Kranthi Kumar Mungamuri

Very recently, Telangana MLA Dharma Reddy (TRS), made a casteist statement over reservations by saying that "state is being ruined or destroyed due to lack of merit in government due to communities who had reservations" which led to a war of words between democratic, productive forces (SCs, STs and OBCs) and casteist forces. He also argued that upper castes are not securing jobs while others were getting positions without any merit. He made these comments while he was speaking at "Upper Caste State Maha Garjana", a meeting organised by the Upper Caste Aikya Vedika and attended by upper caste groups such as Velama, Reddy, Brahmin, Vaishya and Kshatriya who are historically anti-reservations and anti-empowerment of the marginalized.

Read more...

Ajay Choudhary

Indian society, which is plagued by caste discrimination, is often triggered by emotional and sentimental issues. The prevailing unscientific and irrational formal education system is unable to foresee and resolve such issues. While it is easy to mock, deep exploration of human experience reveals that informal education has instigated more students and youth to stand against the oppressive system. Cinema is also one type of informal educational tools in modernistic society where generations of people often get socialized and de-socialized to grasp the undercurrents that exist in society. It exposes the mindset of society because the issues dealt with dramatically in cinema are actually rooted in the reality prevailing in society. In other words, cinema is a reflection of society even if it is omitting or excluding the issues based on caste discrimination, which is a reflection in itself.

Such unified projection of Indian society through cinema was shattered to pieces because of the entry of new Dalit directors of films like 'Fandry' (2013) and 'Pariyerum Perumal' (2018) covering their own spaces, which was mostly absent since the 1950s and onwards. This earlier cinema endeavored to form the false consciousness of unity in diversity, which is nothing but a perpetuation of brahminical values through different media houses and also imposing them on the non-brahmanical consciousness. In the past decade or so, these brahminical values have become a matter of investigation in cinema due to the entry of humanistic values initiated by the anti-caste tradition in India.

Read more...

অনসুল কুমার

ভাষান্তর- বিধান চন্দ্র দাস

“এটা ঐতিহাসিক ভাবে সত্য যে ব্রাহ্মণ সবসময়ই অন্যান্য শ্রেণীদের সহযোগী হয়েছে এবং তারা তাদের তখনই শাসক শ্রেণীর মর্যাদা দিয়েছে, যখন সেই শ্রেণীগুলো তাদের অধীনে থেকে সহযোগিতা করতে রাজি হয়েছে। প্রাচীন এবং মধ্যযুগে এই রকম জোট তারা করত ক্ষত্রিয় অথবা যোদ্ধা শ্রেণীদের সঙ্গে এবং দুজনে মিলে রাজত্ব করত বাকি জনগণের উপর যেখানে ব্রাহ্মন তার কলমের দ্বারা এবং ক্ষত্রিয় তার তরবারির দ্বারা এই জনগণকে নিষ্পেষিত করত। বর্তমানে ব্রাহ্মণরা জোট তৈরি করেছে বৈশ্যদের সঙ্গে, যাদের বেনিয়া বলা হয়। এই ক্ষত্রিয়দের ছেড়ে বেনিয়াদের প্রতি জোটের স্থানান্তরটা স্বাভাবিক। বর্তমানে তরবারির চাইতেও বেশি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হল বাণিজ্য করে পাওয়া অর্থ।পক্ষ বদলের এটা একটা কারণ । দ্বিতীয় কারণটা হল সমগ্র রাজনৈতিক যন্ত্রটিকে চালানোর জন্য অর্থের প্রয়োজনীয়তা। অর্থ শুধুমাত্র বেনিয়াদের থেকে পাওয়া যায়। এই হল সেই বেনিয়া , যারা কংগ্রেসকে প্রচুর পরিমানে টাকার যোগান দেয় কারণ মিঃ গান্ধী হলেন একজন বেনিয়া এবং তারা নিজেরা এটাও খুব ভালোভাবে বুঝেছে যে রাজনীতিতে অর্থ বিনিয়োগ তাদের বৃহৎ মুনাফা এনে দেবে।“--- বি আর আম্বেদকর, কংগ্রেস এবং গান্ধী অস্পৃশ্যদের জন্য কি করেছে।

Read more...

Dr. SPVA Sairam

Religion has played a significant role throughout the human history and its legacy is mixed. As a means of social control, it not only divided people and subjected them to the ignominies of the worst sort, but also, at times, it acted as a unifying force, unleashing the tremendous potential within humans to seek his or her spiritual ends¹.

 In this context, it is interesting to know what our anti-caste thinkers have to say about it. It will be illuminating to understand how Mahatma Jotiba Phule (1827-1890) viewed it.

Jotiba and Savitribai Phule had dedicated their lives to the cause of Bahujans. They raised the banner of revolt against the exploitation and subhuman treatment meted out to Shudras, Ati Shudras and Women by the Brahmins and allied castes².

Read more...

Prof Vivek Kumar

On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris created a history of sorts by taking oath as America's first female Vice President. She is the first woman of South Asian and Afro-American descent who has received such an honor. This may be a historic moment for Americans. However, if we analyze this history a little more deeply we will find that it is not so historic a moment in American democracy as it is being made out to be.

The obvious reason is that the United States of America is the oldest democracy in the world. If we consider the beginning of democracy here since 1788, when the US Constitution was approved by the states, then we will find that in the 233 year old history of democracy, America has not yet elected a single woman to the highest office of the nation.

Read more...

Jaspal Singh Sidhu

Tragic happenings of the 1980s continue to perturb the Sikhs. Most of them want to know what actually took place behind the smokescreen erected by the power of the day. In this context, the new arrival ‘The Khalistan Conspiracy’-A Former R&AW Officer Unravels the Path to 1984” (2020) authored by GBS Sidhu, who retired as Special Secretary of India’s Intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) fits the bill. The book reveals concretely, hitherto vaguely talked about theories that ‘Indira Gandhi had created a “Third Agency” to devise dubious plans to target Sikhs and to twist the Punjab politics to suit her political requirements'. It exposes the ‘dirty vote bank politics’, the Congress and other political parties openly practice in modern the Indian nation-state in their bid to reach the corridors of power. In their pursuit for power politicians rarely bother whether their acts are causing communal disturbances, upstaging peaceful societies, and triggering loss of innocent lives.

Read more...

Anand Silodia

A few days ago, Richa Chadha shared the poster of her new movie, ‘Madam Chief Minister’, and it was immediately criticized for the depiction of the dalit protagonist. The protagonist, played by Chadha, was shown to be wearing a dirty t-shirt and holding a broom[1]. The gist of the criticism was that Savarna filmmakers can’t seem to portray a dalit character without essentializing their idea of ‘dalitness’ through some deformity, like Kachra’s hand from ‘Lagaan’, or through some other symbol of degradation, like the current movie’s poster.

Read more...

Deivendra Kumar A

It was during my post-graduation studies in journalism at the Central University of Tamil Nadu in Thiruvarur that one of my professors enquired about my view on the recent movie Asuran (2019), directed by ace filmmaker Vetrimaaran. Further, he asked me about the recent buzz that the particular film has created among the cinephiles regarding the Keezhvenmani Massacre. He kindled an urge in me to explore the nearby village named Keezhvenmani, an agrarian hamlet in Nagapattinam district, about 20 km from the university campus. This was my first journey to witness the essence of caste, which resulted in betrayal and violence, as a mode of punishment over subalterns.

As I had a prior understanding of the Keezhvenmani Massacre through literature and other scholarly works, I discerned that the flashback scenes of Sivasami (Dhanush's character) shown in the film Asuran, where the huts were burnt by the henchmen of the landlord, resembled the real episode of the massacre. Similar to the real-life incident, a group of comrades as well as villagers in the film plan, prepare, demonstrates, and execute a strike demanding the rights of the landless, downtrodden community. The flashback scenes in the film were dedicated to represent the true event of Keezhvenmani Massacre, which happened on December 25, 1968, where 44 Dalits including women, children and aged were burnt alive by the landlords.

Read more...

Dr Anuradha Bele & Dr Jas Simran Kehal

The Brahmin and Vaishya population in India is very small. Yet if we study top 1000 companies in India, it is seen that in the board of directors, 93% are upper castes including Brahmins, Vaishyas, Parsis, Ashrafs and Syrian Christians (early Brahmin converts to Christianity), with 46% Vaishyas and 44% Brahmins. The OBCs and SC/STs are meagre 3.8% and 3.5% respectively.

The Indian corporate board has nine members on an average, and 88% of these are insiders; only 12% are independent directors. The corporate board thus lacks diversity and is completely dominated by the Brahmins and Vaishyas. Decision making body is kept entangled in caste and kin web-work confining Indian corporate board to a small and closed world - a world which is impermeable to labour class and lower castes. Indeed, cronyism is built into the caste system and this system has taken India to 9th global rank in crony-capitalism index.

Read more...

Chongtham Rameshwori 

My phone records 9:21 pm with the first picture of my favourite but unfortunate black T-shirt splattered with the thick pungent tobacco remains over my neck and chest area. On 22nd March 2020, after the nationwide curfew ended at 9 pm, I went outside with my friend to buy some groceries, to restock our supplies if we could, since a nationwide lockdown was about to begin on the very next day. We bought a medium-sized cabbage, one bottle gourd and an eggplant for 100 Rs and were on our way back to our PG, passing through the same alley which I have been passing for the last seven years. Except for a few street dogs, the street wore a completely deserted look and we saw a middle-aged north Indian man driving towards us from the opposite direction.

Read more...

Tanoj Meshram

Last week, Ranjitsinh Disale, a teacher from rural government Zilla Parishad (ZP) school in Solapur district, received Global Teacher Prize from Varkey Foundation. The prize which carries a very attractive cash prize of one million US dollars (about seven crore Indian rupees) and gets endorsements from famous political personalities, media & film celebrities and even the Prince Harry, Prince Williams and Pope Francis (see the video here) , naturally made huge headlines across the country. Disale Sir (Guruji in Marathi) was selected from over 12,000 nominations and applications from over 140 countries around the world.

As expected Disale Sir received praise from all the quarters for bringing laurels not just to his home state Maharashtra but India as well. Some even saw it as evidence that government schools in India do not lack talent while others considered it as the milestone in raising the status of the teachers as the award claims, "The Global Teacher Prize was set up to recognize one exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession as well as to shine a spotlight on the important role teachers play in society."

Read more...

Anshul Kumar

“History shows that the Brahmin has always had other classes as his allies to whom he was ready to accord the status of a governing class provided they were prepared to work with him in subordinate co-operation. In ancient and medieval times he made such an alliance with the Kshatriyas or the warrior class and the two ruled the masses, indeed ground them down, the Brahmin with his pen and the Kshatriya with his sword. At present, the Brahmin has made an alliance with the Vaishya class called Banias. The shifting of this alliance from Kshatriya to Bania is natural. In these days of commerce money is more important than sword. That is one reason for this change in party alignment. The second reason is the need for money to run the political machine. Money can come only from the Bania. It is the Bania who is financing the Congress largely because Mr. Gandhi is a Bania and also because he has realized that money invested in Politics gives large dividends.” ~ BR Ambedkar in What Congress and Gandhi have done to the Untouchables 

Read more...