Anti-Brahminism

I'm a non practicing Brahmin; meaning I'm a brahmin just by birth and not by actions. Only in my late teens did I take my caste seriously when I was undergoing my engineering admission counseling since caste was an important parameter there. Till then there was no such topic or context at home or friends or relatives, where I had to know my caste, thanks to the kind of upbringing I had.

But later once my social conscience started developing and I started observing news and society, I came across many incidents where the oppressed class were treated in-humanly by the people belonging to my social community. I read more about the social stigma, caste-politics and felt it was awful. I read about anti-brahminic movements and tried to understand the root causes for this kind of retaliation and I had to admit that Brahmins were (and are at many instances) highly dominating and discriminating against other social communities.

Then I met some fundamentalists from my own caste who deplored me for not feeling proud of my caste, for not avoiding other so called oppressed classes and who blamed me for committing blasphemy by not following basic tenets of Brahminism, as I was not a huge theist.

I then tried to skim through some holy scriptures and some books like Manusmriti which advocated brahmin supremacy. Out of many other points, what I learnt was that a Brahmin should

• Perform, practice and teach Yoga
• Should read and be knowledgeable of Vedas, Upanishads
• Should survive on alms (charity, donations)
• Should perform priestly activities and should never work for a business or other jobs.
• Should never travel across a sea
• Should perform all religious rituals including sandhya vandanam, surya namaskaram.
• Should live a life of austerity
• Should avoid non vegetarian, onion, garlic, alcohol, tobacco. (but this is the only tenet which is used for accusing or ridiculing. None of the above mentioned duties are taken seriously by brahmins and non-brahmins alike :D)

Now, for my surprise, I never came across anybody who follow all these duties and prove themselves to be good Brahmins, but these jokers have enough guts to charge me of blasphemy. But I never minded being accused by hypocrites anyways.

Just when I thought I was being rational and human, I came across another set of fanatics, who were thoroughly anti-brahminic and they started blaming me for discrimination and started ridiculing me for being a brahmin. I was blamed by them as being a fake-brahmin just because I don't follow the duties mentioned in manusmriti (which is ironically hated by many non-brahmins). For these half-baked minds, here is the list of rights the very manusmriti advocates.
A Brahmin

• Should be treated like a God
• Is the supreme human and be respected before anything or anybody else
• belongs to the privileged class and everybody else should submit themselves to brahmins etc.

Now, how many who ridicule brahmins of not following basic duties follow these above mentioned privileges given by the same books. Another irony is that the same set of people never cared or possessed knowledge of any duties, rules or rights of their own castes or social communities.

The whole point I'm trying to drive home is that these books which advocate supremacy of any particular community are impractical in current generation of secularism and democracy. The rights and duties mentioned in such scriptures are not necessarily right as they were written by people earlier to reflect the society in their generations. Times change, people should too.

There is a history of discrimination by brahmins which I admit and hence the anti-brahminic sentiment among non-brahmins is evident and logical. Brahmins and other such classes should shed their shell of supremacy and  understand the ground reality that they are as equal as their fellow countrymen.

Also anti-brahmins need to understand that brahmins are not a privileged class anymore, thanks to constitution, reservations, social awareness. Today's brahmins are economically backward sections with no support in community with regard to reservations, special treatment, social stigma, point of ridicule.

Social equality is inevitable and necessary. But social equality can be attained by abolition of social supremacy of forward and aggressive classes and abolition of reservations and appeasement of oppressed classes - two way, it is. 

Now how many are ready for it is a million dollar question.

Media - Mafia

Few days back, I happened to stumble upon a New Delhi based news channel which was covering a fatal train accident scene. The news was heart-breaking but what was more conspicuous was the reporter's continual rant about his channel being the first news channel to reach the spot and cover the story.

The newsreader sitting in the office asks: "If you believe the accident was due to the human error, sms "A", if you think the accident was due to technical failure, sms "B" to so and so number".

The media is called a fourth estate and is given unquestionable rights for bringing the news to the masses and keeping them abreast of the events and happenings. But what the intelligentsia, who wrote the constitution, didn't realize was that the very MEDIA could one day become a MAFIA.

Recounting the deadly attack on Mumbai by Kasab and co, their bosses hiding somewhere planned the whole massacre meticulously considering media's role and quite expectedly for them, media played an unpaid accomplice to their evil acts. When the security and Mumbai police tried to scatter the journalists, then started a debate on national television as whether those journalists have "rights" to cover the "event" or not. Sick.

I remember another funny incident when Arthi Agarwal got married in Hyderabad, jokers from TV9 barged into their private celebrations and when stopped by the actress' dad and brother, they were slammed an FIR and dragged behind the bars (oh yeah, on the very memorable day) and later got released on "humanitarian grounds"; and that was boasted on the TV as breaking news for the next few days.

News agencies which, during their inception, garnered popularity through their "hidden camera sting operations" started publishing the news selectively because not all sting-victims could offer lucrative packages to the big bosses of media houses, rather interesting, huh.

National, regional or vernacular print or electronic media house; politicians have friends everywhere. In some cases, owned by them too. Come election season, we can't really distinguish between a newspaper or a political party manifesto. Hawala cases, sting operations, horse trading videos would be published by one channel and the other channel vehemently tries to refute or defend the accused.

In the whole circus, viewers and readers are taken for a ride, and an optimistic lot will derive entertainment out of the nastiest, crudest and most biased news presentations too :)

Moving out the political affiliations and twisted reports, the other section of news media which is even worse is the gossip tabloid kind of sources. The only end objective would be bagging as many eye-balls as possible, even at the cost of the most insane and ambiguous headlines and the most senseless stories. For any such crude and down-market news, "great andhra", "mid day" are always there.

Movie reviewers fascinate me. Its a white secret that every well-known reviewer has his/her own set of "favorite" stars or directors and here favorite can be creatively or financially :)

There are some exclusive tv channels which take pride in being "gossip" channels. The more intelligent news channels broadcast obscene mms clips and scandals of people in compromising positions with an intent of "social welfare". And everything is strictly to present "news" to the viewers. TRPs, huh !!!!

Stupid debates, frivolous shows and stories instead of news - Thats a new era mafia, err....media. Those who watched "Rann" and "Peepli Live" would not take long to agree with me.

My brush with media:

I was professionally involved in some media related activities when I was working as a marketing face of my respective companies back home in India and here in Canada too.

Before my stint with press releases, press conferences for my companies, I assumed that the way to get into news is through excellence or success in the field. But later realized its not per sē. Excellence is good for us, not the media - This is the basic tenet I failed to grasp initially.

An industry defining alliance, debut of a new generation product, multi-million deal - nothing is a better news than a silly plagiarized and unimpressive press note which can rake in the moolah for the publication in form of cash or kind.

More diplomatic publications ask for donations or advertisements to publish our press release or arrange a press conference. If we don't oblige and if they need stories, they will publish our story and edit it to the core to make sure the gist is lost or the person who didn't succumb to their demands is eclipsed. After-all its their call :)

So next time when you watch a news channel or read a news paper, have a pinch of salt in your hands and if you want your own story to be broadcasted or published, have a fat paycheck in your hands. Know that you are dealing with MAFIA.

Indo-Pak Enmity - Who is responsible ?

The second bloodiest dispute and the most volatile issue on Planet Earth - Kashmir tussle; and as usual everybody has an opinion about it and no prizes for guessing that I have an opinion too.

Common man of India and Pakistan fume at the name of his neighboring country and their patriotism is directly proportionate to the hatred towards their betenoire nation, thanks to the structural programming of historians, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and media on both sides of the border. But there are a lot of things which are conveniently forgotten and deliberately avoided.

A conflict doesn't arise by bad moves by only one side and Indo-Pak issue is a perfect example which resulted in decades of mistrust, animosity and hatred despite common culture, tastes, social issues and thought process. The fact that simmering Kashmir dispute is a residue of Partitioning British India doesn't need any mention. Looking back at the facts:

Pakistan has been divided from India on the pretext of Muslim sovereignty to balance Hindu domination on the minority. But the history says otherwise. Islam's advent in India dates back to 10th century AD and for a millennium, muslims became a part of India, Indian culture, tradition, contributed to the heritage, ruled the country; Yet there was not an iota of religious discrimination against Muslims.

Muslims were as much responsible for attaining freedom as Hindus were. Iqbal penned the omnipresent "Sara Jahan Se Acha, Hindustan Hamara" in the very 20th century and Md.Jinnah himself was a vocal freedom fighter which shows the religious unity amongst all Indians irrespective of their faith. Then where did this religious intolerance against Muslims come in all of a sudden in a span of few months ?

Yes, the answers are personal ambitions, egos and mutual mistrust and of course British's divide and rule policy. MK Gandhi in an attempt to pacify one side, became a victim of another side; provocative speeches, negative instigation played its part and rest is the history. Nehru and Jinnah are the culprits and anybody with some grey matter in their mind would agree to this.

A newborn country was torn into pieces just on the basis of religion. But ironically the number of Muslims in India are almost equal (or maybe more) as those in Pakistan and the proportion of land and resources which got divided too refuted all laws of proportion. India got a raw deal. Partition saw the bloodiest massacres of human history and the mutual hatred was nothing but imminent.

Darkest era of South Asian history was only at its dawn yet. the worst was yet to come.

Race among annexing states started and Pakistan got the raw deal here. Hyderabad, Junagadh were forcedly annexed into India though police action because the population were largely Hindus, though the rulers resisted. But Kashmir's decision was left to the Hindu ruler and not Muslim majority population. This again refuted all principles of justice. This is a scar on Pakistan's self respect, identity which denies to fade away for decades. Further India's beloved PM Indira Gandhi interfered into Pakistan's internal politics to break Bangladesh away which was a catalyst to the already bruised situation.

Today for Indians, Pakistan is a country which was broken away from their motherland for people following a foreign faith, a country which is now trying to usurp Kashmir from them, sending infiltrators, terrorists to their country. For Pakistanis, India is a country which tried to inflict insults and wounds before partition through domination and then forcefully wrested Hyderabad, Junagadh, broke Bangladesh from Pakistan and now committing atrocities on Muslim majority Kashmir which should belong to Pakistan.

Can we blame anybody? No !!! Both sides have been demonstrating their evil face and the result is before our eyes.

Now anything that happens in India is squarely blamed on ISI and anything that happens in Pakistan is blamed on RAW (and most of the times, true). Pakistani military, Jaish-e-Mohd, Lashkar-e-Toiba are villains for India whereas Indian Military is so for Pakistan (and most of the times, true).

A coin has two sides !

Pure Hindi - New Age Sanskrit ?

विदेश में रहने का सबसे बड़ी हानि यह है की हमें हिंदी में बातचीत करने का अवसर बहुत ही कम मिलता है (विशेष रूप में अगर आपका मातृभाषा हिंदी ना हो थो ). और शायद ये दिन भी देखना पड़े जब हिंदी के कुछ शब्द बोलने केलिए तड़पना पड़ें (जैसे की मैं इन दिनों कई गतियों में अपने आप को पा रहा हु :) )


कहाँ जाता है की जो हैदराबाद में पला बड़ा होता है, उसको हिंदी भाषा से एक तरह की लगाव रहता है और मैं भी इसी धारा का हिस्सा हु. इसी लगाव, माँ की प्रोथ्साहन से दक्षिण भारत हिंदी प्रचार सभा के द्वारा आयोजित परीक्षावो में भी रुची दिखा कर सहनीय औसत से उतीर्ण भी हुआ था. अगर मेरी याद्दाश टीक है थो मैं शायद प्रथामिका, मध्यमा, राष्ट्रभाषा और प्रवेशिका नामक परीक्षावो केलिए बहुत कतिनायी के साथ तैयार हुआ था और अगर चार और परीक्षावो में उतीर्ण होता थो आधिकारिक रूप से हिंदी पंडित माना जाता था.

मगर उस से दृष्टी छूट गयी और हिंदी ज्ञान और व्याकरण भी कुछ हद थक बिगड़ने लगा. और व्यावहारिक रूप में शुद्ध हिंदी की प्रयोग भी कुछ सीमा के बाद कटिन होता है और विशेष रूप से हैदराबाद जैसे शहर में जहाँ हिंदी, उर्दू, दक्किनी एवं हिन्दुस्तानी बोलियों को मिश्रण करके उपयोग किया जाता है. और यह दक्षिण भारत के कई प्रदेशो में लागू है जहा हिंदी प्राथमिक थौर पे बोला नहीं जाता.


इसके पश्चात यदि हिंदी भाषा की विकास और प्रसार देश के चारो ओर है, तो इसका श्रेय हिंदी चलचित्र परिश्रम और हिंदी टेलीविज़न माध्यम को मिलता है. बीते कुछ दशक के कई हिंदी भाषिक चित्र और कार्यक्रम के द्वारा भाषा ज्ञान प्राप्त करने और सुधारने वोलों की संख्या बहुत है.


मगर चिंता की बात यह ही की इन माध्यमो द्वारा प्रस्थुथ हिंदी में भी अन्य भाषाओ (जैसे की उर्दू, पंजाबी, मराठी) का अधिक प्रयोग करने की कारण हिंदी की विनीत भाव पर प्रभाव पड़ना निश्चित है और अगले पीड़ी को व्याकरण बध शुद्ध हिंदी बहुत ही अव्यवहारिक और अनुचित भी लगने लगता है.


संस्कृत जो अनेक हिन्दुस्तानी और संसार के कई भाषाओ का मूल है, आज शिथिल और निष्क्रिय है और कई अन्य भाषाओ को भी यही परिणाम सहना पड़ेगा. आशा करते है की भारत का राष्ट्रिय भाषा एवं संसार का चौथा सबसे अधिक बोली भाषा को योग्य सम्मान मिले.


PS: यह लेख मेरी हिंदी ज्ञान को सुधरने, दिलचस्पी को वर्णन करने और चिंता व्यक्त करने केलिए लिख रहा हु. क्योंकि मेरी मथ्रुभाषा हिंदी नहीं है और नाही मैं हिंदी साहित्य का जानकारी रखता हु, मेरे लेख में कई दोष होंगे. अपने लीकित और मौखिक हिंदी का सुधार करने की प्रयास करूंगा :)