the hindu non-sense of equality

suhag shukla of the hindu american forum writes in the huffington post:

But the single most important point to take home from this pivotal report, I believe, is that even though caste-based discrimination may have arisen in Hindu society, it is not intrinsic to Hinduism. Contrary to the wide academic and media conflation of caste and Hinduism, the practice of caste-based discrimination is in direct contradiction to the quintessential Hindu teaching that each individual is equally divine and has the potential to realize God based on his or her own effort.

caste is not intrinsic to hinduism? you only have to check the comments on the same article to see that that's pure cow shit. the gist of the top comment runs like this: 

Caste system is etched in our sriptures & hence is here to stay for ever....(sic)

and it never gets better as you go down. ms.shukla's drivel is all the more disappointing because she doesn't seem to be a fresh-off-the-boat desi, as they say in america, i think. she was probably even born there. and the people commenting? wherever they were born, and whenever (though i suspect most of them are quite young), they seem to be enjoying caste a lot. which reminds you of what dr.ambedkar said: that caste is about 'graded inequality'. meaning there will always be people enjoying caste, because they stand to gain from it. therefore caste is not simply about 'discrimination', the thrust of ms.shukla's argument. 'x', the mere discriminator, might kick 'y' off a bus because he's 'inferior' in his view. 'x', the brahminized individual, will kick 'y' off the bus because it is 'superior'.

hinduism, according to shukla, sees the divine in everyone. well, the atma in everyone might be equally divine, but the brahmin body is 'superior' and the dalit body is 'untouchable' and every body between the two is also ranked. to be hindu, in practice, is to be a human measuring scale, primarily. each individual might have 'the potential to realize God based on his or her own effort', but, as ilaiah pointed out, there is 'superior' work and 'inferior' work. which effectively means some have to work more than others, to realize god or mammon.