Questions of Identity & Caste

Questions of Identity, Caste & State has bothered me from long time. This article is mine stand at present moment on these issues. I will start this article on the caste matters with the opinion of two prominent bloggers.

1- My friend Apocryphal pointed correctly about mentality of upper caste Hindus: For them, Caste is passe. That is no longer a problem, the problem of course is ‘reservation’. All problems radiate from ‘reservation’ playing it out through ‘vote bank politics’.

2- Namit Sir on famous Shunya blog was telling his experience on this issue : An upper caste friend recently complained that reservations are socially divisive and instigate disharmony. I had to laugh. Isn't the caste hierarchy all about social division? Caste identities have been strong for ages, since folks marry within their own. If caste now also shapes political consciousness, it is because, in part, its members share a common experience of discrimination and inherited disadvantage. If the db level in society has gone up, it's because the lower castes are unwilling to put up with the "harmonious" arrangements of the past. They want a greater share of the opportunities and resources they think is their due, and the primary tactic open to them is via political alliances and lobbying for favorable government policies. So it's easy to understand why caste politics has gained prominence in India.

Dignity comes from choice and recognition in the society. It is the reason of emergence of caste identities and their relation with honour. Every leader of independence has been reduced into mere representative of their caste group - ex Sardar Patel or B R Ambedkar. A breaking away from the past in the search of new identity had began and now, each caste based community is outraged by any reference to the downtrodden past. Shyam Benegal pointed out this phenomena very poignantly:

In the process of dismantling caste equations, some of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Dalit communities give themselves identities that no longer associate them with their traditional professions. The new identity requires a reworking of community histories and mythology. Any reference to the old identity can only seem offensive. As part of the mainstream, they are likely to lose their special identity.

It is largely for this reason that it becomes important for them to adopt dominant forms of expression so that others may hear or understand their points of view. Even more important for them is to establish their view as the last word. Any expression that they perceive as an attack on their identity is responded to with considerable vehemence.

Take the case of caste census. There is huge uproar in liberal minded higher caste Indians to ignore census based on caste and put their identity as Indians only. They are already privileged part of society and don't need caste labels for their growth in any field. I feel data is needed to see through caste based system arrangement in vast country like India. The national census is the only source of primary and credible data in India and is used not just to formulate government policies but also by private sectors. Groups will always raise their voice for the sake of stake in the reservation and trail towards more caste based society. There is dire need of the restructuring of society and informed stats will be more helpful in the era of vote bank politics and social engineering. We need to count caste in this census to annihilate it.
 
Prof. Kancha Ilaiah has explained this in his article: Who’s afraid of caste census?
 
"Caste culture is all around us. In the dalit-bahujan discourse, the upper castes are being shown as constituting less than 15 per cent. This could be totally wrong. Even within the lower castes there are several false claims about numbers. Every caste claims that it is numerically the strongest and keeps asking for its “rightful” share. How to tell them that their claims are wrong? When caste has become such an important category of day-to-day reckoning it is important to have proper data at hand to tell communities that they constitute this much and cannot ask for more than their share.

It is true that we cannot distribute everything based on caste. But caste census is the right basis for statistics such as literacy rate and issues like the proportion of representation. Once we cite the Census data there cannot be any authentic opposition to that evidence. The upper caste intelligentsia is afraid that once detailed data on number of people in lower castes is available it would become a major ground for asking for accurate proportional representation in certain sectors, such as education and employment. "
 
George Orwell's warning that a corrupt system will if unchanged, stay corrupt even if power shifts hands from its tryants to its past victims - and soon enough, as he wrote, ' it's impossible to tell which is which ' ; When a long abuse of power is corrected, it is generally replaced by an opposite violence. In the new dispensations, all that was good in what went before is tarred indiscriminately with the bad. Those who have to face political or social persecution become highly polarized.

Power shifted from the hands of the Brahmins to low caste will have bad affects till few decades. It is bound to happen and politics of revenge than cooperation will prevail for few decades. Slowly, caste will take back seat and new identites based on new parameters will emerge in the society. This help me to understand importance of democratic & political model in this upheaval of Hindu society. Democracy was never meant for electoral representation of all, it was there to annihilate the destructive and violent outbursts of groups against each other through people consensus. It's about the common weakness that makes us susceptible not just to any bigotry but to political polarization: our propensity to see one another as members of groups rather than as individuals.

Daniel Everette’s Deconversion

This video confirmed my trust in the lectures of Osho on Tao. Daniel Everette 's deconversion from chiristianity to tribal way of life is quite heartful. Influenced by the Pirahã's concept of truth, his belief in Christianity slowly diminished and he became an atheist.

I don't subscribe to the theology of the westerners. There theology like culture is so limiting and binary –its always a choice between atheism or faith. Issues of epistemological justification are outcomes of theological pursuit of truths in eastern religions, that is completely missing in the western religious discourses. Here, there are remarkable quantity of intellectual theories and philosophies like world view concepts of Dharma, Karma, Nirvana and ideas of reality.

A true religion teaches man to aspire to that which is “higher” in him. Buddhism emphasizes individual “willing” to the “better” in man and does not rely on grace of God, prophet or any scripture. It believes in transforming the mind and using it to explore itself and other phenomena. For Easterners however, there are transcendentant principles without believing in the supernatural –this is the difference.

I will say today a valuable lesson learned by me on the path to discover about faith : Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.

Stanzas Written in Dejection on the Roof

एक अधुरा अरमान, उड़ते हुए कई ख्वाब !

बादलों में घुलते सितारे, सन्नाटे में चीरती निगाहें |


धुएँ में घुला जा रहा हूँ

आसमान से गिरती बूँदों में जला जा रहा हूँ,

अपने अस्तित्व पर प्रश्नचिन्ह करता हूँ

जीवन के यथार्थ को छिन्न भिन्न करता हूँ |


ठंडी हवाओं में उड़ जाना चाहता हूँ

शून्य में विलीन होने की संभावना देखता हूँ,

हर एक काश के साथ राख हुए जा रहा हूँ

एककीपन में मृत्यु का स्पंदन किये जा रहा हूँ |

---Himanshu Rai

This poem is dedicated to all those who understand illusion of the life and search for meaning in the death. I want to fly away like smoke in the infinite. I suspend all types of blogging, social networking and reading activities !!!

And this shit has got to stop!

2'o clock in the Friday night at office is a perfect time to break free. I am running out of the office to breathe and searching for a cigarettes to smoke out suffocation. I have just written a poem in my mother tongue. I was like on the verge of explosion due to this restricted lifestyle. I am on the verge of panic.

I am becoming heavily drug addicted to facebook, cricinfo, emails and blogging. 3 days at home had just passed in refreshing facebook status and reading some bull shit about world. And this shit has got to stop! The reality of the world depends on where you stand. Its heaven for some creatures and full of illusion and suffering for me.

The madness and complexity in relations is driving me nuts. Socialization by wearing a humble mask is making me schizophrenic. I wish to return to solitude and silence. Only that can bring order to my chaotic consciousness. Life is calling into the void, the wild inside can't be tamed by false love and sympathy.

I love the fragrance of the earth after the rain. Once upon a time, I was feeling close to the death and understanding of the world expanded exponentially. This increase of sensitivity left me vulnerable, open and fragile. The constraint to go social  is unsettling for me.

I am thinking about my past now. Its the illusion of great childhood. I had grown on the dope of idealism that was necessary also otherwise whole humanity became practical (crooked) till young age. Then, I thought about ours addiction to entertainment . I have seen porn clips and find it highly good sometime. But the question arises here, entertainment can be porn or not ?

Have you ever heard both Hindi and English version of 'Baavra man' song. They are like the old man looking back to his past for un-achieved love and wishes. Death seems to be more close and gives the feeling of mortality.  I relate to him in an unknown way by just hearing this song. Just bleak images of the poster of Wild Strawberries emerge in front of my eyes.

Nothing changes in the world however hard we try. Only death and life is inevitable and true. Rest of all existence is just Kafkaesque or Mithya. I am not even being or ever born. I only exist to understand meaning of the life and death. Its fascinating to live in present and blabber under mental turmoil. I will regret in the morning for this scribbler spirit of the night. These psychedelic moments and post contains enigma of mine life. This moment will pass for never to come back again like me.

The thousand-yard stare

I was watching the movie 'Full Metal Jacket' yesterday. The movie sparked the issue about violence in my mind. Why did authorising state take its stand more violently against dissidents than democratic states? The contents which authority is unaware, that is treated as treasonable due to fear of the losing power by unknown. There are attempts to de-legitimize and criminalize all dissent and opposition to its policies. Bounding of law to maintain order without even hearing voices of dissidents create havoc situation in the society.

Christopher Hitchens summarises dictatorship governance as : The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not. Thus, the ruled can always be found to be in the wrong. The ability to run such a "system" is among the greatest pleasures of arbitrary authority. The only thumb rule is: whatever is not compulsory is forbidden.

Fear, Paranoia, Suspicion and Desperation are common in the dictatorial state. State believes that it can control the citizens by blocking the information flow and shutting down counter state views. The outmoded bureaucracies of state put iron curtain on the people movements, migration and information flow. And, There comes a tipping point where ripple turns into a tidal wave, a wind into blizzard and a movement into a revolution.

Common people unaware of situation try to explain way crisis as conspiracy theories or playing the blame game on external factors, the relationship between solution and problem becomes a distant one. And by ignoring this, thus state and its citizens allows a crisis to fester. State of Pakistan is the prime example of this phenomenon.

There are two persons who inspired me for this discourse : Che Guevara [an Argentine Marxist revolutionary and major figure of the Cuban Revolution ] and Aung San Suu Kyi [a Burmese opposition politician and ex- General Secretary of the National League for Democracy]. They represent two opposite ways in the fight against tyranny of the authorizing state. I strictly stand on the fact that it is never easy to convince those who have acquired power forcibly of the wisdom of peaceful change. Aang San Su Kyi is doing non violently same in Burma and Che Guevera had opposed American interference in Latin American countries through violence.

In both of these struggles, injustice and anarchy are condoned by those who hold official responsibility for protecting the citizens from acts of violence. State tends to act as guardian of the citizens like the morality police, legislating on modes of behaviour they considers harmful to their citizens. When normal human urges are suppressed, they all too often express themselves in violent acts.

It is necessary to cultivate the habit of questioning arbitrary orders and to stand firm in the face of adversity. Political awareness can be blunted by the state but the natural instinct that led an individual to seek justice and freedom can't be suppressed. The root of discontent that is in protests of the young reflects general malaise of the society. State fails to recognise the reality of human behaviour, an instinct for freedom. Humans are not animals that are driven by hunger and mating behaviour only.

Here it also reflects that economic power is built on the ability to access information and resources asymmetrically. Economists have pointed out the link between the presence of huge energy reserves in a country and political instability and human rights abuse. The reason many suggest for this is that countries rich in energy reserves don't need the efforts of citizens to raise revenue, and consequently such states usually become (and can afford to be) undemocratic like Burma and Saudi Arabia . The price of economic development always comes through exploitation of many. Its not the justification of the act but basic flaw of top - down model of economic development.

I wanted to write about state and violence initially. But ended up at different shores in completion. I realized now that deeply held convictions are always on trial in the fight against arm repression. Today is ours independence day, 15th August. The political and economic changes had put India out of crisis, but there is a little intellectual tradition to support social change. Each youth generation should seek for new model or improvement in existing process for evolving, and today its mine responsibility.

PS: Read more about Authority: I don't walk Left and Irrational Faith -3.