[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Jo]

-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
[mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Richard Hayes
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 10:54 AM
To: Buddhist discussion forum
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

On Apr 16, 2012, at 09:11 , Jo wrote:

> Christianity also is 'anti-casteism,' but Indian Christians are divided
into castes, with the usual social consequences.

About fifteen years ago I was invited to give some talks on B. R. Ambedkar
at a Sikh temple near Sacramento, which is located in California some place.
It come to my attention while there that the Sikhs who invited me were all
low-caste Sikhs and were excluded from worship in the high-caste Sikh
temples in the area. Sikhism, of course, is also supposed to be egalitarian
and casteless. And California is also supposed to be without caste, but of
course anybody who has spent as much as an entire day there knows the place
is totally riven by castes based on race, language, sexual orientation,
career prestige, proximity to San Francisco and how many "friends" they have
on Facebook.

> I'm not aware of any published social research on the Boruas, Buddhists of
Bengal, Theravadins-- do they also practice caste division/exclusion and old
Hindu purity rituals? Can Dalits, for ex., convert to Buddhism there and be
accepted by the Boruas? 

I am not aware of any published literature on the topic, but I have heard
plenty of anecdotal evidence from Buddhist dalits, and especially those who
follow Ambedkar, that they are despised and rejected by other Buddhists and
acquainted with grief. Louis Dumont pretty much got the story of caste right
in Homo Hierarchicus. 

One person who has written a fair amount Buddhist dalits is Barbara Joshi,
but I'm not sure how much she has addressed the question you specifically
asked about dalit Buddhists and Baruas. 

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
______________________________________________

". Sikhism, of course, is also supposed to be egalitarian and casteless. And
California is also supposed to be without caste, but of course anybody who
has spent as much as an entire day there knows the place is totally riven by
castes based on race, language, sexual orientation, career prestige,
proximity to San Francisco and how many "friends" they have on Facebook."

Comparing a specific religion's values to everyday secular values is
inappropriate, but useful for typical RH rhetorical excursions. 
Religions obviously exist to create significant difference, for their
devotees, between esteemed values and everything else.........part of their
sila training. Thus, the Sikhs you met (I'm assuming at their own temple)
are rightly pained that fellow Sikhs condescend and exclude them. As we've
been discussing, this type of social conflict exists in most if not all
religions on the planet, but that doesn't justify comparing them to the
mores of at-large Californians. 

Sikhs in India, and no doubt in the US as well, have their own caste system,
with the Jats at the top, followed lower down by the various craft people
such as the Ramgarhias (originally as I recall carpenters, not necessarily
today but the caste community  persists), on down to the Mazhabis, former
untouchables. Probably it was this group from which your interlocutors in
Chico, California originated. (When I was living in Punjab, in a Jat Sikh
house, my landlady called in a Mazhabi Sikh woman as a floor cleaner and
courtyard sweeper. (I don't think that this caste was as low down as the
feces sweepers but not sure.) Our young Hindu cook from Himachal Pradesh
(the hills), a Rajput he claimed, refused her to clean the floor around the
cooking area where he worked, obviously because of the purity issue
associated with low caste sweepers.

Yes, Dumont was good on the principle of hierarchy in south Asia

Most of the Dalit Buddhists live in western and central India. It is a
well-known fact that they continue to be treated badly by the rest of
society, yet there is more social mobility for them than before Ambedkar
came along. If there are any Ambedkarite Buddhists in Kolkata or Dhaka is so
far unknown, to me at least.
 
Finally, it's worth pointing out one particular benefit of the Indian caste
structure: that many lowdown and so-called scheduled castes, since
Independence, began to form voting blocs with leaders, media propaganda
campaigns, and now they all have cell phones. Because of their ability to
organize political activity along caste lines, they have succeeded in
achieving many benefits hitherto denied them on the caste-basis, including
affirmative action for jobs in government, and seats [placements] in
schools. 
Slowly but surely caste in India has been changing and it will eventually
approach the class divisions of fully industrialised societies, with caste
considerations more limited--to marriage, club memberships, and the rest. 

Joanna