Caste and the City

harish#72

``A law is only as good as its adherents allow it to be. For that matter, there is a law against murder too, but has that prevented people from killing?``

...a more appropriate example would be dowry, which is worse now than it was before it was legally banned.

The quota system hits people`s pockebooks. Those who are adversely affected by the existence of quotas, complain, most of the time. They argue that quotas are unfair and in deemphasizing merit can be downright dangerous.

Those who benefit from quotas, support them vociferously, most of the time. They claim that no progress has been made, besides putting forward the truism that merit can be defined in many ways.

These are natural responses from people who stand to lose from quotas and people who stand to gain from them. These responses become truly regrettable and unacceptable only when they are voiced in the form of ad hominem and emotional accusations of people being `dumb` on one side and `racists` and `hitlers` on the other.

Real issues of economics, and the power that economic strength brings, are the key motivations here, not caste. Were quotas based on any factor other than caste, people will still behave in exactly the same way.

I am not familiar with the quota system in Pakistan. However, one can safely say that if the quota system in Pakistan matches the one in force in India, Pakistani voices raised in its support and in its opposition will sound very similar to the ones we hear in India.

#50 by HP

[..prohibiting Sati was not a change from within. It was enforced by law and it did not happen overnight.]

A law is only as good as its adherents allow it to be. For that matter, there is a law against murder too, but has that prevented people from killing?

Ref HP #70

HP quoted a discussion on some other website [Hypothetically Karnal may have no Christians and Kayalpattinam may have only Muslims (there are 64 mosques in that tiny town and tough to locate a good mosque in temple town of Kumbhakonam or Srirangam)....]

There can be nothing further from the truth.

Kumbakonam has not just mosques but even the Al-Ameen High School. If this temple town and surrounding areas has enough Muslims to support a high school, you can imagine what the Muslim population must be. I myself have heard the azaan early in the morning in Kumbakonam.

Srirangam is a small island in the middle of the Cauvery river and may not have land available to set up a mosque. But if you watch Jaya-TV with its constant propaganda against the Kanchi Shankaracharya and his monastery, when they show the monastery you can clearly see just down the street the green-painted twin minarets of a mosque. So the temple town of Kanchipuram can definitely be proved to have a mosque. Which it probably did not have 20 years ago. So there is still hope for a mosque in Srirangam which would be essential to prove the secularism of India and the tolerance of Hindus. However, no such proof is ever demanded of the ``peaceful`` religion called Islam.

There is no question about the existence (until recently) of a mosque in Lord Rama`s birthplace Ayodhya. Pakistanis, Indian Muslims, pseudo-secularists and Dost-Mittar have been shedding copious tears about its demolition with Soysauce providing mournful background music.

There is also no question about the existence of the Gyan Vapi mosque right smack against the Vishwanath Temple in Benares or the construction of a mosque over the destroyed Krishna Temple in Mathura.

Pseudo-secularists and hand-wringing Hindus ashamed that they were born a couple of centuries too late to be able to offer their mothers, sisters and wives to be raped by Islamic thugs and who are making up for it by ardently supporting that Italian household help probably will be willing to concede that there are not enough mosques to support the burgeoning Muslim population. I would not be surprised if, in addition to the Hajj subsidy, they now start a mosque construction fund.

I cant believe we have this pompous Sindhi HP lecturing Hindus about conversion. What a joke.

This is what Islam says about apostacy:

-But such as open their breast to unbelief on them is Wrath from Allah and theirs will be a dreadful penalty.

(Surah 16: 106, Qur’an)

-Whoever renounces his religion, kill him.

(Muhammad in the hadith, Sahih al Bukhari’s collection)

Shari’ah law states that Muslim men who convert to another faith and refuse to return to Islam should be put to death. It also specifies various other penalties including the annulment of their marriage, the loss of their children and all their property, and the suspension of all financial and legal contracts and inheritance rights, all to be returned if they revert to Islam.

I think this Sindhi should stick his advice up his black hole, if there is any room left there after getting shafted by Poonjabiz and Moohoojarz for so long. Yo Sindhi! Your Sindhi people have twenty years left maximum before you are out bred and out cast in your own land. What a pathetic race of people.

Now, what shall we do about the evil tyrannical and cruel laws on apostacy in Islam?

Please feel free to debate this issue in a calm manner, ESPECIALLY Hindus.

Ref saint #68

[Jang , Dost-Mittar....any conversion to Islam in India happened in the days of the 800 odd year muslim rule. Post independence , many hindus - dalits basically - have converted to Buddhism and Christianity. Hardly a couple of thousand dalits in India have converted to Islam in the last 5 and a half decade...which is understandable given the fact that the primary motivation in changing one`s faith is financial in nature and Islam does not provide that.]

You are wrong, my friend. The first qualification for a job in the Persian Gulf area is being a Muslim. Look at the ads in the newspapers if you don`t believe me. Many specifically restrict the jobs to Muslims.

Add to that the enticement that a conversion to Islam will guarantee you a job -- not just make you eligible to apply for one -- as offered by the local mullahs flush with funds from Saudi Arabia and you will understand why there are wholesale conversions to Islam right now in India.

Here is a little exchange between two Indians on another discussion forum where I also contribute.

Original post.

``In my opinion the figures for Christianity are misleading because of deliberate fudging indulged by converted Christians. Officially they claim to be Hindus to get the benefits of govt policies. But they are all practicing christians.
In my opinion 20 - 30% of Tamil Nadu is actually Christian. They all have dual identities. It is a known phenomenon here. My driver has become a Christian. But he still retains the name of Subramani, his ration card, driving licence etc are in this name. He may be registered as a Hindu. But reality is otherwise.
He is part of a vast army of Christian propaganda workers financed and equipped by missionaries. They are being given free scooters and allowance (scooters are bought and ownership transferred to them) to go to the interior and covert. It is a military type disciplined assault on the Hindus. Let there be no doubt about this. The funding comes from the fundamental and fanatic protestant / evangelical groups from US. They are rolling in money.
Same is happening in chattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra and all over india.
My gut feeling is Christians are now nearer to 10% of the population as against the official 2.3%.
Not only has the percentage of Hindus come down; there is a fall in the growth rate for Hindus. In case of Islam and Christianity not only has the proportion grown the growth rates are also increasing.``

..And the response.

“So what? The ``nightmare`` seems to be Hindus will be outnumbered. No single community on its own can do that but ALL communities put together may do so, that seems to be the ``fear`` being expressed here. It is like in Bangalore City where Kannadigas are a single largest group but are outnumbered by ALL non-Kannadigas put together, who need not really be ``ganged`` up against Kannadigas. My question is: If Hindus become a Minority & yet remain the largest ``homogenous`` group, while ALL other religions (who are at mutual loggerheads anyway) put together out number Hindus; IF AT ALL that happens.....So what?

Hindus are already a minority in a few States, including Punjab, claimed by many to be the very cradle of Vedic Dharma. So what`s wrong with that?

Whether Hindus are one single lot or not has become touchy issue here & we can leave it at that but one has to contend with the reality that there are areas where Hindus are in overwhelming, overpowering majority and there are areas where you may not see a Hindu household for miles on end. Statistics do not tell the tale of humans nor of society always. Hypothetically Karnal may have no Christians and Kayalpattinam may have only Muslims (there are 64 mosques in that tiny town and tough to locate a good mosque in temple town of Kumbhakonam or Srirangam). Meghalaya may have a nice Sanskrit sounding name but none to recite Richas or read Fatiha...

So what?”
>>>>>>>>>

Some support for harimau!
I think in his rage Harimau has really touched the real issue behind the numbers that we see and believe to be true.
Harimau, I am from Sindh in Pakistan and we had a huge struggle for quotas for local Sindhis when it appeared that all jobs were either going to Punjabis or the Urdu speaking from Karachi and other cities in Sindh. Finally, in the early 1970s in the ZAB era, the government approved of quotas in education and jobs. Initially, that quota was abused and lots of Punjabis and Urdu speaking, who had agricultural lands in the rural Sindh took advantage of the system to land jobs and seats in educational institution. In the last thirty years though, situation has changed considerably. All the fake claimants have disappeared and now the people that needed the support have come up and are dominating the jobs and educational institutions in Sindh. Yes quota helped and there is a change in economic demographics but that has brought another set of problems.

There are always going to be procedural problems, corruption and abuses but that should not deter communities from making efforts to change things around.
In Sindh, it was easy to tell who was phony but in India where those distinctions are hard to make people would circumvent every rule to gain some economic advantage.

DM, Kaal, Jang
It is late and I really have to go. Will try and write something tomorrow to get back to the issues again.

Ref HP #51

[#50 by HP
Correction

“The reservation in govt jobs have helped approx 3.5 Dalit”

Should read “3.5 million Dalit.”]

Nope. Your original post is correct. The 3.5 million Dalits who are supposed to have profited from the quota system are not real Dalits but people like Asli-Masanamuthu aka Soysauce who bribe government officials to get a bogus caste certificate.

If in fact 3.5 million Dalits have benefitted from these quotas, most Indians wouldn`t have a problem with the quota system. But it is the human leeches on society -- such as the Chettiars who lend money on daily interest of 3% and their equivalent Seths in the North; the folks who breed like pigs and so have political/voting power to get themselves declared as BCs, MBCs, OBCs, etc. (Backward Classes, Most Backward Classes, Other Backward Classes, respectively) -- who have stolen the quotas from the true SC/ST (Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe) members. 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.

If 3.5 million Dalits have indeed profited from the quota regime, you should see about 40 million Dalits leading middle-class lives. (I figure this as: each emancipated Dalit is able to improve the lives of himself, his 3 siblings on average, and his parents. By the time you add wives and two children to each of this emancipated generation, you actually have 26 but I halve that to 12 -- I am not using fractions because that is beyond the capability of our Asli-Masanamuthu -- to arrive at 40 million.) Do we have 40 million Dalits leading happy lives? No. So, where have the fruits of the quota system gone? No Sharma, Dixit, Tripathi, Tiwari, Trivedi, Chaturvedi, Namboodri, Bhatt, Iyer or Iyengar is going to be able to pass himself off as a BC. It is those who choose to name their kids Tamil Jewel and Love Queen who are able to exploit the system to their advantage much like they continue to murder and rape Dalits at will today not just in Bihar but in ``high-in-literacy`` Tamil Nadu or Kerala.

Yup, 3.5 Dalits just about sounds right. And you are wondering why Indians are pissed off at the quota system.

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mittarji:

good posts, both #61 and #62. :)

HP

``It is evident from all accounts that most of dalit social, cultural and economic problems emanate from the dominant Hindu religion and if dalit reach a conclusion based on their personal or community consensus to change their religion, there should not be any impediments built to refrain them from making that decision. ``

HP, if a dalit (or anyone) actually ``evolves`` to a state of consciousness that you mention, he will have little need for any change of religion. They are empowered right there. Reality is these decisions are very murky.

But if this is indeed the solution to dalit problem, cool. Unfortunately its not scalable. Some dalits who changed to christianity AND got education, and jobs in formal economy did break from the Dalit status. This does not mean that they marry Rajputs, but i have seen entire village communities evolve out of this religious upgrade, they marry within their community mostly, but their next gen will be more free (as is the next gen of upper castes).

This all happened ONLY after massive funds were pored in by the specific church for 1-12 grade schooling and college boarding education and then even jobs in church offices and via other new-formed bonds. Can these micro-pilot projects scale to 350 million dalits? Only with comensurate funding.

I see an interesting problem with many of the later generations (no big deal though). The church kind of alieanated them from general indian culture during their schooling. Now their kids are growing-up in the larger indian community (in india or as nris). Indians are feeling kind of resurgent pride in their culture (e.g. from vulgar bhangra re-mixes to more sublime classical artforms). These converts are unable to support their kids participation .. they are kind of torn.. is this wild indian culture pagan? my daughter wants to join mrs nathans Bharatanatyam class, should i allow her or restrict her to piano classes? How about language?

In general, indians however have not felt threatened that christian coversions will leading to separatism, except in the north-east.

HP

Apostatical conversions are a very controversial affair in most religions. It will take some deliberations before all of us get it right. I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.

nikki

Yasirz`s post reflects his own views about South Indians. I doubt that too many types of North Indians will be his friends, much less kid about South Indians before him. He may have some North Indian friends, but they won`t be the typical North Indians.

kaalchakra:

We have to separate theory from practice. Christianity may be an abrahmic religion but conversion to it does not entail any political baggage. No christian in India has ever demanded a separate homeland (the situation in Nagaland is ethnic, not relgious). Conversions to christianty does not mean a change in culture. A hindu changing to christianity does not change his foold, language, script or culture. Instead, even their churches are indianised. They use bible in hindi/tamil/urdu/malayam, etc. I have visited churches in the south where people were taking off their shoes before entering it. And more and more, you find that christians in India are choosing Indic first names and in Pakistan farsi names. The new christianity is proving to be very flexible and mixes well and christians make it a point not to stick out like a sore thumb. In case you haven`t noticed, Indian christians are among the most rabid chauvinists on this site, ballukhan is the only muslim you can characterise in this way.

And conversion to christianity is not a one-way street and you or your progeny can at any given time leave christianity without a fatwa of death on your head.

HP:

``....I was implying that it is dalit’s right to choose whatever religion they like. .....
I know there is a huge debate in India about conversions.``


Actually, there is not much informed debate and whatever debate there is takes place at an emotional level.

I agree with you that it is the right of anyone, including a dalit, to choose whichever religion he or she wants to choose. But the society/nation too has a right of self-preservation, and one sometimes has to way individual versus societal rights. Never mind the hindus, if there are any large scale conversions to islam, which have not happened yet, it will even create a backlash against muslims and bring a party like the BJP or worse into power permanently, something that none of the secular-minded Indian would want.

It may not be politically correct to say so but the fact is that whenever muslims are in a majority in a viable geographic unit, they do not want to live under a non-muslim majority; we can give all kind of explanations for Pakistan in hindsight, but that was indeed the raison d`etre of Pakistan and this is why only muslim kashmiris- not pandits, not dogras, not christians, not sikhs, not buddhists - want to separate from India. Indians would be fools if they dont learn any lesson from history.

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