[Reader-list] Brahminical dominence ?

[Rajen Uppinangadi]

Hi,

    Venu;

  Such general sweeping comments do not hold water in pluralistic society
like this free India. To condemn the "brahminical" thinking itself is
absurd, as brahminical way of thinking is for "sarve jana sukhino bhavanthu,
in Vasudaiva kutumbakam.

  While it is true that in every faith, the women are subjugated, denied
education and are less privileged with rights and the accent is more on
their duties, it is absurd to say that hindu way of life encourages such in
equality, for if it was so, gargi and maithreyi would not have had the place
in the arguments for the society.The marad killings would not have happened
when children and women were massacred in your backyard of Kerala. Shah Bano
case would not have been the instance to talk about where livelihood was
denied for a woman.Compared to other faiths, hindu way of life has
exceptional place for women in modern living, unlike taliban which shoots
down the couple if found walking together, the mullas would not proclaim
fathwas for the saving of a father for raping his own daughter. With
changing times, it is reforms that have taken place in hindu way of life
from within religion rather than outside, thanks to persons like Raja
Rammohan Roy, Jyothi Phule , and many other reformists, in modern times even
Ambedkar has contributed his might to reforms in the way society treats the
oppressed. But the political will to reforms in society has to come from
within the society as no amounts of laws can change as seen in Dowry act,
and the dowry menace is flourishing in all faiths.In fact, the roman
catholic weddings in Kerala are notorious for the wedding and lavish dory
angle to them, as clergy would bless the couple who part with substantially
dirty, obscene amounts for such blessing of an arch bishop, as was told to
me by a bishop friend.

So, to generalise the menace of oppression only to one way of life, hindu is
not only reflects the general trend of condemning whatever is hindu, as
brahminical. As to Rama Rajya, let it be remembered that Rama was kshatriya
king who administered his subjects wth care and concern for public opinion.
A doubt about his own wife as expressed by a subject made him take the harsh
step to send his wife to the forests when she was pregnent, to the Ashram.
Todays leaders do not care for the public opinion as much as they did , but
generate public opinion thru media and other means for their agendas, is my
perception.

Regards,

Rajen.

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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/
>