Jayalalitha---The Caped Wonder-Woman

Of course India needs Nobel prizes. It is not just about prestige. It is the responsibility of all world civilizations to contribute to the greater good. A Nobel prize is not simply a prize, but a validation of unparalled intellectual brilliance.

It bothers me when the `lower` castes readily admit that they are not as good as brahmins in intellectual pursuits....therefore India should accomadate them by concentrating on the mundane. Are you readily admitting that as a `lower` caste you don`t have the intelligence for a Nobel Prize? You don`t have the intelligence to strive for greatness? As a muslim..and therefore non-Brahmin, I reject that hypothesis. After all Kalam is obviously a non-Brahmin.

I cannot believe that TN has 70% reservations. This is a vile indictment of politicization. Rather than bringing up the population to achieve its greatest possibilities, you Tamilians have voted in laws to bring down those who do achieve. No wonder that all the Tam-Brahms are fleeing to the US. Anti-Intellectual societies are doomed for failure, as they cut off their own heads.

Dear Vengat Bhai,

Excellent thoughts. Hari Bhai please try and see if you can see merit in his remarks. This calling each other catse names has been the bane of us Hindus.

During the time of Mandal commission I met a Rajput of a Royal family. As all of Upper Caste North India was excited and excercised about this he disarmed a complete group of excited upper caste youth (diarmed to mean from their feelings of anger and hatred). Jis din aap Jativaad Aur mein kehta hoon jativad or jati nahin us din yeh arakshan ka Masla nahin rahega.

The day u give up casteism and i repeat cateism and not caste this fight about reservations will go.

Dear Masanmuthu and Kaalchakra,

r u people mad. Most Northies if anything have an inferiority complex when it comes to Madrasis but true madrasis or should I say Chennaiese a.k.a as Tamils (e.g a cousin who used to think of all southies as Madrasis had a reddy friend in Engg college when he failed a subject he was shocked then told us he is not true madrasi but reddy {apparently he had never heard of Andhra/Telgu}).

A single fact illustrates this, that out of all Northies who go to Chennai only a fraction come back. (How do u identify a Punjabi in TN ``simple his cars side screens are up and he is sweating profusely`` {sidescreen is up so that he gives impression of having AC in car}). BTW this joke was formulated by a certain Mr Bedi who is a Sardar and a descendant of Shree Guru Nank Dev ji to boot.

Also Harimau and Masan stop this Brahmin non Brahmin nonsense. MasanBhai take it from me your progress is happening because of the Brahmanical culture of TamBram who unlike Northie Brahmans developed a culture of intellectual rigourousness. And HariBhai take it from me that despite heavy reservations etc. which seem unfair to you I think this reverse discrimination is necessary. A moot point is that whether you could have ever given the NB a fair deal left on you own. Now that these parties are moving away from Periyarism to a more rational approach even Doctor Artist Leader admitted that Brahmins do not supress SC`s it is OBC`s now, and Masan Bhai instead of now ranting about Brahmin this and Brahmin that how about developing a more tolerant attitude towards SC`s.

Of course we laugh at the geneflection u people do towards Poloticos esp of Film star variety but then since we lose on every other parameter you would be very cruel to deny us this small sense of victory.

Re: # 37
ref: harimau

Harimau remembers his 7th grade class where he sat next to a Harijan boy. Harimau doesn`t denigrate people, just their lack of ability and their demands that their stupidity should be made the standard against which people and socirty ought to be measured.


How do you know they lack ability??.. Check out the latest cutoff marks for admissions to TN professional courses.. You`d find less and less Brahmins garnering the seats in the Open Competition.. It is not the lack of ability, but the lack of opportunity that have hindered people for so long... It`s just a myth that some people are genetically inferior/superior..

Brahmins can do any job and do it well...
Not just Brahmins, anyone can do any job given the motivation and proper training..

Not a good sign for India. It is the same mentality that applauds the code coolie business as the savior of India`s financial condition.

No, It`s a great sign that people are beginning to realise the myths around superior/inferior castes..

Ref masanamuthu #33

[Harimau is an old Brahmin who probably had very few contacts with ``other caste`` people in his time. That`s the reason for his degrading / denigrating ``others``.]

Harimau remembers his 7th grade class where he sat next to a Harijan boy. Harimau doesn`t denigrate people, just their lack of ability and their demands that their stupidity should be made the standard against which people and socirty ought to be measured.

[The last ``Chief of the Indian Army`` (or the one before) was a Tamil Brahmin.]

Brahmins can do any job and do it well. You just gave an example in the least brahminical profession in the world.

[I have close friends who are from all ``layers`` of the society. People of ``harimau`s`` ilk are dwindling.. And that`s a good sign.]

Not a good sign for India. It is the same mentality that applauds the code coolie business as the savior of India`s financial condition.

Ref vengatramanan aka chinnasatyanarayananarasimhulu aka Golti #31

[Why are you obsessed with the nobel prize. We dont need it. We need a society with people who can understand a Doctor`s advice or an advice of an agri expert. We need people who can think on their own. There are people worthy of praise. They are contributing in their small ways. I dont care if Maaran went to military. Have you seen any Brahmin on the road wanting to join the army as a soldier.]

So that is your mantra: flat-line EEG in life. Right?

Thinking on their own at the highest level leads to Nobel Prize.

It is obvious you don`t understand that.

And you have a college degree? You should have stuck to tending goats.


[Well I come from an agriculture and telugu speaking family.]

That information doesn`t surprise me. Only the brahmins -- who incidentally speak Tamil and not Marathi or Bengali at home -- are aliens in Tamil Nadu. People like you who speak Telugu are perfectly good Tamilians according to the current political thought.

Do tell me your sister is named Love Queen or Tamil Selvi. That would round out the picture completely!

All leaders are corrupt. What about Lallo et al? But whereas most leaders are corrupt and provide poor governance, Jayalalitha at least provides decent governance. As Masanmathu says, TN outperforms most states in HDI. It attracts foreign investment not just in software but also actual manufacturing etc. Jayalaltiha has created a favorable investment climate, though she shamelessly backed down against the unions even though they deserved what they were getting.

#33 by masanamuthu
Very true. I have some close Brahmin friends. We also have some great people from the Brahmin community contributing to the society(TVS,The Hindu).

Re: # 32

vengatramanan:

Harimau is an old Brahmin who probably had very few contacts with ``other caste`` people in his time. That`s the reason for his degrading / denigrating ``others``.

Now you should not fall into the same trap of degrading ``Brahmins``.
The last ``Chief of the Indian Army`` (or the one before) was a Tamil Brahmin..

I have close friends who are from all ``layers`` of the society. People of ``harimau`s`` ilk are dwindling.. And that`s a good sign..

Revathy:
Just to take one small point. Violence against the girl child, violence against women. It`s not enough to talk about development. Take the daily violence against women one sees on the streets. Take the killing of female babies, a very high proportion. All of you who have written in are men

I don`t know if you are talking about TN in particular or India in general. Yes, there is a lot of undesirable things like the culture of violence against women, killing of female babies etc.. I believe TN has a good male-female ratio though not like Kerala (don`t have the numbers) .. I think Jayalalitha has done much for increasing the confidence and assertiveness of women. Through women self-help groups / women police force / women commandos, Financial support for families with just girls .. If you want to know the views of Tamil/Indian women, you should publish your article on Sulekha. There are tonnes of women out there.. But I believe they are mostly into movies/boy-friend/.. and not some serious stuff.. :-))

There are no resevations in Business and Trade. Why dont the Brahmins compete with others in the market place. Dont start listing guys like TVS. We are talking about common people.

Ref #29 by harimau on

Why are you obsessed with the nobel prize. We dont need it. We need a society with people who can understand a Doctor`s advice or an advice of an agri expert. We need people who can think on their own. There are people worthy of praise. They are contributing in their small ways. I dont care if Maaran went to military. Have you seen any Brahmin on the road wanting to join the army as a soldier.

For your information I have not seen a single Brahmin farmer in my life. It would be a happy thing if he would be ready to flex his muscles.


/*Well, do you think the really big zamindars worked on their fields either?*/

Well I come from an agriculture and telugu speaking family. Who do you think worked in my fields. My grandfather,grandmother,father and my mother with other telugu and tamil speaking people. My neighbouring lands are owned by Tamils. There you can see Telugu labours working. You are a guy who is far removed from the realities.

All castes in the rural tamilnadu have become interdependant. You know what. The traders for banana suckers are SCs.

You are an arm chair guy.

Ref masanamuthu # 20

[But she also gave the ``sankaracharya`` a good kick in the a** though.. ]

Everyone of her actions were roundly condemned by the Supreme Court, the most recent being the transfer of the case outside Tamil Nadu.

You should be alarmed at this woman`s vindictive and authoritarian actions instead of being joyous that a Hindu religious figure was arrested on trumped-up charges.

Would she arrest a maulvi, any maulvi, on the eve of Ramzan? Or a Christian minister on Christmas Eve? She doesn`t have the b@lls for that.

She chose the most docile community to pick on.

Ref vengatramanan #22

[Have you ever seen a Brahmin land lord who earned his money by working on the fields.]

Well, do you think the really big zamindars worked on their fields either? You know who these guys are? Descendants of Telugu-speaking warriors in the pay of the Maratha kingdom in Tanjore and the Naik kingdom in Madurai. They in fact even called themselves rajas though their official title was ``palayakkaran``. That would include Veerapandia Kattabomman. Do you think Kattabomman spent his time behind a plough?

Have you heard of a brahmin landlord killing his workers? How about the Thevars/Maravans/Mukkulatthor? Do you know how people tremble when the caste name Vandayar is mentioned in Tanjore district?

[People in TN have long forgotten the anti-brahmin thoughts. Now it has become a level playing field.]

69% official quotas for BC/MBC/OBC/SC/ST with a promise of quotas for Muslims, Christians, hermaphrodites, people with just one ball, those who were mutilated into hijr@s, etc., etc., etc. I suppose level playing ground is how Anbukkarasi Maran got into medical college.

How come the only two South Indians to win Nobel Prizes were brahmins? You think Miss Maran would win the Nobel Prize in Medicine some day? Unfortunately, unlike Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion`s honorary doctorate (awarded over the dead body of a protesting student), any amount of money is not going to net a Nobel award for Miss Maran.

[Dont be in the cloud nine. No longer this is true. Come down to TN and see how many BC/OBC/SC candidates are outscoring Brahmins.]

I AM sitting in Chennai so don`t give me any BS about how the BCs are outscoring anybody else.

[You pose yourself as a patriotic Indian. What is the percentage of Brahmin soldiers in our army.]

Is Dayanidhi Maran in the army? His very first job is: Minister for Information Technology and Communications! Not bad for someone with an MBC background as his grand-uncle Karunanidhi self-pityingly refers to himself.

[At the same time dont try to belittle others.]

You are the guys demanding special quotas for being damaged in the cranium so who is belittling whom?

[But we bold enough to admit and accept our short comings. Indians will progress and prosper due to this maturity.]

Yep, flat-line EEG is simply a medical condition and should not be held against an individual.

[Tamils never hated Brahmins or for that matter any individual. They resented a community`s domination. Thats the reason you find Brahmin leaders in TN.]

I suppose that is why Karunanidhi referred to ``invaders through the Khyber Pass`` during the last election. Do you think he was referring to Muslims? Hey, he was at the Iftar feast just a few days back, sipping soup and chowing down on whatever was offered. Making friends with ``invaders through the Khyber Pass``, eh?

Revathy,

This one was a nice article with a lot of fodder for gossip, etc.

Hope one of these days you could come up with an article on corruption in India per se (nothing new), especially on judicial corruption, which is relatively well hidden from the Indian media, and is much more significant than political corruption.

Ref reva315 #23

[Just to take one small point. Violence against the girl child, violence against women. It`s not enough to talk about development. Take the daily violence against women one sees on the streets. Take the killing of female babies, a very high proportion. All of you who have written in are men. Are there any women reading this? Please write in.]

The women are busy working as code coolies or answering telephones at call centers.

Masanamuthus and their buddies should write in but they are too busy figuring out how much their fraudulent degrees are worth in the marriage market.

Jayalalitha has been a good CM as far as large businesses are concerned and she has brought several positive business proposals to completion. Indeed, so has her arch rival Karunanidhi during his rule. The sad thing is that there is a streak of puritanism in the state that is supported by every political party, indeed, a case of unity of politicians in this near Talibanesque approach to ``morals.`` While Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi have not themselves encouraged this, their silence while minor parties participate in thuggish attacks on silly actresses like Kushbu and Suhasini Maniratnam for stating personal opinions claiming that they have ``disgraced Tamil womanhood`` and judges issue Non Bailable Warrants against actresses for some silly remark on network television, the state seems to be regressing into moral fundamentalism. It would help the Tamil Taliban to remember that when the Taliban were routed, the people of Afghanistan cut out their eyes and stuffed their mouths with currency, leaving their bodies rotting in the streets. Tamils may not be brutal people in the Afghan mould but it is a question of how extreme this could get before the population of the state reacts in a metaphorically similar manner to get rid of the thuggish moral policemen there.

Whether Jayalalitha manages to win next year`s election or not, the positive thing is that Tamilnadu`s economy is doing well and that, most probably, is not going to change no matter who wins the next time round. That said, her career does have a long way to go even if she loses the next election in Tamilnadu`s all or nothing tradition of electing and throwing parties out. She is still young compared to her biggest rivals and politically savvy enough to manage to work her way back even if she is handed a second defeat like she was some years ago after her first controversial term in power.