What’s the Taj Mahal like from the inside? And Other Stories

re:#17 by Dalit

I do not deny the Dalits had to undergo a lot of hardship and i have advocated political empowerment through the ballot as one of the ways Dalits and other victimised groups can come out of this problem.
But, it is not that simple either. In UP, the CM is a Dalit. Has the plight of the Dalits gotten better there? I hear that Mayawati, the Dalit CM, has amassed wealth. Dalits still vote for her because she is a Dalit. They are her vote bank. Their plight has not gotten better.
Dalit`s fight is against a certain mindset that seeks to divide people on the basis of caste but in reality seeks to maintain their previleges intact in doing so.

Dalits in TN are doing various jobs. I am sure in many places like Bihar, UP, they are forced to do menial jobs. As long as people`s mindset does not change, it will be difficult to bring about a change in the society.

The problem of Dalit in TN is not with Upper Caste but other lower castes like Thevar whose clout has declined to the advantage of the Dalits, creating friction.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-07.htm
``According to the Indian government’s 1996-1997 annual report for the Ministry of Human Affairs, caste-related incidents in 1996 in the southern state of Tamil Nadu increased by 34 percent over previous years. Out of 282 reportedincidents, 238 took place between scheduled castes and other backward communities. The main caste groups involved were the Thevars, Naidars, and Vanniyas (all backward castes) and the Adi Dravidas and Pallars (both scheduled castes or Dalits).228 The number of incidents between Pallars and Thevars increased again dramatically at the height of caste clashes in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu from April 1997 to December 1998. The nexus between Thevars, the police, and district officials in the affected areas was repeatedly reflected in violent search and raid operations in Dalit villages, in the forced displacement of thousands of Dalit villagers, often with the aid of district officials, and in the disproportionate number of Dalits arrested under preventive detention statutes during the clashes. Abuses against Dalits continued following a police raid on the Dalits of Gundupatti village in February 1998 and violent clashes between Dalits and Thevars from October to December 1998. According to the state government, at least 251 people died in caste violence between August 1995 and October 1998``
So, u may have to change your theory. It is not Upper caste versus lower caste. It is the preveliged versus ``not so previleged``. A friction is created when the ``previleged group`` sees it power erode through various means and lashes out. In TN, the brahmins are completely out of the picture.
I suspect, same is the case everywhere else.

Read the following archive to learn how the Dravidian movement, which rallied all the lower castes against brahmins, gave the cry for empowerment of women and spoke against rituals completely failed to deliver the goods, so much so that the same DMK had aligned with the BJP during ABV`s rule.
http://www.media-watch.org/articles/0699/69.html

You say:
``In a hymn from the Purusasukta of the Rg Veda, the dvija are said to have been born from elevated parts of the body of the supreme being. The dalit is the ``unborn,`` with no physical link with the supreme being. According to this hymn,...``

``In the Manusmriti, (3) the dalit is described as ``polluted,`` in the same way as a menstru..``

I hope u realize both Rg veda, Manusmriti are ancient texts and are of no relevance today. Nobody in India remembers or reads these texts anymore. Few in India today can read or write sanskrit. So, quoting these texts is utter stupidity. In India of today, Constitution is supreme and is safeguarded by the Supreme Court. Constitution guarantees reservation on jobs and all other rights to Dalits that any other Indian enjoys. I hope u have not forgotten than Ambedkar, one of the makers of the Indian Constitution, was a Dalit.

Let me quote a passage from Mahabharata, where Yudhisthira the elder of the brothers, categorically states that it is not the birth but the character of an individual that determines one`s caste:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m03/m03179.htm
Excerpts:

(The serpent said, `O Yudhishthira, say--Who is a Brahmana and what should be known? By thy speech I infer thee to be highly intelligent.`

``Yudhishthira said, `O foremost of serpents, he, it is asserted by the wise, in whom are seen truth, charity, forgiveness, good conduct, benevolence, observance of the rites of his order and mercy is a Brahmana. And, O serpent, that which should be known is even the supreme Brahma, in which is neither happiness nor misery--and attaining which beings are not affected with misery; what is thy opinion?`

``The serpent said, `O Yudhishthira, truth, charity, forgiveness, benevolence, benignity, kindness and the Veda 1 which worketh the benefit of the four orders, which is the authority in matters of religion and which is true, are seen even in the Sudra. As regards the object to be known and which thou allegest is without both happiness and misery, I do not see any such that is devoid of these.`

``Yudhishthira said, Those characteristics that are present in a Sudra, do not exist in a Brahmana; nor do those that are in a Brahmana exist in a Sudra. And a Sudra is not a Sudra by birth alone--nor a Brahmana is Brahmana by birth alone. He, it is said by the wise, in whom are seen those virtues is a Brahmana. And people term him a Sudra in whom those qualities do not exist, even though he be a Brahmana by birth. And again, as for thy assertion that the object to be known (as asserted by me) doth not exist, because nothing exists that is devoid of both (happiness and misery), such indeed is the opinion, O serpent, that nothing exists that is without (them) both. But as in cold, heat doth not exist, nor in heat, cold, so there cannot exist an object in which both (happiness and misery) cannot exist?``)
Mahabharata was written much after Rg Veda or Manusmriti and is regarded as one of the Itihaasas. It is still very popular in India. The other 2 are relatively unknown.

The one thing that may change the plight of Dalits is : education. It is through obsession with education alone that Brahmins in India have dominated. As Dalits get empowered, they need to devote their new found previleges towards educating their children.
You seem to bemoan that Dalits are not to be found in new areas like IT while they have jobs reserved in govt sectors. Are u advocating job quotas in IT and BPOs? Surely u realize that these demand quality service and Dalits will have to compete with others on an equal footing. That is why, this is a non-starter.
It is through political empowerment and education alone that Dalits can better their lives. I see no other way. Dalits should not wait for the society to change. That may never happen.
Sridhar

Rohit, my nephew is one of Calcutta`s top student debaters, he`s a law student too. Did any other kids go there or just you lot?
How did the actual debates go?

THE dalit or ``Untouchable`` is a government servant, the teacher in a state school, a politician. He is generally never a member of the higher judiciary, an eminent lawyer, industrialist or journalist. His freedom operates in designated enclaves: in politics and in the administrative posts he acquires because of state policy. But in areas of contemporary social exchange and culture, his ``Untouchability`` becomes his only definition. The right to pray to a Hindu god has always been a high caste privilege. Intricacy of religious ritual is directly proportionate to social status. The dalit has been formally excluded from religion, from education, and is a pariah in the entire sanctified universe of the ``dvija.``

Unlike racial minorities, the dalit is physically indistinguishable from upper castes, yet metaphorically and literally, the dalit has been a ``shitbearer`` for three millennia, toiling at the very bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy. The word ``pariah`` itself comes from a dalit caste of southern India, the paRaiyar, ``those of the drum`` (paRai) or the ``leather people`` (Dumont, 1980: 54).

At 150 million, dalits or ``scheduled castes`` and ``scheduled tribes,`` form about 20 percent of India`s population (Census of India, 1991). Backward castes as a whole, taking dalits, tribes, and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) into consideration, form about 52 percent of India`s population. Today, wide-ranging policies on affirmative action have opened up government service and state education to dalits. But areas of freedom are limited, largely to sectors that are under the aegis of the state, such as the civil service or state-owned enterprises. Exclusion from cultural and social networks emerges from the dalit`s crucial exclusion from the system of castes (Mendelsohn and Vicziany, 1998: 39).

The dalit`s pariah status derives its strength and justification from religious texts. In the Manusmriti, (3) the dalit is described as ``polluted,`` in the same way as a menstruating woman, a widow, or a person who has recently been bereaved is polluted. The dalit is ``unclean`` from birth. He violates, by his very existence, the brahminical obsession with hygiene (Dumont, 1980: 131). While the ``untouchability`` of the menstruating woman or the bereaved is temporary and he or she can escape the Untouchable condition after the period of ``pollution`` is past, the dalit can never escape his status: he is perpetually filthy.

In a hymn from the Purusasukta of the Rg Veda, the dvija are said to have been born from elevated parts of the body of the supreme being. The dalit is the ``unborn,`` with no physical link with the supreme being. According to this hymn, from the body of Brahma come the four main categories of Hindu society, namely the four varnas (colors or castes): (5) brahmins (priests), kshatriyas (warriors), vaishyas (businessmen), and shudras (servants). The priest is born from the mouth of the Creator, the warrior from the arm, the businessman from the stomach, and the servant from the foot. Untouchables are born from outside the body of the Creator, almost a different species from Brahma`s children. Their entry into the divine body would be as unthinkable as the entry of an animal.

Today, the literary and scholarly efflorescence among dalits is set apart from caste Hindu society as a particularly dalit development. Dalit critiques of nation and society barely impinge on upper-caste notions of the social order, of the nation-state, and of modernity in general. The reasons for this are often attributed to the grafting of traditional caste networks onto modern state institutions--for example, the upper-caste seizures of Western education and the higher bureaucracy. The slide of the independent Indian nation-state into a landscape dominated by the brahminical upper castes has meant that new ways have been found to effectively seal the dalit in his ``democratic`` prison (Nigam, 2000).

As a result of legally reserved quotas in government and in state educational institutions, sections of dalits have emerged from agricultural poverty to become middle class. Yet the waters of modern opportunity flow along the fields of the upper castes, which were the main beneficiaries of the professional opportunities provided by colonialism and which also stand to gain the benefits of contemporary globalization, such as opportunities in the Information Technology industry or in the private sector. Thus, while dalit political importance and militancy rises, at the same time the dalit remains segregated from caste Hindu society by the invisible arms of caste.

The word ``dalit`` or ``crushed underfoot`` or ``broken into pieces`` is the contemporary version of the word ``Untouchable.`` ``Dalit`` owes its genesis to the nineteenth-century writings of Jotirao Govindrao Phule as well as to the literature of the Dalit Panthers, a political group formed in 1972 in the state of Maharashtra. British colonial census takers grouped together all those communities` neighbors considered ``polluted`` and called them ``Untouchable.`` ``harijan`` or ``children of god`` was Mahatma Gandhi`s name for dalits. The word ``Untouchable`` is sometimes still used, but ``harijan`` is seen as an equivalent of ``Uncle Tom,`` a paternalistic and condescending categorization of a group doomed to remain in perpetual bondage. Dalit leader Bhaurao Gaikwad observed in 1935 that ``It is no use only giving Untouchables a sweet name. Something practical should be done to ameliorate their conditions`` (Moon, 1987, vol. 4: 230). Today most Untouchable castes would prefer to use the term ``dalit`` as an identity of assertion. The UN Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001 equated ``racism`` with ``casteism``; although this parallel has been systematically criticized, the word ``dalit`` has been interpreted by some activists as equivalent to ``Black.``

Dalits are the main targets of what are termed ``caste-related crimes`. Over 2000 dalits died in the three years between 1989 and 1991 as a result of``atrocities against harijans`` (Memorandum of Dalit Writers Forum, 1996: 9). In the rural countryside, stripping, hacking to death, massacres and lopping off heads are the marks of a horrific bestiality inspired by the unshakeable taint of dirtiness. The dalit body, powerful, suppressed, and perennially dirty from such tasks as removal of dead cattle and waste, tanning, or toddy tapping (collecting juice from the bud of palm tree flowers) is to be violently exorcised, ritually cleansed, from the pure ``Aryan`` body of the Hindu caste system.

It is the argument in this paper that despite the far-reaching legislative and educational quotas for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and their undoubted benefits, dalits still are savagely attacked in the rural countryside and in the urban milieu untouchability still knocks at the closed doors of such institutions as the arranged marriage, the caste Hindu temple, the classical music concert, and the private sector. The cultural hegemony of the dvija remains virtually intact. Dalitness continues to exist as much as an idea as a physical reality. The idea of the polluted bonded servant is so ingrained in the subcontinental mind that the dalit remains at the bottom of the intellectual and emotional landscape of contemporary India, however far he may advance in a public career and agitate for change. Every child born into an upper-caste Hindu family grows up with a mind`s eye image of the acchyut (Untouchable). The Imagined Untouchable is squalid in appearance and it is the religious duty of a ``pure`` Hindu to consider him perpetually inferior.

The Emergence of the Outcaste Pariah: The Dalit and the Brahmin

```If a kalash (vessel) of water comes into a bhangi`s (Untouchable`s) hand,` sing the women of the dalit Vankar caste, `he`ll drink and drink until his stomach bursts``` (Franco, Macwan, and Ramanathan, 2000: 193).

The poor Untouchable! So eager just for water, that when he gets it he drinks until his stomach bursts!

Great efforts suitably portrayed by the author.

The one point I take serious issue with is comparing Lahore with Delhi. No way. Lahore compares with Amritsar or maybe even Ludhiana as far as food is concerned. But to compare this small semi-rural Punjab town with Delhi is showing a lack of knolwedge about Delhi. The only thing common between Lahore and Delhi, today, could be:-

a) The number of people in Delhi weeping about Lahore and vice-versa.
b) The existence of a suburb ``on the other side of the river`` called Shahdara.
c) Urdu speaking people out-numbering Punjabi speakers.

Otherwise, how does Lahore compare in any way with Delhi? Which factual quantifiable parameters would any ``Hai saadaa Lahore`` type wish to compare?

And nothing, as yet, from anybody about the microfine dust on the Wagah-Lahore Railway line. I can STILL fel it stuck in my lungs.

random thought: I recently made friends with a Pathan from Peshawar (well, his ancestral village is somewhere else, and as his father was in the army, he`s spent most of his life in different cities)... the first real Pathan I know. Over-turned many of the stereotypes I had imbibed over time - and reinforced some others!
For one thing, it turns out that just as every thing is a Jewish conspiracy or the act of the Foreign Hand for the Pakistani establishment or its ruling class, for the Pathans, the world is divided into Pathans and Punjabis. To the extent that in some circles, being called a Punjabi is the very worst form of insult - it means someone devoid/incapable of honour.
Maybe this has something to do with the Sikh rule in the 1800s... or maybe it dates back further in time.
Funny how each group has its own particular Other to define itself against.
Sunnis for Shias and vice versa, mohajirs and ansaar (sindhis), English-speaking/modrain and mullah, Punjabis and the rest of the world, Jats/Maliks/Chaudhrys/... and the rest of the world, Pathans (esp. from Peshawar) and Kabulis... the two Sindhis I know well are from well-to-do families in Karachi. One of them really resents the Pathans that have destroyed his city with their ugly katchi abaadian and their lack of respect for a place that they consider nothing more than a temporary abode to which they owe no obligations (this is his interpretation, not mine, nor do I lay claim to its validity on his behalf). There is also Baloch and Kabuli trouble (actually, these are specific cases of the mohajir/ansaar relationship).
maslay-masail...
Homogeneity is such a myth.

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#7:

Urstruly:

``So when are you people demolishing Teju Mehal? I mean Taj Mehal ``

Unfortunately I have to say that even after so many years on Chowk you are still to learn and understand the Bania mentality of Hindus. Hindus will not destroy Tejo Mahal because many tourists are visiting it and Banias are making money of it. If tourists were visitng Babri Masjid as tourist entity, it too would not be destroyed. But now it is destroyed and when Hindu temple comes up, many tourists will visit that as well.

well written.

Thanks for sharing this with us.

One of these years I would like to take a trip myself (in one sweep)

to three countries that remain an important part of me (while I live in a fouth, the USA).

They are:

1) Pakistan, the land of my birth and identity

2) Bangladesh, a land that I spent several wonderful years in and continue to love.

3) India, where my Parents came from (I would love to see their ancestral home).


Just recently I read Sheryar Ahmad`s account (Junoon`s Manager) of his visit with

brother Salman to their ancestral home in Patiala. I would like to do the same

and visit Dilli, Aligarh, Saharanpur and Lukhnow etc etc.

Pray for continuing peace...


Ras

Hey

Thanks for all the comments. Am waiting for the brickbats attacking us ``bleeding heart delusional doves``. (whats the story with doves and peace anyway!!)

Most of the ideas expressed above came after discussions with other members of the group, as well as after reading an article on a similiar theme on Himal.

Just wanted to say that similarly most Indians view Pakistani`s as a fairly homogenous lot, which they are`nt. The contrast between Lahore and Karachi, Punjabi`s and non-Punjabi`s is as much as that between any two regions in India. And these two are cities, in the rural areas cultural differences would be more stark. The idea of homogenity is essentially something that nation states are very fond of cultivating, makes life easier for them.

Rohit,
Thanks for an uplifting article. I think India and Pakistan are like two estranged lovers. They know very well that they have an amazing personal chemistry with each other, but for whatever reason, can never be together. There can be sabre rattling at a distance, but at the personal level, Indians and Pakistanis always behave like long-lost brothers. I bet if you put urstruly and jay physically in one room, they will come out with a common memorandum on peace and brotherhood!! This love and hate relationship is really a manifestation of love, because as the cliche goes, the opposite of love is indifference, and we are certainly not indifferent to each other!! It is just sad and tragic that two sets of people with so much affection for each other have been condemned to live apart for ever.

So when are you people demolishing Teju Mehal? I mean Taj Mehal

Oh great, another peacenik. Get ready to be torn to shreds, buddy.

the next post`s gonna be from Urstruly starting with `Besharam hinduon`; and then jay`ll take over with how many jihad boxes your pathetic eyes spotted in karachi, and then all the rest of the crowd`ll pitch in to make it a nice happy party. Oh well, you won`t the first to stub your toes on the path to peace.

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