"Do not roam in the Sun, you will become dark like a madrassi", said a grandmother calling out to her 7 year old grandson.
"So you are from Mizoram, which language do you speak there Japanese or Chinese?", s Gujrati Aunty asked a young Mizo who was just too embarrassed to reply and ignored her.
"We want to separate from Andhra Pradesh because their women do not have character", a young Pro-Telangana friend of mine told me once.
"These Bohri's will submit their daughters and wife before that nymphomaniac Aga Khan if he asks", said a muslim friend referring to Aga Khan's visit to India.
Racism runs deep within us Indians apart from the cultural, regional, linguistic and caste barriers already persistent, these were just few of the incidents I came across at some point of time in my life.
So when and how exactly did it start?. Our scriptures set Varnas for people of each working community and your caste was based on Karmah i.e; the work that you do rather than by birth. We Indians took it a step ahead and over the years caste barriers sprouted in the society and became a social evil, No scripture tells us to differentiate among castes or look down upon people of different castes.
Another wave of change in thinking came after the British came to India, post First War of Independence 1857 which initiated from a sepoy mutiny with the theory of Aryan vs Dravidian inscribed in our minds. Now Britain, if we think about it, is barely the size of TamilNadu or Chattisgarh which are the 10th and 11th largest states in India, though they were technologically superior to us owing to the Industrial Revolution in Europe, they lacked the manpower to fight the Indian Empire which was distributed into a large number of princely states. We always blame the British for their "Divide and Rule" policies, but for once we fail to think that our society was, is so subtle that the fabric can be broken any day along religious or caste barriers.
The British taught us that North Indians owing to their fairer complexion are Aryans and South Indians owing to their slightly darker complexion are Dravidians and we believed it, just based on the color. They also taught us that Dravidians were the actual inhabitants of India, Aryans came here from Europe, waged a war and drove them towards south of India. I learnt this theory at school and my mind you if not for the Exams i consider this theory Utter Garbage. There are reasons behind is, the first being Not all Aryans are white and not all Dravidians are Dark, Simple!!!. If you don't believe me just open your eyes and look at people around. I am a second generation Punjabi living in Hyderabad and i can clearly see the advent of pigment change with each generation of my family. Its simple as you move close to the equator heat increases and affects your skin, there is nothing North Indian or South Indian or Aryan/Dravidian about it.
The second reason which makes me feel that this theory is a Hoax, is the fact that Aryan languages are perceived to be Indo-European while Dravidian languages are presumed to be more Sanskrit based, what i call another Victorian Bullshit. If Aryans really fought a battle with Dravidians, the word "Arya" in Telugu/Kannada/Malyalam/Tamil would definitely not mean Righteous, the word has been used since Mahabharata and Ramayana referring to a Righteous person. Several 1000 words such as Vaar(Day),Natya(Dance),Vrat(Fasting) mean the same across all Indian languages, now if Vrat becomes Vratamu in South India that doesn't make it a different genealogy.
There is no proof of the war between Aryans and Dravidians, if Aryans were outsiders why would the adapt the same religion, same caste system, same gods, same religious practices, same attire(Yes, Lungi is worn across India), Apart from the fact that this theory was given by a uneducated Bishop Robert Caldwell in his book "A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevely", who spent his entire life time in Tirunalvelli. This theory was also proved wrong in the 1960s, when genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn proved that the entirety of the Indian subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations.
Nevertheless the Aryan-Dravidian myth did its job, it created barriers between troops in North and South India, when Indians were sent to Andaman and Nicobar they fought among themselves because of the North-South gap, Gandhiji spent his lifetime joining us as Indians(Sachin Tendulkar binds us better), DMK was formed which calls Ram a North Indian and Ravan a south Indian(Now even gods were divided into North and South), DMK also wanted "Dravidanadu", abolishment of Hindi language and raised a Anti-Brahamin sentiment. Bollywood has always shown south indians as loud, Dhoti-clad, dark people with long names and South Indian movies depict North Indians(especially Biharis) as Kurta-Pyjama clad gangsters. Objective fulfilled!
All this so called "Gyan" just proves a simple fact that we Indians cannot see the beauty of other cultures, a website like Bharatmatrimony.com could have been successful only in India. We are so racist that none of our sub-continent neighbors like us. SriLankans think we are power Egoistic(We helped them with 1Lakh Troopes), Bangladeshi's fight with us over water and territory(We helped them in their freedom), Nepali's think we are fake(They claim we fake that we are the land of birth of Buddhism and we depend on their Gorkha Regiments), Maldives(We gave them Trinkat aircrafts, rescued them from PLO-Telam, gave them water) doesn't care much about us, Pakistan doesn't need a mention.
I dream of an India where cultures can be mutually respected, cultures depict our heritage, where religion,caste, creed, gender are treated with dignity(Sant-Banta, Bihari Jokes, Marwari jokes are fine unless you start taking them literally). Our movies show foreigners coming to our country and falling in love with our culture because they have been taught to respect cultures, when we go to other countries we boast of our land and heritage which is good but in our heads we keep thinking about them as people with no culture.
"So you are from Mizoram, which language do you speak there Japanese or Chinese?", s Gujrati Aunty asked a young Mizo who was just too embarrassed to reply and ignored her.
"We want to separate from Andhra Pradesh because their women do not have character", a young Pro-Telangana friend of mine told me once.
"These Bohri's will submit their daughters and wife before that nymphomaniac Aga Khan if he asks", said a muslim friend referring to Aga Khan's visit to India.
Racism runs deep within us Indians apart from the cultural, regional, linguistic and caste barriers already persistent, these were just few of the incidents I came across at some point of time in my life.
So when and how exactly did it start?. Our scriptures set Varnas for people of each working community and your caste was based on Karmah i.e; the work that you do rather than by birth. We Indians took it a step ahead and over the years caste barriers sprouted in the society and became a social evil, No scripture tells us to differentiate among castes or look down upon people of different castes.
Another wave of change in thinking came after the British came to India, post First War of Independence 1857 which initiated from a sepoy mutiny with the theory of Aryan vs Dravidian inscribed in our minds. Now Britain, if we think about it, is barely the size of TamilNadu or Chattisgarh which are the 10th and 11th largest states in India, though they were technologically superior to us owing to the Industrial Revolution in Europe, they lacked the manpower to fight the Indian Empire which was distributed into a large number of princely states. We always blame the British for their "Divide and Rule" policies, but for once we fail to think that our society was, is so subtle that the fabric can be broken any day along religious or caste barriers.
The British taught us that North Indians owing to their fairer complexion are Aryans and South Indians owing to their slightly darker complexion are Dravidians and we believed it, just based on the color. They also taught us that Dravidians were the actual inhabitants of India, Aryans came here from Europe, waged a war and drove them towards south of India. I learnt this theory at school and my mind you if not for the Exams i consider this theory Utter Garbage. There are reasons behind is, the first being Not all Aryans are white and not all Dravidians are Dark, Simple!!!. If you don't believe me just open your eyes and look at people around. I am a second generation Punjabi living in Hyderabad and i can clearly see the advent of pigment change with each generation of my family. Its simple as you move close to the equator heat increases and affects your skin, there is nothing North Indian or South Indian or Aryan/Dravidian about it.
The second reason which makes me feel that this theory is a Hoax, is the fact that Aryan languages are perceived to be Indo-European while Dravidian languages are presumed to be more Sanskrit based, what i call another Victorian Bullshit. If Aryans really fought a battle with Dravidians, the word "Arya" in Telugu/Kannada/Malyalam/Tamil would definitely not mean Righteous, the word has been used since Mahabharata and Ramayana referring to a Righteous person. Several 1000 words such as Vaar(Day),Natya(Dance),Vrat(Fasting) mean the same across all Indian languages, now if Vrat becomes Vratamu in South India that doesn't make it a different genealogy.
There is no proof of the war between Aryans and Dravidians, if Aryans were outsiders why would the adapt the same religion, same caste system, same gods, same religious practices, same attire(Yes, Lungi is worn across India), Apart from the fact that this theory was given by a uneducated Bishop Robert Caldwell in his book "A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevely", who spent his entire life time in Tirunalvelli. This theory was also proved wrong in the 1960s, when genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn proved that the entirety of the Indian subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations.
Nevertheless the Aryan-Dravidian myth did its job, it created barriers between troops in North and South India, when Indians were sent to Andaman and Nicobar they fought among themselves because of the North-South gap, Gandhiji spent his lifetime joining us as Indians(Sachin Tendulkar binds us better), DMK was formed which calls Ram a North Indian and Ravan a south Indian(Now even gods were divided into North and South), DMK also wanted "Dravidanadu", abolishment of Hindi language and raised a Anti-Brahamin sentiment. Bollywood has always shown south indians as loud, Dhoti-clad, dark people with long names and South Indian movies depict North Indians(especially Biharis) as Kurta-Pyjama clad gangsters. Objective fulfilled!
All this so called "Gyan" just proves a simple fact that we Indians cannot see the beauty of other cultures, a website like Bharatmatrimony.com could have been successful only in India. We are so racist that none of our sub-continent neighbors like us. SriLankans think we are power Egoistic(We helped them with 1Lakh Troopes), Bangladeshi's fight with us over water and territory(We helped them in their freedom), Nepali's think we are fake(They claim we fake that we are the land of birth of Buddhism and we depend on their Gorkha Regiments), Maldives(We gave them Trinkat aircrafts, rescued them from PLO-Telam, gave them water) doesn't care much about us, Pakistan doesn't need a mention.
I dream of an India where cultures can be mutually respected, cultures depict our heritage, where religion,caste, creed, gender are treated with dignity(Sant-Banta, Bihari Jokes, Marwari jokes are fine unless you start taking them literally). Our movies show foreigners coming to our country and falling in love with our culture because they have been taught to respect cultures, when we go to other countries we boast of our land and heritage which is good but in our heads we keep thinking about them as people with no culture.
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