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From: "Mani M. Manivannan"
To:
Cc: "Kandiah Jey. 2LS NWW"
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 12:04:55 -0700
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Subject: [agathiyar] Re: What happened on the day Kali Yuga began?
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Dear Jey,


>May I ask you why you wrote about the community background of Rajeev
>Srinivasan at your introduction about the author of the article? How
>does his community background help us reading his article?

That is a fair question.

Barely 75 years ago (Vaikom Movement), Rajeev's community (among
others) wasn't allowed to walk on the streets around the Vaikom temple.
Sri Narayana Guru, a saint-reformer, hailing from his community is
credited with the upliftment of his community and was the prime force
in the Vaikom movement. Rajeev proudly writes about Sri Narayana
Guru and his peaceful revolution.

The orthodox Hindus who argued with Gandhiji and opposed the Vaikom
sathyagrahis all used Sanskrit scriptures to justify the notions of
pollution and untouchability. Nambudiris of Kerala expected to be
treated like living embodiments of gods on earth, and were treated mostly
that way even well into this century.

Thus, when a descendant of the oppressed people, learned, and articulate,
joins hands with the descendants of oppressor class and glorifies the
"tradition", it attracts attention.

It is easy to dismiss white supremacists who are white. But it is hard to
dismiss a black who joins them and sings the same song. Yeah, you can
throw epithets such as "Uncle Tom" etc., at them. But still, it makes you
wonder.

>I am just curious about the habit of most of the indians to hint about
>the caste of a person whenever reporting something about the person
>whether it is god or bad.

I am glad that you protested. I would to live in a caste-blind world.
However, this is an unfair statement. Neither I nor have others on
Tamil.Net or in the newspapers "hint about the caste" of a person
when caste is "irrelevant." Relevancy is a judgement call, and I am
not going to claim that my judgement will always be right.

In the article that I excerpted from Rediff, I excised all the passages
where Rajeev praises the "Native Aryan" theories and repeats the
propaganda of people like Dr. Kak, ( and Dr Koenraad Elst,
and Dr David Frawley). He attacks Max Mueller, the great Indologist,
for intentionally underestimating the age of the Vedas because he was
"a Christian fundamentalist/missionary,"

You may question whether Rajeev should "hint" about the religious
identity of Prof. Max Mueller. But isn't that the point? Rajeev and
Aryan nativists theorist accuse not just Prof. Miller, but all western
researchers, who don't agree with them, of religious bias (see the
Indololgy list archives for a sample). So, the "religious" and "race"
identity of a researcher is fundamental to their argument.

In this case, you questioned whether the writer's caste identity is
relevant to the content of the article. In my judgement it was.
It is not easy to dismiss this as yet another "brahmin supremacist"
propaganda or that of "fellow travellers."

And for the record, the Eezhava community of Kerala has come a
long way in the last 75 years. Today, it is hard to imagine that
it once belonged to the oppressed group of people. Their equivalents
in Tamil Nadu are today largely a powerful mercantile community
with significant influence in local and national politics. However,
the same caste in Andhra Pradesh is still being oppressed.

Having explained my reasons, I would like to apologise to Jeya and
others who are still offended. If you still believe that in this
instance the caste identity of the author is not relevant, let us
agree to disagree.

Regards,

Mani M. Manivannan
Fremont, CA, USA


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