is a truth not more incontrovertible.