Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad just celebrated the 206th birthday of Lord Macaulay, with a party in New Delhi [via Shashwati]. Why celebrate the face of English imperialism? Because for some groups domination by a foreign overlord was better than domestic oppression. 
…. Prasad … hails Macaulay as the Father of Indian Modernity, for it was after the introduction of his English system of education in 1854, that Dalits got the right to education, he says. [Link]Bhan has three reasons for revering Macaulay – his insistence to teach the “natives” English broke the stranglehold of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic teaching, a privilege of only the elite castes and, he argued,for the European kind of modern education, with focus on modern sciences. “Imagine, if we had only followed indigenous study,” said Bhan, “we would be like Afghanistan or Nepal today.”… [Link]
<
p>These activists go further than celebrating Macaulay’s role in the past, however, and call for English to be central to Dalit education in the future. They unveilled a portrait of “English, the Dalit Goddess”:
Dalit poet Parak sang a couplet to the portrait – a refashioned Statue of Liberty, wearing a hippie hat, holding a massive pink pen, standing on a computer, with a blazing map of India in the background – Oh, Devi Ma/ Please Let us Learn English/ Even the dogs understand English, to cheers and laughter, …Bhan … declared … “Hereafter, the first sounds all newborn Dalit and Adivasi babies will hear from their parents is – abcd. Immediately after birth, parents or a nearest relative will walk up to the child and whisper in the ear – abcd,’… [Link]
<
p>Is English a tool of liberation? Are indigenous Indian languages oppressive?
The remedy … is to … become English speaking at the earliest. Goddess English is all about emancipation. Goddess English is a mass movement against the Caste Order, against linguistic evils such as Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telgu and Bangla for instance. Indian languages as more about prejudices, discrimination and hatred and less about expressions and communications. [Link]
Or is this just a PR stunt, to stick a finger in the eye of the local intelligencia? Is the best path for Dalit advancement to reject Indian languages in favor of English? Lastly, should they learn International English or Desi Hinglish?
Amitabh,
Very good points in post #238 — right on the money. I’d been meaning to mention all that in another related discussion here on SM a few weeks ago.
Regarding #239, Indian (and to some extent, global) history could have turned out very differently indeed if internal betrayals hadn’t resulted in the Khalsa army losing the Anglo-Sikh Wars. That entire chunk of northern India going right up to Afghanistan would have remained independent.
Also — going back a little further — it’s believed in some quarters that the Maratha leader Mahadhji Scindia had the capacity to be the successor to the Mughals — and therefore the next Emperor of India — if he hadn’t died prematurely in mysterious circumstances (he’s suspected of being poisoned).
My guess is that it is probably very minimal 1-2% and even there most of them newcomers that is within the last 10-15 years.
There are some prominent Dalit Americans. Example: Prof KP Singh, a Ravidasi who is also in the ‘African American as model’ camp. Check out his NPR interview (scroll down).
Prasad on African-Americans. Unlike the Panthers, who took a Malcolm X approach to liberation, Prasad seems to be taking a page out of Booker T. Washington’s book. In any case, for some Dalit intellectuals, the achievements of Blacks in this country, after the horror of slavery, is an unequivocal inspiration:
Display Dalit Power
By Chandrabhan Prasad
19 April, 2005 The Pioneer
The Tulsa race riot of 1921 is one of the saddest scars in America’s modern history. The year saw the burning down of the Greenwood neighbourhood of the city – which falls in the Oklahoma state – by the invading White crowd. Around 300 people, mostly Blacks, had died, and hundreds were injured in the incident. Thousands were rendered homeless.
From the evening of May 31 to the afternoon of June 1, 1921, the city witnessed the ugliest civilian killings after the American Civil War. It was worse than the 1965 Watts riot, the 1967 Detroit riot, the 1992 Los Angeles riot and the 1995 Oklahoma city bombing.
The killings apart, the riot was aimed a crippling the rising economic power of the Blacks. The crowd brought down around 1,500 African American homes, destroyed more than 600 businesses, including 21 restaurants, 30 stores, two movie theatres, a hospital, a bank, libraries, schools and the local post office.
In the American history, Tulsa is known as the “Black Wall Street”. In less than two days, the Black Wall Street had turned into volcanic ash. Blacks’ dream of creating their own bourgeoisie had died a dream.
On May 30, 1921, a rumour spread in the White locality of the town that Dick Rowland, a Black youth, had assaulted a 17-year-old White girl Sarah Page who worked as a lift operator. As Rowland was arrested, tension began building in the area. As if the Whites were waiting waited for this opportunity. The “Black Wall Street” had to be destroyed.
Rising from ashes of 1921, the Blacks are flying high in 2005. The American magazine Fortune ran a story in June, 2004, titled The New Black Power On the Wall Street. The story talked of Black brokers calling the shots at the Wall Street, and how a number of Blacks are doing exceptionally well in financial institutions.
As of today, there are three well-known Black billionaires – Robert Johnson, Oprah Winfrey and Shiela Crump Johnson.
About half a dozen Blacks are about to join that club. There are around a million Black-owned companies, with an annual turnover of $71.2 billion. The spending power of the Blacks has reached $572 billion, equivalents to the 11th largest economy in the world.
The Blacks have made their mark in the banking sector as well. There are 25 Black-owned banks with assets worth $4716 million, 10 investments banks with assets worth $677.3 million, 10 equity firms with assets worth $2959 million and five insurance companies with assets worth $472.48 million.
Companies owned by the Blacks might look tiny when compared to those owned by the Whites, but the fact is that the Blacks have made their presence felt in every sphere of the economy.
Compared to the American Blacks, the Dalits have nothing but small grocery shops or manufacturing units here and there which don’t find any mention even in the community’s media.
The history is replete with instances of the community leadership committing mistakes. Mistakes sometime become so grave that they pre-destine fortunes of the communities they represent.
The post-Ambedkar Dalit has committed a major blunder in understanding Dr Ambedkar. Baba Saheb’s resignation from Pt Nehru’s Cabinet on October 10, 1951, is a case in point. One of the reasons for his resignation was that he was not given the charge of the Planing Commission. He makes a pointed presentation when he argues that “I was primarily a student of Economics and Finance”. Needless to add, in the post-independence period, he wanted to usher in an era of economic emancipation of the Dalits. He was doubly betrayed, first by Pt Nehru and latter by his followers. The agenda of economic emancipation has withered away from post-Ambedkar Dalit movements.
In sharp contrast, the Black movement kept its focus on the economic question. Black teacher and reformer Booker T Washington had established the “National Negro Business League” in 1900. The Carver Federal Savings Bank, with assets worth $529.5 million, was established on November 5, 1948. It was the first Black-owned bank and it’s there even today. The Dalits are nowhere near those kinds of landmarks.
Unfortunately, Dalit movements attach little or no importance to the economic question, particularly when individuals, communities and nations are fighting for their share in the market. It is altogether a different issue that most Dalit movements split on the question of “financial irregularities”. Can the community do something concrete so that an Indian newspaper titles its story as New Dalit Power on Dalal Street?
Unfortunately, internal betrayals are the theme of the story of India…
Unfortunately, internal betrayals are the theme of the story of India…
And of most Bollywood filums…
Are Dalits identified by birth only? Or can they be identified by surname only? Does skin complexion play a role? Are the darker skinned people the Dalits of India? Many comparisons are made of Dalits and African Americans. African Americans are USUALLY identified by skin color, is this true of Dalits? The comparisons are interesting and I hope they eventually come to be accepted in Indian society.
Questions for practicing Hindus: How does one deal with what your religion says about how to treat Dalits and function in US communities that can be so diverse (you must come into contact with others who may be Dalits)? Do you view African Americans in this country as Dalits? Or other non Asians for that matter? Or only an Indian can be a Dalit? Doesn’t this notion of ‘untouchables’ become irrational to a practicing Hindu and raise questions about the validity of Hinduism within US culture? How do practicing Hindus reconcile this issue?
Just curious and trying to better understand
Curious,
I think your question is answerable only on an individual basis, you’d have to ask a particular person and, thats not realistic. Realistically, the caste system on the level of structuring society is not relevent to the United States. In my opinion. Not much translates, except the propensity in people’s minds to see some as high-born and some as low-born. But that kind of thinking is prevelent in all countries. To answer most of your questions, I think there is almost no chance a second generation Indian-American treats anyone he or she meets as a “Dalit”.
To be honest with you, the arrogance it would take to condemn somebody to that, its almost laughable.
Yeah, from what I know, skin color did often connote caste placement, but not always. Family lineage was most important though.
All in all, what a bad system it was and is. I think most second generation South Asians can react to it from hearsay though, as those kinds of questions don’t come up among us in the United States at least. To be honest I think other than people who know of the term “Dalit” as a political term, most Second-generation people have no clue as to who is what caste, other than knowing their own caste but if you ask them where does that fit among the four “varnas” Brahman, Kashatriya, Shudra, (I forget the fourth one) and then the “Untouchable” caste thats outside the main four, they would just guess. The majority of dudes would guess Kashatriya because that was the “warrior” caste. Other than that, I don’t think it pertains much here.
The fact is, the caste system beyond the little parochialism of “my caste rules” is not a part of our lives. Which is a good thing. The whole topic really makes one’s skin crawl, by the way.
Additionally, although I think its a mis-assumption, but to address it, I think there is almost no chance a Hindu going to temple in the United States is participating in a caste-based worship. Almost everyone there would be worshiping as a spiritual practice that deals with a higher Force and its impact one people and the universe. To put it simply, when you see a Hindu going to temple, he or she is not going there to practice casteism. Although I am not a Hindu, I know that there is quite a lot to Hinduism.
Curious, you could check out the wikipedia article on dalits for information. It should answer most of your questions.
Regarding your second question, hinduism has no canonical stance on untouchability, so the issue does not arise. People who do not believe in untouchability do not become ‘un-hindu’ in any sense.
Are Dalits identified by birth only?
Yes – they correspond to the scheduled castes in the Indian constitution. But in brownland the category transcends religion: There are Dalit Christians in India; of late, Dalit Muslims have been asserting that identity as well. The main impetus seems to be reservation benefits. It is tied up with politics.
Or can they be identified by surname only?
No, not necessarily. There are Dalit Singhs, as I pointed out above.
Does skin complexion play a role? Are the darker skinned people the Dalits of India?
No. There are fair-skinned Dalit communities and very dark skinned Brahmins.
Questions for practicing Hindus: How does one deal with what your religion says about how to treat Dalits and function in US communities that can be so diverse (you must come into contact with others who may be Dalits)?
A fundamental thrust of the Upanishads, imo, is the spiritual equality of all beings, because all beings are the Self. IMO, the varna formulation is scandalous, and against the central insight of the Hindu ancients. That doesnt mean the orthodox haven’t upheld it-its obviously pervasive in India. OTOH, there are many Hindu thinkers who have rejected birth-based caste hierarchy, and, reading the epics, it is not at all clear that varna must be based on birth. There are regional variations as well. For example, the Tamil texts are arguably much less caste dependent, as are the Kashmir Shaiva texts, etc.
Do you view African Americans in this country as Dalits?
No.
Or other non Asians for that matter?
No
Or only an Indian can be a Dalit?
Insofar as Dalit=Scheduled Caste, yes. But there are also Nepalis and Pakistanis who assert the Dalit identity, and some Dalit thinkers would include all marginalized peoples in that category.
Doesn’t this notion of ‘untouchables’ become irrational to a practicing Hindu and raise questions about the validity of Hinduism within US culture?
Hinduism will be ‘valid’ in the US culture so long as Hindus find meaning in it. All religions have negativity. Hinduism, being decentralized, is certainly capable of reform. We must reject the outmoded. In Guyana, Trinidad and South Africa, Hinduism operates without caste. In Fiji, it thrives without caste. Based on the intermarriage rates here, it will likely be caste free here too in a few generations.
Thank you desitude, I defer to your explanations, as they are way better.
Thank you for your explanations. So, I can assume the caste system in India is political and Hinduism does not teach its followers to discriminate against Dalits? People discriminate against Dalits for cultural and political reasons, but justify their discrimination through Hinduism.
How sad I was to discover that other religious groups discriminate against Dalits too. I assumed Christianity, Islam and even Buddhism would be an escape for Dalits. There are Dalit Sikhs? This is really complex and makes no sense. Economic and educational opportunity seem to be the best way for Dalits overcome this senseless form of oppression.
Hopefully, the Dalits will ascribe themselves a new name (as African Americans have). The term Dalit seems negative. Maybe they will improve their lot in life to the point of assimilating or blending in mainstream society so they cannot be identified at all and the name Dalit will cease to exist.
For years Christianity was used to justify slavery in this country. It was also used to pacify the slaves towards in sort of revolt with notions of life in heaven (promised land, streets of gold, mansions, etc.). I consider myself a Christian and issues such as these make me question my own religious beliefs.
For years I thought Hinduism was the culprit for the state of India. Now I’m not so sure.
My understanding is that “Dalit” is the name that they have ascribed themselves. They prefer it to “Scheduled Caste”, “Harijan”, “Untouchable”, “Depressed Classes” and so on.
A very deep question. Let us juxtapose it with Quizman’s remark in Post 129:
This is what I think: Modern America deals with multiculturalism by using categories like African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian American, Native American and so on. Ancient India was also multiculturalism, and dealt with its multiculturalism by using caste. In other words, castes like Gujjar, Reddy, Kayasth, and so on are labels like African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian American, Native American and so on.
I must emphasize that the above is a speculation on my part. But it helps to explain some things: Item 1 If you search the Wikipedia for specific castes like Gujjar, Reddy, Kayastha, and so on, you will find a paragraph on where they migrated from and where they are currently settled. Item 2 Hindu books like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana and so on, do not speak of castes like Gujjar, Reddy, Kayastha, and so on. Item 3 When governments want to introduce quotas for backward castes, they do not consult Hindu books to decide which caste is backward, which caste is more backward and so on. Rather they appoint a commission to make decisions on this subject.
Indeed it would be wrong to blame Hinduism as it only a large umbrella group including various different schools of thought. Each and every school of thought supporting discrimination has to be corrected separately. See the movies made by Deepa Mehta for an excellent angle to the social problems that exist in India today.
A lot of the evil social practices are attributed to the Manu Smriti. But when accusing the Manu Smriti people forget that it is not the Bible. If we can get people to agree on certain basic tenets like dignity and right to life and happiness all those social evils can be eliminated much faster. We can then probably separate the Manu Smriti from tradition.
While the situation has changed now, people who did not believe in untouchability (and hence mingled freely with other castes) were literally out castes. You lost your caste – no caste member for example would eat at your place – which was probably worse than being “un Hindu”. This was true even in the 60s and 70s in rural India and in the older generation. While the practice of caste may have changed, in reality caste will not lose its importance in Indian life unless we choose to marry outside of our caste. A look at matrimonial advertisements in India (and elsewhere) shows that this is far from the case. As the joke goes, Indian parents would love it if you married within the same region+caste, failing which same caste will do, failing which “at least a Hindu”….other religions are of course outside the pale for mata shri and pita shri.
I think Chander Bhan’s article did a wonderful job of taking the mickey out of the pretensions of English speaking upper caste Indians who presume to speak on behalf of the Dalits.
Curious:
Actually, the term “Dalit” was popularized by the Dalit Panther movement of the 1970s. To my knowledge it is in fact an empowering term, much as “Black” was in the context of “Black Power” during the same era. Incidentally, the term “Dalit” was originally coined by Jyotirao Phule, a Dalit activist of the 19th century. In any case, the term was popularized as a response to such offensive designations as “Untouchable” or Gandhi’s term, “Harijan” (“Children of God”) which was deemed condescending.
desitude:
To say this is misleading. While the skin color system in India is not identical to the system of race in Europe and America, it is not correct to say that skin color has absolutely no relation to caste. I’m not going to make any definitive claims but to say skin color is totally unrelated to caste is incorrect. This is something that needs to be considered in a far more complex manner rather than dismissing it outright. Currently there is some level of debate as to what the color/racial implications of caste are, just as there is debate regarding the history of caste in India.
formatting error in my previous comment. I was saying that one should not say caste is completely unconnected with skin color.
Based on the intermarriage rates here, it will likely be caste free here too in a few generations.
I’d say caste will be largely gone in the US by the next generation. Eight out of the last ten marriages I’ve beeen to were inter-regional/inter-caste affairs–Punjabi/Malyalee; Gujurati/Tamil; Shah/Brahmin, and so on. Yes, there will always be holdouts, but they will shrink with time. In the West, caste is portrayed as a Hindu “essence.” But isn’t it surprising then how quickly Hindus discard it outside of India? American Hindus still go to temples and honor the devas, they still meditate, they still practice yoga in the quietude of their puja room; they still read the Gita and sing bhajans in small groups, but they have already started becoming caste blind!
Some have connected Hinduism to the larger American Emersonian tradition, which is suffused with Vedantic concepts and, as a tolerant strain of spirituality, is a sort of foil to the recent Evangelical uprising. Read Emerson’s Divinity School Address and tell me its not utterly familiar to anyone who has read the Upanishads. Read Whitman’s Song of Myself and tell me you don’t see a poetic vision of samadhi.
This is the way to go–connect the tradition that you bring with you by blood to the broader intellectual culture, some strains of which have met and honored it it already. And it may be more fulfilling to those who reject a nationalist vision. Meanwhile, there are twenty million or so Yoga-practicing Americans who basically share the same spiritual understanding and would love to learn more. Here, like almost no place else, it can be made new.
I was saying that one should not say caste is completely unconnected with skin color.
In the Mahabharata, Sage (I think) Bharadvaja says in a dialogue said that if the different skin colors denote different castes, then all castes are mixed castes –and this was at least 1800 years ago! So if there was any purity associated with skin tone, it looks to have been in abeyance in the classical period. India was already Brazil during the Roman Empire.
Manu, from the same time period, had to list ten or fifteen odd “mixed” varnas (several of which he openly sneered at) to give a proper accounting of the groupings in society. But still, people were getting it on, despite what the Brahmins may have thought of it.
The relationship of varna and race is principally upheld by the prononents of the Aryan Invasion Theory, and based upon a definition of varna as skin color. Whatever the “debate” may be, there is no operative relationship between untouchability and skin tone. Some African American activists like Runoko Rashidi tried to link the Dalits to other race marginalized communities in the West, but scholars, including Vijay Prashad, quickly disabused the activists. Dalits were discriminated against, yes. But it wasnt because they were the darkest of the dark.
Risible, I don’t think there’s any doubt that ON AVERAGE, so-called ‘lower caste’ people are darker (and have less sharp facial features) than so-called ‘upper caste’ people. Granted, there has been A LOT of intermixing over the past few thousand years, and there are fair, sharp-featured dalits, and dark, non-sharp-featured brahmins…and sometimes within a given family you will see the whole spectrum…but in terms of GENERAL TREND I think the statement stands. In fact, in India it’s commonly said (crudely) that if you see a fair-skinned, good-looking dalit, it’s because he/she is the illegitimate child of a (so-called) ‘upper caste’ man…a reflection of a form of sexual exploitation which is all too rampant in the villages.
Macacaroach
“Dont be silly quizman. It never occurred to hindus that burning widows alive was a horrendous crime until some British missionaries began pressing the East India Company to ban it. Some british educated indians like Ram Mohan Roy also joined the campaign, and they were staunchly opposed by orthodox brahmins. Note that the westernized Ram Mohan Roy rejected the polytheism and idol worship of his ancestors also.
Similarly, it never occurred to hindus that sacrificing little children to a goddess was an abominable practice.
Have the decency and intellectual honesty to give credit where its due.”
What a load of Bullshit.
“You never heard of Kali? Amazing. If the practice was not prevalent in large parts of India, primarily Bengal, why on earth would the British have felt the need to ban it?“
What a stupid question. Go educate yourself.
“China was never colonized by the British. Only a tiny fraction of it was, and that part has done extremely well.
So the question is: whats holding India back? Culture, religion, low IQ, or what? It cant be democracy since it has worked so well in many other places.”
What crap reasoning.
“What “basic human decency” do you find in the practices of untouchability, widow-burning and shunning, child sacrifice, temple prostitution etc that have plagued India for thousands of years?
Why did it take the British to pass laws against sati and human sacrifice? Dont hindus have their own law books, such as the famous Manu Smriti?“
Clearly you are uneducated. Read some books.
“Apparently so did Korea, South-East Asia and other non-european regions of the world. So again: why has the world overtaken India since it gained independence from the British?
Only sub-saharan Africa remains comparable to the Indian subcontinent in poverty, hunger, backwardness etc. ” — ROTFLMAO. Dude, you so need to read some books. The reason is so obvious.
“Nonsense. Japan for example did not even begin modernizing until a century and a half ago. As others have pointed out, in 1947 India was in better shape than a large portion of the non-western world. Yet now it finds itself near the bottom with subsaharan africa. Why?
What we are seeing is the usual desi drone excuses in response to this question:
1. We was robbed by the lousy brits. Sure, but they also left an India that was better set than many other regions of the world. So that still begs the question: why has most of the non-western world overtaken India since the British left?
2. India is too big. Well then break it up into manageable pieces. In any case, that ignores the fact that smaller subcontinental nations, even tiny Nepal, aren’t doing so well either. Sri Lanka is the best off nation in the subcontinent and it isnt exactly prosperous either.
3. Who says we are behind? This ostrich-like mentality is unfortunately widespread among too many desis. Call them the deluded “India Shining” jingos.“
Bad reasoning. Wrong facts.
“The problem with this excuse is that socialism/planned economy did not prevent the Soviet Union from becoming a global super power, while India under its License Raj was a beggar nation dependent on foreign handouts. Why? “
Soviet union an economic power. LMAO.
“This is the sort of lies/ignorant nonsense that too many indians feed their delusions with. Both Botswana and Namibia have nominal per capita incomes many times higher than India’s.
The palestinians look far better fed, clothed and housed than India’s middle classes.“
What ignorant nonsense and lies.
“You are grabbing at straws. There are dozens of countries in Africa.
Compare the nominal per capita income of the Indian subcontinent to any non-western region of the world: ASEAN, East Asia, Latin America and Africa. What did you discover?“
I discovered that you are an appologist.
“Are you denying that the Soviets accomplished far more under socialism than India did under democracy and the license raj?“
Soviet union was communist dictatorship with a far better literacy rate born through a people’s revolution. You nut job, don’t you get it.
“Whats your excuse for Bangladesh’s even greater poverty and backwardness? It certainly is smaller, more homogeneous and mono-lingual isnt it, so those excuses are inapplicable. Why dont you apply your race and DNA obsession to this issue? Or is that obsession with genetics only limited to skin color, “attractiveness”, and other such superficial racial attributes?“
Ha ha..you seriously lost it. Haven’t you ?
“Whaaaat???“
Whaaaat?????
“False.
BTW, there are some orthodox hindus including a Shankaracharya of Puri who wish to revive this “glorious” custom.“
False.
“What if the dalits all become english-speaking buddhists in a couple generations?“
What if ?
“And yet we have guys here blaming socialism for India’s backwardness! Casteism is the very anti-thesis of socialism isnt it?“
Isnt it ? You are so clueless.
“What? No one told you that sati was banned by the british? Or that the govt of independent India continued that ban?
BTW, in the wake of attempts by some orthodox hindus to revive this odious custom the govt of free India made abetting sati a crime punishable by death and even made the glorification of this ancient hindu practice a jail able offense.“
Atlast you got one wrong. The British actually influenced the decision here. The PMO called up 10, Downing street to get the nod.
“You are still grabbing at straws. Look at subsaharan Africa as a region. Ditto for the MIddle-East, South-East Asia and Latin America and you will get the true picture of where India stands. India lags behind every region of the world and is neck and neck with subsaharan Africa:“
Wrong.
“You said it was limited to bengali upper castes. Which is obviously false, and you must know it too. Most every literate indian is aware that sati was practiced by, and still is revered, among rajputs, for example.
The issue was not that sati is still practiced in India, it was that forcibly ending it is one of the beneficent legacies of british rule. Along with the ban against human sacrifice, the crushing of thuggery etc.“
False
“You don’t get bragging rights for wishful thinking.“
Yeah, glad you got that.
“It was a clever satire of the hindu fundamentalist, “India Shining”, “India is an IT superpower”, Macaulay-hating yet proudly “english proficient” masses yearning for an american visa or green card.“
Does that include you as well ?
“A hungry child is a hungry child regardless of “dollar’s equivalent” or any other spin you try to put on it.
And India is worse even than subsaharan Africa when it comes to child malnutrition. That should be the very minimum measure of HDI, dont you agree?“
Obviously I dont agree.
Yeti:
To say this is misleading.
I don’t believe it is. Here is my point:
1)One cannot identify a Dalit based upon his skin tone. 2)Being darkest doesn’t necessarily make one a Dalit. 3)Dalits are not discriminated against because they are dark, or because they are considered a separate race. 4) A Dalit could ‘pass’ for a non-Dalit, at any given time.
Contrast this with the “race” marginalized peoples of the west.
it is not correct to say that skin color has absolutely no relation to caste.
Dr. Ambedkar, the father of the Dalit movement, vehemently dismissed the racial origins of caste. Check out what he had to say on this subject:
I generally agree with Dr. Ambedkar. The admixture of communities in India is ancient.
Desitude, I disagree with the quote above. There is ON AVERAGE a difference in the physical appearance of a Punjabi brahmin compared to a Punjabi dalit…so also between a Tamil brahmin and a Tamil dalit…you can see this with your own eyes. But it is ON AVERAGE, as a TREND. There are plenty of exceptions to the rule, in both directions, and I agree there is no PURE race in India, even among Kashmiris or anyone else.
Desitude, I disagree with the quote above. There is ON AVERAGE a difference in the physical appearance of a Punjabi brahmin compared to a Punjabi dalit…so also between a Tamil brahmin and a Tamil dalit…you can see this with your own eyes. But it is ON AVERAGE, as a TREND. There are plenty of exceptions to the rule, in both directions, and I agree there is no PURE race in India, even among Kashmiris or anyone else.
Amitabh, color is always a dangerous topic here 🙂
Okay, but then what utility does it have in determining who is a dalit? Eg. African Americans are 25% “white” but you can still tell who is considered “black” here. Can the same be said about Dalits? Also, take a few examples: Rajputs in North India are considered very high caste, but they are, in my experience, fairly dark; Ezhavas in Kerala are just above the untouchables in the Mallu caste hierarchy, but they are not darker, on average, than anyone else in Kerala, in fact they may be fairer. You yourself say different features can manifest in the SAME families kind of proves Ambedkar’s point about mixture.
Yeti:
If caste = skin color as the western-concocted aryan invasion theory propagates, then hinduism is a very superficial (skin-deep), non-spiritual, pernicious religion that needs to be stamped out. If brahmin = white skin then every brahmin is an impostor for none are white skinned.
A foreigner would be unable to tell indians apart by their caste just by looking at them. The lightest people in India are not brahimins by any means. Jatt sudras, parsis, many muslims, the mongoloids of the north-east and others are.
The lightest of the brahmins, the Chitpavans, werent even accepted as authentic by the orthodox, which should tell you how wrong this theory is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitpavan
“Well known for their ‘European-like’ features of light skin and grayish to green eyes, results of recent studies [4,5,6,7] on the genetics of Konkanasta Brahmins have been quite interesting…….There is no mention of Chitpavans in Indian history prior to the reign of the Peshwas because they did not hold any powerful position in the political structure and were content more or less in performing clerical jobs unlike their counterpart of desh who were performing religious duties………Until the rise of Balaji Vishvanath Peshwa, who belonged to Chitpavan Brahmin sub-caste, they held a low position and were known chiefly as clerks in the Deccan. Even after several generations of living in the Deccan, with strict attention to Brahmin rituals and austere life, other classes of Brahmins refused to eat with them. One story is that when Bajirao II, the last of the Chitpavan Brahmin Peshwas (1796-1818), was in Nasik he was not allowed to go down to the Godavari river using the same flight of steps as the priests from the local Trimbakeshwar temple.”
The varnas were supposed to be based on the color of the gunas, not something as irrelevant to spirituality as skin color.
This website seems to have some detailed research on Lord Macaulay debunking the typical ‘sena’ or bjp propaganda http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/dutch/macaulay.html
This is all misconstruing what I said. Even Runoko Rashidi has admitted that he oversimplified the African-Dalit connection, and that the connection has more to do with social relationships than it does some construct of ‘race’.
Furthermore, I did not say that caste = skin color. In fact, my entire point was to say that there is a level of complexity with respect to the relationship of caste and skin color. So your examples don’t hold water. My father is from a Maharashtrian Brahmin caste that is relatively dark-skinned compared to all other Maharashtrian Brahmins. My mother is from a non-Brahmin caste that is extremely light with light eyes. I understand that caste is not a simple hierarchy of color.
However, to say that there is absolutely no relation is insane. For instance, I’ve seen at least one study that explores genetic origins and connections to Eurasians as they relate to caste. I think that any sane personal observation of people in India can show you this trend. Things may vary as you go to different regions, but that’s also because the history of South Asia is extremely long and has seen many variations, collapses, and re-entrenchments of the hierarchical system.
Why do so many people have such a knee-jerk reaction to the idea that MAYBE color could have some connection to caste? Again, I’m not bloody saying that caste=color, I’m talking about something more nuanced. I mean, look at the skin color issues within your own family group (if you’re desi). Most desi families have an obsession with light skin color and Euro features, and we know this obsession actually existed before the whites. So what’s that about? Undoubtedly Euro-American [neo-]colonization has exacerbated this phenomenon (and added an entirely new dimension to it), but do you think it’s really about some arbitrarily chosen value of light skinned-ness? Or that it’s strictly about class assignment (i.e. dark skin means you work outside)?
The african-dalit connection is as absurd as the european-brahmin connection. Brahmins and dalits are the same race and that race is neither african nor european. Though in skin color both brahmins and dalits are far closer to africans than to europeans.
You appear to be thoroughly confused. Make up your mind: is caste based on skin color or not? What “nuance” reconciles this logical contradiction? The fact that your brahmin father is dark-skinned while your lower caste mother is lighter than him tells you what?
The real insanity lies in thinking that brahmins are a different ethnicity than other indians.
Francois Gautier, french convert to hinduism and certainly not anti-brahmin, is far more sane and objective than the delusional, macaulayite brahmins who imagine european origins in thrall of european theories:
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/03franc.htm
“I would like to say that after so many years in India, particularly in the cities, I am still not able to see the difference between a Dalit and a Brahmin, except if I see a Brahmin wearing a sacred thread and a Dalit in a loincloth, which is never the case in cities.”
Beacuse the idea that varna was based on skin color, which you clearly subscribe to despite your “maybes” and “nuances”, is an insult to hindus. It demeans their religion as shallow, stupid, and wickedly racist. Because it screws up the minds of hindus, in particular the brahmins, and gives them a deep inferiority complex. Because it feeds the vanity and superiority complexes of non-indians, the great majority of whom are much lighter than hindus. But most of all because it simply isnt true. Varna was based on guna and karma.
The caste system as it exists is a farce and a fraud: if caste is based on skin color all brahmins are impostors since none are white-skinned; if it is based on profession, then the great majority of brahmins are frauds since most work in non-religious jobs; if it is based on guna then again most brahmins are undeserving, since few exhibit the characteristics of the sathwic guna.