Caste and the City

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Sadna,
I hope you`ll agree that there is no evidence of any sort that brahmins have been reduced to insignificance numerically. Migrating is not the same as fleeing. Migrants typically return to their native lands periodically, have families there and so on. There are a large number of malayalees all over the place. Nobody drove them out except for lack of opportunities. Those who are so equipped migrate. That tells nothing.
I don`t believe I have said anything vis-a-vis Jayalalitha & the dalits. I was making a historical point and I did say that with social and political shifts the ground reality with regard to discrimination also is changing.
To return to the meta-topic, the so-called hierarchical system of hinduism, on the face of it would imply that those who are metaphorically at the bottom wish to move to the top. This in essence also was M.N. Srinivas`s thesis that DMji alluded to. I don`t believe this is true. What the disadvantaged want is not to be at the top of the caste hierarchy since they well know that what holds the key is political power. Once they have that power there is no need to ``move up.`` They are fine in their caste skin. This I think is similar to what happens in the social intercourse of different religions. Moreover, their cosmology is different, their gods are different, their myths are different, etc. which also makes me think of caste divides more as religious divides. There`s something like a reverse-sanskritization going on with increasing number of brahmin youth starting to eat meat. Westernization has pushed sanskritization (if it was at all there) out of the picture.
It is a fact of life that yesterday`s oppressed are tomorrow`s oppressors. What we need to have is a system of equality that protects the rights of minorities regardless of who`s in power. This process will take a few more decades. Look at how long it took the US to start treating (at least on paper) the descendents of slaves and women as equal to the majority males.

jang #102

The same HRW report says ``According to Dr. Krishnaswamy, though “atrocities against Dalits were institutionalised during the previous AIADMK regime,” a 1996 shift in political power to the DMK party, led by M. Karunanidhi, did not result in a “change in the behaviour of the police.”

My assertion is merely this, that the virulent anti-Brahminism of these two parties is no longer sufficient or even relevant to address current burning issues because Brahmins are no longer the primary actors. Anyone is free to challenge this assertion, but simply questioning my intentions in making this assertion will not suffice.

soysauce #103
``When you say brahmins have been reduced to insignificant numbers in TN you obviously mean their share of the population was much higher than the present 3 - 4%. I`d like to see the evidence. That you have been hearing of brahmin migration is not sufficient. You probably meant it as a rhetorical flourish but it has NO basis in fact.``

Now who is ascribing motives and setting up a strawman? I did not say their share of population was earlier larger than 3-4%, I said that is their %age now and that they have been migrating out. I was not making a rhetorical flourish, living in S. India, I have heard first and second hand accounts of such migration all my life. I have also heard first hand for instance about problems that `forward castes` face in getting degree or post-graduate admission in TN. I also remember seeing, in the pre-IT boom period, the US consulate in Madras(then) citing the largest visa-granted figures among all consulates/embassies in India and the lack of opportunity for the educated Brahmin community being cited as a possible reason by the US agency reporting these figures.

I am surprised you don`t see the point of rest of my post because it was yourself who first brought in Brahminism and then the Brahmin origins of Jayalalitha in context of Dalit or lower caste rights in Tamil Nadu and I replied to you on those points.

Take care that you do not end up as intolerant to dissent with your fundamental assumptions as harimau seems to be. (What is harimau`s relevance to a discussion between myself and you is unclear to me, I am only replying to your bringing him up. He has been quite as abusive to me on occasion with as little basis, but you unfortunately seem to be his regular and favored target).

#99 by sadna

waat..sasikala is a thevar? i thought she is a kallan! (like i care)

anyways, aidmk is kind of not REAL dravid, dmk is the real one. i am also interested in reading soyas response.

for a mumbaiyya, madrasis have been a big mystery. the tamils we came across in Matunga and Chembur (tamil muhallas) i presume were brahmins. they were mostly white-collared, vegetarian, and for some reason ALWAYS spoke english, although in the distinctive yell-yum-yen accent. They had their institutions like the SIES (Sambhar Idly Education Society) which were highly regarded for good and cheap schooling in vernacular and english media. They also had a dominant presense in cutural scene centred around Matunga Cultural and Shanmukhananda Hall, where i did suffer thru innumerable padams, and wailing-veenas. i thought that all tamils are brahmins, and later in my life was surprised to find that most tamils eat meat. most of my tamil classmates in college were brahmins, except some in thru affirmative action, who were the cool ones with relatives in military (EME) and got us cheap booze. brahmins were huge bores and whiners. interestingly, tamilnadu seems to have brahmins but no other ``Upper Class``!

mallyalis were mostly typist, nurses and then they disappeared ..i think to gulf! they were very clanish, like a secret society, with no visible institutions.

andhras were the constrution labour, kadias (masons) etc. and offcourse the hydrabadi musalmans speaking deccani urdu.

kannadas were mixed and separate. there were the konkanis, the ``dingos`` (anglos), tullus and shettys runnning hotels and mafias. did not notice much brahmin presense here, except perhaps some of the konkani places like.

now the new tamil adda is out of mumbai in dombivali.

#99 sadna
When you say brahmins have been reduced to insignificant numbers in TN you obviously mean their share of the population was much higher than the present 3 - 4%. I`d like to see the evidence. That you have been hearing of brahmin migration is not sufficient. You probably meant it as a rhetorical flourish but it has NO basis in fact. It`s like the hindutvavadis claiming muslim population to be REALLY 25%. There is really a huge reverse migration into TN as export-related industries have grown.
As for the rest of your post, I don`t get the point of it. I don`t believe I have claimed brahmins have attacked dalits. In my 3 or so years on Chowk, no one has claimed this or anything close to this except for the apparitions that speak to Harimau Iyer. Why are you setting up strawmen?

Ref jang #97

princely states, maharajas and small-time jagirdars often had allocations for poor brahmin kids [to come and study in the durbar town. kids would live in poverty and literally ``beg`` for their lunch, (typically a brahmin boy would go to a different house for lunch, or go get roti from one dal from other etc) and spartan dorms with yet more spartan dinner would be provided by the Jajman king, in addition to the school. king or prince personally looked into the affairs of these schools, insisted on excercise etc. kind of like the modern day madrassas, except the kids got normal education. then for special occasions kids would get some dinner with some sweet dish.

i have listened to some aged relatives talk of attending such schools in the 1920s.. they absolutely hated it, but got them the education otherwise impossible. that was some affirmative action.]

That might have been done by the maharajas to earn some merit for afterlife. In the south, it wasn`t uncommon for orphaned boys and girls to be helped in this manner by other folks. While someone who lost both his parents would be shunned as a harbinger of bad luck, the community would feed the child, each household making available one meal. The boy or girl would sleep on the porch of a house or in the halls of the local temple. It was a hard life. I have met one man whose father had to go through this when he lost both his parents and had no other family to talk of. Today, that son is well off living in Singapore. People would envy his lifestyle but only when one digs deeper one finds out how he came up in life and how hard his own childhood was.

Ref Asli-Masanamuthu #96

[Your claim that brahmins have been reduced to insignificance numerically is plain wrong. Had there been an ``ethnic`` cleansing of the sort you`re alleging we all would have heard about it.]

First of all, they don;t HAVE to be reduced. Their share of the population is 3%. What share would you be happy with, maybe 0%, excpt for those women willing to sell themselves to the family of Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion?

[Politically, as Harimau Iyer will tell you, a brahmin is the chief minister.]

Yes, she is. And why? Because the only things the Masanamuthus can organize successfully is a) protection rackets and b) circle jerks.

You fcukers have been claiming brahmin domination of Tamil Nadu and whom did you unseat in 1867? The party of Kamaraj Nadar. Yep, Nadar, one of the lowest castes before you get to Dalits. Who did you replace that with? Annadurai Mudaliar, who ranked considerably higher up in the caste hierarchy. Of course Annadurai, or The Great Intellectual as you Masanamuthus call him, died of cancer and was replaced by that barber Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion. Who cries himself hoarse about Tamil being in danger (does anybody recall ``Islam is in danger``?) while speaking Telugu at home. He did name his son Tamil Arasu (Tamil King) and his illegitimate daughter Kanimozhi (Sweet Words) which set off a frenzy among the Masanamuthus to name their daughters Love Queen (hey, Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion`s own nephew Maran named his daughter Love Queen!)

Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion lost the election to Marudur Gopala Menon Ramachandra Menon (get used to that name Menon, a##hole, it is a Malayali name as Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion pointed out in vain) and then when MGR died what happened to Vijayakumari, Latha, Manjula or any number of his heroines who used to moonlight as two-bit prostitutes in Kollywood? Why is it that Jayalalitha became the chief minister? That is because you Masanamuthus had no other person to pin your hopes on. Why couldn`t Love Queen, the daughter of Maran run for office? Because she was, and still is, too busy collecting Rs. 10 bribes for medicines at the government pharmacy and Rs. 100 for admission to the free government hospitals from the dirt-poor menial workers of Chennai while selling operations at the free government hospitals to the rich at tens of thousands of rupees. And Stalin, the son of Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion, was lying dead drunk in the gutters of Madras. Even Muthu, the son whom Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion promoted as an alternate hero to MGR in movies, failed at the box office and is now currently a basic member of Jayalaitha`s party.

The utter shiftlessness of the Masanamuthus in ALL matters is exemplified by the attempt by Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion to correct the population imbalance between the North and the South by having the Love Queens become baby factories. The local Tamil newspaper ``Dina Thanthi`` (Daily Telegraph) announced an award of a few thousand rupees to a woman selected as Veera Thai of the month (``Veer Mata`` to you Northies; there goes ``Veera`` as a Tamil word, god, Tamil is truly in danger!). After about 15 months, when all the 90-year-old women who had had 15 children had been thus honored, the newspaper ran out of women to give money to. The furious attempts of Masanamuthus to become stud bulls to the Love Queens turned into a miserable failure and Viagra still being in the far distant future, the newspaper quietly stopped the awards.

So blame yourselves for electing a Karnataka brahmin woman (a three-fer, a black woman normally being counted as a two-fer in the US for Equal Employment Opportunity reports, here she is, a woman, a non-Tamilian AND a brahmin to boot!) to be the head of government in your home state.

[He`s happy because she`s doing well by the brahmins.]

Can you tell us exactly what she has done for the brahmins? Come on, you make a wild allegation, prove it with facts.

PS. Now here is an idea for population control in India. Instead of offering rewards for the least number of children, offer rewards for having the most children. I guarantee the population growth will grind to a halt in two years time as the Masanamuthus (and Bhagawan Dases) stare inmute horror at their limp members!

kaalchakra #95
Only when they are shortchanged as a group,not individually.This was impliciit.The recognition as a group would also come somewhere down the line.It may be self induced or made aware by political entrepeneurship.

soysauce #96
Actually having lived in a neighbouring state, I have been hearing about Brahmin migration for a long time. The govt. does not collect caste-wise figures so there are none. Googling around, the number cited is that Brahmins constitute about 3-4 % of the Tamil Nadu population.

As for Jayalalitha, she is the one who brought in a total of 69% reservation in education and employment in 1994 for backward classes, most backward classes and SC&ST.

According to the TN govt website talks of reservation `` it has now reached the level of 69%. The present policy stipulates 18% reservation for Scheduled Castes, 1% for Scheduled Tribes, 30% for Backward Classes and 20% for Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities. ``

As for various episodes of violence against Dalits in Tamil Nadu, I am unable to find a single instance where Brahmins were involved. Those who attacked Dalits were Gounders/Vellalas/Vanniyars/Thevars or `other backward castes` or DMK party cadres.

An 1999 HRW report says ``The Home Ministry’s Annual Report for 1995 reported that caste-related incidents in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Maharashtra increased by 25 to 30 percent from previous years. A majority of these incidents were taking place between scheduled castes and OBCs.54 The trend has continued, particularly in the state of Tamil Nadu .``

It says ``Caste clashes in the southern state of Tamil Nadu have predominantly involved two communities: the Thevars (a backward caste) and the Pallars (or Dalits). As has been the case in other states, Dalits in Tamil Nadu have long suffered from exploitative economic relationships and have frequently been the victims of violence. However, changes since the early 1990s have altered the economic relationship between the Thevars and the Pallars and have changed the contours of the conflict. Having benefited from the state’s policy of reservations in education and from the income provided by relatives working abroad, the Pallars have become much less dependent on Thevar employment and have begun to assert themselves in the political arena. The Thevars have responded to this threat to their hegemony with violence. Dalits, too, have begun to fight back. ``


About Jayalalitha, the same report says `` J. Jayalalitha, leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party (AIADMK), was considered a “strong Thevar community supporter” during her five-year tenure as chief minister of the state from 1991 to May 1996.243 Her support included extending influential political and police positions to members of the Thevar community—allowing them to further consolidate their power base.244 N. Sasikala, Jayalalitha’s aide and confidante and a Thevar community member, was also accused of “astutely promoting her caste.”245 Lawyers, human rights activists and the local press have noted that, as a result, a majority of the police force in the southern districts now “hails from [the Thevar] caste and, often, have been unable to overcome their caste affiliations.”246

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-07.htm#TopOfPage


In summary, I am unable to understand how with Brahmins being at 3-4% population in Tamil Nadu and violence being perpetuated by other groups, just how Brahmins are held responsible for Dalits` plight.

Am also still unable to understand why after 69% reservation for `backward` castes and 35 odd years of non-Brahmin DMK/AIADMK rule, 3-4% Brahmins are still held responsible for `oppression` of other castes. Feel free to say why you think otherwise.

Let me say I support reservations or affirmative action for historically discriminated castes/communities. But it should be done with social justice as goal and not for political or electoral mileage, because beyond a point, the state blindly entitling people simply for being born into a particular caste only helps strengthen caste boundaries not erase them.

Nor do I think that the single-issue anti-Brahminism of 1920s antiquity to which DMK/AIADMK subscribe is any longer useful for solving the problem of social justice in Tamil Nadu.

does someone have a chart of caste and religion numbers info in UPS/IAS/Central and STate Govt. by year? will be interesting to see.

there were the good old days when brahmins were the privilaged ones, even when poor. princely states, maharajas and small-time jagirdars often had allocations for poor brahmin kids to come and study in the durbar town. kids would live in poverty and literally ``beg`` for their lunch, (typically a brahmin boy would go to a different house for lunch, or go get roti from one dal from other etc) and spartan dorms with yet more spartan dinner would be provided by the Jajman king, in addition to the school. king or prince personally looked into the affairs of these schools, insisted on excercise etc. kind of like the modern day madrassas, except the kids got normal education. then for special occasions kids would get some dinner with some sweet dish.

i have listened to some aged relatives talk of attending such schools in the 1920s.. they absolutely hated it, but got them the education otherwise impossible. that was some affirmative action.

re: rahul_capri

``ethnic gropus vote as a chunk only when they feel they are being shortchanged.``

``Groups`` sometimes vote as a chunk when they feel they are being shortchanged. Not always. Many other factors come into play.

They may not `see` themselves as a group. When they do, group-membership may not receive overwhelming salience in their total scheme of things. Peoples` definition of `being shortchanged` may vary. They may differ in how they perceive the causal orgins of their perceived problems. In their own collective mythology, there may exist greater or lesser cultural premium on group-level solutions and group concerns. They may have connected themselves to members of other groups with either thick or sparse social ties. Consequently, they may be more or less aware of, more or less sympathatic toward people of other groups making competing claims and advancing competing concerns. Even when all these factors are similar, groups differ in how, how easily, and how enthusiastically they can be mobilized into engaing in joint political action.

#84 sadna,
Your claim that brahmins have been reduced to insignificance numerically is plain wrong. Had there been an ``ethnic`` cleansing of the sort you`re alleging we all would have heard about it. Politically, as Harimau Iyer will tell you, a brahmin is the chief minister. He`s happy because she`s doing well by the brahmins.

harimou#97:

Nearly half a century ago, Prof. M.N. Srinivas documented the phenomenon of sanskritisation in the south, whereby a number of upwardly mobil lower-castes (what you call masanmathus) imitated upper caste social norms (such as shunning meat and wearing sacred threads) to successully seek acceptance as upper castes. I was wondering if this phenomenon came to an end with the coming to power of the dravidian parties, especially since the upper castes themselves seem to be quite busy desankritising themselves.
Serious reply, please!

harimau #92
The difference between ``Vedic Hinduism``, as you call it and other religions is that Hindu Gods are not like some cosmic Saddams who would punish you if ``the book`` is not followed.One of the reason being that there is no ``the book`` in Hinduism.There are a series of myths and fables through which an ethical framework is nurtured,not mandated. There is still the concept of heaven and hell though and that of a karma express.If you sin you may come back as a lesser being and or go to hell. Eveything else is pretty much left to a person.
As you say, all the castes have not been defined by Vedic Hinduism , but some have, and somehow this has started and multiplied in the society. To understand how, is not just the matter of ``clutching at straws``;it merits a formal ethnographic study.One reason may be assimilation of a wide variety of cultures.
To eliminate castes and going back to ``true`` Hinduism as you call it would introduce pedantry and the same rigidity and inflexibility as exists in Islam. There would be a multitude of sects that would claim to be hindus and the argument towards the definition of a ``true`` Hindu would prevail.
When we look to it in a larger context,religion is certainly necessary to provide an ethical framework for humans. It has some utility. But whoever thought of religion is dead and gone now. If we do believe in a very strict moral code being mandated by a religion and the concept of divinity and immutability, we expect a more disciplined society , within the religion. But the problem with that approach is that it does not evolve with time with reformist movements (like the Arya samaj movement) and secondly followers of such a faith will tend to develop a less tolerant attitude towards followers of other religious faiths.

As for ``Vedic`` Hindus not forming an agressive identity of their own, I think ethnic gropus vote as a chunk only when they feel they are being shortchanged. When the hindus felt so , they bought the BJP and the shivsena to power. Now they dont feel so, so they vote on other issues. TamilNadu may be a special case,where upper caste Hindus may be facing the problems of both being a majority in the country and being a minority in the state. And thats why I think reservation if any, should be time bound. It certainly increases chasms in society and there are other ways for poverty alleviation.

Ref rahul_capri #87

[I think that there is a fundamental difference between caste discrimination and religious discrimination at least in the context of Hinduism.]

Actually, one could consider various castes to be different religions.

Does Vedic Hinduism recognize Small-Pox as a Goddess? No. Does it consecrate little girls as devadasis? No. Would it ever consider adding a fat movie actress to its list of deities? No. They worshipped Rudra, Vishnu, and personified forces of Nature as Indra, Varuna, etc., and added them to their pantheon.

Does Vedic Hinduism have 4000-odd castes? No. It is the people, who do not want to be classified broadly, who want to clutch at straws that they think might give them incrementally better social standing, who classified themselves into these multitude of castes and who then turn around and blame it on Hinduism.

The mistake is actually of two kinds: one is the peaceful assimilation of various tribal deities as manifestations of Vedic Hinduism`s gods and goddesses. The other is the refusal to assimilate the individuals constituting the tribes by inter-marriage.

The first mistake, one of commission, meant that all these tribes could claim that they were being discriminated against by Vedic Hinduism. The remedy for this, according to them, is quotas and a larger slice of a small economic pie. They have no intention of enlarging the pie because they fear somebody else -- horror of horrors, it might be someone lower than them on the social scale -- might then be able to grab a small piece of it.

If instead of Vedic Hinduism these people had encountered Christians or Muslims in the 8th century, what would have been their plight? There is no doubt that Muslims would have demanded submission to Allah, the demolition of their places of worship, the destruction of the idols of their gods, etc. It would have been no different if they had encountered
Christianity. In fact, the history of Goa records the destruction notonly of temples but wholesale torture to force the local population to convert to Catholicism. It is known that the Portuguese did not spare even people who have been Christians longer than they have been Christians: the Metropolitan of the Syrian Orthodox Church was seized on the high seas
and subjected to the cruel tortures of the Inquisition and burnt at the stake as a heretic.

But all of this is whitewashed by the criminal gang that writes the textbooks, by the Marxists who teach at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and by the politicians. Crimes against humanity are alleged against Vedic Hinduism in public fora but not against Christianity or Islam. This is the exact opposite of real facts. However, inconvenient facts are ignored. For example, in a recent conference in South Africa on racism, a couple of Indian activists on the payroll of foreign groups alleged that caste discrimination is akin to racism and wanted India to be denounced as a racist country. What is the truth? In South Africa where racial separation was practiced, blacks were not allowed to travel in the same train carriages as whites. In India, when train travel was introduced, brahmins simply refused to use the trains because the did not want to be polluted by people of other castes. In South Africa, it was state-mandated segregation. In India, it was voluntary disassociation from certain segments of society. The brahmins did not petition the railway companies to set aside separate carriages marked ``Brahmins Only`` like facilities used to be marked ``White`` and ``Colored`` in the South of the US or in South Africa. Yet these people wanted to equate India with the racist society of South Africa.

The other act, one of omission, was the refusal to inter-marry with other tribes. It is not as if Vedic Hindus are the only ones guilty of this practice. All you have to do is to look at the matrimonial advertisements in India`s newspapers. You will see that every single caste is looking to marry within its own group. This in fact is the reason why these 4000+ castes have survived for a couple of millennia. So, the exclusivism of Vedic Hinduism is not the only cause for the persistence of castes in India.

In fact, it would be great if Vedic Hinduism is declared to be a separate religion and all the fcukers who don`t belong to it such as the Masanamuthus of Tamil Nadu are told to choose a name for their religion. In that way, Vedic Hinduism might enjoy protections extended to minority religions such as Islam, and we might see in actuality a subsidy for pilgrimages to Mt. Kailash and not just for the Hajj.