1. What is an #OBC idea of a casteless society? We have our thinkers in Ramasamy and Jotiba to analyse that. But before that, how did non-OBC thinkers envisaged it? How much your caste’s cultural milieu affects it?

2. Ambedkar, a thinker born in a Dalit caste, created his own religion out of Buddhism. Since Buddhism was extinct in India, he had a blank slate to visualise the religion from a Dalit point of view as a religion of broken people. Will this religion resonate with all Indians?

3. Nanak, an approximation for a Vaisya, created a synthesis of Hinduism and Islam. It rejected the caste system but gained strength from militarisation of its adherents. This gave power to feudal elements creating a class system or in Indian context perpetuation of the caste.

4. The Kshatriya religions: Buddhism and Jainism. Buddhism didn’t reject the caste but gave equal respect to all four Varna-s. Also claimed Kshatriya higher than Brahmin. One would suspect they couldn’t accept Brahmin at the top but didn’t want to play by rules set by Brahmins.

5. Jainism is a curious case. Even though caste doesn’t appear to exist in its atheistic view, Jains today are some of the most casteist and with vegetarianism added one more purity-pollution rule to the caste system. Maybe silence about a social evil has never been a good idea.

6. Basavanna, founder of casteless Lingayatism was a Brahmin by birth. For some unknown reasons, it became caste ridden within 200 years. One of the purity-pollution rules that it didn’t eschew was again vegetarianism.

7. There were short lived Vaisnava casteless movements founded or led by Brahmins which just increased the number of Brahmins.

8. Many of these religions require people to convert. Overwhelmingly set in Hindu cultural milieu while sizeable section of Indians who still suffer from the caste system are part of the other religions too.

9. #OBC thinkers: Ramasamy wanted people to become rational and atheist. This of course addresses multi-religion conundrum. But impractical for majority in the immediate future. Also, caste identity can survive loss of religion too. Racism can replace god.

10. Jotiba created his own religion. He wanted scientific method to live along with belief in god in his religion. A contradictory view. But he wanted individuals to choose their own religion. He didn’t say his is one true religion but expected religion to be individual choice.

11. To realise Jotiba’s idea we require,
- rejection of hereditary transfer of religion
- rejection of patriarchal transfer of religious identity
- acceptance of independent female identity
- rejection of identity based marriages
- Hindus adopting an alternative religion