From: kat@doe.carleton.ca (Kathiravan Krishnamurthi)
Subject: Re: Finally, a few words...
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 22:51:30 GMT

In <1992Dec18.215416.10625@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Sornam Sankara) writes:


>Following are my final comments on the caste thread:
>======================================================
>(This is partly to answer RJ and KS)


>     Not only Brahmins, all the other communities are  minorities if you
>consider the population individually.  But all the communities are doing the
>same mistake and try to influence the party in power.  Brahmins and other upper
>castes like Pillai, Chettiyar, Mudaliyar etc were earlier doing without any
>organisation but they now seemed to think about organisations because of other
>community organisations' loud voice (noise).


>    For example, during British period there was a tussle between the Brahmins
>and the rest of the upper castes over influencing the British govt.
  That is how some people got seals like Rao Bahadoor and Diwan. One
of my friend told me that his uncle was a Diwan. I told him he
should have iced the white man.
>    During congress period only Brahmins were politically powerful and when
>    After the DMK started its rule, it was Pillai, Mudali, Chetty etc with a
>very fast developement of Nadar, Gounder etc in the non-political level
>due to reservaions and the awareness created by Periyar movement.
>    Then  MGR came to power all the upper castes slowly started losing hold
>and the newer castes like Nadar, Gounder etc became politically powerful.

>    Then all the upper castes including Brahmins sat back and
>regrouped together to influence the media etc in a more intelligent way in
>order to portray the Dravidian movements as the only culprits for every bad
>thing.   They failed the first time and let DMK reelected whereas in the last
>elections they very much succeeded in bringing Jeya back to power.
  But only the Brahmins always had a powerful lobby in the center. They
can literally work from Delhi instead of Madras. 
  Jeya and congress came to power solely on sympathy vote for rajeev.
Rajeev came to power on the same basis.
>    Now it has become the turn for the most backward classes like Vanniyar
>to fight for their rights.  I am almost sure that PMK will come to power very
>soon, thanks also to Jeya.   At the end, I am not sure about this, the SCs
>have to come to the political scene.
>     Simply blaming caste based reservation for the existing caste problem
>lacks any understanding.  Reservations and the certificates came into existence
>only  during the British rule.  BUT THE REAL CULPRIT IS OUR MARRIAGE SYSTEM.  I
>AM ASKING FOR A CHALLENGE, HOW MANY OF US ARE READY TO FIGHT AGAINST IT.

   Why don't people lower their castes by marriage if they are bent on it.
That where they talk about caste again.

>     I think the discussions do not come to an end unless we have a open mind.
>So I plan to wind up from this thread.

  People who had advertised in papers without mentioning caste names
did not get any reply inspite of their qualifications.
That is where we need somebody who can say "vengkaaya saathi". Kris is
right about that.

Kathiravan
>S. Sankarapandi 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil,soc.culture.indian