THE BURDEN OF HATE

How foolish are we to view ourselves through the prism of caste, creed and colour!

- CAPTAIN G.R. GOPINATH

We are a nation divided by caste, which is antithetical to the tenets of the Upanishads. Caste has stained our civilisational pantheistic ethos, and untouchability is still prevalent in many states. Let me recount two anecdotes.

After I retired prematurely from the Army, I decided to plunge into farming. My family in Karnataka had been compensated for land submerged under the Hemavathy dam in Gorur with a few acres of unreclaimed shrubland in a remote area of Hassan district. I bought a second-hand army tent, a Doberman pup, cooking utensils and some farming tools. I loaded everything on a lorry and ventured out in January 1979 to set up camp, along with a couple of hired carpenters and labourers, and a dalit boy who used to graze cattle in Gorur. We had to head-load all the material nearly a kilometre across the stream to reach the top of a small hillock to pitch my tent.