Caste and the City

re:#24 by saint
I am rather late to this forum but this sentence arrested my attention:
``the situation of the upper caste types in India is no different from that of the jews in Nazi Germany of 1930s.``
This is particularly true in the South Indian context.
Which is why most higher castes are either migrating North (for jobs), get into some Institutes of excellence (like IIT, IISc etc where merit is still counted) or have branched into private enterprises. Those who cling on to govt jobs and refuse to move out of the area (i know some people who seem to have stupid loyalty to Madras for instance) suffer a lot.
The whole world is now a global village. Caste discrimination will not stop someone who is determined and has the talent. However, it will rot away the system which seeks to benefit from this.
Sridhar

re:#39 by MaheshG2
Vedas were interpreted by people like Max Mueller whose knowledge of Sanskrit was superficial. Max Mueller is said to have taken the help of a Sanskrit scholar from Benaras to translate the vedas. One incident i learnt is hilarious. Having learnt that a white man has translated Vedas, a Pundit travelled from a far away place to meet Max Mueller and started speaking animatedly with him in Sanskrit. MM politely told him that his knowledge of Sanskrit did not extent to the level of conversation!
That being the scholarship of Max Mueller, do u really believe he had the ability to correctly translate the Vedas?
Sanskrit is such a rich language that one word can have several meanings and several words can have the same meaning. For eg: the word Dwija can mean bird or a brahmin depending on the context. Of course our MM was not aware of this, so there are many inaccuracies in the translation.
Now to the verse in question:
(“Black skin is impious & lowly`` Sanskrit : < ``dA`saM va`rNaM a`dharaM gu`hA`kaH`` > “
Rig Veda II.12.4
“Indra protected in battle the Aryan worshipper, he subdued the lawless for Manu, he conquered the black skin)
Black in the context refers to evil rather than the skin color. Varnam can mean caste or disposition. Here, it refers to the evil that Indra conquered.
Much of the fight between Devas (whose head was Indra) and Asuras was symbolic of the fight between good and evil. You should know (if u have ever read Hindu mythology) that both were cousins, born to the same father Kashyapa but to different mothers (Devas to Aditi, Asuras to Diti). It is inconceivable that there was much of physical dissimilarity between them.
Sridhar

re:#49 by soysauce
``Caste discrimination is really religious discrimination. Everything else is just detail.``
You are a bigger idiot than i thought.
Both higher and lower castes worship the same Gods. Lower castes may have some additional Tribal Gods but the fight is not ``my God is better than yours`` but the fight is about self-respect, opportunities for economic advancement, political empowerment.
The same Yadavs in Bihar who were once discriminated against now have become perpetrators of discrimination when they became empowered politically. Where does religion come into picture here?
Sridhar

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Ref kaalchakra #85

[Soyasauce

I am turning into a regular admirer. You instinctually understand many things that did not come easily to me. If it`s not too nosey of me, Sir, do you have a dalit backgound?]

Ha, ha, ha, ha! You didn`t perhaps catch the refernce to Asli-Masanamuthu who is none other than Soysauce. Here is your answer:

[#67 by harimau on December 9, 2004 6:00pm PT

..... Just ask Asli-Masanamuthu if he is a Scheduled Caste and you would know that indeed he has more fury than Hell and the proverbial scorned woman combined.]

Nope, Asli-Masanamuthu is NOT a dalit. He might have a piece of paper obtained by paying Rs. 500 to the local panchayat headman or tahsildar that certifies him to be one of the MBCs. However, even on paper, he wouldn`t want to be called a dalit. No sirree Bob, he is probably a Chettiar who is ripping off the dalits by charging daily interest rates of 3%. Or the aptly named Kallan (caste of professional thieves).

soysauce #77 I think that there is a fundamental difference between caste discrimination and religious discrimination at least in the context of Hinduism. An interrelationship and resposibility in the society was defined according to the caste of a person.Hence the concept, high caste and low caste.So, different castes are not isolated entities but are related somewhere under the umbrella of religion.This cannot be said though about two religions.
HP#78 i would not say that I fully agree with DM on the rationale for restricting the conversion to semitic religions, but,just for the sake of argument. it does not follow that this is condescension.In the name of nationalism, everything is fair game.Its similar to not providing right of self determination to Kashmiris.Not condescension , pragmatism.

Soyasauce

``Defining what hinduism is like defining the shape of a cloud.``

``Temple entry was an issue that Gandhiji & a few others were interested in - in the name of keeping hindu unity & reforming the religion but the dalits themselves don`t particularly care except in a few instances.``

I am turning into a regular admirer. You instinctually understand many things that did not come easily to me. If it`s not too nosey of me, Sir, do you have a dalit backgound?

Should you ever care to drop me a line, I can be reached at The_Kaal@yahoo.com. Thanks and best regards.

soysauce #81

I don`t want to hurt the Muslims and Christians here, but here`s the thing. Given an `egalitarian` Christian, an `egalitarian` Muslim and an upper caste Hindu, it is the upper caste Hindu who is most likely to worship at a temple of a different caste`s favorite deity and believe that there are many ways to God. How do you think there got to be 33 lakh devas?

The Muslim and Christian are more likely to shun the same temple as unholy and to believe that the worshippers are defying God and heading for hellfire for `false` religious beliefs, something the upper caste Hindu is unlikely to believe.

If the `lower caste` Hindu converts to Islam or Christianity, then he too will be more likely than the upper caste Hindu to shun the same temple and its rituals as unholy and false. Religious discrimination is not the Hindu`s speciality like caste discrimination is.

In fact if a holy man`s sayings make sense to him, of the three the Hindu is more likely to accept the guy as religious guru irrespective of whether the holy man is of `lower caste` origins or a Muslim sufi.
--

In my opinion, Dalit or even `lower caste` movements have not been exclusively for political rights. Primarily the driving force been self-respect which encompasses everything and might lead to outright rejection of Hinduism by individuals, families or whole communities or re-positioning within Hindu society sometimes using religion itself.

So there have been a number of Dalit/`lower caste` movements within Hinduism as well, which have succeeded in these communities doing better politically, economically and socially.

btw, it is a bit surprising that after so many years of `lower caste` rule in Tamil Nadu with Brahmins reduced to insignificance, numerically, politically and socially, Dalits there are still fighting for political rights. Wonder if DMK/AIADMK ideology is the new Brahminism.

Ref HP #78

[Harimau- the purpose of posting that exchange was not to show the geographical positions of places of worship but to relate that exchange to the concern people have in India about conversions.]

And my purpose was to prevent the pseudo-secularists on Chowk from nodding in grave agreement with the bogus arguments put forth by people (whom you quoted) with the least knowledge about actual ground realities. If you could find that particular piece of nonsense on the web, how can anyone be sure that those same fraudulent comments won`t be repeated in a thousand arguments to bolster the position that what India needs is more intrusion into Hindu holy sites by other religions?

[I have been saying it all along that quotas alone would not change Dalit predicament in India. Harimau basically confirmed my thinking that people who already have some influence in the bureaucracy and in the political set up, are hijacking quotas at present to deny the true benefactors opportunities for economic and social empowerment. It appears to me that this hijacking is taking place at about the level that may be slightly above Dalits themselves in the social standing.]

Do you think that anyone would actually be permitted to open schools in UP, Bihar or ``high literacy`` Tamil Nadu dedicated to educating and empowering Dalits? If one or more such schools are opened, the reaction would be swift: the teachers would be intimidated, the school buildings would be burnt down, the students would be thrashed to within an inch of their lives, their parents would be tortured and the school administrators would be brutally murdered.

Why? Let us look at the reality of farming rice. This is not an activity that can be easily mechanized. It requires one to grow seedlings in standing water from seeds, then transplant the seedlings by hand, again in standing water. The commonest sight in Tamil Nadu is the Pallan and Paraiyah (yes, that is a word that has even gone into the English language) women bent double, standing in mid-calf water, patiently transplanting seedlings into orderly rows for 12 hours a day, for days at a time. Then they bend double again when they weed the fields, and again when they cut the stalks of rice at harvest time. This activity is what feeds the country, what brings profit to the landowner. Do you think the politicians and landowners don`t see that educating the Pallans and Pariyahs would cut off their supply of docile labor just 15 years after they enter grade school? The politicians can`t afford to have that happen. Not that they care about availability of food, just that they would lose votes if the price of rice goes up. Ask Vajpayee who lost an election on the price of onions!

The land would lie fallow if you educate and empower the Dalits. That is why in Bihar you hear about the Ranvir Sena, funded and organized by the Thakurs, terrorizing uppity Dalits by burning their slums at night. That is why you hear about the Thevans and Maravans of Tamil Nadu chopping off the head of any Dalit who so much as looks them in the eye.

This reality will not change. It is not in anyone`s interest for it to change. Not in the interests of the middle-class city-dweller. Not in the interests of the politicians. Not in the interests of the landowners. In short, not in the interests of those who exercise power by denying it to the vast majority of the illiterate ryots.

The above probably sounds like the ravings of a Communist, I am sure. It probably is except that the Communists in India (or anywhere in the world) have used the misery of the landless agriculural laborer to get themselves into power, only to perpetuate the system using the collective farm approach, this time backed by the naked exercise of military power.

Do Chowkies at least now understand why that fraud Soysauce refuses to answer any questions about what his grades were, how he got into a professional college, what his family`s landholdings are or his family`s political activities are? Because he is the perfect representative of the Dravidian party politician who sheds tears in public over the plight of the ryot while sipping his daily first drink at 9 am in his air-conditioned parlor.

#80 Sadna
My point is that someone else`s definition of religion won`t do.
How does this ``religious difference`` manifest itself? In indian villages, at least in the ones I`m familiar with in TN, different castes have traditionally worshipped different deities in different temples. Brahmins would not even dream of entering a ``seri`` (localities where dalits - paLLans & parayans - live) & would not thnik of letting the dalits worshipping in brahmin temples. These are small temples, the size of a house or even smaller that do not come under the control of the hindu endowment boards. If the differences are breaking down now it`s because there also are political & societal shifts simultaneously.
There is a famous temple for Mary in Velankkani & a dargha in Nagore where all religions worship. We are not going to argue on that basis that there is no distinction between hindus, chrisitans & muslims. At the village, everyday existence level, there are significant differences between castes in how they practice their religion.
It could be argued that these differences in the religious beliefs are incidental to caste differences & that something else is a primary cause (occupation, for example).
This argument ignores something very significant. What the dalits are fighting for are their political rights, not for becoming brahmins. Temple entry was an issue that Gandhiji & a few others were interested in - in the name of keeping hindu unity & reforming the religion but the dalits themselves don`t particularly care except in a few instances.

HP

Numbers matter, absolutely and critically. In a world in which all religious interaction is made occasion for religious competition, numbers mean survival and security, or death and elimination. It will surprise us very much if most Muslims and Christians did not already know that fact.

From outside India may appear stable, but she is evolving. More and more Indians are giving up on Brahminism. Some partly, others completely. Even though we will always differ in many ways, we all see unique and enormous value in the broad spectrum of Indic traditions, including the various ``hindu` dalit traditions, that we do not see in semitic ones. We wish to reform what needs to be reformed and hold on to what is very dear to us locally and individually.

At least in India, nobody should expect to be given a pass when they compete with us for numerical domination within India itself!

Again, numbers surely matter. We did not invent this game, but being forced to play it, that`s what we must do. Number-conscious semites must expect nothing less from a worthy, if lately awakened, adversary.

HP

please make a point in in 3 sentences. you have lost me big except that it YOU who thinks dalits are ignorant and being used politically. on the contrary, dalits are participating in the political football and are in general vocal.

e.g. go to RSS heartland of nagpur, and you will find huge dalit rallies of republican party, totally in the open. politically dalits are here to stay. so why do you conclude that they have no where to go? heck if they want to convert, no one can stop them.

prediction:

as economy is taking a higher priority in indian politics, rising tide will tend to dilute identity politics ( e.g. i mean shiv sena lost big in its heartlend recently ).

if economy improves, the DALIT issue will vanish..have you heard of dalit issue in Japan? why not?

soysauce #77
soysauce, please do cite examples. I have never come across anyone ever discussing what ``religion`` other castes practice much less denying such ``religion`` legitimacy. People are more likely to worship in each others` temples than deny them legitimacy.

IMO you are mistaking the effect for the cause. Caste discrimination arises not from a pathology of `upper castes` drawing religious distinctions or denying religious legitimacy to `lower castes`, but from the pathology of `upper castes` being unwilling to share power and influence with them.

And similar to denying `lower castes` power and influence in the social or economic sphere, in the religious sphere too (including building of temples, temple entry and temple management) too is power and influence sought to be withheld by caste discrimination.

And it was to mitigate this that the Constitution granted the state the right to intervene in management of Hindu religious institutions. In Kerala, for instance, temples are managed by a state-nominated Devasom Board.

The existence of a general pathology of being unwilling to share power and influence is borne out by the fact that wherever the so-called `backward castes` have gained ascendance(and even after declaring themselves nonHindus or atheists) they too practice discrimination against other castes, including those `lower` than them in the heirarchy including Dalits.

I am looking for the complete works of Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Are they available anywhere? The Brahmo Samaj website does not list any major publications.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy thought and wrote a lot. He penned books and gave speeches in many languages. So his entire work must span multiple volumes. If it`s never been compiled in one place then we are indeed in trouble. Chowkie friends, I need your help in locating this most revolutionary body of work.

#53 kaalchakra
Thank you for your kind words. Hinduism is a fuzzy concept. Defining what hinduism is like defining the shape of a cloud.

#60 Sadna
Two things. Religious discrimination does not have to mean that a certain religion is suppressed, rather that its adherents are discriminated against in the public sphere.
If you see ``hinduism`` as a composite of many religions, then one or more powerful groups discriminating against the others is not far fetched. This composite business itself is not anything strange. After all, the existence of ``high`` and ``low`` forms of hinduism is more or less accepted. I`m just suggesting a broader differentiation.
What`s the point of doing this? For those of us who accept religious discrimination (as per my definition above) as normal (not acceptable but normal), but consider caste discrimination as somehow a mysterious pathology (``how can hindus discriminate among themselves?``), there`s no real mystery to it. It`s just a form of religious discrimination.

Let me try and wade back into the thread.

Harimau- the purpose of posting that exchange was not to show the geographical positions of places of worship but to relate that exchange to the concern people have in India about conversions.
Kaalchakra- you are right about quotas and the reaction to that was similar to what we see in India from the privileged upper castes.

Jang in his post said that basically Indians have not reached the kind of empowerment that would allow them to make an untainted decision about conversion.

KaalChakra feels that Semitic religions may not be a good idea and if the conversion has to take place, it needs to be in religions that have local texture instead of some foreign and alien cultural influence. Kaal wants to go a step further- He wants conversion to Semitic religions banned altogether and immediately.

DM as usual is much more candid about what he says. He supports the right to choose but would prefer conversion to Christianity over Islam for fears of repeat of `47 and many more issues that are related with Hindu-Muslims interaction in India for sometime now.

If we translate these opinions to the Dalit predicament, it amounts to a consensus among the upper caste to deny the Dalit the right to choose whatever is best for them. That again leads back to the issue whether upper castes in India really consider Dalit not only socially inferior but also intellectually inferior to make decisions for themselves in their personal or collective capacity?

I have been saying it all along that quotas alone would not change Dalit predicament in India. Harimau basically confirmed my thinking that people who already have some influence in the bureaucracy and in the political set up, are hijacking quotas at present to deny the true benefactors opportunities for economic and social empowerment. It appears to me that this hijacking is taking place at about the level that may be slightly above Dalits themselves in the social standing.
Now the question pops up again whether the India intelligentsia or to a larger extent Indian democracy has some ideas of bringing about 25% of the India population in to the mainstream? There has been a tendency in the subcontinent to let the issues simmer until the time they actually catch fire and then find out some ad-hoc solutions to tide things over until the issue pops back up again. This is a vicious circle and we all know about it.

Considering that India is almost at a threshold where it may become an economic powerhouse in future, under utilization and/or practically ensuring a major section of population to lag behind would block that progress or would open several social fronts that may actually start to bog the economic progress down?


Without prejudice, allow me to plug the consensus amongst the upper castes about conversions back into a larger theme that plays out in India, especially in the cow belt.

There has been a constant theme now in Indian politics and in some intellectual circles that the Hindu population is declining and there may be a time in near future that other religions may actually attain ascendancy in the political set up. As I understand it the idea was that Muslims are multiplying faster than the Hindus and there is a possibility that they might actually become a much bigger player in the social and economic conditions in the country. I believe that those fears were adequately addressed in “hum paanch hum pachees” theme that was played out to attract Hindu middleclass and voters at the grassroots level.

Please correct me if I say that the fear and opposition to conversions actually relates to growing Muslim population in India and Dalits have been targeted as it is a vulnerable community that could be manipulated into changing religion and the choice may be Islam?