Wednesday, 18 April 2018

Caste, Class, Historical realities.

Uma Shankari Raghunandan Tr The way "Hindus" or the caste system in India dealt with plurality, diversity, foreigners and immigrants is worth giving a deep thought and analysis. They simply made them into another caste, gave them a place in the social hierarchy, and even a place in the pantheon, (a deity in a temple in South india has a Muslim consort) , restricted social interaction to economic and political spheres, kept the intimate spheres of family, marriage,eating within the caste, looked the other way when varna sankaram happens as long as the marriage is kept going, and as long as the minorities did not challenge the dominant ruling family/castes....under an overarching principle of "ekam Brahma, bahuda vadanti" . If anyone challenged in politics, it was open war; if anyone challenged the marriage, it was banning or outcasting them...there was ample power play but perhaps not the kind of gory violence, with some major exceptions of course in history (eg. Jains being impaled by the non-jains in South india during the 7th centurey or so...)
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https://www.facebook.com/aparna.krishnan.902/posts/1464895403569759

19 April 2015 at 05:59 ·

 A Julaha (weaver) and a Chamar (leather-worker) take North India by storm in late 15th early 16th centuries Kabir (1440-1518) Ravidas (1450-1520) .

Mirabai a Rajput Princess from Jodhpur/Chittorgarh leaves her palace to roam around like a free mystic , makes Ravidas her Guru (1498-1546) .
Nanak meanwhile forms a commune in Kartarpur and gets people across jatis to cook and eat together saying there is no Hindu and no Muslim (1469-1538) .
They all overlapped each other . That was the beginning of our renaissance .
Babur (1483- 1530) came to Chenab in only 1519.
The reaction against the high and low jatis , the synthesis is pre-Mughal .
For me Mirabai , Guru Nanak and Sant Kabir are the triumvirate that define the beginning of an equitable , plural synthesis defined by incredible flowering of rebellious individual mysticism .
If an alternative to the western "atheistic" consensus and the "semitic-Hinduism" has to emerge , these three will be the fountainheads , that are symbols of the feminine , the syncretic , the creative and the liberative .
Also they symbolise the simpler life . The dignity of labour . The leaving of royalty for a higher love .
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Sethuraman Pasupathy Wonderful. Woh Subah kabi tho ayegi.
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Shyamala Sanyal Tukaram . Dnyaneswar . Gora Kumbhar

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Rahul Banerjee Chaitanya dev 1486 - 1543. All part of the Bhakti Movement. They didn't cut much ice in social terms though as savarna domination continued.

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Aparna Krishnan Thay cut more ice across space and time (to date) than most other social interventionists. And retained a hold on collective conscience. Yes, the entitled will play every trick with themselves to convince themselves that they can morally hold onto their privileges. Nanak's followers would, as would Marx's followers. As much as some would follow in spirit, as well as in word, reducing their possessions to the bereat. Dont you see passionate posts on poverty, with erudite analyses, in FB from those living in gated islands of privilege ? As well as the posistions of those genuinely, and hunbly engageing the the disprivileged.
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Aparna Krishnan Also, as sunny's comments below show, 'savarna' has hardly been a monolothic structure, and the interplay of jatis went on in myriad permul;ations and combinations.
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Prabha Ramanujan Aparna, I am not an expert. So with that disclaimer, we should also take note of the Bhakti movement in the South, the Alwars and Nayanmaars. They were beyond caste and the one thing that bound them was Bhakti.

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Sunny Narang Dhanna Bhagat (born 1415) was a mystic poet and a Vaishnav devotee whose three hymns are present in Adi Granth.
He was born in the village of dhuwa near tehsil Dooni, in the Tonk district of Rajasthan,India in Jat family. All the Sikh Gurus were Khatris or you would consider Upper-Caste , the main followers of the Sikh Gurus were peasants or Jats/Jatts . The Jats are now under OBC in many states but they were the ones who built the Sikh armies and fought the Mughals and set up their own Empire . The most powerful and famous ruler of Sikhs , Maharaja Ranjit Singh was a Jatt . The narrative of upper-caste being in power is highly simplistic , there have been many upward mobile middle castes or better word is Jatis throughout Indian history in every single space . They say Chandragupta Maurya was actually just an herder . The complex matrix that is Indian society with more than 4635 endogamous Jatis and Tribes still thriving , every single community has had its own unique history and elites within , and has been in coalition with some ruling clan or another . Just to understand the continuous dialogue and debate that happens in every single religious community in India is enlightening about who is more powerful, who is less , and how Hinduism permeates every single religious tradition in India regardless of origin . As this debate between Bhapas and Jatts within Sikhism shares " Educated Sikhs, bhapas and jats both, have regretted Ranjit Singh’s aberrations - such as his eve-of-death desire to donate the Koh-I-Noor to Jagannath Puri temple and donations to hundreds of ornament-bedecked cows to Brahmins. But no Sikh has harboured any sentiment excepting pride for his political achievement." http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/The_Jat_-_Bhapa_SyndromeManage

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Sunny Narang In the eighteenth century Sikhs were very successful in establishing twelve principalities or confederacies called Misals (Misal is a Arabic word means alike or equal . At least nine of these Misals were founded by the Jats. The history of each of the Misals founded in the eighteenth century by the Jats is briefly described below . http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/JattManage

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Sunny Narang And among so called scheduled tribes all over India there have been many Ruling Tribes in equal relationships with Rajputs , Mughals , Ahoms . "The Gonds, as a community, however, have a much more varied social profile. While a significant section of this community still lives a close-to-nature life involving hunting-gathering, some forms of agriculture and pastoral activity, some sections are no strangers to political and economic power since as early as 15th century. For almost four centuries, the Gonds ruled almost the entire hilly region of central India, including parts of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Vidarbha in Maharashtra. Give and take with the dominant culture of the Hindu and Muslim royal families of those times, including inter-marriage, was common, leading to the evolution of a ruling class culture heavily influenced by the Mughals in Delhi and the Rajput clans with whom the Gonds alternately fought and entered into alliances with. " http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/the-gond-kingdoms-46701Manage



The Gond kingdoms
DOWNTOEARTH.ORG.IN

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Sunny Narang Then Basava , and Lingayats , again in 12th century challenged Brahmin monopoly and are now a powerful OBC community in its own right . Lingayat (Veerashaiva) thinkers rejected the custodial hold of Brahmins over the Vedas and the shastras, but they did not outright reject the Vedic knowledge. They have their own priests who officiate at the various life-cycle rites, of which the prominent ones are those dealing with birth, marriage, and death. Priesthood among Lingayats is not ascriptive and is open to all irrespective of sex. Lingayats do not consider the world as maya, an illusion, and reject the Hindu notions of karma, rebirth, purity, and pollution. There is no dearth of sects within the tropical forest of faiths in India led by almost every Jati .

Lingayat scholars thrived in northern Karnataka during the centuries of rule by Vijayanagara Empire. The Lingayats likely were a part of the reason why Vijayanagara succeeded in territorial expansion and in withstanding the Deccan Sultanate wars. The Lingayat text Sunya sampadane grew out of the scholarly discussions in a Anubhava Mantap, and according to Bill Aitken, these were "compiled at the Vijayanagara court during the reign of Praudha Deva Raya". Similarly, the scripture of Lingayatism Basava Purana was completed in 1369 during the reign of Vijayanagara ruler Bukka Raya . Tipu Sultan, for example, found the practices of Lingayats offensive and ordered the mutilation of Lingayat women not meeting his dress code. Lingayats today are found predominantly in the state of Karnataka, especially in North and Central Karnataka with a sizeable population native to South Karnataka. Lingayats have been estimated to be about 20% of Karnataka's population.

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Sunny Narang The Ahom are the descendants of the ethnic Tai people that accompanied the Tai prince into the Brahmaputra valley in 1228 and ruled the area for six centuries. Sukaphaa and his followers established the Ahom kingdom (1228–1826) and the Ahom dynasty ruled and expanded the kingdom until the British gained control of the region through the Treaty of Yandabo upon winning the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826. In medieval chronicles, the kings of this dynasty were called Asam Raja, whereas the subjects of the kingdom called them Chaopha (Chao-ruler, Pha-heaven), or as Swargadeo (the equivalent in Assamese) from the 16th century. Nowadays Ahoms form the largest mongoloid community of Assam and North East India. They are in majority in Upper Assam
The Tibeto-Burman locals near the Ahoms gave them the name "Ahom". Many Tai Ahoms practice Hinduism. The Ahom people also practice the ancient and distinct Indian religion Furalung. Given the non-dogmatic nature of Indian religious traditions, an adherent may identify with both Furalung and Hinduism. Similarly, many among the Ahom people practice Buddhism as well. The Tai Ahoms who came into Assam followed their traditional religion and spoke the Tai language. They were a very small group numerically and after the first generation, the group was a mixture of the Tai and the local population. Over time the Ahom state adopted the Assamese language. Except for some special offices (the king and the raj mantris), other positions are open to members of any race or religion. They kept good records, and are known for their chronicles, called Buranjis.
One of its greatest achievements was the stemming of Mughal expansionism. In the celebrated battle of Saraighat, the Ahom general Lachit Borphukan defeated the Mughal forces on the outskirts of present-day Guwahati in 1671. According to Anthony Van Nostrand Diller, possibly eight million speakers of Assamese can claim genetic descent from the Ahoms. However, historian Yasmin Saikia argues that in pre-colonial times, the Ahoms were not an ethnic community, but were a relatively open status group. Any community coming into the socio-economic fold of the Ahom state could claim the Ahom status with active consent of the king. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahom_dynastyManage



Ahom dynasty - Wikipedia
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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Sunny Narang And what are considered as the main "Svarna" or the Rajputs of North India , which had the political and imperial power were themselves a great mix of local tribal and community leaders and Central Asian Huns , emerging only in 8th century . "The origin of the Rajputs is the subject of debate. Writers such as M. S. Naravane and V. P. Malik believe that the term was not used to designate a particular tribe or social group earlier than the 6th century AD, as there is no mention of the term in the historical record as pertaining to a social group prior to that time. One theory espouses that with the collapse of the Gupta empire from the late 6th century, the invading Hephthalites (White Huns) were probably integrated within Indian society. Leaders and nobles from among the invaders were assimilated into the Kshatriya ritual rank in the Hindu varna system, while others who followed and supported them – such as the Ahirs, Gurjars and Jats – were ranked as cultivators. At the same time, some indigenous tribes were ranked as Rajput, examples of which are the Bhatis, Bundelas, Chandelas and Rathors. Encyclopædia Britannica notes that Rajputs "... actually vary greatly in status, from princely lineages, such as the Guhilot and Kachwaha, to simple cultivators." Aydogdy Kurbanov says that the assimilation was specifically between the Hephthalites, Gurjars, and people from northwestern India, forming the Rajput community. Pradeep Barua also believes that Rajputs have foreign origins, he says their practice of asserting Kshatriya status was followed by other Indian groups thereby establishing themselves as Rajputs. According to most authorities, successful claims to Rajput status frequently were made by groups that achieved secular power; probably that is how the invaders from Central Asia as well as patrician lines of indigenous tribal peoples were absorbed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RajputManage



Rajput - Wikipedia
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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Sunny Narang Then the ONLY "Savarna" left that can claim "Purity" is the Brahmin , but then they have a huge hierarchy and roles among themselves according to their ritual professions . As the Brahmin looking after death is lower than that looking after birth and coronations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Brahmin_communitiesManage

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Sunny Narang And most Brahmins were rarely landed zamindars except in few places , they held either advisory or religious power .
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Aparna Krishnan Yes, and stories have the 'poor brahmin' far more than the 'rich pot bellied brahmin'. To sit and make comfortable watertight categories in a land of extreme flux and cxomplexity seems simply intellectual laziness from the Left.

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Sunny Narang So I have never understood who actually is the "Savrana" being a Punjabi from what is now Pakistan , I in all my explorations all over India has never seen any permanent elite 

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Aparna Krishnan How many have in humility searched to understand India in its essence ? Dharampal did, but why is Dharampal far less read than Marx ? The educated are colonized so deep and completely that they will never even realize it. Their terms and notions will stay terms and notions borrowed from the west. The change can andwsill come only from the rooted section. The weaver, the cobbler. And the farmer - Jallikattu.

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Vidyasankar Sundaresan I dislike the very word savarNa the way it is used today. It just does not indicate a person born into a high varNa or medium varNa. It is not the opposite of a-varNa. It can only be used in a relational sense, e.g. you and I are either sa-varNa (belonging to the same varNa) or we are not, that's all.

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Aparna Krishnan All half baked words. None from the ground. The theories seem coined in some western universities given their alienation from the soil !
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Vidyasankar Sundaresan But words have power. The way contemporary India just makes up words and uses them willy-nilly is just unconscionable. And this from the land that gave the Ashtadhyayi and the Tolkappiyam. We are truly a civilization in the worst stages of decline.

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Aparna Krishnan This is in the english educated circles. Sadly the local medium education fares no better - with some half baked spoken-english being their dream. Yes, we are in very very bad shape. As a civilization.
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Sunny Narang Now lets look at the Kayastha , where does he come from ? "In eastern India, Bengali Kayasthas are believed to have evolved from a class of officials into a caste between the 5th/6th centuries and 11th/12th centuries, its component elements being putative Kshatriyas and mostly Brahmins, and likely obtained the aspect of a caste under the Sena dynasty. According to Tej Ram Sharma, an Indian historian, the Kayasthas of Bengal had not yet developed into a distinct caste during the reign of the Gupta Empire, although the office of the Kayasthas (scribes) had been instituted before the beginning of the period, as evidenced from the contemporary Smritis. Sharma further states:
"Noticing brahmanic names with a large number of modern Bengali Kayastha cognomens in several early epigraphs discovered in Bengal, some scholars have suggested that there is a considerable brahmana element in the present day Kayastha community of Bengal. Originally the professions of Kayastha (scribe) and Vaidya (physician) were not restricted and could be followed by people of different varnas including the brahmanas. So there is every probability that a number of brahmana families were mixed up with members of other varnas in forming the present Kayastha and Vaidya communities of Bengal." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KayasthaManage



Kayastha - Wikipedia
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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Sunny Narang Throughout Indian history with its thousand immigrations and invasions , new sects and communities with different ethnic and belief systems have come up. Many came up with new needs and professions and old Jatis mixed up to create new Jatis .

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Sunny Narang Just as now after 1947 , there are new Jatis of the "Vaampanthis" or the various sects of left who marry and stay within the converted , and they are of underground, democratic and mixed lineages . Aparna Krishnan don't worry at all they will add to the 4635 Jatis and be soon another 10-12 new Jatis .

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Rahul Banerjee But the vampanthis are dominated by the upper castes and with the decay of vampanth and the onslaught from the Dalits, these vampanthis are reverting to their upper caste identity!!
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Aparna Krishnan So forget rooted understandings, even integrity is missing.
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Sunny Narang Just like "Brown Sahibs" will be another Jati and "Amrican Returneds"yet another .

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Sunny Narang If we can have 4635 communities , Modernity can add another few hundred , no problem at all. In India just laugh and say , more the merrier 

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Sunny Narang And Aparna each of us now needs self analysis to understand the Jatis we come from, their history and warts and all . have some fun with it . I found out much later in life that I was an "Arora" . Now what is an "Arora " ? The funny thing is that almost every Jati will trace themselves from a fallen Kshatriya or a Brahmin  And the purer Ksahtriya or Brahmin will deny it. Aroras are lower than Khatris but later , especially after 1947 Khatris were marrying Aroras !

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Sunny Narang Denzil Ibbetson, who wrote the Report for the Indian census of 1881, notes that "The Aroras are often called Roras in the east of the Panjab". However, he considers the community calling itself Ror to be distinct from the Punjabi Arora, stating that "I can hardly believe that the frank and stalwart Ror is of the same origin as the Arora" even though they shared a common account of their origin. The account was that in the past they had denied their original status in order to avoid persecution, and were in fact "Rajputs who escaped the fury of Paras Ram by stating that their caste was aur or 'another'", from which word their name came. According to Ibbetson, the belief of the Punjabi community is that in fleeing the persecution there was at some point a bifurcation, with some members moving north and others moving south. From this arose the two major endogamous divisions within the Arora, respectively known as Uttradhi and Dakhna, which in turn had subdivisions. H. A. Rose is more specific, considering this to be the belief of the Arora of Gujarat, who maintain that Paras Ram pushed the community towards Multan, where they founded the town of Arorkot,[b] probably near to the present day Rohri. That town was subsequently cursed and its inhabitants fled in different directions through its north, south and west gates. While Rose agrees with Ibbetson that the Dakhna division is sometimes thought to include a subdivision called Dahra, he states that the Dahra went westwards, rather than south, and that there is also another major division known as the Sindhi of Sindh.[3]
For the purposes of his report on the census, Ibbetson treats the Arora as a separate community from that of the Khatri, although similarly one of the "great mercantile castes". He notes that the Arora claimed to be of Khatri origin, evidenced by their claims to have denied their true origin to avoid persecution, but that the Khatri themselves rejected this. Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, writing in 1896, goes further and states that only the Arora believe this connection to be true. However, a more recent commentator, Scott Cameron Levi, believes that they are a "sub-caste of the Khatris". The Amritsar Gazetteer claims Aroras are very energetic and intelligent. They are mostly engaged in trade and industry. They are superior in business acumen to their counterparts settled in the district. A good number of them have also joined public and private services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AroraManage



Arora - Wikipedia
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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Sunny Narang And look at the multiple division among the Khatris , who lived in Punjab would be considered the "Top Caste " , how history divides them " The word Khatri is derived from the Sanskrit word Kashatriya. Like Brahmins, they are also divided into various groups. The Baunjais (fifty-two) have fifty-two subcastes and contract marriages within these Khatri subcastes. It is said that the Baunjais form that group of Khatri subcastes of the West Punjab, particularly Multan, who submitted a memorandum to Ala-ud-Din Khilji against his order or widow remarriage. Another group of Khatris of the eastern Punjab, who refused to sign the said memorandum, were called ‘Shara-ain’ (law-abiding), which later became corrupted to be called Sarin. Sarins also contract marriages among the subcastes falling under the Sarin group. Another group, called Khokhrain, is said to consist of the descendants of certain families of Khatris who were believed to have joined Khokhars in a rebellion and the other Khatri families were loath to have matrimonial relations with them. Khokhrain khatris are Sethi, Kohli, Chadha, Bhasin, Suri, Sabharwal, Ghai, etc. The group bahri among Khatris does not mean twelve, but groups of those subcastes whose ancestors went to Delhi in attendance upon one of Akbar’s Rajput wives and who, separated from other Khatri subcastes, married only within the said groups of subcastes. The prominent subcastes among Bahris are Mehrota or Mehra, Khanna, Kapur and Seth. There is another group of subcastes, called Dhaigharas, who contract marriages within their own group.
Before the partition (1947), the Khatris residing in the Amritsar District were mainly Baunjais. The Khatris who had come here from the eastern Punjab were generally Sarin. The Khatris of Amritsar, engaged in business, are mainly those of Lahore and Multan. They had shifted to this place when Guru Ram Das founded the town and made it a great religious and commercial center. " http://punjabrevenue.nic.in/gaz_asr9.htmManage

(c) RELIGIONS AND CASTES
PUNJABREVENUE.NIC.IN

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Sunny Narang Simply put the Westernised Left has no understanding of how India has actually lived, changed , reformed , reinvented a million times through thousands of years . They will say "India" is just an "Idea", but that is true for every single human collective based on human imagination . Humans only have stories which they may call theories. And a commonly believed story is a founding story of any people or nation . And anarchists will say we are all individuals , and should make self collaborative groups , which are what Jatis are anyway 

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Rahul Banerjee Jaatis were anarchist in nature at one time and still are at the village level to some extent but they have now solidified into institutions at the state and national levels!!
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Aparna Krishnan Jatis are actually essentially communities with their own practices and gods. They existed, and will continue to exist. 'Down with Caste' is a rather pointless slogan in reality.
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Rahul Banerjee It is indeed a complex situation. There is a joke in Bengal that says that the king Ballal of the Sen dynasty angered by the Brahmins who refused to do his bidding ordered them to be converted to shudras and shudras into brahmins. However, over the past few centuries the caste system has solidified and the accompanying oppression of the Dalits was and continues to be very much a reality.
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Sunny Narang Who is a Dalit Rahul ? Which Jati among the Scheduled Caste ? And what do Dalits think of Scheduled Tribes ?
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Sunny Narang And what do both Dalits and Tribes think of Muslims ?
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Sunny Narang And the other way around ?
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Rahul Banerjee Take the chamars, mahars, maangs and bhangis for instance. They have been at the bottom for quite some time. There is antagonism between dalits, adivasis, muslims etc and it is as I said a very complex situation but that doesn't mean that caste oppression doesn't exist!!
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Sunny Narang What about Class oppression ? And Chamars are among the most powerful businesspeople in Agra shoe business as Mahars are powerful in Maharashtra

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Rahul Banerjee Yes some of the chamars and mahars have become powerful and are capitalists, politicians or bureaucrats but most of their communities are still suffering oppression of both class and caste varieties.
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Aparna Krishnan The sweeping centralized globalized definitions (and 'Dalit' is one, as my own village people identify themselves as Malas, but not as Dalits) may make for heady theories, but that is not what we need when we choose to work with the people. They may serve some role as symbolisims, thats all. Its OK for urban academics.
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Aparna Krishnan In my village the SC community is Mala. They 'look down' on the Madigas, the leather worker SC community in the next hamlet. They 'look down' on the 'Mala washerman family' in their own community as socially inferior. They see the STs, Yanadis in a neighbouring hamlet, as 'inferior'. They feel quite at par with the potter community, equally poor (I think they are BCs). At th same time, these 'looking downs' are very fluid. The Mala washerman family is the hereditary priest for the Gangamma festival, a very respected position. Nagaraj from that family is a mantram vaid, and seeked by all communities near and far. There are a million Indias. and a million perspectives in each which change with time and space. Unless we embrace these realities, we live and engage with a non-existant textbook India.

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Rahul Banerjee The reality of caste oppression doesn't get obfuscated by this kind of looking down which only provides nuance to that reality.
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Aparna Krishnan Every society move towards a heirarchy - please check out the casteless corporate world, starting with the watchman and ending with the CEO. Humans seem to want to 'look down', and 'look up', and its only a deeper spiritual understanding that helps one outgrow that ! We need to operate within the historical reality, even as we try to level, and also try to work out processes of subversive and tangential addressing of this reality.
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Aparna Krishnan Anyway the point I was making was that 'Dalit' is not a bloc, as one sees the nuances of hierarchies on the ground. It is in the nuances one needs to act. Effectively.
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Rahul Banerjee A few swallows don't a summer make!!
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Aparna Krishnan Yes, these one-off stories, like a cobblers daughter getting into IIT are pointless. And they also make it seem as if with hard work the children can open closed rusted doors. Nothing can be farther from the truth, every affirmative action is needed to level the ground en enable these children who face the multiple crosses of poverty, malnutrition and also indignity of their SC parentage.

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Sunny Narang The point is "The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 lists 1,108 castes across 29 states in its First Schedule,and the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 lists 744 tribes across 22 states in its First Schedule." and not more than a few take all the benefits since generations , same is with OBC and same is with many poor so called Forward Castes . I have worked with dozens of artisan castes who have never got a job as the Yadavs and Jats take the jobs and artisan kids have to work extra hours with their families. Most artisan castes have no land either , but they are not "Dalits" or "Tribes' . I know enough about the complexity of Indian Jatis to simplify the large categories of Dalits or Tribes or OBC .
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Aparna Krishnan Yes, and yet among the poor, the SC child faces the double burden of poverty and 'untouchable caste'. I see my own village children face that when they go to college. And that we need to address in more and more focussed ways. That fundamental responsibility cannot be left unfaced.
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Aparna Krishnan Yes, widen the net. And also address the creamy layer.
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Rahul Banerjee There is inequality in every caste. Within Brahmins, within kayastha and so also within mahars and jats and there are many brahmins who are economically worse off than say mahars and in some rare cases may be oppressed by the latter. That doesn't mean that overall the caste and class oppression by the upper castes of the Dalits isn't a notable and much larger phenomenon. Even if class and caste have intermingled and modern india has become an indefinable hotchpotch it is possible to talk of social inequality in terms of a broad upper caste to dalit divide.
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Aparna Krishnan The social inequality and 'untouchability' today is positioned in the divide of modern versus traditional, in english versus vernacular. The kamma landlord and the mala labourer are disadvantaged as opposed to the modern educated tribe. The former are also part of a common world view and way of being, which is being rendered invalid. The earlier divisions need some revision ... with an open mind, and with a deeper understanding od the indian realities, beyond 'caste'.

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Sunny Narang Absolutely Aparna. I have seen in Rajasthan a Dalit being a Sarpanch invited to upper caste weddings , giving Maruti as dowry for his daughter's wedding while almost no one except a few Banias are richer than him in the village . Even two generations of Government Jobs makes a rural family much richer than most farmers who are small and marginal , even if they are of any caste . JNU had created a very interesting matrix for reservation with points .
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Sunny Narang Nowadays the poverty in a arid zone with no water , even with 20 acres of land is more than a marginal farmer in a good water zone.
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Sunny Narang Resource poverty will show how even upper castes in resource poor areas are now daily wage workers in dominant caste OBC areas with water .
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Sunny Narang My point is that what was there even a 100 years ago does'nt hold in the same way , in fact even last 30 years will have changed many local power situations.
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Sunny Narang In Nagaland , it is only Bihari and Nepalese labour that performs the dirtiest jobs .
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Sunny Narang In Delhi the so-called "Dalits" run all the waste bins as a business , they get their 50-60,000 state wage and the Bangladeshis are the new Dalits who work only for the right to separate the garbage .

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Sunny Narang I believe in no generic theory of Indian activists anymore . Each one is just taking simplistic positions for votes just like any mainstream politician .

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Rahul Banerjee This tendency to quote a few cases of Dalits or obcs oppressing upper castes doesn't falsify the larger picture of upper castes controlling indian society , economics and politics. The age of theory is decidedly over but that doesn't mean one resorts to missing the wood for the trees!!
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Sunny Narang No one anyways gets the tropical forest as all books are written by those who have studied only temperate forests 

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Rahul Banerjee Why this obsession with book reading. Academics is blinkered anyways. Like you I set more store by lived experience.

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Aparna Krishnan Sunny Narang And those in tropical forests also study writings of those who live in temperate forests ! Till Dharampal enters mainstream education, till ayurveda enters school textbooks, till 'activists' quote Dharampal and Kumarappa before they quote Marx and Weber, all of the the mainstreame schooled-colleges, and the 'activists' stay irrelevent for this land. But the real people of the tropical lands, both the Kammas and the Malas will come into their own, and that is when the country will come into its own. That is underway.

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Sunny Narang And all of us should read this book, that shows clearly the rise and rise of non upper caste capitalists . Business in India was traditionally the preserve of certain 'Bania' communities clubbed under the Vaishya order of the classical Hindu four-ordersocial hierarchy. The term 'Bania' even acquired a generic connotation referring to any village moneylender, grocer, wholesaler or large factory owner. But more recently, the picture has changed with the entry of businessmen from castes with predominantly scribal/administrative background (Brahmins, Khatris, Kayasthas) or with roots in farming and allied activities (Kammas, Patidars, Gounders, Nadars, etc). 
India's New Capitalists traces the modern-day evolution of business communities in India and captures the rise of new entrepreneurial groups with no established pedigree of trading of banking. The book also contains 15 individual case studies that embellish the general findings. http://www.amazon.in/Indias-New-Capitalists.../dp/0230205070Manage

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Sunny Narang Even the so-called best minds cannot predict what will happen next while the standard left and activist mode is to keep stuck to one's inane theories . ""There are around 13 crore farms, and 6 crore business establishments employing between two and 10 people - they only deal in cash. The trucking business is entirely based on cash." In such a scenario, maintained Damodaran, "proprietorial" capitalism will be replaced by a pinstriped capitalism driven by corporates."How will India look a year on from now?" asked Damodaran. No one really knows the answer to that question, or how the forces unleashed by demonetisation will play out." http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../artic.../55638866.cmsManage

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Rahul Banerjee What kind of capitalism will hold sway is unpredictable but that it will be capitalism is quite certain!!
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Sunny Narang What else exists anywhere else ?

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Rahul Banerjee I thought the discussion was about the existence of caste oppression and not about the existence of capitalism!!
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Sunny Narang This discussion is about how traditional Indian social systems adapt to change across time and how various Jatis are socially upward or downward mobile and that there is no single understanding of permanent lower or upper castes . And every external influence whether its been Islamic invasions or British imperialism or Modern capitalism or Hyper Financial Capitalism or Socialism has affected the caste negotiation . For me all is linked and will always be.

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Rahul Banerjee True but nevertheless oppression of lower castes by upper castes curently is a reality too that can't be obfuscated by saying that the caste system is fluid.
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Aparna Krishnan Rahul, when you talk of the Caste System are you essentially speaking of the SC issue. Or that all castes need to go. In our area, the Reddys, the Kammas, the Balijas, the Doras, the Kumaravaalus are are not likely to surrender their community identity, and their community gods and practices for anyone. Their traditional skills and knowleges also are held in each community and protected through various practices. Certian medicines, for instance, are the domain of certian castes, and they offer that as their adhikaaram ( Adhikaaram means Duty, more than Right in our traditions.). Also each caste is busy making fun of the other castes, and claims its own superiority in a million ways. It is a very intricate picture. All this needs to be factored in before marching to the 'Down With Caste' drums. Thats OK fro the urban, upper class activists who are alienated in many many ways. But with your own decades of involvement with the people in the villages, living with them, your picture needs has to be nuanced.
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Rahul Banerjee I am saying that there is caste oppression and that needs to go.
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Aparna Krishnan i am asking if by that you mean oppression of the SC ? Or that all castes are oppressing each other ??
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Aparna Krishnan And if the 'strategy' is to wipe our castes - and if it even feasible. Desirability is a seperate topic.
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Rahul Banerjee The oppression by the upper and backward castes of the scheduled castes is what I am referring to. It still exists. Don't try to read things into what I am saying which is quite clear.
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Aparna Krishnan The SC issue is real. Untouchability, temple entry, well access etc. have been issues taken on by docial reformer across the spectrum. But otherwise jatis are part of the fabric of this land. Many caste activists question that itself. That is not a practical stand.
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Sunny Narang Aparna let me tell you that majority of Indian intellectuals have zilch idea on how actually India produces in crores of its home , small enterprises with family and some outside labour . In fact more foreign academics and researchers are onto it. The Indian intellectual is stuck in her categories of peasant , worker , Kulak ,bourgeois, capitalist , Landlord , Dalit, Tribal while the world has changed hugely . "This book charts the history of artisan production and marketing in the Bombay Presidency from 1870 to 1960. While the textile mills of western India's biggest cities have been the subject of many rich studies, the role of artisan producers located in the region's small towns have been virtually ignored. Based upon extensive archival research as well as numerous interviews with participants in the handloom and powerloom industries, this book explores the role of weavers, merchants, consumers and laborers in the making of what the author calls 'small-town capitalism'. By focusing on the politics of negotiation and resistance in local workshops, the book challenges conventional narratives of industrial change. The book provides the first in-depth work on the origins of powerloom manufacture in South Asia. It affords unique insights into the social and economic experience of small-town artisans as well as the informal economy of late colonial and early post-independence India." http://www.amazon.in/Small-Town-Capitalism.../dp/0521193338Manage

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Rahul Banerjee Micro, Small and medium enterprises have been the mainstay of the Indian economy and this is a well known fact.

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Sunny Narang And they are all led by Svarana castes 
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Rahul Banerjee Not all but one doesn't know the caste breakup because there is no such census!!
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Aparna Krishnan Eashwaramma, SC, Mala, iliterate, landless, poorer than poor, went to translpant paddy in the land of a Kamma lady. Food is part of the payment. When I went in the afternoon, the Kamma woman came with rice, chicken curry, some payasam, as it was a festival day and it was made at home. Eashwaramma, Nadupakka sat and she served them with traditional village hospitality, asking them to have more. Then they sat together and chatted for awhile, and then restarted work. That is normal behaviour in a village. Civilized behaviour. Yes, there is disparity, yes there is landlessness, and yet, there is a certian camaraderie. It is certianly not realtionships based on hatred. Though the Kammas discuss on how lazy the Malas are. And the Malas discuss on how stingy the Kammas are and how that is why rains fail in this land ! This is AP. I asked my friend Himakiranfrom a village in Avadi, and he said it was the same. That it was in intermarriages that caste violence was seen, and day to day there was sensible engagement.Manage

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