Kancha Ilaiah

Quotes

• “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.”
• “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.”
• “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”
• “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”
• “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”
• “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”

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Key dates

Born

5 October 1952

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Wikidata facts

Instance of

human

Gender

male

Citizenship

India

Occupation

activist

Educated at

Osmania University

Languages spoken

Telugu

Native language

Telugu

Religion

atheism

Image

Kancha Ilaiah klf.jpg

via Wikidata · CC0