Would breaking idols, burning books annihilate caste? Recalling a 1972 Dalit protest

By Rajiv Shah 

A few days ago, I received an email alert from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in Gujarat for the Dalit cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935, Babasaheb Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti. In 1972, we broke the idol of Krishna, whom we regarded as the creator of the varna (caste) system.”

I was left aback. How could Valjibhai — whom I have always respected as an honest, down-to-earth activist — equate Ambedkar’s burning of Manusmriti, a symbolic act against Brahmanical texts, with breaking Lord Krishna’s idol on grounds that He “created” caste in India? In fact, I am personally uncomfortable with both burning books and breaking idols.

Indeed, texts like Manusmriti are living evidence of how the caste order was codified in ancient India. Shouldn't they be read rather than banned or destroyed, so that their ideological structure and the worldview of those who ruled society in the past can be properly understood? Wouldn't that help draw contemporary conclusions? As for breaking Krishna’s idol, I was simply unable to reconcile as to how Valjibhai arrived at the conclusion that the deity “founded” caste.

First of all, from whatever I have read about top historians, I think they all broadly agree that Krishna is essentially a mythological figure. While the Krishna tradition — in varied forms — thrives from Mathura and Vrindavan to Dwarka, and across India, there is no historical evidence of such a person having lived. He is part of the Mahabharata, one of the two most celebrated epics of India, where he plays a central role in the battle against forces considered unrighteous.

Before probing the claim that Krishna “created” casteism, I turned to what Valjibhai recounted in his email. It describes a small gathering in 1972 at his home in Dariyapur, Ahmedabad, which I remember visiting long ago soon after I joined the Times of India in 1993. Those present in the gathering, he recounts, included Ratilal Dave, principal of Bhakta Vallabh Dholakia College, Pravin Rashtrapal (who later became Congress MP), Bakul Vakil, Ganpatbhai Rathod, Mohanlal Solanki, M.D. Madan and others.

As Janmashtami neared, the group discussed Krishna and “agreed” that the deity had committed “a grave crime by sanctifying the varna system and institutionalizing caste discrimination.” They decided to carry out a symbolic act, led by Ratilal Dave — a Brahmin — in reference to Ambedkar, who had entrusted the burning of Manusmriti to a Brahmin.

Held near Zandia well in Raykhed, a pamphlet titled “Janmashtami or Kaalashtami?” was printed and circulated widely. This created excitement and drew a significant crowd. “We were all government employees, aware that arrest and imprisonment were possible. Yet we were determined,” Valjibhai wrote.

He continued: “The idol of Krishna was taken in procession and forcefully thrown into a garbage dump, breaking into pieces. Later that night, the police arrived, but after discussions, no case was filed.” I don't know why he doesn't not that they lived in a different sociopolitical climate in 1972, where even acts considered sacrilegious today were tolerated. Today, they would likely face not just job loss but violent reprisals.

DD Kosambi, Romila Thapar, RS Sharma, Upinder Singh

Now, was this act supported by history? Though consciously inspired by Ambedkar’s burning of Manusmriti, it effectively put Krishna on “trial,” wouldn't it shift responsibility for caste from historical processes to a divine figure?

Those who participated interpreted Ambedkar’s analysis of the Bhagavad Gita — a text composed roughly between the second and first centuries BCE and inserted into the Mahabharata. While tradition attributes it to Vyasa, historians appear to regard it as a composite work authored by multiple thinkers, framed as a dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna on the eve of Kurukshetra.

From whatever sources I could lay hands on, I fathom this: Ambedkar, in Riddles in Hinduism and Annihilation of Caste, argued that the Gita provided a philosophical defence of varna which was enough to soften the the then prevailing egalitarian impact of Buddhism. Yet for Ambedkar, Krishna was a literary-philosophical construct — not a historical agent. Importantly, Ambedkar never endorsed idol destruction; his critique was textual, ideological, and rational, not iconoclastic.

In fact, expert sources tell me that historians have been of the view varna predates the Gita. Thus, Romila Thapar is cited to say that neither Krishna nor the Gita originated casteism. “Social stratification developed gradually and unevenly through historical processes, not through any single text or teacher”, she is quoted as saying.

R.S. Sharma was perhaps more explicit: “The caste system was not the result of a single cause nor did it spring fully developed at any point. It evolved over centuries.” He added that the four-­varna scheme was an idealized model rarely matching real society.

Upinder Singh observed that while varna was a Brahmanical classification, lived identities were shaped by jati, work, region and political power. “Texts reflect debate; they do not mechanically create institutions.” 

D.D. Kosambi similarly argued that caste evolved with surplus, class formation and property, and that religion rationalized social patterns rather than inventing them.

Expert sources further tell me that Ambedkar’s most direct critique appears in Annihilation of Caste, where he states, “The Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical defence of the caste system,” and that Krishna’s defence of chaturvarna legitimizes inequality.

Gita 4.13 reads:

“The fourfold order (chaturvarnya) was created by Me,

according to the division of guna and karma.

Though I am its creator, know Me as non-doer and imperishable.”

Here, I am tempted to quote by Upinder Singh, forwarded to me: “Religious texts articulate ideals; social institutions emerge through historical practice.”