About the 5000 years of suppression of the so-called lower castes in India
There is too much hoopla about the so-called 5000 years of suppression of lower castes and “untouchables” in India.
We are told, almost as gospel, that the upper castes — mostly Brahmins and Kshatriyas — kept the rest of India in chains for millennia. That for 5000 years, one small group controlled everything. That another large group remained crushed under its feet.
I’m not denying that caste hierarchy exists in India. It does. Among Hindus, yes. But also among Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists who converted from Hinduism. Caste didn’t vanish with conversion; it simply adapted.
And yet, despite claiming to hate it, everyone clings to it. Why? Because caste pays. It offers benefits. It offers quotas. It offers power. The reservation system, initially a social corrective, has become a permanent political currency. Nobody wants to discard the yoke of casteism because it’s now a badge of entitlement.
Today, thanks to the draconian SC/ST Act — made even harsher under the BJP — and the political obsession with pushing reservations beyond logic, being from a “lower caste” has become a privilege rather than a burden. Parties compete to offer more quotas. Even the historically proud Marathas now demand inclusion among the backward. Yadavs and Thakurs both want to be recognised as lower castes. The irony is stunning. The reservation system, meant to uplift, has become a race to the bottom.
But my point is simpler. And far more uncomfortable.
It is ludicrous to think that a community can be suppressed for 5000 years.
Think about it. 5000. That’s not a figure of speech. That’s 50 centuries. Civilizations have risen and collapsed in less time. Empires have been built, conquered, rebuilt, and forgotten in less than that. But we are expected to believe that one small group of Brahmins, never more than 5% of the population, managed to keep 60–70% of Indians — the Shudras and Dalits — subjugated for 50 centuries.
Dalit activists, often egged on by the usual chorus of “secular” intellectuals and foreign-funded activists, claim that this small Brahmin population controlled vast “indigenous” masses for 5000 years. That these masses were not allowed to drink water. Not allowed to enter temples. Not allowed to learn. Not allowed to exist with dignity.
Bullshit.
History doesn’t work like that. Human nature doesn’t work like that.
If an overwhelming majority is oppressed by a tiny minority for 5 millennia, something is wrong with the story.
Let’s use logic for once. In all those thousands of years, if the Shudras and Dalits were truly crushed and humiliated, why didn’t they rise? Why didn’t they revolt? They had numbers on their side. They had strength. They had centuries of time.
Before the invention of firearms, conditions were equal. Everyone fought with the same weapons — swords, bows, spears, stones. No side had the “technological advantage” that colonizers later had over Africans or Asians. There were no guns, no cannons, no tanks. Just men and willpower. And numbers.
If Brahmins were 5%, and Shudras and Dalits were 60–70%, they could have wiped them out in a week. Maybe even less. Why didn’t they?
Even if Brahmins had the Kshatriyas — the warrior class — on their side, the arithmetic doesn’t add up. They were still outnumbered. Drastically.
Can a community truly stay suppressed for 5000 years? Maybe for 400 years. Maybe even 700. But 5000? Entire ecosystems change in that time. Evolution happens. Cultures mutate. Power shifts. Aboriginal people crossed the Indian Ocean and reached Australia from the Indian archipelago, without boats, in 5000 years. The claim fails the simplest test of probability.
And let’s ask the most basic question: if they couldn’t enter temples, why didn’t they build their own? If they were denied gods, why didn’t they create their own? Were they waiting for permission? For 5000 years?
Why weren’t there separate Shudra gods, Dalit gods, great temples devoted to them, entire mythologies written in their honor?
Instead, what do we see? The same Hindu gods. The same temples. The same texts.
Something doesn’t add up.
Why couldn’t they dig their own wells? It’s not as if groundwater appeared only under Brahmin villages. Water is everywhere. In Africa, even in remote areas, people have been digging wells for thousands of years — even those communities that talk with tik-tik-tuck-tuck sounds. Why not in India?
If oppression was that absolute, resistance should have been just as absolute. But there’s no sign of that kind of resistance for thousands of years.
Some say Buddhism and Jainism were “lower-caste revolts” against Brahminical dominance. But history again disagrees. Lower castes found these new faiths more accepting, yes. But Buddhism attracted everyone — Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras alike. Early Buddhist texts were written in Sanskrit, later in Pali and Prakrit. Where did that Sanskrit knowledge come from? From Brahmins themselves. If Buddhism was truly a revolt of the Shudras and Dalits, how do we explain the overwhelming Brahmin influence in its language and philosophy?
What about Valmiki? He was a Shudra. Dalit activists often claim that upper caste Hindus didn’t allow lower caste Hindus to learn Sanskrit. Valmiki didn’t just learn Sanskrit, he wrote one of the most influential epics in the world — the Ramayana. Who is the biggest villain of the Ramayana? Ravana, an elite Brahmin.
Maybe Valmiki learning Sanskrit and then writing the Ramayana was a fluke. Then why did the epic come to enjoy such a large-scale acceptance from everyone, including Brahmins? Nobody denied that Valmiki, a Shudra, had written the Ramayana about the greatest Hindu god, Rama. Nobody usurped Valmiki’s name, which could have been easily done over the past 3000–4000 years since the epic was written by Valmiki. He is credited with the original copy even though there are 200 extant versions of the Ramayana. There are Brahmin saints in the epic like Vishwamitra, Vashishth, and Valmiki himself, but the main war is fought by Rama, a Kshatriya, with the help of Vaanar Sena (forest-dwelling tribals). Nobody turned Rama into a Brahmin god and Vaanar Sena into a Kshatriya army.
Then comes Vyasa, who wrote the Mahabharata. He was born to Rishi Parashar and a fisherwoman. Lower caste. Did the Brahmins deny him? No. The Mahabharata is read, studied, and worshipped by all. The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text within it, was written by Vyasa. No one tried to claim otherwise.
Krishna himself was a Yadav — an OBC community. He wasn’t a Brahmin. Yet he stands as one of the most revered deities in Hinduism. He is the divine voice of the Gita. If the Brahmins had been as cunning and manipulative as they’re accused of being, they could have easily changed that. They could have made a Brahmin deliver the Gita instead of Krishna. How difficult could that have been? Manuscripts were copied by hand. Edits could have been slipped in. But that never happened.
Let’s pause and think.
The world has seen revolutions for far smaller injustices. Peasants have overthrown monarchies. Slaves have rebelled and carved new nations. In less than 500 years, Europe went from feudal serfdom to democratic governance. China rose from civil war to global power in less than a century. And yet, we are told that in India, the majority stayed crushed under the same heel for 5000 years? Without revolt, without reform, without replacement?
Another thing to consider: almost every major country has been overrun by Islam and Christianity. Almost all the indigenous religions are gone — they may exist in isolated pockets, but most of the non-Hindu countries are Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist.
India was under the Mughal rule for almost 500 years and those were the bloodiest years in the history of India for Hindus. Then came European colonisers, all Christian. Christian missionaries have been running their conversion factories for decades even after Europeans left.
If Shudras and Dalits were so miserable, why didn’t they become Muslim or Christian immediately? It was a golden opportunity for them. Even if Islam and Christianity didn’t give them any economic or social privileges, they could have abandoned Hinduism in favor of Islam and Christianity just out of spite. Why didn’t they?
Yes, you can say that many converted, but compare India to places like Africa, South America, the Middle East and other Asian countries. They didn’t have the so-called repressive caste system, but they still abandoned their indigenous religions and adopted Islam or Christianity. Why didn’t Shudras and Dalits do the same? They had plenty of opportunity. They have undeniable reasons (according to the contemporary atrocity propaganda). Something doesn’t add up.
There’s something deeper here. Something historians, especially Marxist ones, conveniently ignore.
They have built careers on fault lines. Their scholarship thrives on division. They write as if India is nothing but a long story of cruelty and submission. But history isn’t written only by the victors — it’s also rewritten by ideologues. And in modern India, the ideological victors are not Brahmins; they are Marxists, Leftists, and foreign funded NGOs. They replaced theology with ideology, gods with party lines.
For me, this claim — that Brahmins suppressed Shudras and Dalits for 5000 years — is not just false. It’s mathematically, logically, and historically impossible.
You cannot keep 70% of a population enslaved for 5 millennia without them fighting back, organizing, innovating, or simply walking away. India’s geography, climate, and culture make that kind of static oppression unthinkable. Unlike Europe, we have fertile land, tropical climate, and space. If oppression had been unbearable, millions could have migrated, formed their own settlements, started their own kingdoms.
They could have raised armies. Formed empires. Established their own religions. But there is no record of that happening. Not in 5000 years. WTF?
No separate gods. No separate religion. No major literature. No mathematics. No philosophy. No empires. No wells. 5000. WTF?
Maybe for a few centuries, yes. Social hierarchies exist in every civilization. Muslims ruled Spain for 780 years and then they were thrown out. Mughals ruled India for 500 years and then came European colonisers. The Indians threw out Europe colonisers (or they had to leave due to other compulsions) within 200 years. But 5000 years? That’s a stretch even mythology would hesitate to claim.
What really happened is this: Indian society, like any large civilization, was layered, not frozen. People moved between castes. Professions changed. Regions evolved differently. Caste rigidity hardened only under later empires and colonial rule when census, law, and administration made identity static. British rulers found caste convenient. It simplified governance and division. Marxist historians later found it convenient too. It simplified blame and divided communities more effectively than religion.
And so, a thousand-layered civilization was reduced to a black-and-white morality play — the eternal oppressor and the eternal victim.
But 5000 years of suppression? Impossible.
If history teaches us anything, it’s that no system lasts that long. Not without adaptation. Not without rebellion. Not without transformation.
The story of caste oppression for 5000 years is not history. It’s mythology dressed as grievance. It’s propaganda wearing the mask of moral justice.
No separate gods. No separate religion. No major literature. No philosophy. No mathematics. No kingdoms. No empires. No water wells! Maybe for a few centuries. But 5000 years?
Hard to believe.
