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Blog article: A tamil brahmin in Bangalore

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Ms.Happy Hindu.I fully agree with your POV.In my opinion,the assumed superiority of most of the Tabras
(there may be a few exceptions) could be one of the reason for other caste groups to despise tabras inwardly.Other caste people interact mostly with Gurukkal community in different temples and Priestly class who visit other caste houses for poojas ,marriage and for conducting different ceremonies.These people conduct themselves in a way not liked by the other caste people.To be frank,I also had a wrong notion of Brahmin superiority when I was young and not exposed to the world.After getting worldly experience,I could realise that I was nurturing a wrong notion.The poem which I studied in my 10th std"Elegy written in a country church yard" opened my eyes and made to think,if given equal opportunity,any one from any community can reach the top.Even now I come across a number of people from Tabras(mostly residing in Tamilnadu who did not get opportunity to visit other parts of India or other countries) having this wrong notion of superiority.The funny thing is that even among tabras one considers himself/herself superior to the other tabra because of different subcastes among tabras.Let us hope for the best of relationships among all communities within Hinduism.
 
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Ms.Happy Hindu.I fully agree with your POV.In my opinion,the assumed superiority of most of the Tabras
(there may be a few exceptions) could be one of the reason for other caste groups to despise tabras inwardly.Other caste people interact mostly with Gurukkal community in different temples and Priestly class who visit other caste houses for poojas ,marriage and for conducting different ceremonies.These people conduct themselves in a way not liked by the other caste people.To be frank,I also had a wrong notion of Brahmin superiority when I was young and not exposed to the world.After getting worldly experience,I could realise that I was nurturing a wrong notion.The poem which I studied in my 10th std"Elegy written in a country church yard" opened my eyes and made to think,if given equal opportunity,any one from any community can reach the top.Even now I come across a number of people from Tabras(mostly residing in Tamilnadu who did not get opportunity to visit other parts of India or other countries) having this wrong notion of superiority.The funny thing is that even among tabras one considers himself/herself superior to the other tabra because of different subcastes among tabras.Let us hope for the best of relationships among all communities within Hinduism.

Dear Shri Krishnamurthy,

The Mudaliyar acquaintance might have said that he was a Mudaliyar in order that your family members know that they are speaking to a NB. But only you can be the final judge because the tone, emphasis, context, etc., will be very important in coming to a decision.

In Kerala, other castes do not have any permanent "hatred" for brahmans (Tabras or Namboodiris, or Tulu Brahmans) as long as we do not poke our nose into their community affairs or do not inconvenience them. The vast majority of tabras with whom I interact accept that we have nothing much to grieve about. But those who work for the tabra association do carry a sense of greatness, which, to me, is unwarranted; but may be, that is what makes them work for the association.
 
Thankyou Raju. Before we continue with anything else i would first like to see you providing evidence:
1) that EVR was licentious
2) that EVR was anti-dalit.

If you cannot provide such evidence, then you could as well state so.

Well, it appears that you have no evidence to prove your allegation, and hence all this discussion that does not pertain to the point. I have no comments on your posts. I shall leave it to the readers to decide. Let it be known to them from which section the character-assasination and demonisation of EVR has been coming.
Thanks.

I am able to see your anxiety to conveniently forget your baseless melodramatic story of EVR fighting with the kashi dogs for a morsel of food. Please give evidence for that and you will get all the evidence you are asking for. Otherwise you will have to search for yourself on the lines suggested by me and get the evidences yourself because I find this evidence demanding is used as the weapon to get the conversation bogged down when it is found it is inconvenient to continue- as you have done here even after demanding and getting the evidence (your words are high-lighted by me for effect):How to believe you? What's the guarantee that you are not fibbing ?

And about your appealing to the folks, ,readers,moderator,your friend etc.,-- all of them know well where EVR stood vis a vis the brahmins and what kind of vituperative articles he published in his mouthpiece against this hapless community.
Cheers.
 
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Dear Sir,

I do agree with you there are clashes. However, am unable to agree that they are frequent. I do not think these things are widespread, but they may be endemic to regions within urban layouts also (as shown in the "India Untouched" documentary), and remain unseen simmerring in the background (which i feel is a dangerous thing).

These caste clashes occur in places where education/awareness is low on both the sides of the fighting parties. So both sides need an 'education'. Not surprisingly these things (open clashes) happen in rural areas.

The erection of walls you state were isolated incident that happened in Nagarajapuram village and Uthapuram Village. In both the places, the wall is now demolished. The prejudice however still remains.

It will take a few more years for everyone to catch up on education and move out of such things.

I feel this may vary from place to place. Although everyone must be aware of their caste which they need to fill in application forms, the way it is handled socially varies. Even within urban places, it may vary based on the 'group'. One may be a group of youngsters who may go pubbing or hang-out outside a mall every weekend. They are interested in who is going out with whom, latest fashion trends and latest gossip on movie stars. They talk about everything under the sun. Caste does not figure in their talks.

Another maybe a group of youngsters who come from traditional families and are caste-conscious (but not to the extent of being castiests) . Being aware of the name of one's caste does not mean s/he must be 'caste-concious' to the extent practicing social-ostracism. Atleast so far i can say i have not met youngsters who want to re-create a society based on socially sanctioned discrimination, irrespective of whether they come from traditional or upwardly mobile families. But since we are talking about personal observations, each one's observation may vary.

Sir, i do not know why you feel other castes 'do have a lot of hatered' for tambrams. This is something that quite a few elderly people on this forum seem to state. It would be good to explore this further, i feel, to understand the underlying reasons for it. Especially since on this forum, almost all posters are elderly people, so we may get a some replies, hopefully.

As regards your friend sir who introduced himself as mudaliyar, possibly he is not a casteist who beleives in caste-discrimination (or does he feel people should be segregated on caste grounds??). It would be hard even for himself to tell for sure if he is a mudaliyar of palli (vanniar) tribe / pallar caste, or agamudaiyar or vellalar origin. He probably thinks his title 'mudaliyar' gives him some social standing and hence mentioned that he is a mudaliyar to make himself favorable to you/others.

Regards.

Dear HH,
This is an excellent instance of equivocation.

When it comes to the casteist attitude of the NBFCs we have to show a lot of understanding like when you say: (1)"As regards your friend sir who introduced himself as mudaliyar, possibly he is not a casteist who beleives in caste-discrimination.He probably thinks his title 'mudaliyar' gives him some social standing and hence mentioned that he is a mudaliyar to make himself favorable to you/others.
(2)The erection of walls you state were isolated incident that happened in Nagarajapuram village and Uthapuram Village. In both the places, the wall is now demolished. The prejudice however still remains.
(3)However, am unable to agree that they are frequent. I do not think these things are widespread
(4)These caste clashes occur in places where education/awareness is low on both the sides of the fighting parties.


The same kind of understanding--looking at things from their standpoint,(mis)interpreting all their casteist actions with a lot of sympathetic 'i do understand's, concluding that with time things are bound to improve, blaming their casteist behaviors on factors like education(even if Mr. Krishnamurthy is to say that the concerned persons was a PG we will still say that he is the first PG in his family in the last 1000 years) etc.,--can not be extended to the TBs because they are just TBs!!!

Cheers.
 
Ms.Happy Hindu.I fully agree with your POV.In my opinion,the assumed superiority of most of the Tabras
(there may be a few exceptions) could be one of the reason for other caste groups to despise tabras inwardly.Other caste people interact mostly with Gurukkal community in different temples and Priestly class who visit other caste houses for poojas ,marriage and for conducting different ceremonies.These people conduct themselves in a way not liked by the other caste people.To be frank,I also had a wrong notion of Brahmin superiority when I was young and not exposed to the world.After getting worldly experience,I could realise that I was nurturing a wrong notion.The poem which I studied in my 10th std"Elegy written in a country church yard" opened my eyes and made to think,if given equal opportunity,any one from any community can reach the top.Even now I come across a number of people from Tabras(mostly residing in Tamilnadu who did not get opportunity to visit other parts of India or other countries) having this wrong notion of superiority.The funny thing is that even among tabras one considers himself/herself superior to the other tabra because of different subcastes among tabras.Let us hope for the best of relationships among all communities within Hinduism.
Dear Sir,

Its not just brahmins alone The idea of caste-superiority is endemic to every single community which brackets itself higher to some (and rarely lower than some) castes. Which is why this whole concept of caste is humbug. People cannot be bracketed based on caste under a democracy, it must be on their own individual abilities. Unfortunately it will take some more years for us to get rid of the caste-system, both from the religious pov and the political pov. But with changing times, minds will open up (as they already are) and people will grow to become a truly egalitarian society. Its just a matter of time.

Regards.
 
Shri Raju,

Let me first of all make this abundantly clear that I am not contesting any of your posts. This is for getting your views on a doubt that arises in my mind.

I am not at all bringing EVR, anti-brahminism, etc., here. I have seen from many posts here in the past that tabras' agricultural landholdings were always very small as compared to those of the NBFCs. After the very many social upheavals that befell the tabras, most of them have, by now sold even their agraharam houses also (the agricultural lands would have gone out of their usage long ago, anyway, because leaseholders, பாட்டக்காரன் as we call them here,got the ownership rights, so to say).

Is it not therefore probable that the root cause of the friction/s between the SCs/STs/Dalits and the NBFCs has much to do with the new-born awareness among the SCs/STs/Dalits, who are the farm labour, and the owners of land? In Kerala, the communists drove away the Namboodiris and Tabras (again only in some pockets like mancompu, kuttanadu, etc., were tabras real landowners) and the political netas became the new landowning class by adopting various stratagems. Today, there is no farm labour even for the Communist leaders; labour from Bengal etc., are also threatened by the farm workers' unions. I feel today only rubber and spices are grown free from labour trouble, because the estate owners can be ruthless if they want to. (I won't elaborate this.)

So, is it not possible that such a fate is in store for the land-owning class of TN also?
 
I am able to see your anxiety to conveniently forget your baseless melodramatic story of EVR fighting with the kashi dogs for a morsel of food. Please give evidence for that and you will get all the evidence you are asking for. Otherwise you will have to search for yourself on the lines suggested by me and get the evidences yourself because I find this evidence demanding is used as the weapon to get the conversation bogged down when it is found it is inconvenient to continue- as you have done here even after demanding and getting the evidence (your words are high-lighted by me for effect):How to believe you? What's the guarantee that you are not fibbing ?

And about your appealing to the folks, ,readers,moderator,your friend etc.,-- all of them know well where EVR stood vis a vis the brahmins and what kind of vituperative articles he published in his mouthpiece against this hapless community.
Cheers.
Raju,

I have done enuf searching and have not found the sentence you allege EVR of saying. I will not ask you to provide evidence anymore because it is obvious you have none.

Reg the Kashi incident, EVR was polemical about it to family and friends long before he joined politics. So the Kashi incidents were well known to people in his neighbourhood long before he joined politics. But today some people (my relatives btw) even snigger and make fun of it and say he wanted to ban Hindi because 'hindi valu' abused him in Hindi in Kashi (kashi ki velli hindi lo dabbalu teeskochadu and that's why he had so much veri against hindi language).

As i already said, EVR published so many audacious things (much more audacious than the snake-brahmin comparison you allege / attribute to him). But then what you allege him of is missing from his writings or from his sayings that were collected / published by others.

I suppose anyone who has lived with northies will know the saying 'sanp dekho sindhi dekho pehle sindhi maro'. The word Sindhi gets susbstituted with Madrasi, Marwadi or anything else as per the user's fancy. Quite apparently this was translated into tamil although it does not rhyme in tamil (that is, it does not sound like a proverb in tamil). And whoever did it decided to attribute it to EVR.

As far as the community being hapless Raju, its not true. At that point of time, tambrams occupied the top slots, testified varnas in courts and called the shots on social issues. Far from being hapless. The average shudra-dalit was far from that. Probably at that point of time brahmins wud have never imagined that something called reservations could lead to such present-day outcomes. Also raju, the prob is/was never with the brahmin people, the prob was with the leadership, which imo did not peep into the future to guide its followers to show them the direction in which the wind was beginning to blow.

Dear HH,
This is an excellent instance of equivocation.

When it comes to the casteist attitude of the NBFCs we have to show a lot of understanding like when you say: (1)"As regards your friend sir who introduced himself as mudaliyar, possibly he is not a casteist who beleives in caste-discrimination.He probably thinks his title 'mudaliyar' gives him some social standing and hence mentioned that he is a mudaliyar to make himself favorable to you/others.
(2)The erection of walls you state were isolated incident that happened in Nagarajapuram village and Uthapuram Village. In both the places, the wall is now demolished. The prejudice however still remains.
(3)However, am unable to agree that they are frequent. I do not think these things are widespread
(4)These caste clashes occur in places where education/awareness is low on both the sides of the fighting parties.


The same kind of understanding--looking at things from their standpoint,(mis)interpreting all their casteist actions with a lot of sympathetic 'i do understand's, concluding that with time things are bound to improve, blaming their casteist behaviors on factors like education(even if Mr. Krishnamurthy is to say that the concerned persons was a PG we will still say that he is the first PG in his family in the last 1000 years) etc.,--can not be extended to the TBs because they are just TBs!!!

Cheers.
Yes ofcourse when it comes to NBs we have to show a lot of understanding. Especially those in rural areas. Because they lack education, they are petty-minded, they are not progressive-thinking types, they are still rooted in castes and think that by subjugating another caste they can promote themselves as an upper-caste and put down the subjugated caste as a lower-caste. So yes it will take some years for them to get out of it. They need to understand that the days of tribal fights and dharmashastras are gone. And today we have a new constitution. Anyone who wants to hold on to casteism has no place in a democracy.

Regards.
 
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So, is it not possible that such a fate is in store for the land-owning class of TN also?
So true Sir. Actually i feel those who got themselves an education about a 100 years back did so because they knew the fate of their land-ownership that time itself when land-labour were asserting their rights wrt varna claims and causing labor problems. It was only a matter of time before the land-labour started getting upwardly mobile on education matters, which eventually they did. Some former land-owners (who do not get reservations) therefore blame EVR for their downward spiral. I feel when all the land-labour gets educated and moves into cities (which will eventually happen), then the land-owners will have no choice but to import labour and face some troublesome tunes.
 
Dear HH,,

I have done enuf searching and have not found the sentence you allege EVR of saying. I will not ask you to provide evidence anymore because it is obvious you have none.

I repeat,I have personally heard him saying those words in a public meeting. When you keep repeating your fond 'belief' that EVR did not utter those words, I understand that you are trying to call me a lier. So I do not intend to answer you any more on this point.

Reg the Kashi incident, EVR was polemical about it to family and friends long before he joined politics. So the Kashi incidents were well known to people in his neighbourhood long before he joined politics. But today some people (my relatives btw) even snigger and make fun of it and say he wanted to ban Hindi because 'hindi valu' abused him in Hindi in Kashi (kashi ki velli hindi lo dabbalu teeskochadu and that's why he had so much veri against hindi language).

If so why that emotionally charged melodramatic question from you asking me what I would have done under the same circumstances? and thereby implying that what EVR did by pouring hatred on a hapless community as a whole was perfectly justified by that imaginery (polemical-in your words)incident? There is another name for this-prejudice.

And BTW because you have raised that point, EVR was a hypocrat to the core even in the matter of his opposition to Hindi. Do you know that he had let out his property in Erode at a nominal rent to an organisation which was promoting learning of Hindi with a view to help propagation and promotion of Hindi language? If you would need evidence, please read the autobiography of Maraimalai adigal.

As i already said, EVR published so many audacious things (much more audacious than the snake-brahmin comparison you allege / attribute to him). But then what you allege him of is missing from his writings or from his sayings that were collected / published by others.

I am sorry i can not help. For a person who can search the web and come up with details of so many subjects including a least known kshatropeta brahmins it should not be difficult if some effort is made.

I suppose anyone who has lived with northies will know the saying 'sanp dekho sindhi dekho pehle sindhi maro'. The word Sindhi gets susbstituted with Madrasi, Marwadi or anything else as per the user's fancy. Quite apparently this was translated into tamil although it does not rhyme in tamil (that is, it does not sound like a proverb in tamil). And whoever did it decided to attribute it to EVR.

No. I heard it from the horse's mouth with my own ears. I have not only heard those words I was also a personal witness to what effect it had on course of time and how brahmin women were molested by DMK rowdies in Turicorin New Colony. I do not come to internet to tell lies.

As far as the community being hapless Raju, its not true. At that point of time, tambrams occupied the top slots, testified varnas in courts and called the shots on social issues. Far from being hapless. The average shudra-dalit was far from that. Probably at that point of time brahmins wud have never imagined that something called reservations could lead to such present-day outcomes. Also raju, the prob is/was never with the brahmin people, the prob was with the leadership, which imo did not peep into the future to guide its followers to show them the direction in which the wind was beginning to blow.

You are entitled to your POV.
.
So yes it will take some years for them to get out of it. They need to understand that the days of tribal fights and dharmashastras are gone. And today we have a new constitution. Anyone who wants to hold on to casteism has no place in a democracy.

You are forgetting that you are saying this after 60 years of independence and a new constitution!!

Cheers.
 
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Raju,

You are entitled to your claims.

As for me, i repeat that i have already searched on the web, and read thru publications on EVR.

You allegations are primarily that
1) EVR was licentious
2) EVR was anti-dalit

Both the points above have been made by some people on various forums / blogs across the net; without any shread of evidence (now i know who some of them maybe) .

If you indeed had any evidence you could have provided it by now. But apparently, you have not because you have none. So as i mentioned in my post above i will not ask you for evidence anymore. For me this conversation on the 2 above mentioned points has ended. As far as the allegations on the brahmin-snake comparison, you are entitled to your claims, for whatever veracity you may wish to claim of them.

Regards.


Addition:
1) As regards the property rental claims and hypocricy, if i rent out my property to a christian missionary organisation, that does not make me a christian or someone who supports conversions.
2) Nowhere have i implied or justified EVR's speeches that incited hatered/violence. So no need to twist things to make claims on that. I challenged specifically those 2 allegations you made (on licentious and anti-dalit) because they are blatantly false.


Dear HH,,


I repeat,I have personally heard him saying those words in a public meeting. When you keep repeating your fond 'belief' that EVR did not utter those words, I understand that you are trying to call me a lier. So I do not intend to answer you any more on this point.



If so why that emotionally charged melodramatic question from you asking me what I would have done under the same circumstances? and thereby implying that what EVR did by pouring hatred on a hapless community as a whole was perfectly justified by that imaginery (polemical-in your words)incident? There is another name for this-prejudice.

And BTW because you have raised that point, EVR was a hypocrat to the core even in the matter of his opposition to Hindi. Do you know that he had let out his property in Erode at a nominal rent to an organisation which was promoting learning of Hindi with a view to help propagation and promotion of Hindi language? If you would need evidence, please read the autobiography of Maraimalai adigal.



I am sorry i can not help. For a person who can search the web and come up with details of so many subjects including a least known kshatropeta brahmins it should not be difficult if some effort is made.



No. I heard it from the horse's mouth with my own ears. I have not only heard those words I was also a personal witness to what effect it had on course of time and how brahmin women were molested by DMK rowdies in Turicorin New Colony. I do not come to internet to tell lies.



You are entitled to your POV.
.

You are forgetting that you are saying this after 60 years of independence and a new constitution!!

Cheers.
 
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Raju,

You are entitled to your claims.

As for me, i repeat that i have already searched on the web, and read thru publications on EVR.

You allegations are primarily that
1) EVR was licentious
2) EVR was anti-dalit

Both the points above have been made by some people on various forums / blogs across the net; without any shread of evidence (now i know who some of them maybe) .

If you indeed had any evidence you could have provided it by now. But apparently, you have not because you have none. So as i mentioned in my post above i will not ask you for evidence anymore. For me this conversation on the 2 above mentioned points has ended. As far as the allegations on the brahmin-snake comparison, you are entitled to your claims, for whatever veracity you may wish to claim of them.

Regards.


Addition:
1) As regards the property rental claims and hypocricy, if i rent out my property to a christian missionary organisation, that does not make me a christian or someone who supports conversions.
2) Nowhere have i implied or justified EVR's speeches that incited hatered/violence. So no need to twist things to make claims on that. I challenged specifically those 2 allegations you made (on licentious and anti-dalit) because they are blatantly false.

Dear HH,

Just one point before I close this conversation.

You have said this here
Addition:
1) As regards the property rental claims and hypocricy, if i rent out my property to a christian missionary organisation, that does not make me a christian or someone who supports conversions.


Periyar did not let out his property at market rent. He did it at a token rent and thus subsidised the efforts for promotion of Hindi. Somehow, you appear to read only what you want to read and not what is written.
Cheers.
 
Dear HH,

Just one point before I close this conversation.

You have said this here
Addition:
1) As regards the property rental claims and hypocricy, if i rent out my property to a christian missionary organisation, that does not make me a christian or someone who supports conversions.


Periyar did not let out his property at market rent. He did it at a token rent and thus subsidised the efforts for promotion of Hindi. Somehow, you appear to read only what you want to read and not what is written.
Cheers.
Raju,

I may wish to take "token" rent, keep my enemy beside me, and keep a watch on what all they do.

This is to the readers, let me clear in saying this -- I do not agree with EVR's opposition of hindi.
 
Shri Raju,

Let me first of all make this abundantly clear that I am not contesting any of your posts. This is for getting your views on a doubt that arises in my mind.

I am not at all bringing EVR, anti-brahminism, etc., here. I have seen from many posts here in the past that tabras' agricultural landholdings were always very small as compared to those of the NBFCs. After the very many social upheavals that befell the tabras, most of them have, by now sold even their agraharam houses also (the agricultural lands would have gone out of their usage long ago, anyway, because leaseholders, பாட்டக்காரன் as we call them here,got the ownership rights, so to say).

Is it not therefore probable that the root cause of the friction/s between the SCs/STs/Dalits and the NBFCs has much to do with the new-born awareness among the SCs/STs/Dalits, who are the farm labour, and the owners of land? In Kerala, the communists drove away the Namboodiris and Tabras (again only in some pockets like mancompu, kuttanadu, etc., were tabras real landowners) and the political netas became the new landowning class by adopting various stratagems. Today, there is no farm labour even for the Communist leaders; labour from Bengal etc., are also threatened by the farm workers' unions. I feel today only rubber and spices are grown free from labour trouble, because the estate owners can be ruthless if they want to. (I won't elaborate this.)

So, is it not possible that such a fate is in store for the land-owning class of TN also?
Dear Sangom Sir,

Dear Sangom Sir,

It is true that in Tamilnadu the Brahmins generally held small land holdings. So they were living in that wonderland in which assets-wise they were adequately rich and cash flow wise they were precariously poor. With every natural calamity(which used to visit once in 4 or 5 years regularly) and the resultant crop failure every family sold a part of their land holding and spent to keep the body and soul together. Below a critical threshold of land holdings the ruthless dynamics of economics are such that it is better to liquidate the assets and migrate than to let a negative cash flow wipe out the assets. So ******* had no other option than to take up other professions and move to towns. Those who held assets beyond a critical level were able to survive because at that level the dynamics are different. Most of the NBFCs could survive this way.
There was not much tension between the landless farm labourers and these land lords in TN.There are reasons for this:

(1)In Kerala the Communists and other leftist parties took up the task of organizing the landless labourers. In Tamilnadu this did not happen for political reasons which are beyond the scope of this post. Even today there is no farmers’ party worth the name in TN.

(2)The pressure on land as a resource was not so acute in Tamilnadu. Even 10 years back you could cultivate on ‘poramboke’ (means owned by Govt.) land after developing it and then pay a nominal cost to the Govt. and get it registered in your name. Hence at least some of the resourceful landless labourers had a vested interest in not rocking the boat violently.

(3)In underdeveloped villages small NBFC farmers were owners of small holdings as well as cultivating tenents of absentee landlords. They had no incentive to get organized to fight for land.

. But there was a difference between Kerala and Tamilnadu. As long as the country was ruled by the British they utilized the services of elites from the TB as well as the NBFC communities for grassroot level(District Collector level down to Village Munsiff, Karnam level) administration. For the Colonial Government law and order was a primary concern/obsession, as they had nightmares thinking about what would happen if the teaming millions of India were to ever turn violent against them. So any attempt to disturb the rural equilibrium and the serenity was always cleverly put down quickly and smoothly with a firm hand. Thus you had a police force hovering in the background, which always took steps to see that the then existing equilibrium was never disturbed. You had a land owner, you had a tiller and you also had an agreement sort of thing for cultivating the land by the tiller. As long as the parties to the agreement fulfilled their obligations no dispute was allowed and things moved smoothly—the tiller toiling and moiling in the land and the land-lord patronising arts and crafts and his concubines. Up to this point the history was common to Kerala and TN with very few differences. Every force that lies below the social tension finally gets resolved into an economic factor. That is what had happened in Kerala. It did not happen that way in Tamilnadu.

In Kerala the exit of the British, the western education, severe shortage of cultivable land, the bursting population density were all together a highly explosive mixture. In this scenario,an interesting development played itself out in Kerala which was that dedicated Brahmins were in the vanguard of a revolution as change agents. They were the leaders of the communist party and gave the cadres the right kind of leadership. All this resulted in the revolution that took place there. Brahmins who were the landowners lost their strangle hold over that particular economic factor and the land was redistributed in a comparatively more equitable way. While there was discontent and envy which are natural to humans, there was no hatred at any level. It is as if a Malayali was not capable of all consuming hatred. When communism came to Kerala every one virtually became a communist: that was the kind of enthusiasm because there was nothing sticking out as a sore thumb there. This was the general scenario though there was an exception to this in the Rubber, Cardamom Tea belt in the hills.It is enough to complete the story if we say that the absence of threat of violence and absence of hatred led to a comparatively smooth takeover of the reins of power in rural kerala by the ‘thandaans’ and ‘koyththu panikkaaran’. It is this absence of hatred that is responsible for the smooth relations between the Brahmins/Nairs and other communities in Kerala even today. In your position in the RBI in TVM you would certainly have got the full cooperation and appreciation from your malayali colleagues from other castes despite your being a Brahmin and the only reason can be that they did not have hatred for your community as a whole and they did not see in you a representative of that hated community.

In the organization for which I worked in Kerala(I was leading a team to achieve a certain goal in a given time frame), every time they addressed me Sami ( very much to my embarrassment) they reminded me that I was an ‘outsider’ and yet I had nothing but their love, respect and admiration which they translated into their cooperation in whatever we did.

In Tamilnadu the story is different.



In Tamilnadu side by side with the freedom movement, there was a hideous caste movement led by the NBFC because the Freedom Movement was dominated by the *******. How this caste movement was exploited by the NBFC to hoodwink the landless labourer castes and hurt the Brahmins is history. I will not go into the details of it here as I have written enough of it in other threads in this forum. Hatred is a dangerous weapon. It becomes an opiate in course of time and creates craving and dependence. It takes people to a euphoric state in which all logic is turned topsy turvy and things are looked at in just binary terms(like Bush said you are with us or you are with them. We will bomb you to stone ages). So Sangom Sir, the comparison of Kerala and TN is ok only upto a point. Beyond that different dynamics took over control.

You have asked “Is it not therefore probable that the root cause of the friction/s between the SCs/STs/Dalits and the NBFCs has much to do with the new-born awareness among the SCs/STs/Dalits, who are the farm labour, and the owners of land?”
Right from the beginning the sc/st/dalits were used by the NBFCs as just pickles in their main battle with TBs. In a TN village setting the dalit always remains an untouchable as far as the NBFCs are concerned. He may have become touchable as the next seat student in the class room in college, next seat co-passenger in a bus or train, neighbour in a town or a next seat colleague in an office in the TN Govt. secretariat. But he remains an untouchable to the NBFCs in a marital relationship, in a societal celebration of a temple festival or in commanding levels of administrative or political power structure. It is a question of mind set which has not changed despite education. Most of the politicians, intellectuals and even labour in Tamilnadu are predominantly NBFCs and they are all sold on prejudices. They are unable to see things with equanimity. Hence the answer to your question is that the root cause is not land which is just one another factor of production. There are other much more powerful entrenched forces at work.
Your next question:
So, is it not possible that such a fate is in store for the land-owning class of TN also?

Such a fate is not envisaged in TN for the following reasons:

1. scarcity of land is not that acute in TN as in Kerala. There is scope for further viable fragmentation.

2. The NBFCs of TN are very Machiavellian and have achieved what is ordinarily very difficult or impossible to achieve. They have succeeded in creating a monolith out of fissiparous, quarrelsome plethora of castes. They have successfully used several methods for this: like creating out of thin air a common enemy(read Brahmins), exploiting the constitution to create spoils of power in the nature of reservation for all including many of the NBFCs, a system of spoils distribution and powersharing through mind-boggling channels of organized corruption extending down to village punchayat ward level etc. So today you have the farm labourer Thevar, the street corner grocery merchant Nadar, the dyeing factory worker gounder, the assistant Engineer of TNEB vanniar and many others identifying themselves as part of this monolith, sustaining it and deriving benefits from it. Thus it is just natural and not a manifestation of casteism to select a candidate from the thevar community, election after election, to contest from Muthukulathoor in Ramanathapuram District or Usilampatty from Madurai District. The poor landless thevar who toils in the field alongside a dalit as well as a rural poor toddy tapper Nadar (the equivalent of a thandaan in Kerala) easily identifies himself with this monolith even though the thevar will never accept a nadar or a farm-hand dalit as equal to him socially. It is a huge existential wonder. The monolith is more than the sum of its constituent parts!!

I am not a political pundit to answer to your questions very ‘correctly’. I have made an effort-yatha shakthi. Please let me know if you have a different understanding of the situation.

Cheers.
 
Dear Sangom Sir,

Dear Sangom Sir,

I am not a political pundit to answer to your questions very ‘correctly’. I have made an effort-yatha shakthi. Please let me know if you have a different understanding of the situation.

Cheers.

Dear Shri Raju,

Thank you for the detailed write-up. I will go through it again and come back to you if I have any doubt.
 
suraju,

please may i congratulate you on your post #140.

based on this level of understanding, i am surprised at the sum total of your attitude towards NBs and also all your previous postings concerning this subject.

'The NBFCs of TN are very Machiavellian and have achieved what is ordinarily very difficult or impossible to achieve. They have succeeded in creating a monolith out of fissiparous, quarrelsome plethora of castes. They have successfully used several methods for this: like creating out of thin air a common enemy(read Brahmins), exploiting the constitution to create spoils of power in the nature of reservation for all including many of the NBFCs, a system of spoils distribution and powersharing through mind-boggling channels of organized corruption extending down to village punchayat ward level etc. So today you have the farm labourer Thevar, the street corner grocery merchant Nadar, the dyeing factory worker gounder, the assistant Engineer of TNEB vanniar and many others identifying themselves as part of this monolith, sustaining it and deriving benefits from it. Thus it is just natural and not a manifestation of casteism to select a candidate from the thevar community, election after election, to contest from Muthukulathoor in Ramanathapuram District or Usilampatty from Madurai District. The poor landless thevar who toils in the field alongside a dalit as well as a rural poor toddy tapper Nadar (the equivalent of a thandaan in Kerala) easily identifies himself with this monolith even though the thevar will never accept a nadar or a farm-hand dalit as equal to him socially. It is a huge existential wonder. The monolith is more than the sum of its constituent parts!!'

to me, this sums up the reality, but also left unsaid, the tambram folly. had our community leaders at the dawn of the 20th century been able to see through the social dynamics of the various communities of tamil nadu, had they not blinded by their arrogance, had they not been mentally swelled up by their sense of superiority, they would have quickly come to terms with the so called OBCs (nadars, thevars, vanniyars et al) and play a part to the machiavellian exercise and carved out a piece of the pie for our community.

instead, for the tambrams of that day, it was 'all or nothing'. they were so stupid, that they did not realize the power of universal franchise, they built up this sense of exclusivity (continued to some disgusting level to this day), that they are now the 'pariahs' of tamil nadu.

i have all along saying, that it is our political naiivity and our arrogance and pride, that caused our downfall. you sir, have given enough meat to this bone of a view.

my wifeboss calls. more tomorrow.

thank you suraju. you are indeed a gem. :)
 
Personally, I believe Sri.Raju. If he says he attended a meeting where certain words were said by the speaker, I see no reason to doubt Sri.Raju's words.

In fact, I read such words from the web about 6 months back. But, I don't find that page anymore. (Sometimes I read news about an incident in the morning; after a couple of hours, I don't see any reference of such information. Either the pages get blocked or gets deleted).

Ramasamy Naicker's speeches are known for spreading hatred against one community. He did not choose any diplomacy in his language. If anyone chooses similar approach in the use of language in this forum, such person would be thrown out of the forum by the moderators. That is the reality.

Ramasamy Naicker opposed only Hundu religion in the name of 'rationalism'. He knew he would face unpleasant backlashes had he spoke against Islam or Christianity. Neither Ramasamy Naicker nor the DK party ever had reasonale explanations for this 'selective' rationalism. Nobody could ever convince me defiling a temple and its sorooundings could be counted as 'rationalism'.

M.Venkatesan is from Dalit community. He gives compelling evidences to show Ramasamy Naickar was not supportive to Dalit community. It would be hard for anyone to go past those evidences without addressing them.

Vaikom Dalit temple entry was not Ramasamy Naicker's sole effort; it was well planned and well developed by Sri.Narayana Guru and Kerala Congress before Ramasamy Naicker got involved in that.

Cheers!
 
suraju,

please may i congratulate you on your post #140.

based on this level of understanding, i am surprised at the sum total of your attitude towards NBs and also all your previous postings concerning this subject.

'The NBFCs of TN are very Machiavellian and have achieved what is ordinarily very difficult or impossible to achieve. They have succeeded in creating a monolith out of fissiparous, quarrelsome plethora of castes. They have successfully used several methods for this: like creating out of thin air a common enemy(read Brahmins), exploiting the constitution to create spoils of power in the nature of reservation for all including many of the NBFCs, a system of spoils distribution and powersharing through mind-boggling channels of organized corruption extending down to village punchayat ward level etc. So today you have the farm labourer Thevar, the street corner grocery merchant Nadar, the dyeing factory worker gounder, the assistant Engineer of TNEB vanniar and many others identifying themselves as part of this monolith, sustaining it and deriving benefits from it. Thus it is just natural and not a manifestation of casteism to select a candidate from the thevar community, election after election, to contest from Muthukulathoor in Ramanathapuram District or Usilampatty from Madurai District. The poor landless thevar who toils in the field alongside a dalit as well as a rural poor toddy tapper Nadar (the equivalent of a thandaan in Kerala) easily identifies himself with this monolith even though the thevar will never accept a nadar or a farm-hand dalit as equal to him socially. It is a huge existential wonder. The monolith is more than the sum of its constituent parts!!'

to me, this sums up the reality, but also left unsaid, the tambram folly. had our community leaders at the dawn of the 20th century been able to see through the social dynamics of the various communities of tamil nadu, had they not blinded by their arrogance, had they not been mentally swelled up by their sense of superiority, they would have quickly come to terms with the so called OBCs (nadars, thevars, vanniyars et al) and play a part to the machiavellian exercise and carved out a piece of the pie for our community.

instead, for the tambrams of that day, it was 'all or nothing'. they were so stupid, that they did not realize the power of universal franchise, they built up this sense of exclusivity (continued to some disgusting level to this day), that they are now the 'pariahs' of tamil nadu.

i have all along saying, that it is our political naiivity and our arrogance and pride, that caused our downfall. you sir, have given enough meat to this bone of a view.

my wifeboss calls. more tomorrow.

thank you suraju. you are indeed a gem. :)

Shri Kunjuppu,

Thank you for the analysis of Shri Suraju's write-up. But in regard to your statement, "instead, for the tambrams of that day, it was 'all or nothing'. they were so stupid, that they did not realize the power of universal franchise, they built up this sense of exclusivity (continued to some disgusting level to this day), that they are now the 'pariahs' of tamil nadu.", I will rather say that the Tabra leaders were smug in their belief that the sastraic superiority which they (brahmans) enjoyed in the hindu society (and, by example, among the Christians who were mostly native converts) will continue to last even after the british left. The hoi polloi among the tabras were so much deeply immersed in their concepts of ritual purity and superiority (with a sense of genetic super intelligence and what not — as seen from some posts here even today!) that they were in an advaitic world of maya, so to say ;)

Hence, it was impossible to envisage the tabra leadership negotiating with the lower castes but, I feel that the least they could have done was to broker peace with the NBFC leadership, about whose existence, powers and the favourite treatment it received from the british, there was no doubt even in those days. At that time probably the tabra leaders thought Gandhi and his poorna swaraj (independence) will perpetuate the brahman hegemony as may be gleaned from the two or three speeches Gandhi made in Madras praising brahmans sky-high. Thus, the tabra leaders lived in an unreal world of their own creation, according to me. In this they were childish. I can only sum up the grievances of some of today's tabras against NBFCs, EVR, British etc., in the age-old proverb (slightly changed) ஆடத் தெரியாதவளுக்குத் தெருவு கோணல் ;)
 
Sri.Sangom Sir,

in the age-old proverb (slightly changed) ஆடத் தெரியாதவளுக்குத் தெருவு கோணல்
You have been very polite with that proverb. The way I heard, it goes like this.....

'ஆடத் தெரியாத தேவடியாள் கூடம் கோணல் என்றாளாம்' ! Anyway, I personally I don't see anything wrong with the grievances from Tamil Brahmins today. It may be true, in the past Tamil Brahmin leadership was less than smart; but, the persons affected in the past and as of today are the lower middle class and the poor persons.

In one of the posts ypou mentioned about your grandma talking about 'உப்பெண்ணை சாதம்'; well, that was my staple diet (no oil though) whenever it was available. Half the time it was not available; or it would be so less, I and my sister used to lick all the vessel clean. Idli and dosai were rare. When I did not get a seat in PUC after getting 78% average marks in S.S.L.C, I was not very impressed. All because, I belonged to 'forward community'. But, one good thing happened though.... on that day, when I was waiting outside the principal's office, I decided, my children would not suffer that. They did not.

Cheers!
 
Dear Mr. Kunjuppu,

I do not understand as to why you are surprised because there is no change in my convictions or views about the NBFCs. So far in all my posts I have been critical of their attitude towards other castes and I continue to be critical about that. In my post above I have not changed any thing from this basic position. Now let me see whether I am able to make out your case:

I can derive that you are finding the Brahmins elders of that time to have been stupid in (a) not sensing the direction in which the wind was bl,owing (b)not joining the ‘machiavellian machinations of the large monolith to carve out a pie for Brahmin community(c) being arrogant not to understand the social dynamics of the various communities (d) having an all or nothing attitude without realizing the power of universal franchise

I can further condense all these into just two points:

(1) Brahmins were not smart enough to join the monolith of NBFCs and derive the benefits which the NBFCs derived and (2) The arrogance and pig headedness of Brahmins were responsible for this and their down-fall

In this item (1) is a non-starter. Even if Brahmins were willing to join the monolith the later would not have accepted them into its fold. The reason is simple. The monolith would have lost the very reason for its existence as well as the rallying call. And please read further the last para below.

(2)Brahmins were not arrogant(they had their peculiarities) but were certainly pig-headed. In their obsession with idealism they thought they can develop India into an ideal state by inclusive growth of the really downtrodden. In this they did not mind falling out with the rest of NBFCs of India and took a leading role in including it in the constitution itself in the making of which they had a major say. But lo! Their agenda was stolen by the NBFCs and used against them as well as the really deserving down-trodden.

Chemical Ali was an expert in using chemicals to kill people. The monolith of NBFCs in India are experts in the art of deception. When they found that the constitution itself can be used to inequitably allocate opportunities, they did it to enrich themselves. Chemical Ali has not covered himself with glory and discerning people would like to forget him. Same way Brahmins would like to leave the monolith alone. Of course the universal adult franchise did them in by allowing the brute numerical superiority to decide every thing.

Thank you for your nice words.

Cheers.
 
thank you suraju.

amazing. such great analysis, but so different a conclusion, from that of mine.

only one thing though. i do not believe in the monolithic NBFC bloc. it did not come of its own.we tambrams were responsible for creating it, and all along there were fissures in it.

i think we could take on the justice party, because they played by our rules. with periyar, it was different. he had no rules, and we did not know how to combat him. moreover, unlike the justice party, periyar appealed to the bottom of the pond, the have-nots among the NBs and dalits.

i have been ever so many street corner speeches of dk/dmk and i, from a staunch tambram household became converted to dk pov. one can only imagine how much easier it would have been for the underclass. in those days of 50, 60s, one cannot deny the truth of dk's philosophy, although their language was crude.

today all is changed. which is why i think, with broad based spread of education and upward mobility, follks of all communities will be less concerned about the paapaan's status, and focus on their own. another 50 years in tamil nadu.

kerala has already achieved such a status. also in kerala, the huge muslim, christian population acts as a buffer.
 
thank you suraju.

amazing. such great analysis, but so different a conclusion, from that of mine.

only one thing though. i do not believe in the monolithic NBFC bloc. it did not come of its own.we tambrams were responsible for creating it, and all along there were fissures in it.

i think we could take on the justice party, because they played by our rules. with periyar, it was different. he had no rules, and we did not know how to combat him. moreover, unlike the justice party, periyar appealed to the bottom of the pond, the have-nots among the NBs and dalits.

Shri Kunjuppu,

Shri Suraju says

"I can further condense all these into just two points:

(1) Brahmins were not smart enough to join the monolith of NBFCs and derive the benefits which the NBFCs derived and (2) The arrogance and pig headedness of Brahmins were responsible for this and their down-fall


In this item (1) is a non-starter. Even if Brahmins were willing to join the monolith the later would not have accepted them into its fold. The reason is simple. The monolith would have lost the very reason for its existence as well as the rallying call. And please read further the last para below."

(I am combining both into one post for convenience, Shri Raju, no other intention in my not replying to you direct.)

From what little I have read, Justice Party was on the verge of extinction on the demise of Shri Thyagaraja Chetti, but Rajaji and his group definitely created the phenomenon of EVR (who was a loyal Rajaji group Congressman) and EVR — despite all that is being said about him or against him now— was shrewder than Rajaji and the tabra leaders of Madras of those times. Having left Congress (I am told that EVR was disenchanted by Gandhiji's praise of brahmans, he asked Gandhiji to issue a clarification of some sort, which Gandhiji refused to comply with, in his usual intransigence; subsequently EVR & Gandhi fell out once again when Rajaji made EVR head the Khadi Board.)

I therefore sincerely feel that not only the EVR phenomenon itself could have been prevented, but EVR's skillset could have been harnessed for everyone's betterment, if only the tabra leadership was sagacious, "kavi" as the rigveda would describe them.

I am attaching scans from the same book from which I gave excerpts in another thread "A Few Glimpses from South Indian History" which are relevant to the above, I think.
 

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Shri Raghy,

Personally, I believe Sri.Raju. If he says he attended a meeting where certain words were said by the speaker, I see no reason to doubt Sri.Raju's words.

In fact, I read such words from the web about 6 months back. But, I don't find that page anymore. (Sometimes I read news about an incident in the morning; after a couple of hours, I don't see any reference of such information. Either the pages get blocked or gets deleted).
Quite apparently not everything one gets to read from blogs / forums is true. However, each one is free to make claims of veracity as they so wish to.

Ramasamy Naicker's speeches are known for spreading hatred against one community. He did not choose any diplomacy in his language. If anyone chooses similar approach in the use of language in this forum, such person would be thrown out of the forum by the moderators. That is the reality.
Let us not compare language-civility of the secular world (such as this forum) with language used in religious circles. In religion, there is nothing called civility. To understand how bad language in “scriptures” can be, am giving you 2 examples from Buddhist literature. Am giving these non-hindu examples since it is already well known how the shastras pour scorn on the word 'shudra" in hinduism:

1) Soa Sutta (AN. 3. 221-222) where the Buddha describes the five ways in which dogs are better than brahmins.
2) Commentary of Buddhagosha on Digha Nikaya 3.27 (Ajjanasutta 4) where the mouth of Brahma is compared to something in a derogatory way (please read p.207 of the link).

So, is Buddhism a religion that spreads hatred against one community (brahmins) ? Similarly shouldn’t Smarta-ism (religion of the smartas / smritis) be taken as a religion that spreads hatred against one community (shudras)?

Practically every “religion” on earth (except few like Jainism) indulge in labeling, name-calling, and demeaning other “faiths” in gross-est of terms. The vedic religion must have been the first religion that successfully “demonized” its enemies (demonology / the mind of a demonologist should be interesting indeed).

But characterization happens even today. Till date some sadhu initiates (ex: naga sadhus) are given a danda (stick) to ‘protect’ themselves against 4 enemies (thorns, brahmins, women and dogs). Such ideology is a part of their belief system. Even a white-man, Peter Owen, was given the same advice: hinduism_extreme_pilgrimage.avi (Please see from 37.45 to 38.15).

Now coming to EVR’s writings. If his words should be rejected for spreading hatred towards Brahmins, then should not the Smrithis also be rejected for spreading hatred towards shudras?

If brahmanical ‘orthodoxy’ had expressed atleast regret over the offending portions of the smrithis in the colonial period, then perhaps EVR writings would have never happened (or atleast they wud not have been sooo bad).

Anyways, what do we see even in the year 2011 AD. Every now and then someone will post on how holy / noble the smrithis are. We are told how noble the chaturvarna system was and how ideal the world was then.

So, Raghy Sir, imo, its not right to isolate only one person (like evr) or one religion (like buddhism) for their writings.

Let the present-day brahmins reject smrithis first. Let brahmins / the orthodoxy declare them invalid under a democracy. Then perhaps in future, once a level playing field has been achieved in all respects, we can expect all government offices to remove the photo of EVR from their walls.

Ramasamy Naicker opposed only Hundu religion in the name of 'rationalism'. He knew he would face unpleasant backlashes had he spoke against Islam or Christianity. Neither Ramasamy Naicker nor the DK party ever had reasonale explanations for this 'selective' rationalism. Nobody could ever convince me defiling a temple and its sorooundings could be counted as 'rationalism'.
I too do not agree with defiling idols.

As former Hindus, the focus of Ambedkar and EVR would have naturally been their own religion. To be more precise the focus of both men was anti-casteism, and it is apparent that Islam / Christianity did not create the caste system. So i do not see why should they have spoken about christianity / islam. It is quite apparent that neither of them had explored the quran / bible. They were bothered only about the state of "caste" in their times.

M.Venkatesan is from Dalit community. He gives compelling evidences to show Ramasamy Naickar was not supportive to Dalit community. It would be hard for anyone to go past those evidences without addressing them.
I was hoping you wud mention Venkatesan. I had mentioned Venkatesan in an earlier post on this thread. But anyways, I request you to put forth points from his writings that supposedly are “evidences” to prove that EVR was not supportive to Dalit community.

Vaikom Dalit temple entry was not Ramasamy Naicker's sole effort; it was well planned and well developed by Sri.Narayana Guru and Kerala Congress before Ramasamy Naicker got involved in that.
Before EVR’s involvement there were systematic struggles by others to enter the Vaikom Shiva temple. At one point, one dalawa (kunchikutti pillai) ordered the massacre of 200 Ezhavas to prevent their entry into the Vaikom temple. Then Narayana Guru himself was prohibited from walking on the roads around the temple. But Narayana Guru was a sadhu and not the sort that cud even dream of a violent temple entry struggle.

But everyone (mainly ezhavas) kept persisting with their objective. This article mentions the collective efforts of everyone, (T.K.Madhavan, Congress party, Ezhavas, etc) in settling the issue: Vaikom Satyagraha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A breakthrough of sorts was achieved after EVR was asked to join the Vaikom struggle. The namboothiris made an effigy of EVR and did a yagna to kill the enemy (that is, EVR). Instead the Raja of Travancore (the local king) died. Although EVR was released from prison the temple entry was not achieved. And only the compromise to open the streets in the temple area to all castes was achieved. This was achieved by 2 women (T.K.Madhavan’s wife and Nagamma, EVR’s wife).

Though the word was given (to open temple-streets to ‘low-castes’) it was apparent that the ‘savarnas” would not allow it to happen in reality. It took agitations by TK Madhavan and efforts by Gandhiji to get it done. Anyways I feel perhaps opening the streets to all castes finally happened mainly because the Police Commissioner was a British officer.

This Vaikom temple entry is yet another example of how the orthodoxy was at that time.

Regards.
 
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The NBFCs of TN are very Machiavellian and have achieved what is ordinarily very difficult or impossible to achieve. They have succeeded in creating a monolith out of fissiparous, quarrelsome plethora of castes. They have successfully used several methods for this: like creating out of thin air a common enemy(read Brahmins), exploiting the constitution to create spoils of power in the nature of reservation for all including many of the NBFCs, a system of spoils distribution and powersharing through mind-boggling channels of organized corruption extending down to village punchayat ward level etc. So today you have the farm labourer Thevar, the street corner grocery merchant Nadar, the dyeing factory worker gounder, the assistant Engineer of TNEB vanniar and many others identifying themselves as part of this monolith, sustaining it and deriving benefits from it. Thus it is just natural and not a manifestation of casteism to select a candidate from the thevar community, election after election, to contest from Muthukulathoor in Ramanathapuram District or Usilampatty from Madurai District. The poor landless thevar who toils in the field alongside a dalit as well as a rural poor toddy tapper Nadar (the equivalent of a thandaan in Kerala) easily identifies himself with this monolith even though the thevar will never accept a nadar or a farm-hand dalit as equal to him socially. It is a huge existential wonder. The monolith is more than the sum of its constituent parts!!'

Tribal fights were common. Most certainly brahmins did not create tribal fights. However, the whole idea of placing a subjugated-tribe as a lower caste and the victors as the upper-caste comes from the dharmashastras.

Sometimes i wonder if the 'brahmin' Pushyamitra Sunga in whose reign the Manusmrithi was written was a brahmin at all? Surely he could be taken to be a Smarta (one who follows the religion of the smrithis). But a brahmin? (On what basis?). Wonder if he was a kshatropeta-brahmana, a 'kshatriya' claiming to be a brahmin (???)

Today these fools (nadars, thevars, vanniyars, etc) who fight to claim of themselves as an "upper-caste", should realise that the days of the dharmashastras are gone. They are gone permanently. No matter how much they fight to win, they can no longer expect to claim "kshatriya-hood" for themselves or "shudra-hood" for the losers. All of them need an education.
 
Dear Mr. Kunjuppu,

Your words are in bold letters:

i have been ever so many street corner speeches of dk/dmk and i, from a staunch tambram household became converted to dk pov. one can only imagine how much easier it would have been for the underclass. in those days of 50, 60s, one cannot deny the truth of dk's philosophy, although their language was crude.

today all is changed.


Picking up values is a complicated process. We all pick up our values and build a value system for ourselves early in our life. In this parents, environment, friends, siblings and our own experiences contribute. It is said by experts that each value is added to the core value only after severe tests. The last line highlighted above indicates that EVR's teachings failed that test in your case. And that is a good thing that happened to you though you might have subscribed to his strongest casteist views in your younger age because that is an age in which we go about exploring on the beach and each pebble and shell that is collected becomes a valuable possession while the vast ocean lies there for ever with its waves aggressively challenging you.

Cheers.
 
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Kunjuppu ji,










But overall, its the comparison with jews that gets amusing each time. And i do not find a single north-indian brahmin making such a comparison. Not even brahmins from other parts of south india. To me, its only the tamil brahmin who makes such a comparison. Why wud anyone compare themselves with a group that served as slaves to the egyptian pharaos ?

Only because in Tamilnadu only the Brahmins are treated as intolerable by the Dravidians who happened to be the rulers,and also by people of their own caste who says brahmins are corruptive and equalised to panchamas.In no ware Brahmins are let down by his own tribe.
 
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