Lurker Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 I do believe that anyone from the upper caste who doesn't accept the wrongs of their ancestors or feel bad about the beliefs of their ancestors towards dalits has no business talking of discrimination. That is reverse racism. The first instance of caste-system that I saw was when I was doing my Engineering. I had gone to the room of a couple of friends of mine(we used to live in a hostel), and they had cooked up something. Without being asked I delved right into their thaalis when a dumstruck friends told me later he was shocked as he belonged to "SC/ST" and never thought he would see me eat with him. Point being we need to erase such inhuman practices but why should I feel guilty for what my ancestors did?? I did not do it and thats that. I would like to see all these Brahmins, Dalits, Rajputs term go to the bins, does nothing but breed hatred amongst people. xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Point being we need to erase such inhuman practices but why should I feel guilty for what my ancestors did?? I did not do it and thats that. Guilt and acceptance are two different things...i don't for one minute think that i am responsible for the actions of anyone but myself...but at the same time, i have no probs. admitting that since i come from a Brahmin family, some of my ancestors could very well have been discriminating scum-buckets ( assuming they were brahmin long ago..i know my line to six/seven gen. ago and they were brahmins...if they were brahmins for longer and didnt 'jump caste', they'd in all probability be discriminating scum-buckets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Because lurker..we have to accept that they were wronged.We have still not reached a stage where we can say that the present generation of upper castes absolutely do not believe in castism.Then may be we can say that we should not feel guilty.serously if tomorrow you go home and tell your parents you want to marry a dalit (educated) girl...you will realise that things have not completely changed. Fact it if you don't believe that every one is born equal then you shouldn't complain. I have never believed that I am any better than anyother person because I happened to be born a so called upper caste....so maybe I can have a reasongrudge.But till we all as a nation do not believe that everyone is born equal....there is no use talking about equality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 ^^ acceptance of what? If you are a Hindu or a Buddhist you have no idea who your ancestors are(theologically). I mean who is to say who or what you were in your previous birth? Can anyone say with any conviction that he himself was not a dalit in previous birth(if you beleive in that line of thinking)?. So my ancestors could very well have been anything from Brahmin to a Dalit or whatever else under the sun. I would much rather limit my ancestors to my immediate parents, or grandparents, since they are the people I have known and dealt with. Any other generation is frankly redudant to me. I remember when I was a kid we had this elderly relative that did a lot of research and traced our ancestory back to Birbal and Raja Todar Mal. So should I go about basking in that Birbal was a ancestor of mine? xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 I mean who is to say who or what you were in your previous birth?I think thats a nonsensical part of the 'faiths'. So my ancestors could very well have been anything from Brahmin to a Dalit or whatever else under the sun.C'mon mate...you are a product of your biology...son of the lions of your father...not kauua delivers you in a pootli... So should I go about basking in that Birbal was a ancestor of mine? no because that serves no positive purpose. However, acceptance of the wrongs of your ancestors serves as a humbling factor that is good for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Because lurker..we have to accept that they were wronged.We have still not reached a stage where we can say that the present generation of upper castes absolutely do not believe in castism.Then may be we can say that we should not feel guilty.serously if tomorrow you go home and tell your parents you want to marry a dalit (educated) girl...you will realise that things have not completely changed. If that is your idea of changing times then yes times have changed. When I brought home a girl and said I would marry her, she was of a "dalit" caste, my parents never battled an eyelid. And no I dont make that up to score brownie points on a MB. It depends on your family Radhika. Not taking a shot at you but if you grow up seeing some sort of discrimination maybe one can feel the guilt, but if I personally never saw that around me why should I be apologetic about it? xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 no because that serves no positive purpose. However, acceptance of the wrongs of your ancestors serves as a humbling factor that is good for everyone. This is what I wrote to Radhika CC. It depends on your family Radhika. Not taking a shot at you but if you grow up seeing some sort of discrimination maybe one can feel the guilt, but if I personally never saw that around me why should I be apologetic about it? xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 but if I personally never saw that around me why should I be apologetic about it?Again, not a question of your apologies...you have no reason to apologise...but merely accept that if you come from a high caste family, some/many/most of your ancestors were scumbags...i can say this..and i come from high caste...whats the prob ? Humbling experience as in accepting that you too have total scumbags for ancestors...not 'pavitra gharaana' all the way...some may be worse than hitler, some may be einstines of their own era...just...acceptance of this fact is what i think prevents one from discriminating upon another in any unreasonable way (ie, discriminating that person for not who he/she is but what who he/she is, who's son, what religion/background etc)...because if you believe this, then you can be neutral and open-minded towards even Hitler's son (if he had a son)....and its the same reason why you wouldnt elevate Einstien's son for being einstien's son... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 >>>I would like to see all these Brahmins, Dalits, Rajputs term go to the bins, does nothing but breed hatred amongst people. I would love to do the same ...but we can't deny the fact that there are temples where dalits can't go....especially in the south of India.In north India...dalits are still beaten up if they dare to draw water from so called upper caste wells.There are so many schools in villages where children have not been given mid day meals because upper caste parents won't let there children have meals with lower caste children.They may have changed enough to go to the same school but not enough to sit down together and eat. Forget that ...the pandit from my side doesn't eat cooked meal at my rajput husbands house.He is willing to take uncooked grains but not willing to eat food cooked by non brahmin.If this can happen to a high caste rajput...you can imagine the plight of dalit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Lurker ...maybe you have stayed away from India for too long.... To believe that discrimination has ended is just closing your eyes to reality. People maynot be doing it the way it was done earliar ...mostly because of genuine change in thinking ...sometimes because of fear of what people will say...or because of fear of law.but it does happen.Glad to hear that your parents won't bat an eyelid when you get a dalit girl home...but that is not the same in most homes.Infact castism is not only upper caste vs lower caste...even within the castes there is castism...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 ^^ Such incidents definitely happen, though their numbers is on the decrease. But it is quite fair to say that any educated/literate person, regardless of his caste/gotra whatever, would feel a degree of hurt when anyone else is discriminated. I mean can you tell me that you have met anyone(specially from our generation) who is "proud" if a Dalit is turned away from a temple? Heck most Hindus,if not all, I know want a person of any religion leaning to enter a temple much less a fellow Hindu. See my point is not that ills were not done in the past, my point is why should I feel anyway apologetic about it, or accept the fact that my ancestors did that? One can only say from one's own experience and my experience has been anything but. Forget that ...the pandit from my side doesn't eat cooked meal at my rajput husbands house.He is willing to take uncooked grains but not willing to eat food cooked by non brahmin.If this can happen to a high caste rajput...you can imagine the plight of dalit. Then why the hell dont you take off your sandal and beat the cr@p out of your Pandit? If he can not eat at your husband's it is not a case of shaming him in some way trying to show how that jackass Pandit is somehow superior to others?? xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Lurker ...maybe you have stayed away from India for too long.... To believe that discrimination has ended is just closing your eyes to reality. People may be doing it the way it was done earliar ...mostly because of genuine change in thinking ...sometimes because of fear of what people will say...or because of fear of law.but it does happen.Glad to hear hat your parents won;t bat an eyelid when you get a dalit girl home...but that is not the same in most homes.Infact castism is not only upper caste vs lower caste...even within the castes there is castism...... Now that is unfair Radhika. This has nothing to do with how far I have been from India. If anything I grew up in perhaps the most casteist state in the country. One doesnt become a casteist when he is 25 year old and in USA, no. One becomes a casteist between age 10-25 when he sees the world around him, those years make the man(or woman). I am willing to take your comment that personally I am not casteist though many other may be. But I will also tell you that based on the people I interact with on this MB, most peeps, I feel, are like that. xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dial_100 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Well... the caste system and its purpose is very hard to explain. Those of us do not understand it or want to accept it is different thing. Remember, a stick in the hands of monkey???? If it was easy to understand everything to everyone then we wouldn't have any problems. It takes lot of efforts to really understand many things. Just to learn little bit of Science and all we spend years (15-6). So to understand many ancient things, how do we expect that just by graduating from the school will give us complete grasp. While many/most of those things are outdated now, there few things which still hold their true meaning if understood in the proper perspective. Again I dont mean to open a can of worms here. Its more like take it or leave it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 My husband woudn't have that pandit near the houseif he could...and his mother will kick him with a joota if he tells the pandit that ...because the pandit is family purohit(their family has been their priests for generations) .....and believe me ..no one from the previous generation thinks his behavior is bad.That is the way he is supposed to be,He is a brahmin pujari.Besides it is only during weddings so I guess no one thinks too much about it .Infact most people feel bad for him because of the resons given in the OPand bechara is often prefixed to the panditjis name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 But I will also tell you that based on the people I interact with on this MB, most peeps, I feel, are like that. Lurks...WE do not represent India...none of us here do. MOST of us are the cream of the crop ( in terms of luck, if not anything else) to be NRIs or ABCDs....the ones who arnt so, come from middle/upper middle class families. Seriously, we are a facking minority in India..it is still a country where ignorance runs high...don't care what 'govt literacy rate' figures are or what criteria they use, bottomline is most people in India are either totally illiterate or have rudimentary 'one-track-mind' educations. Please- you or anyone else, do not make the mistake of thinking that WE here represent India- we really don't. We and people from our backgrounds/life time-line are less than 1 in a 1000 in India. Most indians, irrespective of religion are illiterate, casteist, wife-beating chauvinist a-holes. Atleast, thats what i find in rural areas of north/central india i've been to....and most of india lives in rural areas... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 C'mon lurker...you are now going to base your opinions on reality of castism on the basis of comments on message boards ....most of them not even residing n India...forget about residing in villages and small towns where the real problem lies.How many people in India have computers...forget about internet.And it would be such a shame if educated people (i am assuming here that most people on the net are..) didn't think otherwise.we are not even talking about these lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 the caste system and its purpose is very hard to explain. I can accept that it was started with a fairly benevolent perspective but reality is that caste discriminations have been part of India for THOUSANDS of years..atleast amongst hindus...even in mahabharata, which is ancient in era, is chock-full of casteist discriminations (though there are also instance of mahabharata rebuking casteism..but it leaves NO DOUBT WHATSOEVER that even in those pre-historic times, people were discriminating based on caste). But ultimately, the negetive effect of caste system has far far far outweighed the positives...if the positives lived for a few 1000 years, the negetives for several times more. Plus its usage is redundant in modern society so there is no excuse for it to stay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beetle Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Chalo lurker...good night....kal kareinge is per charcha......ok:regular_smile: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaurav Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Ok in Kashmir there is no caste system as such. I was born in a Brahmin family. Does that mean I have to feel guilty by default? If my ancestors had committed crimes against lower caste people then I would acknowledge it and spit on my ancestors memory but I cannot take responsibility for my ancestors actions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CC1981 Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Does that mean I have to feel guilty by default? Where on earth does 'feeling guilty' come in when accepting that some of your ancestors were/are a-holes ? This is a question of objectivity here.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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