Caste in iron

The article by Kancha Ilaiah, 8216;If you can8217;t climb a tree or make a pot, how can you throw a javelin?8217; IE, Oct 6 reinforced ...

The article by Kancha Ilaiah, 8216;If you can8217;t climb a tree or make a pot, how can you throw a javelin?8217; IE, Oct 6 reinforced a fear that dawned on me at the recent Forum 2004 in Barcelona. The maladies that affect our sports culture, as Kancha Ilaiah so lucidly points out, prevail it seems in many other fields including some elitist ritual practices. I was a witness to this at the Forum where a group of Vedic chanters were invited to invoke the sun and bless the world.

The group led by a teacher and three young girls did a good job of the chanting and were lauded for being among the first women to break out of the bastion of tradition that for centuries has not allowed women to chant from the Vedas. This group of four while managing to do this failed it seemed to break out of that cage of tradition which reinforces their own exclusivity. They refused to eat the food 8212; even the vegetables and the salads 8212; that their Spanish hosts had laid out.

They spent the best part of their few days cooking meals in the rented flat of 8220;that Muslim8221; as the teacher contemptuously pointed out. 8220;That Muslim8221; was a celebrated artisan, also invited to perform at the Forum. When he heard that a group of women from Benaras will be visiting his kitchen he washed and wiped it meticulously and deemed their presence as an honour. His caste did not bar him from sharing his grains and vessels. But the high-caste ladies used his kitchen all day sniffing at the honour bestowed on them by someone they deemed as not pure.

It was difficult to imagine that the same women were invoking the universal energy of the sun and telling the world of the greatness of a tradition which had failed to uplift their own lives. While meeting at the Forum people from many cultures who had gone beyond their own traditions I was distressed to find the malaise so rooted in my own circle. Does the fault lie in the tradition or the people and the time they are living in, is a question that needs to be asked. Regrettably the health of a nation is measured not by the peak but by the base of a pyramid.