Brahmins

"If any community could #claim_credit for driving the #British_out_of_the_country, it was the #Brahmin_community, 70 % of total freedom fighters were Brahmans.

Anti-Brahminism has a long history in India, being a dominant theme of the long period of foreign rule. In the last thousand years India was primarily governed by non-Hindus - Muslims and Christians - who certainly cannot be called pro-Brahmin in their policies.

When India was invaded by foreign powers, the Brahmins proved to be the greatest obstacle, particularly against religious conversion.

As one has to destroy the intellectual class of a religion or culture in order to convert it: Muslim rulers made special efforts to convert or even kill Brahmins. 

They destroyed Hindu temples in order to deprive the Brahmins, who were mainly temple priests of their cultural and religious influence in order to islamize.

The British rulers of colonial India targeted the Brahmins and dismantled the traditional educational system that the Brahmins upheld in order to de-nationalize the population.

Both Islam and Christianity were very well aware of the fact that Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, And Jains owe all the great traditions they have to the Brahmin/intellectual elite that created them.

"The British were not wrong in their distrust of educated Brahmins in whom they saw a potential threat to their supremacy in India.

 For instance, in 1879 the Collector of Tanjore in a communication to Sir James Caird, member of the Famine Commission, stated that "there was no class (except Brahmins ) which was so hostile to the English." The predominance of the Brahmins in the freedom movement confirmed the worst British suspicions of the community.

 Innumerable CID reports of the period commented on Brahmin participation at all levels of the nationalist movement. In the words of an observer, "If any community could claim credit for driving the British out of the country, it was the Brahmin community. Seventy per cent of those who were felled by British bullets were Brahmins."

To counter what they perceived, a Brahminical challenge, the British launched on the one hand a major ideological attack on the Brahmins and on the other incited non-Brahmin caste Hindus to press for preferential treatment, a ploy that was to prove equally successful vis-à-vis the Muslims.

In the attempt to rewrite Indian history, Brahmins began to be portrayed as oppressors and tyrants who willfully kept down the rest of the populace. Their role in the development of Indian society was deliberately slighted. 

In ancient times, for example, Brahmins played a major part in the spread of new methods of cultivation (especially the use of the plough and manure) in backward and aboriginal areas. The Krsi-parasara, compiled during this period, is testimony to their contribution in this field. Apart from misrepresenting the Indian past, the British actively encouraged anti-Brahmin sentiments. 

A number of scholars have commented on their involvement in the anti-Brahmin movement in South India. As a result of their machinations non-Brahmins turned on the Brahmins with a ferocity that has few parallels in Indian history.

 This was all the more surprising in that for centuries Brahmins and non-Brahmins had been active partners and collaborators in the task of political and social management.

(source: The Plight of Brahmins - By Meenakshi Jain)