There are two omissions in this article which are not unusual when it is about caste in the western press.
1) Caste is to my knowledge not an issue in the Indian Constitution (1947). According to my knowledge the temples have no restrictions either. I have never noticed anything of the kind on my visits to Maharashtra (Bombay, Poona area).
2) There are on the other hand quotas regarding access to university and the business sector of 25% for the formerly under the law "underprivileged". Last summer these quotas were tried to be extended to the medical sector which led to industrial action on side of the hospital staff. Moreover, in the past ( I do not know about the present) Children of Brahmins had restricted access to university education (similar to Soviet Union practices regarding the bourgois classes; India was allied with the Soviet Union as Pakistan was with USA). This led of course to high frustration and sometimes to suicides of these students. (It is today not at all an advantage to be of Brahmin descent in India by the way, as far as I learnt a.o. from a Taxi driver in Poona!).
So far the omissions. Let me add this: there is no society without something like class prejudice from both sides (as you can see from the recent storm at the Big Brother program). India is a democracy and has not been allowed via a dictatorship under a pseudophilantropic flag like communism to create and and then maintain ideal conditions for capitalism. Among others they have a disciplined workforce of the underclasses India can only dream of.
Give India a chance to develop its economy in its traditional democratic way. It needs time that the western capitalism self evidently had without interferences from wellmeaning liberal foreign youths who had embraced a seemingly very philantropic religion. Trying "to make India a Buddhist Country" as the motto of evangelising Western Buddhists can be heard now does not really help - rather the opposite I should like to say.
I have seen a Newsnight program last summer about a Christian Community in Burma being exterminated as a whole. Allegedly they all had been spies. Who believed that? do not mention that to condone any atrocities that may have happened in India - but to give India justice is a difficult task. Among other issues a well functioning justice system does not exist there frustratingly for not only the underprivileged. But again, waht about the justice systems in other Asian countries?
Thanks for your comments. I don't agree about the temples - this is a current issue as you will hear if yo listen to that BBC radio program. In any case the caste based atrocity is quite a strong statement isn't it? The New Internaltionalist suggests that 1 in 25 people suffers caste discrimination!
I think you are right about the constitution and I was thinking of the Scheduled Castes bill which came a little later. Yes there are government jobs for the scheduled castes, and this has changed the lot of many Dalits. Some of my friends however grew up in poverty and were persecuted when they converted to Buddhism. What do you make of the Gujurat Bill which effectively makes Buddhism offcially Hindu?
We all know that there are a lot of oppressed people in the world. I don't think that making this point means much. The fact is that there is a particularly nasty form of prejudice in India, that it persists, and that I am interested in it for a number of reasons: I have friends in those communtites; they are Buddhists like me; I find Dr Ambedkar an inspiring figure who is frequently overshadowed by Gandhi (who was no friend of the Dalits); there is, despite what you say, little or no press coverage in the west of the issues which face Dalits. One can only take on so many issues - I am daily bombarded with requests for help and money for good causes. If I write about what moves and concerns me, it does not mean that I am indifferent to suffering in other places, only that I have limited time and resources.
I don't doubt that India is developing, and that in many places - the Pune area in Maharastra would be a good example - things are changing rapidly. Maharastra, being Ambedkar heart-land, there is probably less caste discrimination there than other places in India which is why the atrocity in September provoked such a strong reaction. If it had been in Bihar, where this kind of thing is more common, it might not have made the news.
I have only ever heard the phrase "making India a Buddhist country" from Indian Buddhists.
Apologies for my error - although I don't think I'll be reading all 70,000 verses of the Mahabharata any time soon to confirm what you say. The one verse from it that continually rings in my head is "Better to do you own duty badly, than the duty of another well".
The fact remains that despite his being considered a virtual saint, a Mahatma, by many Westerners, that the Dalits of my acquaintance think of Gandhi in much less complimentary terms. Gandhi fought against Ambedkar, and wanted to keep the caste system in place, to keep people down. The Dalits do not love Gandhi who wanted to pretend that everything was OK by called them Harijan - children of God. Children of the hell would be better I think. Born into hell. The situation is changing now, and many of my friends would be very offended if you refer to them even as *ex*-untouchables. They were, they insist, never untouchable in the first place. But still the stigma of 100 generations of oppression and abuse are hard to overcome. How he could fight so hard for freedom on the one hand, and for a good chunk of the population to remain slaves on the other, I do not understand.
I find the English class anxiety maddening at times, having grown up in New Zealand. I find the concept of caste incomprehensible, and untouchability beyond even incomprehension - I have no word for it.
JaiBhim Jayarava, I stumbled upon your blog that I must have known long time ago, as I am voracious in anything and everything about dalits, Ambedkar, Buddha and human rights abuse in India.
I thank you profusely for your genuine interest, clarity of thinking about India and Dalits, such a clarity on issues cannot be found in Indian hindus or casteist Indians of any religion except Buddhism. The Indians irrespective of religion, they all practice caste to the core that it is probably the most dangerous epidemic and disease infected Indians without any remedy to eradicate it.
Indians simply do not have the ability to look at things honestly and agree about the existing pathological condition of caste system and poverty, right here we have that example, whoever the commenter Bettina, is the great example of how hindu or Indian mentality works?.
Casteism or caste is the creation of brahmins further strengthened over centuries by the rest, but the brahminism became hinduism by sabotaging the majority of the Indians who were not hindus forcefully made into hindus. The so called Veda, Gita and the manus, all the decorated and highly worshiped hindu scriptures are riddled with words, deeds and activities that promote discrimination. Infact, Bettina's many arguments are highly decorated to shut the foriegner's thought process as if caste system was some kind of a day to day essential practice of the entire world, that is what Bettina argues. Where on the earth, people were taught in their religious scriputures to discriminate their fellow men as upper or lower, ask him?. There are rich, poor or poverty among nations, but neither in America or Europe or even in African nations, one human discriminate other human as untouchable, unseeable, unapproachable and what not....such is the dangerous teachings of the veda or hindu scriptures that is ingrained in hindus or Indians thought process, the sedimentation in their basic mind set is so strong that Indians would rather die protecting the caste system and discrimination that get some insights to treat fellow human as human, this is why, after spending almost 30 years in researching all the religious practices and beliefs, Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, the real and only one Father of India declared to embrace Buddhism and he did so, because, this is the only way of life where humans are not discriminated, there is no room or space, or thinking or tolerance in Buddhism to disrespect another human.
This discrimniation is rampant in India even today, and someone is asking for time to change India, what a pity?. Unless hinduism is dead and hindus realize the dangerous practices they abide by, things will not change even after another 3000 years, in the meanwhile, those oppressed population is do not have to wait for these hindus to change India, the untouchables are the change, they are the one is going to make India a better nation and Indians better people, ofcourse that is what they did during Buddha's period and few centuries after his death, since sabotagery of hindus killed the great nation of India, it is time the original Buddhists, the untouchables take over India back into their hands and change it to make it better.
I have lots written about India, Dalits and human rights violation in my blog, http://upliftthem.blogspot.com
Again, I am so excited to see how good humans are moved by the pathology of India's while the men and woman who live in India fail to see.
Saint Upliftthem
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Ayon said...
Hi Jayarava,
I stumbled upon your blog and I must commend your initiative. I found it both informative and pleasurable to read.
I, myself, am born a Hindu, but have subsequently taken refuge and the precepts. Primarily because of the impression that was made by Buddhist philosophy and doctrines - Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana forms - and my personal understanding that truth about life and living has been much better explained and most appropriately described in Buddhism than any other philosophical system.
Anyways, there are couple of points which I wanted to highlight pertaining to your essay on the Indian caste system:
a. As has already been pointed out by a previous commentator, Gandhi was from the "Bania" caste - traditional mercantile or Vaishya, which is third in the caste system hierarchy.
b. The point you make about the Mahabharata ("Better to do you own duty badly, than the duty of another well"), are you referring to the line from the Bhagavadgita "svadharme nidhanam shreyah, paradharmo bhayaavahah" (better to die doing one's own duties, duties of others are fearful)? My understanding is that at a basic level, we may interpret it asking people to stick to their specific duties ("dharma" meaning duties as prescribed by caste / religion / social status and such like). At another level, though, it may as well refer to listen to your own "calling", so to say (and "dharma" meaning one's nature), and do that with which YOU are most comfortable. The word "dharma", you know, both in the Hindu and the Buddhist contexts, is notoriously difficult to translate by one word. Its meanings assume various textures and connotations based on the particular context in which it is used.
Finally, the Hindu caste system remains one of the most tangible of social evils here in India. Dr. Ambedkar's contribution in alleviating it, albeit in legal and constitutional terms, largely, can and should never be ignored. Here in India, almost every month one gets to hear of caste atrocities in some area or another. Although more visible in the rural areas, caste distinctions are also all too present in urban India, although, as we may imagine, in a much more covert and subtler way. Not unlike the situation of racial discrimination in many western countries.
I guess I end here. My sincere appreciation, once again, and keep up the good work.
Regards,
Ayon, Kolkata, India
Thursday, July 31, 2008
[Image]Think of an Indian politician - chances are if you are a Westerner you either thought of Gandhi or one of his scions. I usually don't like to write about politics or politicians since it only seems to encourage them. In this case however there is a definite tie in with Buddhism in India, so I'll break my own rule just this once.
Now if I asked an Indian Buddhist the same question they would most likely not think of a Gandhi, they would be more likely to think of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. In fact if you asked them about Gandhi they might be quit dismissive of him - which can come as a bit of a shock to those who think of him as a kind of saint who did so much for the oppressed people of Indian. So why would an Indian Buddhist think like this?
The simple answer is this: caste. Caste is the system of social stratification which goes back a 100 generations in India. It attained the status of immutable law early in this era, and is still central to Indian society. Most Indian Buddhists were born into social circumstances, i.e. into a caste, which not only oppressed them, but tried to cut off any escape routes. Caste is strongly linked to the Hindu idea of karma - which has similarities and differences from the Buddhist idea. The main thing here is that one's station in life is determined by the caste one is born into, and that is determined by actions in a past life. If one is born into poverty, oppression, poor health, and few opportunities, then one must deserve it, and one must accept it as one's lot. Clearly this ideology could only have been thought up by a privileged elite. Some castes were thought to be so low down the evolutionary scale, to have committed such heinous crimes in their past life and so brought penury upon themselves, that the mere touch of them polluted a higher caste Hindu - they were the untouchables.
Dr Ambedkar was born into the Mahar caste and at that time the Mahars were untouchable. This typically meant that they were forced to do the dirtiest, lowest paid, most dangerous jobs, denied education, and oppressed in various other ways. Ambedkar managed to escape his fate. Ambedkar found a liberal and philanthropic mentor and sponsor who paid for his education. Mind you he still suffered severe prejudice - and famously had to sit outside the classroom of his primary school listening to lessons through the window. Ambedkar persevered and eventually gained a doctor of law degree from Harvard University. He went on to become the first law minister of India in the Gandhi lead government. Ambedkar was the architect of the constitution of India, and importantly for his people succeeded in the abolition of untouchability.
Clearly Ambedkar was a great man who inspired his people to raise themselves out of the dirt. But why the antipathy towards Gandhi? Gandhiji opposed Ambedkar's desire to free all Indians from caste. Ambedkar proposed abolishing caste altogether, but Gandhi resisted him. He even went on one of his famous hunger strikes to force Ambedkar to back down and water down his anti-caste legislation. Gandhi believed that caste was what held Indian society together. He wanted to maintain caste duty for Hindus which meant dirty hard labour for the untouchables, but to show that it wasn't personal he suggested changing their designation from untouchables to harijans or "children of god". Gandhi spoke out against oppression, against religious intolerance, but he also supported the status quo of the caste system. Gandhi was a Brahmin. The cynical would simply say that was protecting the interests of his caste, or perhaps that he knew that high caste power brokers in India would not accept the ex-untouchables as equals.
1949 came and India became independent and the people formerly known as untouchables did begin to be able to make a few changes. But caste prejudice persisted and the uplift of the oppressed people was resisted. Ambedkar decided that Hindu prejudice against them was too strong. After lengthy consideration he became a convert to Buddhism, and led millions of his people to abandon Hinduism and embrace the Buddhadharma. This did not end the prejudice however nor the persecution, but it helped to give these oppressed people a vision of freedom for themselves and their children.
People who are born into those communities which were formally designated as untouchable, now refer to themselves as Dalit - oppressed. The Dalits revere Ambedkar as a bodhisattva, as a saviour who showed them how they could be free. They don't revere Gandhi because Gandhi was unwilling to treat them as equals. Attacks on Dalits continue to be common place in part so India. On 26 September 2006 Ambedkar's home state of Maharastra was rocked by the brutal rape and murder of the family of a Dalit man. The attack was allegedly committed by high caste Hindus in revenge for his opposition to the building of a road through his fields, and sparked a series of protests and strikes in the State.
October the 14th 2006 marked 50 years since the conversion of Dr Ambedkar to Buddhism. His followers greet each other with Jai Bhim! which means Victory to Bhimrao (Ambedkar)!
8 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThere are two omissions in this article which are not unusual when it is about caste in the western press.
1) Caste is to my knowledge not an issue in the Indian Constitution (1947). According to my knowledge the temples have no restrictions either. I have never noticed anything of the kind on my visits to Maharashtra (Bombay, Poona area).
2) There are on the other hand quotas regarding access to university and the business sector of 25% for the formerly under the law "underprivileged". Last summer these quotas were tried to be extended to the medical sector which led to industrial action on side of the hospital staff. Moreover, in the past ( I do not know about the present) Children of Brahmins had restricted access to university education (similar to Soviet Union practices regarding the bourgois classes; India was allied with the Soviet Union as Pakistan was with USA). This led of course to high frustration and sometimes to suicides of these students. (It is today not at all an advantage to be of Brahmin descent in India by the way, as far as I learnt a.o. from a Taxi driver in Poona!).
So far the omissions. Let me add this: there is no society without something like class prejudice from both sides (as you can see from the recent storm at the Big Brother program). India is a democracy and has not been allowed via a dictatorship under a pseudophilantropic flag like communism to create and and then maintain ideal conditions for capitalism. Among others they have a disciplined workforce of the underclasses India can only dream of.
Give India a chance to develop its economy in its traditional democratic way. It needs time that the western capitalism self evidently had without interferences from wellmeaning liberal foreign youths who had embraced a seemingly very philantropic religion. Trying "to make India a Buddhist Country" as the motto of evangelising Western Buddhists can be heard now does not really help - rather the opposite I should like to say.
I have seen a Newsnight program last summer about a Christian Community in Burma being exterminated as a whole. Allegedly they all had been spies. Who believed that? do not mention that to condone any atrocities that may have happened in India - but to give India justice is a difficult task. Among other issues a well functioning justice system does not exist there frustratingly for not only the underprivileged. But again, waht about the justice systems in other Asian countries?
Kind regards
bettina
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Hi Bettina,
Thanks for your comments. I don't agree about the temples - this is a current issue as you will hear if yo listen to that BBC radio program. In any case the caste based atrocity is quite a strong statement isn't it? The New Internaltionalist suggests that 1 in 25 people suffers caste discrimination!
I think you are right about the constitution and I was thinking of the Scheduled Castes bill which came a little later. Yes there are government jobs for the scheduled castes, and this has changed the lot of many Dalits. Some of my friends however grew up in poverty and were persecuted when they converted to Buddhism. What do you make of the Gujurat Bill which effectively makes Buddhism offcially Hindu?
We all know that there are a lot of oppressed people in the world. I don't think that making this point means much. The fact is that there is a particularly nasty form of prejudice in India, that it persists, and that I am interested in it for a number of reasons: I have friends in those communtites; they are Buddhists like me; I find Dr Ambedkar an inspiring figure who is frequently overshadowed by Gandhi (who was no friend of the Dalits); there is, despite what you say, little or no press coverage in the west of the issues which face Dalits. One can only take on so many issues - I am daily bombarded with requests for help and money for good causes. If I write about what moves and concerns me, it does not mean that I am indifferent to suffering in other places, only that I have limited time and resources.
I don't doubt that India is developing, and that in many places - the Pune area in Maharastra would be a good example - things are changing rapidly. Maharastra, being Ambedkar heart-land, there is probably less caste discrimination there than other places in India which is why the atrocity in September provoked such a strong reaction. If it had been in Bihar, where this kind of thing is more common, it might not have made the news.
I have only ever heard the phrase "making India a Buddhist country" from Indian Buddhists.
Regards
Jayarava
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Well said Jayarava.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Just a quick note, to say that I'm glad you're blogging again after a brief pause, and the new facial hair looks splendid!
All the best,
Will
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Gandhi was not a Brahmin!
His name clearly identifies him as of the mercantile caste, that is the third caste known as vaishya.
Varna properly speaking is not inherited by birth - it is an indication of one's natural aptitudes.
Read the Mahabharata where it is explained quite clearly!
Caste is stricly speaking an endogamous group and usually a racial grouping.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Apologies for my error - although I don't think I'll be reading all 70,000 verses of the Mahabharata any time soon to confirm what you say. The one verse from it that continually rings in my head is "Better to do you own duty badly, than the duty of another well".
The fact remains that despite his being considered a virtual saint, a Mahatma, by many Westerners, that the Dalits of my acquaintance think of Gandhi in much less complimentary terms. Gandhi fought against Ambedkar, and wanted to keep the caste system in place, to keep people down. The Dalits do not love Gandhi who wanted to pretend that everything was OK by called them Harijan - children of God. Children of the hell would be better I think. Born into hell. The situation is changing now, and many of my friends would be very offended if you refer to them even as *ex*-untouchables. They were, they insist, never untouchable in the first place. But still the stigma of 100 generations of oppression and abuse are hard to overcome. How he could fight so hard for freedom on the one hand, and for a good chunk of the population to remain slaves on the other, I do not understand.
I find the English class anxiety maddening at times, having grown up in New Zealand. I find the concept of caste incomprehensible, and untouchability beyond even incomprehension - I have no word for it.
Dr. B.R. "Babasaheb" Ambedkar... jindabad!
Friday, January 11, 2008
JaiBhim Jayarava,
I stumbled upon your blog that I must have known long time ago, as I am voracious in anything and everything about dalits, Ambedkar, Buddha and human rights abuse in India.
I thank you profusely for your genuine interest, clarity of thinking about India and Dalits, such a clarity on issues cannot be found in Indian hindus or casteist Indians of any religion except Buddhism. The Indians irrespective of religion, they all practice caste to the core that it is probably the most dangerous epidemic and disease infected Indians without any remedy to eradicate it.
Indians simply do not have the ability to look at things honestly and agree about the existing pathological condition of caste system and poverty, right here we have that example, whoever the commenter Bettina, is the great example of how hindu or Indian mentality works?.
Casteism or caste is the creation of brahmins further strengthened over centuries by the rest, but the brahminism became hinduism by sabotaging the majority of the Indians who were not hindus forcefully made into hindus. The so called Veda, Gita and the manus, all the decorated and highly worshiped hindu scriptures are riddled with words, deeds and activities that promote discrimination. Infact, Bettina's many arguments are highly decorated to shut the foriegner's thought process as if caste system was some kind of a day to day essential practice of the entire world, that is what Bettina argues. Where on the earth, people were taught in their religious scriputures to discriminate their fellow men as upper or lower, ask him?. There are rich, poor or poverty among nations, but neither in America or Europe or even in African nations, one human discriminate other human as untouchable, unseeable, unapproachable and what not....such is the dangerous teachings of the veda or hindu scriptures that is ingrained in hindus or Indians thought process, the sedimentation in their basic mind set is so strong that Indians would rather die protecting the caste system and discrimination that get some insights to treat fellow human as human, this is why, after spending almost 30 years in researching all the religious practices and beliefs, Dr.B.R.Ambedkar, the real and only one Father of India declared to embrace Buddhism and he did so, because, this is the only way of life where humans are not discriminated, there is no room or space, or thinking or tolerance in Buddhism to disrespect another human.
This discrimniation is rampant in India even today, and someone is asking for time to change India, what a pity?. Unless hinduism is dead and hindus realize the dangerous practices they abide by, things will not change even after another 3000 years, in the meanwhile, those oppressed population is do not have to wait for these hindus to change India, the untouchables are the change, they are the one is going to make India a better nation and Indians better people, ofcourse that is what they did during Buddha's period and few centuries after his death, since sabotagery of hindus killed the great nation of India, it is time the original Buddhists, the untouchables take over India back into their hands and change it to make it better.
I have lots written about India, Dalits and human rights violation in my blog, http://upliftthem.blogspot.com
Again, I am so excited to see how good humans are moved by the pathology of India's while the men and woman who live in India fail to see.
Saint
Upliftthem
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Hi Jayarava,
I stumbled upon your blog and I must commend your initiative. I found it both informative and pleasurable to read.
I, myself, am born a Hindu, but have subsequently taken refuge and the precepts. Primarily because of the impression that was made by Buddhist philosophy and doctrines - Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana forms - and my personal understanding that truth about life and living has been much better explained and most appropriately described in Buddhism than any other philosophical system.
Anyways, there are couple of points which I wanted to highlight pertaining to your essay on the Indian caste system:
a. As has already been pointed out by a previous commentator, Gandhi was from the "Bania" caste - traditional mercantile or Vaishya, which is third in the caste system hierarchy.
b. The point you make about the Mahabharata ("Better to do you own duty badly, than the duty of another well"), are you referring to the line from the Bhagavadgita "svadharme nidhanam shreyah, paradharmo bhayaavahah" (better to die doing one's own duties, duties of others are fearful)? My understanding is that at a basic level, we may interpret it asking people to stick to their specific duties ("dharma" meaning duties as prescribed by caste / religion / social status and such like). At another level, though, it may as well refer to listen to your own "calling", so to say (and "dharma" meaning one's nature), and do that with which YOU are most comfortable. The word "dharma", you know, both in the Hindu and the Buddhist contexts, is notoriously difficult to translate by one word. Its meanings assume various textures and connotations based on the particular context in which it is used.
Finally, the Hindu caste system remains one of the most tangible of social evils here in India. Dr. Ambedkar's contribution in alleviating it, albeit in legal and constitutional terms, largely, can and should never be ignored. Here in India, almost every month one gets to hear of caste atrocities in some area or another. Although more visible in the rural areas, caste distinctions are also all too present in urban India, although, as we may imagine, in a much more covert and subtler way. Not unlike the situation of racial discrimination in many western countries.
I guess I end here. My sincere appreciation, once again, and keep up the good work.
Regards,
Ayon,
Kolkata, India
Thursday, July 31, 2008