Paalaguttapalle (Dalitwada)
Caste System and Untouchabillity
The caste system and untouchability are different. Nobody resents their caste, and the caste is also a strong community concept, with substantial support networks built in. Untouchability when practiced is seen as demeaning, and is indeed deeply demeaning.
Caste gives stability and support to a community. It gives them a social identity and a support network in needs like employment and health. People gather together at marriages, deaths and other functions and the community bonds are reinforced. Caste also gives different communities, under an overarching framework, freedom to practice their customs and beliefs. Often castes live in separate settlements. The Maalapalle is separate, and like other castes, the Maalas are quite satisfied staying in their own space.
There are many occasions where in a caste based society, caste is irrelevant. Anandiah is the priest at the Aanjaneyalu temple in the Reddy village of Varadappanaidupeta. The Maalapalle washerman, though lower in caste, is the priest in all the Maalapalle Gangamma functions. In the Bharatam the gollevaalu are an important caste because they play the flute, as did Sri Krishna. In the Bharatam story and drama celebrations, caste divisions do not exist. All castes together pull the tapasu maanu pole during the Bharatam. Woman of all castes together circle the tree in dripping clothes to pray for a child. In case of snake bites, all people come to Bhagavanthayya to his hut in Maalapalle. People come to Maalapalle to Annapurna to get their blouses stitched. When Vasantamma was working in Venkataraamapuram, she made friends with some upper caste women who would even borrow her gold earrings for weddings.
Untouchability is another story. It is resented deeply today.
Sanjay Maharishi, Bhujangarao Inaganti and 2 others
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  • Ananda Ganesh
    According to smrithis, the only group that was considered untouchable was the 5th varna. This 5th varna is made up of children born to a brahmin mother and a Sudra father. Imagine, the number of such incidents that could have happened. Their number is far far negligible. But, they are given to the profession of preparing liquor and meat, which are very profitable business. To put in summary, the number of untouchables are very very very very very very less in pre-British India. During the caste categorization for reservation, the British brought in many castes under the umbrella of untouchables. The governments from then onwards and the marxist educational institutions have been keeping them untouchables.
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    • 5y
  • Aparna Krishnan
    Untouchability, whether with a count of 10 or 1000, is the deepest blot on th indian psyche. And everything has to be done to atone for this today.
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    • Ananda Ganesh
      Completely agree. If we track back, we would not find untouchability in pre-buddhist scriptures.
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  • Piyush Manush
    So ghettoisation is completely ok here and human beings know no greed so they do not favor their community in grabbing resources , consolidating power structures etc ...what kind of illusions are u living in ...& what kind of engagements are u trying to weave people in ... what kind of benevolence are u expecting from human beings who have killed and are killing their own feotus, children and grown ups if they are women , minority or even slightly different from their own perceived notions of normal.. this apathy from your side is absolutely nauseating aparna ...
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    • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      1. You can call it ghettoization. Thats your privilege. The Reedys live in Varadappanaidupta, The Kammas in Venkataramapuram, the SCs in Malapalle. They are happy with their community practices, and no one will move willingly into another hamlet. It took me some years to understand that. We moved to live in HW because we thought, 'My God, it is outside !'. Then we realized that they are just many scattered hamlets.
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      • 5y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      2. Communities, families have their own meaning and purpose. You can try to make Reddys and Kammas have one vast common practice, and interliving. They will drive you out. Caste will stay. Caste (and class) hierarchies are what need to be challenged.
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      • 5y
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    • Piyush Manush
      because u thought sumthing and because u moved into and because reddy and kammas think like this ... what nonsense and crap
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      Try getting suburban area white folks to live in the inner areas of any American city; or ask South Paris residents to live in the north?
      Segregation by choice is one thing that humans have always done. Exiling is another thing though.
      The epitome of free spirit and enterprise, the place where everyone can come and build their dream blah blah, Mumbai, is notorious for its Brahmin only, Jain only type housing societies.
      Even in the most socioeconomically developed countries of Scandinavia, it's the same. Birds of a feather flock together.
      Despite the 100 years of Dravidian movement and Periyar, 97% of marriages here are intra caste.
      I'd love to live in an egalitarian secular world as described in Sangam era, but how do we go about undoing 2000 years of a system founded on caste. If we look at caste as black or white, we will destroy a lot more than just caste.
      Traditional knowledge is within the castes. As much as I'm proud of my farmer caste heritage, I'm proud of the potters, weavers, butchers too. The so called Macaulay system of education did attempt to change things, but social change is yet to come.
      In the villages it's just caste, but in the cities it's class and caste!
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  • Chitra Sharan
    Even after reading the recent murder in Tamil Nadu which was nothing else but Caste based, you still support casteism 
    Aparna
    ? I am unable to connect with your propagation that Casteism is good.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Every society has communities. In India these are the communities. We need to correct the deviations, but the communities, usually work-based like guilds cannot be wished away. The worst of crimes have to do with SC. I see that as ta seperate problem from the existance of Reddys and Naidus and Balijas.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      urban indians often have notions. i also had notions when i was urban. one needs to move to rural india, and understand the relities thro' living. again, i agree that these realities could vary from locale to locale.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      One needs to face one's limitations of understanding. To understand the realities of India one needs to at least have one foot in rural Inida. The two Indias are unimaginably differnt.
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    • Chitra Sharan
      I am fully aware of my limitations in my understanding. To borrow your words "I am not important" so therefore don't shoot the messenger. Though I must say that I do have limited understanding of rural poor since I have worked, albeit in a small way with them in places like Varanasi and Bhagalpur.
      To take an extreme example I am not a rape victim should I not have a view on rapists? Never never we will be the other in any situation, we are the outsiders always. Casteism is not good, period - and all efforts need to be made to get out of that web.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      What I am trying to say is different. That communities will exist in any society and the hierarchies are what need to be questioned and shatterred. Anyway its ok.
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  • Naveen Manikandan Periasamy
    Aparna Krishnan
     If caste identity denotes the person's profession, then it would make sense as a social structure to enable effective propagation of professional skillsets to the progeny. But, Is that the case today? Hereditary profession has all but vanished except for a few big business owners and due to increased movement and intermingling of people. Should preserving cultural heritage and gaining a sense of community come only through caste designated based on birth?
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    true. and so now caste is simply a community grouping based on some common gods and practices and customs. with intermarriage, that will also slowly get weaker.
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  • Sailesh Bhupalam
    stability and support can still exist without a ban on interdining and death penalty for intermarriage, mostly for the dalit. if these two don't exist, most definitions don't define it as caste. Also, the slaves in America and Europe were quite happy too for a long time, because they are born into it, socialized into it, they know no other way, they think it's not all that bad, even when they are oppressed or discriminated.
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  • Ravishankar Arunachalam
    Aparna Krishnan
    , untouchability or hierarchy are not the only problems. Rigidity and lack of mobility too are. Why should the accident of birth determine your occupation or whom you should marry? Other divisions like rural-urban and educated-uneducated also create hierarchies but they also offer some mobility and it is possible to cross the divide, whether for good or bad. Caste system provides none.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    A potter's child if it really wants to be a weaver can become one i suppose. A weaver will teach. Similarly if a Hindu child feels the deep urge to become a Christian he can. But overall we live within our frameworks. Today that is the reality that operates. And anyway everyone is chasing an empty schooling, and so caste is losing the livlihood structure it was, and will become simply a community as yesrs go.
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    • 5y
    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      It was during Chola period that this rigid structure entered the South and got cemented during the Vijayanagaram & Nayak periods. British came in and squeezed even more.
      Before all of that, there was a more egalitarian society with flexibility and mobility between occupations. Caste purists will refuse to admit that and claim otherwise, but all anthropological, social, literary evidence supports that.
      Amidst all our rhetoric, what we need to realize is all occupations are being destroyed in favor of "knowledge" based occupations in the globalized world, giving a pseudo egalitarian feeling.
      What essentially is happening is, reinforcement of the Varnashramam in a weird way.
      All Shudras, Panchamas are being deskilled and deracinated with education that neither reinforces their existing skills nor teaches them in their language.
      All Brahmins are sitting on the privilege of 4-5 generations of English education while also pushing Hindi/Sanskrit on everyone.
      All Kshatriyas are fighting a losing battle of maintaining control, having lost primacy due to many policies of the govt. They are desperate to get their kids on par with the Brahmins in terms of education but also rue the fact that the old times are gone forever.
      As for the Vaishyas, especially from Gujarat/Rajasthan, they've formed corporate lobbies in Delhi/Mumbai which is destroying all local manufacturing driven business and promoting only import driven manufacturing and trading.
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      Endgame is for all to see;
      Knowledge is stored in written form, handed down in communities.
      When we deracinate and provide education in alien languages, the handed down knowledge is made useless and all professions associated with them are rendered non remunerative, govt policies also ensure the same.
      This leaves us with written down knowledge which gives undue advantage to one group of communities.
      Reason why Hindi and English are forced on us is simple. Our own languages lose importance and all the knowledge stored in them will be lost. Hindi doesn't have any knowledge stored in it and English doesn't help anyways.
      There will soon be a time when everyone will know Hindi just like English and the Shudras will not be able to use it to their advantage. When the resistance to Hindi goes away, it means our languages are dead. Then Hindi will be replaced by Sanskrit overnight and the Shudras will be left scrambling for knowledge!
      This is not a conspiracy theory but the plan of the RSS for Sanskrit. How to use Hindi to eventually enforce Sanskrit.
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      Tamilnadu being a very enterprising state and "developed" has long moved away from simplistic life. Here everything is competition. The worst competition is not between castes but within castes. Most of us get along easily with other caste friends, but find it hard with own relatives!
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      The problem is, people react to the overt casteism of honor killings but don't even notice the subtle casteism which kills a thousand minds everyday!
      Will a Brahmin only or Jain only housing society in the most "cosmopolitan" of cities give the same outrage?
      Will an education system where history of only Brahmins & Kshatriyas is taught give the same outrage?
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      So the Vanniars and Thevars are not chopping each other up all the time - as the Reddys and Kammas are not in my mandal ? We can focus on essentials - modernity, and modern education, and the rapid deskilling, and the deep loss of identity and self image. And as I keep feeling the modern hierarchy is moving very fast to a very different caste system defined by English fluency among other things.
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      • 5y
    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      No, problems only with OBC-SC issues especially marriage involving SC boys-OBC girls and the ill treatment in public spaces like schools, temples, wells, tea shops.
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      • 5y
    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      Wait for my post on English and Macaulay coming later today.
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  • Piyush Manush
    it is a plague of brahmanism that does not allow u to look any further than what is dictated by the priestly class and the books .. hima is referring to the only brahmin and jain housing society and also limiting the caste impact to obc girls vs sc boys intermarriage & a few instances of tea shop disccrimination ... else he says all is k .. i am done here aparna .. good luck to u r kamma and reddy understanding ..
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    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      each and every person is caught in a system not of his/her own making. We tend to denigrate the caste system much more than others. Not that it is right, but it is the reality, now progress is defined by socioeconomic parameters, access to education, healthcare, etc. While achieving all this, the people didn't chuck caste out of their houses or weddings.
      Once in a while, the environment for this gets stronger and we see more and more such instances of casteist expressions of violence, discrimination.
      Many say education & urbanization are solutions, that's why I quoted Mumbai. Cities have class/caste discrimination, villages have caste.
      Tamilnadu has these honor killings, so that makes every person here casteist? While ensuring the socioeconomic development of all, we still have 97% intra caste marriages. So everyone is casteist?
      We have come a long way and have a long way to go.
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Pragmatisim means to accept realities. To face realities means to put aside our notions, and see realities. To see the strengths and weakness of each reality of our society. This is truer of caste than of anything else.
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      • 4y
    • Komakkambedu Himakiran
      Assertion of caste is also happening due to the breakdown of the rural economy and when education/jobs are the only economic answer. That explains the Patidar & Jat agitations, also the Kapu one in AP.
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      • 4y
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Absolutely. When the kammas in our village lose their economic ground, and in a sense feel worse off than the SCs because they cannot even go for NREGA works (and the ones who actually did felt even worse !), their rage against the SCs becomes vast. The only thing they feel they have left is a caste pride which they try to flourish. (Our Kammas are also small farmers - 5 acre holdings). Caste feelings certianly get execarbated when economy cracks up as the hands of WTO, and modernity.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Lakshman Kumar
     ? From your own village ?
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    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      I read through the entire discussion before typing here.... Wow... I should say, rich discussion.... But, I think I will share Piyush's stand here... All those arguemnts about identity and customs of different castes are fine, diversity, we can put it as... But, when it comes to political-social platform, it takes a ugly face of becoming Predators and preys play... Every caste trying to become a predator and trying to prey on other caste within the Geography.. Nope... this is shit.... as rightly pointed by him.
      Now, coming to Ummathur - one of the oldest and prominent head village, forms a junction to many Hamlets.... The Lingayats, a reformary sect formed by Shri Basavanna against the caste oppressions done in Hinduism, now finds themselves as a prominent caste, having their settlements in the core areas of the village, controlling 4 temples and nearly 60% of the agricultural land. Next comes the Gowdas, who satisfied with 2 long streets and having a leg in Village administrative works[Appointed posts] and other in Agriculture... Then there is Kumbarageri - which is settlment of Kumbaras[the potters], their settlement extends to 1 full street - actually, the only settlement which makes sense because the street is adjacent to the areas where Clay is abundant.
      Then there comes the AK Beedhi[Ambedkar Street], the settlement or grouping, that is kept somewhere at the posterior end of the village. Untouchability is still practised, though not widely, but in the households... They don't come into the mantap of the temples, even in 2 of them where My dad takes care. Gopi, a SC uncle who comes to our house to assist dad in farming and cattle works, when ever he comes home - mom makes sure he is well fed and something is given to his little grand daughter. But, above all - the social recognization. ? I once asked dad to tell him to come inside the temple and pray? Dad's reply was ' He is comfortable, where he is ' Inline with yours 
      Aparna Krishnan
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Temple entry has to be demanded and claimed. Gandhiji, and narayana guru also did not compromise on that. At the same time if its a small temple within the Naidu hamlet and they want only Naidus there, I am not sure if I will demand entry there. It may be a longer process of dialogue and tangential addressing.
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    • Lakshman Lakshminarayana
      Aparna
       - 1. Only by waiting for fresh generation and making sure that this Jati Superiority or inferiority (which is created by society itself) is not passed on to further Generation. I think this has already started in our place.
      2. Yes, agreed but I see it as an extension of the caste mentality that originated. It's very idealistic to achieve a Zero disparities, but yet, where does the greater crimes and atrocities takes place against an individual ? Isn't that a right place to begin? 3. To be honest, I don't think it is that easy to say a straight yes, But also yes, it is worth it to put our effort ?
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  • T.R. Shashwath
    You have to understand that the problem people have is not with occupational groups, but with those groups becoming endogamous and insular (violently so), and a person's social standing, their access to resources, etc. being dictated by their belonging to the group. That's where the disgust starts.
    But the bigger question: if you take away that endogamous exclusivity, will the hereditary occupational groups even survive? Are they inextricably linked?
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      heredity occupations anyway i suppose have bit the dust as modernity marches on.
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    • T.R. Shashwath
      So the whole topic is a moot question then...
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      'Insularity' etc are loaded words. As a vegetarian I might be more comfortable married to a vegetarian Other things equal. There are many nuances to everything. Justice, and the most valid way to reach there is the main convern. Justice includes protection on the identity and self worth of every community. Self worth may rest on many minute details of our day to day practices. And modern education destroyes self worth of many communities as little else does !
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      No. Still the sustainable skills are there and we hope to the end to protect them, even against all hope. And a community has more than just skills - beleifs, language, habits, practices, gods, demons ... And of which is its identity, and always in a process of churning.
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    • T.R. Shashwath
      So the challenge is, how do we sustain skills in the absence of a system that sustained them?
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      Dont worry pa. I have lived in a village long enough to understand that jatis are a fundamental fact, as are religions, and will not go. We need to address every perversion that comes in. As regards preserving skills, modernity and modern education are what need to be addressed. And village livlihoods and village self sufficiency. It is that to which all is getting lost.
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    • T.R. Shashwath
      Jatis will disappear once intermarriage becomes dominant. Don't believe me? Look at the west where the process is in a very advanced state. Oh, and if anyone thinks caste systems didn't exist in the west, think again!
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    • Aparna Krishnan
      ayyo. in my village only i have had an intercaste marriage. in the whole panchayat of 7 hamlets maybe ! and i am an outsider. dont bring in the west as an example !
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    • T.R. Shashwath
      It'll happen. Maybe not in this generation, maybe not even in the next. But it will.
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Lakshman Kumar
    , revisited this thread as it is a fascinating exchange. Your point has been than communities live seperately. Yes, they choose to live seperately given their different practices and bonding. What I initially saw as 'injustuce' I later relized was a normal by-choice positioning. Were an activist from outside come and insist that one potter, one kamma and a SC live in sequence, all three would drive the activist away. That different groups have differing powers is something that always has to be addressed. Just as in a comparatively casteless urban setting the employer being more powerful than the maid, or the engineer being more powerful than the pune needs to be addressed.
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