The Dance of the Damned

Re: # 60 anil

`RSS as the organization must take the initiative and organize it at national level in all cities, towns, villages, schools. Open temple doors for all, open all ghats for all to bathe, and not just its national leaders alone. RSS has the organization to do it, if it means it. RSS must expose all caste bigots in its rank and file and publicly shame hardcore ones. It should demonstrate zero tolerance, so that there can never be any room for doubt in any sensible hindu mind that such dehumanizing evil will ever be tolerated. ``

well said.
Just recently after the Gohana incident, RSS surprisingly blamed the incident on the arrogance of the upper castes. its a good start.
Its just appalling when VHP idiots justify killing lower caste people by saying that a cows life is more precious than a lower caste hindu. Such people/attitude should be treated with contempt and eradicated.

hamidm:

Most of the ``upper caste`` agree upon the quota system for SC/ST. Anyway it doesn`t even matter much they can`t do anything to stop it. The sore point is only a miniscule % of the lower castes take advantagve of the situation a vast majority is still struggling.
Most of the political parties just dont care whether the quota system is indeed helping the needy. They just pay lip service to it. This has created a ``creamy layer`` within the lower castes. Generations after generations some lower castes families are using the crutches of quota system. If the political parties really cared for the welfare of the lower castes they would bring in bills/law to maximize the benefit of this system. Eg. once a person gets education through quota system he cannot use it for job search. If the parents are hired in a gov. job due to quota system there children cannot use it for education.
But its never going to happen. Political parties are more interested in dramabazi rather than solving the issues.

Ashutosh (#59):

RSS as the organization must take the initiative and organize it at national level in all cities, towns, villages, schools. Open temple doors for all, open all ghats for all to bathe, and not just its national leaders alone. RSS has the organization to do it, if it means it. RSS must expose all caste bigots in its rank and file and publicly shame hardcore ones. It should demonstrate zero tolerance, so that there can never be any room for doubt in any sensible hindu mind that such dehumanizing evil will ever be tolerated.

About 40 years ago my mother had started a school in Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi for the sons and daughters of the servants of ministers and bureaucrats who live in those Lutyens Bungalows. My two sister now run this school there. 800 students study there. These kids had no where to study and are mainly from OBC. I have seen the pride they feel of being empowered with education. This evil can be eradicated in two to three generations of sustained zero tolerance in the society. Today this school is on the whistle stop for all candidates for New Delhi`s M.P. seat. Many tried to stop it, as it occupies a public park and was started in tents. All attempts failed, and servants and their kids proved stronger. The provides free education until 8th class. My sisters tell me they grown up men and women in public come and touch their feet and tell their success story how they studied there and went on to become chartered accountants and engineers and work in Dubai. Empowerment through education is restoring respect.

Anil

Re: # 58
Anil, who do you think should apologize. Should it be ABV, LKA, Uma, RSS, SUDARSHAN, or someone else? What steps needs to be taken after apologies?
I personally apologize for all the wrongs done in name of caste.
One of the goal of RSS: To eradicate the social evils like casteism inequalities, untouchability etc. and spread the messages of social harmony and brotherhood.

Farzana:

Caste is a cancer and India`s worst nightmare. It dehumanizes people, and not just demeans. India should treat caste bigots even more than firmly than the KKK member should be dealt. There should be zero tolerance developed and shown toward caste bigots.

Caste exludes rather than include people. This principle is not relevant anymore in any context of social laws in toodays societies. Today ``minorities``, and ``OBCs`` constitute about 55% of India. No society can exclude such a large number, remain democratic, and controlled by the minority of people.

First, DMK - in Tamilnadu, Lallo in Bihar, and Mayavati in U.P. have showed their ballot power. Today no party can elect a Prime Minister or Chief Minister in any state without their support, but what good is this political power attained, if they cannot include and participate themselves in growing education and economic pie, even if it means slightly tilting an otherwise level playing field.

If RSS is doing so much then how about publicly apologizing for all the wrongs done for generations by the upper caste would be a genuine start? How about it exposing and shaming caste bigots in its rank and file?

Anil

Lower caste and harijans are facing a huge injustice in india. Affirmative Action was planned to help them bring par with other community. It has failed so far as even after nearly 6 decades of independence. I do believe that affirmative action is a right thing to do but with certain restrictions. For e.g. a person can use quotas once in education and once in getting a job but after that he should not allow to use it more than that. Private industry should be allowed some tax benefits if atleast 10% SC/ST/OBC are in their work force. Maybe bank should loan money at low interest to SC/ST/OBC. But just as Affirmative action was originally designed for 20 years, this should also be the same.
Government should take burden of education until bachelors degree and while letting go of subsidies on things like electricity, farm, etc.
#56
119 lok sabha seats are reserved for SC/ST and BJP has most SC/ST candidate in lok sabha.

#55 who in BJP leadership is SC/ST ? Is Gopinath Munde?

Dost-Mitter,

You are the usual Dhimmi self. For whatever it may be worth, the RSS folks are
the ones trying to eliminate caste difference, that is why the BJP has larger
number of SC/ST mps than congress and other parties.
Also, note how the Pakis (and the parasite author FV) pretend that there is no
caste system in Pakistan !!
Pakistan is one of the most bigoted and casteist states. The middle east has its
own caste system - but of course, being closed systems, they can afford to pretend
and cover up the rot within their own countries.

Dhimmis like you are the ones who feel the need to kiss up to and convince
islamist parasite like FV. You deserve the treatment you get as you dont respect
yourself.

Can somebody provide info about affirmative action in pakistan, like when it started, what are the categories, objectives etc.

I heard interesting categories like urban sindh, rural sindh were created just to contain mohajirs.

Details please...

Dear Farzana:

Kudos for highlighting the pain of those we wish weren`t there, except when we need them. Anyone who highlights the continued humiliation of dalits does a service to the Hindu society in general and the Indian society in particular (because non-hindus are almost equally guilty practitioners of shunning these ``chooras and chamars``. Because as long as the festering cancer of castism is there, neither Hindus nor India can be strong.

Just a technical correction about ``sanskritisation``. This was not about backward castes moving to urban areas but of some backward caste villagers who had improved their economic status - if the economic fortunes of their caste occupation improved - mimicking the upper caste customs, for example shunning meat and wearing the sacred thread. This happened mostly among OBCs in the South.

satyamvada:

Instead of saying that the author is on the same page as the RSS, you could have said that even the RSS has acknowledged the indifference of the upper caste hindus to the oppression of dalits.

Romair:

Being in the IT business, I thought that you would know about the HCL, a leading IT company of India. Its owner is a dalit and I am sure that his employees include a number of brahmins.

As for recognition, sometimes people`s last names betray their caste. This, for example, is the case with the names of Mishra, stuka and my own name. Even in Pakistan, you can tell that Gill is a Jat, Minhas a Rajput and Saigal a Khatri.

In principle I agree...prejudice that they had to suffer is continuous, it does not end with getting their kids to medical school....in absence of any laws to protect them from discrimination they will fall back to their original status in society... but I would still say the reservation system needs reformation...I don`t know exact stats..my observations are from my life experiences e.g. offering 15% reservation to medical and engineering schools to dalit kids of my village means nothing...they will not cross the street that separates the primary and high school in the village. Their upliftment should start at a much lower level.

Recently I was reading about this Affirmative Action Bake Sales going on in US universities. This seeks to highlight affirmative action in a unique way. It has raised a lot of controversy and offended a lot of people. This seems relevant to this discussion.

Here are some details

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Affirmative action bake sale

An affirmative action bake sale is a controversial campus event used by student groups to illustrate their criticism of affirmative action policies, especially as they relate to college and graduate school admissions. The goal of the technique is to ``bring the issue of affirmative action down to everyday terms,`` according to one bake sale student leader.[1]

Democrats riled by race-, gender-biased bake sale

The bake sales offer to sell cookies at different prices depending on the customer`s race and sex, imitating the racial and sexual preference practices of affirmative action. A typical pricing structure would be along the lines of $1.00 for White and Asian males, $.75 for White and Asian females, and $.50 for Latino, Black, and Native American males and $.25 for females. The bake sales are not supportive of this kind of preferential treatment; rather, they argue this preferential pricing is analogous to preferential treatment created by affirmative action policies.

These bake sales have been organized at many schools across the U.S., sometimes annually, including University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, Columbia University, University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, Indiana University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, University of Washington, and others. Participating students have been from various racial backgrounds. The first affirmative action bake sale occurred on the UCLA campus on February 3, 2003, and was subsequently attacked in a press release by California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres, leading the UCLA Daily Bruin to cover the story in an article [2]. The story was subsequently picked up by the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Rush Limbaugh, and many other press outlets, and led to the sale being replicated in short succession at the University of Michigan, Berkeley, and others.

References

The daily Bruin UCLA
Democrats riled by race-, gender-biased bake sale

University of Maryland College Republicans
A f f i r m a t i v e A c t i o n B a k e S a l e 1 0 1

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#49

Well let me tell you about the SC/ST/Nomadic Tribe in my college (I`m not talking about OBC here)

Nomadic Tribe: Niece of top Maharashtra Congress leader (SP). Came to class in lal-batti-wali gadi everyday.
SC1: Son of Vidharba dalit leaders, father engineer, mother school teacher.
SC2: Son of University top official, later also became vice-chancellor of university.
SC3/4/5: Another 3 from genuinely underprivileged families.

Re: # 45

dulla,

sorry, i did miss the next two sentences .......... i guess i am not that brialliant after all ! ........

.........the point i was trying to make is that sometimes the upper/middle classes who have ``made it`` become oblivious to the misery around them and actually believe that all is well because they are okay........... and even though i am far from being a bleeding heart liberal i see nothing wrong with giving people who have been wronged for centuries a leg up ...........call it affirmative action or quota ......... even if they ``make it``, they continue to suffer from the stigma of their lowly birth - prejudice dies hard ....

did I really see that? hamidm exposed as a knee-jerk liberal.

must be all the Katrina images he`s seeing on the telly.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of castes (jatis) in India. Dalits are perhaps 10-15% are have been traditionally severely disadvantaged.. much like african americans in the US context ... the former President of India Mr. K. R. Narayanan was a dalit (perhaps converted to xtianity).. the most famous Dalit is the chair of the committee that wrote the Indian constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. In fact, if I am not wrong, dalits (not to be confused with shudras or lower castes) are outside the caste system. Mahatma Gandhi called Dalits as Harijans (children of God) but this term isnt used a whole lot and doesnt have the militancy associated with the term ``dalit``.

In the urban setting, caste has mostly relevance for purposes of marriage.. This is seen in the format for various matrimonial ads (interestingly caste or some variant also plays a role in endogamy in xtians, muslims and sikhs)

inter caste marriages however are quite common.. I suppose in these cases caste loses what little meaning it has for the kids. identity would be based much more on class, language and other aspects.

most urban indians nowadays would not even know what caste someone belongs to, unless said individual was from their own specific caste and spoke the same language (or came from the same region). It is considered very rude to ask someones caste and most people simply have no clue regarding the caste of the other (unlike their linguistic or regional identity as a Punjabi for example)

nowadays caste discrimination/violence mostly happens between the so-called lower castes and the dalits (or even between different sets of lower castes) and a lot of this is in the cow-belt (UP, Bihar).

indian politics is increasingly dominated by the lower castes... the upper castes will be found in large numbers in the MNCs, private enterprise, Science&Tech and to an extent in the bureaucracy.

in modern institutional settings there is minimal caste awareness, at least compared to language/region awareness. sometimes people are clueless about their own caste! esp. if they have dropped their last name.

having said all this.. it is unclear as to what the point of this article is. The main point that urban society is even more casteist is flat out wrong and not worth debating. It is very class conscious.. which city is not ?