The Truth About Sikhs And Caste In India (video)

[caveman]

brahmins aint done crap. do you see them with a knife on a sikhs throat telling him/her to follow caste?

aakal purakh gave us the brain for a reasons, but majority of the sikhs have constantly failed to use our head and follow guru granth sahib ji.

brahmins were also around when sikhs stood as one under nishan sahib and refused to believe in the caste system. the difference was then sikhs followed sikhi completely, not like today where most of the sikhs including me follow one part and totally ignore the other. then we have the guts to tell others we are sikhs of the guru. forget about all other beadbis done by deras etc, we do the biggest beadbi by telling others we are sikhs yet we ignore all the teahings that happen to be a little more difficult than wearing a kara.

^^^good post !

[HSD*^]

i'm not saying blame the brahmins for everything. brahmin does not always refer to a hindu caste. its mostly used to describe hindu/indians who are in power in the hindustani govt. or religious organisations over there. also, do muslims hold knives to the throats of our youths in britain and force them to convert? no. coercing and forcing someone does not always involve violence. if someone wants to cause problems for sikhi and sikhs we are not going to be protected by sitting on our backsides. stopping casteism in sikhi involves overcoming barriers in our community and preventing outsiders causing divisions.

[dalsingh101]

HSD

Usually I think most of your posts are on a level but that last one is just way off.

Sikhs cannot blame Bahmans for caste anymore. The caste system they have created in Panjab is their own. Bahmans are not involved. We have new people who have taken the Bahmans position.

Wake up mate!!

[HSD*^]

i'm not saying blame the brahmins for everything. brahmin does not always refer to a hindu caste. its mostly used to describe hindu/indians who are in power in the hindustani govt. or religious organisations over there. also, do muslims hold knives to the throats of our youths in britain and force them to convert? no. coercing and forcing someone does not always involve violence. if someone wants to cause problems for sikhi and sikhs we are not going to be protected by sitting on our backsides. stopping casteism in sikhi involves overcoming barriers in our community and preventing outsiders causing divisions.

dalsingh, i'm not quite sure what you mean as i said those things in my post. its not all their fault, sikhs are just as bad. but its not a case of being totally our fault or entirely their fault. the truth is their are a number of factors all coming together and causing these caste issues - and each one needs to be addressed. once again i am not saying we sikhs with a jatt background are off the hook for the bad things that happen.

[SaRpAnCh]

Blame the creator of the caste system which is Brahmanvadh,they are a million times more clever than all other so called castes - or people who farm ,make shoes,carve wood and so on

[GillAUS]

I heard that Brahmins shot JFK as well?

On a serious note, I think when it comes to caste-based discrimination, we have no one but ourselves to blame.

The sooner we wake up to that fact, the quicker things will get rectified.

Brahmins on a whole have never held any influence in Punjab as they had in other parts of India. They were often employed as cooks for the most part!

[HSD*^]

who are 'ourselves'? i'm not casteist but i know that caste issues are a lot more complicated than just saying "we have no one but ourselves to blame.The sooner we wake up to that fact, the quicker things will get rectified."

Brahmins on a whole have never held any influence in Punjab as they had in other parts of India. They were often employed as cooks for the most part!

never held any influence? oh dear. its not good to talk in absolutes unless you have unequivocal proof to back the statement.

[GillAUS]

While it might not be unequivocal, here's something I have come across:

Though the institution of caste has survived in the region, the frameworks of caste hierarchy developed elsewhere do not always help us understand its functioning or dynamics in a region like Punjab. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the practice of caste in rural Punjab/Sikh society is that it functions without the presence of, what is considered as the most important actor in the system, viz. the brahmins. Though brahmins as a caste community do exist in Punjab, they are ritually important only for the urban upper caste Hindus, who numerically constitute a small proportion of the population of the state.³

^{(Taken from http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/508/508%....%20jodhka.htm)}

^{Anyone who has some knowledge about rural Punjabi society knows that the Brahmin is of hardly any importance.}

^{With Punjab being a primarily rural society throughout history, it is safe to say that societal divisions are not governed by the laws of the Brahmin. If it were, Jatts would also be shudras!}

^{Lastly, by ourselves I mean the Sikh community - time for us to wake up and stop coming up with conspiricy theories. We're beginning to sound worse than the Muslims with their blaming of Mossad/CIA for everything.}

[HSD*^]

funnily we sikhs could be considered a small proportion of the overall punjab. none of us can deny the fact that the hindu control of our gurudwaras under the british and people who were pretty much hindus acting as sikhs have had a major effect in retarding our community. of course they are not solely to blame. but lets look at racism - its not the same everywhere (idi amin wasnt white!). the same goes for casteism - it is a little different in the punjab to the rest of india. for example, the benefits that the chumars get from actively labelling themselves as such. i know jatts do bad things to keep the caste thing going. but others are as bad. so we all have to do something about it. as for conspiracies, dont you feel blame where blame is due? the brahmins got the ball rolling (and by brahmins i dont mean just the caste). btw the link doesnt work.

[GillAUS]

Of course you are right - racism/casteism will take different forms in different environments depending on demographics.

But with the Sikh community comprising mainly of people from Punjab, we need to look in our own backyard first (and this of course goes beyond just Jatts, but for all 'castes'/groups which comprise the Sikh community).

Moreover, if you really want to go back to the root of it all, blame Rishi Manu, author of the Manu Smitri! (and yes, he would most likely be a Brahmin)

Try the link now:

http://www.india-seminar.com/2001/508/508%...s.%20jodhka.htm