|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << June23, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]Education - A Finland Model |
June24, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]Sukla Sen,Joe Raju,Mukul Dube posts >> |
|
[1] From: Regi P George <george_regi@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Jun 22, 2005 Subject: a caste play in the "GOD`S OWN COUNTRY" - KERALA a caste play in the "GOD`S OWN COUNTRY" - KERALA idads. kerala DALIT TODAY From: prakash raghavan <rprakash33@... Dalit Fact File delayed is justice denial!!! Dalits constitute only 16.33% of the total population. Among them 62.59% are illiterate, and about 50% each in rural and urban area live below the poverty line. (Source: Black Paper-NCDHR) -110008 INDIA PH:+91 11 25842249/25842250 MB:+91-9350183802 _________________________ MRPS ultimatum on SC categorisation Bill HYDERABAD: The Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) which sat on a dharna at Nizam college grounds since Saturday evening called off their agitation around noon on Sunday following an assurance by municipal administration minister K Ranga Rao that he would take up their demands with the chief minister and try to convince him to send an all-party delegation to New Delhi by month-end . ____________________________________________ Untouchables" in The God Of Small ThingsBy Arundhati Roy Khurshid Alam M. Phil, Research Scholar, Punjab University Arundhati Roys's Booker Prize winning novel deals with the ravages of caste system in South Indian state, Kerala. Roy presents both the miserable plight of untouchables and also the struggle of a woman trying to have fulfillment in life in a patriarchal society. Velutha, the God of Small Things, transgresses the established norms of society by having an affair with a woman of high caste. The ultimate outcome of this love affair is the tragic death of an "Untouchable" by the "Touchable Boots" of the state police, an event that makes a travesty of the idea of God. God is no more in control of "small things" rather the small things have an ultimate power over God, turning him to "The God of loss" (265). The idea of untouchability is explored at two levels in the novel. Firstly, we have socially untouchables, or Parvan, who are never allowed basic human rights. Secondly, we have metaphoric untouchables in high castes. Here discrimination expresses itself in marginalizing the women in their personal and public life. In this paper, I would like to analyze the ways and means that a system adopts to depersonalize a woman. A complete appreciation of The God of Small Things requires an awareness of three things -- the roles of (1) the Syrian Christian community, (2) Communism, and (3) the caste system in Kerala. Kerala stretches 360 miles along the Malabar Coast of India. Although it is just 15,000 square miles in area, its population makes up 3.71% Of India's. Kerala is remarkable for having the highest literacy rate (81.29%) in the whole of India. The state experiences heavy monsoons during June-September and September-December. Most of its rivers are fed by the monsoons, and it is during this season that Sophie Mole drowns. The community represented in The God of Small Things is Syrian Christian. The Christians of Kerala are divided into five churches: Roman Catholic, Orthodox Syrian, Nestorian, Marthoma, and Anglican. Syrian Christians claim the Apostle Thomas as their founder. The term "Syrian" refers to the West Asian origins of the group's ancestors and to their use of Syriac as a liturgical language. For centuries, their spoken language has been Malayalam. Syrian Christians have a history that predates European rule. While the Jesuits made only limited alteration to community life in 1830s and 40s, the nineteenth-century British Colonial state played a significant role in undermining Syrian Christian-Hindu connections. The old Catholic-Aconite division gave way to as many as fourteen competing Episcopal allegiances. One of the most significant splits took place in 1888 when the Travancore High Court ruled in favour of the Jacobites (Mar Dionysius vs Mar Thomas Athanasius). The losers formed a separate ecclesiastical body, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church (Bayly 241-320). In the novel religious differences appear in the disagreements between Father Mulligan (who belongs to the Roman Catholic Church) and Reverend Ipe (who belongs to the Mar Thoma Church) as well as in Baby Kochamma's conversion to Catholicism and her consequent lack of suitors. The socio-political changes brought about by colonial rule led to upper-caste Hindus shunning the Syrian Christians. Between 1888 and 1892 every one of the main Syrian Christian denominations founded so-called Evangelical Societies that sought out low-caste converts and built schools and chapels and publicized mass baptisms (Bayly 314-320). The God of Small Things thus refers to the school for "Untouchables" built by the great-grandfather of the twins, Estha and Rahel. However, as Roy points out, even though a number of Paravas and members of other low castes converted to Christianity, they were made to have separate churches and thus continued to be treated as "Untouchables." After Independence, they were denied government benefits created for "Untouchables" because officially, on paper, they were Christians and therefore casteless (Roy 71). The Paravas, who speak Malayalam and use the Malayalam script, settled in the Neyyattikera taluk of the Trivandrum district and also in Quilon, Kottayam, and Ernakulam districts. According to the 1981 census, their population in Kerala is 42,884 (Singh 1062-64). The word caste is derived from the Portuguese casta, which means breed, race, or kind. Castes are ranked, named, endogamous groups, and membership in a particular caste comes through birth. According to the Hindu sacred texts of the Rig Veda, there were four main castes and each caste performed a function in sustaining social life. Brahmins were the priests; Kshatriyas, were warriors and rulers; Vaisyas were landowners and merchants; and Sudras were artisans and servants (Federal Research Division 267). According to the code of Manu a marriage between a Brahmin woman and a Sudra man would result in a "Candala," who is described as "the lowest of men" and shares many of the attributes of the contemporary "Untouchable" (Moffit 34). Michael Moffit writes that ancient textual sources from the South suggest the existence of similarly ranked human relations and stresses that many attributes of contemporary South Indian "Untouchables" were apparently present 1500 years ago in the Sangam period (37). "Untouchables" are generally associated with professions such as leather workers, butchers, launderers, and latrine cleaners (Federal Research Division 267). Since 1935 Untouchables have been called "scheduled castes." They are also called Mahatma Ghandi's name for them "Harijan" (The children of God). More recently these group refer to themselves as Dalits, a Hindi word which means oppressed or downtrodden. Despite some improvements in certain aspects of Dalit life, 90% of them still live in rural areas, and more than 50% are landless labourers. In many parts of India, land is still held by the upper castes who use the ideology of the caste system to economically exploit low- ranking landless labourers" (Study Guide-South Asia Reading Series). In 1957, under E. M. S. Namboodiripad, Kerala became the first Indian state to elect a communist government. Despite a damaging split in the party in 1964, there have been communist-led governments in Kerala more often than not. Roy writes that the reason behind the Communist Party's success in Kerala was that it "never overtly questioned the traditional values of a caste-ridden, extremely traditional community. The Marxists worked from within the communal divides, never challenging them, never appearing not to" (64). This double standard is emphasized when Comrade Pillai incites the workers of Paradise Pickles and Preserves to strike against their owner, Chacko, but refers to the latter in theoretical terms. He never referred to him by name, but always as 'the Management.' As though Chacko was many people. Apart from it being tactically the right thing to do, this disjunction between the man and his job helped Comrade Pillai to keep his conscience clear about his own private business dealings with Chacko. His contract for printing the Paradise Pickles labels gave him an income that he badly needed. He told himself that Chacko -- the client and Chacko-the Management were two different people. Quite separate of course from Chacko-the-Comrade. [115] Pillai's double standards are also seen when despite his slogans of "caste is class," he deliberately distances himself from Velutha in order to maintain the support of Chacko's other workers who dislike working with a Paravan. Chacko himself appears to be an armchair Communist with no real understanding of the politics that surround him. Roy's representation of the Communist Party has met with much criticism from the Party. The late E. M. S. Namboodiripad criticized The God of Small Things for promoting sexual anarchy and bourgeois values (Deccan Herald 6) while the Marxist Chief Minister of Kerala, Mr. E. K. Nayanar, said that Roy had painted a "factually incorrect" picture of the social conditions in Kerala during the period 1950-70 and of the role played by Communists during that period (Deccan Herald 7). It is within this social, political and religious context that we read the tragedy of the Koachammans. Shunned by the upper class Hindus, they are over conscious of their family's prestige. Roy deals with the classical material of tragedy in the modern context. The members of this family are introverts. Baby Kochamma, Ammu, Chako and Pappachi are unable to come to terms with their complexes. They struggle against the outer world, and the defeat renders them confused and frustrated. The sense of failure expresses itself in dehumanizing others around them. The Kochamma family has a history of poor relations between its male and female members. Ammu's mother, Mammachi, for example, is severely beaten and abused by her. husband, and she becomes the victim of his anger and frustration whenever he faces a failure in the outside world. He leaves alittle room for Ammu to grow as an independent and confident individual. Her only objective in life is to find a "reasonable husband", depending upon him for the rest of her life. Her attitude also corresponds to the idea of a "good daughter" shared both by Hindus and Muslims. Chaco, the elder brother saves Mammachi, form his father's abusive attitude In The God of Small Things the conflict exists at individual and societal levels. The novel graphically shows that how people are helpless to resolve these levels of friction. Velutha, the outcast, can never co exist peaceful with the "touchable" communities for so long as the stigma of untouchability attached to him and countless others like him. Velutha is "highly intelligent," an excellent carpenter with an engineer's mind, but he is also "The God of loss", "The God of Small Things" --He left no footprints in sand, no ripples in water, no images in mirrors" (265) ---------------------------------------------------- [2] Ecom[1] The Hindu An avoidable burden http://www.hindu.com/2005/06/22/stories/2005062204131000.htm The Government's decision to raise the retail prices of petrol and diesel by Rs.2.50 and Rs.2 a litre respectively has run into a controversy with major political parties and consumer groups opposing the move. The last price revision was in November 2004. Since then global oil prices have belied expectations of remaining stable, even at much higher levels than consumers were used to. On Monday when the hike in prices was announced, oil was trading at an unprecedented $59 a barrel in global markets. With even the medium term outlook remaining bleak, an oil importing country such as India has very few options to influence the supply side. Even those who oppose the latest hike are agreed that the burden has to be shared by all those affected, the Government, the oil companies (both refiners and marketing companies), and the consumers. However, this time the major point of contention is whether by increasing the prices of transportation fuels while keeping those of cooking fuels unchanged, the Government has distributed the burden equitably as claimed by Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar. From Tuesday consumers in most parts of the country ended up paying for their petrol and diesel much more than what the Government's announcement would indicate. State Governments regard the oil sector as a milch cow and State taxes add to the increase. The biggest worry is that the cascading effect of the price rise will directly and indirectly stoke inflation, which for the moment seems to be under control. Managing inflationary pressures is going to be a challenging task. It is unfortunate that the Government has failed to look at sensible alternatives suggested by experts and political parties before hiking the retail prices. While the oil sector has borne the burden of global oil prices in the past, the impact within it has been uneven. Refiners have seen their margins and hence their profits surge in line with global oil prices. Marketing companies, however, have taken a hit. There is a strong case to benchmark prices at the refining stage against the international price parity of crude rather than against the prices of specific petroleum products. After all, refining costs are lower in India. The Government should have persisted with its attempts to lower the tax burden on petroleum products. Equally importantly, it should make the whole exercise transparent. The last budget, acting upon a long-standing recommendation of experts, tried to move towards a specific duty structure from the existing ad valorem one so as to avoid a cascading effect. However, the exercise that lowered customs duties but increased excise selectively did not lessen the tax incidence on consumers. The retail prices of petrol and diesel actually went up after the budget. The tax component in the final prices of petroleum products is very high and adjustments in the tax rates of both the Centre and the States can cushion the effect of the rise in international prices. Indian Express Oil pooling http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=73034 The BJP and the Left need our special congratulations for their new and absurd alliance. Sworn enemies, they suddenly find themselves on the same side of the fence in their opposition to the oil price hike. With world oil prices touching $59 per barrel, most people would agree that oil prices must rise in India. After all the country is not ??” as far as we know ??” located on a different planet. Besides, if the Left and the BJP were themselves in power at the Centre, it is unlikely that they would have had any choice but to hike oil prices. So what is all this posturing about? Perhaps acting with irresponsibility is one of the delights of being in the Opposition ??” or in supporting the government from the outside. You then have the luxury of traipsing around the country and decrying price hikes as governmental folly. There is another delicious irony that seems to have escaped these two political entities. The CPI was part of the I.K. Gujral government when it took the decision to dismantle the administered price mechanism (APM). Two CPI ministers, Indrajit Gupta and Chaturanan Mishra, were part of that Cabinet decision to do so. And that government, let us not forget, was being supported by the CPM from the outside. Coming to the BJP, was it not the NDA government that had decided to revise petrol prices every fortnight, in keeping with its commitment to dismantle the APM? To any rational person this suggests then that these political entities are not, in principle, opposed to the movement of domestic oil prices in sync with global trends; that their hi-jinks today are inspired more by political expediency, than anything else. Why let the UPA government get away with it? Why not squeeze this lemon for what it??™s worth? Of course, if the UPA government had done the right thing by petroleum products, it would not have had to face this treatment. Even though the APM was officially dismantled in April 2002, subsequent petroleum ministers have not given up their power over oil PSUs and allowed them to determine prices for themselves. Oil prices should, rightly, have been market determined by now. There was a time when the prices of sugar and cement were fixed by the government. This had made them highly politicised, too. Not any more ??” for the simple reason that the government has kept itself out. But this has not happened in the case of petroleum products. The NDA government did nothing to reduce its petroleum minister??™s control over oil prices. The government changed, but the price of petrol still gets discussed at Cabinet meetings. So when its Left allies scream into its ear; when the BJP goes into overdrive on the issue, the UPA government only has itself to blame. |
|
| << June23, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]Education - A Finland Model |
June24, 2005 - [India Thinkers Net]Sukla Sen,Joe Raju,Mukul Dube posts >> |
|
India Thinkers Net Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on India Thinkers Net |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |