Can an atheist avail the benefit of affirmative action from the Government in India like reserved jobs which is based on caste into which a person is born ?
Indian (Hindu) society was deeply divided by the hierarchical caste system. It originated around 2000 years ago.
My first post on this blog was about a horrific murder which exposed the casteist underbelly of India. It happened exactly a year ago near my town. Sanker, a Dalit youth was hacked to death in broad daylight for daring to love and marry a girl who was born to a higher caste. The girl had severe injuries too but survived. The attack was ordered by members of the girl’s family. Severely traumatized, the girl tried to kill herself by consuming poison but was saved.
Now the happy news. The girl in question is slowly turning over a new life.
Following her attempt to take her own life, she was counseled by her in-laws, several NGOs and volunteers. “They told me dying was not the solution. I was told to live through this caste violence to prove the point that I wanted to. I decided that I will make the dreams that my husband and I had, come true,” says Kowsalya. Now, a year later, that is what she has done.
After her suicide bid, she had moved back in with Sankar’s family, where she initially started taking tuitions for children from 1st standard to the 12th standard. “I wanted to do something to remove my mind from what happened. Plus, there was nobody to teach these children from the locality English. So I decided that I should do it,” says Kowsalya. But what she thought would be a favour to the students, turned out to be of great help to her, when it came to cracking the defence ministry exams.
January 3 is the birth anniversary of the great 19th century Indian social reformer Savitribai Phule. She was born in 1831.
Belonging to a backward caste herself she was educated at her home by her husband, Jotirao Phule, who himself was a great social reformer.
Image credit – Dalit Vision
In the social and educational history of India, Mahatma Jotirao Phule and his wife Savitribai Phule stand out as an extraordinary couple. They were engaged in a passionate struggle to build a movement for equality between men and women and for social justice. Recognising that knowledge is power and that the progress of women and Dalit-Bahujans was impossible without it, they dedicated their entire life to spreading education. The distinction of starting the first school for girls and the Native Library in the country goes to them. They started the Literacy Mission in India in 1854-55. In 1863, they started a home for the prevention of infanticide in their own house, for the safety of pregnant, exploited Brahman widows and to nurture these children. By establishing the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society for Truth Seeking), they initiated the practice of the Satyashodhak marriage ñ a marriage without dowry or a wedding at minimum cost. By throwing open the well in his house for ëuntouchablesí, Jotirao directly initiated a programme to oppose the caste system. Both Jotirao and Savitribai did not just stop at opposing child marriage; they also organised widow remarriages. They had no children of their own but they adopted a child of a Brahman widow, gave him medical education and arranged an inter-caste marriage for him. This couple did the historical work of building a holistic and integrated revolutionary cultural, social and educational movement of women-shudra and-atishudras of the country.
Here are few images from a graphic novel on Savitribai Phule called “Journey of a trail blazer”.
Many Indians are unaware of this great reformer. Only recently she has appeared in history textbooks in schools. So it was pleasantly surprising to see Google producing a doodle today for her in India.
I will end this post with a poem written by Savitribai.
The Plight of the Shudras
Haunted by ‘The Gods on Earth’,
For two thousand years,
The perpetual service of the Brahmins,
Became the plight of the Shudras.
Looking at their condition,
The heart screams its protest,
The mind blanks out,
Struggling to find a way out.
Education is the path,
For the Shudras to walk,
For education grants humanity
freeing one from an animal-like existence
On August 15th, there were two very contrasting Independence Day celebrations in India.
One was the official function in the capital New Delhi were the Prime minister spoke for more than 90 minutes. It was described as the most “weak” and sleep inducing speech given by Narendra Modi.
PIB
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August 15th is India’s Independence Day. This year the most significant of Independence Day celebrations will take place in Una, Gujarat.
Una was the town that recently witnessed this cruel and inhuman public flogging of Dalits for allegedly killing cows.
On July 31st more than ten thousand Dalits converged for a mega meeting at Ahmedbad in protest against Dalit atrocities taking place all over the country.
When he was just out of school he was appalled and disgusted to see workers doing manual scavenging of human excreta from dry latrines. When he conveyed his disgust to his parents they revealed that they were also doing the same job. It was shocking for him to know that he belonged to a”thotti” (manual scavenger) family. He contemplated suicide, but somehow decided to live on.
That day in 1986 changed his life, and saw the beginning of a movement that will liberate lakhs of manual scavengers all over India. It will also result in him, Bezwada Wilson, getting the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award for 2016.
Dalits mercilessly beaten by Hindutva groups in Una, Gujarat for allegedly killing a cow- from Indian express
In protest Dalits who usually take care of cows dead due to natural causes, refuses to do such work. From Truth of Gujarat FB page
Dalit Organisations have called for state wide protest shut down on Wednesday in Gujarat, India. They have decided not to take it lying down anymore.
The inhumane violence on them, clearly depicted by a video which had gone viral in which a group of upper caste Hindutva goons were seen thrashing Dalit youths mercilessly in full public view in the town of Una was perhaps the breaking point.
Image credit – NDTV
Just happened to see a disgusting video frothing with racism by a popular atheist You Tuber. It was deservedly decimated by Martin Hughes and P Z Myers wrote a post about it too (of course that’s how I came to know about the video).
While watching that video, I had a déjà vu feeling. So I tried substituting in parts of the transcript the word Dalit for black.
The video is in the format of a group of blacks questioning the You tuber.
Admit it, you hate blacksDalits !
If I hate anything about
BlackDalit culture, it’s that it’s such a victim culture. Almost a victim cult — “Our Lady of Perpetual Victimization.” Every unfairness that exists in your life is the fault ofwhiteupper caste people or society stacked against you. You might as well tattoo, “It’s because I’mblackDalit, isn’t it?” to your fucking forehead.
When asked about pushing out blacksDalits out of slums to make city beautiful
What would I rather have — a
slumAmbedkar colony filled with thugs who would probablyshootrob me as soon as look at me, or shops, cafe’s, restaurants, and apartments?
“What are you going to do about systematic racism casteism ?”
[
RacismCasteism againstblackDalit people] is not my problem in the first place. What are [the people in the video I’m responding to (Dalits)] going to do to end discrimination against atheists? Right, you ain’t gonna do shit, because it’s not your problem and you don’t give a shit
Yes, I have heard these sentiments from some upper caste “Hindu atheists” in India. Have also heard somewhat similar things from some ex Christians and ex Muslims too. I also know atheists who believe Dalits and black Africans are less “brainy” and it is due to their “genes”.
Yes, atheists can be racist and casteist too, and when they are like that, they are much more toxic.
What should history text books in California call the area of Asia, which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka ? Should they call it India or South Asia ? How should those text books portray caste system? Should they mention family of birth is the most important factor deciding caste or should it say professional excellence also play a big role in it ?
There is a raging battle going on in California on these questions.