[Reader-list] What's pain got to do with it?

[Rahul Asthana]

Hi Gargi,
I am assuming the Rahul you mention in your emails is
me.I will try to answer.
>You see, my friends Aditya, Rashneek , Kshemendra ,
>Pawan and Rahul
> allow me
>to be straight forward. I have two problems with most
>of your posts.
> Your
>arguments are weak. You can¹t keep taking recourse to
>pain as an
> argument.
>Arguments need to be constructed and pain
>unfortunately can only be
> felt. So
>to talk only of pain, over and over and over again
>without adding
> anything
>else, apart from abuse and false accusations, has the
>danger of
> skidding
>your position into the terrain of boredom. And even
>your abuse becomes
>tedious, repetitive, boring.
My argument has nothing to do with pain.I am not a
Kashmiri.As for accusations and abuse,I don't know.If
I did,I apologize.I try to keep this impersonal.As for
your boredom,sorry but I cant help you there.I don't
know how to make my writing interesting,nor do I try.
> And the second problem I >have is with the
>strategy you describe and I read in the sub-texts of
>your posts and its
>consequences. For if you try to stop arguments and
>points of view  by
> force
>or falsehood, if you try and still voices you don¹t
>agree with, you
> run into
>two problems. First you end up giving a lot more
>credence to what
> you¹re
>trying to stop. Second, and this is probably far more
>dangerous, if you
>emerge victorious, i.e. if you are actually able to
>stop all voices you
>don¹t like one day the silence of silenced voices
will >silence even
> your
>litany of pain. 
Its not about what I want or don't want.Its not about
me.Since the two principle actors in this problem are
nations,so this problem has to be viewed from the
perspective of these nations.
>Do you understand? 
Yeah I do understand,but your assumption and
conclusion is wrong;at least in my case.
>Is that truly what you want?
What I truly want is the resolution of Kashmir issue.
Hope this helps
Rahul

--- Gargi Sen <sen.gargi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Everybody,
> I am not a writer but have nevertheless discovered
> the two banes in the life
> of a writer. First, how to start, and second, how to
> stop. As I have merely
> crossed the first hurdle I crave your indulgence.
> And apologies for another
> mail addressed to a few people on the list.
> Gargi
> 
> Dear M. Ray (and of course my young friends Aditya,
> Rashneek , Kshemendra ,
> Pawan and Rahul)
> 
> M. Ray I am a little annoyed with you. How could you
> forget my Œboddi¹
> lineage and its implication? While the non-Bengalis
> on this list will not
> know what I am talking about you should know better.
> Because either you are
> a Bengali or you know enough about Bengalis - who
> insist on seeing the world
> divided into two simple camps: Bengalis and
> non-Bengalis - to so astutely
> identify my roots. But how could you forget the
> boddi bit? After all most
> all boddi women, and men, are enormously proud of
> their levels of education.
> And to the best of my knowledge, from that part of
> the world, after the
> Khasi women, I believe it was the boddi Bengali
> women who took to education
> like fish to water. And even you will agree that to
> construct convoluted
> arguments some form of education is necessary. So
> please do correct your
> definition.  
> 
> The term Boddi basically delineates ­ draws the
> boundary of -  caste. And in
> Bengal - Bengal/ West Bengal/ East
> Pakistan/Bangladesh/ whatever, or if you
> want another take Bangla/ Goudiya/ Kalinga/
> whatever, for sake of simplicity
> lets go with a concept called Bengal that is not
> connected to geography or
> nation but is perhaps necessary to root the Bengali
> - who still insist that
> the world has two simple of camps of Bengalis and
> non-Bengalis. (I won¹t use
> Language as a definer for fear of digressing into
> another messy story.) So
> in this concept called Bengal emerges a caste called
> Boddi. Stuck between
> the Brahmin and non-Brahmins they insist on being
> more on the side of
> Brahmins than non-Brahmins. The men wear the thread,
> the death-retreat is
> for 11 days as versus 13 of the non-Brahmin
> Bengalis. But you know because
> caste is far more vigilant than human wishes you
> can¹t be more or less, you
> can only be this or that, or here or there. So the
> Boddis, grudgingly
> allowed many Brahmin privileges including education
> are denied the
> penultimate one: access to God. They can¹t carry out
> the ritual of religion.
> That is kept for the Brahmins only.
> 
> But despite their attempts at creating an exclusive
> space the Bengali
> Brahmins are considered a bit outside it all by
> other Brahmins. As are the
> Kashmiri Brahmins. Both eat meat you see. I mean the
> Brahmins from the
> concept called Bengal and Kashmir eat meat. In the
> concept called Bengal,
> quite a few hundred years ago my sir-namesake, one
> Ballar, invited 7
> Bhramins from Ujjain to initiate the caste system
> and watched in mute agony
> his personal love life wash away in the deluge he
> unleashed. I am sure you
> know better than me the story of genesis of caste in
> Kashmir. You are after
> all the RIK. And you might know that in these
> conceptual states, having
> begun late, they took to caste with the zeal of the
> new converts and forgot
> to watch out for its evolution. Caste, though rigid,
> is not ossified and
> continued to evolve and Brahminism went on to marry
> the virtuous
> vegetarianism. The two Brahmins forgot to join the
> brigade and hence earned
> contempt from the brethren. But perhaps both these
> communities, with
> different histories, are similar in their love for
> food, and maybe they
> didn¹t really want join the brigade fully because
> that would have been very,
> very inconvenient. Where will be the great cuisines
> of Bengal (or Kashmir)
> be without the flesh of dead animals? Although I
> must admit the Bengalis
> tried quite hard. They have almost managed to
> convince themselves and quite
> a fw others that fish is basically a vegetable from
> the sea.
> 
> The logic of Caste is compelling and seductive. It
> delineates humans into
> fixed boundaries of hierarchy determined at birth.
> At its root it provides
> two very interesting principles: the first the
> doctrine of inequality (some
> are born higher and thus must fare better than those
> born lower), the second
> of divinity ­ God decreed that some are born higher
> and some lower, so
> accept without question, it¹s authorised by God you
> see.
> 
> Interestingly, because god is not restricted to  the
> private domain of the
> practicing Hindus many other religions/ systems too
> accept god, and as a
> corollary, caste. Its simply one of the most
> brilliant ruling-class
> strategies. How very wonderful if the subjects
> believed that they deserved
> to be ruled, and how even more wonderful if they
> believed that they deserved
> to be ruled by the present ruler. So Islam, the most
> liberal and emancipated
> organised religion at its time of emergence, an
> organised religion that
> recognised even say the rights of women to property
> and partner, comes to
> India through many routes but conveniently adopts a
> version of caste system
> when its readying to rule. See how could a Thakur
> converting to Islam for
> convenience call a dhobi convert his brother? The
> roots of the  Dalit
> Christian is newer still. Even the newest organised
> religion Sikhism ,
> drawing heavily from philosophies of Islam, couldn¹t
> resist playing footsie
> with caste. 
> 
> So M. Ray, call me a Hindu if you must but don¹t
> forget the boddi bit, its
> important for this narrative.
> 
> Hitler, drawing up the blue print of a ruling
> philosophy draws upon a
> treatise of Nietzsche who draws this one from the
> Manusmriti written by one
> Manu, the man who writes down the rigid structures
> of caste. You see in the
> 1920s Hitler and his party the Nationalsozilistiche
> Deutsche Arbeiterpartei
> (NSDAP) or the Nazi party, outside of a small groups
> of fanatical Bavarian
> Nazis, are considered to be vulgar rabble-rousers. 
> When he becomes the
> chancellor in 1933 the percentage of vote is a mere
> 33% and people predict a
> demise of the Nazis. But soon all that changes and
> the Nazis win the support
> of the majority of the majority ­ they are able to
> convince the majority
> about the superiority of some over other, a doctrine
> drawn from India,
> defining the Aryan presented as Fascism. Films
> played an important role in
> this shift. Film after film extolled a few
> principles and themes. The two
> common and recurring themes in the Nazi films are
> blut und bloden (blood and
> soil) and Volk und Heimat (People and homeland). 
> The films though might not
> have been so effective without ensuring that these
> were the only films seen.
> All other voices needed to be blocked without
> blocking out all other voices
> propaganda looses its power.
> 
> Can you begin to see the torturous route of history?
> Don¹t the Nazi themes
> still ring true? Blood and soil, people and
> homeland? The blocked voices?
> Can you hear them? 
> 
> Another day if you remind me I¹ll tell you the story
> of Leni Reifenstahl and
> the persistence of memory. No not the painting, but
> images that she created
> that live on till date, images that dazzle,
> captivate 
=== message truncated ===



       
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