‘Pariyerum
Perumal’ was the main reason to come up with this blog and missed watching this
movie earlier which definitely had an impact on me on ‘Caste’ based issues. I was
very particular to watch Director’s second venture KARNAN as soon as it hit
theatres which is once again based on caste but this time the protagonist had
the guts to face the society versus Pariyerum perumal where the hero just had
to succumb to reality. Both the movies are the driving factors for me to
express my views on Caste. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Karnan as the
movie conveyed pain and agony of the oppressed people. Dhanush was brilliant
and every time he raised voice in support of oppressed, audience went crazy just
because they could relate to the dialogue. One of the dialogues “Kandaiyya mavan Kannabiran aagalam, Madasamy magan Karnana iruku kudatha“ just got reception as much as a Thalaivar
intro and my favourite dialogue in Pariyerum Perumal was the climax dialogue “Neenga Neengala irukura varaikum, naan naaya thaan irukanunu neenga edirpaarkura varaikum inga eduvumae maaradhu". These sort of dialogues are slice of life of oppressed people and people tend to think we live in 21st
century and talking about caste is outdated but little do they realize Caste
plays a significant role on so many different facets of life in a place like
India where we have slum as well as Bandra next to each other. In other words
people who reside in Mount Road, Chennai or M.G Road, Bangalore may not know
about caste whereas the working class who commute daily to these places from
different parts of the city know how caste discriminated them.
Caste
and politics are interlinked and candidates rely on caste based votes. Let us
look into one recent example. Current Tamilnadu Government passed a legislation
granting Vanniyars 10.5% internal reservation in Education and Employment
within the reservation for MBC (Most backward Class) and DNC (Denotified
communities). ADMK’s alliance partner PMK (Paataali Makkal Katchi) is a primarily
vanniyar based party and their demand has always to see reservation of
vanniyars to see the growth and improve overall livelihood of vanniyars. PMK
was asking for more seats from ADMK but once they saw this bill been passed
they settled with 23 seats. To dig deeper we will have a category of MBC (V)
which will include Vanniyar, Vanniya, Vannia Gounder, Padayachi, Palli and
AGNIKULA Kshatriya sub-castes that come under the Vanniyakula Kshatriya
community and this is the group which will enjoy the 10.5% internal reservation
while the other 25 castes under MBC and 68 castes under DNC (overall 93 castes)
will be allocated a reservation of seven percent. There is still 22 castes
which fall under MBC and will enjoy the remaining 2.5%. So in summary Mr.Karunanidhi’s move of
allocating 20% reservation to 108 communities (MBC & DNC) is further
itemized by EPS government. Similarly TTV is eyeing Mukkulathors in Kovilpatty,
Mr.Raghupathy relies on nagarathar community in Thirumayam though community is
a minority one. In districts such as Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Thirunelveli
and Kaniyamumari we have so many minorities (Christians and muslims) who once
again determine who rules the state.
Every
now and then we see some hot topics being politicized and NEET is one such
topic which is being heavily politicized recently in Tamil nadu. On top of MBC
and DNC we have seventy six scheduled castes and thirty six scheduled tribes. Now
let us look into how the present practice of reservation in Education system.
If there are 100 seats then top 31 seats are awarded based on ranking and the
remaining 69% of the seats are based on reservation system. Backward class is
allotted 30% quota, Most backward caste is allocated 20% quota, Scheduled caste
is allocated 18% and scheduled tribe 1% quota. Within the backward class (30%
quota), Backward class Non muslims is 26.5% and backward class muslims is other
3.5%; Within scheduled caste (18% quota), Arunthathiyar is allocated dedicated
1%; According to Supreme court order reservation should not exceed 50% but
Tamil Nadu is always an exception and state got its 69% reservation based on
authentic records and a law passed at legislative assembly. Education is a key
element in building a nation and creating bright citizens but when bright is
deprived of quality education due to outdated caste system then how can you
expect individuals like Sundar Pichai to settle in India?
I
am not going to speak about figures instead I am going to pull some examples of
how caste and career go interlinked. Before the supermarket culture came, all
of us must have seen grocery shops in our neighbourhood in other words Annachi
kadai; primarily people from Thirunelveli settled in various parts of Tamil
nadu and got into Grocery business. We are into Medical wholesale distribution
for over four decades and pretty much all throughout cashier has always been
from our Nagarathar community; No prizes for guessing the unwritten rule is if
you want to get selected into Tamil nadu cricket team and eventually into
National cricket team, One of the leading private bank in India which is
performing very well is based out of Kumbakonam based from a particular
community, in Tamil nadu when it comes to Bakery business you will find one
‘Iyengar’ bakery in every kilometre and one of the largest drug manufacturers
in India is named by its caste. When you approach for a loan though collateral
and other formalities are seen in those days caste did play a role on ‘Trust’
factor and once again caste played a role on who gets a loan and how much one
gets. Across the border if you take Kammas they are one of the richest castes
in entire India and cream of Tollywood belong to this caste. They had vast
landholdings in and around Krishna-Guntur area which is blessed with fertile
lands thereby making them financially stable. If you take Marathi Brahmins they are into Political circle and similarly caste plays a significant role in shaping careers for many people.
I have taken Hindu paper (Dated April 11,2021) and let me go over few highlighted areas -
Fair/Mudaliyar seeks groom, Pillai seeks grrom, Velakatala Nair seeks groom, Wanted Tamil Iyer boy, Arunththiyar seeks groom, Gavara-Naidu seeks marriage, Saiva Vellala seek groom, Hindu SC seeks groom; Under Elite Matrimony column: Brahmin looking for a match, Thevar looking for a match, Mudaliyar looking for a match, Arya Vysya looking for a match, Viswakarma looking for a match, Vanniyakula Kshatriyar looking for a match so on and so forth ...Trust me these are wordings from last Hindu edition.
Looking into all of these I have couple of questions:
1) If a person from Caste A marries person from Caste B then the kid from both of them belongs to which caste ? How will they determine the eligibility criteria for the kid as far as education or career purposes ?
2) If a particular caste in shrinking and there is gender imbalance within the caste, who is the governing body to make decisions as far as sustenance of the community?
It is easy to say Caste system has to go and pave way for deserved candidates rather than reservation system but unfortunately Politics is involved. We need young blood and a dynamic leader to make ground breaking decisions with respect to Caste.
So what am I upto?
You might wonder I started with two movies based on caste and slowly went over how caste played a role in different aspects of one's living but not sure what exactly I am coming to say. Well I am just expressing my views on caste and believe caste is here to stay for few more generations before it gets wiped away. India started its IT revolution from mid 90's and there was a golden era when Mr.Chandrababu Naidu in AP, Mr.SM Krishna in Karnataka, Mr.Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu along with help from past US president Bill Clinton paved way for India's tremendous IT growth. Economic liberalization started in huge proportions and we started to witness standard of living get into new paradigms. Assuming those who got married in mid 90's then those are the people who would have kids ready for marriage now in 2021. Since these kids had good education and got used to sophisticated living and getting exposed to more people we are seeing intercaste marriages starting to happen more now in India.We have three sets of people - Grand parents, People who got into the IT revolution from mid 90's, kids who are teenagers now. Grand parents belong to old school with traditional values whereas the middle generation is a sandwiched generation where they both have old values from the past along with the cosmopolitan culture from their 30's, teenagers are all Hip-Hop tamizhas !! In another couple of decades once we will have all three generations adapt to the new cultural environment that is when we will have lot of people with forward thinking. Until then caste will make its presence felt in some way or the rather.
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