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Hmmm
Joined: 15 Nov 2002
Posts: 348
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 Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 7:18 am Post subject: |
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| Chanakya wrote: | | Quote: | | Epithets such as "filthy brahmins" "you are a true brahmin" deifinitely display extreme prejudice and your final sentence of grudging acceptance that there could some truth left in me is an acceptance that you, without knowing anything about me had pre-judged (prejudiced) that there won't be any truth in me. |
I have not gone through your whole post but this paragraph stood out..
Tell us wise "Grrr" who is responsible for the pitiful condition of 70% lower caste HIndus. Who coined the work untouchable and dalits..?
Why they 70% hindus were called lower castes and why Brahmin is called superior or higher cast by hindus.
Why Brahmins were appointed as religious heads for generations..?
Why Dalits are not allowed in many temples in the rural India..?
Why literacy rate in lower caste is extremely low..?
Why did the Government have to implement affermative action..?
Why were hindus discriminating against each other in such a extreme way that affermative action had to put in place to compensate for 2000 years of wrong..?
e
You tell us the reasons..if all your scripture teach such noble things than what happened..who taught hindus to abuse, discriminate and treat fellow human being worse than animals..?
Answer these questions then we will talk..
P.S.Btw Sikhism is about equaltiy, universalism and egaltarianism..180 degree opposite of Brahmanism. |
Do you know that many jatis(castes), except Brahmins(because they can't), in India try to be recognized as most backward classes(MBC) in order to avail all the reservation policiies. Just because 70% of people are recognized as MBCs or BCs, it does not mean that Brahmins try to supress all others. Infact BCs(landlords etc.) and NOT BRAHMINS, try to humiliate SCs, STs. I have seen this myself. |
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Chanakya
Joined: 27 Dec 2002
Posts: 2637
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:42 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Do you know that many jatis(castes), except Brahmins(because they can't), in India try to be recognized as most backward classes(MBC) in order to avail all the reservation policiies. Just because 70% of people are recognized as MBCs or BCs, it does not mean that Brahmins try to supress all others. Infact BCs(landlords etc.) and NOT BRAHMINS, try to humiliate SCs, STs. I have seen this myself |
I agree that now-a-days it is Landlords that abuse and humilite..
It is the Brahmins that started the Jatti..it is they who told the people that something like Jatti exists by interpreting the religious books..infact they wrote the religious books.
Brahmins are the ones who deviced rules to subjugate 70% to various level..they were teaching people religion morality, followers looked up to them and taught hate and abuse.. |
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Hmmm
Joined: 15 Nov 2002
Posts: 348
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:50 am Post subject: |
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| Chanakya wrote: | that now-a-days it is Landlords that abuse and humilite..
It is the Brahmins that started the Jatti..it is they who told the people that something like Jatti exists by interpreting the religious books..infact they wrote the religious books.
Brahmins are the ones who deviced rules to subjugate 70% to various level..they were teaching people religion morality, followers looked up to them and taught hate and abuse.. |
Noops. I don't agree. This is your view.
There may have beensome Brahmins doing such work. But Vedas do not support this.
Again there were and are some Brahmins who opposed this kind of caste system for more than last 1000 years.
So today's 70 % BCs are in no way subjugated by Brahmins. To say so is nonsense and irrational. |
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Unknown 440
Joined: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 4
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| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Chanakya wrote: | | Quote: | | Epithets such as "filthy brahmins" "you are a true brahmin" deifinitely display extreme prejudice and your final sentence of grudging acceptance that there could some truth left in me is an acceptance that you, without knowing anything about me had pre-judged (prejudiced) that there won't be any truth in me. |
I have not gone through your whole post but this paragraph stood out..
Tell us wise "Grrr" who is responsible for the pitiful condition of 70% lower caste HIndus. Who coined the work untouchable and dalits..?
Why they 70% hindus were called lower castes and why Brahmin is called superior or higher cast by hindus.
Why Brahmins were appointed as religious heads for generations..?
Why Dalits are not allowed in many temples in the rural India..?
Why literacy rate in lower caste is extremely low..?
Why did the Government have to implement affermative action..?
Why were hindus discriminating against each other in such a extreme way that affermative action had to put in place to compensate for 2000 years of wrong..?
e
You tell us the reasons..if all your scripture teach such noble things than what happened..who taught hindus to abuse, discriminate and treat fellow human being worse than animals..?
Answer these questions then we will talk..
P.S.Btw Sikhism is about equaltiy, universalism and egaltarianism..180 degree opposite of Brahmanism. |
Chanakya: I have a few points to contribute
When I speak about the dalit oppression problem, I can only speak from the TamilNadu perspective because I have first hand knowledge. If I speak about other parts of India, I would be extrapolating or mostly speculating. If I have learned one thing, it is that India is so diverse that what applies to one state hardly applies to the other. That said, here goes...
(1) At least in Tamil Nadu, many castes have been clamoring to be categorized as Backward, Scheduled Caste etc., so that they can avail themselves of the reservation system. This is a fact. So, the percentage of people is constantly increasing just because people want to get categorized as BC, SC/ST. This is done by their caste leaders and has nothing to do with brahmins. It has come to a stage now that virtually all castes that have a significant vote-bank have lobbied to get on the list. Only brahmins and a few others are left as "forward" castes.
(2) Castes band together to form vote-banks so that they can get more reservation. In fact some purely artificial groups exist that even span religious boundaries. E.g. Nadars (christian and hindu) for political and other complex social reasons. Once again this has nothing to do with brahmins but provides an excellent case to understand the dynamics that produces castes in a society. In the nadar case, some of them although being christians find it useful to hang on to the nadar caste tag.
(3) Dalit oppression is primarily through landlords and local politicians. In TamilNadu, brahmins own virtually no land. Brahmins have virtually zero political presence generally speaking because they are such a small minority (<3%) that no politician has any reason whatsoever to care about them.
(4) Almost all (i.e., 99.99%) of caste problems in TamilNadu has to do with infighting within the 70% that you have alluded to. In fact, brahmin-bashing was a favorite sport and it allowed some parties to come into power and stay in power for a long time. Later, people realized that not much was to be gained (politically and economically) by brahmin bashing (BB) because these people neither mattered politically nor were they land owners whose land can be usurped. BB served a purpose to unite some people by showing a "common enemy" but unity without vision is useless. This was realized soon, now, some of the "oppressed" 70% has dropped BB and banded together to beat up on the people below. Once gain, this is mainly for economic and political reasons and not just because of "caste". Brahmins have little to do with this as you can see from a dalit's post in dalistan.org
"I am a dalit from South Arcot district and we too read history. For us, Dravida Maya is as pernicious as Arya Maya. Our community in Tamil Nadu has not suffered at the hands of German Nazis or hindutva people, but have suffered much from these dravidian parties (DMK, ADMK, MDMK, PMK) who used us to marginalise brahmins, but treat us as dung. The four major castes, nadars (Christian and Hindu), thevars, vanniars and gounders all belong to these dravidian parties and we are oppressed by them. Our struggle continues.
K Shanmuganathan
Annamalainagar "
Here is a link http://www.ambedkar.org/News/Itis.htm that talks about exactly what Mr. Shanmuganathan is saying about what thevars are doing to them. Thevars are politically strong and they beat up the politically weak.
(5) Brahmins have been effectively marginalized in TamilNadu, and now this same "hate politics" is turning on the brahmin-haters. Fundamentally, these sort of policies are not useful. It only fractures society. It may benefit people for some time, but it is not based on progress, it is based on persecution so the policy has to constantly look for who to persecute. This is somewhat like militant concepts in religions. It is useful as long as it is directed against others but hate is not a guided missile, it will turn back one day or the other.
(6) Why literacy is low is a complex problem. I do hope that you agree to that. Blaming it all on brahmins is a view which might serve brahmin-bashing agendas but won't yield useful insights to understand or solve the problem because brahmins are less than 3% in TN. If all of them were to vanish today, the state of the non-brahmins will remain largely the same. That said, I will state my position. I have been to many a rural temple in TN and seen absolutely illeterate brahmins. I have also seen the converse where in cities a lot of non-brahmins do quite well in studies and schools are packed with non-brahmins. I think the literacy problem has as much to do with where people live, their economic situation, family values, awareness, as it has to do with caste. Next, most brahmins are not business men or land owners and have literally no other option other than to study or be on the street or live off a temple like a rat. So they make studies a priority. I personally know of kids (adults now) who were literally terrorized into preparing for the IIT by their parents by telling them facts about the reservation system in TN and how it is virtually impossible for a brahmin to get into Engg or Medical colleges unless a brahmins secures above 95% in math+phy+chem+bio in 12th standard. In other words, schools don't send non-brahmins away if they want to attend school. As we have already seen from the quote of a dalit above, brahmins have been "marginalized" yet the dalit problem remains. How is that possible? Hmm...maybe it was not just the brahmins after all.
(7) I reiterate that social divisions (aka castes) form naturally as people band together and position themselves to occupy various niches in society. This is somewhat like organisms adapting to various ecological pressures. Tradition and culture play a part and plain ego will do the rest. If you think brahmins are the reasons for so many social divisions, how do you explain the various divisions in Islam or christianity. It is in the nature of humans. For example, here is a catalog of sikh surnames which relate to castes. http://www.sikhcastes.faithweb.com/whats_new.html This exists regardless of whether sikhism allows it or not. In fact the author says so himself and ends by saying "Therefore over recent years it has been difficult to retrace such surnames to caste, however since communities migrated to the west in such large numbers, many families from the same village came to the same cities. Before long those low caste families using ambiguous surnames were once again segregated."
It has been over 500 years since sikhism came into being. That is about 20 generations at least. Yet, these tags are still held by numerous people. Why is that despite the fact that Sikhism advises against it? It is because each person wants to feel "special" in some silly way. It is in the nature of humans to do that as JK says with derision "How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions may be!" in his seminal "truth is a pathless land" speech (http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/the_truth.asp)
Here is another link to a book review (The Book and The review by Sikhs) http://www.asianpublications.com/sikh_review.shtml They end by saying "At the end of their comprehensive list of Sikh names they have listed some of the common castes and sub-castes among Jat, Khatri, Arora and Mahzabi Sikhs. It is a sad reality that while the Sikh Gurus made serious attempts at creating casteless and egalitarian order the Sikhs are going back from the teachings of their Gurus by using caste after the common surname of Kaur and Singh. What is worst is the case of women. The Gurus elevated the status of women by adding surname of Kaur (princess) after the first name and gave them equality and distinct identity. Unfortunately they are also falling in the trap of the abhorrent caste system."
At this point, a counterpoint would be that "these are not really castes" which would beg the question what is a caste. To me, a caste is a tag that people attach to themselves to distinguish their group. It usually plays a part in how people forge alliances and intermarry. I know from fellow sikhs that it exists to some extent (this is supported somewhat by the reviewer above lamenting that people are "falling into the trap of the abhorrent caste system".
Bottomline is that people will find a way to differentiate themselves from others. Sikhism is a young religion and was able to learn from the idiocies of the past religions and attempted to preclude some issues. But that doesn't mean a problem of that nature wil never happen because the problem is not sikhism but humans. I know an number of sikhs who have a non-singh lastname. Now, I don't know to what extent it matters to them (if at all). But the fact that it has carried over for 500 years over 20 generations says something about how dear it is to them as an identity marker. I suspect that for marriage alliances and such, it probably does matter to them.
( Religions and social systems are shaped by geography, politics, society and economic state of its founders and early followers. For example, if the Sikhs weren't persecuted I doubt that the khalsa concept would have been formed. This is a prime example of how belief systems evolve to cope with the pressures of the times. To my knowledge despite violence directed at them, buddhism to this day (to my knowledge) doesnt' have a violent doctrine. Quite amazing really. I am not sure if it is good or not because surely the buddhists in tibet are being literally wiped out etc., but for what it is worth, they haven't evolved a violent doctrine despite being oppressed. Thus, it is clear that even similar situation don't produce similar changes in religions.
Hence, social systems are hard to understand by simple theories that deny geo-political and socio-economic factors. If one were to still apply simple theories, they are useful only if one has an agenda to attack a view point. They rarely yield reasonable insight into the causes or solutions.
(9) The question why Dalits are not allowed in many temples in the rural India..?
It is because of the moral turpitude of the people controlling the temple. It has been done by brahmins AND BY non-brahmins who consider themselves superior to the dalit. I am happy to say that at least in TN this is rare (I haven't come across such a prohibition yet but then....what is one person's opinion...I haven't done a study on this problem. I say this in all honesty).
All it takes is for one group to feel superior to the other sir. If you can set aside hindu-hate theories for a bit you can see that. The same moral turpitude is why some khalistanis want independence. Whether it is right or wong is a value judgement but generally speaking people like to create "separate identities", "separate" everything if possible. Some are more persistent (islam) some are utterly meek (budhists) some are clueless that others exploit them easily (hindus). Within each group they may viciously compete with a myriad groups. Such is human nature. All things decay. Including social systems. Why is the Sikh reviewer laemnting that sikhs are straying away from Guru Nanak Ji's path? Why is mahathir mohamed lamenting that muslims are divided when Islam explicitly prohibits any division? There is no conspiracy here (except that some muslims think that the Shia/Sunni divide is a Jewist conspiracy!). If you don't confine your analysis to the caste system and set aside hindu-hate for some time you can see parallels in other social systems. That may yield an additional perspective. I am not saying that is justifies anything in hinduism. I am merely saying that it is unavoidable that adherents of an ideology will rarely remain true to it. This is true as time goes on. In the case of Sikhism, it is a modern religion and compared to religions such as hinduism it has not had to put up with as much hardshiop for as long a time. This is a fact so, in a way, if as the sikh reviewer has lamented if some people are already losing their way it is to be seen what problems sikhism will face. Fortunately, these days religions face hardly any opposition compared to olden times. Even the persecution sikhs faced from muslims was towards the end of the 1000 year islamic onslaught and it is in a way definitely lesser in magnitude that what Hindus faced. Yet that encounter gave birth to the militant khalsa movement isn't it? Such is the fate of societies and ideologies. They have to adapt to the pressures put on them. Please note that I am not passing any judgement here. Personally, I find the concept of a just--war or dharma-yudh meaningful if a group wants to preserve its identity. It is possible that if humans evolve to be not so triumphalist (my religion is better than yours) it may not be needed but I doubt humans are there yet.
(10) Why did the Government have to implement affermative action..?
To provide opportunities for the disadvantaged people of course. I don't see your point here. I never said castes dont' exist? I am agreeing that castes have caused problems I am not denying it. My main points are
(a) People divide themselves up and attach tags to themselves and these over time become castes. An interesting case in point is why Sikhs carry the different surnames? It is because even across the 500 years, some people find some advantage (even if it is just in their mind) to hanging on to something that separates them from the others of the same group.
(b) As people of a particular tag gain some power, it makes sense for them to exclude the others and sooner or later it will happen, then unfair advantage set it. This is how shit happens as they say....
(c) There is some scholarship that says that as hindus were persecuted relentlessly, a lot of them split up into convenient parcels and tried to occupy various niches to survive. This is plausible. When faced with resource contention, animals break up into smaller groups and fight each other. The conditions endured by the Hindus under muslim tyranny has been lost in history but by most extant accounts it was horrible. To say that such a horrific social pressure had no impact on social organization is to be naive.
(d) Given that there is no scriptural support for the 4000 or so castes that exist today, a non-scriptural explanation is the only rational way to approach the problem. A case in point, the nadar caste comprises hindus and christians! In addition, given that this sort of social divisions have been shown to happen in almost every society and religion and people have been shown to hang on to their "special distinctive" tags for generations, certainly something about the human nature must be at at work here. Cultural anthropology demonstrates numerous examples of divisions among identical people. There is absolutely no theologial basis for most divisions amongst tribes. It is simply a matter of occupying a social niche.
I want to conclude by saying that I have benefited substantially by thinking through the issues (to the extent that I have) in oder to write this email. I hope I have provided some explanation (though hardly complete) and asked some questions that will provoke some questions in your mind as well. I look forward to a civil exchange of views. |
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