THE BEACH SOUTH OF CHENNAI- MUTTUKADU IMPRESSIONS

GURGAONS' SIKH PROCESSION

THE GUJJARS REVOLT- ALREADY 41 KILLED

Not mentioned in the European press is the riot of the Gujjars, taking already the dimensions of a civil war.
What are Gujjars and what is the reason of the agitation?
In medieval times the Gujjars mainly living in the North- West of India where nomads, a section of them switched to agriculture. Now they are a large and political influential group. In the caste system of India they are OBC’s. What they want is to be downgraded to ST’s
To understand that you have to get familiar with the Indian cast system and the way the government tries to compensate the racist and discriminatingly practices, which can only be compared with the apartheid policy in earlier days in South- Africa and Nazism in Germany, with the difference that is this case the discrimination is not coming from the government but from the population.
THE CASTES
SC: These communities are the lowest in the caste hierarchy and called Dalits (the English called them untouchables)
ST: Originally people living in the forest or on the hills, isolated from modern life, but are not necessarily socially backward.
OBC: comprise the middle castes in the Hindi hierarchy.
Upper castes are not listed here.
For each of the undercastes the government has foreseen quotas. That means that for a governmental job e.g. at least 10% should be ST.
What are the Gujjar fighting for: The Gujjars get job reservations under the OBC quota. Now they are seeking reservation under the ST quota. This the Gujjars believe, would improve their job prospects. The demand of the Gujjars is fuelled by the success of the Meenas, another large community, granted ST status in 1956.


The protest activities consist mainly out of sit- in, blockage of the train tracks and destroying of the rails. Road blocking and putting cars and trucks on fire. The police react with lathi charges but sometimes has to use weapons to defend themselves (I hope). The agitators claim that the police fired unprovoked

ARE INDIANS RACIST- SOME UNEXPECTED ANSWERS

Indirectly I got an answer to my question of the blog below. Bishan Sahai, a brave open- minded racist and sexist wrote very honestly:
“ There is no denying that Indians, typified by the upper caste Hindus are extremely racially conscious. Which other society has an equivalent for malleech for other people ? It is a mistake however, to treat the bias for fair skin as racial or ethnic discrimination. That attitude is patently related to aesthetics, even if misconceived, just like one may find an oval face or long legs more attractive.
By the same token, there is nothing racist in regarding colored females incomparable with the prototype of cheerleaders. Their role is to titillate the libido of Indian males (fair, or brown or dusky or dark) – expensively displayed with white skin is more likely to do so, especially in bright incandescence. It is a matter of specifications for the job, which must be settled before the recruitment process begins”

Ruchi Metha wrote:” India is a hypocritical and racist nation. We are probably the most hypocritical nation on this planet. While on the one hand we condemn discrimination of any sort we have color based discrimination so deeply entrenched in our mindset that we are unable to tolerate colored cheerleaders. While we feel offended when we are at the receiving end, we do not bother to put our own house in order”