[Reader-list] Brahminical dominence ?

[Venugopalan K M]

Dear Rajen,

By adopting such a position on Brahmanical and Brahmanism, one will stand to
lose the very usefulness of this important concept. As you were stating it
has less to do with propagating hate than understanding the exceptionally
institutionalized and ritualized  hate in the social and cultural life of
India.
This is sure to  raise lot of other questions: Why, for example  after the
happening of the Khairlanji in September 2006 {almost the entire people of a
village participate in the act of parading naked,raping,(women),killing and
mutilating the bodies of the 4 victims who were members of a dalit family
(converted to Budhism) }, the entire media kept silence for about one month?
So , an understanding of  Brahmanism together with  Brahmanical ways of
thinking,  not only does not talk of  Brahmans as persons but more as a
collective and  typically  negative attitude. It is characterized by
defending privileges with respect to the ascending order of caste and
denying equality; significantly women of all castes are automatically
considered inferior to their male counterparts(this is also seen in every
other religion; but practices of cruelty to widows ,women not giving birth
to to male offsprings, not able to consummate marriage etc,etc are viewed
with special contempt in the brahmanical Hinduism).The extremely negative
attitude to change or reform is a direct result of a desire to protect the
system of privileges to the exclusion of others. These are generally what
are considered as traits associated with Brahmanism.Unfortunately, majority
of victims of this system of heirarchy are ideologically co-opted to it;
they are not expected to doubt the system which is has been taught to them
as divinely ordained.They are expected to just obey  without grumbles and
get better off in the future birth.(*Chathrvarnam maya srushtam guna karma
vibhagasa*- The system has been created by me according to your past
*karma*and your qualities and just do your caste-ordained duties-this
is the
message of Bhagvan in Gita (Ch IX verse 32 ?..I don't remember it correctly)
I'm not suggesting that every person believing in the Hindu scriptures and
the Gita would support mass murders and ritualistic killings of dalits as
happened in khairlanji..not that the media always will attempt to cover up
such incidents.To be certain, in the media controlled by the upper caste
Hindus,there is always a tendency to underplay the unpleasant factors
related with caste. Gandhi was a great admirer and interpretor of Gita and
yet he was assassinated by Godse, who was a fanatic adherent of
Brahmanism.But even Gandhi believed in a Ramarajya of his own notion..so are
the less enlightened 'Hindu' masses  to a greater or lesser degree in
denying equality to women and lower castes, the very victims of
discriminations included.Then, not to speak of the tendency to resist
reservations and to monopolize knowledge and power by a minority. Certainly,
the print media dominated by the upper caste plays a significant role  in
perpetuating the bias against the under privileged.The internet and the
electronic media at a more globalized level, are able to challenge this
privilege of the upper caste elites in  significant ways.
Regards,
Venu.

Regards,
Venu.


On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Rajen Uppinangadi <
rajen882uppinangadi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>     Venu,
>
>     List is at times, makes up for the surprise packages for all with
> undertones of "caste"  and is casted with caste as theme of hate, if one
> post talks of twice born as brahmins, another talks of brahminical
> domination of media, which are again myths to say the least, if otherwise it
> is meant to be "learned" are brahmins, knowledgeable   "caste", then may be
> it is acceptable but still as we strive for togetherness above the caste and
> faith conundrums of hate, it is really ammusing that of all you start with
> this theme of hate on the basi of caste.?
>
>   To illustrate, Mr. Kancha Illayya, regular columnist, who takes up issues
> of oppressed is a brahmin by his domination in media with the issues, just
> as sage Vishwamitra who gave the most potent manthra, Gayathri, is brahmin
> by his work, not by birth.? But contrary examples are also are visible in
> society, where by birth some are brahmins, but behaviour is that of worse
> than  anyone, like the Dr. Murli manohar Joshi, in his acts and utterances.?
> Again, a journalist and lecturer in Physics., Dr. Joshi, who blindly follows
> the rituals without knowing the reasons behind such rituals, is again worse
> off even as brahmin born, as birth does not give the right to oppress
> others.? For example, the meaning of twice born is that once the child is
> born, at the tender age of around 12 years, he is vowed to go for higher
> studies to Benares, and the trip being in olden days, hazardous, it was
> presumed to be secong birth to undertake such a long journey for education,
> times have changed with chools imparting education at hop, skip and jump
> distances from homes these days.?
>
>   As to media and media houses, most of them are run atleast in Karnataka
> by Idigas, or theeyas, or known in slang as toddy tappers, so the education
> has changed everything, let us come out of this caste fixation, judge the
> works rather than the caste.Visual media channels are again run by
> individuals who know how to run the business with trps, news is not what
> viewers want, but what the channels dish out as views in news in this age of
> info-tainment. Otherwise how do you explain the anchors and their behaviour
> with type of presentation of "news" compared to western media, where anchors
> are better dressed with least exposure of made up face and bodies.?
>
> Regards,
>
> Rajen.
>
>
>


-- 
http://venukm.blogspot.com/