Brahmins and Dalits (was : Jnanasambandar:)

[IreneMaradei]

 In this brahmin debate, I get the feeling that Indian posters react
strongly because of their personal experience and depending on the community
they come from . So, accordingly, brahmins are either sanctified "en masse"
or daemonized, again "en masse". But while obviously  there are numerous
cases to prove both attitudes, there are some general facts that cannot be
ignored.

I don't think nobody in their right mind would question the fact that
historically dalits had the bad deal, and the brahmins were privileged by
the caste rules they helped to formulate and preserve. And it is very
natural and human and understandable that they don't like to see them eroded
by anything.

     It is like my (non-brahmin) lady friend in Delhi- a university
lecturer, and very intelligent woman- who said she doesn't let her maid do
some things in her house because "she lives in a dirty area and is possibly
dirty, because she doesn't have access to clean water and probably she will
not want to spend on soap". "Then why don't you have her take a bath  as
soon as she comes,and put on a clean sari specially reserved for when she's
in your house?" " What? Use my bathroom???? The same one that we use?"   So
finally, by the "dirty" argument, she was just rationalizing her disgust at
the dalit maid, because she didn't like to see that it really was a caste
thing. I suppose that having her son in university side by side with that
woman's son one day would not be of her liking, although she would try
frantically to find a logical excuse for that... Let's face it, caste
prejudices in India are very much alive even today, and have little to do
with money.

Love of knowledge

Isn't it a bit naive to say that all brahmins - or "all" of any group of
people - had a love for knowledge in itself?
      First of all, from what I know, knowledge was their "business", their
traditional "profession", as shoemaking was the traditional profession of
shoemakers. And, as pointed out, knowledge in old times meant in great part
religious knowledge, because most if not all brahmins were priests, right?
      Secondly, love for knowledge is not some abstract thing that you get
from your genes!  Surely any of you who is also a parent will know
firsthand that a family with culture and knowledge and a love for books will
also - in the vast majority of cases- instill that knowledge in the
children, its new members. So my children, who always see me grab a book in
my spare time, will get the message that books are a nice thing.  When the
family uses good, polished language with a rich vocabulary, and also speaks
two or more foreign languages, it will naturally urge the child to learn
them too. The conversations the children hear will be more varied and
interesting and eye opening. And of course educated parents can answer
better  their children's questions on everything,  so the child does not
only rely on what he/she learns at school.   On the other hand, the child
who only sees its parents and grandparents reading trash magazines and
sports papers, everybody  speaking with a 200-word vocabulary full of gross
mistakes, and most conversations are about daily matters, gossip etc...  is
more likely to follow their example.
      I' m not saying that some uneducated people (especially in rural
areas) may not have a profound wisdom and give their children really good
values and a great philosophy of life. But we are talking of tools for
academic excellence here. A child from  unprivileged surroundings  may, due
to circumstances, to a good influence by teacher or friend, or I don't know
by what internal drive, acquire a love for culture and knowledge, but this
will happen later on, and the child of the cultured family will always have
a head start, if both children have the same intelligence ( but what is
intelligence? It can be arguably cultivated, too...) and put the same
effort. The child from the uncultured family will need extra effort, to get
to the same results.

I read about the dalit son who excelled academically. Of course this is very
possible, but you must admit it is an exception rather than the rule. Here
in the West we have many examples of children of poor or uneducated families
whose parents really did many sacrifices to have them educated and these
children got to a very high position. It may also be argued that these
people put in more effort, because they are less blase, and also their need
to climb socially is more acute, and also the parents are more desperate
because this education they are bying at greater cost, saving every penny
and working extra hours.  But all this does not prove that the poor or
uneducated classes of the West ( the equivalent of dalits in India) have the
same chances.
     You cannot say " See? When they want it badly enough, they can do it"
First they must be given a chance to want it. How can they even know what
they want if they don't know how, what is this thing they want, if nobody
really introduced them to the joys it can bring? As rightly stated,
especially in the last two centuries, for many education  means just a
better career ( In Europe, we have recently come to the opposite extreme: an
electrician makes more than a teacher, and it's all tax free) and that's why
parents started looking into it.  Secondly, it is so difficult that only
those really very motivated can make it. These kids  do  start with a
handicap.
       Now  democratic, secular India, has tried to inverse that handicap,
and give them a chance to get into universities and jobs etc...( same debate
as reservation for women!)   It is a double-edged sword, and of course it
may enable less well equipped persons to make it, and may produce a lowering
of the quality of graduates - because five years or ten years of education
cannot fill the gap of the lack of proper grounding at home. It also may
produce a feeling of injustice and frustration, when equally good brahmin
sons/daughters fail to get the place.  But on the other hand, no other
better way has been proposed.  Flawed as it is, this system is gradually
changing the traditional situation where knowledge was more- if now
exclusively- in hands of brahmins. The reservation system  is too recent a
development for its effects to be properly assessed. But I rather feel the
next generations will see improvement, because these first-generation
educated dalits may still be a bit crude, but their children will be less
so, and their grandchildren even less. And then hopefully there will be a
balance.  And there may come a day where the only people who pursue
knowledge will be the ones who love it and are ready to devote their life
for it: not because it is traditional in their families to do so.

     If this last sentence seems to contradict what I said earlier about the
importance of family, let me explain what I mean, by refining my earlier
statement: even in the most educated family, there will be lazy children,
who do not respond so much, they are somehow indifferent to learning, taking
it for granted and/or despising it;  and even in the most backward family in
a remote mountain spot, there will be a child which shines out by its thirst
for knowledge, enquiring nature and brilliant mind.  So it would be good
that this child has a chance to get the place it deserves, and an
opportunity to refine that mind, even if at the beginning he/she has to
struggle harder to learn the ABC's the others have sucked with their milk.
And, if, in university, the mountain child comes into contact with the child
of the aristocratic family, it should be ensured that the former does not
get  belittled or  scorned because of lacking in polish and social graces or
making obvious questions or wearing old shoes!

 (Sorry for putting my thoughts  in somehow simplistic terms, it comes from
my being a journalist in a very popular newspaper for  decades- I am used to
addressing a very wide public of mostly ignorant people, and I guess it has
become a habit :) )

Irene Maradei