3. Francoise Gautier: Are Brahmins the Dalits of Today?
www.rediff.com
INDIA, May 23, 2006: (HPI note: This editorial piece by journalist Francoise
Gautier comes at a time when India's policy of "reservations," or affirmative
action, to benefit lower classes has become a national
issue.)
Excerpts:
At a time when the Congress government wants to
raise the quota for Other Backward Classes to 49.5 per cent in private and
public sectors, nobody talks about the plight of the upper castes. The public
image of the Brahmins, for instance, is that of an affluent, pampered class. But
is it so today?
Did you know that you stumble upon a number of Brahmins
working as coolies at Delhi's railway stations? One of them, Kripa Shankar
Sharma, says while his daughter is doing her Bachelors in Science he is not sure
if she will secure a job. "Dalits often have five to six kids, but they are
confident of placing them easily and well," he says. As a result, the Dalit
population is increasing in villa ges. He adds: "Dalits are provided with
housing, even their pigs have spaces; whereas there is no provision for
gaushalas (cowsheds) for the cows of the Brahmins."
This reverse
discrimination is also found in bureaucracy and politics. Most of the
intellectual Brahmin Tamil class has emigrated outside Tamil Nadu. Only 5 seats
out of 600 in the combined UP and Bihar assembly are held by Brahmins -- the
rest are in the hands of the Yadavs. 400,000 Brahmins of the Kashmir valley, the
once respected Kashmiri Pandits, now live as refugees in their own country,
sometimes in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi in appalling conditions. But who
cares about them? Their vote bank is negligible. And this is not limited to the
North alone. 75 per cent of domestic help and cooks in Andhra Pradesh are
Brahmins. A study of the Brahmin community in a district in Andhra Pradesh
(Brahmins of India by J. Radhakrishna, published by Chugh Publications) reveals
that today all purohits live below the poverty line. Eighty per cent of those
surveyed stated that their poverty and traditional style of dress and hair
(tuft) had made them the butt of ridicu le. Financial constraints coupled with
the existing system of reservations for the 'backward classes' prevented them
from providing secular education to their children.
There is no reason
to believe that the condition of Brahmins in other parts of the country is
different. In this connection it would be revealing to quote the per capita
income of various communities as stated by the Karnataka finance minister in the
state assembly: Christians Rs 1,562, Vokkaligas Rs 914, Muslims Rs 794,
Scheduled castes Rs 680, Scheduled Tribes Rs 577 and Brahmins Rs
537.
Priests are under tremendous difficulty today, sometimes even forced
to beg for alms for survival. There are innumerable instances in which Brahmin
priests who spent a lifetime studying Vedas are being ridiculed and
disrespected. At Tamil Nadu's Ranganathaswamy Temple, a priest's monthly salary
is Rs 300 (Census Department studies) and a daily allowance of one measure of
rice. The government staff at the same temple receive Rs 2,500 plus per month.
But these facts have not modified the priests' reputation as 'haves' and as
'exploiters.' T he destitution of Hindu priests has moved none, not even the
parties known for Hindu sympathy.
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