Why I oppose the Aryan invasion theory

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva


In this particular instance, "us" = those who identify as persecuted Brahmins, and "them" = those identified by the "us" as "mobs and lower castes."

I'm not saying Brahmins are persecuted (though that is true in some measure in the South), nor am I identifying myself only with them.

That "mobs" requires a little explanation. In India, politicians use any means necessary (short of interfering in the electoral process itself) to get votes. They try to incite people into a mob mentality, a "us vs. them" mentality, to get votes. Now people who have been told repeatedly that they are the oppressed ones (even if that oppression is in the past) fall easily for this sort of talk.

So people vote as if in a mob. People from the lower castes, the ones who have fallen for the politicians' rhetoric, vote as a mob would.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think it is fairly telling that aneeshm identifies himself as a Brahmin and does it proudly. OTOH, I have no clue what LordShiva is, caste wise. Indicates that LS is far less entrapped into the caste mentality, while for aneeshm it is his entire basis. He is less "Indian" and more "Brahmin".

Also echo Arrian, a privileged rich guy whining about the lower castes getting an oppertunuty just seems like he wants to perpetuate the caste system informally.

[Arrian]

building a network of decent primary and secondary schools

Would clearly be a good idea. Duh.

Perhaps the great and noble Brahmins should get on that.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

I think it is fairly telling that aneeshm identifies himself as a Brahmin and does it proudly. OTOH, I have no clue what LordShiva is, caste wise. Indicates that LS is far less entrapped into the caste mentality, while for aneeshm it is his entire basis. He is less "Indian" and more "Brahmin".

Actually, Brahmins are too heterogeneous for anyone to identify with them. You'd know that if you stayed here. That would be as silly as identifying myself with the human race, for instance, or the male gender - they're just too diverse to come to any conclusions.

And it appears you missed my previous post where I EXPLICITLY stated that caste is not really a part of my identity, but I still have to deal with caste-based stuff.

Also, I am far more "Indian" than anything else. I am against forces which are against India. Reinforcing caste identities, which is done by systems like quotas (which don't work anyway), is NOT GOOD for India. Building primary and secondary schools for everyone, on the other hand, is. Not too hard to understand that.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Also echo Arrian, a privileged rich guy whining about the lower castes getting an oppertunuty just seems like he wants to perpetuate the caste system informally.

Would you give a person who passed school with a 45% average an opportunity to enter a college with admission criterion of 90% just because of his caste? Even a friend of mine who happens to be from one of the lower castes (I don't like using the word "lower", but it's the easiest, so I do it) is against it. He'd rather be seen on his own merits than on his caste.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I think it is fairly telling that aneeshm identifies himself as a Brahmin and does it proudly. OTOH, I have no clue what LordShiva is, caste wise. Indicates that LS is far less entrapped into the caste mentality, while for aneeshm it is his entire basis. He is less "Indian" and more "Brahmin".

Also echo Arrian, a privileged rich guy whining about the lower castes getting an oppertunuty just seems like he wants to perpetuate the caste system informally.

and so any white guy who complains about quotas here is trying to perpetuate racial inequality? I dont think so. Not all, by any means.

And of course we dont know what caste LS is. LS IIUC is not religious, while Aneeshm is. Since caste is part of hindu religion, its natural aneeshm would be more conscious of it.

We should have enough experience with quotas as political patronage to recognize the POSSIBILITY that that is whats happened in India. And India for the first 30 years or so of its independence WAS governed by one party, and that party WAS hostile to much of traditional Hinduism, IIUC, and to the upper castes.

Now that doesnt mean their policies on caste were wrong - I dont know enough, and Aneeshm, who knows quite alot, is clearly partisan, so I dont take his posts as unbiased. But to jump from his being partisan, to his being a bigot (which is what some folks seem to be doing) strikes me as quite unfair. He seems a very articulate and persuasive voice for his POV, ISTM. Yes, hes very concerned with this issue, but then lots of us post heavily on certain issues we know alot about, and if you ARE a Brahmin in India, its hardly surprising that the states policies toward Brahmins and Hinduism in general are central interests.

Again, call me PC, I find it much more troubling when a member of group X is obsessed with the bad stuff done by group Y than when a member of group X is obsessed with discrimination against group X. Now Aneeshm has done some of the former as well, wrt muslims, but then hes hardly alone here in doing that, and there are folks who do that against a number of ethnic and religious groups.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian


Would clearly be a good idea. Duh.

Perhaps the great and noble Brahmins should get on that.

-Arrian

A group inspired by Hindu ideals is already on it (at least the primary education bit). Remember the Ekal Vidyalayas we discussed some time back?

[Arrian]

I was just messing with you.

Those schools were cool, but woefully inadequate as a public school system. Bravo to those involved, but didn't we work out that those schools would only reach about 2% of the population?

A proper primary education system would be available to all, and requires more than a well-intentioned grassroots campaign.

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

How long did Grog rule India?

[Arrian]

Not long. Unfortunately, Grog has a rather short attention span and the Indians were unable to supply him with a Tank, so he didn't stick around.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian
I was just messing with you.

Those schools were cool, but woefully inadequate as a public school system. Bravo to those involved, but didn't we work out that those schools would only reach about 2% of the population?


A proper primary education system would be available to all, and requires more than a well-intentioned grassroots campaign.

-Arrian

Maybe so. But it's still better than what the government has done till now, isn't it? I mean, you couldn't do worse than the government, because they've done pretty much nothing.

As I said, the nature of the problem is that a centralised institution, like the government, cannot tackle it. This system is growing, will grow, and has to grow, in order for there to be a real change.

These schools will reach nearly 90%+ of the rural population by 2012. I'd bet on it.

[Arrian]

As I said, the nature of the problem is that a centralised institution, like the government, cannot tackle it.

I don't see why.

These schools will reach nearly 90%+ of the rural population by 2012. I'd bet on it.

Bold claim. How much of the overall population is 90% of the rural population?

In any event, something is better than nothing. Like I said, bravo to those involved. But the gummint needs to get off its ass and set up a proper system. At least the individual states/provinces, if not the national government...

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Arrian

I don't see why.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of villages. Most are very small - many are only a few thousand people. The amount of local involvement required to set up a self-sustainable system cannot be done by a centralised organisation like the government without supermassive wastage of money. The system itself has to be extremely simple and independent.

That's why this system has more potential than any governmental one, specially given the government's (of any party's) corruption and inefficiency.

Originally posted by Arrian

Bold claim. How much of the overall population is 90% of the rural population?

Very bold claim, true. But their ambition is much higher - it's 100% by 2012.

The rural population is about 2/3 of the country. This works out to at least 600 million people. This population is also very dispersed, in very small clusters.

Originally posted by Arrian

In any event, something is better than nothing. Like I said, bravo to those involved. But the gummint needs to get off its ass and set up a proper system. At least the individual states/provinces, if not the national government...

-Arrian

It's just too vast a problem for the government to tackle, unfortunately. Even the states are huge - 50 million people in one state, 70 million in another, 30 million in another, and so on.

For instance - the single city of Mumbai is 18 million people in size. That is bigger than the entire population of Australia. Maharashtra state has a population of 96 million. How do you handle so many people? We don't have the sort of money the Western nations do. We aren't that prosperous (yet, anyway). We have to build our own solutions which work under our own conditions.

[Arrian]

The government has resources, though, that private initiatives may not have. Perhaps its best if this thing gets going and then the government comes in and throws its resources into it.

Our school system wasn't designed from the top down either, AFAIK.

-Arrian

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
and so any white guy who complains about quotas here is trying to perpetuate racial inequality? I dont think so. Not all, by any means.

Quotas for race and quotas for socio-economic status are two vastly different things. The lower castes were kept in a different socio-economic level. And if a rich guy does complain about quotas for socio-economic status, you do have to look a bit deeper to find out what is going on.

And of course we dont know what caste LS is. LS IIUC is not religious, while Aneeshm is. Since caste is part of hindu religion, its natural aneeshm would be more conscious of it.

Yet, it seems aneeshm is always trying to de-link cast from Hinduism. That caste was brought from somewhere else. So that explination doesn't seem to hold water with me.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Quotas for race and quotas for socio-economic status are two vastly different things. The lower castes were kept in a different socio-economic level. And if a rich guy does complain about quotas for socio-economic status, you do have to look a bit deeper to find out what is going on.

Quotas as they are right now are based ONLY and ONLY on birth, nothing else. What happens in practice is that the people from the lower castes who are already rich or prosperous hog the benefits, whereas the ones who require them don't get them, and anyway the whole thing is useless without a good system of primary education.

But I oppose quotas in absolute terms, too. I don't want quotas anywhere. Specially not in private institutions. That's a clear violation of the right to free association.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

And of course we dont know what caste LS is. LS IIUC is not religious, while Aneeshm is. Since caste is part of hindu religion, its natural aneeshm would be more conscious of it.

Yet, it seems aneeshm is always trying to de-link cast from Hinduism. That caste was brought from somewhere else. So that explination doesn't seem to hold water with me.

Caste did not come from somewhere. The seeds were already there. But the conditions which allowed those seeds to germinate into weeds came from many influences, many (but not all, maybe not even the majority) of them from outside.

This is one problem I've often seen. The Vedas are vast enough to have the seeds of nearly any imaginable institution. Caste itself is referred to only once, in a non-specific or non-prescriptory manner, in only one verse in an allegorical hymn of the RigVeda.

That one tiny reference could spawn a such a huge and complex system.

There are thousands of references like this, which could be used for good or ill. It's up to us what we do with them.

Some of our ancestors made some mistakes. Too bad. We have to correct them and move on. That moving on will not be helped by constantly reinforcing the mistake, will it?