Oh! The Hindu right wing is alerted again. Thousands of low caste Hindus are converting to Christianity and Buddhism (strange absense of Islam). The right wing is very very alerted.
When I ask them
Why? What is the problem if they convert?
Why are you Muslims always upto finding faults with Hinduism?
Hey I am not finding faults, I am asking you what’s the problem if they excercise their freedom?
Abuses
Why don’t you work toward improving their situation?
Abuses
They hardly care when they see the dalits being abused, being refused permission to enter temples. Even untouchability is not extinct yet. Marital relationship between castes is yet a dream. Why will not dalits be angry?
Perhaps this video poses these questions better than I can:
Is conversion a mere ritual?
Conversion isn’t a thing that occurs suddenly. Why would someone bother to convert if nothing is bugging him/her? In this specific case the social structure preached by the religion is important. When you declare you agree with them (the other religion that preaches a even society), that is a conversion. That is for others to know. It’s not for you.
Those dalits feel in their heart for a long time that they are not lessor than any of us. They merely declared that now. They are of the hope that in the new society they will be accepted with honour and love. And after converting atleast they can say to the ‘upper caste’ “we don’t care.”
Rebel
It is, we can say, a peaceful rebellion of the injstice and injury we have given them for ages. These conversions are not exactly ‘spiritual.’
Muslims
We too arn’t very scot-free. There are menaces of sects among Muslims. Shaikhs, Syeds etc. etc. Even though untouchability (as far as I am aware) does not exist among Muslim society, Marital relationship between different groups often are avoided. I came across an incidence where a corpse of a man of low social status was denied burial in village burial ground. These things are very sad and needs to be corrected.
Frankly speaking, i will never point a finger at others when i know that my own house isn’t clean!
But afterall we are indians, we can do whatever we like and whenever we wish!
Recently one of my friend got engaged (for arranged marriage, as i didn’t knew much about the background of his customs just out of curiosity i asked him for some details that “how did he selected the girl”).
Believe me he blew up my brains with his short speech! i wasn’t surprised because of what he told me, but bcoz it was the very guy with whom i was living since long and never knew about his views about his caste system. He’s well educated, polite and mannered too.
It’s not uncommon for me to see that some people do not treat every human equally.
the first thing he told me that “there were a lots of proposals from girls’s side, and from some bastards also!” to this i asked “whom r u calling bastards!”. he said “there are some filthy people in good clothes and they think that the cleanliness of their clothes will hide their dirty souls, their minds r on the skies just because now they are literate!! they even dared to ask me to marry her daughter!! (abuses)..”
just to cut it short;
actaully that guy belongs to a brahmin family and there were some proposals from other lower caste (not the lowest), this was completely intolerable for that educated person.
one more example;
in my neighbourhood there is a family of three. mother son & daughter. both brother and sister are unmarried (and are well of age 32 & 29 respectively).
the problem;
their mother is looking for a suitable match for her daughter (since long) and her son do not want to marry till he arrange his sister’s marriage. i remember two years back my mother went to that lady and told her about a suitable boy for her daughter.
when she came back i could see that disappointment on her face so i enquired for the reason, she told me that lady (besides a lot more preconditions) wants a groom ONLY FROM A SYED Family. despite being aware of the problem that her daughter is already facing she simply said “no other caste will do!”
i feel pity for them, their mother is old and as a good son & daughter they r doing their duty by submitting to their mothers will. i think if their mother doesn’t realize the problem, soon both of them will be quite overage for marriage!
whatever scholars preach or books teach, we indians have the ability to evade & deceive! we indians talk, talk a lot, advise a lot but we do!
i am not saying all only in context of caste system, i am speaking for general mindset of indians. we like to discuss about problems and believe it or not but the fact is that we do our best to elude the responsibility to find solutions.
Hey wait a minute, Nabi(S) only had daughters. They were the first Syeds. How would all these Syeds come about if they didn’t marry outside Syeds?
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The Hindu right wing is so far right they are far getting off the map…