How that Other Democracy (India) Differs

jang #48:
``sushilkumar shinde is a BC,...``
You got this one wrong. Sushilkumar Shinde is a Dalit. After the recent Maharashtra elections, he was teary-eyed about how despite being a Dalit he was able to get elected for the fourth successive term from a general (not a reserved) constituency.
He is one of the few Dalits who became chief ministers.

#45 harimau:
What do you say about Karnataka, where the Chief Minister, one Mr Dharam Singh, is a northie settled for a couple of generations in Karnataka.

One point I would like to highlight is the number of Christian chief ministers (current and ex) in states where they are a minority:
Kerala (A K Antony), Goa (several), Andhra Pradesh (Y Rajashekar Reddy), MP (Ajit Jogi), Orissa (Giridhar Gamang), not to mention Mizoram, Nagaland and some other North Eastern states where Christianity has become the majority religion. Also unconfirmed reports have it that former PM Rajiv Gandhi converted to Christianity... but with Raul and Bianca Gandhi, we will have a Christian PM for sure.

mumbaikar/jang:
Are you sure Mahajan is brahmin/obc? Mahajan in north india means a trader/bania and this is what the north indian mahajans are considered. And btw the bjp was for long considered to be a party of banias. I doubt also that chavan is a brahmin name; I thought that it was a maharashtrian version of chauhan, the famous rajput caste.

It is strange how the influence of brahmins in maharashtra has declined. There was a time that they led the nation - gokhale, tilak, savarkar, dange, etc. covered the entire spectrum of political thought from far right to far left. These days, they are influential only in classical music, which does not depend upon people`s votes.

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Ref nikki7777 #44

[I`m mourning the death of Veerappan.He had balls.Plenty, for an Indian who usually walks around with only one.Pity.]

You are mourning the death of someone who killed about 120 persons (policemen, forestry officers, but primarily innocent villagers and tribals), who cut down the few remaining old-growth sandalwood trees and sold them to politician-crooks, and who killed wildlife such as elephants?

Pray tell us, whom else do you admire? The politicians who supported Veerappan? Those who helped him escape from jail in 1986 when he had been arrested by the Karnataka police?

Where does Veluppillai Prabhakaran of Sri Lanka stand in your estimation? How about Osama bin Laden?

mumbaikar

maratha is a high caste, eqivalent of surajvanshi rajput and thakurs of up. it does not get a backward caste certificate. it is not a ``babu`` high caste like the kayasthas or brahmins. based on my knowledge there are some marathas more maratha than others, and belong to an original clan of 96 families, perhaps migrated from rajputana. they tend to marry in their own clan as is evident from matrimonials. perhaps there are some ``kurmi (peasant)`` marathas, kind of not belonging to the 96 clan, who may be more of OBCs.

sushilkumar shinde is a BC, Pramod Mahajan and Gopi Munde (BJP) are OBC and related by marriage, Bal Thakre is a Kayastha, pawars-deshmukhs are marathas and antuley is muslim. brahmins are mostly absent in politics, though congress did have a brahmin politician called vasant sathe (union minister) sometime back.

Desh Deshpande is kannadiga. Kulkarni and Deshpande are common brhmin names in border reagions. So, while Mamata Kulkarni is ghati, Desh is not.

love this caste stuff.

Yogiraj

I sympathize with your loss, and understand your rage. Nevertheless, with a little calm thinking, you could yourself see that your opinions in # 17 are plain shameful.

Many Sikhs too have major grievances with the Indian government. Yet, in their public lives, most of them have put that burden aside. Their pain has not disappeared. Only, they have decided to deal with it in the privacy of their hearts.

In our foolishness, we burnt ourselves once. In our anger, should we stoke the fire so we may be burnt completely? I hope you will take these words in the right spirit. I know, when one is very angry, the last thing one wants to hear is someone else moralize. But there is no other choice if we don`t want to further damage ourselves. Best regards.

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Ref dost-mittar #43

[harimou:
Should Rajnikant Gaikwad be considered a Kannadiga or a ghati?]

His admirers have put up a website. Here is the URL
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/9480/rajni/

The biography states, ``Rajnikanth was born Shivaji Rao Gaekwad on December 12, 1949 in Karnataka.`` That name alone ought to make him a ghati except that he probably doesn`t even come from the border area of Belgaum but his family had moved farther South much earlier. So he speaks Kannada at home and doesn`t want to talk about his heritage too much, even though all that one needs in the Land of The Maasanamuthus for a political career is acting credits in several movies.

Can you send us a keshadhari Sikh please? We would happily elect him Chief Minister in Tamil Nadu. Do you think Daler Mehndi would be interested?

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arjun_m:
``tendulkar, madhuri, nutan and tanuja....only thing redeeming ghatis... `
...but they haven`t left their mumbai, except maduhri who still has one leg in Mumbai. How about giving Arun Netravalli and Guru Deshpande, or even Rajnikant as examples?

harimou:
Should Rajnikant Gaikwad be considered a Kannadiga or a ghati?

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Ref jang #38

[you got to give some credit so the ghati politicians (and all the congress and ncp are mostly upper-cast marathas), they have been pretty good over last 40 yrs in comparison to other states in one single indicator (besides gdp-fdi-literacy and all other crap stats). you will rarely see a ghati slumming it out in other states. only ghatis in other states are babus in employ of previous princely outfits such as hydrabad nizam, arcot guy, scindias and holkars and gaikawad principalities etc. so, that means all the maratha politicians were more or less able to find gainful employment to their constituents, who share the barren deccan plateu with andhras and tamils and kannadas. go to any construction site, and you see telanganas slumming-it. tamil brahmins slum it in every govt colony anywhere in india. mallu nurses and typist stink-up offices from abudhabi to ahmedabad with coconut oil and then there are the bhaiyyas and bengalis..]

Well, don`t give too much credit to the ghati politicians for this. It is just that the ghati naturally doesn`t want to leave his home state because he may actually have to learn another language. I personally know of a ghati MTech from IIT-Bombay who ``returned home`` to Pune after one-and-a-half years in Ahmedabad, Gujarat! No, not after the recent riots but 25 years ago!

On the other hand, the politicians of Maharashtra have managed to empty the coffers of the state and plunge the state into debt. They also have the fiasco of Dabhol to be proud of.

While the other states export their surplus labor, we in Tamil Nadu import surplus politicians from other states. We have had a Malayali as our Chief Minister (MGR) and currently have a Kannadiga (Jayalalitha) as one. We of course have had Telugu-speaking chief ministers too. All of these folks represent themselves as the ``true representatives`` of Tamil heritage and the Maasanamuthus of Tamil Nadu actually believe them. The current entrant into the race is the actor (can the word be used to describe his on-screen activities?) Rajnikanth, who used to be a bus conductor in Karnataka and whose last name is Gaikwad. His competitor is another actor named Vijaykanth who is a Gounder (the Gowda of Karnataka) by caste. Which means that we may soon have two Kannadigas duking it out for chief ministership in Tamil Nadu both claiming to be the real Tamilian. That perhaps explains why the only sensible people in Tamil Nadu, the Tamil Brahmins, have been leaving the state in droves. Only the crazy survive in a madhouse.

By the way, we have had ghatis in Tamil Nadu for close to four centuries. Shivaji`s brother`s sons moved south, captured the throne of Tanjore and were ruling there till they were deposed by the British. So not only were ghatis babus, they were also kings.

[ghatis seem plain happy to do their amature plays, keep bothering FV with supersize ganapatis, and play carrom and bridge in their own homeland.]

The playhouses in Bombay do a terrific job. FV is reconciled to the fact that she will have to live with the elephant-faced god all her life. On another board, someone described Allah as not being like humans, etc., etc., etc. I think Ganesh fits the bill of description of Allah to a T. Once Muslims see how non-human-like Ganesh`s head is, they may understand that this is indeed what the Koran has been attempting to describe as Allah and we will all have peace in South Asia. Any effort by the ghatis to spread the cult of Ganesh is therefore to be welcomed.

Ghatis are also hardworking. Unlike that poisonous group called Bongs who ought to be bombed back to the Stone Age or handed over to Bangladesh to form Greater Bangistan which will take them back to the Stone Age too but unfortunately with far less bloodshed.

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My deepest condolences to my Indian brothers for the great loss of their beloved Robin Hood aka Veerapan shaheed. May his soul rest in peace and may Almight give you patience and guide you thru this time of test.