February 14, 2007
Untouchability: Not Going AwayIssues
Straight from the title, “Hidden Apartheid: Caste Discrimination against India’s Untouchables,” you know that the new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) out today is pulling no punches when it comes to qualifying the extent and seriousness of anti-Dalit discrimination in India today. The comparison with apartheid gained significant political cover two months ago when the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, drew the link in public remarks at a conference in Delhi. Here’s the prime minister:
Singh said: Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our society that is fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general. The only parallel to the practice of untouchability is apartheid, he said. Untouchability is not just social discrimination, it is a blot on humanity, Singh said.
Calling for a political, social, cultural and intellectual battle, against such discrimination, the PM noted that constitutional and administrative measures alone are not sufficient. Our government is deeply and sincerely committed to the equality of all sections of our society and will take all necessary steps to help in the social, educational and economic empowerment of Dalits. This is our solemn commitment, Singh said.
Of course the gap between legal remediation and actual practice has been precisely the problem for 57 years, since the Constitution in 1950 outlawed untouchability in all its forms, with further legislation added over the years. The continuing discrimination against Dalits also violates the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which India is a signatory, as the convention covers not just what its title narrowly suggests but in fact “race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” At any rate, this gap between theory in practice is well known, and the problem has always been to end the actual practices of discrimination, violence, and humiliation that Dalits encounter across India to degrees that perhaps (probably) vary by region and locality but are never, ever trivial.
Consider a few choice quotes from the report’s summary (you can download it or read the whole report online here):
Dalits fundamental civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights are routinely violated by state actors and private individuals, in violation of Article 5 of the Convention. Caste-motivated killings, rapes, and other abuses are a daily occurrence in India, resulting in routine violations of Dalits right to security of person and protection of the state. The police have systematically failed to protect Dalit homes and Dalit individuals from acts of looting, arson, sexual assault, torture, and other inhumane acts such as the tonsuring, stripping and parading of Dalit women, and forcing Dalits to drink urine and eat feces. surveyed. …
India has failed to address the multiple forms of discrimination faced by Dalit women. Even as compared to Dalit men, Dalit women do not have equal access to employment opportunities or justice mechanisms. They must contend with threats to their personal security, including trafficking and sexual violence. In some states in India, Dalit women are forced into prostitution under the devadasi system and are ultimately auctioned off to urban brothels. This puts them at particular risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. …
The right to own property is systematically denied to Dalits. Landlessnessencompassing a lack of access to land, inability to own land, and forced evictionsconstitutes a crucial element in the subordination of Dalits. Land reform legislation is neither implemented nor properly enforced. When Dalits do manage to acquire land, access to it is often denied. …
The denial of the right to work and free choice of employment lies at the very heart of the caste system. Dalits are forced to perform tasks deemed too polluting or degrading for non-Dalits. According to unofficial estimates, more than 1.3 million Dalitsmostly womenare employed as manual scavengers to clear human waste from dry pit latrines. Dalits comprise the majority of agricultural, bonded, and child laborers in the country. …
Manual scavengers are routinely exposed to both human and animal waste without proper protection. This has severe repercussions for their health; most suffer from anemia, diarrhea, vomiting, and respiratory diseases. In many cities, Dalits clear sewage blockages without protective gear. Over 100 die each year from inhaling toxic gases or from drowning in excrement.
The difficult thing is that much of the discrimination against Dalits is well known and considered a fact of life. This isn’t the kind of report that breaks major news that everyone can immediately mobilize around. Rather, it’s a compendium of practices and contradictions and hypocrisies that are all too often recognized individually but either shrugged away as a whole, or, just as often, so daunting in their totality that it’s hard to know what to do. Besides, the only effective political mobilization against these practices will come from Dalits themselves, which means overcoming patterns of intimidation and resignation that are age-old and surmounting a collective action problem of enormous magnitude.
The principal author of the NRW report is a desi sister. Her name is Smita Narula and she is an assistant professor of clinical law at NYU, having previously worked at HRW as their senior researcher for South Asia. You can read more about her here. She also has an audio clip in English and Hindi on the organization’s website in which she states the principal findings and the importance of the issue.
siddhartha on February 14, 2007 12:11 PM in Issues · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our society that is fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general
well, groups like the burakumin occupy a similar role in japanese society. this isn't a culturally unique aspect to india, it is simply extended and magnified by the nature of caste and the way hinduism has evolved in south asia.
second, does anyone here know any dalits in the USA? just curious. many here like to drop hints about their high caste antecedents (sometimes by flogging them) no matter their religion, but i think this is a partial reflection of the caste/status origins of brownz. so straight up, 15% of south asian brownz are dalits, has anyone met a brown dalit fam in the USA???
I met one, but they're FOBs. I know the guy from college (India).
Ok, that was meant to read 'I know the guy from my college days (India)'.
But Razib, its hard to tell. You don't (and shouldn't) bring up caste in a polite conversation. Back in college I had no idea what anyone else's caste was. Sometimes you found out, but it was mostly by accident.
Unfortunately, the Govt's reservation quota policy is definitely not working, as it only helps the 'creamy' layer. The vast majority of dalits do not benefit from those policies at all.
I know a dalit family that lived in Vancouver area and they were treated like crap by other South Asians, due to there caste. They had worked in several south asian restaurants, where they were underpaid and over worked.
They did not seem happy living in Vancouver, so I able to help them open the very 1st indian restaurant in my home town several hours away from Vancouver.
This family was of a christian background, and were sponsored by a christian organization that helped them get into Canada.
Razib,
I know quite a few of Dalits, friendships originating from India, and some of them are now in States.
One of them is a IIT-IIM combo graduate.
As Sakshi told you, you find by accident or someone shares that information with you or one happens to be a prominent politican (Kanshi Ram wagehera, wagehera). Asking someone caste in India in setting that is a public space (University, Government Bldg.) can land you in immense shit.
I have met several engineers and tech-support people from dalit or other very simple background. I use this construction because people dont always self-identify as dalit. In one case, the respondent was very clear that they were from the "mochi" community and quite proud of his achievements.
My perception is that over the last 10 years, the small middle-class of dalits and others established thru govt reservation in the 50s and 60s has been able to educate itself and get some of the better paying jobs. So its been a combination of govt reservations and the expanding private sector that has done the job for them.
There is an appalling lack of interest in mass education both from "official" india and the so-called dalit leadership. A brief survery of various dalit "liberation" sites will show enormous effort devoted to proving brahmin perfidy, bitter complaints about the past but almost no focus on establishment of schools or other forms of constructive action. The only exception to this are the christian evangelicals.
Sobering as hell. Has there been no change for the better at all in the last 60 years?
This makes me hang my head in shame, I wish for once the discussion here doesnt degenerate into an India bashing and India defending bitch fest and we can focus on this grave issue and what we can do to find a solution.
Asking someone caste in India in setting that is a public space
yeah, yeah, i know. i'm talking about the USA. people here drop hints or talk about their familial caste origins all the time. i don't know many american brownz so i don't know how it is in this community.
The extent of social injustice in India is shocking. I was not aware of this since I always thought of Gandhi and mother Theresa and whatnot as examples of Indian generosity and spirituality. But I have been seeing very troubling things lately. Recently I watched a film called "Maya" and was left speechless by the appalling system of sexual abuse at the heart of hinduism! The worse part is that the whole village, including the parents of these innocent children consider ritual sexual abuse to be "normal" and even a "blessing"! That blows my mind.
I'm curious as to how much state action is involved in this discrimination. That end of the problem has a more attainable solution than any private discrimination. It boils down to enforcing laws that seem to already exist. Likewise, there seems to be a lot of legislation in place to protect Dalits from private discrimination, but laws can only go so far. Laws only affect actions, they cannot have an impact on mindsets. This is why I don't think the problem will ever go away.
Well, it hasn't happened to me.
Maybe it was more common with the previous generation. I don't know many desi uncle-aunties in the US.
"Besides, the only effective political mobilization against these practices will come from Dalits themselves, which means overcoming patterns of intimidation and resignation that are age-old and surmounting a collective action problem of enormous magnitude."
a combination of the force of law, dalit mobilization and pressure from other hindus (including the oft-maligned RSS) recently resulted in a victory for dalits wishing to worship freely at the Jagannath temple in Orissa. initially there was strenuous opposition from upper castes in the area, then they relented and allowed dalits in via separate entrance and separate darshan vantage points. but the dalits and others rightfully objected to this condescension and those windows were demolished and dalits now use the same route. it's early days yet, but so far i haven't read of any problems. it's probably not much given the scope of the discrimination mentioned in the report, but it's a sea change for the temple and hopefully it will spark a sea change in attitudes that will produce a ripple effect in other areas of daily life.
Maybe it was more common with the previous generation. I don't know many desi uncle-aunties in the US.
i'm talking 1.5 & 2nders.
Movies are meant to entertain and (occasionally) provoke thought. I wish people would stop using them as an introduction to alien cultures. So you watch Gandhi and think India is wonderful, then you watch Maya and think it is horrible? Well India is neither that wonderful, nor is it that horrible. It is (surprise, surprise) somewhere in between: just a country and a culture like any other.
That practise is not the heart of hinduism. It is an aberration and practised by an extremely miniscule minority. So if you think its some kind of Indian version of the Magdalene Sisters, its not.
It boils down to enforcing laws that seem to already exist.
State actors, especially at the village level, believe in caste hierarchy. So why in the world would they enforce laws that challenge that understanding? This started off as a religious problem, its much more than that now obviously, but it would be helpful to go back to basics. I know of one group I read about that recently tried to do just that.
Its also sobering to recall the words of Swami Vivekananda. This is what he said about Kerala 100 years ago:
" it is no use fighting among the castes. What good will it do? It will divide us all the more, weaken us all the more, degrade us all the more. The days of exclusive -privileges and exclusive claims are gone, gone for ever from the soil of India, and it is one of the great blessings of the British Rule in India. Even to the Mohammedan Rule we owe that great blessing, the destruction of exclusive privilege...That Rule was, after all, not all bad; nothing is all bad, and nothing is all good. The Mohammedan conquest of India came as salvation to the down-trodden, to the poor. That is why one-fifth of our people have become Mohammedans. It was not the sword that did it all. It would be the height of madness to think it was all the work of sword and fire. And one-fifth--one half-of your Madras people will become Christians if you do not take care. Was there ever a sillier thing before in the world than what I saw in Malabar country? The poor Pariah is not allowed to pass through the same street as the high-caste man, but if he changes his name to a hodge-podge English name, it is all right. Or to a Mohammedan name, it is all right. What inference would you draw except that those Malabaris are all lunatics, their homes so many lunatic asylums, and that they are to be treated with derision by every India until they mend their manners and know better. Shame upon them that such wicked and diabolical customs are allowed; their own children are allowed to die of starvation, but as soon as they take up some other religion they are well fed. There ought to be no more fight between the castes."
Much has changed since then. In many respects Kerala is a very enlightened place. But much remains to be done.
has anyone met a brown dalit fam in the USA???
I want to say yes, because it would be statistically impossible to know as many desis as I do, and not know a Dalit.
At the same time though, when does this ever come up? I mean, it's not like you use your caste for any social purposes here in the US. It becomes one of the irrelevant-but-interesting facts.
Also, I'm not sure how many 1st and 2nd generation types self-identify as Dalit anyway.
when does this ever come up
i don't know. i only encountered this a few years ago when i started socializing with brownz. the main tendency was for brahmins to mention offhand they were brahmin (or imply it), and other groups (e.g., syrian christians & ismailis as two examples) to imply brahmin ancestry. other groups like rajputs have a high status too. i thought it would be irrelevant, but it seems like bragging about how your great-great-great-great...father/mother was a king/queen of nowhereland.
anyway, the only reason i brought this up is that most 1.5 & 2nd genz find caste as it is implemented in india rather abhorrent. on the other hand, if they're mostly the "top half" anyway and that's who they socialize with they don't have much personal experience with this reality.
It becomes one of the irrelevant-but-interesting facts.
Not at all. For starters, just see how even sub-castes from Indian subcontinent in North America and UK have their own separate places of worship, even Sikhs. For that matter, Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh carry over their hierarchical divide across the oceans, and it gets manifested from time to time.
I agree with Razib (comment #. 19). I also agree with Razib that there is nothing unique in social divide, as he gives examples of Japan, Korea, etc.
This is gonna sound really bad but a few years ago before I moved to Vancouver I didn't even know that I was from a jatt background[ I was that much of a coconut/whitewashed]. I had no idea what a jatt was.
I could care less about being of jatt background. But alot of jatt's like talking about there jatt background just so they can say the word jatt. It's kind of funny if you think about.
Here is a link on banning the manual work done by some. Lots of money are being spent to eliminate this but the corrupt politicians may make it longer to implement.
One of my friends who is SC(Scheduled Caste) or ST(Scheduled Tribe) is in the US, Most of my friends are either Dalits or from lower castes and they are successful in their careers. If not for Affirmative action/Reservation system they wouldn't have achieved that kind of success.
There is lot of discrimination against Dalits in villages, but caste has become somewhat irrelevant in cities and big towns. Human Rights Watch may be exaggerating or generalising the problem, In some parts of India Dalits are really strong as a political group and are reasonably successful. South Indian states have made some progress in Socio-economic terms, its the North Indian states I am worried about.
Dalits are not monolithic entity, there are different sub castes in each state, people from some of those sub castes are doing better than others.
[quote]
Recently I watched a film called "Maya" and was left speechless by the appalling system of sexual abuse at the heart of hinduism!
[\quote]
Yeah, sure, whatever.
Why not stop by in Boston where it transpires that the heart of the christian
catholic faith is the anal rape of young boys by catholic priests?
Sorry, this was a bit too much to let is pass....
The problems with dalits in India is for real, no body can deny it. The poor uneducated dalits from villages of India are the biggest casualties. But Mr Manmohan Singh should have an introspection with his party people before anything else, because congress is the single biggest guilty party for the plight of dalits in India today.
They have been in power for the majority of last 60 years and all they have done is that to get votes,they made shoddy ill implemented reservation schemes. The beneficiaries of these reservations have only been the incompetent people from creamy layer and it has done almost irrecoverable damage to the image of dalits and to the relations between dalit and so called upper caste.
Today a guy from upper caste has deep resentment towards the dalits because they (upper caste) think that dalits get all the opportunites even if they dont deservee it, which is ironic cause the real needy people hardly get anything.
So if the idea is to make everyone equally miserable, these people have accomplished there goals.
Not at all. For starters, just see how even sub-castes from Indian subcontinent in North America and UK have their own separate places of worship, even Sikhs.
Interesting. I have to admit, I've never noticed this, i.e. the practice of subcastes having different temples. I live in a smaller Midwestern city that just has one temple, and it seems to have become the social nucleus for the local Indian community. There is something of a North-South divide, but that's not really a caste issue.
What Razib mentions about Brahmins and Rajputs casually dropping in mention of their background in a conversation rings very true with my experience. Also, everyone knows what Brahmin last names are in every part of India I've lived in. I'm not surprised it isn't more prevalent in the US partly because desis are more likely to stick together there in general, but also probably because the self-selection mechanism meant that more upper-castes and educated upper classes (the two do coincide a lot still) ended up in Amrika. So there isn't as much opportunity to practise old-fashioned discrimination.
Regarding temple entry laws, someone noted:
Temple entry laws go back to the 1950s, Dalits there fought tooth and nail for the right to enter temples that upper castes didn't want them to. A year or two ago a court in TN I think ruled that Dalits can also be pandits, which is pretty revolutionary.
The HRW report is depressing as all hell but it's important for us to read it. All to easy to think this sort of thing doesn't exist when you don't see it all around you every day, as most of us don't.
"Temple entry laws go back to the 1950s, Dalits there fought tooth and nail for the right to enter temples that upper castes didn't want them to. A year or two ago a court in TN I think ruled that Dalits can also be pandits, which is pretty revolutionary."
that's the important thing, that the state and the police in Orissa finally intervened and upheld the law. support from ordinary hindus of all castes who made a public outcry about it also helped. no one element is going to create a huge change - all three have to work together.
Both Abhi and Yo Dad have mentioned their brahminhood on SM. What do you make of that? Most of the time it is meaningless. It is no different from saying you are gujju or bong. Making an issue of this would be stifling for most hindus.
In the villages, all communities have their own temples. Nobody bothers going to anyone else's temple. It is only the NGO types looking for things to problematize who have decided to make an issue of this as if there are not problems enough without having to concoct some. As for the bigger temples that deny entry to those they consider unfit - they are pretty non-discriminating in their discrimination. Indira Gandhi was not permitted entry into the Jagannath Temple. Neither was a friend of mine because she was in a skirt and they weren't convinced she was hindu. And why must the JC traditions set the standard for this anyway? They are actively looking for people to join their flocks and naturally invite you in. Hindus have no such agenda and are more concerned with respecting their traditions so can be justified in telling someone to keep out. Again, in the local temples this is not a problem as people are indifferent to this. Incidentally, no brahmin can go into a dalit temple either.
As for the atrocities, I think it is time these were examined for exactly the crimes that they were. If a person is murdered, let's call it murder. It is ridiculous to say he was murdered because of his caste specially since 90% of the time the atrocities are committed by the so-called low caste people too which is a fact they conveniently fail to mention.
This may be the most depressing line in the whole post. As long as the only people who care about oppression are the oppressed, nothing's ever going to get done.
Gujju and Bong are references to geographical locations, it is a bit different.
Anyway, what exactly ARE dalits? Are they an ethinic background? Are they of African ancestry as claimed here http://profile.myspace.com/
index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=89293119
and here
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=15115869
that's the important thing, that the state and the police in Orissa finally intervened and upheld the law. support from ordinary hindus of all castes who made a public outcry about it also helped. no one element is going to create a huge change - all three have to work together.
Absolutely. The Vaikom satygraha involved groups of peoples from many castes - so -called high and low, Periyar, Narayana Guru, Gandhi, and even Brahmins like Rajagopalachari. Dalit mobilization, while the single most crucial ingredient, isn't enough. The muredrous stranglehold of Jim Crow wasn't broken by Blacks alone.
And there are no takers by the way. Who'd want to go into a dead-end profession anyway? Many Sanskrit colleges and pathshaalas are shutting down because nobody wants to do this job. Again, it is easy to pounce on these things and make a political issue of them. But even among the pandits there are different schools and they accept only their kind of pandits. The harijans and tribals have always had their own traditions for death and marriage ceremonies etc. It would not occur to them to get a brahmin pandit to do their rituals.
A year or two ago a court in TN I think ruled that Dalits can also be pandits, which is pretty revolutionary.
Interesting. Can I get a link to a story. I hadn't heard of this before.
It actually kind of bothers me that a court would do this. While I appreciate the importance of a government mobilizing to end systematic discrimination, isn't this the government interfering in a religious practice? What's next, a statute that says every non-Dalit in India has to have at least one Dalit person to dinner once a week? (Yes, I exaggerate).
As an aside, TN has a long tradition of temples with non-Brahmin priests, and this court ruling (jeez!) may have been along those same lines.
It's incredibly sad to think about, isnt' it, that Dalits should be continued to be treated badly? It's disgusting.
Clueless
I always knew my family was a Jatt family, but that is because as one of the first wave of immigrants to the US in the sixties, they went to regional conferences that sometimes overlapped with caste: In my parents case, Haryana/Jatt. The ten people in this demographic in our part of the US would have meetings, which I suspect, would be subsumed by larger Indian or South Asian gatherings today. We stopped going when I was a kid because they had made their own life and own friends after a time and because they didn't particularly want to self-ghettoize themselves in one ethnic community. I never thought of it as caste, but as a regional thing, somehow. It's like, that's the part of India my family is from. Weird, but's that's how it was presented to me.
On another note, in the past I've been surprised by some of the north-versus-south vibe of the comments section, particularly by western born/raised desis. Wierd thing to internalize, but entirely natural, I suppose. Also, a lot of demeaning comments towards one caste or another, which, again, surprised me considering the 'aren't well all South Asian' vibe that happens here. And the whole, I'm a Guju thing, that happens around SM. There are so many layers to identity and I'm always intrigued by the patchwork that results. It's as if caste, reworked in the Western diaspora context, becomes a sort of soft regionalism. Am I out of line with that?
Also, what's a Rajput? I mean, II've never heard about that term in context of a caste. Is it one? I didn't know that.
I see people on SM dropping the Tam-Brahm reference all the time, when speaking of the south or TN. I can see how announcing that you are Tamil might lend some color to your perspective on the south or Tamil Nadu, etc., announcing that your tam-brahm however, IMHO, lends nothing to your view point, unless the discussion is specifically about Tamil Brahmins. So why do it?
I'm not trying to start something here, I'm genuinely curious.
MD,
i'm with you. the funniest thing to me is when brownz assume their regional idiosyncrasies are brown-normative. i've done it myself. oh, and another thing is the use of terms like 'gora' as if everyone will understand it (and most do). i had to email and ask someone if gora was a word bengalis used cuz i'd never heard it....
Oh, and I forgot to add one other thing: biography is a strong component in these comment boards, or has been since so many discussions are about identity, and it becomes hard not to mention all the things that are in the biography. So, I don't think people mentioning they are brahmin is necessarily suspect, in that context.
Hema - I read about it in passing, here's the first reference I could find, though it's an editorial.
Government regulation of temples and religious activity/exclusion was always controversial (see Robert Baird Religion and Law in Modern India and numerous articles by Marc Galanter) as an intervention in religion and private behaviour, but the case made for it back in the day was that religion and caste permeate so much of everday social life that not intervening to prevent caste discrimination could actually prevent people from accessing basic human goods.
That may well be, but there are enough cases of Dalits being beaten up for trying to enter temples reported in the newspapers (a basic news search/Lexis Nexis/Indian newspaper databases will bring up several) to suggest that not all villages have caste-sorted temples. It could also be that Dalits wish to enter temples they have been excluded from as they move up the socioeconomic ladder/attempt to mainstream?
Strongly suggest everyone reads the full report, btw, a lot of it is in point form and recommendations so it's not as long as it looks.
That makes total sense. But why don't you see anyone say "being a Tam-Mudaliar" or "being a Tam-Chettiar" or "being a Tam-Thevar"?
Sorry - above post was me. I was trying to address MD and put the name in the box. Sorry.
Uh oh, we have two different MDs....MD 39 is not MD #42. :)
Hey, thanks for clarifying! I've used this boring old handle for so long. If I knew I was going to be a long term commenter I would have come up with something more clever, rather than the initials of my name.
but the case made for it back in the day was that religion and caste permeate so much of everday social life that not intervening to prevent caste discrimination could actually prevent people from accessing basic human goods.
Yes, I can see that. To the extent that discrimination in providing basic services and amenities is bad, it should absolutely be stopped. I have no issues with the US Civil Rights Act prohibiting segregation in restaurants, hotels, etc., even though those are private entities, and customers are engaging in private conduct, for example.
But religion is a different thing, in my opinion. Would the courts feel as comfortable telling the Church of South India who it could pick its bishops from? Caste is too often seen as uniquely a Hindu problem, but it's a social problem, and IMO, social behavior usually escapes government regulation/enforcement.
So, I don't think people mentioning they are brahmin is necessarily suspect, in that context.
doesn't matter in the USA. americans don't care/note such distinctions.
It actually kind of bothers me that a court would do this. While I appreciate the importance of a government mobilizing to end systematic discrimination, isn't this the government interfering in a religious practice?
The DMK tried to do it in the 1970s, a body of Tamil Brahmins filed a counter-petition, and the Supreme Court sided with the Brahmins and struck it down as a violation of Hindu tradition. More recently, the Supreme Court (in 2002) ruled the very opposite - based upon its reading of Hindu texts, it concluded that all Hindus are eligible to be temple priests. The DMK law - welcome, imo -is consonant with the 2002 ruling. There has been no uproar AT ALL from the Hindu public in TN about the ruling btw, which tells me that they don't perceive an "intereference" in their religion. :-)
There has been no uproar AT ALL from the Hindu public in TN about the ruling btw, which tells me that they don't perceive an "intereference" in their religion. :-)
Not surprised at all. I've discussed things like this with folks in India many times, and they don't share my libertarian concerns about government and social justice. :)
doesn't matter in the USA. americans don't care/note such distinctions.
i have been asked my caste by americans and europeans thousands of times, often out of curiosity. but then i have spent most of my life around campus towns.
also, remember, most of the friendly discussions were not at all condescending but mostly desire to learn fine points. when i was a graduate student, on our first conference trip, my advisor (1st gen american from spain) had lengthy discussions with me on caste, etc. i had detailed talks with him on franco and his family history.
Hema, I tend to agree with you on the religious freedom question, even though it's harder to separate Hinduism out from its social manifestations than it is with other religions. I vaguely remember the court's reasoning for intervention in temple affairs was twofold: 1) the important temples and maths were very wealthy and had land endowments and so on, and were important social institutions, so the govt had to audit and supervise their finances to be sure they weren't being corrupt, and (my memory of this is more tenuous) 2) religious ceremonies and life rituals were so important to Hindus that access to them counted as a basic right or something. Of course, the overarching goal was to fight caste inequality, and try to weaken the socio-religious basis of Brahmin dominance.
i have been asked my caste by americans and europeans thousands of times
intelligent people ask me too before i tell them my family isn't hindu. but asking is different from caring. in other words, aspects of biography like "i was the only brown kid in my school" or "i was the son of a cabbie" are relevant have shaped us in our interaction with american society. being a rajput is only relevant within the community, and its relevance has to do with status rankings as much as "i'm x so i follow this tradition."
At least India has laws and had a "dalit" President - K.R.Narayanan. Not because he was dalit, but he was an intelligent foreign service officer who moved onto politics.
Let us first see an African American President in USA and worry later about dalits of India.
Anyone who has followed Chrisian Missionaries attempt to bring resolution on Dalits of India are aware of Smita Narula and her masters.
Perhaps Mutineers living in a country that had no non-white, non-male President for hundreds of years should worry more about what is happenning in their country before commenting on a vatican backed "activist" like Smita Narula. Charity begins at home?
SP, I agree with almost everything you said in #51, but I do have a question about the following:
1) the important temples and maths were very wealthy and had land endowments and so on, and were important social institutions, so the govt had to audit and supervise their finances to be sure they weren't being corrupt
I can see how this could be useful (at least in theory) for something other than ending discrimination. Couldn't a state government also use the above reasoning to put the squeeze on a temple or a math in order to seize its finances? Assuming of course that the government is always trying to get its grubby little hands on revenue sources...
iFOB-- can we not be concerned about both the enduring racism that exists in our diasporic lands as well as continued struggles for equality in our respective South Asian homelands?
Narayanan was certainly an intelligent foreign service officer, but to say that his subsequent career in politics can be completely disentangled from his identity as a 'dalit' is a bit disingenuous. I mean, how and why do we know he was a 'dalit' then? I think Indian political parties saw in him someone who could be a good 'token' - that can be said without detracting from any of his individual achievements. The President under the Indian system is largely ceremonial anyway, unlike the US counterpart.
whoa! how come i've never came across this phenomenon. i havent seen fobs, the 3/2s, or the 2nd genners ever declare their caste, unless they were in the elimination rounds of a speed dating round robin.
the ones i keep coming across all seem to casually toss in references to the east coast ivies they slid down from, you know.. oh yeah, i learnt to urinate like that in princeton, yes sir.
when does this ever come up
i don't know. i only encountered this a few years ago when i started socializing with brownz. the main tendency was for brahmins to mention offhand they were brahmin (or imply it), and other groups (e.g., syrian christians & ismailis as two examples) to imply brahmin ancestry. other groups like rajputs have a high status too. i thought it would be irrelevant, but it seems like bragging about how your great-great-great-great...father/mother was a king/queen of nowhereland.
Except that that is a bit of a non-sequitur! That is, being non-Hindu does not mean caste is totally irrelevant, across the board. Individual cases vary a little, depending on how much their own family has emphasized this sort of stuff, among other things. Neither Muslims nor Christians nor Sikhs nor Jains, nor even (neo-)Buddhists, can really claim, in the South Asian context, that caste is not an additional identity marker in their respective religious communities.
I've noticed that too...people bring up their caste often here, especially if they are Brahmins. I don't even know the caste of most of my friends in/from India. I think people use the term "Tam-Bram" though because it is a culturally singular entity distinct from just being "Tamilian" so doesn't necessarily reflect an obsession with caste. And Razib, it's not true that Americans don't care about caste. A lot of people are obsessed/intrigued with the idea of caste in India and seem to form preconcieved opinions of people based on their ideas about caste without understanding subtle distinctions.
LOL. That true.
Oh, please. Why can't people care about Dalits and African-American (or, lack of) presidents in the US? Any FOBs, Indians gonna stop commenting on the US just because India can't get something right?
*You know, when it comes to love of, and defense of, country, Americans and Indians are quite startlingly similar. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
This is kind of a crude attack on the Indian Government. What will this HRW report do, encourage the Bush Admin to invade India and bomb it back to the stone ages? I think this is a response to India making an arms deal with Russia right after the nuke deal with the USA. Totally agree with IFOB at 53
Srange that HRW didn't have the time or inclination to figure this out.
I think this is because most can't get a handle on what the "rules" of Hinduism might be, since their own religions are so rule bound.
Social layers have existed in every society, in Sweden you had the nobility, priests, the bourgeoisie and the farmers. The outcasts where the farmers in serfdom. Add to that the gypsies that came later. These layers existed all over Europe. The nobility has kept score of whos whom, but it's a private affair and since the nobility no longer has the political and economical power it's lost it's glory almost totally.
Whats so unique in India is the rigidity and persistence of the system. Maybe it's a matter in larger Indian cities caste has very little meaning, while in rural India it's as strong and oppressive as ever. My impression is that rural India is as alien to urban India as it is to us who live outside India. They too are shocked by stories of brahmin men raping a dalit girl as punishment for her father having stepped over some rule, and when confronted with it by outsiders the kneejerk reaction is defence. It's not better in Europe, you have racism bla bla bla. Fact is when I'm confronted with by a non-indian my reaction is often the same.
Still I do believe that the situation isn't going to be changed in Lok Sabha. It's about ecnomical development. When dalits come to Calcutta or Bombay they can escape the caste discrimination that the face from land owning brahmins on the country side. They are still dirt poor, but they do not live under the repression of the higher castes as they do in the village they came from.
Sweatshops might look as a really bad work place for us in the west, but to the it's one step up from oppression.
iFOB said :
Ha.
I probably shouldn't feed the trolls, but your argument is not helped when you mistakenly lump progressive-human-right-lawyer-types, with the Catholic church and protestant evangelicals. They are distinct groups with distinct agendas.
I dont think the Supreme Court argued that Brahmin institutions were too powerful. Rather, they balanced the freedom of religion clauses against the constitutional mandate to promote social equality. The also read the prohibitions against learning the Vedas and temple procedures as not a bar to qualification, but a restriction that would prohibit a fair ascertainment of whether non-Brahmins were qualified to be priests:
If traditionally or conventionally, in any Temple, all along a Brahman alone was conducting poojas or performing the job of Santhikaran, it may not be because a person other than the Brahman is prohibited from doing so because he is not a Brahman, but those others were not in a position and, as a matter of fact, were prohibited from learning, reciting or mastering Vedic literature, rites or performance of rituals and wearing sacred thread by getting initiated into the order and thereby acquire the right to perform homa and ritualistic forms of worship in public or private Temples.
Here is the full text of the decision.
I obviously shouldn't have stopped reading at msg 30, the kneejerk reaction was here as well. If you cannot recognize oppression of dalits in India, you probably have not been in India at all. The treatment of african-americans is completley beside the point, we have an Emmet Till case in India once everey month. at least!
This is kind of a crude attack on the Indian Government. What will this HRW report do, encourage the Bush Admin to invade India and bomb it back to the stone ages?
C'mon, don't be paranoid. India will likely do what it always does when an international organization critiques it. It will tell them to buzz off. Yes, NGOs and "rights" bodies are annoying, but sometimes there is truth in what they're sayiing.
It is fun to read the Dalit sob stories by human rights watch. There was a website "www.dalitstan.org", unfortunately that site stopped working . Somebody forward this to Mayawati. She's talking about helping the poor upper castes in UP when she comes to power..
Ofcourse, discrimination occurs in different places and at different levels in India. But that doesn't mean you take a single brush "Dalit discrimination" and paint it all over India.
I liked the comment that someone saw "Gandhi", had high opinions on Hinduism, then saw "Maya" and changed to very low opinions.. Looks like a "ripe" target for minting money in the name of "Dalit upliftment". :-)
Before someone lectures on "upper caste" arrogance, let me say that I belong to a low caste in the Hindu hierarchy and have Dalit relatives.
I thought we where Indians discussing India, lets worry about people making sweeping comments abouth the desh when it happens. I've seen the difference between Jalpaiguri District and Kolkata in terms of caste discrimination. I know it's not a clear picture, but it never the less exists, and to such an extent that we all should be a shamed. That said I'm dead against the quota system.
I have heard this idiotic comparison ad nauseam from apologists for casteism. These same hindu fundoos also boast that indians treat women far better than americans because India had a woman President while America has not! As if this somehow exonerates hindu brahminism from its crimes against women, children, low castes and outcastes: widow shunning, widow burning, devadasism, untouchability, child marriage etc
While at the "Dalit" topic, don't you folks think "Ahmadiyas" in Pakistan are the neo-Dalit Muslims?. In India we have laws enacted after Independence that prevent discrimination against Dalits, allowing entry into temples etc..etc., though it is not effective in the rural settings.. In Pakistan, we have laws enacted after independence that explicitly makes Ahmadiyas non-Muslims. It is funny in the sense that they added "religion" column in Pakistani passports explicitly to prevent Ahmadiyas from entering their holy temple (ok holy mosque in Arabia). Any ideas on the percentage of Ahmadiyas in the South asian Muslim community. They could qualify as the neo-Dalit Muslims..
Jolly good fun, old chap. A barrel of laughs!
Yes yes, I know. The good thing about India is that unlike many parts of the world, people are willing to change and move beyond old prejudices.
But that does not mean that nothing further needs to change.
Jolly good fun, old chap. A barrel of laughs!
Yeah buddy.. ain't it. :-)
It is funny in the sense that they added "religion" column in Pakistani passports explicitly to prevent Ahmadiyas
About a year ago, I applied for visa to Pakistan.
Their application form is different, not to say the least.
There are categories for religion, including separate for Ahmadi and Qadiani.
You have to give the name, and occupation of your father and husband (if applicable). Past and present nationality of theirs too.
What a beastly thing to say! It's not at all the same. Not in the least! Any civilized person is outraged at the thought of innocent children being brutalized in this way for the purpose of appeasing some satanic idol. But those horrible people in that town in India were actually thrilled to have that precious little girl "consecrated" to by those repulsive priests. They were stuffing their faces the whole time this was going on! How can you be so cold hearted to make such a glib comparison?
Well, Change is inevitable. Some people are willing to accept and some are unwilling. The good thing about India is the democratic model. Dalits along with the other backward castes constitute the major bulk of population. Once they get organised everything falls in place. That's why I like the Kanshi ram / Mayawati model. Dalits don't need to beg for privileges. They should be in a position to offer privileges like Mayawati is doing now. :-)
You see, it happens we are all Satan worshippers.
I'm down for the brown and all that but I'm not sure about India being caught up in the 'winds of change'. I went to India for the first time in 2005 and I thought I was set cause I've been in Mexico and Puerto Rico , but whoa!!! India in is a whole other world of hurt. I saw things that could make a Marine drill sargent bawl like a kid. The way they treat poor people and Dalits in India is worse than we treat serial murderers and rapists even out in Texas. On the way to the hotel we say hundreds or thousands of poor people sleeping on the street. I saw a lady with litteraly no face begging outside the hotel and another time I saw a dude with no arms and no legs sleeping in the divider in the middle of the road and nobody seemed to notice. Wtf? People kept telling me that India is "modern" now compared to how it was before. I hate to think what it was like back 'in the day!
You see what you look for.
But I like your style.
yaa yaa. Giuliani made sure that it was illegal to be homeless in Manhattan. Everything is neatly swept away under the prison rug.
Very interesting. So essentially the Supreme Court is saying that the only reasons non-Brahmins have not been allowed to be priests is because they did not previously have access to the education necessary to become priests, possibly because of the vagaries of the caste system. That does suggest, at least indirectly, some attempt to break the Brahmin monopoly on the priesthood.
I understand where the Court is coming from, but would the Court ever suggest who should or should not be eligible for priesthood in the Catholic church? In CSI?
Any attempt to condition social behavior of non-Hindus in India has met with so much resistance (like the Shah Bano case, for example). It really bugs me that the government is an instrument for social change only to the extent that it's Hindu social change. Maybe it's just that Hindus don't protest as loudly.
In a scarey way that kinda proves my point. Take a street person sleeping in the gutter with dogs and rats in India, fly them to the US and lock them up in any prison over here and they would think they're in a luxury hotel - with 3 squares a day, including a protein, bread, two veggies and a desert. Plus in prison you get free cable, free weight room, free education, free medical care, you name it. Like I said, we treat criminals better than the way the treat poor people over in good ol'India.
I understand where the Court is coming from, but would the Court ever suggest who should or should not be eligible for priesthood in the Catholic church? In CSI?
The Indian government has always regulated Hinduism in India, sometimes wisely, sometimes ludicrously. The Constitution is a self-cosnciously reformist document. But that's a whole nother thread. The ruling on priests had wide support, even from the RSS.
Re American Dalits. One place where many dalit activists congregate is the Ravidas Gurudwara in Queens.
subha n texas
Who is "they" who are mistreating the indian poor? Most indians are poor or maybe you dont yet understand that. Do you think there is some kind of conspiracy to keep down the "poor and dalit"?
As for your pride in Texas, hmmmm, please find a history book and learn the truth about your own origins. Maybe that will help you grow up.
After all the hype and overabundance of articles on India's progress, someone had to point out the dark side of the story and now we have it.
The Dalit and untouchability problem always has been there. However I believe it's going to sort itself out. No one would argue that untouchability has seen major decline in the past few years and Dalits have progressed in society. We have to remember the country that is India is only 50 years old. Before that the Unity aspect was alien until of course the British arrived and introduced the concept. Even today people who have their origins in the North are still mystified by the South. For many, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh etc is 'south Indian' and people often mistake one for the other. Even in the US, folks of Indian origin are surprised at me being a 'Hindu'Malayalee. They assume most if not all Malayalees are Christian.
But i'm getting a bit off track here. My point is with the changes in Indian society it won't be long before a majority of the Dalits obtain some type of education and start becoming part of India's growth. There are many Indians of lower caste who have risen through the problems of untouchability to create prosperous lives for themselves. Some migrate to big cities where they start a new life and thats that. With areas of India becoming Industrialised the problem of Dalits will take care of itself.
Dude, don't get your dhoti in a twist. Like I said, I'm proud of my desi roots but I can't mangle that to then go and say that India (even in the cities) is a utopia of opportunity and equality, cause that would be stretching things a whole hell of a lot. When I say "they" treat the poor like shit, I mean society in general. The whole society is structured like that. And I don't believe that nobody has money to treat poor people better. I seen the glitzy shops in south Calcutta while meanwhile you come out of the restaurant and there's people begging in the street. Didn't somebody say Show me how you treat the poorest among you and I'll tell you how great your culture is?
Yeah, by raping them. Yeah lets spend the tax money on feeding prisoners 3000 calories/day so they can rape each other.
Seriously, anyone from Texas should really be focusing on progressing that state into the nineteenth century first before commenting upon others. Perhaps one thing Texas prisons can learn from Indian is this.
Ask me, you're smoking crack.
That makes indian culture by far the worst in the world.
Wrong, Sherlock! That honour goes to the Land of The Free and Home of The Brave.
Educate yourself: 1.2.3.
Ever since Dr Ambedkar and the proclamation of Universal Suffrage, India as a society has treated dalits much better than the US has treated non-whites, especially blacks. Show me anything that even comes close to the reservation policy in education, jobs, as well as elected public offices to ensure representation. Dalits today have real power in India and if you don't understand the momentousness of someone like Mayavati offering spoils of the office to upper castes, you must be either blind or a Chstirian missionary. Just to put this in perspective, the equivalent would be this : imagine a poor black woman born in the hoods becoming the governor of Texas and then offering spoils of the office to Wasps in Houston and Dallas.
What is pissing off about the shril over-the-top nonsense like this HRW report is exactly this : it is biased, takes no account of the reality in the Indian society and panders to just poverty-oppression-voyerism that makes its way to Congressmen funded by missionaries aroused into condemning India. Of course, I went to the HRW website and looked very hard for any equivalent substantive study on race relations in America or an equivalent condemntion of the American society. Of course, I found nothing. Which basically just proves that this whole thing is nothing but a piece of motivated propaganda.
Sure, there are problems but the trends have been positive and getting ever stronger. Caste is virtually irrelevant in most Indian cities and talking about caste is not something one's expected to do in politce company. Number of not only inter-caste but also inter-state and inter-whatever marriages has increased very much. You find dalits in all walks of life. Sure, poverty, discrimination etc goes on a lot in India but the fraction of it that can be attributed purely to caste-based motives has decreased dramatcially. Formerly lower castes are now, in fact, some of the most powerful people in India including people like the favourite whipping boy of this blog, Narendra Modi.
Unlike blacks in the US, dalits in India are rising, confident and powerful. But that doesn't matter to the propagandists. You can waive your dalit chief justice of Indian Supreme Court, Dalit ex-president, muslim current president, Sikh prime minister, white-chrsitian most powerful person, chief ministers, IAS/IFS officers etc etc until you are blue in the face but it doesn't matter to those who just want to use the caste issue in their broader war against Hinduism.
texas!! that is the place they dragged a so called n----- under a pick up truck for a mile or two and had a beer afterwards
Yeah, the poor in India are movin' on up! Whatever dude. Give any rational agent a choice between being an average black person in the US or living the life of the average dalit in India, and what do think that calculation would say?
Give any rational agent a choice between being an average black person in the US or living the life of the average dalit in India, and what do think that calculation would say?
First of all, you seem to be assuming that poor = Dalit. That's fine, for the purpose of this discussion, but goes too far otherwise, IMO.
Second, the average black person in the United States does not have it great. In the 90s, there was an oft-quoted statistic about how 1 out of 3 adult black men were in jail. The average black kid growing up among the urban poor is likely to be from a single parent home. He is three times as likely to be exposed to drugs and street violence as the average non-black kid. He is three times more likely to be convicted in a criminal trial than a non-black defendant. Then, when he finally gets out on parole, he's three times more likely to be back in jail within 5 years.
Contrary to what you think, not every poor Indian is a limbless torso lying in a ditch somewhere.
Certainly, if that rational person would like to ever
1.run for the governor of a state
2.get elected into any house of legislature (state or federal)
3.make it into a university of higher education
4.get a government job
5.live in a city in a respectable non-ghetto
6.hope to see his children not die dealing drugs or get sot either by gangs or cops
7.have a life expectancy that's more or less the same as the average population
8.live without constant daily reminders of his caste status
9.see movies that don't portray stereotypes about them being over-sexed, crime-lovin' playas..
...etc etc - I could go on and on, but I am sure you get my point - then India offers a much better deal to that person. If they want to get strung up from a tree or dragged under a pickup truck, I suppose India and US offer an equal opportunity.
I said **rational** agent that looks at cold hard numbers and probabilities, not a coked-up agent strung out on crack that just cherry picks the facts to fit their case. I don't have time to write a term paper on this, but it's painfully obvious anyway, clear as mud, as they say. Just one statistic - the poverty rate for blacks in the US is 25% percent and understand that poverty in the US is a relative concept, not absolute, skin sticking to your ribs poverty like in India. Not read this article:
Scheduled Caste population in Uttar Pradesh may feel elated over a dalit woman holding the reins of the state, but this has not improved their socio-economic status any further.
In a state where 1.59 lakh population of the SCs are homeless, no effort has been made by the government to provide them dwelling units in the past few years. The incidence of poverty and unemployment is much more pronounced in case of dalits than any other deprived sections in Uttar Pradesh, according to a survey conducted by the experts of the G V Pant Institute in Allahabad.
In the past ten years, the literacy rate of dalits went up five times but it still remained below the level of population. It may be known that due to low level of literacy, the SC population could not avail reservation even on many reserved seats in Uttar Pradesh. Several government departments have told the administration that they do not have the sufficient number of educated dalits to fill the reserved quotas.
Again, their share in the government services in the state is far behind in comparison to their population, according to official information. In this background, it is significant that their population living below the poverty line in the state was 59.2 per cent. This percentage, according to official sources was 48.9 per cent at the national level.
Altogether 32.40 per cent of the SC population in the state is engaged in cultivation and as agricultural labourers.
The allocation of huge funds under the special component plan constitutes roughly one tenth of the state plan but this did not help dalits in going up economically. In order to make the special component plans more effective, the government decided to allocate funds for it in actual portion of the population since 1997-98.
Accordingly, in 1997-98, out of a total plan outlay of Rs 7,080.00 crore, Rs 1484.00 was allotted to the special component plan. But all these steps did not help them much in acquiring a respectable status in the state, according to official information.
So with a poverty rate of 49%, the average dalit in India is at or close to being dirt poor in absolute terms.
Some of you people are kidding, if you say that dalits in India have it better then blacks in America. Is this some kind of joke.
If you want to compare dalits to anybody it would be blacks in South Africa.