The Dance of the Damned

Re: # 127
... and both were clearly lost by Pakistan as well, even though we still celebrate our ``glorious victory`` in the `65 war.

its probably warsi -- i thought the versey version that she uses is a more anglicized than anything --
alephnull do you always talk in such a pretentious manner?

dost-mittar ji thanks.
The assertion that dalits are those who were not allotted any castes,because they were the ghulaam qaum of aryans(being the natives and aboriginals) is only in line with the aryan invasion theory. There are people .on the other hand, mostly the followers of RSS,who now dont accept the aryan invasion.I dont know whether it is the move to spread their influence in south India or there is some other motive behind this and whether it is in any interest of the dalits.
But going by what wehave been hearing and reading since long,the closest fact seems to be that they are actually the original dravidian inhabitants.Almost all the dalits of the doaba region of Punjab,were strongly under the influence of Adi Dharam Mandal movement started by Mangu Ram,who was an active member of the Ghadar party and close to Lala Hardayal.This movement came about at the same time when Arya Samaj and Sigh Sabha movements were going quite strong in Punjab.
Because of the discrimination at the hands of upper castes, many people converted to Islam,Budhism and Sikhism...but I dont know whether that has ended their alienation or not. I can say at least about Sikhs from lower castes that they are still marginalized and hardly part of the mainstream sikh religeon.Though,in principle,Sikhism rejects castes,but in practice,in rural punjab,casteism is mainly practiced y sikhs. Lower castes (Ravidasias,Mazhabi Sikhs,BhatRas,Rai Sikhs,Kambojs,Sainis etc.) have separate gurudwaras and they marry within their own castes....love based intercaste marriages almost always lead to murders.....and common places of worships are being converted into ``gurudwaras`` and are controlled by so called higher castes--jatts.This is what actually led to bloody encounter in village Talhan near Jalandhar two years ago.
One religeon is the cause of trouble,other religeons and various reformist movements have failed to provide any solution, so what is the ultimate solution??

Gohana incident.
1. One man from lower caste went to get his photograph taken.

2. Photographer( a Jat) is from a cast higher than the person. They have an altercation.

3. Man from lower caste goes and comes back with few of his friends and have a foght with the photographer. In the tussle the photographer is killed.

4.People from the lowe caste basti are frightened and afraid of reprisals and most of them left the basti to near by town Rohtak, Sonipat etc.

5. The Jat community took this incident as a personal insult and organised a Jat punchayat and some of the attendee ( out of 2000 or so ) came with petrol and kerosene and burnt 50 or 60 houses.

My reading of this incident

1. First of all it is law and order issue. In the begining it was not a caste issue.

2. Inaction of the local police allowed it to become a inter community issue.

3. Politicians and some of the misinformed media people want to milk it to the maximum.

These things are the out come of systemic problems. Time after time we see it happening in India. The people in the absence of effective law and order maintenance take the law in their own hands. Some times politicians incite inter group violence also as happens in Gujrat, In delhi against Sikhs in 84.

Now the issue of caste system exploitation in Indian society ( it is not only hindus) is a blight on the Indian character and we must do every thing in our powers to remove it.

I think India has done a wonderful job in that direction and I must confess a lot more is required of Hindu society.

I will ask Farzana, Dost Mittar and other people who know India, please name one country, I repeat again one coutry in the world who has accepted the mistakes of their ancestors and try to rectify it.

If you ask me whether I am against caste system I will say no. But I am dead against the explotation of caste system. Higher castes have been exploiting lower caste for any reason. They have been exploited and prohibited to acuire knowlede, economic oppurtnities have been snached from them. They have been treated inhumanely.

So what is the solution, I think empower ment of lower castes is the solution. Which Indian constitution does. At the social level lot more need to be done.

Hindus should create new Hinduism. Each of us should treat everybody equal. We should take caste system out of relegion. This has caused a lot of problems.

The benfit of the caste system to Indian society are many. One of the main benefit of caste system was that it stopped the spread of cancer of Islam in India. If you see where ever Islam went it killed intelligentia and converted many of the people forcible. As facist poet Allama Iqbal say

Tu bata de ke ukhada dara-e-khaiber kisne,
kaat ke rakh diye kufaar ke lashkar kisne
Kisne thanda kiya aatish-kad-e-Iran ko
Kisne phir zinda kiya tazkira-e-yezdaan ko

Just imagine If whole India was Muslim. Just for a second imagine.

But it does not mean that we have to sit idle and do nothing to extricate caste system based inequalities in oppurtunities.

Is thier any proof of Aryan invasion of India?

Or is it the histor given to us by our imperial masters?

drlokraj,

in rural punjab people all the castes have only one gurudwara. yes, the dalits have a different gurudwara but all the other castes like raisikh, kamboh, saini etc go to the same
gurudwara. it is iresponsile to make statements without knowing the facts and it also not true that the gurudwaras are controlled by jat sikhs. infact you will hardly find a priest in rural punjab who is a jat sikh.

Re: # 130
AFAIK Versey is not Warsi. Versey is pronounced as VirSee.

Re: # 134
I had written gurudwara within commas for the same reason.They are not actually gurudwaras but common places of worship, but have been now labelled as gurudwaras.
The one which I mentioned about Talhan, was actually a ``samaadh`` of a mistry who died while constructing a well.His fellow mistry made a small samaadh, which people started worshipping....it became famous later and started attracting more and more visitors and annual offerings went into crores...it was then that it was declared to be a gurudwara and the local dalits were not included in the management,which led to the clashes.To authenticate it as gurudwara,the samaadh was broken.
Second case which I know is of village Basheshar Pur near Jalandhar,where ``gurudwara Baba Thakkar ji`` stands as proof where there was a small pond initially visited by people of the village once a month on ``masseya``.That pond has been converted into pucca sarovar and a notice has been put there reading that taking dip in that sarovar cures many diseases.
Sodhal mela is the most famous mela of Jalandhar,held at Sodhal Mandir, again attracting crores of rupees as offering. Guru Granth sahib was placed in one of the rooms there and the place declared gurudwara.
Granthis are only meant for carrying out the religous rituals or taking care of the SGGS,they dont have any say in the financial matters.
I have spent major part of my life in rural Punjab,I know what I am saying.
There may be common gurudwaras with non dalit backwards in villages where where their numbers are small....but why separate gurudwaras for dalits,when same Guru Granth Sahib is recited and worshipped in all the gurudwaras? and why this adjective of jat or ramdasia or mazhabi along with sikh...it has to be sikh or no sikh, what is jat sikh? if it is not casteism then what is it? and if it is casteism, then how is it sikhism?

Re: # 116

` because before the arab conquest of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, none of them spoke Arabic, it was only after 6 centuries of arab rule that they lost their language.``

didn`t arabs move there after the conquest? Similar to algeria where the victor arabs and the berbers still fight it out.
i think what happened in egypt/palestine is similar to what happened in the americas.

re#136
i am not discussing casteism in sikhism, i am saying that in rural punjab all castes except dalits have a same gurudwara. sadly, the sikhs could not shed their pre-sikhism castes even after coverting to sikhism. one reason can be that caste in india is related to identity, and people feel secure in having an identity.
also, it is the priest who normally controlls the finances in the gurudwara, except in really huge gurudwaras where there is a commitee.

Re: # 132

``One of the main benefit of caste system was that it stopped the spread of cancer of Islam in India.``

why do you say so?

moreover, didn`t disenchanted dalits convert to islam?

Re: # 136
What you are stating is wrong?
Yes, there are two kinds(yes only two) of Gurudwaras in Punjab, Regular and Mazhabee.
The reason they are like so is not because one kind does not allow others to enter or worship. It is because of the control of the funding. Every other Gurudwara (Ramdass, Nirmalia, Kamboj etc) are due to the needs of the communities and made on their own free will not because they were pressured.

8/10 times Mazhabee Sikhs(chooras) make their own Gurudwara because otherwise, mostly Jatt control(SGPC infludenced) Gurudwaras do not let a Mazhabee to be in control of important matters such as Money. That is why Mazhabees make their own Gurudwaras, out of a desire to have full control.
This is the truth as I have seen it.
SGPC is more than 95% Jatt dominated body and is highly corrupt and spoiled, Sikhs would need another round of Morchas to liberate us from SGPC like in 1930ies against Hindu Mahants.

drlokraj/arstoo:

I mentioned aryan incursion as the proponents of that theory are the only ones who have tried to explain why dalits were excluded from the varna system.

I am still agnostic about the Aryan incursion/invasion/migration theory. I have seen powerful arguments from both sides but no knock-out punch yet. And the RSS opposition to this theory is only recent; a century ago, people like Tilak were quite proud of their assumed european ancestry.

arstoo:
I have never said that no progress has been made. Just as the affirmative action program in the US was possible only because of the support of liberal whites, the reservations for dalits and other backward classes in India would not have been possible without the active support of upper caste hindus. The point, however, is that, just like in the US, these programs have only created a creamy layer of the underpriveleged groups and the societal attitudes have yet to change.

And could you please elaborate how the caste system was a barrier to the expansion of Islam in India?

Romair/dullabhatti:
For a small consideration, I am willing to be an interpreter between your potohari and majhavi.:-)

amansandh,robbinhood
its not matter of security, it is the pseudo sense of superiority,which has not let most sikhs shed their castes away.Thats why they still give more importance to caste as compared to religion by writing the name of the caste before the religion.
Sikh leadership needs to do something about this before it goes totally on the same path as Hinduism or merge into it.
Akal Takht jathedaars issue hukamnamas on just drop of a hat,but I have still to see a hukamnama against casteist practices including separate gurudwaras.

Dilli waleya,sikhi nu bachaon di lor hai., je prem khelan da chao hai, taan aa jao sees tali tay dhar kay challiye....hun khatra turkaan ton nahin, jhoothay sikhaan ton hai.

Brahmin hamidm,

so for your daugthers, it`s westpoint, but for the poor `dalits` of america, it`s boot camp and then shipment to iraq, and for the `dalits` in Iraq, it`s death too... you hold no compassion for people who come from poor backgrounds do you?

they are somebody`s children too. ask cindy sheehan. ask lila lipscomb. i won`t be surprised if you don`t know these names, especially the second one, you can google them and find out about letters from dead soldiers.

supporting a war is supporting the deaths of innocents, you should be ashamed of yourself, a 50 something uncle supporting murder

re: this article
Why i am not surprised that this article is no better than the ones this author has written before? Author has maintained her standards! (which, to most people who know what standards are, is non-existent).

The Sutra that Farzana bibi quoted: ``Dhol Ganwar Shudra Pashu naari,
Shakal Tadna ke adhikari…`` is credited to Manu. Tulsidas was probably only quoting an old text. Tulsidas, despite being a brahmin, swam against the tide of public opinion of his time and translated the sanskrit epic Ramayana (written originally by Valmiki) into the popular language of the North Brij? that is widely popular today, so much so that original text is forgotten. The same Manu who quoted the now ``infamous verse`` about women also said this: ``yatra naryastu na poojyate, na ramante tatra devataha`` (where women are not worshipped, even the Gods do not live there anymore).
Why did Manu talk in such confusing manner? He was not confused but he was talking in different contexts. I am not trying to justify his laws as these are not valid anymore but they force us to look at the times they were written. What was the caste like in those times? Why did it come into existence?
It would have been good if the author had researched a little into the genesis of caste in India. After all, it has existed for 5000 years and one needs to know why it does exist. One can just dismiss it as plain evil without understanding it or one does some deeper analysis to find out how it all started and how it has evolved.
India (or Bharat as it was called then; an older name being ``Aryavarta`` the land of Aaryas or good people) in the old times was governed by spiritual laws. This was the only way to govern a primitive society. There was no criminal justice system with Police at one end and Courts at the other to appehand and punish criminals in those times. And there certainly was no DNA fingerprint analysis in those times to say for sure who was the real father or mother! How then to govern a society and force certain norms?
Brahmins (some not all) became the lawmakers as well as interpreters of those spiritual laws. These laws were more like guidelines about how to conduct oneself and covered a wide specta of society including the King and the average man. The rulers of the day took these laws seriously as they came from very authentic and respected sources. These laws were often called Smritis (eg Manusmriti) or Sutras. Manu was the law giver many thousand years ago and his Smritis became laws that were enforced by the rulers of the day. Manu lived in the North. A similar lawgiver in south was a sage called Aapashamba (there were many; i am just quoting one). There were various such lawgivers at various times of history and their laws reflected the times they lived in. Some lawmakers even preceded Manu. Eg Baudhayana, Vasistha. A good account of Manu`s laws can be had at this Url: http://www.hindubooks.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=51

Coming back to the caste, it was based of spiritual laws. Brahmins of those days were not rich aristocrats. They lived simple spartan lives, in utter poverty sometimes, meditating on God, interpreting the sacred texts, performing religious rites etc They were also teachers in the Gurukula system where brahmins often lived with their students and taught them. A kind of residential hostel cum school! Often they were not supposed to demand any money for services performed and took with gratitude what was given. Teacher in a Gurukula for eg accepted Gurudakshina that was offered to him at the end of 7 years of teaching. No wonder they were so respected and were held in awe. Sacred texts gave them a special place so that they did not go without food and shelter.

Caste was not heriditary in the beginning. That is to say, a brahmin`s son did not automatically became a brahmin. Only those with spiritual inclination would be drawn to that area and became brahmins by mastering the sacred texts. Each veda (there were 4 in all) took about 7 years to study and master! So, we had Vedis, Dwivedis, Trivedis, Chaturvedis spelling out how many vedas they had mastered! (these last names are still to be found in the North; only they have no inkling what Vedas are about!). It was a difficult area. Brahmins, as always,were in a minority and were never more than 2-3% of the population.
Punishment for brahmins who failed in their duties was very severe. They were either excommunicated or barred from performing religious services. Punishment got less severe as one came down the hierarchy.
Like any other society, Indian society was divided into Priestly class, warrior class, merchant class and the working class. Why were strict laws enforced? It looks like ancient lawmakers were obsessed with purity of a class. They perhaps feared that the message would get diluted if laws were breached. For eg stricts laws existed for intermarriage. But there was still flexibility in the hierarchy. Someone from lower class could become a priest if he was so inclined and demonstrated his abilities. ``Dwaipayana Krishna`` (Krishna born in a Dweep or island) was born to a fisherwoman and became one of the greatest sages of ancient India and became famous as Veda Vyasa. He wrote Mahabharata and many other sacred texts. People had no problem accepting him as a brahmin (which really means: ``a knower of brahman or God``. Such people were however not very common.
Hinduism lost its vitality as it became hierarchial and as brahmins later became morally corrupt. The nexus between brahmin priests and rulers came to exploit the masses. Muslim invasion later made caste system rigid in an attempt at self-preservation. This is a topic for a seperate post. I would later also try to dwell into where Dalits fit into all this.
Sridhar