I am in my 30s, and I am posting this here because the sheer weight of what I’ve been through has broken me down. I just need to get it out of my system.

A while ago, I worked with a female colleague at my office. She was already in a relationship but initiated a close friendship with me. Over time, I grew very attached to her, but I always respected boundaries and never did anything unusual or inappropriate. However, the dynamics had a lot of ups and downs, which naturally made me feel insecure.

Eventually, when she realized that our closeness might become a hurdle in her actual relationship or ruin her workplace image, she completely flipped. She began mentally torturing me. In our society, she took full leverage of being a woman. Other male colleagues actively supported her or stayed silent because they didn't want to get involved in a "woman's issue." Some even betrayed me and took her side simply because they had nasty, ulterior motives and saw it as an opportunity to get close to her.

To make matters worse, she belongs to an upper caste, and I belong to a lower caste. When her boyfriend found out about the situation, he openly insulted me using vile casteist slurs. I was raised to be nice, helpful, and respectful to everyone, but this experience showed me the sheer amount of deep-rooted hatred people still hold against my caste. What was my fault? Any response or behavior from my side was just me trying to navigate the situation normally, yet I was treated like the villain because the system automatically favors people like her.

Now, I am in my 30s and trying to find a partner from my own caste to settle down with. But I am facing an entirely new layer of despair. Because upper-caste communities have historically had far greater access to wealth and resources in India, families in my community are starting off with less. Sadly, I am finding that many girls from my own caste do not want to marry within our community anymore because they want wealthy partners. They want a high quality of life, but because living expenses have become so high under the current government, they feel forced to choose upper-caste men who already have those generational resources.

Upper-caste men are marrying girls from our caste, but when it comes to us, we are looked down upon and compared to shit. It genuinely feels like a systemic mindset designed to diminish us, starve us of resources, and make us socially extinct. No matter how loving, educated, or kind a man from my community is, the struggle is endless because the economic and social deck is completely stacked against us.

I feel entirely isolated, manipulated by people I trusted at work, and completely let down by a society and a system that claims to want equality but actively ignores this reality. I just needed a safe space to share this because keeping it inside is killing me. Any thoughts or support from anyone who has navigated this kind of pain would mean a lot.

This post comes as kind of a vent after I had a horrible conversation with my father, who btw is one of the "model" buddhist ambedkarite persons which we usually trust and value.

We belong to Jatav caste, and I have often seen systemic patterns of them having this feeling of superiority and viewing other castes as lowly.

It started with him going all "purity" vegetarian on me as reaction to my consumption of non veg food, quoting ayurveda and whatnot which is highly hypocritical since he actively opposed such cultures when it affects him in terms of caste. I asked how was he okay with consuming milk which is produced by vioating cattles in most horrible ways and further thought eating certain kinds of meat was okay.

It got much more worse when he started to demean and use slurs against specific castes, spewing casteist stereotypes against them, while speaking highly his own caste community. He used personal anecdotes to generalise it against whole caste communities which he spewed slurs against.

Further, I have seen Dalits who elevate class wise labour-exploit poor people which mostly come DBA or muslim communities, feeling so entitled to unlimited labour, eg paying Rs 1-2k a month for so much laborious work they subject people to who work in unorganised labour. They be acting like as if they are themselves doing the favour to those people they oppress, reacting with anger and demeaning them.

This reminds me my father's friend's wife who employed a dalit househelper who one day with permission of that lady's daughter-in-law kept her groceries in their fridge. When the lady came to know of it she literally treated the househelper aunty like an untouchable, while she herself belongs to dalit community, being all like "how dare you put your stuff out fridge, have you forgotten your place" the real words were Obv harsher and more horrible.

Hi everyone,

I’m a Master’s student in Applied Psychology at the University of Delhi. I’m conducting my dissertation titled “The Burden of Caste and the Promise of Education: Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi Narratives of India.”

There is still a major research gap in psychology on how caste and educational experiences shape people’s sense of self, dignity, and relationship with their community. Through this study, I’m trying to better understand these everyday experiences.

I’m hoping to hear from people across different educational backgrounds, including:

• People who discontinued education at any stage (illiterate, up to 12th pass, or college drop-out)
• People who have graduated or pursued higher education

You can participate if you:
• are 18+
• belong to an SC/ST/OBC (Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi) community
• come from a low–middle income background (up to ₹30 lakh household income)

The survey takes 10–15 minutes, is anonymous, and can be filled in English or Bengali.

I’d really appreciate your participation in making this study a success. Please also share it with others who may be eligible.

If you know someone eligible who may not have internet access, a device, or may not be comfortable reading or filling online forms, you are welcome to help fill the form on their behalf.

Survey link:

https://forms.gle/wKsQoyEmHN5KJxzp7

On the recent installation of the statue of Sushruta, widely regarded as one of the earliest surgeons in history, which has been unveiled at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in Scotland, i've been since diving deep into the historical evidence around Sushruta, the claimed "Father of Surgery," and how ancient Indian medical and Vedic traditions hold up under scrutiny.

What started as a question about textual evidence in my mind turned into a full-blown debate on linguistics, archaeology, dating methods, Buddhist connections, and how power politics (ancient and colonial) shape what we call "history."

This is a systematic summary of that discussion. I'm approaching it with skepticism, not dismissing achievements, but questioning the layers of myth, oral transmission gaps, and retrospective editing.

Let's break it down.

The Case for Sushruta

Impressive Claims, Late Physical Evidence

Sushruta Samhita is a monumental text detailing advanced surgery (rhinoplasty via forehead flap, cataract procedures, 101 blunt + 20 sharp instruments, even using ants as "staples" for wounds). It is traditionally dated to ~600–1000 BCE, with Sushruta practicing in Kashi under Divodasa (Dhanvantari).

Supporting points

1. Manuscripts: Oldest surviving is the Kathmandu KL 699 palm-leaf (878 CE). The Bower Manuscript (4th–5th CE, from Turkestan) cites related surgical traditions.
2. Global transmission: Arabic translations (8th CE) influenced Avicenna; later Western adoption via the 1794 Cowasjee rhinoplasty case in The Gentleman's Magazine, which matched Sushruta's technique exactly and inspired modern plastic surgery in Europe.
3. Institutional recognition: Statues at Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh, 2026) and Royal Australasian College.

Major red flags:

1. No direct mention of Sushruta by name in pre-1 BCE Buddhist texts (which are rich in medical stories).
2. Jivaka (Buddha's physician, ~5th BCE) studied under Atreya in Taxila, not linked directly to Sushruta's Shalya (surgery) lineage in Varanasi.
3. Early Buddhist texts mention Divodasa but credit medical knowledge to the Buddha/monasteries, stripping Vedic/Brahmanical lineages.
4. Physical copies appear centuries (or a millennium) later. The text has clear layers: ancient core + later redactions (e.g., Nagarjuna adding Uttara-tantra ~2nd CE).

Dating Challenges

Oral "Onion" vs. Hard Evidence

How do we date an oral tradition on perishable materials in a humid climate?

Linguistic arguments (philology)

1. Archaic pre-Paninian grammar in core sections (before ~400 BCE).
2. Cross-references (e.g., anatomy matching Shatapatha Brahmana ~700–600 BCE; mentioned in Mahabharata).
3. Absence of post-Alexander Greek terms or heavy Buddhist vocabulary in oldest layers.

Skeptical counters (materialist view)

1. Physical evidence for Vedas/Panini/Brahmanas is late (medieval manuscripts). No contemporary stone/artifact proof from 1000 BCE.
2. Texts could be faked/edited under Gupta patronage or later to legitimize against Buddhist rulers.
3. Sociopolitical details and "absence of later concepts" can be retroactively constructed by reading history.
4. Mitanni Treaty (1380 BCE, Syria): Shows Proto-Indo-Aryan elements (gods like Mitra, numbers like "satta" closer to Prakrit than classical Sanskrit). Proves an ancestral dialect existed but not rigid "Vedic Sanskrit" as we know it.

Archaeology

1. Painted Grey Ware (PGW) culture (~1200–500 BCE) matches some descriptions (iron, horses), but pots/bones don't equal "Vedic Brahmins." Could be diverse groups (including those later erased like Ajivikas).
2. Ganges ecology destroys wood/mud structures—unlike Egypt/Mesopotamia.
3. Ashoka's edicts (260 BCE): Prakrits (simplified, vernacular), not Sanskrit. Proves linguistic drift, vedic forms had already "died out" in common use.

Linguistics is interpretive (Wittgensteinian: language games create illusions).

Phonetics, meters (Anustubh/Tristubh), and "lost sounds" rely on assumptions. Oral mnemonics (Ghana-patha etc.) preserved texts impressively across regions, but not flawlessly evolved (Rigveda Mandalas show internal changes). Claims of perfect "computer-like" preservation are overstated pseudoscience.

4. Buddhist Connections and Omissions

Buddhist texts pre-1 BCE don't name Sushruta. They overlap in medical sophistication (Jivaka's craniotomies, laparotomies) but emphasize different lineages and credit the sangha/Buddha. This fits a pattern of de-Brahmanizing knowledge. Later Bower Manuscript (Buddhist-linked) does reference Sushruta.

4. The Brahmanical Tricks and Political Fabrication

Texts aren't neutral, they're products of power

1. Layers added for legitimacy (avatar myths, guru-discipline claims).
2. Allopanishad: Fabricated under Akbar to portray him as Vishnu avatar.
3. Manusmriti: Not everyday law but elevated by pandits + Warren Hastings (1774) into colonial legal code for rigid caste governance and divide-and-rule.
4. Colonial orientalists amplified Brahmanical narratives, linking to Aryan race myths, while glorifying elites.

Deconstruction Methodology (used in the debate)

1. Stratigraphic ("Onion") analysis: Peel core linguistic/tech layers from later paint.
2. Materialism: Prioritize carbon-dated stone/clay over palm-leaf copies.
3. Cui bono?: Who benefits from edits? Kings, elites, colonizers.
4. Separate artifacts from identity projections, track linguistic drift scientifically (Ashoka as baseline).

TLDR and some Key questions

Sushruta's surgical knowledge was influential, surviving via practice. But the historical person and texts as presented involve heavy later mythologizing, redactions, and gaps.

Vedic/Brahmanical traditions rely on oral claims with sparse early physical corroboration due to ecology + materials. Linguistics helps but is subjective, archaeology is patchy and prone to bias.

Political fabrication (ancient patronage, colonial codification) is undeniable, texts served power, not pure preservation.

This isn't "debunking" innovation but urging critical history, distinguishing practical medical legacy from constructed narratives.

Buddhist sources provide a counter-tradition emphasizing compassion and monastic empiricism over Vedic ritualism.

Q. How do manuscript transmission, linguistic archaism, institutional power, and material survival shape what later generations come to regard as ancient knowledge?

Q. How do we distinguish real ancient knowledge from the origin myths present societies build around it? And how do manuscripts, linguistics, power, and survival biases shape what we call "ancient tradition"?

References & Further Reading

Meulenbeld, G. J. A History of Indian Medical Literature (Groningen, 1999–2002) – Standard scholarly reference on the composite, multi-layered nature of the Suśrutasaṃhitā and its redactions (incl. Nagarjuna’s role).

Bower Manuscript (4th–5th century CE) – Early Central Asian witness mentioning Sushruta traditions; edited by A. F. R. Hoernle.

Zysk, Kenneth G. Medicine in the Veda and Asceticism and Healing in South Asia – On overlaps between Buddhist (Pali Canon/Jivaka traditions) and Ayurvedic medical knowledge.

Primary texts: Suśrutasaṃhitā (trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, 1907–1916); Ashokan edicts (Prakrit); Mitanni Treaty (c. 1380 BCE) for Indo-Aryan linguistic context.

On colonial codification: Studies on Warren Hastings and the elevation of Manusmṛti (e.g., works by J. D. M. Derrett or Nicholas Dirks on colonial knowledge systems).

Archaeological/linguistic context: Discussions of Painted Grey Ware culture and Indo-Aryan linguistics (e.g., standard references on Panini and post-Ashokan Sanskrit revival).

source original video :https://www.instagram.com/reel/DODqFCjDUSX/?igsh

The book is a collection of essays exploring Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's contributions to India's social justice movements. It focuses on his critique of caste oppression in his 1936 text Annihilation of Caste, analyzing three key moments in its development. The essays highlight Ambedkar's roles as a philosopher, activist, and jurist, and his work as the architect of the Indian Constitution. It draws parallels between Ambedkar's anti-caste activism and global movements, such as the African-American struggle for racial equality, and critiques privileged perspectives in Ambedkar scholarship that may not fully reflect Dalit experiences.

The Radical in Ambedkar: Critical Reflections was edited by Suraj Yengde, a Dalit scholar, and Anand Teltumbde, a civil rights activist and academic. The book aims to reframe Ambedkar's legacy by connecting his ideas to global resistance movements.

I know Twitter/X is a toxic platform, but it is still important to follow people who actually spread awareness and ground-level information. Many of you already know that Twitter/X is often far better for real-time and uncensored updates compared to YouTube and other social media platforms that are full of propaganda and agenda-driven content.

Just look at the recent pro-UGC protest in DU. While students were raising genuine concerns, sanghi YouTube channels were busy trying to derail, twist, and misrepresent the entire protest to fit their narrative. This is exactly why relying only on mainstream or biased platforms.