The section before this was about the history of Yoga, and I feel the author just had a fucking seizure while watching Fox News, before continuing to write the book. 
Like what.
The section before this was about the history of Yoga, and I feel the author just had a fucking seizure while watching Fox News, before continuing to write the book.
Like what.
This is just a defence of casteism here. One belief is that people who have good Karma are reborn as Brahmins and those with bad karma are reborn in the "lower" castes. Thus they can justify casteism since those in lower castes deserve it by being evil in the previous birth.
I didn't even consider that. I just thought it was a meaningless tangent that should've been edited out. Turns out, it was wholly intentional.
The amount of brain worms right-wingers transmit in seemingly innocent books, videos etc. that people might stumble onto is legit scary.
interpreting Hinduism as wholly casteist is like interpreting Christianity based off all the preachers who think Black people are going to hell
Lingayatism and arguably Shaivism in general doesn't care about caste, and that's like 100 million+ people. Also they invented the protestant reformation 400 years before Martin Luther existed
You are correct that the thousands of beliefs and sects under Hinduism cannot all be tarred in the same brush as casteist but that specific quote is definitely a nod towards casteism and discrimination against disabled people.
except it's not "thousands of beliefs and sects", it's literally a couple that cover hundreds of millions of people in South India
it's like ignoring Evangelicalism or Catholicism
But North Indian Brahminical Hinduism is a cancer, yes