Comments - Caste Discrimination Rampant Among Silicon Valley Indian-Americans - PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network 2024-03-29T06:10:57Zhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=1119293%3ABlogPost%3A283547&xn_auth=noHindu Violence against Buddhi…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-08-11:1119293:Comment:4261552023-08-11T15:06:47.810ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>Hindu Violence against Buddhism in India has NO Parallel<br></br><br></br><br></br>by Syed Ehtisham<br></br><br></br><br></br>The ruthless demolition of Buddha statues by the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan has invited severe criticisms from different quarters of the world. It is quite surprising to note that the Hindu Nazi-led Indian Govt. supported by all other Hindu Nazis has condemned the Taliban action. It appears paradoxical that the ancestors of the present Hindu Nazis in India wantonly destroyed the Buddhist…</p>
<p>Hindu Violence against Buddhism in India has NO Parallel<br/><br/><br/>by Syed Ehtisham<br/><br/><br/>The ruthless demolition of Buddha statues by the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan has invited severe criticisms from different quarters of the world. It is quite surprising to note that the Hindu Nazi-led Indian Govt. supported by all other Hindu Nazis has condemned the Taliban action. It appears paradoxical that the ancestors of the present Hindu Nazis in India wantonly destroyed the Buddhist statues and brutally killed the followers of Buddha in India. An impartial student of history can unequivocally remark that the Indian Nazis have no moral right to criticise the Taliban action.<br/><br/>Hundreds of the Buddhist statues, Stupas and Viharas were destroyed in India between 830 AD and 966 AD in the name of the revival of Hinduism. Indigenous and foreign sources, both literary and archaeological, speak volumes of the havoc done to Buddhism by the Nazis in India.<br/><br/>Role of Sankaracharya<br/>Nazi leaders like the Sankaracharyas and many kings and rulers took pride in demolishing the Buddhist images aiming at the total eradication of the Buddhist culture. Today, their descendants destroyed the Babri Masjid and they have also published a list of mosques to be destroyed in the near future. It is with this sin of pride that they are condemning the deed on the part of the Afghans.<br/><br/>The Hindu ruler, Pushyamitra Sunga, demolished 84,000 Buddhist stupas which had been built by Ashoka the Great (Romila Thaper, Ashoka and Decline of Mauryas, London, 1961, p 200). It was followed by the smashing of the Buddhist centres in Magadha. Thousands of Buddhist monks were mercilessly killed. King Jalaluka destroyed the Buddhist viharas within his jurisdiction on the ground that the chanting of the hymns by the Buddhist devotees disturbed his sleep. (Kalhana, Rajatharangini, 1:40). In Kashmir, King Kinnara demolished thousands of Viharas and captured the Buddhists villages to please the Brahmins. (Kalhana 1:80).<br/><br/>Demon’s role<br/><br/>A large number of Buddhist viharas were usurped by the Brahmins and converted into Hindu temples where the Untouchables were given no entrance. The Buddhist places were projected as the Hindu temples by writing Puranas which were concocted myths or pseudo-history.<br/><br/>The important temples found at Tirupati, Ahoble, Undavalli, Ellora, Bengal, Puri, Badrinath, Mathura, Ayodhya, Sringeri, Bodhgaya, Sarnath, Delhi, Nalanda, Gudimallam, NagarjunaKonda, Srisailam and Sabarimala (Lord Ayyappa) in Kerala are some of the striking examples of the Brahmanic usurpation of the Buddhist centres.<br/><br/>At Nagarjunakonda, the Adi Sankara played a demon’s role in destroying the Buddhist statues and monuments. Longhurst who conducted excavations at Nagarjunakonda has recorded this in his book Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India No: 54, The Buddhist Antiquities of Nagarjunakonda (Delhi, 1938, p.6.).<br/><br/>Non-Brahmins burnt alive<br/>The ruthless manner in which all the buildings at Nagarjunakonda were destroyed is simply appalling and cannot represent the work of treasure-seekers because many of the pillars, statues, and sculptures have been wantonly smashed to pieces. Local tradition relates that the Brahmin teacher Sankaracharya came to Nagarjunakonda with a host of followers and destroyed the Buddhist monuments. The cultivated lands on which the ruined buildings stand was a religious grant made to Sankaracharya.<br/><br/>In Kerala, Sankaracharya and his close associate Kumarila Bhatta, an avowed enemy of Buddhism, organized a religious crusade against the Buddhists. We get a vivid description of the pleasure of Sankaracharya on seeing the people of non-Brahmanic faith being burnt to death from the book Sankara Digvijaya.</p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> Will India Surpass China to B…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-07-10:1119293:Comment:4252522023-07-10T02:01:29.440ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span class="im">Will India Surpass China to Become the Next Superpower?<br></br>Four inconvenient truths make this scenario unlikely.<br></br><br></br><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-great-power-competition-economic-growth/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-great-power-competition-economic-growth/</a><br></br><br></br>by Prof Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of…</span></p>
<p><span class="im">Will India Surpass China to Become the Next Superpower?<br/>Four inconvenient truths make this scenario unlikely.<br/><br/><a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-great-power-competition-economic-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/24/india-china-biden-modi-summit-great-power-competition-economic-growth/</a><br/><br/>by Prof Graham Allison, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government<br/><br/><br/></span><span>when assessing a nation’s power, what matters more than the number of its citizens is the quality of its workforce. China’s workforce is more productive than India’s. The international community has rightly celebrated China’s “anti-poverty miracle” that has essentially eliminated abject poverty. In contrast, India continues to have high levels of poverty and malnutrition. In 1980, 90 percent of China’s 1 billion citizens had incomes below the World Bank’s threshold for abject poverty. Today, that number is approximately zero. Yet more than 10 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion continue to live below the World Bank extreme poverty line of $2.15 per day. Meanwhile, 16.3 percent of India’s population was undernourished in 2019-21, compared with less than 2.5 percent of China’s population, according to the most recent United Nations State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report. India also has one of the worst rates of child malnutrition in the world.</span><br/><br/><span>Fortunately, the future does not always resemble the past. But as a sign in the Pentagon warns: Hope is not a plan. While doing whatever it can to help Modi’s India realize a better future, Washington should also reflect on the assessment of Asia’s most insightful strategist. The founding father and long-time leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, had great respect for Indians. Lee worked with successive Indian prime ministers, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, hoping to help them make India strong enough to be a serious check on China (and thus provide the space required for his small city-state to survive and thrive).</span><br/><br/><span>But as Lee explained in a series of interviews published in 2014, the year before his death, he reluctantly concluded that this was not likely to happen. In his analysis, the combination of India’s deep-rooted </span><span class="il">caste</span><span> system that was an enemy of meritocracy, its massive bureaucracy, and its elites’ unwillingness to address the competing claims of its multiple ethnic and religious groups led him to conclude that it would never be more than “the country of the future”—with that future never arriving. Thus, when I asked him a decade ago specifically whether India could become the next China, he answered directly: “Do not talk about India and China in the same breath.”</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><span>Since Lee offered this judgment, India has embarked on an ambitious infrastructure and development agenda under a new leader and demonstrated that it can achieve considerable economic growth. Yet while we can remain hopeful that this time could be different, I, for one, suspect Lee wouldn’t bet on it.</span></p> The Education Ministry data s…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-06-06:1119293:Comment:4245802023-06-06T01:42:54.864ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>The Education Ministry data showed that the number of Muslim students decreased to 19.21 lakh in 2020-21 from 21 lakh in 2019-20.<br></br><br></br><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/education/enrolment-of-muslim-students-for-higher-education-dips-to-4-6-aishe-2020-21-8413124/" target="_blank">https://indianexpress.com/article/education/enrolment-of-muslim-students-for-higher-education-dips-to-4-6-aishe-2020-21-8413124/</a><br></br><br></br><br></br><br></br>AISHE 2020-21: Enrolment of Muslim students for…</p>
<p>The Education Ministry data showed that the number of Muslim students decreased to 19.21 lakh in 2020-21 from 21 lakh in 2019-20.<br/><br/><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/education/enrolment-of-muslim-students-for-higher-education-dips-to-4-6-aishe-2020-21-8413124/" target="_blank">https://indianexpress.com/article/education/enrolment-of-muslim-students-for-higher-education-dips-to-4-6-aishe-2020-21-8413124/</a><br/><br/><br/><br/>AISHE 2020-21: Enrolment of Muslim students for higher education decreases to 4.6%<br/>The Education Ministry data showed that the number of Muslim students decreased to 19.21 lakh in 2020-21 from 21 lakh in 2019-20.<br/><br/>The number of Muslim students enrolling for higher education in India has dropped in the 2020-21 academic year compared to the previous year, according to a report by the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2020-21.</p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> 'Hindutva Is Nothing But Brah…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-04-23:1119293:Comment:4231812023-04-23T23:30:21.359ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>'Hindutva Is Nothing But Brahminism'<br></br><br></br><a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/hindutva-is-nothing-but-brahminism/215089" target="_blank">https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/hindutva-is-nothing-but-brahminism/215089</a><br></br><br></br><br></br>The author (Kancha Ilaiah) of Why I Am Not A Hindu on his view that 'Dalitisation' alone can effectively challenge the threat of Brahminical fascism parading in the garb of Hindutva.<br></br><br></br><br></br>How would you characterise contemporary…</p>
<p>'Hindutva Is Nothing But Brahminism'<br/><br/><a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/hindutva-is-nothing-but-brahminism/215089" target="_blank">https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/hindutva-is-nothing-but-brahminism/215089</a><br/><br/><br/>The author (Kancha Ilaiah) of Why I Am Not A Hindu on his view that 'Dalitisation' alone can effectively challenge the threat of Brahminical fascism parading in the garb of Hindutva.<br/><br/><br/>How would you characterise contemporary Hindutva? What is the relationship between Hindutva and the Dalit-Bahujans?<br/><br/>As Dr.Ambedkar says, Hindutva is nothing but Brahminism. And whether you call it Hindutva or Arya Dharma or Sanatana Dharma or Hindusim, Brahminism has no organic link with Dalit-Bahujan life, world-views, rituals and even politics. To give you just one example, in my childhood many of us had not even heard of the Hindu gods, and it was only when we went to school that we learnt about Ram and Vishnu for the very first time. We had our own goddesses, such as Pochamma and Elamma, and our own caste god, Virappa. They and their festivals played a central role in our lives, not the Hindu gods. At the festivals of our deities, we would sing and dance--men, women and all-- and would sacrifice animals and drink liquor, all of which the Hindus consider 'polluting'.<br/><br/>Our relations with our deities were transactional and they were rooted in the production process. For instance, our goddess Kattamma Maisa. Her responsibility is to fill the tanks with water. If she does it well, a large number of animals are sacrificed to her. If in one year the tanks dry up, she gets no animals. You see, between her and her Dalit-Bahujan devotees there is this production relation which is central.<br/><br/><br/><br/>----<br/>In fact, many Dalit communities preserve traditions of the Hindu gods being their enemies. In Andhra, the Madigas enact a drama which sometimes goes on for five days. This drama revolves around Jambavanta, the Madiga hero, and Brahma, the representative of the Brahmins. The two meet and have a long dialogue. The central argument in this dialogue is about the creation of humankind. Brahma claims superiority for the Brahmins over everybody else, but Jambavanta says, 'No, you are our enemy'. Brahma then says that he created the Brahmins from his mouth, the Kshatriyas from his hands, the Vaishyas from his thighs, the Shudras from his feet to be slaves for the Brahmins, and of course the Dalits, who fall out of the caste system, have no place here. This is the Vedic story.<br/><br/>What you are perhaps suggesting is that Dalit-Bahujan religion can be used to effectively counter the politics of Brahminism or Hindutva. But Brahminism has this knack of co-opting all revolt against it, by absorbing it within the system.<br/><br/>It is true that although Dalit-Bahujan religious formations historically operated autonomously from Hindu forms, they have never been centralised or codified. Their local gods and goddesses have not been projected into universality, nor has their religion been given an all-India name. This is because these local deities and religious forms were organically linked to local communities, and were linked to local productive processes, such as the case of Virappa and Katamma Maisa whom I talked about earlier. But Brahminism has consistently sought to subvert these religious forms by injecting notions of 'purity' and 'pollution', hierarchy and untouchability even among the Dalit-Bahujans themselves, while at the same time discounting our religious traditions by condemning them as 'polluting' or by Brahminising them.</p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> I won a birth lottery on cast…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-04-19:1119293:Comment:4227602023-04-19T01:34:24.111ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>I won a birth lottery on caste, but learned fortune need not mean cruelty</span><br></br><span>Shree Paradkar</span><br></br><span>By Shree ParadkarSocial & Racial Justice Columnist…</span><br></br><br></br></p>
<p><span>I won a birth lottery on caste, but learned fortune need not mean cruelty</span><br/><span>Shree Paradkar</span><br/><span>By Shree ParadkarSocial & Racial Justice Columnist</span><br/><br/><span><a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/15/i-won-a-birth-lottery-on-caste-but-learned-fortune-need-not-mean-cruelty.html" target="_blank">https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/04/15/i-won-a-birth-lottery-on-caste-but-learned-fortune-need-not-mean-cruelty.html</a></span><br/><br/><br/><span>I come from a Brahmin family. This means I won a birth lottery. It means that while other identities may pose barriers, caste is never one. In fact, in certain situations, it is the secret handshake that opens doors, sometimes literally.</span><br/><br/><span>Caste privilege looks like — among many things — never hesitating to say your last name, being considered to come from a “good family,” having a higher chance of a sheltered upbringing (innocence is prized but not granted to all women) and being treated with deference in public spaces.</span><br/><br/><span>Brahmins around me insist they are not casteist. They say they don’t even think about caste let alone know the names of various castes, yet their social circles are almost entirely made up of fellow Brahmins. They say that caste oppression is now reversed and that Brahmins are now the real victims, sidelined in the caste system.</span><br/><br/><span>These are debates without empirical data, backed up by an anecdote or two about an undeserving “lower caste” person getting this job or that. (For a Brahmin, everybody else is “lower caste.”) By various counts, Brahmins, who form about four to five per cent of the Hindu population, comprise half of Indian media decision-makers and at least a third of bureaucrats and judges. Meanwhile, according to Oxfam, Dalits’ life expectancy can be up to 15 years less than other groups.</span><br/><br/><span>If forced to discuss caste, Brahmins will often claim the orginal varna system was fluid at its founding thousands of years ago, again with no evidence that Dalits could ever have educated themselves enough to then be considered Brahmin. As Indian social justice advocate Dilip Mandal noted recently on Twitter Spaces, a discussion on caste is neither theological nor historical nor abstract. It’s about lived experiences today.</span><br/><br/><span>Being ignorant of caste is a marker of privilege. I, too, only learned of the details of the caste system thanks to the tireless advocacy of Equality Labs in the U.S. Understanding anti-Black racism awoke me to caste-based brutality. Of course, learning that one’s gloried background is the carrier of such cruelty causes harsh cognitive dissonance. Reckoning with this reality is painful, but that discomfort pales in comparison to the generations of trauma inflicted on the marginalized. There is also little point in guilt or self-hatred; both emotions, while wrenching, simply continue to centre on the self.</span><br/><br/><span>None of us are born with a ready-made analysis of oppression. None of us choose to be born into the identities we inherit. The least the holders of power can do is to sit quietly, listen, reflect — not “Am I complicit” but “In what ways am I complicit” — learn, make space. And then they should let go of the reins.</span></p> New Indian textbooks purged o…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-04-08:1119293:Comment:4229182023-04-08T14:20:39.606ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>New Indian textbooks purged of nation’s Muslim history</span><br></br><br></br><span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/06/india-textbooks-muslim-history-changes/" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/06/india-textbooks-muslim-history-changes/</a></span><br></br><br></br><br></br><span>By Anumita Kaur</span><br></br><br></br><br></br><span>The Taj Mahal is one of India’s most iconic sites. But this year, millions of students across India won’t delve into the Mughal Empire…</span></p>
<p><span>New Indian textbooks purged of nation’s Muslim history</span><br/><br/><span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/06/india-textbooks-muslim-history-changes/" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/06/india-textbooks-muslim-history-changes/</a></span><br/><br/><br/><span>By Anumita Kaur</span><br/><br/><br/><span>The Taj Mahal is one of India’s most iconic sites. But this year, millions of students across India won’t delve into the Mughal Empire that constructed it.</span><br/><br/><span>Instead, Indian students have new textbooks that have been purged of details on the nation’s Muslim history, its caste discrimination and more, in what critics say warps the country’s rich history in an attempt to further Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda.</span><br/><br/><span>The cuts, first reported by the Indian Express, are wide-ranging. Chapters on the country’s historic Islamic rulers are either slimmed down or gone; an entire chapter in the 12th-grade history textbook, “Kings and Chronicles: The Mughal Courts" was deleted. The textbooks omit references to the 2002 riots in the Indian state of Gujarat, where hundreds of Indian-Muslims were killed while Modi was the state’s leader. Details on India’s caste system, caste discrimination and minority communities are missing.</span><br/><br/><span>Passages that connected Hindu extremism to independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi’s assassination were pruned as well, such as the 12th grade political science textbook line: Gandhi’s “steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate [him].”</span><br/><br/><span>The new curriculum, developed by India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training, has been in the works since last year and will serve thousands of classrooms in at least 20 states across the country. It follows long-standing efforts by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to craft a Hindu nationalist narrative for the country — a platform that Modi ran on in 2014 and secured reelection with in 2019.</span><br/><br/><span>“The minds of children are now under direct onslaught in this kind of intense way, where textbooks must not ever reflect South Asia’s dynamic, complex history,” said Utathya Chattopadhyaya, a history professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “So you basically create a body of students who come out knowing very little about the history of social justice, the history of democracy, the history of diversity, and so on.”</span><br/><br/><br/><span>India has been home to Hindu, Muslim and many other religious communities for centuries. British rule stoked tensions among communities, leading to violence in 1947 after the country was partitioned into Pakistan and modern India.</span><br/><br/><span>Hindu nationalism has intensified under Modi. It has led to violent clashes, bulldozing of Indian-Muslim communities and deepening polarization throughout India and its global diaspora.</span><br/><br/><span>The curriculum change is another step in the trend, Chattopadhyaya argued. BJP-led state governments have launched textbook revisions for years. But now it’s stretched to the national level.</span><br/><br/><span>“This is actually an intensification of something that’s been happening. It is a way of ‘Hindu-izing’ South Asian history and ignoring all other kinds of diverse plural histories that have existed,” he said.</span></p> Kannada Actor Arrested for Tw…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-03-21:1119293:Comment:4222992023-03-21T20:21:26.639ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>Kannada Actor Arrested for Tweeting That ‘Hindutva Is Built on Lies’<br></br><br></br><a href="https://thewire.in/rights/kannada-actor-chetan-kumar-ahimsa-arrested-hindutva-lies" target="_blank">https://thewire.in/rights/kannada-actor-chetan-kumar-ahimsa-arrested-hindutva-lies</a><br></br><br></br>Chetan Kumar 'Ahimsa' slammed a series of claims made by right-wing groups as lies, adding that Hindutva "can be defeated by truth".<br></br><br></br><br></br>New Delhi: On Tuesday, March 21, Bengaluru police arrested Kannada…</p>
<p>Kannada Actor Arrested for Tweeting That ‘Hindutva Is Built on Lies’<br/><br/><a href="https://thewire.in/rights/kannada-actor-chetan-kumar-ahimsa-arrested-hindutva-lies" target="_blank">https://thewire.in/rights/kannada-actor-chetan-kumar-ahimsa-arrested-hindutva-lies</a><br/><br/>Chetan Kumar 'Ahimsa' slammed a series of claims made by right-wing groups as lies, adding that Hindutva "can be defeated by truth".<br/><br/><br/>New Delhi: On Tuesday, March 21, Bengaluru police arrested Kannada actor Chetan Kumar for his tweet that said that Hindutva was “built on lies” and that it could be “defeated by truth”.<br/><br/><br/>On March 20, the actor tweeted that Savarkar’s version that the Indian nation began when Rama defeated Ravana and returned to Ayodhya was a lie, as was the claim in 1992 that the Babri Masjid is the birthplace of Rama.<br/><br/><br/>His tweet also said that the claim in 2023 that Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda killed Tipu Sultan was a lie.<br/><br/>This refers to the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s recent claims that Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda – whom historians consider to be fictional characters – were chieftains from the Vokkaliga community who killed Tipu Sultan. As per historians, Tipu Sultan died in 1799 while fighting the British in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore war. Historians have also questioned the portrayal of the two Vokkaliga chieftains as killers of Tipu Sultan for the first time in a play that was published last year.<br/><br/>However, state BJP leaders have used this fictional link in election rallies, and as per some reports, to effectively pit the Vokkaliga community against Muslims. On the other hand, Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) leaders have maintained that Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda are fictional characters.<br/><br/><br/>Both Muslims and Vokkaligas have taken exception to the introduction of these new characters into the historical narrative. For instance, the Vokkaliga Sangha on March 19 said they would launch an agitation under the leadership of local seers if the state government did not stop peddling lies.<br/><br/><br/>‘Hurting religious sentiments’<br/><br/>Based on a complaint filed by a Bajrang Dal member on the content of the tweet by Kumar, who is also known as Chetan Ahimsa, Sheshadripuram police arrested the actor – who is also a Dalit and tribal rights activist – under IPC sections 505(2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred, or ill-will between classes) and 295(A) (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), as per Deccan Herald.<br/><br/>A Bengaluru lower court remanded the actor to 14-day judicial custody.<br/><br/>In February 2022, Ahimsa was arrested for a tweet about Karnataka high court Justice Krishna Dixit, who was then hearing the case challenging the ban on hijab in Karnataka government schools.<br/><br/><br/></p>
<p class="comment-timestamp"></p> Dalits, who account for about…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-03-06:1119293:Comment:4208182023-03-06T16:12:40.187ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>Dalits, who account for about 20 percent of India’s population, in many cases remain stuck at the lowest rungs of society. Although India has made large strides in helping the poor, almost a third of the Dalit community, or some 100 million people, still live in poverty, according to the United Nations.…</span><br></br><br></br></p>
<p><span>Dalits, who account for about 20 percent of India’s population, in many cases remain stuck at the lowest rungs of society. Although India has made large strides in helping the poor, almost a third of the Dalit community, or some 100 million people, still live in poverty, according to the United Nations.</span><br/><br/><span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/world/asia/india-caste-discrimination-dalit-journalist-mooknayak.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/world/asia/india-caste-discrimination-dalit-journalist-mooknayak.html</a></span><br/><br/><br/><span>The Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has courted and increasingly drawn a bigger share of the Dalit vote. But it has done little to persuade the religious ideologues among its support base to let go of a centuries-old Hindu social order that relegated Dalits to the most undesirable tasks like cleaning toilets, skinning animals and disposing of dead bodies.</span><br/><br/><span>Ms. Kotwal had no business plan for The Mooknayak, but she knew there were millions who desperately needed their stories told. She hired Dalits, Indigenous people and women as reporters, editors and video journalists. Publishing articles and videos in Hindi and English, they aspire to cover everything from individual injustices to policy debates.</span><br/><br/><span>“I want the marginalized community to be able to say, ‘We have our own media, we report on all kinds of stories, and we raise issues that haven’t been raised until today,’” said Ms. Kotwal, 33.</span><br/><br/><br/><span>The Mooknayak’s audience has grown steadily and now draws nearly 50,000 unique visitors a month to its website. It runs on crowdfunding — readers have donated phones, small amounts of money, even a motorbike — and grants. The Mooknayak has received more than $12,000 from Google and roughly $6,000 as part of a training program led by YouTube, which helped fund salaries for a team of 11, as well as to pay for a teleprompter and office furniture.</span><br/><br/><span>Its growing influence allowed Ms. Kotwal to nab an interview with Rahul Gandhi, scion of a once-mighty political dynasty who is seeking to challenge Mr. Modi in next year’s election. Her rising public profile, though, has also brought her multiple rape and death threats.</span><br/><br/><span>Even making it this far as a Dalit woman is a victory in India’s caste-ridden society. Born to manual laborers, Ms. Kotwal grew up in a Dalit neighborhood in New Delhi. Before leaving for school each morning, she stuffed her notebooks in a jute sack, which she also used as a seat on the ground. Her family’s meager earnings meant that as a 16-year-old she needed to work to pay for both her education and her personal needs.</span><br/><br/><br/><span>Soon she was pursuing a degree in journalism, a path where she had few role models from her community, which still faces rampant employment discrimination.</span><br/><br/><span>But her persistence paid off in 2017, when Ms. Kotwal strode across the Italian marble floor of a tower in New Delhi and started work as a broadcast journalist for the BBC’s Hindi-language service. The job and its trappings left her and her family in awe. “Do you sit in a swivel chair? Are you served tea at your seat?” her mother, an illiterate laborer, asked.</span><br/><br/><span>The honeymoon did not last long. A dominant-caste colleague nudged Ms. Kotwal to reveal her own caste, she said, and then outed her to colleagues. It was the beginning of what she described as public humiliation and discrimination at work.</span><br/><br/><span>Her bosses brushed off her concerns. One used a refrain often heard from people of dominant castes, telling her that Dalits no longer existed in modern India, according to messages viewed by The Times — denying not just her complaint, but her community’s very existence.</span><br/><br/><span>After two years on the job, she filed an official complaint with BBC officials in London. The company reviewed her claims of discrimination, according to an internal document, but ruled that her grievances were without “merit or substance.” Her contract, due to end soon, was not renewed.</span></p> #Caste system in #Indian Pris…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-03-05:1119293:Comment:4208152023-03-05T21:41:23.645ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p><span>#Caste system in #Indian Prisons: Unconstitutional but legal – State prison manuals legitimize caste-based rules for prisoner activities, from cleaning to cooking. #India #Modi #BJP #Hindutva #Brahmin #Apartheid…</span></p>
<p><span>#Caste system in #Indian Prisons: Unconstitutional but legal – State prison manuals legitimize caste-based rules for prisoner activities, from cleaning to cooking. #India #Modi #BJP #Hindutva #Brahmin #Apartheid <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/caste-system-in-indian-prisons-unconstitutional-but-legal-state-prison-manuals-legitimise-caste-based-rules-for-prisoner-activities-from-cleaning-to-cooking-judiciary-must-step-in-to-stri/" target="_blank">https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/caste-system-in-indian-prisons-unconstitutional-but-legal-state-prison-manuals-legitimise-caste-based-rules-for-prisoner-activities-from-cleaning-to-cooking-judiciary-must-step-in-to-stri/</a></span><br/><br/><span>By Atishya Kumar</span><br/><br/><span>India’s criminal justice system, a legacy of the Raj, is intended primarily to punish. Reformation or rehabilitation was never on the agenda. As a result, the age-old social system of caste remained prevalent in prisons. Worse still, many colonial policies heavily relied on caste-based rules for administration and maintenance of order in prisons.</span><br/><br/><span>To date, the primary law that governs management and administration of prisons is still the colonial era law – Prisons Act, 1894. That state-level prison manuals remain unchanged since the establishment of the modern prison system also prominently reflects the colonial and caste mentality.</span></p> Why did Tulsidas ask his God…tag:www.pakalumni.com,2023-02-10:1119293:Comment:4196102023-02-10T02:38:08.786ZRiaz Haqhttp://www.pakalumni.com/profile/riazul
<p>Why did Tulsidas ask his God Rama to punish Shudras and women not Mughal rulers?<br></br>in Life/Philosophy — by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd —<br></br><br></br><a href="https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/why-did-tulsidas-ask-his-god-rama-to-punish-shudras-and-women-not-mughal-rulers/" target="_blank">https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/why-did-tulsidas-ask-his-god-rama-to-punish-shudras-and-women-not-mughal-rulers/</a><br></br><br></br>The anti-Shudra, Dalit and women language of Tulsidas in his Ramcharitamanas…</p>
<p>Why did Tulsidas ask his God Rama to punish Shudras and women not Mughal rulers?<br/>in Life/Philosophy — by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd —<br/><br/><a href="https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/why-did-tulsidas-ask-his-god-rama-to-punish-shudras-and-women-not-mughal-rulers/" target="_blank">https://countercurrents.org/2023/02/why-did-tulsidas-ask-his-god-rama-to-punish-shudras-and-women-not-mughal-rulers/</a><br/><br/>The anti-Shudra, Dalit and women language of Tulsidas in his Ramcharitamanas engendered a major controversy in North India. Its impact could also be seen in the South, which already had a strong Shudra mobilization history. He equated them with animals and drums and wanted to keep punishing them forever. The new consciousness of the Shudras, Dalits and women is not going to accept this kind of writing. They do not want their children to study these historical humiliating books in the schools, colleges and universities. It is a known fact that the RSS/BJP want to impose all such books in our educational institutions.<br/><br/>All over the country the Shudra consciousness is opposing such books. Regional language articles and opinions keep appearing in the South Indian languages. It will not die down soon, because the defenders of Tulsidas are not saying that such abusive sentences were interpolations, not of original writer, as they do in the case of ancient Sanskrit books that used caste cultural abusive language. They earlier were making the Muslims and colonial rulers and writers responsible for caste division among the Hindus on caste lines to sustain their political power and economic exploitation.<br/><br/>This line of argument was first developed by the RSS supporting Dwija writers and speakers, as there were hardly any Shudra or Dalit writers in those ranks. All the defenders of Tulsidas and his book as their spiritual grandh are Dwija RSS/BJP leaders or the saints, sadhus, who are Brahmins. No Shudra/Dalit from the RSS/BJP ranks can defend this kind of abuse of food producers, cattle grazers, pot makers, leather workers, barbers, weavers and so on. This abusive language of Tulsidas is against the nation’s wealth creators, which in essence means against the nation. The Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis working in RSS/BJP cannot defend that language, as they too have self respect.<br/><br/>Tulsidas wrote this book during Akbar-Jahangir rule. As information available on the internet shows that it was written in the end of 16th century. That in essence means that it was written during Akbar’s rule. Akbar died in 1605 while sitting on the throne. Tulsidas died in 1623. That was the time Shudras/Dalits were struggling with nature to bring vast areas of land under cultivation. Deforestation, agriculture expansion were the main burden of the Shudras and Dalits. The Dwijas, more particularly the Brahmins, to which community Tulsidas belonged, were not even respecting agriculture work as spiritually respectable. They designated all agricutural operations as Shudra kaam (work). It was then he was writing that “ढोल गवाँर सूद्र पसु नारी। सकल ताड़ना के अधिकारी।(ḍhōla gavāomra sūdra pasu nārī. sakala tāḍanā kē adhikārī). “A drum, an illiterate, a Shudra, a beast and a woman — all deserve punishment”.<br/><br/>Punishment by whom? Punishment by his God Rama and by the Mughal State, which was imposing heavy land taxes on the Shudra farmers. Agrarian masses- men and women–were starving. But the Dwijas had protective valves in Akbar’s administration.<br/><br/>Tulsidas knew that the Mughal state during Akbar rule was run by Birbal and Todar Mal. According to Wikipedia Birbal, was a Saraswat Bhatt Brahmin advisor and main commander (Mukhya Senapati) of the army in the court of the Mughal emperor. . He had a close association with Emperor Akbar and was one of his most important courtiers, part of a group called the navaratnas (nine jewels).<br/><br/></p>
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