About Caste

[SarabhaPanjab]

I think sometimes we lose sight of the true principles of Sikhi when we engage in the "caste" issue.

For me, Caste can be seen as 2 things:

Bhramanic view: Status high/low depending on your karam (rubbish)

Punjabi Braadri View: Occupational background.

The 2nd is not just limited to Punjabi culture. Most English surnames were based on occupations. Thatcher, Carpenter, Cooper, Mason, Smith (blacksmith),

I hear Sikhs saying when I look for marriage, I will not use caste, as a sikh is a Sikh. but then they use criteria such as, Must be educated? Must be from UK? Must have decent job?

Sikh is a Sikh, no? Does his visa status matter? does having a degree matter? These are actually more discriminative to those of lower financial status. As the poor are unlikely to meet this criteria. So we have only created a Financial caste system.

Sometimes marrying into caste does make sense, if the families have more in common and similar backgrounds, they are more likely to gel.

I think if a Sikh states his occupational background, it should not be assumed as Bhramanic pride. I can say I am proud to be a Birmingham-Sikh for example, does that mean Londoners are lower? Or Malwa-Sikh, meaing dowabai's are lower? of course Not!

As long as we have mutual respect and love for our Sikh brothers and sisters, and respect the fact that genetically we have occupational qualities that even now live in our DNA which are hugely beneficial for a Koum to survive.

Most the stupidity is due the bhangra culture, which is a very recent phenomena. going back before partition surnames were rarely used in Punjab. Ramgarhia Gurdwaras and such didn't exist.

Also there is concerted effort by government forces to push as many segregations in our Gurdwara system based on caste. Recently RSS have been holding meetings with Ravidass Community leaders in india, pushing for new Religious identity and new Granth to be implemented.

I think a bigger danger than caste is Jathebandhi Discrimination and amritdari/Non-amritdhari discrimination

[VerbalArtistry]

Character > Caste

[West London Singh]

But my surname tells me which clan I'm from. Do you also insist all Scottish Highlanders must reject their clan names because it is EVIL ?

My clan name tells me which area of Punjab my forefathers are from. My clan name tells me everything about my family history. As well as Scottish Highlanders are all the people in the west that take an interest in their family history also EVIL CASTEISTS ?

[Pyara]

But my surname tells me which clan I'm from. Do you also insist all Scottish Highlanders must reject their clan names because it is EVIL ?

My clan name tells me which area of Punjab my forefathers are from. My clan name tells me everything about my family history. As well as Scottish Highlanders are all the people in the west that take an interest in their family history also EVIL CASTEISTS ?

Is the terminology of CLAN name just a defensive way of justifying a CASTE name? I have started to see terms such as clan and ethnicity being used interchangeably with caste specific surnames. On some websites, CASTE surnames seem to be authenticated by referring to them as CLAN or ETHNICITY. I personally don't feel so convinced, there's no harm in knowing something about your blood forefathers, but I feel I have more status with the surname Singh as a pose to a caste surname Gandu or Bra or Danda (for example).

Furthermore, "CLAN" names still promote a hierachy system, where one "CLAN" name can be seen superior over another. In practice it's just dividing us back into caste groups. Using the Scottish Clans is a bad example as they may be proud of their clans but they certainly are not so divided or segregated by their clan names.

[VanHelsingh]

...but I see I have more status with the surname Singh as a pose to a surname Gandu or Bra or Danda (for example)

Are those real surnames?

[Pyara]

Are those real surnames?

http://www.sikhcastes.faithweb.com/whats_new.html

Someone on this website has collected a whole load of surnames above at classified them into caste group.

[dalsingh101]

I think sometimes we lose sight of the true principles of Sikhi when we engage in the "caste" issue.

For me, Caste can be seen as 2 things:

Bhramanic view: Status high/low depending on your karam (rubbish)

Punjabi Braadri View: Occupational background.

The 2nd is not just limited to Punjabi culture. Most English surnames were based on occupations. Thatcher, Carpenter, Cooper, Mason, Smith (blacksmith),

Seeing as not only a new year is about to start in a few hours, but a new decade, I feel compelled to comment on some of your assertions SarabhaPanjab. The above is completely off point and akin to comparing apples to giraffes in my opinion. Anglos didn't have a strong, enduring occupational based system like India, plus their system had (and still has!) infinitely more mobility and flexibility than any Indian system, including the one most Sikhs of Panjabi backgrounds find themselves in. Yes, some of their (Anglos) surnames are linked to occupations but most of them are not. Also that link to some occupation is tenuous (and that is putting it mildly!) and not something that they go on and on about like Panjabis do. It doesn't play a big part in their society like it does ours. So that apologism for caste you typed up is redundant.

It's such a shame that someone like yourself, who on the surface, appears to be a progressive and conscious Sikh, still struggles to let go of this outdated and divisive force in our quom.

Sometimes marrying into caste does make sense, if the families have more in common and similar backgrounds, they are more likely to gel.

Being on the cusp of a new decade, I REALLY want to try and decisively tackle this old chestnut that I've heard frequently over the years.

I take it you live in the UK Sarabha? If so, you could NOT have failed to miss how frequently people from completely different races and indeed religious beliefs frequently marry here and have life-long relationships with balanced children. Often their backgrounds are majorly different. So we can see that this can work and EASILY find lots of examples of it in multicultural cities.

However, I imagine some backwards caste loving 'old timer' probably pushed the above idea out years ago and I am just shocked that people still give it any credence whatsoever.

Given that multicultural relationships can and do frequently work, how can anyone make statements as the above quoted, implying that 2 Sikh Panjabis face massive 'cultural differences' to overcome across caste divides? It is plainly a lie.

Lets talk about this notion of caste similarity to illustrate the point further.

Three streets away there is Sikh family from a Jatt background. All of the males have kesh, they don't drink or eat meat and the older ones have taken amrit, as have the women. They keep quiet, go Gurdwara regularly etc. etc. Can read Gurmukhi to various standards.

5 streets in the other direction there is another family from the same Jatt Doaba background. All the men are monay in this family, they all drink including the teenage kids. They eat meat and the kids (both boys and girls) go clubbing and pubbing. Some of the boys smoke cannabis and very few of the youths can speak Panjabi to any proficiency let alone read it. Those that can speak it, have learnt through parental interaction and listening to Bhangra music. They generally wouldn't be able to hold any informed discussion on Sikhi or Sikh itihaas.

Now that should shine some bright light on this notion of caste similarity as some justification of caste insularity for you. Within a caste you will have massive differences, and frequently families from different castes have more in common than co-caste members.

We need to reject some of our old backward ways and move forward in a more progressive direction. This caste crap (nowadays also hidden behind a poorly constructed facade of 'ethnicity'), is most definitely somewhere on the top of the list of stupid things many Sikhs do, that needs to go.

New year, new decade - we need to jettison some of the restrictive baggage we have accumulated over the years. I don't expect people in India to catch on just yet, but if you are in the diaspora and even slightly educated, stop going on like some crusty pendu with your thinking, for all our sakes.

Happy new year folks!

[mundasingh123]

But my surname tells me which clan I'm from. Do you also insist all Scottish Highlanders must reject their clan names because it is EVIL ?

My clan name tells me which area of Punjab my forefathers are from. My clan name tells me everything about my family history. As well as Scottish Highlanders are all the people in the west that take an interest in their family history also EVIL CASTEISTS ?

Wah Veerji U are Equating Scottish Highlander belief with Sikhism

[mundasingh123]

The Strenth of Sikhism Lay in Uniting People from different Backgrouns so as to eradicate Castes.GuruJi Insitute the System of Langar.What do you think would be the use of Langar then .Just Eat together ,get up and go away, Is it ?

I suppose MAJORITY OF THE cOMMUNITY ARE well off enough to afford their own food at Home then why Have Langar in Gurdwara.Feasting,Eh?

[West London Singh]

Wah Veerji U are Equating Scottish Highlander belief with Sikhism

Of course I'm not. Don't be so silly. What I am suggesting is that you are very selective in who it is perfectly OK to be proud of their family history and who it is not. You would think nothing wrong...and perfectly reasonable...for an American to be interested in his family genealogy from Ireland. You would think nothingwrong for a 5th generation British Jew to be interested in how his great great grandfather emigrated from Russia to the east end of London via Poland. You would think nothing wrong with the son of British aristocrat being proud of his family name....their history....their origins etc. But.....you draw the lines at certain Punjabi surnames. :sad: When it comes to people like me your sense of understanding and tolerance comes to a stop.

As well as stories of the great sacrifices of of our Gurus and our Sikh forefathers, my grandparents used to tell me great stories about my clan. Where we came from. How it came to be that we found ourselves in the doaba region. (in case your'e interested...this history is relevant to our history as Sikhs because my clan is one of the 'manjki' jatt clans...i.e from one of the villages that make up the manjki tract in dist. Jalandhar. A tract given as a jagir to some jatt clans from western malwa...and listed in mughal accounts as 'agents of the Guru of Anandpur').

Being afraid of books.....Being afraid of history....Being afraid of who your forefathers were and where they came from. This is style of the taliban. This is not the style of the Sikh. My children will not bury their heads in the sand and pretend they don't know their family history.

:cool: