pali,
i agree with you and brahmanyan.
quotas by caste, religious identities are a fact of life. i may be wrong, but i cannot see them disappearing in the next 50 to 100 years. even long after they have fulfilled their uses, they will likely to remain, due to sheer inertia brought about by any change.
i cannot, though but envy sometimes, being a christian in india. they have the largest number of schools and colleges (including medical). i grew up in a largely christian neighbourhood, and had a wonderful childhood.
whereas in my household, not only was there pressure to get the highest marks but also to be one goody two shoe! my christian (mostly catholic) had it easy. on the whole, they had a more relaxed set of expectations from their parents. add to it, even after failing in a class or having marks in the 60s range, did not have any problem getting into loyola or mcch in chennai, or in st.john's medical college in bangalore.
the only christian institution which is rigorous in its admission policy, to the best of my knowledge, is cmc vellore.
double standards? probably. can we do anything about it? no. this is the reality of india, and i believe, for us as a community, to be facing such type of situations (and there may be many others like this) has been the utter failure of our so called political and religious leadership of the 40s, 50s and 60s, who in their infinite stupidity did not foresee the consequences of independence on their own community.
there were several key occassions, when they could have called for an inclusive hinduism and moved all of us together. instead they kept to themselves in their isolation through arrogance and ignorance, with the net result that those who did not migrate, are to feel a sub par treatment of the only true skillset that an average tamil brahmin possesses - his intellect.
brahmanyan's observations re our resilience, is poignant, in the sense, that we have been worsted in our native lands, and sought and achieved what we perceive to be true fruit of our labours in the lands of the mlecchhas. so be it. but i think, if somewhat ironically, our ancestors had a bloody good ride overlording the other castes since the time of manu, and adapted this skillset, successfully, when the muslims and the british supplanted the hindudoms. survivors? yes we indeed are.
in the india of today, there is no idenitity, i believe, without linguistic roots. i used to feel sorry for the sindhi community, when i was growing, as the sindhis were dispersed all over india, without a home-state. coming from kerala, there is a strong identity of statehood, still in my extended family, and pattars are accepted as part of the malayali mosaic. i do grieve, that our tamil counterparts do not have this acceptance among the tamil tribes anymore. it is indeed a big loss, and the sense of isolation must be damning.
i have some theories myself, as to how this can be slowly but steadily reversed. but that process, i believe, requires a level of introspection, which i think, we are not ready to exercise. yet.
)
