> > On Monday 24 Nov 2008 3:07:43 am Charles Haynes wrote: > > Certainly that's the impression I got. Please correct me if I'm wrong, > but haven't Brahmins in the past been notorious for behaving exactly > opposite to their professed ideals > > Are you asking me if all Brahimns behaved in this way? All of several tens > of millions of them?
I doubt that this was the question being asked. Of course all Brahmins are not greedy and manipulative, but let us not fool ourselves; there is most certainly no smoke without fire. Silk is hardly an indicator of the average demographic, even among Brahmins. My ancestry is mostly unknown to me, but I'm willing to bet that there were at least a couple of bad eggs in there, amongst all the well-meaning and generous kind. Even my immediate family - urban-bred and highly educated - is culpable of regular references to 'shudras' and 'chandalas', and I'm willing to bet that semi-urban and rural situations are at least as bad, if not worse. The problem is the continuous smearing of Brahmins when a very large > proportion of Brahmins have been law abiding, poor and studious and nothing > more. This is very true, though. A small number of Brahmins in positions of authority and influence have managed to convert that access into tremendous power via the detriment of others. The reason for the Dravidian movement being so powerful in the South is exactly this. I wouldn't go so far as to call it ethnic cleansing, though the non-Brahmin political groups have made it immensely difficult for Brahmins -- Sumant Srivathsan http://sumants.blogspot.com
