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Looking forward to read more on this.

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I think we need to get over casteism and talk about inequalities- and the idea of justice. The full frontal focus on casteism, whether it is good or bad, it was not as bad and so on, and the fixation with the idea of victims and oppressors, is not going to do away with caste. In fact, it will only lead to a retrenchment of position along the lines of caste.

It is important to recognise that talk of “social justice” in place of “justice” means that something that can be seen as unjust, can be justified on the grounds of social justice. This, in my thinking, is grounded in the need to redress past injustice, much more than the need to establish a just society.

Whether this is good or bad is another question, but it is important that we recognise that there is an element of revenge in the public discourse of caste. Unless we identify it, we won’t understand each other.

But this, idea of revenge may be seen as unfair by the victims of social justice- but then, we put people in prison even when we know that they are not going to change from their experience. Justice is not in the business of saving individual souls.

May be you could find this review of Amartya Sen’s idea of justice a bit interesting:

“Might our concept of justice arise when society’s normal moral inertia, the tendency to accept traditions and status quo ethical procedures without challenge, is itself challenged?

“Sen inclines to that view. He begins An Idea of Justice by quoting Pip in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations: “In the little world in which children have their existence, there is nothing so finely perceived and finely felt, as injustice.” Sen adds, “The identification of redressable injustice is not only what animates us to think about justice and injustice, it is also central … to the theory of justice.“”
http://chronicle.com/article/Amartya-Sen-Shakes-Up-Justice/48332

Sen is not an apologist of caste, or social justice as it is practiced here. He is a true realist, and wants us to return to the fundamentals of Indian traditional jurisprudence- “…niti (strict organizational and behavioral rules of justice) and nyaya (the larger picture of how such rules affect ordinary lives)”.

Hope you will reflect upon all this and share your insights into this- as for me, I am tired of talking about it, because it seems there is an unbridgeable gulf that separates individuals from seeing the others’ viewpoint. In my mind, it is to do with the fact that we blur over the desire for redress of past injustices.

Unless we find some way to do this, the issue of caste won’t go away- even the intellectually open won’t bridge the gulf, no matter how strong the arguments are.

Regards,

baskar

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if a brahmin claims and acts on birth-based superiority then he may be punished and justice be provided to the ‘oppressed’. in the past it was not the ‘religion’ at fault but the society that manipulated it. although we’ve been made to believe otherwise (still taught in schools).

how do you get the thousand year period; i thought new search shows it to be lesser and not prevalent everywhere. we know now that ancient india was not abusing casteism. and that at least till 500 A.D the situation was normal (contested). i am leaving some links i found on the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India (the varied opinions)

http://www.hindunet.com/forum/printthread.php?Board=caste&main=83182&type=post

http://www.ifih.org/TheMythofCasteTyranny.htm
.-= Kartikey´s last [story] ..It’s the Same Ocean =-.

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Caste is innate to the way people think- at least with people above forty, I don’t know about the younger ones.

May be anti-brahminism comes with the territory- it would be fine if we can all forget history and move forward, but people in general have a tendency to pay back their oppressors, and not forgetting the past is a sure way of doing that.

And another thing is, if you do away with caste and have equality- then where is justice if someone who has exploited you for two thousand years is as pure and good as you? There is no justice without punishment.

I am pained at the attack on Gandhiji, though. It seems that Ambedkar needs a idol to break so they chose Gandhiji. That way, Ambedkar would be greater than Gandhiji, possibly.

Let’s hope in about twenty, thirty years time this division becomes meaningless.

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And on the sentence, “Believing that Rig Veda sanctions birth based division of castes.” As far as my knowledge goes, Ambedkar did believe that the very nature of Hinduism was such that it invoked casteism and exploitation of the “lower castes”.

Gandhi on the other hand believed that Hinduism was in need and capable of reform that could end casteism.

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