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The discussion on caste has been really stimulating. Viviana's comments
reminded me of something the great Tariq Ali (of Paris 1968 fame) had
said when in 1985 he addressed the students and faculty at TISS where I
was studying in Bombay. He was asked what had struck him most about
social reality in India. To paraphrase roughly, he said that the
all-pervasive caste system was probably the feature that struck (and
appalled) him the most. He made it a point to clarify that in India
caste cut across all communities, Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs
etc., with Buddhists being probably the only exception (probably because
most Buddhists are dalits). Whatever else people may or may not have
carried over with them from Hinduism, they all carried along caste:
lock, stock and barrel.
Which is crazy when you come to think of it, since Sikhism in particular
was an explicit attempt to fight the caste system, and caste would be
against basic tenets of Christianity and Islam.
About Fred's comments, I heartily agree. We all too easily say that
caste doesn't matter to us, and in most cases we're speaking the truth,
but to believe that institutionalised social prejudice and
discrimination is the sum of individual opinions is to fall into the
trap of psychologism, which is a complete fallacy. Again in college, all
of us used to feel that we are "above" caste and would never
discriminate, until one of our teachers told us to pay attention and
observe that the dalit students sit separately for food in the mess, and
that few other students have much interaction with them. Nobody had any
'conscious' discrimination against them, the reason for not interacting
much was given as them being "different" (with more impolite words were
used to describe the difference).
So whether we have any conscious caste feeling or not, it is an
all-pervasive feature of Indian society, and we need to realise that we
inevitably discriminate, because our society is so structured as to
systematically discriminate against 'lower' castes. It is only when we
realise this that we can begin to take corrective steps at our own
individual level.
And finally, amen to Rico's words: "who believe such problems won't go
away simply by pushing it under the carpet"
Viviana:
Judging from the matrimonial ads in Goan newspapers
Caste is still a major issue even among Catholics.
Among my contemporaries this is not an issue, or at
least never a subject of discussion. I dont know what
caste any of my friends are, and I dont care, and
neither do they. Among Catholics at least there
should be no castes. When a Hindu becomes a Moslem,
the person no longer has a caste. Why did the
Catholicism allow the caste system to continue ?
Fred:
A lot of Catholics simply (i) don't understand caste or (ii)
pretend it
doesn't exist. This helps to build smoke-screens that helps a
better
understanding of why Goa and Goans work (or don't work) the way
they do.
"Those born in the so-called 'upper' castes can pretend that
caste
doesn't exist. But if anyone was born as a Dalit (the worst off)
he would
be hit by the reality of caste before he was four years old,"
Sainath
said.
> A lifetime of experience has taught me that no matter how hard I try in
> personal arguments, I can never persuade a person who believes
in caste
> not to believe in caste.
Looks like a slight blurring of issues due to the language
chosen. We need
to distinguish between someone subscribing to caste-based
notions of
superiority/hierarchy, and those (like Cornel and myself) who
believe such
problems won't go away simply by pushing it under the carpet.
