CASTE & THE TAMIL DALITS, BRAHMINS & NON BRAHMINS

NATION

"The Tamil nation is a political community, a grand solidarity. To maintain its solidarity, the Tamil nation has to remove all sorts of divisions that causes dissension and discord among its members . The Caste System is such a pernicious division that has plagued our society for thousands of years." S.M.Lingam on Tamil Nationalism & the Caste System - Swami Vivekananda and Saint Kabir Day in and day out we take pride in claiming that India has a 5000 year old civilization. But the way Dalits and those suppressed are being treated by the people who wield power and authority speaks volumes for the degradations of our moral structure and civilized standards. Ex-President of India, the late K. R. Narayanan, The New Indian Express, Saturday, 12 Nov. 2005 quoted in Fuzzy and Neutrosophic Analysis of Periyars Views on Untouchability - Dr.W. B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Dr.Florentin Smarandache, & Dr.K. Kandasamy

"...The caste system of South India, epitomized (as are most things South Indian) by the social formation of the Tamil-speaking lands is if anything even more rigid and redolent of the hierarchical ethos than that of North India. And yet - here, of course, is the uniquitous paradox with which South Indian presents us - the Tamil caste system comprises features which are not only unknown in North India but are also without any clear foundation in the Sastric lore . So divergent is the southern system that one is tempted to say, with Raghavan (n.d.:117), that the Sastras have "little application" to the Tamil caste system, which should be analyzed in purely Dravidian terms...But to do so is to forget the fundamental challenge with which Dravidian culture presents us, namely, to see it as a regional variant of the Gangetic tradition of Hinduism. We are obliged to observe, for instance, that the highest and lowest ranks of the Tamil caste hierarchy - that of the Brahman and of the scavenging Paraiyar Untouchables are

perfectly explicable in Sastric terms. .. To argue that the Sastric ranking ideology has "little application" to the Tamil caste system is to ignore the challenge that South India presents to ethnology. Yet it is also true that, in the middle ranges of the Tamil caste hierarchy, the ranking categories and overall form of the Gangetic caste tradition are very poorly reproduced. The most striking aspect of this anomaly is the enigmatic status of certain non-Brahman cultivating castes, which are traditionally of the Sudra (or Servant) rank in Sastric terms and which are epitomized by the cultivating Vellalars of the Tamil hinterland. Throughout South India, in those areas in which Brahmans are not the chief landowners, Sudra cultivating castes often possess what Srinivas has termed "decisive dominance"" Caste in Tamil Culture: The Religious Foundations of Sudra Domination in Tamil Sri Lanka, Bryan Pfaffenberger

1. S.M.Lingam on Tamil Nationalism & the Caste System - Swami Vivekananda and Saint Kabir "The Tamil nation is a political community, a grand solidarity. To maintain its solidarity, the Tamil nation has to remove all sorts of divisions that causes dissension and discord among its members . The Caste System is such a pernicious division that has plagued our society for thousands of years. The Caste System still occupies an important place in the Hindu religion. The primary aim and ideal of all religions is the emancipation of all its followers, especially that of the weaker sections and the downtrodden. So it is strange that a religion like Hinduism goes against that ideal and purposefully condemn a section of its own followers as untouchable outcasts. The Hindu Brahmins have created theoretical explanations, Puranic stories and religious myths to support and justify their conduct. The sole aim of what is called "Brahminism" is to create and maintain a system which gives a supreme place of importance to Brahmanic priests and other Brahmins in general. Since all of these arguments are purported to be based on Hinduism, it is proper that we examine the ideals of real Hinduism and its basic tenets. .." 6. Professor Hart in Forum on Brahminism & the Tamil Nation "..Yes, of course Brahmins have had their own political agenda to push. They have been responsible for many things that I feel are entirely unconscionable. But is this any different from the other high castes? I have heard many many stories of high nonBrahmin castes killing and abusing Dalits. You can't blame the Brahmins for this. In fact, the most pernicious example of the caste system was in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka, where there are virtually no Brahmins and never have been....Tamil culture has not suffered because of one group. It has suffered because of the caste system and because of its treatment of women... Let's promote inter caste marriage, let's get rid of dowry and give women independence and self-respect, and above all, let's avoid a victimization complex which only plays into the hands of those who have a vested interest in continuing the inequities that exist in Tamilnad. If every Brahmin were to disappear from Tamilnad, the Dalits and others who are exploited would benefited not one iota..."

4. 'In the rainy season,' the woman began, `it is really bad. Water mixes with the shit and when we carry it (on our heads) it drips from the baskets, on to our clothes, our bodies, our faces. When I return home I find it difficult to eat food sometimes. The smell never gets out of my clothes, my hair. But this is our fate. To feed my children I have no option but to do this work.' Narayanamma began cleaning human excrement at 13. She is now 35. The stench is nauseating, overpowering. First, she sweeps the shit into piles. Then, using two flat pieces of tin, she scoops it up and drops it into a bamboo basket which she carries to a spot where a tractor will arrive to pick it up. No gloves. No water to wash with. She hitches up her sari tightly so that it does not trail on the ground or touch the shit. Still, it is almost impossible to go through a whole day's work without some of it inadvertently getting onto her clothes and person. After 20-odd years of cleaning toilets. Narayanamma clings to a dignity which is markedly at variance with the work she does. She is dressed neatly, immaculately clean. Jasmine adorns her oiled and well groomed hair. Narayanamma and 800,000 other toilet cleaners are on the lowest rung of the caste system in India. They are despised by everyone. They experience absolute exclusion from the cradle to the grave. They are the other face of India; the one that nobody likes to see. It is in sharp contrast to the progressive, technological, we-have-the-bomband-are-no longer-the-Third-World face. Chennai railway, station says it all. It has a hot spot for laptops to download mail, mobile phone chargers, international food counters offering burgers, chocolate mousse and chow mein next to hot dosas and chicken tikka. Yet, a few metres away, sweeper women clean shit in the most primitive manner possible, lifting it out of the railway track with a stick, broom and pieces of tin. Why does this unacceptable, utterly obscene dichotomy exist. Because hardly anyone wants it to change. Caste permeates every pore of Indian society in hidden, insidious ways. It is so complex, few Indians begin to understand it completely, although it is present in our lives in subtle and not-so subtle ways. Even though the caste hierarchy is a Hindu construct, conversion does not always help: Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Muslims often still cling to their caste identities when searching for marriage partners... When the British ruled India they left caste well alone to avoid unrest. In some ways they even reinforced it, finding Brahmins useful as an army of clerks and administrators who served the British Empire faithfully.

Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves `Dalits', which means `Broken People'. There are almost 180 million Dalits in India alone and at least another 60 million around the world who face caste discrimination of various kinds. On a daily basis, Dalits have to deal with the fact that they will not be served food in many eateries. They must sit outside and drink their tea at a distance from the other customers. Special `Untouchable' cups are placed on the shelf outside. The Dalit customer has to take his or her cup, place it on a counter carefully without touching the waiter. The tea will then be poured from a safe, non polluting distance and the Dalit must pick up the cup, drink the tea, wash the cup and place it back on the secluded Dalit shelf outside. This is known as the 'two-glass' system. In one recent survey of 22 villages in Tamil Nadu, 16 practised the `two glass system'; 14 villages had the `chappal' system where Dalits have to remove their footwear when they enter the caste part of the village; and in 17 villages Dalits were forbidden to enter the village temples. In four villages Dalits had come together to combat these practices and they have largely been abolished.... ... Academics talk of lack of political will to describe successive governments' failure to protect Dalits. Translated, this means police officers stand in the background and watch upper-caste mobs burn Dalits alive, because the village considers they are getting too big for their boots. Feudal landlords are aided by corrupt civil servants and government officials in maintaining the status quo. So they approve and abet in the exploitation of Dalits, turn a blind eye to bonded labour, and the terrorizing, killing, rape of Dalits who protest. Meanwhile everyone mouths the rhetoric of the Constitution and government documents hypocritically pay lip-service to it... Caste discrimination also remains alive and well wherever the Indian Diaspora has migrated.. ...Perversely caste discrimination in Diaspora communities in the West has become worse in the last few years; as communities have grown larger, caste distinctions become more pronounced... Discrimination in Detail

In India, Brahmins, who are 3.5 per cent of the population, hold 78 per cent of the judicial positions and approximately 50 per cent of parliamentary seats. Mass rapes often form part of the tactics of intimidation used by upper-caste gangs against lower castes. The Home Ministry reported that, between 2000 and 2001, there was a 16.5 per cent increase in reported rape cases. Each year, inter-caste violence claims hundreds of lives; in 2001 it was especially pronounced in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.

In India, among the millions of bonded labourers (estimates range widely between 20 to 65 million for 2001), the Government found 85 per cent to be Dalits or from lower castes. These included a large number of children. Dalits and adivasis (indigenous peoples) form the largest proportion of those who drop out of school. In rural areas, between the ages of five and nine, 36.1 per cent of Dalit boys and 48.4 per cent of Dalit girls dropped out. About 75 per cent of Dalit communities live below the poverty line. Two-thirds of the Dalit population is illiterate. Half are landless agricultural labourers. Only seven per cent have access to safe drinking water, electricity and toilets.

from Mari Marcel Thekaekara on the Stink of Untouchability in the New Internationalist, July 2005 5. Untouchability & Caste Relations in Rural India - the Case of Southern Tamil Villages - A. Ramaiah "Justice and equality are the two subjects often talked about by most of the nationalists and leaders of various political and ideological streams across the world including India....everyday social life is still governed substantially by the hierarchical attitude and sentiments carried over from the past. The awe for those who are superior by birth or social position (higher caste) and the contempt towards social inferiors (lower castes) are equally wide spread in the rural and urban areas and among the educated and the uneducated... What is most important of all is reconsidering the suggestion of Dr. Ambedkar that a socially distinct community should be allowed to settle in separate villages so that within such villages there is no scope for any one to label another as untouchable or lower caste. Only in such separate villages can the so-called lower caste people also experience freedom which India got five decades before. Besides, a fire spewing urge to fight for their rights, self-respect and dignity and a strive for coming together across their religious, regional, linguistic, sub-caste and ideological differences have to be consciously nurtured. Unless this is achieved, the empowerment and the emancipation of enslaved Indians would continue to remain a distant dream 6. Pfaffenberger, Bryan - Caste in Tamil Culture: The Religious Foundations of Sudra Domination in Tamil Sri Lanka "...The caste system of South India, epitomized (as are most things South Indian) by the social formation of the Tamil-speaking lands is if anything even more rigid and redolent of the hierarchical ethos than that of North India. And yet - here, of course, is the uniquitous paradox with which South Indian presents us - the Tamil caste system

comprises features which are not only unknown in North India but are also without any clear foundation in the Sastric lore. So divergent is the southern system that one is tempted to say, with Raghavan (n.d.:117), that the Sastras have "little application" to the Tamil caste system, which should be analyzed in purely Dravidian terms...But to do so is to forget the fundamental challenge with which Dravidian culture presents us, namely, to see it as a regional variant of the Gangetic tradition of Hinduism. We are obliged to observe, for instance, that the highest and lowest ranks of the Tamil caste hierarchy - that of the Brahman and of the scavenging Paraiyar Untouchables -are perfectly explicable in Sastric terms. .." 7..K.Nambi Arooran in The Origin of the Non-Brahmin Movement, 1905-1920 ".. although non Brahmins from the two main Dravidian language groups - Tamil and Telegu - joined the non-Brahmin movement the use of Dravidianism as a political weapon was mostly confined to the Tamil non-Brahmins... At the same time when Dravidian consciousness was taking shape not only the question who were Dravidians but also the question who were non-Brahmins came to be widely asked. The leaders of the Justice Party claimed that the term ` non-Brahmins' denoted all other than ` Brahmins'. But the leadership of the party came mostly from the ` advanced ' or ` forward ' nonBrahmin Hindu castes which according to one estimate formed about 19 per cent of the population. 10.Dravidian Movement & Dalits - Gail Omvedt ... "In Tamil Nadu there was a movement in the name of anti-Brahmanism under the leadership of Periyar. It attracted Dalits, but after 30 years of power, the Dalits understand that they are as badly-off - or worse-off - as they were under the Brahmans. Under Dravidian rule, they have been attacked and killed, their due share in government service is not given, they are not allowed to rise .'' So says Dr. Krishnasami, leader of the militant movement of the Dalit community known as ``Devendra Kula Vellalas'' of southern Tamil Nadu and founder of a new political party, Puthiya Tamilakam. This sense of disillusionment with the Dravidian parties is pervasive among not only the Dalits but also many militant non-Brahmans as well. The anti-caste movements of the past, in Dr. Krishnasami's words, have failed to achieve their main goals. Mr. Thirumavalavan of the Liberation Panthers speaks of discrimination and atrocities against those who fight against the evil and adds: ``Castes keep their identity just as before, they don't intermarry, there are no longer any self-respect marriages.'' Like Dr. Krishnasami, he does not reject the goals of the movement, arguing `` the Dalit struggle has to be for the liberation of a nationality ,'' and Hindutva should be opposed through Tamil nationalism. He feels that the existing Dravidian parties have betrayed the Dalits." . Early Evidence of Caste in South India - George L.Hart "At first glance, caste seems a phenomenon which, if not simple, is at least amenable to explanation and description; yet, as the vast number of writings on the subject and their many different points of view indicate, this is not the case...The modern form of the caste system seems to have been the result of changes introduced by the Brahmins and by kings who fostered the Hindu system...As important as the Brahmins and the Brahmanical religion were, they were not the creators of the caste system

in South India. They influenced the system profoundly, no doubt, but caste is found in most of its manifestations before the Brahmins became prominent. Its origins must be seen in the belief system that developed with the agricultural civilization of South India: that sacred power in its natural state is dangerous and demands groups outside of society proper to control it. .."