Re: [IAC#RG] Brahminical views on minorities, population, current events, and governance

Rina Mukherjee could have also added the caste status of the highest rung of the present  government, the President of India. But then, she would have had to recall what President Narayanan in his last address said about the real situation of SCs and STs in India. 

I know the current oppressors of dalits are mainly OBCs. This is because the OBCs are 'the masses' of India, the numerical majority, now raising their Shudra status by acquisition and control of land, regional politics, and since the 1990s, by supporting the Hindutva cause to prove themselves. But can we ignore the subtle and gross insults SC/STs face daily even in the elite educational institutions they study or work in including IITs, AIIMS, other high level technical institutes that lead many to suicide. Remember Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad and the young ttribal woman doctor in Mumbai? This kind of pervasive discrimination could never happen in an truly egalitarian society. I submit that we - who find ourselves higher up in the traditional caste ranking - cannot possibly appreciate the situation children of dalits (who are also first time literates in their families) face from primary school to university.

And please remember that the first Schedules of castes including SC/ST/PTGs were formulated by the British, not some enlightened Indians of the time. B. R. Ambedkar was castigated for his views on villages being "dens of iniquity" due to the stranglehold of caste, by the Brahmin majority in the Constituent Assembly that worked on the Constitution. Please read the CA debates of that time. 

Let's not fall prey to complacency about India's persisting caste problem just because the socio-economic disabilities often including extreme poverty afflicting the lives of dalits don't resonate with us - would you, for example, ever want your children to choose manual scavenging as a livelihood because that was the only job available to them that did not have lakhs of candidates to compete with? 

Other highly hierarchical cultures have eradicated the problem of their unclean castes - in Japan, for instance - by erasing names denoting parents' place of residence which infallibly connoted caste status. Yet despite equal opportunities in education and upward economic mobility gained by the Eta and Buraku low castes, deep biases persist in high class Samurai families in terms  of who their daughters may unwittingly choose to marry.

Joya Roy

On Wed, 18 Mar 2020, 17:35 Rina Mukherji, <rina.mukherji@gmail.com> wrote:

It is a flawed reading of the CAA that has people talking of it as unconstitutional, and against to our constitutional Right to Equality. The CAA is only a humane Act that has been necessitated by the anti-minority policy of our Islamic 

.neighbour, Pakistan, and fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan and Bangladesh that have forcibly driven minorities across the border into India. High time this is acknowledged.

As for flouting the Right to Equality, haven't we practised positive discrimination in favour of the scheduled castes and tribes ever since independence? 

In fact, if these anti-CAA protesters were so concerned about human rights, they would welcome CAA, and not raise the spectre of discrimination that they are crying out loud about. 

Where casteism is concerned, Ms Joya Roy should so some ground-level research about the way it is practised in certain regions plagued by it ( particularly in the south and parts of north India). Flogging a dead horse in the name of Brahminism wont do. The truth is, it is not the Brahmins, but the intermediary castes who inflict the atrocities on the SCs.  

The governments ruling India have indeed been upfront at tackling untouchability and been extremely fair. That is the reason we have seen CMs like Mayawati ( an erstwhile Inspector of Schools) and leaders like Jignesh Mewani ( a qualified legal professional, the son of a banker) emerge. Doesn't it say a lot about the vertical mobility in India for SCs/Dalits?

Dr Rina Mukherji

Pune/Kolkata

On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 2:44 PM Prodipto Roy <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:

It's typical of the selective perceptions of upper castes that they ignore both the latest official data analyses on population growth and the hate crimes and violence including rape, lynchings and murder of minority community members such as happened recently in North East Delhi with full cooperation of the police (not under Delhi govt.but under the central Home Ministry). 

They won't deign to see news videos or read about police attacking students in Jamia and JNU using their lathis not as sticks to  beat people with but as lethal bayonets. Thus they won't care to learn about how most of the girl students injured in the second round of police violence against Jamia protesters were hospitalised for grevious injuries to their stomachs, kidneys and private parts, i.e., all below the belt, as it were. Do these commentators  think it's okay to give them mob justice because they are minority students (most of them were Hindu, btw) or the 'anarya,' to whom upper caste rules of conduct towards adversaries don't apply ?? 

Do these good Brahmins know that although it is Muslims who are targeted for disenfranchisement by the CAA, millions of poor, illiterate,  Hindus too will be cast into gulags called detention camps in the Northeast? Why do they overlook the fact that a majority of sane thinking Indians - those who have heads and sound cognitive faculties, that is - also oppose the NRC and CAA as being unconstitutional, a criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise millions of helpless citizens and non-Hindus. Even Hindus from upper class families will be unable to produce documents relating to place of origin of their parents and grandparents! Is this the India you want? Is this the government you want to support, that works against the Indian constitution and colludes with rabid mobs or paramilitaries who kill Muslims, adivasis, dalits, and dissenters with impunity?

If the upper castes, particularly Brahmins, want to return to their erstwhile role as educators, intermediaries between humans and gods (read 'governments' in the present context), scientists, philosophers and policy makers, they must first study India's hoary traditions of logic, debate, valid cognition and Nyaya. After this process of re-education, they will  be able to critique their own false assumptions, blind spots, selective perception of what the government controlled media tell them and they may even appreciate what dissenters of all hues have been saying against the RSS-Golwalkar-VHP- Bajrangi Dali-BJP view of what India is.

Joya Roy

On Tue, 17 Mar 2020, 10:44 Gopalkrishnan iyer, <iyer_ga@yahoo.com> wrote:

All said and done our resources are getting depleted and it is necessary to contain numbers. Besides civilization continue to evolve and reforming ourselves is a must.

Pursuant to "independence" the majority population in India rose by around 3 times whereas the "minority" rose by about 8-9 times, it appears!

We have learnt many things over these periods and the current disturbed situations that minority want to dictate to the country how it should function.

The violence that errupted recently and the hate speech that reverberated in the recent times further reinforces that one religion wants to rule the world, and particularly India. If the population grow in an unbalanced rate the minority will become majority sooner than later and would be at the helm of affairs.

Assuming that democracy would continue, despite, a religion which exhort kill or convert as the directions of its lord, the theme and purpose exemplified beyond the slightest doubt and looking at the easy way of passing laws through ordinances it would not be out place to visualize that day when we all or our 2nd generation see  India pervading and dominating with today's minority!! 

These are my personal views and appologise if I have strayed away from topic! 

On Monday, 16 March, 2020, 09:31:44 pm IST, Anand Gangoli <indiaresists@lists.riseup.net> wrote:

What is important at this stage is to decide whether or not India

should pass a law prohibiting Polygamy. It is immaterial whether some

king in Hindu Mythology had 3 wives or 15, or whether some saint or

prophet more than a thousand years ago had 4 wives or 13. Nor is it

material whether our PM worships a red idol  or a black stone. What is

important is that he is the elected Prime Minister and has every right

to make laws that are beneficial to India. I  believe that polygamy is

bad, and banning it would be beneficial to India. For many reasons.

Population growth is one, the other is from the perspective of human

rights-polygamy goes against the concept of equality between men and

women. I am sure there would be others. Therefore I am very clear that

our PM must make a laws abolishing Polygamy.

Just to set the records straight with respect  Joya Royji's email of

15th. The campaign for abolishing sati was led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy-

no one can take any credit away from him for uprooting this heinous

practice. I should have mentioned his name in my earlier e mail.

Apologies. But there was a lot of opposition to his proposal from the

Hindu community. In spite of the opposition, Lord William Bentinck

passed a law abolishing Sati in 1829.  This is one few good things

that the British did for us.

Coming to the subject of untouchability. Joya Royji has vastly

exaggerated the problem of untouchability as it exists in the present

time. Central and state governments do not discriminate when it comes

to giving employment in government services. In fact they are giving

increased opportunity for employment. There are punitive laws that

discourage the practice of untouchability. All air travellers know

that the cabin crew that serves refreshment on flight can be from any

caste. The public sector Airline give preference to SC/ST candidate. I

have never seen any passenger asking the cabin crew for his/her caste.

If anyone were to do so, I am sure the Captain would be well within

his/her rights to offload him. The same goes for any hotel/restaurant

. Does anyone ask the waiter or a barber in a saloon what his caste

is? Does anyone dare ask someone sporting a moustache or driving a car

( not easy to find anyone sitting on a horse these days !) what his

caste is? The credit for this improvement should go to all governments

who have held power since our independence.

I hope most of us agree. Polygamy is bad and must go.

Jai Hind

Anand Gangoli

On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 3:09 PM Anand Gangoli <anandgangoli22@gmail.com> wrote:

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