I think I found this after reading an email sent out on the ASATA listserv; it asked for participants for a survey on caste and Sikhism. Since I’m interested in both, I decided to take a quick look. The first notes wafted tentatively through my iBook’s wee speakers and I smiled: Van Halen. I knew exactly what kind of video this would be. We used to make ones just like it for JSA‘s Fall and Spring “State”, usually to open the conference. Well, it was either that or we’d blare Public Enemy‘s “Fight the Power“…
After watching it, I was moved, because I felt like so much of it was applicable to all of us, not just Sikhs. Someone Malayalee needs to make one of these, stat, I muttered…and then I realized that they didn’t. Maybe they should just watch this, I thought and that’s when I knew it belonged here, in a space where it would get the attention it rightly deserves.
Ravidasia // Khatri // Jatt // Tarkhan…The labels that divide us are endless. Caste, gender, class, and power tear apart our Qaum, our Gurdwaras, and our Pariwars. How do we overcome? How do we forge unity without silencing voices? [Jakara]
My closest friend in college was a Sikh girl from Fremont, who happened to be Tarkhan. My boyfriend from Freshman through Junior year was Jatt. So were all of his friends. They made fun of her when she wasn’t around and ignored her when she was. This baffled coconut-flavored me. “Why are you so mean to her?” I’d ask him, over and over. “She’s nice.”
“Because she’s…Tarkhan. They’re lower class. And so backwards– didn’t you say her parents tried to get her married when she was 17, that they didn’t even want to send her to college? Who the hell does that?”
“That’s not her fault, why are you taking it out on her?”
“Look, it’s a Sikh thing…it’s probably difficult to understand. Don’t you have a sorority thing to go to?”
::
I’m amazed at how often caste shows up on our comment threads, among second gen kids who should know better. Then I am humbled as I remember that I’m complicit in this too, when I tease my best friend about doing TamBrahm stuff or when I embroider stories from bygone UC Davis days with an extra adjective which probably isn’t necessary:
“Well a lot of students were from the Central Valley or Yuba City…so a good number of the desis I befriended were Jatt Sikh.”
It’s so insidious, the way this need to inform others of where we are in some dated hierarchy persists. Right now, we need to ask ourselves…why?
Ok, 200 comments and only one person has self identified as a lower caste! Surely more than one commenter belongs to a lower caste!
I did not know that Jatts were considered cool. I know quite a few Punjabi Pakistani Muslims who are jatts and they did not seem to think that being a Jatt bought any social premium in Pakistan. I know the Arain (spelling?) in Pakistan seem to think that they are the shit.
I think sub-castes are more important in Punjabi Pakistanis than more broad caste categories like Jatt etc. As I understand, in Punjabi Pakistan it all depends upon whether your sub-caste is of a rich connected land owning type or not ( to see whether your beradiri can help you or not)
For those interested, the hierarchy in the Urdu speaking Muslims in North India, Karachi and North America might be (1) Syed (2) Pathan though some would put Pathans before Syeds (3) Sheikhs (4) Your classification is occupational like badai (carpenters), koelaywaley (coal workers) etc..
Oh yeah, and Manju,
I’ve met some Marathi people who are Lingayat and self-identify as Hindu…I’ve never met anyone who is fully Veershaiva and not Lingayat though…
Thanks for replying to my comment, btw 🙂
feministador: since i quickly turned and ran from the SASA/ISA types whose criteria for being a “good Indian” included familiarity with Bollywood, fair skin, and a distaste for South Indian food, you better believe i quickly got the “anti-Indian” label. 😉
Finally saw the video ANNA posted. That little kid dancing bhangra while drinking what looked like alcohol (but hopefully wasn’t, to give the adults there SOME credit) was chilling. Definitely depicted that poor kid’s socialisation into a particular set of cultural values. Creepy. Reminds me of the time when I was a medical resident, went to see a patient (happened to be African American), and found his obese 6 year old daughter eating a BUCKET of KFC while sitting outside his room. In both cases, it’s the adults’ fault.
Aack! I got more replies than I expected! sorry for the multiple posts in a row…i’ll be better at scanning next time.
sigh!
well, i socialize amongst lots of people, but the indians who have tended to end up at this silly expensive university of mine tend to be majority hindu brahmin gujaratis and punjabi jatt sikhs…literally. i guess being south indian and not the hindu majority compounds my minority status in the fairly stilted north indian hindu community. surprisingly few patels out here…must be the gorges cold central NY weather…
I’m a HUGE UK bhangra fan, I really really love it, but lyrically I wouldn’t consider it the ultimate in Indian modernity. Musically it can be a beautiful fusion, but the wordings usually reflect the culture, behavior, and attitudes of rural Punjab, no more and no less. Of course that is not a bad thing, there is much that is beautiful in that age-old culture. And much of the lyrics, metaphors, images, etc. are very poetic and rooted in very deep traditions. As someone who loves the language, I find a treasure trove in some of the songs. There is probably no greater insight into the Punjabi culture than those songs (at least without studying the literary masterpieces like Heer Ranjha by Waaris Shah or something). However modern they are not (usually).
Jeeez !! Please say that this college was not in the US. say it aint so. What kind of sick freaks would judge someone’s parent’s marraige ??
I am not a hundred percent sure about this, but my impression is that Jatt Muslims dominate rural Punjab in Pakistan, just as Jatt Sikhs dominate rural Punjab in India, and Jaat Hindus dominate rural Haryana in India. But yes, Sikhs seem to be the proudest about it. I’m also pretty sure Jatts in Pakistan consider themselves superior to Arains, Awans, Muslim Rajputs, and the like. If you look at the Punjabi epics, the famous lovers (Heer-Ranjha, Mirza-Sahibaa) were Jatt Muslims (however in an era when being Muslim in that region was more of a ‘folk Islam’, full of local, indigenous, pre-Islamic cultural influences and not the hardcore Saudi-imported ‘pure’ version you see today). Also I think in Pakistan, the Jatts may be somewhat intimidated by the constantly looming, larger than life status of the Pathans, whereas in India, they don’t face that kind of competition for biggest bad ass (no pun intended vis a vis the Pathans).
I didn’t think they were considered cool, Al C. I thought basically they were the rednecks* of India.
*I’m joking! I just outed myself as from a jat hindu background, so relax peoples.
Amitabh: why the different spellings (jaat, jat, jatt) and why is it more of a ‘thing’ for sikhs? Do you know? Anyone know? This is sort of fascinating. Weird and sort of irrelevant, but fascinating.
A contrarian view on caste.
my dad’s family shortened their name from what used to be one indicating their status as “gowda” or community leaders. apparently that is a subcaste (?!).
thanks, feministador. i’m a gowda too but i didn’t know that it was a subcaste or meant community leader (i know it just as a middle name my dad has). you learn something new on SM every day. i’m a community leader, who’d have thunk it.
milli
being south indian and an officer in the major south asian organization on my campus is awesome in many ways because it allows me to have a fairly enlightened perspective on the desi community…the critical insider as literature people say, lol….since i can pass off as north indian due to my appearances, i get to have access to the exclusive desi clique and hear some not-so-PC remarks about south indians…but when they figure out i’m south indian and not cookie cutter indian, they kind of panic…then they find some way to label me “anti indian” and have a safe but distanced “friendship” with me…i kinda like the freedom it gives me to not fit in to a particular stereotype because then i can move between social circles freely and not get stuck adhering to the ultimate desi tenets like religiousness, language retention, bollywood obsessions, preserving “culture”, dating only desi. (ps–i almost went to berkeley…it’s a pretty awesome school)
RC, oh it’s a school in the US. but i mean, don’t get me wrong people, it’s not like these peers will overtly talk about the deviant nature of my parents’ marriage…they just get that funny tone in their voice like “oh, that’s so nice! cough-notmytype-cough“, you know the subversive kind of judgement…and then you barely hear from them again…but like i said, i enjoy being in that social position. it’s liberating once you figure out how to negotiate the facets of your identity.
anyway, i’m off to bed. good night, everyone.
whoa. i’m shocked. i thought you were reporting from karnataka. i blame multiculturalism.
What’s “prudish” about a woman not wanting her man to go to a strip bar?
It happens.
so a bit late into the conversation, but thought I’d add my two cents. the main thing I’d like to say is actually at a tangent to this discussion, but is perhaps relevant in some sense: very little is known about in any disaggregated sense about how different castes live their lives in India today and I think this allows a lot of space for the construction of mythic idealized caste communities (of course its not the only factor, but it is significant nevertheless)
the few large and nationally representative household surveys (NSS,REDS-ARIS) only collect data at an aggregated levels (SC/ST/Other) and while the NFHS does collect more disaggregated data, I haven’t seen much work using that data and its a pretty small sample as well.
there was a huge debate about whether the 2001 census should collect caste based information and the idea was eventually given up as impractical (the last census to collect detailed caste based information was 1931 and incidentally its those figures that still inform whatever quantitative disaggregated caste based analyses you read). there are widespread rumors that rajiv gandhi had an extremely detailed caste census done in the 80s for election purposes and whatever the truth of that assertion, its clear thal all political parties are very aware of caste composition at a fine grained level when for instance picking candidates for assembly elections etc.. so i’m not saying this information isn’t there, just that academ
so we’re in a situation where if for instance, you want to have any reasonably accurate sense of what fraction of this mythic jatt sikh community eats two square meals a day, you’re out of luck … this general vacuum I think makes it easier to construct mythic communities without reality impinging in any way and this contributes in some measure to caste conceptions that don’t need to be moored in any reality.
i’m not saying accurate information will eliminate caste from upper middle class indian (and ABCD) experience but I think it will provide ammunition to throw at ignorant and biased viewpoints of which there are too many around ….
I was raised in a family that was self-consciously reformist and progressive and so on, and never mentioned caste – some cousins asked our grandfather what caste we were when they had to put it down on a school form, and he was the only one in the family who knew. I had a French south asianist prof tell me what caste I was based on my last name, and that was the first time I heard about it. Having said that, there are lots of subtle ways in which I think my family (we are DBD) retain casteist prejudices. For example, people marrying people with a certain set of last names, expecting servants and workers to sit on the floor and not on the same chairs as everyone else, sniffing at populist low-caste politicians as people who have “dirtied” politics (as if the Nehru-Gandhi clan, whom they disliked equally, were more “upright” due to their Brahmindom or something).
Some of this blurs into old-fashioned class conservatism but there’s a definite element of purity-impurity that shows its roots in caste. The same in-grouping mechanisms and motivations that apply to all ethnic or social groups apply to caste ones as well, but I rather like a religious aversion to, say, eating beef or pork persists even among those who are not exactly believing, the gut-level, morally-infused aversions of caste prejudice are not as easy to throw off as, say, the aversion of one who has been brought up vegetarian to meat.
Where’s Divya, isn’t she the resident “caste is a good thing and has been misunderstood” voice?
Whoops, please ignore the “I” before “rather like” above.
SP, loved your comment (#217). Pretty much all you say applies to my family as well.
The only thing I disagree with is the finger-pointing at Divya in the last line, who, at least, is open and honest about her opinions. The suspicious overdose of progressive sentiments on this thread makes me wonder, how did all the prejudice-sanitized desis in the world end up on one blog.
Post #201 I did not know that Jatts were considered cool.
I also do not thing that Jatts are cool. Al Chutyia, I guess this may be the 1st time that I and you may have the same opinion about something.
Also if anybody doesn’t know, I come from a jatt sikh background, but I was 28 when I found out what a jatt was.
i was going to quote one person on this thread to make my point, but i don’t know him/her, therefore don’t know if what i say applies or not in his/her case.
anyway, part of the half heartedness in reforming the caste system the last half century should be blamed on the brown sahib mentality. all who i personally know and belong to this category invariably prefix adjectives like “progressive” for themselves and “traditionalists” for others—it betrays the superiority complex. by itself it seems harmless and maybe it can be even justified, but imo they are not the ones you can rely on for any real change. in fact real change is not always obvious even, and often comes from very unlikely quarters. the sahib’s zeal stymies these little pinpoints of hope since they are usually not glamorous/”progressive” enough.
as an example in modern india—the caste-mongering, cynical and corrupt mayawati will land up doing more to ameliorate caste divisions than any sanctimonious congress leader (including nehru) harping eloquently about equality and reservations. the bigoted brahmin who succumbs to renting out his apartment to a sudra purely because he couldn’t find anyone else has probably unwittingly (and unwantingly) done more than most brown sahibs.
the reason? the nehru/gandhis—whatever their intention was—constructed a vote bank through their larger than life persona; mayawati has an alliance with exactly the same components—but now they are people whose selfish interests converge. to me, imposing your will—especially when you think you are enlightened and progressive—may work for fifteen minutes, as long as people are in thrall of your superior clothing/flashy cars/power/erudition, in the case of cpi-m, guns and goondas, or you put in an ideology in their heads so that they never think again. but if you leave and they think, you are in trouble.
if you are going to convince people to change, you must do so from within. that effectively rules a sahib out—(s)he forgets the people and sees the problem.
the responsibility on everyone is to prevent slipping back. not everyone cannot force the pace of progress no matter what you think. to me, that is what we lost in the colonial period—retaining the pace of progress that had started with basavanna/bhakti movement (kabir, guru nanak, meerabai) in the beginning of the last millenium. there is a reason they succeeded more than the hordes of marxists/leninists with more modern communication resources and economic/political clout in their hands.
I’ll self identify my lower caste status with pride…I’m a bhatraju-basically a Kshatriya group that is considered OBC in Andhra. There are very, very affluent and well-educated bhatrajus and very, very deprived ones as well-especially in rural areas. The main Andhra Pradesh/Tamil Nadu kshatriya group, the Rajus, more or less look down on us even though its pretty much that we don’t come from the same side of the Godavari River. This puts us in an odd place, cause we’re sorta upper caste, but we’re sorta not (In South India, to truly be recognized as “upper caste” you kinda have to be a brahmin it seems)…
Most bhatraju families that I know are very religious, although a bit more relaxed when compared to South Indian Brahmins. Nevertheless, in the US, my parents have been involved with the main South Indian temple here since they arrived thirty years ago, and most of their close circle of friends are all Tamil and Telugu Brahmins. I’ve been fortunate enough not to have experienced the casteism that others have from “TamBrams,” in fact, I identified with Milli’s and Maitreyi’s posts the most.
So much of my identity comes from things that have to do with my parent’s region and caste that it’s not really an identity that I want to give up, whether its the fact that its practically a sin in my family not to make the pilgrimage to Tirupati when they visit India, sitting through Varalakshmi Vratham, being Vaishava but participating in offerings to the local non-Brahminnical village deities (which Brahmins don’t do), wearing half saris to temple, Annamacharya and Thyagaraja keethanas, enjoying the aquired yet amazing taste of tamarind rice etc, waking up every Saturday mornign to a blaring M.S. version of the Suprabatham…
It could be argued that this stems more from having roots in southern Andhra and northern Tamil Nadu, but at the same time, if I was say, a Reddy or a Kamma or maybe even a Brahmin, I might have had a different experience growing up.
and i agree with sakshi—i find divya real. it is cheap to take pot-shots at someone, just because you know no one will step on her behalf.
200+ and still going strong!
Well, as a kid it was always clear to me what caste/sub-caste we were but I never perceived it to be a point of discrimination. We never had different treatment of different people visiting us even though again it was typically clear whether they were of our caste. Ironically, it is the Indian government that continues to perpetuate the caste distinction. I remember needing to fill out my caste on my college paperwork. After having grown up with friends from all various religions and castes, I found it quite objectionable that a SCHOOL would ask for that info. The other much more visible, insidious, objectionable way the government has sowed more ill-will between caste groups than ANYONE in history, is by implementing the reservation scheme. I have never been pissed of at anyone regarding caste, but man, does reservation get my goat!! And listen, I don’t care if brahmins are over-represented in colleges, from an individual 18yr old student’s point of view who is trying to move earth and heaven to achieve admission to a college, nothing but pure meritocracy is acceptable. I understand not all have the opportunities to prepare and such, but then again, the buck must stop somewhere! I mean, why shouldn’t I be as eligible as another applicant for each extant seat??? So while I’ve been lucky and successful in making caste irrelevant for most things in my life, I have been forced to deal with it, and mostly made to dislike those who are pulling out their ST/SC/OBC card.
If the government really cares about uplifting the oppressed, it should pay each such family to provide conducive environment for their kid to study, get tutors 24/7 for 15 yrs…whatever! Just don’t mess with that seat!! Of course doing it right way is more work than simply gathering vote by caste.
So a few years ago I had an interesting experience. My brother and I were visiting famous Indian architecture, and I guess I was a bit camera-happy, and easy to spot as an outsider with expensive equipment. An elderly couple who happened to be right where I was shooting, asked me my name. I gave them my first. They asked again, this time for my ‘full name’. This wasn’t innocent. Last name tells one a number of things in India. I mean heck, were they trying to figure out if I’d be caste-compatible to f**k their daughter??!! I must say I was quite upset internally. I wish I’d had been uppity enough to refuse to tell them outright but since that incident I’ve thought many times to simply start using ‘Kumar’ or something like that for my last name when traveling in India.
Brown fury #141, I’ll try to dig up the name of the book I read a few years ago on Jainism. I’m quite impressed with the thought leadership of the Thirthankars, and realized after reading the book how some of the most important practices in hinduism originate in Jainism, and that basically my family was a Jaini Hindu.
I see “caste consolidation” going on in South India. For example people who are somewhat conservative are loosening up a bit to accept unions between similar communities (e.g. Telegu Reddys & Tamil Vellalars) across the linguistic divide. There is also more intermarriage between Left & Right hand castes at the same level of society (e.g. Chettiars & Gounders). But Dalit & “Caste Hindu” marriages are exceptional enough to warrant comment…I meet people from “progressive” backgrounds who claim that their families don’t care but I seriously doubt that is the case when it comes to Dalits.
Does it matter in the US ? To a certain degree yes, but once kiddo hits 30 the “Tambram” brand preference is dropped and any vegetarian Ivy Leaguer will do.
The comments about caste mobility are bogus..give me examples of this phenomena that have taken place in the last 300 years. The only recent examples I have seen are of certain Tamil feudal/landowning classes that managed to be reclassified from “forward” to “backward”…i.e. intentional downward mobility to obtain preferences.
Hi Anna,
I was the one who sent the email to ASATA to get more people to take the survey…damn, 225 comments! It’s good that people are talking though…
I have and its pathetic. What exactly are these wannabe supremacists so inordinately proud of? Their supposed descent from the martial race of Sakas/Scythians from central asia, apparently. This makes them feel very superior to indians from points east and south of Punjab. But the flip side is that they willy nilly also suffer from a deep inferiority complex towards people from points west and north of the Punjab. Another poster has already pointed out how intimidated these “proud” jatts are by the pathans/pashtuns from west of the Indus River.
Ask these racist fools the following questions and then sit back and watch them blow a fuse: how come your tall, fair, handsome and very martial ancestors, the mighty Scythian warriors of Central Asia, ended up being assigned the low servant caste of Sudras by the short, dark-skinned, ugly, wimpy brahmins of India? And how come despite you being such a “martial race”, India has regularly been conquered by small handfuls of afghans and mongol-turks who rolled over your sorry asses with the greatest ease on their way to Delhi?
It wasn’t a pot-shot – I find Divya very earnest in her defence of the caste system (and it’s actually the earnestness that reveals the contradictions inherent in treating caste as a mere social solidarity structure). I do, at the end of the day, think it’s a very flawed argument (very similar to the ways in which members of my family defend reformist Hinduism by essentially insisting that it’s all so rational and traditions are purely symbolic) but I was just surprised she hadn’t popped up yet. Feel free to search for her comments on caste, actually, and you’ll see why I think she should be in this discussion.
what are the thoughts on the iraq stuff? should that be in there?
No matter how vicious your Jatt friends – all boys I presume – may be to the lone Tarkhan girl from Fremont because of her imagined low caste status, the fact remains that Sikh Jatts are scheduled in 1881’s Gazetteer commissioned by the then Lt. Governor of Punjab, Denzil Ibbetson, as Shudras which according to the Hindu varnic scale is the lowest caste-group. In fact, in India they are clamoring to be recognized as an OBC – an abbreviation of Oppressed and Other Backward Castes – right from Sriganganagar in Rajasthan to lush green fields of the Majha region. The fact that the Ramgarhias – a euphemism for Sikh Tarkhans – are not listed as either scheduled castes or as OBCs I suppose would surely, as it should, dent the Sikh Jatt ego. Look up any of the recent surveys and see for yourself as to how many Tarkhan girls as against the Jatt Sikhs are percentage-wise receiving higher education in the Indian Universities and you would find that the Jatt girls are way too behind the Tarkhan girls. There are surveys to indicate that the incidence of female foeticide is quite alamingly the highest amongst the Sikh Jatts as compared to any other caste-grouping.
LMAO!
I find the comments on caste mobility and consolidation interesting, it’s about time someone did an update of the classic Rudolph and Rudolph Modernity of Tradition book.
The clip put up by you avers that the
. It is such a joke to even begin to pretend that something like a democratic convention could possibly be followed in a mob whose presence is clearly and menacingly orchestrated by avaricious political interests who want to remain power-soaked at no matter what cost. No self-respecting Sikh would attend a Sarbat Khalsa for fear of being insulted, if not actually kicked, by a mob of bloodhounds.
No doubt. Kerala under brahminism was a literal madhouse of casteism, in Vivekananda’s words:
http://www.religionandspirituality.com/view.php?StoryID=20060606-105641-6370r
“In Kerala, a South Indian state, it was said that even until the early 20th century caste distinction and caste oppression was so stark and brutal that Swami Vivekananda described Kerala as “a madhouse of casteism”. The Namboodiri Brahmins were known to have practiced extremely vile practices of oppressing the lowercaste and the “untouchable” inhabitants of Kerala”
I only just had a chance to carefully read the comments further up – Divya has indeed responded, my bad; I also very much related to DJ Drrty Poonjabi at #177 on the equation of “dirtiness” and epithets regarding it with lower caste or “low class” people (my mother’s family uses the word “choora” much in the same way as “chhee” – and they are uber-reformist Arya Samajis).
Regarding caste in the US, has anyone read Paul Fussell’s book titled Class, which lays out the different “castes” in the US? It uses the same general framework as Bourdieu’s Distinction, emphasizing “cultural capital” and “taste” as key in marking out social hierarchies. I think a version of “caste” exists everywhere, though of course there are important differences in mobility and the socioeconomic systems that support or hinder change in these hierarchies.
Panini Pothoharvi,
Dreams must start at some place. You are right the political maturity may not be there yet, but it isn’t enough to gripe about the problem, without supporting those that are trying to seek a solution (or more importantly, becoming a part of the change you seek). If ‘self-respecting’ Sikhs stay away, then we have none to blame, but ourselves. All change starts with a dream.
Of course, in the south, people don’t use caste identifiers in their names, so it’s not really possible to tell just from a name.
Maybe not so much as in the North, and probably not in children born in the the nineties and after in urban India and abroad, but in most other instances, even without any obvious caste identifiers one can quite easily tell broad caste classifications from Tamil names. I am still to met a Sriram who is not Brahmin, or a Ilamaran who is.
Caste names do play an interesting (but not obvious) role in popular Tamil culture. For instance, in a recent Kamalhassan movie, the hero’s name was Raghavan while the two psycho villains were called Ilamaran and Amudhan. This didn’t seem weird to most of my friends for obvious reasons, but when I talked about the movie to a lower caste friend, I got a completely different reaction. As welcome_to_nyistan says, unless we hear more of these voices, we are not likely to have a good understanding of the issue at hand, in India or abroad.
Maybe he was shocked because he had read about the aryan invasion theory and assumed that hindu upper castes must be fair skinned. Indians, of all castes, look very dark-skinned to americans. The brahmin Nobel Laureate Chandrashekhar, along with other desis of lesser stature, endured the same racism in pre-Civil Rights America that african-americans did:
http://www.sawf.org/Newedit/edit02192001/musicarts.asp
“In the essay “My Everlasting Flame” [Chandrashekhar’s] wife, Lalitha, reminisces thus:….. Now why did Mr. Hutchins make this statement to me on two different occasions? There is no question he must have remembered how Dean Gale of the Physics Department had refused to allow Chandra to lecture at the campus. The refusal was blunt: he did not want this black scientist from India to lecture in his department.“
”Jattworld and other Jatt websites. Some of the stuff there is kind of stuff you would see on a white supremists website”
I dont know what they have to be proud about…In Delhi, Jats are known as macho,short tempered rough types who are quick to use their fists than arguements.
well put, geeta!
@ Ennis #171:
I hear you loud and clear on the surname problems. I’ve had many conversations with myself on what to do about my caste marker, if anything. Should I take preemptive action before the marker or my caste comes up? Indeed I should, I thought. I owe it to my progeny. I’ve even had an itch or two to scrap my surname and just rock ‘Singh’. The day of reckoning came when Google whipped out Gmail and, being that I had a buddy at Google, I had nearly first pickings at an account (or so I thought). I looked at myself and said, “Son, you’re grown up now. Don’t halve your first name. And just be a Singh.” Fair enough, right? Nope! Some bastard took jasjeetsingh and I settled sloppy seconds. So that was the first naming battle of my postmodern* era- No von Mises 0; Perpetuation of Social and Economic Differences Via Birth Name 1.
My caste-consciousness came from friends and one completely blinkered cousin and occurred during high school. In my immediate family and during my formative years, caste wasn’t really brought up, certainly never flaunted, and mostly shamed (for Sikhi reasons as well as others). In fact, my mom, who was jatt sikh, never, ever wanted to marry a jatt sikh man but she was forced to and whatever she had feared about a probable arrangement to a jatt sikh came to fruition. In the few conversations I’ve had with my mom about marriage, love shove, pyar vyar, etc., she said I should probably marry a jatt sikh bird (but not one who flaunts) because a sikh bird & her family of any other caste will likely look down on me. Basically, she’s insinuating that the stereotypes will be a significant barrier to achieving equity even though the stereotypes don’t hold but the mutterings are troublesome. And, yet, she doesn’t want me to marry a caste-conscious person. It’s really bizarre cause I understand what concerns her and my only response is one of youthful optimism and somewhere between her concerns and my non-concerns is that grey area of “Shit, what if this shit is for real? What if someone looks at me through their caste lens even if I don’t look at myself that way?” It’s frustrating man. It makes me wanna start a fight in a club. Kidding =)
Lastly, I understand some of the counter arguments of caste benefits and innate desire to differentiate oneself, but YO! Seriously! Sometimes the beast is so bad that whatever perceived benefits accrue due to its existence, that sonafabitch must be killed! Nonetheless, my caste issues are relatively mundane and are correlated to my identity issues which, if the bright commenters here are anything to go by, should be ironed out in my thirties. I’m still in my twenties. Where’s the party yaar?
*no relation to that academicy thang.
Interesting question, and the answers will reveal which has greater sway: the hindu caste ranking system or the worlwide color/race ranking system in which desis of all castes find themselves ranked near the bottom of the globe. Having been conquered and ruled by lighter-skinned peoples for a 1000 years desis have developed a deep-rooted inferiority complex when it comes to skin color.
So silly. I see that the apologists for caste are trying to equate caste with class, race, tribe and even fashion fads, which are common to all peoples. There is no comparison whatsoever. Hindu casteism has a religious foundation.
Caste is the oldest and most resilient social organizing principle in the world, it will likely never disappear from India. The political parties in India dedicated to Other Backward Castes and Dalit castes want more within the hierarchy (resources, status, educational opportunities), they don’t want to abolish caste. If you talked abolition, every Backward Caste and Dalit political leader in India would laugh in your face for naiveness.
But dear Vik, dreams (metaphoric and not real dreams) are such delicate things. You can’t begin to dream just about anywhere. I do dream but not in the midst of Sarbat Khalsa because Sarbat Khalsa is nothing but Jatt Khalsa of a very vicious kind. I would remain decisively and politically away from such spaces.
DJ Dirty Poonjabi writes-
I should add, neither my family or I identify as “jatt” or “majbi.”
Why should this be a problem, when every Sikh Guru was a high-caste Khatri and married his children exclusively within caste, to other high-caste Khatris? The Jats, Mazbhis, Aroras, etc. are doing no differently than the Sikh gurus.
“I have never been pissed of at anyone regarding caste, but man, does reservation get my goat!!”
I don’t understand this notion– but then I am for affirmative action in the US. I don’t know the details of Indian government’s reservation, but in the US, affirmative action is not a quota system (so misrepresented; Instead America’s affirmative action is based on the fact that promoting diversity is advantageous to students.
I think that caste in INdia should be treated in the same way…and of course as with all broad public policy, there will be individuals that don’t fit the mold. And caste is I think, much more complicated than race, b/c as can be seen by the many comments here, there are hundreds of thousands of castes and subcastes and also regional variations.
But I do think that the INdian government cannot just let caste discrimination and inequality end on its own; The government should be involved in it. And if i’m going to an Indian university, I would think that the different perspectives of students from different castes, as well as religions, regions, etc., would be very beneficial to my education.
KV has hit the nail on the head. From second Guru onward, the Gurudom remained primarily in one family. I’m a little wary of this bit about Sikhism being the most modern (a contradiction in terms) and by (presumed) implication progressive religion of the world. If indeed it is so, why are women deafeningly absent from the fold of its creativity? How come they are not allowed to sing the hymns from the sanctum sanctorums? How come they are almost disdainfully dismissed from the field of land relations?
So ask them why God incarnated as Rama and Krishna, neither of whom were brahmins; or why most of the greatest spiritual personalities of India have been non-brahmins.
Actually this definition of brahmin: those in whom the sathwic guna is dominant and thus who are the closest to God-realization, is the correct one. And by this definition hereditary brahminism is exposed as a fraud and a farce, since brahmins as a group show no evidence of being close to God, much less having a monopoly on it. As a hindu scripture declares:
“By birth, every man is a Shudra (an ignorant person). Through various types of disciplines (samskaras), he becomes a dwija (twice born). Through the studies of scriptures, he becomes a vipra (or a scholar). Through realization of supreme spirit (brahmajnana), he becomes a brahmin.”
Buddha, who rejected brahminism and casteism 2500 years ago, taught thus:
“Who is a Brahmin? He is a Brahmin whose passions are stilled, whose work is over, who is taintless, meditative, and saintly.
He is a Brahmin who has cast aside evil,
he is an ascetic whose mind is equable,
he is a saint who has no impurity.
Who is a Brahmin? He is a Brahmin who is nonviolent in body, speech, and mind,
who has firmly controlled these three.
Who is a Brahmin? I call him Brahmin
who practices truth and Dhamma. Not matted hair, not noble birth, not caste, make a Brahmin. A Brahmin makes his own holiness.
Who is a Brahmin? Not always he
whose mother is a Brahmin, not he who is known to possessions, but he who is detached.
Who is a Brahmin? I call him Brahmin
who is gentle among the aggressive,
peaceful among those with uplifted sticks,
detached among the attached.
Who is a Brahmin? I call him Brahmin whose knowledge is deep and wisdom profound who knows right from wrong, and has realized truth.” (Dhammapada)
Its easy to see that the overwhelming majority of “brahmins” are impostors, undeserving of that status.
Its worse than madness, its willful heartlessness this obscene lack of human charity and compassion.
Prema, your quote about Kerala’s caste system is well-known.
I find caste in Kerala so confusing. Researching my own caste I’ve seen many variations on the hierarchy, but we were not high caste. Yet, my family is very well-off in India as with many people from our caste, and as with my own family, this has been for generations. I have never, not even in the US, have seen such gorgeous homes as the ones that belonged to my family’s in Kerala. In fact some 50 years ago, one of my mom’s older female cousins was a successful doctor.
As for the person who says caste mobility is bs, I think that depends on regions of INdia. And in Kerala, judging from my own research into my caste, caste mobility seems very real.
As bytwords said – in Kerala, we have a strong communist govt, but I think the religious movements that rocked the state had more to do with eradicating caste inequality than marxist rules and regulations. The religious movement of gurus such as Sri Naryana Guru.
In “God of Small Things”, you see Roy’s own perception that Marxism didn’t so much eradicate caste in INdia (all this I’m sure is arguable) but incorporated caste inequities in their own proselytizing. I personally think Marxism did help, along with religous movements and the emphasis on Kerala’s education system, to mitigating caste inequality, but I’m not a scholar on these things.
It’s really a difficult balancing act…if parents harp on too much about their caste, the kids may inherit a false sense of superiority (or inferiority), and imbibe the worst aspects of the castist mentality. But if told nothing about their caste origins, they lose out on a wealth of information regarding their cultural identity, their history, and the cultural/ethnic/geographic origins of their ancestors. As Ennis said, it’s a matter of historic curiosity (at the very least). In a way, it’s not that different from a generic American white boy who knows nothing about his past vs. an American white boy who is aware of and knowledgable about his Irish and German heritage. If I have kids I’ll certainly give them the basic info about my caste background, but in a cultural/ethnic sense more than anything else…just to help them know who their ancestors were and what they were all about.
What’s silly was your inability to comprehend the statement and consider its context. Someone said that caste is like, sooooo Unamerican and a few of us were trying to disabuse them of that. If anything, we were trying to destroy the unnecessarily binary comparison which was lurking at that moment; India = backwards and cruel while America = well, equality and goodness.
I’m amused at some of the people who don’t realize that for certain groups in America, “class” may as well be “caste”. And it does have religious implications, even if they are somewhat faint. What does the “P” in WASP stand for? Why was Brandeis created? Sixty years ago, religion would affect where you went to school here: