Tribute to Michael Jackson

MJ the most popular man on the earth passed away recently leaving a void which will not be filled for a long time to come.Artist like him are once in a life time phenomenon and I consider myself lucky to have witnessed this great star.Surrounded as he may be with contoroversies alligations and media distortion, nothing can rob him of the great impact that he has left on the music world of Pop.

But there is one aspect of MJ that is really of my concern.He defied the racial norms.In 80's when the blacks were forcibly sterilaised in the UK, ie the 80's, MJ rose to the hights of sucess which very few could reach,Like the dalits in India, blacks were labled incompetant, good for nothing and a burden on civilized society.But in a typical African-American style "MJ proved all of 'em wrong man!!!U cant say Blacks are no god no more."

He was using his star status to voice the black rights.His songs like "Black or White" or "Heal the World" have been instrumental in creating social awareness through out the world.In a society dominated by the Whites to rise to an unimaginable level is by no mean a small feat.

Often the struggle of Black is equated with the struggle of dalits in india.The similarities are truly astounding.The other day I was listening to one of his Song and suddenly it dwaned to me that this is not a song confined only to the blacks.It is a song tailor made to the indian continant only.Just change of two words and the song completely brings out the dalit woes.Just have a look :

They Dont Really Care About Us:

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang, shot dead
Everybody's gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of hate
You're rapin' me of my pride
Oh, for God's sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy...
Set me free

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
trepidation, speculation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
black man, black male
Throw your brother in jail

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of shame
They're throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can't believe this is the land from which I came
You know I do really hate to say it
The government don't wanna see
But if Mahatma was livin' *
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, speculation
Everybody litigation
Beat me, bash me
You can never trash me
Hit me, kick me
You can never get me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Some things in life they just don't wanna see
But if Dr. Ambedkar was livin' *
He wouldn't let this be

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, segregation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Kick me, strike me
Don't you wrong or right me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

The original names used were Roosvelt and Martin Luther.But just change those to Mahatma Phule and Dr.Ambedkar and u will see that the entire song describes the condition of dalits in india.

Tribute to this great artist.The world of Pop will surely miss him.

Caste and Technology..Next door Neighbours !!!

We’ve achieved technological excellence in successfully executing a moon mission, but we can’t seem to shed the curse of
untouchability. Nowhere is it more evident than in Byalalu, the command-and-control centre of Chandrayaan-1, about 35 km from Bangalore. Why, we can’t even offer prayers and drink tea together.

Just a few minutes behind Isro’s moon-tracking centre at Byalalu village off Mysore Road, the Gowda community, which laid claim to the Maramma temple in the village along with Dalits, has changed tack. They have given away the temple keys to the Dalits saying they are free to offer prayers as long as they didn’t invite the Gowdas to join them. Pray, but pray on your own, the Gowdas say.

But an offended Dalit community has pulled back, saying no other community offered prayers at temples where they worshipped, smelling social exclusion. They now pray at home, and no community now offers prayers at Maramma temple. The Gowda community has switched over to Anjaneya temple, where the Brahmins prayed.

The Brahmins and Gowdas, by doing puja together and not calling in Dalits, have indirectly excluded them from the second temple too.

Result: Dalits are excluded from both temples.

The Gowdas, who owned a teashop in the village for many years, would sell tea to Dalits in separate glasses. A few days after Byalalu went on stream, TOI found that tea was indeed not being served to Dalits in common glasses and they were not allowed into Maramma temple. The administration acted on TOI’s report and shut the hotel.

Interestingly, no hotel has come up after that — Gowdas and Brahmins don’t run a hotel fearing they’ve to treat Dalits equally, and Dalits don’t run a hotel fearing they would be boycotted.

Source : Times Of India

Race against Caste

The coincidental juxtapositioning of the racist attacks on Indian students in Australia, and the riots that flared across north India last month

when members of the Dera Sach Khand, a Sikh sect comprised largely of Dalits, went on the rampage following the killing of one of their community leaders in far-off Austria, once again raises the question: Is racism the same as casteism?

Though racism continues to be practised in many parts of the world, after the end of apartheid in South Africa it has no fig leaf of political or social legitimacy. Formations like the British National Party (which has recently, for the first time, won two seats in the European Parliament) have racism as their hidden agenda; they cannot openly espouse it but disguise it under the garb of the need for stricter immigration control, and the imperative to preserve the cultural norms of the majority (white) community. The overtly racist Ku Klux Klan in America operates under the cover of anonymous masks.

As an officially sanctioned doctrine, racism has ceased to exist in the world. That it continues to be practised, in Australia and elsewhere, is deplorable, to say the least. But the forces of liberalism can at least claim a shambolic victory in that they have driven racism underground, made it the criminalised territory of mindless thugs and goons.

While organisations such as Amnesty International have equated casteism (particularly as practised against Dalits) with racism, India's official position is that the two cannot be compared. In support of this stand, policymakers point out that the Indian Constitution specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of caste.

How valid is this argument? Tragically, not very. To begin with, the constitutionally-guaranteed policy of reservations (which continues in expanded mode till now) is in itself an admission of the need to protect lower castes from upper caste discrimination. Casteism, particularly as practised against Dalits, continues to be one of the ugliest stains on our supposedly secular and democratic social fabric. Dalits are routinely attacked, raped, denied entry into temples, and forced to suffer endless humiliations. That 'token' Dalits be it Jagjivan Ram, or Meira Kumar, or even the feisty Mayawati have earned prominent positions for themselves in our political sphere only makes the plight of the vast majority of this brutally downtrodden community all the more agonising.

In many ways, casteism is far more deeply entrenched than racism. Racism is based on the difference of physical characteristics, such as the colour of one's skin. Such visible differences, however, can be obliterated, or at least mitigated, by economic and other factors. For instance, thanks to Japan's 'economic miracle' which made that country one of the richest in the world, the apartheid regime in South Africa accorded Japanese the status of 'honorary Caucasians' who were not subject to Pretoria's segregatory laws.

There is no difference in skin colour, or in DNA, or in any other physical characteristic, between a Dalit and a Brahmin. Yet the social chasm between the two has remained unbridged for millennia. And will probably remain so in perpetuity, no matter what economic advances Dalits make.

So Indian officialdom is right when it says that racism and casteism can't be equated. They can't. For the simple reason that casteism is far more overtly rampant, more widespread and more accepted (at least in India) and more deeply ingrained in our polity than racism is anywhere in the world.

And there is one particular caste in India which, in some ways, is as equally if not more oppressed than Dalits. It is a caste that is routinely burnt alive, killed in the womb, beaten, sexually violated and often subject to lifelong abuse and deprivation. It is a caste called women.

The coincidental juxtapositioning of the racist attacks on Indian students in Australia, and the riots that flared across north India last month

when members of the Dera Sach Khand, a Sikh sect comprised largely of Dalits, went on the rampage following the killing of one of their community leaders in far-off Austria, once again raises the question: Is racism the same as casteism?

Though racism continues to be practised in many parts of the world, after the end of apartheid in South Africa it has no fig leaf of political or social legitimacy. Formations like the British National Party (which has recently, for the first time, won two seats in the European Parliament) have racism as their hidden agenda; they cannot openly espouse it but disguise it under the garb of the need for stricter immigration control, and the imperative to preserve the cultural norms of the majority (white) community. The overtly racist Ku Klux Klan in America operates under the cover of anonymous masks.

As an officially sanctioned doctrine, racism has ceased to exist in the world. That it continues to be practised, in Australia and elsewhere, is deplorable, to say the least. But the forces of liberalism can at least claim a shambolic victory in that they have driven racism underground, made it the criminalised territory of mindless thugs and goons.

While organisations such as Amnesty International have equated casteism (particularly as practised against Dalits) with racism, India's official position is that the two cannot be compared. In support of this stand, policymakers point out that the Indian Constitution specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of caste.

How valid is this argument? Tragically, not very. To begin with, the constitutionally-guaranteed policy of reservations (which continues in expanded mode till now) is in itself an admission of the need to protect lower castes from upper caste discrimination. Casteism, particularly as practised against Dalits, continues to be one of the ugliest stains on our supposedly secular and democratic social fabric. Dalits are routinely attacked, raped, denied entry into temples, and forced to suffer endless humiliations. That 'token' Dalits be it Jagjivan Ram, or Meira Kumar, or even the feisty Mayawati have earned prominent positions for themselves in our political sphere only makes the plight of the vast majority of this brutally downtrodden community all the more agonising.

In many ways, casteism is far more deeply entrenched than racism. Racism is based on the difference of physical characteristics, such as the colour of one's skin. Such visible differences, however, can be obliterated, or at least mitigated, by economic and other factors. For instance, thanks to Japan's 'economic miracle' which made that country one of the richest in the world, the apartheid regime in South Africa accorded Japanese the status of 'honorary Caucasians' who were not subject to Pretoria's segregatory laws.

There is no difference in skin colour, or in DNA, or in any other physical characteristic, between a Dalit and a Brahmin. Yet the social chasm between the two has remained unbridged for millennia. And will probably remain so in perpetuity, no matter what economic advances Dalits make.

So Indian officialdom is right when it says that racism and casteism can't be equated. They can't. For the simple reason that casteism is far more overtly rampant, more widespread and more accepted (at least in India) and more deeply ingrained in our polity than racism is anywhere in the world.

And there is one particular caste in India which, in some ways, is as equally if not more oppressed than Dalits. It is a caste that is routinely burnt alive, killed in the womb, beaten, sexually violated and often subject to lifelong abuse and deprivation. It is a caste called women.