With all this mutinous talk of Toral’s recent demise on the Apprentice the past couple of days (1,2,3) and the really excellent discussion that has ensued, it has been really hard to find focus on other areas. Despite that, the mutiny must go on, and part of our progression is the appearance of Washington Post Staff Writer, author of Suburban Sahibs and (former SAJA President) S. Mitra Kalita’s ongoing Washington Post blog, India 2.0, chronicling her eight week trip to India. Accompanied by photographer Andrea Bruce (see her recent WP Photo Exhibit here), Kalita departed for her trip before the recent earthquake disaster in India and Pakistan. The scope of her blog looks to be very interesting and falls very-much into line with some of the things we like to focus on here. Since her departure, and subsequent arrival in Delhi, Mitra has blogged on the departure pangs that many of us go through before leaving for the country of some of our parent’s birth, especially post liberalization of the early 1990s.
“Yet again I am surrounded by suitcases and piles of clothing — the bright pinks and oranges and magentas of East and the tans and blacks and navys of West — and engaging in the giving and taking that foreshadows the semiannual rite of my hyphenated life: a trip to India. Will I really wear these jeans? Or should I pack another salwar kameez? What’s the point of taking so many saris if I still can’t wrap myself in them properly. These are familiar questions, posed since I was a little girl spending summer vacations in the land of my parents’ birth. But as I look around my bedroom, I am struck by a stark difference between then and now. There are no Nikes. No Walkmans. No Tang. No Pringles. No Guess. No Gap. No Minoltas. No socks. No razor blades. No microwaves (I swear we took one once.) In fact, I am taking no gifts, just a few requested items for my husband’s cousin’s family, who are hosting me. Among them: a Bose iPod speaker and Livestrong wristbands. I do not have an iPod and didn’t know what the heck those bands were. Already, this American cousin feels she has been living in the Dark Ages.”She has also blogged on the South Asian earthquake and, the burgeoning mall culture that has taken over, not just India, but from my recent travels to South Asia, Sri Lanka as well. She writes of a recent mall opening,
“Make no mistake about the “mall” moniker. In India, that means marble floors and glitzy storefront displays. Like many conveniences taken for granted in the West, the Indian counterpart tends to be equally rooted in providing the customer experience. (McDonald’s, for example, might have a worker who pumps your ketchup.) So the opening of M.G. 2 (named for its location on Mehrauli Gurgaon Road and because it is adjacent to M.G. 1) served up a heavy dose of pomp and importance alongside glasses of Coke and mineral water, with trays of tofu triangles and asparagus bruschetta circulated by waiters.”
When the Brahmin is revolted at the thought of a non-brahmin kid wearing the thread
i thought there were twice-born castes besides brahmins? am i reading your implication wrong?
p.s. to be clear, i think the dicey question is what is diversity? once that is answered, comparisons are much more transparent. kush’s post indicated that he things public presence of religious institutions is important. by that criteria, i grant his contention.
PS– I was only talking about Hindus in the preceding post, if we’re talking “India” and “USA” then India’s non-Hindu diversities also come into play (not to mention its secular political diversities I had also alluded to, since I wouldn’t want to say that the question of diversity is exhausted by the question of religion)– as among the “creedal” belief systems, Indian Muslims display as much doctrinal diversity as exists between, say, Catholicism and Mormonism.
Re: “if you grant that the term one uses for god matters, then hinduism wins hands down, but if you are skeptical that vocabularly matches cognitive state it might be less relevant …this point depends on what you value and what your criteria are. semantically there can be great differences on paper which are minimal in real life.”
I agree that my views follow “if” one holds that language matters. I do so hold (particularly when one is talking of religions self-consciously premised on “the word” it would be strange to hold otherwise). To put it another way, I do not posit a neat division between “vocabulary” and “cognitive state,” and thus as a philosophical matter do not accept that different people have the “same” experience, with differences being those of “mere” semantics. That’s actually a rather big difference as far as I’m concerned.
MoorNam: Your ideas on how Hindus (homegrown, confused, however you categorize them) or for that matter how Muslims, Christians practise their faith in India is so deeply flawed at so many levels. Let me give you some examples.
a) All govt.offices which I have seen will have either an idol, photoframe of individual Gods they worship(Hanuman, Ganesha etc)..Heck, many offices even have Shivaji/BalThackeray alongside Gandhi and Nehru. Does that mean they are asserting their Maharashtrian roots? Yes, probably some hardcore saffron-types see it as ‘assertion’ of their leanings. But for most people it’s just one more plaque ‘lying there’.
b) During Dushera(am I right on the festival?) when Hindus worship books, cars, houses…at my engg. college in Bombay they used to decorate blackboards and put a tikka on the monitors in lab. This was not a formal celebration. All teachers, peons, staffs used to do it on their own and distribute sweets and the mgmt(catholic) never stopped them. And trust me, mine was not some regional obscure college ensconed in some suburb. So you can’t cite it as an exception. Why, it’s not just limited to colleges. Even IT offices in Bangalore celebrate it(and many other festivals) in similar way. Is there anything wrong in it?
c)During all Hindu festivals all the friends I’ve known, would wish me and I would wish them back. All of em homegrown. Vice-versa during Muslim festivals. You know, we even visit each others homes. Are we sharing our religious beliefs in public? Yes. Does that make us less secular. Tell me why?
d) The reason why you’d have heard many Muslims asking “I wish to take a holiday for Eid” is because even today in India most offices don’t give both Eid holidays, which are pretty much the only two days which Muslims celebrate. And thanks to all that last-min moon-sighting confusion these days, these changes merit a justification. The employer is free to grant or refuse a holiday. But as an employee, won’t you think you would feel a need to justify it, if you badly need that day off. Does it mean they are asserting their identity and taking “first step towards fanaticism”? Sorry, in that case you’ve just branded me and many others as amateur fanatics.
And I am not even starting to go down the path of Ganpati processions, Holi, Diwali’s firecrackers, christmas, Urs, or Bandra’s Mount Mary festival.
Please don’t take it offensively, because I mean none of it here, but you seriously need to brush up on some basics before you make such wide sweeping statements.
Well, reclaim it and give it modern relevance. Only you can prevent sanctimony.
Never mind that some of these Hindu practises are deep-seated in very ancient Indian, and not just Brahmin, traditions (do you think wearing Vibuthi, or ashes, on the forehead came from Brahmins? No.). Instead let’s take on the modern importance of religion, and its ancient roots, in giving us a sense of place and security in a world that still holds ritual and spirituality in high esteem. Perhaps, Hinduism may be more relevant in this era as a philosophy of enlightenment and DOing, not just BEing and believing.
I’ll start: I have no problems with going to temple and then to a club. What about you?
I don’t disagree with Kush’s point, but my initial comment had ALSO made the point that India simply has more political diversity (in terms of different political ideologies claiming adherents from sizeable numbers of people to amke an impact, i.e. not just talking about 5 kids on a college campus) than the US. [This is both good and bad; i.e. there’s a wider range of choice, but there’s less of a safety net depending on which choice assumes power at any given moment.]
Razib has a point that in a sense the pre-condition of such a debate ought to be a definition of “diversity”. For my part, since Raju had spoken of diversity in the context of religion, that’s what I began with.
Oh, and until very recently, I lived in Louisiana where Catholicism is practised almost like Hinduism in that crosses, pictures of Jesus, special prayers, sacraments (?) and items blessed at church adorn every aspect of private and public work places, schools and even parks and neighborhoods. I used to think: wow, blacks and whites alike here stick Virgin Marys on everything just like we do kumkum on electronics and other equipment during Navaratri, Dussehra and such in India. I think it’s the iconographic aspect of worship provided by Caribbean/Voodoo influence.
“your points are interesting, but not quantitized. i.e., are the proportion of husseni brahmins of similar order as mormons? (1.2% of americans)”
Husseini Brahmins by themselves, no; but the impossibly heterodox groups taken together are arguably far far greater. For instance, the French scholar Dominique Sila-Khan has claimed that up to one-third of all Indians might fairly be classified as adherents of “liminal” or “borderline” traditions. [Personally, I don’t know what methodology has been used or how one calculates “liminality,” and I merely cite it here to give some sense of the scale. In generaly quantification is difficult PRECISELY because of the nature of the ambiguity involved. i.e. Mormonism might be “heterodox” from the mainline Protestant perspective, BUT MORMONISM AIMS AT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW ORTHODOXY. This makes Mormonism akin to (in India) Ismailis, or Bohras, or Khojas, or Jains in India, not really to communities that straddle two rather opposed orthodox religious traditions. I submit that that there is no American or European analogue to communities like the Husseini Brahmins, or the Meos, or many other communities that drive fundamentalists of all stripes to distraction].
“kush’s post indicated that he things public presence of religious institutions is important”
Not on personal level, in last 20 years, I have been to Hindu temple only twice – one was for my brother’s wedding. Also, other’s place of worship, like Church only for weddings and funerals.
When I was kid in India, we would go to temples and gurudwara just for free prasad towards the end of the ceremony and to church to listen sermons in English – after all keeping English skills sharp was very important for TOEFL and GRE tests (even though I had spent childhood in US).
I am not an expert on importance of religious institutions. Was just making a point. For me cross cultural interaction is more like Malgudi Days – not some angry, theological, barely coherent rants.
umair, re: liminality, consider that 25% of americans believe in reincarnation and 40% of the 25-29 segment do as of 2003. i think there is a lot of heterodoxy in america beneath the surface veneer.
I submit that that there is no American or European analogue to communities like the Husseini Brahmins, or the Meos, or many other communities that drive fundamentalists of all stripes to distraction
there aren’t long standing historical commmunities like the husseini brahmins, but, there is a mestability within the past 40 years of a large number of “seekers” who do syncretize freely and move in and out of various communities, communes and affinities. i lived in a small town in oregon where “new age” beliefs were normative. this might not be dominant, but a substantial minority, probably 5-10% of americans,* explicitly adhere to seeker-spiritual traditions, while the numbers for belief in reincarnation suggest a larger number of americans implicitly blur boundaries.
On a related note, I highly recommend “The American Religion” by Harold Bloom, as well as “Omens of Millenium” by the same author; both books give a good flavor of the religious ferment in contemporary American society…
“I think it’s the iconographic aspect of worship provided by Caribbean/Voodoo influence.”
a couple times, I almost stepped on voodoo dolls. somehow, in baton rouge parking lots, they are quite common.
That explains quite a bit about my Manglorean muslim friend who didn’t wear the hijab+abaya to our girls-only school (but with male teachers too) and imagine my surprise when one fine day I find her in the full black outfit in a mall.
I was thinking about the current discussion – scrolled up and bingo – VBSF actually nailed it a while back
Shannon’s information entropy is defined in layperson’s terms as the amount of randomness in an environment – what VBSF put so succinctly was that in human terms, entropy is a function of perception – this has been echoed in several erudite postings – but the net of it is that the deeper one scratches – the more the randomness and ergo the entropy shall be – to the ignorant we are all Sepia generica – with an entropy of 0, to the relatively more informed we occupy bins like Hindus = 80%, Muslims = 20% etc. and the entropy is marginally above zero – we then go to a level of the vaishnavs, shaivites, shias, sunnis, syrian orthodox etc. and the entropy gets significantly higher – the same argument holds true for every population so that the TRUE information entropy is actually log (size of population).
ta-da
India has a higher entropy than the US, but less than China, just by virtue of its population. You may send the cheque in the mail.
Ladies! there’s enough dhaavak to go around.
“but a substantial minority, probably 5-10% of americans, explicitly adhere to seeker-spiritual traditions, while the numbers for belief in reincarnation suggest a larger number of americans implicitly blur boundaries”
That’s a fair point. I stand by my assertion about India’s relative diversity vis-a-vis the USA, but it would of course be completely wrong to conceptualize American society as non-diverse in absolute terms.
“During Dushera(am I right on the festival?)”
It will be Diwali, Suhail.
Just look at a truck in India – it has all the symbols, hindu, christian, muslim, you name it and also –
Horn Please.
Actually, let me add some rigor here
What I proved is merely the upper bound of the nation’s diversity
Dhaavak’s diversity proposition: The diversity of the nation state is bounded above by log (population).
Dhaavak’s conjecture: The diversity of the nation state is bounded below by log (independent newspapers in the nation state).
I think I will go and shoot myself now.
Maitri,
Never mind that some of these Hindu practises are deep-seated in very ancient Indian, and not just Brahmin, traditions (do you think wearing Vibuthi, or ashes, on the forehead came from Brahmins? No.).
No absolutely not, these traditions are evident among all Hindus.
I agree completely. And that reflective way of being, with its emphasis on contemplation and meditation can be a postive force in the world– think of Aung Sang Kwi (sp?) from Burma, the Dalai lama from Tibet, Ma Amritamayi from India, to name a few people.
Hehe it would depend on who’s going 🙂 But Ive actually done as much in Pittsburgh with a bunch of friends after visting the Venkateshwara Temple. At first it was weird, but I let go of the fetters and the false dichotomies and had a great time (as great as can be had in Pittsburgh anyway).
Razib youre right, there are other communities who have traditionally worn the thread. I should say a traditionalBrahmin may be revolted . Plenty of “modern” Brahmins wouldn’t care one way or the other, I’m sure.
Personally, I don’t know what methodology has been used or how one calculates “liminality…”
The imam or the panditji asks his congregation: Liminal ho to madarchod, haath uthalo, aur phuto yahan se…
Razib youre right, there are other communities who have traditionally worn the thread. I should say a traditionalBrahmin may be revolted . Plenty of “modern” Brahmins wouldn’t care one way or the other, I’m sure.
can you clarify this? i have little personal acquaintance with hinduism, my reading of the literature suggested that kshatriyas and vaishyas were twice-born and so entitield to the thread. is this wrong? or is it simply that these two groups assume the right and many brahmins reject the right? or do some brahmins not accept groups are what they say they are? (i.e., some rajputs who claim central asian ancestry are rejected because they can’t be kshatriyas by descent, etc. etc.).
In South India, there are no Ksatriyas (with the exception of a few from Kerala) who traditionally claim this status, and neglible numbers of Vaishyas (Komatti Chettis in Andhra come to mind). The vast majority are classified as Sudra and are not (traditionally) entitled to the thread. So the basic distinction is Brahmin/Non-Brahmin.
With the British census which tried to pigeonhole people into varnas, several castes started asserting “dvija status”. An example of this is the Vaniyars from TN, a farming community, who now call themselves Vaniya Kula Ksatriyas.
There also is the sacred story that Parasurama killed all the Ksatriyas, so very many traditional Brahmins would not accept anyone else’s dwija status, even in North India. The traditional Ksatriya clans may no longer exist in any case, from what I’ve heard. So the idea of four varnas operating in India is a myth.
There are modern Hindu organizations which lobby the orthodoxy to extend the thread to all Hindus, and groups like the ARya Sama, etc.
mark, thanks for the context. i get confused here sometimes because south indians seem to import brahmin vs. non-brahmin discourse with background assumptions that i don’t take for granted. most of the stuff i know about hinduism comes from books, and so i don’t presuppose any sort of social structure as a background assumption, i just kind of ‘average’ it in my head.
There also is the sacred story that Parasurama killed all the Ksatriyas, so very many traditional Brahmins would not accept anyone else’s dwija status, even in North India. The traditional Ksatriya clans may no longer exist in any case, from what I’ve heard. So the idea of four varnas operating in India is a myth.
well, as an unbeliever in the factual claims of hinduism, i tend to agree that ‘four varnas’ is a myth. india is a nation of 1 billion, and generalization is difficult, the perception that there is long term endogamy and that various caste-jati groups have been existent since the beginning of time as discrete and isolated units seems ahistorical. the ethnographic-historical literature i’ve read seems to suggest that there are many instances of groups “uplifting” their caste status (especially to kshatriya status via force of arms, but also groups like vaidyas and kayasthas in west bengal, or certain iynegar brahmins in tamil nadu who might derive from souroushtrans). the genetics also shows considerable substructure (i.e., certain genetic markers are clustered in various groups, so that between group variance:within group variance can be high) and intersection between subpopulations (there are a host of genetic lineages that span caste and region and are very specific to south asia, suggesting at least a common substrate).
On the “uplifting” of status, consider the Yadavas of Eastern U.P. and Bihar, who as Sudras were not traditionally entitled to the thread. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, there was a movement to change this, and it took root to such an extent that today my understanding is that it is not uncommon for male Yadavas in the “Purbi” lands to wear the thread.
On the “uplifting” of status, consider the Yadavas of Eastern U.P. and Bihar, who as Sudras were not traditionally entitled to the thread.
or the maurya dynasty, of sudra origin.
“or the maurya dynasty, of sudra origin”
Didn’t know that actually, thanks, that’s pretty interesting. Shivaji too (the story has it he had to get priests from Varanasi for his formal coronation, as none of the Maharashtrian priests were willing to consecrate a Sudra)…
i have read a few books on caste. most dynasties after around 300 BCE which became kshatriya aren’t kshatriya according to the traditional canons. i.e., guptas were vaishya. maurya were sudra. sena were brahmin. of course, everyone is descended from genghis khan and muhammad somehow, at least in eurasia 🙂
I remember asking my mother when I was 7 or 8 how SO many people could possibly be descendants of Prophet Muhammad (not to mention that since he had no surviving male issue, the descent is being traced through his daughters, which is the only time you’ll see THAT in Arab countries)…
I remember asking my mother when I was 7 or 8 how SO many people could possibly be descendants of Prophet Muhammad
not implausible if you trace the chain of ancestries back. the last genealogical common ancestor of all human beings alive today probably lived 5,000 years ago. of course, that doesn’t meet that everyone carries genetic material from that individual, genes are discrete combinations of base pairs.
an even lower age bound than the paper i referenced above.
From Middle Class Sticker Shock
I just went back to kalita’s blog – have to disagree – she appears to be caught in the web of the relatives who are obviously very affluent – just to give a general idea – i’ve blogged about it but my fiancee and i travelled over 7-8 days in india and spent no more than $150 CAD in all – including gifts for some 6 people, lodging, food and travel. That’s about $18USD per day for two people. We are not rich people – but we’re frugal only to a limit – and it really sounds like kalita’s taking the de-luxe tour of the country – basically the blouse she says she bought for $30 can be had for under $8 USD – if all it is mirrorwork and some brocade. Anyway – just wanted to add this point of view – it’s a very free market out there – and sellers charge what they think the client’s going to pay. I am a little saddened though – that this was a good opportunity for a sepiate to write a travelogue for the masses – and she’s giving it the mickey mouse treatment. anyway … to each their own.
dhaavak, you are right. She’s on a luxury trip. Child’s haircut $4 (x40 = 160Rs). Now I don’t know the rates of 5-star celebrity haircuts, but 160Rs is damn too costly and could be imagined only at such places. Even the best upper-midlle class areas won’t charge more than 40-50Rs for a haircut. (yes people, we are talking A/Cs, with TV showing cricket, and 10 different magazines having Sallu, Ash and everyone in between on their covers).
Kush: I don’t think it’s Diwali. I’ve seen it’s celebrated mainly in Bangalore(S.India in general) in a big way, where people have banana leaves forming arched entrance to their houses. They do something called “ayudh pooja” on this day. (my spelling of ‘ayudh’ could be wrong). So either it’s Dushera or some other day.
Suhail,
You are correct on both counts.
Did not notice anything interesting on Kalita’s blog yet. It’s all about malls so far.
Ayudha Pooja is an important festival in the south, observed towards the end of navaratri. People clean all instruments and devices they use (books, cars, tools, etc.) for worship. In fact, last week I had trouble getting a plumber to fix my water-heater as most of them had kept their tools in puja and would not touch them.
And in contrast to an NRI’s India blog, here is an American woman’s India blog.
Manu Smriti declared that all Dravidas(don’t know if that meant South Indians during Manu’s period..I or II century AD) are Shudras(Originally Kshatriyas degraded to Shudra position). South Indian Brahmins never recognized any South Indian warrior or merchant families as Kshatriyas or Vaishyas respectively. Kerala royal families were matrilineal and didn’t wear thread(So were Tulu royal families). However, now many South Indian communities like, Reddys, Bunts, Nairs claim themselves to be Kshatriyas. Likewise, many merchant communities declare themselves Vaishyas.
However, wearing thread is bit more complicated in South India. I suppose Mysore royal family Aras(Uras) wear thread. So do many weaver castes of Karnataka(Devanga) and Andhra Pradesh(Padmasali). In Kerala, few artisans(sculptors) wore thread only when they engaged in some kind of sculpting activity. The goldsmiths(Vishwakarmas) wear thread. Curiously when it comes to South India many socially marginal groups of artisans(theoritically Shudras) wore thread and not socially dominant castes.
However, there were stories where Brahmins upgraded Varna of few declared Shudras. I suppose Shivaji was declared “Maratha” during his coronation. A Nair chieftain was made king by a ritual called “Hiranya Garbha Kriya” by Namboothiris in Kerala. I couldn’t get much information about Hiranya Garbha Kriya. It looks like a useful tool for caste upgradation and linguist conversion. The only other instance where I came across Hiranya Garbha Kriya was Namboothiris claim that they transformed themeselves to Malayalee Brahmins from Tulu Brahmins by undergoing Hiranya Garbha Kriya.
Not entirely true. A good etiquette(atleast in South Indian society) requires men/women wearing lungi/mundu/sari above navel.
if you go to NYC, SF, Chicago, or LA, the amount of people from different countries you see is very high. I can’t go to dehli and have a decent chance of meeting someone from ecuador, ghana, india, china, korea, and, um, maybe ireland, all in one day without any effort, and just by walking down a street
diversity in religion is a seperate issue though, i was just talking about ethnic diversity. and also, the willingness of people in india to go outside their group to me seems kind of low at times
Razib, do you think South Indian Brahmins are primarily of indigenous origin or descended from northern migrants? I remember one study showed the Iyers of TN clustering with Central Asian populations on the Y chromosome. There are also phenotypic similarities between NIBS and SIBS, but that may just be attributed to a selection for a particular phenotype that doesn’t correlate with ancestry.