Kunjuppu,
Your post #30:
if we bring out the evils of caste and how it has warped our minds, we are called brahmin bashers. compare please, our hindu attitudes in the usa to that of india. do you think your children will be able to relate to their casteist cousins in india? are they not embarassed when naked display of caste prejudice is practised. that too unapologetically.
Caste is a "given situation" in which we are all born in India. So instead of trying to eradicate castes (which appears to be next to impossible) can we try to do away with the casteist discrimination? I think that is what is practical and is possible. Once we move away from the castes and the so called brahmin bashing (the 'kola veri' is so tempting that many of us are not able to resist it) we can look at casteism as an ill of the society like the Sati which existed in the pre-independence days. This is not an attempt at clever manipulation or escapism and there is sufficient logic, reason and need for going for this paradigm shift. Some of the reasons why we should shift our focus are:1. Caste is a peculiar social practice of the hindu society from the distant past and all the different castes in the society, for some reason which is not clear as yet, had a role in sustaining the practice. Once we accept this truth the internecine fight among us to find a scape goat and blame it will end instantly. 2. The blame game has been going on(with the politicians cheering up and exploiting it to the hilt) for such a long time that it has already sapped the tamil society's energy. At best what has been achieved is that we have hanged the brahmins again and again without a due trial in our emotionally surcharged court of justice. They deserve a reprieve because it is a fact that the society as a whole was and is responsible for the atrocities and discriminations committed in the name of castes. 3. Discrimination in whatever garb is to be fought as it is a violation of basic human right. So looking at it as a human right violation will be appropriate instead of looking at it as a brahmin engineered, dharmashastras generated demon.
atleast folks living outside should, i think, due to their own minority status, understand the handicap that one has to endure due to what is termed 'as wrong birth' in a society.
[h=3]Now we come to the remaining question: Then what is caste? Besides being a given condition what is it that keeps it alive and immune? I think there are adequate info on this and we can take it only if we are open(for a moment unlearning whatever we have learnt/imbibed so far) to fresh ideas which are completely at variance with our entrenched prejudices.[/h][h=3][/h][h=3]There is scientific evidence to conclude that culture strongly impinges on human genes and influence them as a part of evolution.(Please refer to[/h][h=3]
The Evolution of Social Stratification by Robert Boyd (BEC) — UCLA ...www.anthro.ucla.edu/BECtreynor[/h]Behavior, Evolution and Culture (BEC) Mondays 12-1:30 PM Anthropology Reading Room.
And
[h=3]
Boyd: 'How culture transformed human evolution' | ASU News[/h]asunews.asu.edu/20100914_
boyd
15 Sep 2010 – "Culture is an essential part of the human adaptation," wrote
Robert Boyd, a
UCLA anthropologist slated to present a lecture
And
[h=3]
The Evolution of Social Stratification by Robert Boyd (BEC) — UCLA ...[/h]www.anthro.
ucla.edu/BECtreynor
Behavior, Evolution and Culture (BEC) Mondays 12-1:30 PM Anthropology Reading Room.
I understand there is a group in Japan or Korea which has also been doing research in this area. Long back I had the opportunity to read a paper submitted on this topic by them. I have lost track of it and am unable to recall it from my memory/ knowledge base/archive.
If we accept this scientifically proved fact, we can move to the next logical deduction that some groups of human beings living in the sub-continent , at some point of time in the distant past, deleberately chose to follow certain cultural practices each by choosing a certain environment as well. They were perhaps aware that these cultural practices would ultimately get ingrained in them at the level of their very genes. They also thought that this kind of genetic engineering will help the society as a whole. As they did not have the technology to take a gene separately and rejig it instantly, they perhaps chose this tortuous route. We must understand one important thing in this-that they never perhaps had the discrimination or social stratification in their mind when they chose this path. But human nature being what it is, the culturally transformed genes of the groups proliferated with time and became distinctly identifiable castes. With distinct charateristics these genetic groups started jackeying for power and domination in the society. Then slowly in order to retain the power and position stratification of the society on the basis of castes gained currency. All that was needed was just a capable organiser for each group and the society had plenty of them.
At present we have a society in which each group strongly believes that it has certain unique advantages in retaining the group identity and goes for sustaining the group by intermarrying within the group only. So it is ultimately the human nature of fighting for the retention of an existing advantage. If you press and ask any group for a sincere reply what you will get is this”why should we give up an existing advantage?” (the advantage here is not merely economic or health. It is an aggregate of many such desirable qualities) Of course the only exception in all this is the panchaman group which remained/remains in the receiving end in respect of every thing that is socially relevant.
With a sufficiently large sample size and dedicated effort scientists like Boyd can find out what are the specific unique features of culture that have got superimposed on the basic genes of the Indian population. For those who keep harping on the time worn argument of equality of human beings at birth it would be a defining moment.
So Kunjuppu, coming to your lament about the Indians living in other countries and their children feeling like aliens I have this to say: We can look at the Indian diaspora as comprising two distinct groups. Those who are first generation settlers and those who are their children choosing to continue as citizens of that country. For the first generation Indians it is really a dilemma. The cultural impact of the new environment, as it takes time to super impose itself, plays hide and seek with them. They suffer from nostalgia, the nagging doubt about that irreversible decision to stay put(they can never get rid of it and have to carry it to their graves), the drastic unsettling aspects of certain cultural aspects which shocks them occasionally etc., They feel happy in a unique way whenever they visit their home country because the cultural environ is homely. For the next generation the situation is totally different. Right from birth the impinging cultural aspects are quite different. They too will have nostalgia when they grow older but of a different kind. So coming to your “handicap” it will a handicap only when you look at from your point of view-a view which has its base in the cultural values of a distant India. Your children who happen to understand india’s cultural values through the medium of an alien language with all its limitations and from the angle of an alien will have no such handicap. They will, if any thing, quote the veda and say “vasudaiva kutumbakam”. Don’t you agree?
It has become quite lengthy. I could not make it any shorter because of the nature of the subject. I know there will be many in this forum who will think that this is the rant of a casteist brahmin. But there will also be some who will accept the truth in what I have presented. It is for them that I write- the voice of justice and truth is always in a minority.
Cheers.
