Originally posted by: MaxMayfield
the country is doomed if we bring casteism in rather random things like this...its a beauty contest..which has nothing to do with the caste you belong to.. I am sorry but I definitely dont think they ask for your caste on Miss India form either.. and the country was under Congress for 60 years..if they were so inclusive..maybe this point should have come earlier on no? anyway the colour of caste battle has changed from a battle of self respect to playing victim card..and we are going back to dark ages of reservation based stuff instead of meritocratic society. 
People so concerned about minorities..because they shouldnt pay the price for what happened 500 years ago..same concept doesnt apply for Hindu folks. Hypocrisy at its peak.
You have a fair point when you ask what the Congress has done in all these years . The Congress has been quite elitist pretty much . But what he's said is not 'random'. That there hasn't been any Dalit representation in these pageants is quite telling. Yes it's a beauty contest . There are plenty of Dalit women who are beautiful. So isn't it odd that we haven't heard of any winner or finalist in all these years who is Dalit ? The point is that a de facto casteist hierarchy is still in place that keeps those at the bottom from getting to the 'top'. This is not about beauty contests alone . It goes for pretty much everything. If you just step out of your home and find out the caste of the sweepers ,cleaners , porters etc in your area they're all most likely going to be Dalit or OBC. Thats not a coincidence. How many Dalit actors do we have in Bollywood or any wood in India ? There's a great overlap of caste and class and while elitist contests like Miss India or Miss Whatever don't specifically ask for your caste it's a fact that only the privileged have access to these. Not just financial privilege but all kinds of other things associated with it ,like the ability to speak English well for example. In the IITs Dalit students often have a hard time keeping up because of the English -Regional language divide and they're even openly mocked for not following English. Access to good English medium schools depends on money and you cannot land a well paying job without a decent education ,to be able to afford good schools for your kids to be able to pay for extra hours of coaching or expensive books. So it's a catch 22 .
No ,caste based oppression or discrimination didn't happen 500 years ago. It still continues to happen in this country . Even now as we speak. From stereotypical things like not being allowed to drink water from a well or getting beaten for riding a mare during a wedding to ostracism at educational institutions ,bullying , denial of housing , exclusion at the workplace etc. When a building as a policy that requires the maid to take the stairs and never the elevator it's not just discrimination against blue collar workers ,caste and people's obsession with it have a a role to play there. And we still have a system that keeps some people confined to the horrors of caste in one way or the other. Thats what RG was hinting at. Putting Mallikarjun Kharge at the top is probably just a hollow attempt by the Congress at 'inclusivity' ,we don't know if he has any real say or power but that doesn't make RG's point comparable to the ravings of a drug addict like Kangana. Not speaking about caste is not going to make it go away. I don't want to get into the reservation debate but when you're so deep in denial of the problem maybe it colours your view. Reservation and meritocracy aren't really mutually exclusive . Replace Dalit with women and see how that sounds. Men still tell us we are playing the victim card when we talk about representation or equal pay or anything that challenges the status quo.
Edited by SavitaBarbie - 18 days ago
I agree with Nangu Kangu for once..
comment:
p_commentcount