Caste, Conversion A Colonial Conspiracy: What Every Hindu and Christian Needs to Know about Caste

by Satish K. Sharma

Almost everyone on the planet has heard of the "Ancient Hindu Caste" system and somehow, almost everyone knows how horrible it is, but what if it wasn't ancient and it wasn't Hindu? Almost everyone on the planet knows that the colonialist erasure of indigenous languages and ideas was a horrific chapter in human history, but what if it's not over, what if it's morphed in to a new form, just as devastating and destructive, and what if the Caste issue holds the key to revealing it? Every Hindu walks through life carrying a subliminal guilt that his or her ancestors were "caste discriminators" and every devout Christian walks tall and proud in the knowledge that his or her ancestors helped to free the crushed, downtrodden from the depraved Hindoo caste system, and being an accepted "truth" no-one questions it any more. What if they are both victims of the same deception, of the same multigenerational fraud? In 2016, the British Hindu community was rocked when it became the target of demonisation and dehumanisation by anti-Hindu Anglican Evangelists. Allegations were made that caste discrimination was not a relic of history but was present and not only present but rife amongst the British Indian community. The difficulty was that there was no experience of it at the grass roots level, and there was no evidence of it being either systemic nor endemic, so what was afoot? The author Pt Satish K Sharma, a Dharmic Scholar and Theologian and a long serving community worker under took the task of determining, once and for all, the real history of Caste and of establishing and quantifying its presence or absence in the Britain of the 21st Century. There were mountains of academic accounts of the theory, allegations and anecdotes abounded and yet the reality at ground level was remarkably different. The revelations contained in this work were the revelations which incinerated the false claims which had been levelled, revealed the hidden hand behind the anti-Hindu media campaign but also provided the context and framework with which this long running civilisational wound could heal. The contents of this book include actual communications which took place, the information which was presented to Parliamentarians. Legislators and Community leaders as well as eye witness accounts of meetings and "consultations", as well as the authors research, research which led eventually to the senior leaders of the Church of England requesting that Parliament review the whole issue once more. We have the strange situation that Parliament passed legislation without adequate consultation and the Government chose not to enact the legislation, a phenomenon never before arisen in British History, this book provides the answers as to why. The Caste issue remains a colonialist force for harm, and the tropes which underly it cause suffering to the Hindu community in every corner of the world even today, as Isabel Wilkersons recent tragically uninfomed book prove. This book will go a long way to to reversing this harm and should be compulsory reading for every Hindu, Christian and activist working to reverse the civilisational trauma of European Colonialism “I find it extraordinary that there are issues here of which until now I have had absolutely no knowledge. My feeling is that the majority of native Britons will share this reaction. The Church, Christianity, which had perverted the simple message of its founder, believed it could justify imposing its version on a “primitive” people with a concept of original sin and the claim that it alone possessed the means to personal salvation. Between them, they were able to devise an extraordinarily successful divide-and-rule format which did immense damage to that country… Please forgive us now, so that we can move forward together. "
M Purton BBC Producer (Retd)

Genres: History, Nonfiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 2021

Reviews

[Ashish Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book.
Short yet powerful. It's very enlightening, this book deserve to be read by everyone.

[Veda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though it’s only a 100 odd pages book, it is packed with information, emotion, and passion.

It gives an insight into the British parliament’s proceedings of the ‘Lord Harries Caste Amendment’ introduced by Lord Harries of Pentregarth, a former Bishop backed by the Church of England.

It touches a little about how the caste system came into play, the role played by Church of England, and how the Missionaries are continuing to divide Hindu society and negatively brand it in the name of caste.

The author has minced no words about everything mentioned above. This is one of a kind book that gives us an idea as to how one can respond to the caste trope being shoved on Hindus, especially by the non-Hindu folks.

[Rishabh Sarswat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sharp and snarky rebuttal to colonial Caste trope shoved on Hindus; Pandit Satish Shamra's short book gives key references to Anglican Church's not so divine deeds. I found book thoroughly enjoyable and educative. Book has been successful in making case for lack of trust for Church in Hindu community and asking tough questions from Church, legislators, equality organizations and State. It also debunks the claims of the hierarchical structure of varna vyavastha and puts the Church on testimony dock.

I wish there was more information on Jati, Varna, Kula, Gotra, and Sampradaay given, not necessarily in defense of Hinduism but in the broader context of social structures of the Indian subcontinent. Also, an acceptance of social inequality and why and what went wrong (before British colonisation) could have made the argument even more solid in my opinion.

The repetitive accusation by author directed to present day anglican perpetuators for past deeds of their ancestors is something which at one hand is fitting for their similar theory of labeling everyone with a common surname as oppressor or oppressed, but also seems a stretch. This was also mentioned in epilogue by Mike Purton, a writer on Spiritual matters. Mike puts a beautiful conclusion to the book with short response, which should not be missed.

Book is a great small resource for exposing Church in its devious divide and rule policy but it falls short of being antithesis for Wilkerson's book, which it didn't intend to, but I guess I was expecting it to be. Book's sensational cover does total justice to its content.

[Abhilash · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that everyone must read and know about. That is not enough. This is a topic on which we should expand upon further. There are still laws from the British era on the books that pit Hindu against Hindu, man against man. The idea of Jathi vyavasta was to help people nourish and support one another. The divisions were not based on ideas of inferiority and superiority. But it is practiced that way, we have laws that expect it to be practiced that way and incentivizes behavior that encourage such tendencies. That the divide and rule policy was implemented at all stratas of society and ingrained at such a deep level was an astonishing find. The British conquered the world using this strategy. It must have happened elsewhere. There must be conflicts going on in the world a result of this social engineering through legislative and cultural manipulation. What sort of a world will we be living in as these changes get undone, slowly but surely? Things are about to get so interesting.

[Nikki Mcgee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this to balance some of my other reading about Hinduism. It is written in a polemical style which might not be for everyone but I personally found much of it to be very useful and very accessible.

[वैभव चतुर्वेदी · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a comparatively short book yet it deals with almost all important questions which any thinking mind has of the subject of Caste System that has become synonymous with India and Hinduism. Unlike 'The Western Foundations of the Caste System', this is not meant for academic refences but general readers; given the scarcity of such texts, although it still has a solid introductory value academically too. It had a deep impact on me and I could not help spending days meditating on the text, Pt Satish has done a commendable job.

[Jay Mehta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely to be read by every single Hindu - for sure. But I feel this is also a good read for every single Westerner, especially the unbiased curious ones, who has been fed this hatred by the western academia, polity and church, especially the Anglican church, regarding the Sanatan Dharma and the origins of the "caste" system.
Primarily, the book is a sharp rebuttal of Richard Douglas Harries, Baron Harries of Pentregarth led March 2013 debate in the Upper Chamber of the UK parliament to add "caste" as a protected category in the Equality Act of 2010. With statistics and information about the British Hindus, many aspects are eye-opening.
The book dives into the "white saviour" complex, the colonial mindset, the divide-and-rule policy and proselytizing mission that create motivation to denigrate and defame the only surviving ancient continuous civilization of the earth. In addition, it shows the mirror to the British elite, especially the Lambeth Palace, who created the very system they claim to abhor and how "caste" manifests inside the British society itself.
It's a very short book and while Pandit Sharma ji hasn't shown much inclination to write, I feel someone like him definitely needs to come up with more literature to guide Hindus around the world.

[Maqbool Patel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blame everything on British

[Manish Khanka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant read.