An Untouchable Apology

satya11, Thanks and wish you and fellow chowkies and chowk staff the same!

Ref swarrier #203

[MS Subbulakshmi and M L Vasanthakumari were Isai Vellalars, not Brahmins.]

Oh puhleeeeze! Isai Vellalar is a designation used by Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion to hide the fact that he is a descendant of devadasis....as were MS Subbulakshmi and M L Vasanthakumari. But MS and MLV had talents that were nurtured by the brahmins and in fact both married brahmins and were fully accepted as brahmins. Whereas Muthuvel Karunanidhi (why is he using his ``Father`` Muthuvel`s name instead of his mother Anjugam`s name as his initial as he really should since the ``Father``, in the absence of DNA tests, is unidentifiable?) will forever be treated as the low-caste f@%*er that he is.

[By the way I`m looking for a new copy of the Madras Quartet by Indira Menon. Is it still available in India or is it out of print?]

I checked the bookatore at the Madras Music Academy and the book is still available. Send me your address and I will mail you a copy. My e-mail is: harimau1947@hotmail.com.

Hi Chowkies,

Wish you all a very happy new year -2007.

Re:satya11#246

[..They have learnt their lesson. Now they will never invite a Swamiji, nor do they go to any ‘satsangs’. This happened in a big city and a decent locality....]

Satya, if you want upper caste hindus to forget about caste and accept lower caste people as their social equals, you will have to wait an eternity. People`s identity is defined by their caste in India, in spite of all the protestations to the contrary. This is true not just for hindus but even for muslims and christians. Just look at how HD was talking about his wife worrying about N and N+Delta caste!!

Here is what this family could have done. It could have designated someone within their own caste as a ``Swamiji``, brought him over and conducted huge satsangs. They they could have made some charity contributions to forward castes as an act of socially accepting the forward castes!!

My point is very simple. Castes will never go away on their own. However, the constitution of India coupled with demographics, provides lower caste people with the opportunity to get their act together. That means they can take over political and economic power and improve their lot through education, employment and enterprise (via affirmative action or otherwise). Then they should form their own alternative social arrangements. Forward caste people have no choice but to accept this situation and cooperate or become irrelevant. When Laloo Prasad Yadav exercises his commands, brahmin officers in the railway jump up and down and listen to him, right? If you wait for brahmins to respect Laloo Prasad Yadav out of kindness of their hearts, forget it. In other words, you want social acceptability? Go and grab it, my friend. Get education, get money, get power, kick some forward caste a$$ (figuratively of course!!) and get them to respect you. You will see how easily the equation can change.

Re: # 256
We both seem to agree that, through affirmative actions or otherwise, lower castes would be moving upward economically and socially.

I also agree to the points you make in last para of your post.

According to you, this would eventually lead to persons castes becoming irrelevant.

My point is caste system is the root cause of this entire problem. And we should focus on getting rid of it. By affirmative actions or any other social arrangements by any groups, we will be successful in breaking the castes barrier to a certain extent only, but this by itself will not make castes irrelevant.

You say, getting rid of castes system is unrealistic and we will have to wait an eternity.

I say, this is very difficult to achieve and will take time, but is not unrealistic. I am optimist, I already see many people rejecting castes.

The Swamiji incident, was to give an example of how, economically successful does not always guarantee social acceptability, and reinforces my view that caste system should go away. I narrated the incident as it is. And I would not comment on what family could have done and what not, as there are many other factors unknown to me.

Re:HD#243

[...Ok, ranjit, start shooting :).....]

HD, if you claim that a crow is white, there is not much left to shoot at. :-)

As per your theory, Saudis, Egyptians, Iraqis and South Indians are the same people. That means South Indians are semitic people!! What can I say to such a claim?

Also you claim that aryan mixture occured gradually without conquest, yet somehow we have this varna based caste system that morphed into occupation based caste system. If it was evolutionary as you guys are claiming, can you explain how it was universally applied in the same manner all over India? Desis can hardly agree on anything from Punjab to Tamil Nadu, but somehow without any central government or bureacracy, people all over India spontaneously adoped the same, identical caste structure, such that we have brahmins in Kashmir, Tamil Nadu or Bengal!! Must have been the one and only time in our history that all the millions of people in India got the same identical dream at night!!

Anyway, lets just agree that we are all descended from Africans and leave it at that!! :-)

harimau, I wasn`t generalising off course.

There are good people and also megalomaniacs and nuts of various hues in all castes and religions.

You might possibly be mistaken if you think today people respect you for the sole reason of being a brahmin.
Maybe 50 years ago, but not today.

They probably respect you for your skills, your wealth and your acheivements, which you mistake for `caste respect`.

Ref HD #249

[The brahmin will eagerly tell the white foreigner how he/she is `so superior` back home. The white man will smile indulgently, all the while thinking `what imbeciles`.
And the brahmin is so happy with that smile!]

A true brahmin does not do that. Like me, he will treat the entire world as beneath him.

It is surprising what that does. People from every walk of life recognize me for the brahmin that I am, be it a fortune-teller with a parakeet on the beach at Chennai, a hotel owner in Karaikkal, a fellow customer at a restaurant in Pondicherry or a hotel manager in Chidambaram (all recent incidents). Even when I travel in North India where I don`t speak a word of Hindi.

Brahmins have no inferiority complex with regard to white men. They are all `mlechhas` to us, lower than the People of the Fifth Varna. And about the same level as Muslims and Christians and people of other Faiths.

HD,

Funny, tragic, and true...Hope we will leave our children wiser than our parents left us in this regard.

kaalchakra, if you`ve lived in India you must know.

Its not only caste-A oppressing caste-Z, or caste-M over caste-N.
It goes to fine levels. caste-N and caste-N+delta

My dear wife complains that Mrs L. is always ordering her around at get-togathers.
She feels its because Mrs L.s caste is a small delta over her caste.
I tried telling her its probably because Mrs L. is a bit bossy by nature and you`re submissive.
But no avail. She feels in her bones, its the delta.

Then sometime ago my wife was looking (surfing) for a suitable groom for a relative of hers. She came across an adv. from a family we know, who`re a small delta below, caste wise.
In the adv, they had specified the same caste as her.
This shocked and offended her greatly, much to my consternation.

Needless to say, this kept me amused for a few days :)

HD

Yaar, HD, I truly don`t believe that happens, but does it? I mean, have you yourself seen this shyt occur? (It very well may: Satya`s anecdotes are appalingly real. So one wouldn`t put any kind of foolishness past us).

satya11,

Yes, how many hundred thousand times has this kind of incident been repeated all over our poor country.

We have become a joke among other nations, yet how proud we are of our casteism!

The brahmin will eagerly tell the white foreigner how he/she is `so superior` back home.
The white man will smile indulgently, all the while thinking `what imbeciles`.
And the brahmin is so happy with that smile!

Satya

``a powerful forward castes group conveyed to him that they cannot come for ‘Satsangs’ in the their house.``

Dammit...this kind of stupidity one saw twenty years ago in our village. That happening in a city in this day and age is extremely depressing...:(:(

Re: # 247

And Sir, they preach love, compassion equality at these satsangs.

#ranjit,
>>Now Sri Aurobindo is not exactly a racist or a flaming casteist, right?

No, but he sure was a terrible bore :)

Read his `Integral Yoga`.
A point that can be simply expressed in 5 words, he propounds in humongous english words for a whole paragraph.

ranjit,

About asura/devta, mythology says they are cousins.
Diti and Aditi were sisters.
Demons were born to Diti. so theyre called Daitya.
Gods were born to Diti, so theyre called Aditya.

By any stretch of imagination we can`t think of a conquering/enslaving race refering to their slaves, of another race, as `cousins`!!

About Gods being white and demons being black, I don`t recall any such thing in my readings. Off course, AmarChitraKatha is primarily responsible for these notions among the young generation :)

But with occasional mistakes...
Demons in general are shown black, but if you had a chance to read the ACK - Prahlad, you`ll see he`s shown as a white kid. How come? Prahlad was a daitya.

Same for Kacha-Devyani.
Devyani, a daitya, is shown as a white beauty??

So I think your theory of Demons being black is incorrect.
But I`ll stand corrected if you can provide solid evidence to the contrary.

---

Here`s a small list of points against the aryan invasion theory.

1. In the hindu texts there is no mention of any separate homeland of the aryans, other than India. (very important point)

2. No mention of any invasion/conquest/enslavement.

3. Mixed color (black/white/brown) for Gods, Sages, warrriors and holy men.

I remember there are more points, but too lazy to google :)

---

About the iraqi peoples looks, you missed the point.

a)You say the current Indian looks are a mix of black aborgines and white invaders.
b)The Iraqis look like us Indians (virtually indistinguisable).
what can we conclude from this?

---

Imho, here`s a more plausible theory (its not mine).

(1)
Yes, there was mixing, but it was the other way.
The dark race was superior technologically to the whites, who very gradually moved in from the north.

This explains - the stunning achievemnts of the pyramids and mohenjodaro.
Such incredible mathematical, engineering, astronomical skill points to a very advanced civilization.
No one will say that egyptians, living near the equator, were a white race.

(2)
This mixing did not start hapenning in India, but in babylonia (iraq) - closest to central asia.
The original superior dark race occupied a vast area, from Egypt, Iraq to India (mohenjodaro, etc).

This explains - why Indian looks are found all over egypt, arabia, iran.
(But remember Egypt and Iran, both suffered a significant gene pool change with Greek/Roman conquest).

There are stunning similarities between babylonian and indian astronomical systems.
No simple ways to explain it have been found.
eg. dividing circle into 360 degrees.
1 degree = 60 minutes, 1 minute = 60 seconds.

(3)
The races that eventually populated north India completely were mixed color.
This was before the caste system set in.

This explains - why Gods/Sages/warriors are of all colors. No stigma attached to black skin.

(4)
The `gradual white impurity` did not reach far south.
(Westcoastal area (kerala for eg) is an exception, there is significant white component there due to heavy maritime trade with arabs and europeans for several millenia).

This explains - why southern dark race is fairly `pure`.

---

What is the manu-smriti but a `Gene Filter`.
Upper castes are allowed to marry lower caste women, but lower caste men are not granted an equivalent privilege.

Two results are guaranteed with this arrangement.
Upper caste gene pool will `improve` over time.
Lower caste gene pool will `degrade` over time.

This explains the current situation in India.

Ok, ranjit, start shooting :)