Caste and the City

unkalji,
Your threadcrapping may be indicative of lowered dopamine levels. You should see a physician ASAP.
BTW, you should be wary of Jang. He is tricky guy who is damning you with faint praise. To wit, he says calling you a runofthemill brahmin is an insult to brahmins. As the Tamil advice goes, you should pull your tongue out & die :0
Just kidding, go see a physician anyway. Lack of time should be no excuse since you`re on vacation. How could I tell?;)

soysauce #150
``I am certainly willing to share what little I know with people but I`m not going to be giving any quarter to those who have no willingness to learn and are interested only in verbal fisticuffs.``

and
`` When you engage me in a duel, you don`t set the rules.``

:).

Firstly, Mr Paranoid Persecuted, there is no duel except from your side and I was not engaging you in `verbal fisticuffs`. I was asking the world at large whether reservations have worked or not. I repeated that often enough. There was no reason for you to reply at all if you did not want to. But if simply asking that question set off a persecution mania within you, that is your funeral.

I don`t think it did actually, your professed outrage and victimhood is just drama, as the losers club on chowk is wont to engage in.

In #152 I wrote

[... But you won`t find these mufukkas willing to give their daughters or sons in marriage to a Muslim or Christian. Some people remain mleccha-s to even these guys! It is easy to talk equality but difficult to practice!]

Asli-Masanamuthu is sitting in the US and he is already a minority. So, him becoming a Muslim should not add to his handicap, unless the claim that Indian Muslims are systematically discriminated against and so he cannot convert out of Hinduism.

He won`t do it. There are SOME people that he considers to be Untouchable. His list of detestable Untouchables begins with the Dalits of India and extends to Muslims and Christians. That is a line the Masanamuthus of Tamil Nadu won`t cross despite their professions of love for the Dalits and hatred for the Manusmriti.

Notice how he could find time to put in a feeble response to my post #147 but couldn`t comment on my post #146. Does anybody still think that these BCs, OBCs and MBCs give a rat`s a$$ about the Dalits of India?

And the Pakistanis have been thinking that this guy has such a progressive outlook! What a bunch of dumb jerks!

Ref Inji-kari-kuzhambu #149

[#147 harimau
Thanks kindly. I`m flattered you value my opinions so much. I`m just a few characters on your monitor. Why are you bursting your arteries over me old man? Don`t you have some real demons to slay?
If you REALLY want to know, go back & read all my interacts or wait until a suitable article comes along where I may express myself or continue tilting at the windmills. The choice is entirely yours.]

I think it is time for you to go to the nearest mosque and get your dick chopped off.

Once you do that and advertise that fact on Chowk, your rating will climb back from its current two stars.

Ref jang #146

[soya

you have many posts where you show brahmins in poor light (and using rhetoric, not any logical thought)....]

Well, he actually believes that the man whose sole claim to fame is that he wrote the script for about 75 Tamil movies is the ``Elder Son of Mother Tamil`` whereas U V Swaminatha Iyer who rescued and published 125 ancient Tamil works has made no contributions to Tamil because he is a brahmin. The problem is he can`t actually handle the reality that he belongs to a group of people who have NO contributions to society, culture, art, science, etc., in over 2000 years.

[...in #77 and #49, (and others elsewhere) you shrunk hinduism to basic ill of casteism, i have not seen you express such a loathing towards other religions.]

This is exactly the same position as that of Elder Son of Mother Tamil-Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion. and his party members. But you won`t find these mufukkas willing to give their daughters or sons in marriage to a Muslim or Christian. Some people remain mleccha-s to even these guys! It is easy to talk equality but difficult to practice!

[....so, it appears to me that you have a major b!tch towards hindu and brahmin. since your posts seemed rhetorical (not logical or anecdotal), i seeked a different approach.]

He is just providing the English translation of the Collected Works of Thanthai Periyar, Annadurai and Karunanidhi. Don`t expect anything more from him.

[hope that helps.]

Nothing short of a lobotomy is likely to help.

#148
Jang, just as I thought. You`re blowing hot air. I`ll admit runofthemillbrahmin & runof themilltamil (highlighted for your benefit, looks like I have no one left to hate)certainly puts down harimau. Are you saying it`s the same as attacking hindus & brahmins? Harimau is such a big deal to you. No kidding!
I am certainly willing to share what little I know with people but I`m not going to be giving any quarter to those who have no willingness to learn and are interested only in verbal fisticuffs. When you engage me in a duel, you don`t set the rules. On the other hand, in this exchange between us you made a specific accusation and as proof you offer hem & haw. In case you haven`t realized this article is about caste relationships. I conjectured that casteism is a manifestation of religious divisions. The idea that hinduism is not a single religion is at least a hundred years old. For you to project your own insecurities on that take is rather telling. So let me ask you, why are you so damn insecure about your religion & why do you hate your mother?

Let me also ask you another question. Why are you such a casteist that you see everything in terms of caste? Why is it that anyone who makes a social commentary must belong to a certain group and subscribe to groupthink? I am really curious because as an Indian in the US you must have experienced racism - perhaps not outright bigotry but unenlightened stereotyping, most certainly. Where is the empathy?

#147 harimau
Thanks kindly. I`m flattered you value my opinions so much. I`m just a few characters on your monitor. Why are you bursting your arteries over me old man? Don`t you have some real demons to slay?
If you REALLY want to know, go back & read all my interacts or wait until a suitable article comes along where I may express myself or continue tilting at the windmills. The choice is entirely yours.

soya

you have many posts where you show brahmins in poor light (and using rhetoric, not any logical thought).... e.g. ``He is your run-of-the mill Brahmin,`` in #129. when sadna queried about your knowledge of brahmin persecution, you sounded very cagey..i mean you otherwise are full of sympathy for the opressed from all over the world, but you combated sadna`s queries (very well i must compliment you) with uncharacteric lack of sympathy.

in #77 and #49, (and others elsewhere) you shrunk hinduism to basic ill of casteism, i have not seen you express such a loathing towards other religions.

so, it appears to me that you have a major bitch towards hindu and brahmin. since your posts seemed rhetorical (not logical or anecdotal), i seeked a different approach.

hope that helps.

Let me suggest a quota system for the next 45 years and see how hard all the gravy-train-riding, circle-jerking mufukkas scream.

ALL professional education is to be reserved exclusively for SC/ST candidates. No BC, MBC, OBC is to be admitted to any professional course within India. That should produce about 500,000 engineers and at least 40,000 doctors a year, all of whom are either certified SC or ST.

The brahmins all over India will gladly accept such a policy just to show these mealy-mouthed hypocrites what it means to be at the receiving end of a quota system.

Ref Inji-kari-kuzhambu #145

[Remember, as a nonbrahmin I`m not as smart as you.]

How come? You claimed your parents are brahmins.

Just answer these three questions from #141.

Since you are well-equipped with logical answers, I would like clear-cut answers to the following questions:

1) As an agnostic, do you believe that only Hindu gods are false or do you consider Jehovah and Allah to be a fake too? What WOULD be the logically consistent answer here?

2) If by extension, Hindu scriptures are bogus, where does that place the Bible and the Koran?

3) If in Tamil Nadu one should perform rites of worship in Hindu temples in Tamil and not Sanskrit, should Arabic be banned from mosques?

#139 Jang
We may get somewhere in satisfying your curiosity if you`d explain to me specifically how you arrived at your question. If it`s based on anything I wrote, kindly cite it or paraphrase it with respect to the context. On the other hand, if it`s based on certain assumptions tell me what they are.
Your own bias is rather apparent when you say what Harimau Iyer is against is caste politics. He has made it clear that he thinks brahmins are specially endowed. He has been railing against nonbrahmins questioning their intelligence. If you think this has to do with politics you should examine your own biases which it seems to me tend to be casteist.

#141 unkalji
Remember, as a nonbrahmin I`m not as smart as you. Please take pity & summarize your points. Add bullet points if you can. Thanks.

#139
``I hate hindus & brahmins because I can`t stand any group of which I`m a de factomember. Happy? ``

soy,
this would be a good example of pure rhetoric, so no i am not happy. harimau has made it very clear what he hates about caste politics in TN. you have not said what is it that you specifically hate about the brahmin or the hinduism, except write re-gurgitated rhetoric. and kindly explain why you think my mother is a dog?

bbabu,

i have an explanation for the frustration of brahmin kids, they are set-up to be frustrated. they are highly encouraged to do good at school and get a professional degree as a meal-ticekt. clearly, not all make it. affirmative action is the simplest blame they can find. however, with the number of cheap college seats being so small in number, even without affirmative action, 99% of these ``frustrated`` kids will not get-in, and hence are still likely to be frustrated, however, the in-your-face affirmative actoin is the most logical blame.

i mean look at a typical gujju bania in mumbai, he is very happy to get his B.Com second class by the age of 20, busts his ass at some clothing store of a relative for peanuts for 2 years, and then starts some business by borrowing money at 22, makes no or little money for next 4 years while working 25 hours a day. by then he is somewhat established, most likely married with a couple of kids! compare to a brahmin boy who is mooching off his parents to get a silly masters degree..he is no where.

so i feel that the brahmins have set things up wrong for the new economy. they just cant afford to spend huge amount of money to get bad degrees..that was ok in 60`s but currently its better to spend the education money more wisely.

drlokraj # 135

``if you read Manu Samriti``

Why do you read Manu Samriti? If you yourself are not a dalit then the chances of your being a Hindu are almost nil.

``hinduism cannot be conceived without castes``

``Hinduism`` is being contantly reconceived. Again, if you yourself are not a dalit, then your belief system has no relationship to Hinduism as most of us understand it today.

``One cant convert to hinduism``

One most easily can. Let us know when you are ready :)

``Reservations may have given some economic/social status to a minority of Dalits,it has deepened the hatred in the minds of UC in the proportional extent.``

Implicating caste in discussing `hatred` is misleading. Positive and negative responses to job quotas have economic origins. No matter which country or culture you are in, they sound almost identical.

``expulsion `` of Budhism from India

Good you put that between quotes. Incisive minds do not pass off pure and clearly defamatory speculation as history. These belong in the realm of propaganda.


A general note, to understand Hinduism, talk to Hindus about what they believe. Don`t memorize old books. Books cannot capture the whole of God. When you develop this Hindu sensibility, you will feel free to accept or reject parts or entirety of any and all of those ancient books.

Ref Asli-Masanamuthu #129

[You know folks, something that has been under the surface for this long, I sort of suspected it, but it is quite clear to me now. Casteism apparently is par for the course amongst indians, even those who otherwise may not be bigoted. That`s why wholesale trashing of BCs, dalits, and what have you has been tolerated in this crowd.......

It also is amazing that the kind of attacks we see on the culture and intelligence of BCs & dalits that are tolerated here......]

We really don`t need any more proof that you are brain-dead but you seem to be hell-bent on providing evidence.

In all my writings, I have shown my willingness to accept a quota system for the Dalits. When I look at a Pallan behind a plow in the hot sun of Tamil Nadu, I recognize that I am what I am by the mere accident of birth and think ``But for the grace of God, there go I``. On the other hand, it is the middle castes who have hijacked the entitlement program and used it to enrich themselves. I did ask -- and you did not or could not answer -- how many Pallans and Paraiyans have actually been able to leave their back-breaking daily grind on the farm to become engineers and doctors under the current dispensation. Why don`t you answer that simple question?

I WILL attack the intelligence of anyone who actually uses his mental retardation as a justification for preferential treatment. It ought to be a cause for treatment, I agree, but at a health care facility.

If these self-same idiots then turn around and attack Vedic Hinduism, I have no problems pointing out that years of college education has not prevented them from erecting a temple to a movie actress of the Muslim persuasion. Nor would I hesitate to point out that small-pox is a disease caused by a virus, not by the anger of Mariamman and that it cannot be cured by tying `neem` leaves around the infected person.

When these idiots further ``reject`` the evil Aryan tyranny by naming their children Tamil Kudimagan, I do have a right to ask whether ``Kudimagan`` means citizen, drunkard or chut. I also ask why it is that these people in turn then name their own kids Lavanya, Akshaya, Poornima and similar Sanskrit names. What exactly is wrong with Mariattha, Esakki, Karuppayee, etc.? After all, these have been names in existence in Tamil Nadu much before Vedic Hindus arrived with their names such as Ramaswamy or Krishnamurthy and these people could have stayed with Masanamuthu and Sudalaikkannu... as at least some people have the sense to.

[Do you believe the superiority of brahmins is genetic asks someone as if bigotry could be reasoned with. You display so much knowledge someone else chimes in. If the roles were changed, if it were the stupid dirt-poor indians who were at the receiving end, we wouldn`t be reasoning with or complimenting the David Dukes.]

There is nothing remotely resembling David Duke`s philosophy if I ask exactly how many Nobel laureates in science or medicine your 54 years of affirmative action has produced. Your problem is that you cannot refute the fact that with about the same number of years of access to Western scientific education, Vedic Hindus have produced two Nobel Prize winners in Physics. Nor can you show a single instance of a scientific paper in a medical journal, a new medical procedure, etc., that can be traced to these quota candidates. Why is it that it has to be a Westerner who comes up with bone marrow transplant as a possible cure for aplastic anemia or leukemia? Why is it that it is one or more Westerners who receive the credit for discovering the HIV virus? Why is it that it is an Australian intern who discovers that gastric ulcers are caused by a bacteria and that a course of treatment with antibiotics can cure it, refuting the conventional wisdom that it is caused by stress, spicy food, blah, blah, blah? Why has there been not one scientific discovery worth recognition coming out of a half-century of increased public access to university education? For all your tall claims about electrical engineering education, why is it that you guys cannot produce a telephone handset on your own but have to import every single cell phone? Why is it that your primary exports are still raw materials such as iron ore and agricultural products? Why is it that Pepsi has to set up a potato chips manufacturing facility in Punjab? Don`t you fcukers have the skill to scale up the frying of vegetables to an inductrial scale?

For all your talk about IT and software exports, why is it that there is not one world-class product such as SAP or Oracle made in India? Why is it that you are willing to sell your code-coolies at rock-bottom prices if you have 95% of the world`s CMM Level 5 certified companies?

Why does it require a bogus MBA from one of the thousands of colleges to get a job answering phones at a call center, a job that is held in the US by high school drop-outs?

[The country is going to the dogs someone else says because talented people are not accomodated. Guess what, talented people of other disadvantaged groups had to suffer for a very long time.]

For a thousand years under the Muslims sultans, you just needed an Afghan heritage, belief in Allah and the willingness to plunder, murder and rape to become a jagirdar. But that is all forgotten as idiots like you, seeking allies in ripping off the public, offer sops in the form of quotas and Hajj subsidies to Muslims.

Can you tell us exactly what the Britisher found likable in a brahmin? The brahmin wouldn`t come close to him, won`t eat or drink with him, and had a horror of the English practice of mixing of the sexes and public displays of affection. On top of that, the brahmin strongly resisted all attempts at conversion to Christianity. So, exactly why do you continue to make the claim that somehow the brahmins were given preference by the British and it is this history of preference that has to be corrected by affirmative action?

[That couldn`t be of course because we all know brahmins to be specially gifted. It`s ironic that the defender and spokesman of tamil brahmins here is someone who is poorly equipped in logical skills - I present you Sriman Hariamau Iyer. He is your run-of-the mill Brahmin, run-of-the mill tamil who has taken up shadow boxing as a hobby.]

Sine you are well-equipped with logical answers, I would like clear-cut answers to the following questions:

1) As an agnostic, do you believe that only Hindu gods are false or do you consider Jehovah and Allah to be a fake too? What WOULD be the logically consistent answer here?

2) If by extension, Hindu scriptures are bogus, where does that place the Bible and the Koran?

3) If in Tamil Nadu one should perform rites of worship in Hindu temples in Tamil and not Sanskrit, should Arabic be banned from mosques?

[FWIW, I was at the wrong end of the quota system - you see my parents are brahmins.]

You know, some six months ago I suggested that the only way you can get out of the situation you have created for yourself is to claim that you are a brahmin. It took your dull brain all those months to finally make that claim! Tell us now that you are the descendant of the famous Appayya Deekshitar of the Rig Vedic tradition and Vishwamitra gotra!

[An interesting thing about TN villages is that perhaps because most of us were dirt poor we were sympathetic towards those who were poorer than us. We were poor but hopeful. The BCs & dalits had nothing to look forward to except for a life of hard labor. That is s.l.o.w.l.y changing now. We all somehow got by and I don`t think I have suffered terribly due to the quota system. My umpteen cousins & nephews & nieces in TN are doing just fine. They are not cribbing about it as much as the sadnas, sridhars or harimaus sitting far away writing much, comprehending little.]

Let ME tell you what happens to a poor brahmin. One of my classmates in high school was the son of a waiter in a local restaurant in our mofussil town. He couldn`t afford college though he was brilliant in his studies. He ended up taking the certificate exam (not the BT degree) to be a teacher and became one.

Another poor boy, the son of a widowed mother, was equally good at studies. He couldn`t go to college either. You see, his mother worked as a cook, preparing food on `shraddha` days at brahmin households who could afford to hire her. Since that job was not full-time, on most days she made idlies and sold them to people for breakfast... not in public because she didn`t have the skills for that but to households needing a quick breakfast because the housewife was ill or because visitors might have arrived. When I met my classmate some years later, I found out that he also had taken the Tamil pandit`s course and was teaching Tamil at a local school. A third, who couldn`t afford college either, was fortunate in that with the nationalization of the banks, he was able to start a small workshop making grills for windows, iron gates for houses, etc.

Please peddle the story that as a dirt-poor person yourself you sympathize with the BCs to somebody else. I know what happens to dirt-poor brahmins. If they are lucky, they have learnt a few mantras and are able to participate in a religious ceremony as one of several brahmins needed. They get a few rupees, a meal and perhaps a new dhoti which they are forced to sell back to a store at a deep discount to make a bit more money. The dregs of the poor brahmins end up being the ``sa-wundi`` (more correctly, ``sapindi``), shunned by all. (Since you claim to be a brahmin, tell us what a ``sapindi`` does!)

I know several dirt-poor brahmins who have had their sons admitted to engineering colleges because the Supreme Court stepped in and ruled about 15 years ago that 50% is indeed the limit on set-asides but the Tamil Nadu government side-stepped that by deliberately assigning these people to private engineering colleges with very high tuition whereas your BCs and MBCs ended up at Anna University or some other government college with el cheapo tuition. I know that these people had to literally go door to door every semester or even month seeking financial assistance to pay for their tuition. What you and the BCs can`t abide is the fact today these same people are highly-respected workers in the US, Europe or Australia.

I sympathize with the dalits because they are truly downtrodden. I have nothing but contempt for the so-called BCs and MBCs because they are nothing but leeches on society.

PS. Yesterday, ``The Hindu`` reported that the Nadar community wanted itself to be classified as an MBC. I presume they are now a BC but they know their chances will be better as an MBC. The question is: is this justified by history or is it just another attempt at grabbing hold of the economic pie to which they intend to contribute nothing?

soysauce #129

I agree with you. I can understand the frustrations of Brahmins from 1980 to early 1990s. There are plenty of engineering seats, jobs, emigration opportunities, business opportunities etc. Admission to a medical college is still hard. It is always hard !!!