Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Kancha Ilaiah
22 quotes
“All parasites suffer from a constant fear of individualism. . . . The Brahmins as a community shared the animal instinct of not being able to produce anything from the earth. This human caste differs from all the other social communities ever since human beings evolved out of the apes. . . . This unusual instinct of parasitism forced the Brahmans to construct a social process of spiritual fascism that became the fortress of this parasitism.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Post-Hindu India. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2009. quoted from Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
“Historically-upper castes have suppressed the lower-caste masses with weapons, as the Hindu gods’ origin itself is rooted in the culture of weapon usage. The SC/ST/OBCs will then have to turn to a war of weapons in the process of elimination of Hindu violence from India.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Post-Hindu India. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2009. quoted from Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines
“Hinduism has destroyed all positive elements that normally exist in a human being. During the period their energies were diverted to manipulate education, employment, production and development subtly. Their minds are poisoned with the notion that productive work is mean and that productive castes are inferior. No ruling class in the world is as dehumanized as the Indian brahminical castes. They can be rehumanized only by pushing them into productive work and by completely diverting their attention from the temple, the office, power-seeking, and so on.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Excerpt from Why I Am Not A Hindu : A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy (1996).
“Hinduism is a religion of violence. All killed their enemies and became heroic images. This is the only religion in the world where the killer becomes god. Whom did they kill? From Brahma to Krishna, those who were killed were Dalitbahujans. Now these images and the stories and narratives and everything is out there in the . Now, because of this, the consciousness of worshipping the killer or worshipping violence did not give any space for human rights. So my question is the human rights discourse must start with an anti-warrior position.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The State of Dalit Mobilization : An Interview with Kancha Ilaiah" in Ghadar Vol. 1, No. 3 (26 November 1997).
“Just as the Brahmins are shouting Hinduise India, we should shout Dalitise India. Shout that we hate Hinduism, we hate Brahmanism. Capture the Hindu temples by expelling the Brahmins from them. … The hated must hate. They must become powerful and organised. I want to create anger.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "The Earthy Pundit" at OutlookIndia (25 December 2000).
“In ancient and medieval India, no Hindu priest would subjugate himself to the rule of law. That was the basic reason why no Hindu institution could evolve a spiritual democratic culture within the religion. We are now living in a borrowed system of political democracy.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hinduism And Its Moral Dilemma" in Tehelka (29 January 2005).
“How do you change ancient prejudices in any society? You do it through repositioning caste at childhood. If young children are taught respect over a bedtime story or in class, that could help enormously”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "One Man Takes Aim At Prejudice With Storybook" at The Washington Post (20 January 2008).
“Reform your texts, reform your history. Say leather is not untouchable to God, the barber's knife is not untouchable to God. Take a Dalit priest and a Brahmin priest to celebrations. Do these symbolic things. Let them (high-caste Hindus) come and sit with Dalits in their huts and eat with them”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "War against Ignorance" at The Hindu (01 February 2010).
“For centuries the so called goddess of education was against the dalit learning, reading and writing in any language. She was the goddess of education of only the high castes — mainly of the brahmins and baniayas.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dalits and English" in Tehelka (15 February 2011).
“The opposition to the habits of those who eat beef is cultural fascism. Certain sections of the elite are still not ready to accept the food habits of the vast majority of Dalits and other socially oppressed”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "The Beef Eaters of Osmania" The Sunday Guardian (22 April 2012).
“The dalit's main agenda is not reservations. My way of equality is English education. Even if 10% of our children got English education, the intellectual field would have changed. This country would have changed. My hope is education, not reservation — and I emphasize, English education”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in at The Times Of India (15 February 2013).
“The practice of untouchability brutalises human self beyond repair. The nation’s energies are being destroyed by this practice, which has spiritual, moral, ethical and ideological sanction of the Hindu religion.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prejudice in Manu’s India" in Deccan Chronicle (06 December 2014).
“A careful reading of the Gita would show anyone that it fully supports the enslavement of Shudras and OBCs, a process initiated by the Rig Veda itself. Rig Veda formulated the caste structure in Purusha Suktha and the Gita upheld it.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Gita and OBCs" in Deccan Chronicle (20 December 2014).
“Since Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in 1956, almost all Buddhist viharas in India are headed by dalits as monks worshipping Buddha in Pali language. And if the brahmins convert to Buddhism, they will be equals with dalits in all spheres of Buddhist religion.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No one can convert Ambedkar" in Deccan Chronicle (14 April 2015).
“Buddhism today is a dalitist religion and Hinduism is a brahminic religion with oppositional spiritual positions about human equality and man-woman relations.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chinese lesson for RSS" in Deccan Chronicle (05 May 2015).
“The fight for rights and assertion is almost over. Now the fight is for intellectual equality, and that is where everything becomes controversial or problematic for upper castes.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "Caste discrimination: Invisible but omnipresent" in The Indian Express (01 February 2016).
“If the God believed by a person doesn’t have democratic values, where will this person get those democratic values from? In fact, shouldn’t they explain why they create such Gods who are violent, undemocratic and anti-women?”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Scroll.in (13 March 2016).
“Where is the honour in killing someone? Why are caste-based murders being labelled as honour killings? Dalits are being killed for their caste, so these are caste hatred killings and they should be called that.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Scroll.in (21 September 2018).
“Hinduism always used violence as creed. For Hinduism, for Hindu dharma, resolving of a conflict is only by killing. There is no other discourse. Debate is not there. You have to kill the enemy. Whereas Buddha believed in discourse and resolving the conflict. So in a system where you have the two streams of thought, debate and discourse, human rights and anti-human rights, even the left has to take that historical tradition and examine its potential and use it for its propaganda systems. It is in this context that I have been saying that there is no use if you simply borrow concepts from the West. Christianity has a different ethic; it was an ethic of sacrifice. is a symbol of sacrifice, it is not a killing symbol. The lamb is a productive symbol.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The State of Dalit Mobilization : An Interview with Kancha Ilaiah" in Ghadar Vol. 1, No. 3 (26 November 1997).
“I have a feeling that if a Dalitist state gets established it will be a far better Socialist model for the world than the other models which were already established because Dalitbahujan society was never so , there is no such constructed religion like that, it has been much more spontaneous, and they have lived for such a long time with that kind of a thinking. So from that to a kind of conscious educated Dalitist socialist system, I think that the productive forces would get released a thousand times, and equality will come much better but it should be under Dalit leadership. Now if under Dalit women leadership if a Dalitist state and society is established I think we will see a very bright future for the whole country.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The State of Dalit Mobilization : An Interview with Kancha Ilaiah" in Ghadar Vol. 1, No. 3 (26 November 1997).
“Yes, I hate Hinduism. Hinduism is not ours, it is against us. If we have to become Hindus, the Brahmins will have to change the entire religious texts, our food habits, our gods and goddesses and images. I am angry at the Hindu gods. Look at the images of Hindu gods. They wield weapons. We read that Hindu gods killed our own ancestors. How can I worship the killers as divine? What kind of a religion is it? There are three major religions — Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. These major religions were constructed by prophets who sacrificed and struggled in life for people's liberation. All these three religions never said that the larger sections of their people were born from the feet of God.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview at rediff.com (17 January 2000).
“Large number of tribes, Dalits and Backward Castes have a historical food culture of beef. The anti-beef agenda has been in the Brahmanical fold. It began with the South Indian Brahmins and then spread to the North and became part of the Gandhian movement. My question is, how can the state impose a certain food culture on people? The state has nothing to do with food. They can give certain food to people depending on the market, but cannot impose that you can or cannot eat certain food items. If beef eating is bad for Brahmins or Baniyas or certain upper castes, then the state is imposing that on the rest of the society. So the state is actually becoming a theocratic state.”
Kancha Ilaiah (born 1952) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in DNA India (04 March 2015).