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Castes Quotes

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Castes Quotes

“De même que dans le cadre du schéma trifonctionnel chrétien, l’ordre brahmanique exprime à sa façon un idéal d’équilibre entre différentes formes de légitimité à gouverner. Dans les deux cas, il s’agit au fond de faire en sorte que la force brute des rois et des guerriers ne néglige pas les sages conseils des clercs et des lettrés, et que le pouvoir politique s’appuie sur les connaissances et le pouvoir intellectuel. Il est intéressant de rappeler que Gandhi, qui reprochait aux Britanniques d’avoir rigidifié les frontières entre castes autrefois fluides, afin de mieux diviser et dominer l’Inde, avait dans le même temps une attitude relativement respectueuse et conservatrice face à l’idéal brahmanique. Certes Gandhi militait pour que la société hindoue devienne moins inégalitaire et plus inclusive vis-à-vis de ses classes les plus basses, en particulier vis-à-vis des shudra et des « intouchables », qui rassemblaient des catégories discriminées plus basses encore que les shudra au sein de l’ordre hindou, placées en marge de la société, parfois du fait d’occupations jugées impropres, liées notamment à l’abattage des animaux et au travail des peaux. Mais Gandhi insistait dans le même temps sur le rôle essentiel joué par les brahmanes, ou tout du moins par ceux qui se comportaient comme tels à ses yeux, c’est-à-dire sans arrogance et sans âpreté, mais au contraire avec bienveillance et grandeur d’âme, en mettant leur sagesse et leurs connaissances de lettrés au service de la société dans son ensemble. Lui-même rattaché au groupe deux-fois-né des vaishya, Gandhi prit dans de nombreux discours publics, en particulier à Tanjore en 1927, la défense de la logique de complémentarité fonctionnelle qui était selon lui à la base de la société hindoue traditionnelle. En reconnaissant le principe de l’hérédité dans la transmission des talents et des occupations, non pas comme règle absolue et rigide mais comme un principe général pouvant admettre des exceptions individuelles, le régime des castes permettait selon lui de donner une place à chacun, et d’éviter la compétition généralisée entre groupes sociaux, la guerre de tous contre tous, et en particulier la guerre des classes à l’occidentale . Surtout, Gandhi se méfiait plus que tout de la dimension anti-intellectuelle des discours antibrahmaniques. Il considérait que la sobriété et la sagesse des lettrés, vertus auxquelles il se rattachait par sa pratique personnelle (bien que non-brahmane lui- même), étaient des qualités sociales indispensables pour l’harmonie générale. Il se méfiait aussi du matérialisme occidental et de son goût immodéré pour l’accumulation de richesses et de pouvoir.”

GandhiCastesInde
Book:Capital and Ideology
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“Ambedkar, premier intouchable diplômé en droit et en économie de l’université Columbia et de la London School of Economics, et futur rédacteur de la Constitution indienne de 1950, éprouva quant à lui les plus grandes difficultés à exercer comme avocat dans l’Inde des années 1920. Il contribua à lancer le mouvement des dalits (« cassés » en sanskrit, ainsi qu’Ambedkar proposait d’appeler les ex-intouchables) et brûla publiquement le Manusmriti en 1927 lors des grands rassemblements dalits à la citerne de Chavadar (Maharashtra). Ambedkar invita plus tard les dalits à se convertir au bouddhisme : il était convaincu que seule une remise en cause radicale du système religieux hindou permettrait de détruire celui des castes et de mettre fin aux discriminations anciennes. Il s’opposait vigoureusement à Gandhi, qui à l’inverse jugeait très irrespectueux de brûler le Manusmriti. Gandhi défendait les brahmanes et l’idéal de solidarité fonctionnelle des varnas, et appelait les harijan (« enfants de dieu », ainsi qu’il nommait les intouchables) à prendre toute leur place au sein de l’hindouisme. Aux yeux de nombreux Indiens de haute caste, cela signifiait aussi et surtout adopter un comportement et des normes familiales, alimentaires et hygiéniques plus proches de la pureté que les classes élevées entendaient incarner (un peu à la façon des mouvements paternalistes bourgeois de l’Angleterre victorienne visant à encourager la sobriété et les comportements vertueux parmi les classes laborieuses). Certains deux-fois-nés proches de Gandhi allèrent jusqu’à proposer aux intouchables, aux aborigènes et même aux musulmans une conversion symbolique à l’hindouisme pour marquer leur retour plein et entier dans la communauté hindoue et leur entrée dans une vie pure.”

GandhiCastesManusmritiBrahmanes
Book:Capital and Ideology
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“The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4.”

WorldLoveHumansHumorFunnyReligionHateHumanityQuotesCultureRelationshipsHuman BeingsClassRelationshipMankindHumourHumorousHatredQuoteProfoundPopulationPhilosopherQuote Of The DayTensionThoughtfulSatireThought ProvokingDeepInsightfulDislikeAphorismSouth AfricaQuotationsAfricaMaximsSayingsHierarchyNationalityAdagesProverbsAphorismsMake You ThinkLikeAxiomsAdageProverbSatiricalSayingEpigramsLovedCastesStatusAfricanQuotationSocial ClassGnomeSatiristEveryoneMaximEpigramGnomesProvoke ThoughtMade Me ThinkCasteAxiomDictumDictumsSocial StatusSouth AfricanWorld PopulationSatiristsEverybodyClassesSocial ClassesLikedDenomination
Book:The Use and Misuse of Children
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“That's one of the biggest losses, I think, to African American families, is that people, once they left, they turned away from the South. They didn't look back, and they often didn't tell their children about it. They didn't want to talk about it. It was too painful, what they'd gone through and the caste system of the South, which was Jim Crow.”

PeopleThinkingWantLooksChildrenLeftLossGoneSouthPainfulAfrican AmericanCrowCastesJim CrowAmerican FamilyCaste System
Author:Isabel Wilkerson
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“Pity and need Make all flesh kin. There in no caste in blood.”

NeedsBloodFleshPitySympathyCastes
Book:The Light of Asia, or the Great Renunciation (Mahâbhinishkramana): Being the Life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism (as Told in Verse by an Indian Buddhist)
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“If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in America—we must lay down our racial bribes, join hands with people of all colors who are not content to wait for change to trickle down, and say to those who would stand in our way: Accept all of us or none.”

PeopleIfsWayWantEndsHandsAmericaWaitingAcceptingColorMassDown AndLaysBribeCastesIncarcerationMass IncarcerationTrickle Down
Book:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
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“I worship impersonal Nature, which is neither "good" or "bad", and who knows neither love nor hatred. I worship Life; the Sun, Sustainer of life. I believe in the Law of everlasting struggle, which is the law of life, and in the duty of the best specimens of our race - the natural élite of mankind - to rule the earth, and evolve out of themselves a caste of supermen, a people 'like unto the Gods'.”

PeopleKnowsBelieveEarthLawI BelieveNaturalRaceStruggleSunMankindDutyWorshipHatredI Believe InEvolveEverlastingCastesLaws Of Life
Author:Savitri Devi
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“So far as the government is concerned, there is ­only one holy book, which is the constitution of India. The unity and the integrity of the country are the topmost priorities. All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.”

BookCountryGovernmentCommunityResponsibilityAcceptingRightsIntegrityHolyConcernedIndiaConstitutionUnityProtectionPrioritiesDiscriminationCreedsTolerateCastesHoly Books
Author:Narendra Modi
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“Political and social justice requires, not the disintegration of a country and destruction or humiliation of a class which shows initiative, intelligence and drive, but equality of opportunity for all, genuine freedom for self-fulfilment, in which all men irrespective of caste or creed may share.”

MenMaySelfCountryShowsPoliticalOpportunitySocialJusticeClassShareDestructionSocial JusticeGenuineInitiativeCreedsHumiliationFulfilmentCastesDisintegrationEquality Of Opportunity
Author:Syama Prasad Mukherjee
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“Generally speaking, an Indian university must regard itself as one of the living organs of national reconstruction. It must discover the best means of blending together both the spiritual and the material aspects of life. It must equip its alumni irrespective of caste, creed or sex, with individual fitness, not for its own sake, not for merely adorning varied occupations and professions, but in order to teach them how to merge their individuality in the common cause of advancing the progress and prosperity of their motherland and upholding the highest traditions of human civilisation.”

HumansMeanTogetherSpiritualOrderIndividualSexCausesCommonTeachProgressMaterialsHighestAspectTraditionRegardUniversitySakeIndividualityProsperityProfessionIndianOccupationOrgansCreedsCivilisationAdvancingReconstructionCastesAspects Of LifeMotherlandAlumni
Author:Syama Prasad Mukherjee
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“Every strategy for real social change - land reform, education, public health, the equitable distribution of natural resources ... - has been cleverly, cunningly, and consistently scuttled and rendered ineffectual by those castes and that class of people which has a stranglehold on the political process.”

PeopleHas BeensRealPoliticalSocialProcessNaturalClassLandResourcesStrategyReformConsistentlySocial ChangeDistributionNatural ResourcesPublic HealthCastesEquitable
Book:War Talk
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“For never has there been, in modern times, such a Homeric world, where so much value is pinned onto the utterance of name! Entire conversations, entire lives, are devoted to the act of naming people, and in Pakistan the affluent would be totally devoid of talk if they were unable to take names in vain. Caste and all its subclassifications are recreated every day in the structure of a conversation that knows which names to name.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWorldWould BeValuesNamesModernConversationStructureVainDevotedPakistanUtteranceCastesModern TimesAffluent
Author:Sara Suleri
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“Death is the twin of love and mother of us all, she struggles equally for men and women and never accepts differences of caste or class. It's death that quickens us and brings us forth on sheets of love, clasped between sleep and wakefulness and barely breathing for a spell, and thus my death shall be like everybody else's death, as majestic and as pathetic as a king or a beggar's, neither more nor less.”

MenDeathMotherDifferencesSleepAcceptingClassStruggleKingsMen And WomenBreathingSpellsTwinsSheetsPatheticBeggarMajesticCastes
Book:Sweet Diamond Dust: And Other Stories
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“I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta: Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop, then come back home and marry the bridegroom he selected for me from our caste and class.”

WritingYearsTwoHomeNightFatherLeftClassCreativeStudyWrittenReadyCommandTwo YearsAirportsCreative WritingFlewBack HomeSelectedWorkshopsIowaCastesCalcuttaPasturesBridegroomWriting Workshop
Author:Bharati Mukherjee
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“Whyle I was abowte to chaunge myn olde lyff-- What sorowe I suffred, dyseese, angre and stryff, Cracchynge myn here, my chekys all totare, Wrythynge my fyngres for angwysshe and care, Watrynge the erthe with my byttre salte teres That the crye of my syghes ascended to Goddys eres, My knees with myn handys grasped togedyre soore, And yitt I stode the same man I was afore Tyl a depe profounde remembraunce att the laste Hadd all my wrecchednesse afore myn eyn caste”

MenCareSufferingKneesCastes
Author:Petrarch
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“Everything is un-American that tends either to government by a plutocracy or government by a mob. To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American. All privileges based on wealth, and all enmity to honest men merely because they are wealthy, are un-American-both of them equally so. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

MenFirstsGovernmentAmericaLinesWealthRichHonestDutyTheorySafetyPrivilegeProsperityWealthyDividesCreedsSectionsGet RichHonest ManEnmityCastesPlutocracyGet Rich QuickTheory Of LifeSafety First
Author:Theodore Roosevelt
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“As the only class distinction available in a democracy, the college degree has created a caste society as rigid as ancient India's. Condemning elitism and simultaneously quaking in fear that our children won't become members of the elite, we send them to college, not to learn, but to "be" college graduates, rationalizing our snobbery with the cliché that high technology has eliminated the need for the manual labor that we secretly hold in contempt.”

NeedsChildrenEducationClassTechnologyDemocracyCollegeMembersDegreesLaborIndiaOur ChildrenAncientAvailableDistinctionContemptGraduatesElitesManualsCastesCollege EducationCondemningElitismSnobberyCollege DegreeCollege GraduatesManual LaborAncient IndiaClass DistinctionHigh Technology
Book:Lump It Or Leave It
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“We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.”

FirstsNextIndividualSocialDogCatFamiliarWheelsArrangementsSuperiorityHierarchyMeasuringCastesRankingRimsDespotsHub
Book:The Tribe of Tiger
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“If we claim heritage in Bacon, Shakespeare and Milton, we also acknowledge that it was for liberties guaranteed Englishmen by sacred charters our fathers triumphantly fought. While wisely rejecting throne and caste and privilege and an Established Church in their new-born state, they adopted the substance of English liberty and the body of English law.”

IfsStatesBodyLawFatherBornChurchLibertyClaimsSacredPrivilegeSubstanceAcknowledgeHeritageThronesAdoptedOur FatherEnglishmenRejectingCharterCastesMiltonEnglish Law
Book:Oration and memorial addresses
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“Last evening attended Croghan Lodge International Order of Odd Fellows. Election of officers. Chosen Noble Grand. These social organizations have a number of good results. All who attend are educated in self-government. This in a marked way. They bind society together. The well-to-do and the poor should be brought together as much as possible. The separation into classes--castes--is our danger. It is the danger of all civilizations.”

WayShouldWellsSelfGovernmentTogetherLastsOrderSocialPoorResultsNumbersClassDangerCivilizationOrganizationElectionFellowsInternationalNobleSeparationChosenEducatedEveningOddOfficersCastesSelf-governmentLodgesSocial Organization
Author:Rutherford B. Hayes
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