Caste composition by coincidence!

[Harun al Rashid]

I went to a seminar organised by the Action Committee Against
Corruption in India today. After an inspiring speech by Baba Ramdev,
Subramanian Swamy began well, but subsequently meandered through
myriad topics from history and current affairs, many claims in which
were disputable.

What struck me particularly about the mismatch between the organiser's
'kathni' and 'karni' was the fact that while Swamy claimed that
India's caste system was originally meant to be nothing but division
of labour rather than segregation of people by birth, the ACACI has a
predominant Brahmin (by BIRTH) composition: Swamy himself, Prof. R.
Vaidyanathan, S. Gurumurthy, K. N. Govindacharya, V. Sundaram, A.
Surya Prakash, K. Sampath Iyengar, Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, M. R.
Venkatesh, J. Gopikrishnan and Abhishek Joshi. A far less percentage
of non-Brahmins (by BIRTH) completes the panel: M. D. Nalapat, Ajit
Doval and Saryu Rai; they all represent other upper castes
nonetheless.

No Dalit! No Muslim! No Christian! Much as Swamy says all Indians
"share the same DNA (strain)".

During his speech, Swamy addressed Ramdev, waiting on the dais for his
turn to speak, saying that while the baba's job was rabble rousing
against corruption, the ACACI would help his movement by taking care
of the more intricate issue of law and other intellectual
deliberations. Is it the newly formed outfit's case, given its caste-
skewed composition, that the so-called lower castes and minorities
(who, according to Swamy, have all converted from Hinduism at some
point of time in history), including the yogi who is a Yadav by birth,
are too intellectually challenged to carry out research work and fight
court cases?

In any event, why caste and religion needed to be spoken about in an
event titled "Kala dhan pe halla bol" is beyond my comprehension. I
don't have the brains of a Brahmin (by BIRTH), you see!