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Nuno Matos
31 July 2007, 11:49 PM
Namaste

This is what on Wikipedia about violence related to caste in India


Caste-related violence

Main article: Caste-related violence in India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste-related_violence_in_India)
Independent India has witnessed considerable amount of violence and hate crimes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime) motivated by caste. Ranvir Sena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranvir_Sena), a caste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste)-supremacist fringe paramilitary group based in Bihar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar) has committed violent acts against Dalits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalits) and other members of the scheduled caste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_caste) community. Phoolan Devi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoolan_Devi), a bandit-turned-politician belonging to Mallah lower-caste was mistreated and raped by upper-caste Thakurs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thakur). She turned a bandit and carried out violent robberies against upper-caste people. In 1981, her gang massacred twenty-two Thakurs, most of whom were not involved in her kidnapping or rape.
Over the years, various incidents of violence against Dalits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit), such as Kherlanji Massacre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kherlanji_Massacre) have been reported from many parts of India. At the same time, many violent protests by Dalits, such as the 2006 Dalit protests in Maharashtra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Dalit_protests_in_Maharashtra), have been reported as well.

satay
01 August 2007, 12:23 AM
namaskar,
Violence of any kind is not good no matter if it was betwen castes or classes of people. Using violence means we have lowered ourselves to the lowest status of the animal kingdom.

However, please try to do your own independent research on the 'Dalit' issue and come to your own conclusions.

I will only say that the Indian gov't gives dalits scholarships in universities, free education, reserved spots in medical and engineering universities all the while the so called 'upper castes' struggle to get 99 percentile to reserve a seat and sometimes still don't get admission! Dalits enjoy a special status and are given many services freely yet the complaining and the blame of 'upper castes repressing us' never ends. What are the hard working people of the so called upper castes supposed to do?

Again, I request you to do your own independent research and come to your own conclusions.

Not sure what the purpose of the OP is...

saidevo
01 August 2007, 02:46 AM
And the irony is that recently the Christians in India demanded reservation for the dalits converted to Christianity! Supreme Court of India asked when this case came up for hearing, if Christianity has and supports castes.

The Andhra Pradesh state reserved 5% of the seats in Higher education to Muslims, this was set aside by the Hight Court, and yet the AP again come up with the quota ignoring court orders.

Higher caste people who are economically weaker do not get the seats in Higher Education though they score the highest marks; whereas the creamy layer in the backward castes (comprising mostly of the wards of politicians) corner the reservation quotas over generations. Politics in India is the dirtiest in the world.

Yaruki
01 August 2007, 03:41 AM
I think politics all around the world are terrible.

Agnideva
01 August 2007, 05:59 AM
Namaste Nuno,

There are many such socio-political problems in India. Much of the caste violence mentioned in the OP has to do with land disputes between landowners and landless laborers. It is a problem of the economically strong exploiting the economically weak, and the failure of the government to effectively enforce laws. The political situation in India is so horrible that laws that are present on paper are not enforced effectively mostly because of corrupt politicians, so violence and human rights abuses continue unabated in a never-ending cycle.

Yet, who gets the blame? Invariably it is Hinduism that is blamed. It may be true that people who are engaged in such violence are “Hindus,” but their actions are not guided by Hinduism, that is for sure. They are guided by their own notions of “higher” and “lower”, and mostly by their selfishness. The Ranvir Sena is nothing but a militia group of land-owning caste in India’s poorest, most backward and most lawless state.

OM Shanti,
A.