We must go back to our roots, to our culture, says Venkaiah Naidu. (Express photo by Renuka Puri/File) We must go back to our roots, to our culture, says Venkaiah Naidu. (Express photo by Renuka Puri/File)

In an attempt to reach out to the Dalits after the recent Supreme Court ruling, which Dalit groups across the country perceived as an attempt to dilute the SC/ST law, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, on Wednesday said that caste discrimination which is prevalent in the country, was not derived from the Hindu scriptures.

Speaking at the convocation ceremony of the 2016-18 batch Indian Forest Service (IFS) probationers at the Dehradun-based Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (ICFRE), Naidu said, “You have social discrimination in certain centres even today…. Unfortunately, people (belonging to certain castes) are not allowed in temples…”

“Ucchh jaati, neech jaati kisne kaha? Hamare Ved, hamare Upanishad mein toh hai he nahi (Who gave the concept of upper caste, lower caste? The Hindu scriptures of Vedas and Upanishads have no mention of it),” he said.

Naidu, who went on to define “Hindutva” to the foresters, said that “Bharatiyataa (Indian-ness), which is same as Hindutva, is about all that we have inherited from our culture”.

“We must go back to our roots, to our culture…,” he said, while emphasising on the usage of one’s mother tongue at home, and Hindi in the country.

“In our houses we must speak in our mother tongue, in the country we must speak in Hindi…. Nothing wrong in learning English too, but first focus on the mother tongue,” he said.

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