Very informative. It's interesting that India's caste system formalizes the social divisions that are only hidden in other societies. So instead of something as vague as the richest one percent, or the elites or oligarchs, we can speak of Brahmins of the Upper Caste.

Talk of religious, cultural, and social "democracy," though, looks like code for secular humanism. Presumably, the religious fundamentalists could demonize that broad democracy as being atheistic or materialistic.

Periyar's rationalist repudiation of the Brahmin religious texts is quite interesting. I'm curious about the details of that political criticism. Is it Marx's point that the religious ideology only rationalizes the more tangible, economic inequality? And where would the praising of the ascetics fit into that?