Caste, not race?

Origin (2023)
Director: Ava Duverney

(Based on the book, 'Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents' by Isabel Wilkerson)

It is an interesting way of looking at all the problems affecting the world today. It is blamed on caste segregation. Traditionally, we think of caste as a problem only affecting India. And Indians believe it is a system brought in by colonial masters and divided the nation to ease control. The stifling of one layer of society over the other is not just based on the colour of their skin. It is something beyond. The group at the top end of the food chain would want to maintain the status quo and keep the people beneath them forever squashed.

The writer, Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner, compared situations in three scenarios. 

She looked at the black situation in America, where blacks are stereotyped as troublemakers, poor, unemployed, unemployable and criminals. The system reinforces this stereotype upon them to a level that even the blacks buy into the trope. The blacks become apologetic about how they are and make amends to be 'liked' by the oppressors, i.e. the white Americans. 

The truth of the matter is that the white men brought them as slaves from Africa. Everything was alright when they were the masters and the blacks their slaves. Things became complicated when emancipation happened. The whites made it a point to retain themselves in the highest perch of the food chain. They suppressed the blacks through the preservation of the white gene pool via marriage laws, housing restrictions and educational opportunities. This continued until they occupied the unsavoury aspects of the country's statistics. Stories of police brutality, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin have become a recurrent theme.

It is not the colour of the skin of the other that matters. Look at post-WWI Germany. The wisdom of the Nazi Party thought the Jews should be made the bogeymen to make their country rise from the ashes of the First World War. Propaganda after propaganda of the Nazis made Jews the scorn of the country. Jews were identified, tagged, marked, quarantined, cursed and finally sent to incinerators, all under the law of the land.

The author then travelled to India to see how caste discrimination affects the Dalit community. Accompanied by a Dalit academician, she is told how the elitist and the ruling class suppress the Dalit community from succeeding in life. The film goes on to show how members of the low rung of society are oppressed and confined to performing menial chores that nobody wants to do. Ambedkar is featured here as the living of someone who went on to obtain a double PhD despite all the odds that worked against him to keep him down. The manner in which his society had reservations about sharing, even drinking water, even as a Government official, is stressed too. A statue of Ambedkar in Delhi is shown to be placed in a cage because the statue is constantly vandalised, suggesting to the viewers that the general public hates revering a Dalit figure even though he helped to draft the Indian Constitution. Is that the hint?

The presentation conveniently failed to inform the high number of high-performing students who could not secure a place in the local universities, all because of caste quota. To continue studying, these students and their parents must fork out high sums of money to get foreign education and possibly foreign employment. India's loss is the rest of the world's gain.

The film tries to simplify everything. The innate desire for one person to dominate over the other is inherent in all of us. It does not depend on race or ethnicity. People will find reasons to suppress others with made-up reasons. This probably goes well with critical race theorists who insist that racism is inherent in the legal institution to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans.

Wilkerson looks at black suppression not as a race issue but as a caste suppression. A group of people, in the USA's case, it is the Hispanics and the Blacks, are put at the bottom of the hierarchical 'caste system' through generations of oppressive laws.

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Guilty by default?

Emergency (2022)

Director: Carey William

Sikhism is professed by 25 to 30 million worldwide and is the fifth-largest religion in the world. Even though Sikhs constitute only 1.72% of India's population and 1.02% of the world's population, they are instantaneously recognised, not only by their unique appearance but also by their industriousness and successes. In India and the rest of the world, wherever they migrate, their proportion of poverty, as compared to other groups, remains the lowest. Outside Punjab, some minorities still excel without political assistance. Reaching foreign shores as economic migrants, they generally prosper and outperform other immigrants. They blend well into society and have the tongue to learn to speak the local lingo swiftly. Pretty soon, they will be sitting in professional bodies.

The Sikhs are often seen by community leaders as a shining example of how societies should progress. Someone toyed with the idea that lack of political representation and state assistance are the very things that help them propel forward.

Hence, in Malaysia, the recently perceived 'lack of Indian representation' in the Malaysian Cabinet is a non-issue. There is no need to depend on handouts from the top. The community itself should pull itself with its own bootstrap. As the Senior Economist Thomas Sowell advised, when people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems discriminatory. He also concluded that affirmative is ineffective. He likened it to a wrong medical diagnosis and prescription. His research had repeatedly shown that blacks in America were better off in many social parameters before the Civil Rights Law was passed in the USA. As he is often quoted to have said, "When people are poor, they want communism or socialism, but when they are rich, they think capitalism is best!"

All that is fine at a macro level, but day-to-day human interaction does not work that way at the ground level. Power dynamics and racial stereotyping are a mainstay. The presence of little Napoleons and power brokers is everywhere. The decree from the top gets lost in translation, purposefully or like the game of 'Chinese whispers'. 

If George Floyd has taught us anything, dealing with the enforcement unit is more complex. Split decisions made in an encounter are anything but easy. The police see the other as a potential criminal who would harm him or escape. If he made a wrong call, he would be negligent or, worse, lose his life. 

The person on the end of the police baton would be apprehensive that he would be pigeonholed based on his ethnicity or appearance. In his mind, he is assumed to be guilty by default. Any wrong move, and he is a cadaver.

These thoughts go through the minds of three friends who aspire to go places as they almost complete college. The three friends, two blacks (Kumle and Sean) and a Hispanic (Carlos) find an apparently stoned white teenager in their home. Like black South Africans in the apartheid era, they panicked. They decide to take the kid to the hospital in their SUV. Kumle, the studious one, has his life all mapped out. He is going to Princeton come fall. Sean has had a previous bad encounter with the cops, and Carlos has consumed intoxicants and is flying high like a kite.

While cruising en route to the hospital, they encounter a police roadblock. Suddenly, it dawned upon them how they might look to the cops- three coloured people kidnapping a drugged white teenager! Then begins the cascade of confusion as they avoid police custody, escape the victim's sister and friends, but most of all, not in any way jeopardise their future. The last thing they want is to be just another statistic in the ever-expanding number of victims of police brutality. 

This film is supposed to be a comedy, but the subject matter deems anything but funny!

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... and that's how the cookie crumbles.

Belfast (2021)
Director: Kenneth Branagh.

In the mid-70s, as a secondary school student, I saw some of my classmates leave the country. Their parents were affluent and had lost confidence in the Malaysian education system. They thought that the New Education Policy after the May 13 riot with Malay as the medium of instruction was doomed to fail. And the New Economic Policy, which emphasises affirmative action, will only produce a nation of mediocres at best.

Affluence could make them picky on their choices in life, whereas the rest of us, the mere mortals, could only make do with what is available to us. We took everything in a stride with the sentimentality of nationalism thrown in and the conviction that the divine forces would help those who help themselves. Still, we were grateful that opportunities unavailable to our parents were there for our taking, so we thought. 

Then came the early 80s. Suddenly, we saw another section of our classmates disappear. They had been offered national scholarships to study overseas. Some were pinched by our neighbour. In contrast, the rest of us were thrown into the deep end of the pool of cramping 2-years' of studies into an 18-month extensive course which is viewed as the most difficult examination in the world, equivalent to the A-levels, the Higher School Certificate. The added problem was that they were no books in Malay, but we were to use older English books and do our mental translations as we answered the questions! We soldiered on.

Then came university, the ridiculous bi-peaked academic performances of its students and the apparent push to pass sub-standard 'scholars' came to light. As if like magic, mediocre students miraculously perform well in final examinations. We turned a blind eye.

Fast forward to the present era. We now realise that the bubble of a dream that we had all this while had just popped on our faces. We wake up rubbing our eyes, trying to make sense of the time of the night. Then it dawns upon us. We realise the master plan of social engineering. The bus has left. Now, our children feel unwelcomed to serve the nation. They have a funny feeling that we threw them under the bus. They now have to seek greener pastures elsewhere, much like what the millions had doing the same over the last century. It is just our predecessors marched into the country, not out.  Only migrants of a particular religion are welcomed, not the rest. This, my friend, is modern religious cleansing.

This film is about the tumultuous time of the Northern Ireland conflict in August 1969 when a riot broke out in a Catholic neighbourhood in Belfast. The story is told from the point of view of a 9-year old boy. It is a coming of age tale of the boy who has to grow up fast to face the challenging times as unrest spread in the housing estate, and his family, being a closet Protestant, are forced to choose sides. His parents have to decide whether to stay on despite the uncertainty or flee to more peaceful environments. With them are the grandparents who feel sentimental about their Irish identity and the good old days.

Between the push and pull factors, everybody has to make life-altering decisions to face their futures. Even though events in life are by chance, mere coincidences, altered by simple things like just a flutter of a butterfly, our actions and inactions are in the equation that changes the course of destiny.

(P.S. I write this as I witness ridiculous things happen around me. Pea-brained people argue about trivialities as the elephant in the room goes on a rampage. Young larks fly off the roost seeking newer terrains as their nests become toxic cesspools. The cacophony of small minds in big numbers is mind-blowing.)

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Like bees drawn to nectar!

Jatt vs IELTS (Punjabi; 2018)
Director: Devi Dutt

It is a problem in most developing countries. The generation around the country's independence bent over backwards to provide for the family. They felt contented to be self-sufficient and to ensure their offspring were not deprived of the things they missed. With the advent of widespread dissemination of information and systemic glorification of modern living, the youngsters just turned out pompous and sluggards.

This is a universal problem experienced by societies in upcoming post-independent Asian nations. The younger generation cannot wait to buzz off from their birth country. They feel they can only find their true potential away from the toxic environments enveloping their nations. The West, it seems, gave them the validation and liberation they needed. 

Modern education provides equal opportunities for all. The end result of this is women performing way better in all academic indices. 

About twenty years ago, it seems the state of Punjab was the most prominent food supplier to the rest of the country. It also used to be the biggest revenue earner in terms of taxes. All over the years, its position has undergone a significant slide. Social problems have grown. Alcoholism and drug addiction amongst the young has skyrocketed. Punjab blames Pakistan for the maleficent dropping of dope over the border via air balloons and drones.

Komatagaru Maru

Reports of young Punjabis smuggled across the European borders are no secret. News of them being made to work in slave-like conditions in Italian vineyards and Portugal is nothing new. Canada has been a hotbed for Punjabi immigration since the late 1800s, amidst much hostility. Canadian hostile stance against Asian migration of the 20th century and The Komagata Maru incident in 1914 when Punjabis were refused disembarkation and were turned away still stays fresh in everyone's mind. 

These days, with the friendly attitude shown by Trudeau and his government, it seems that every Punjabi harbours a secret dream to be a Canadian citizen. For that, applicants need to score well on an English proficiency test named International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

This movie combines all of the above to depict the sad state of affairs in a light comedy. The main character, Jassi, is a wealthy farmer's 'good for nothing' son who spends all his time gallivanting here and there on his motorbike. He abhors the idea of continuing his father's occupation. Much to the chagrin of his father, Jaggi wants to complete his IELTS exams and migrate to Canada. The problem is that he is not the sharpest tool in the box. He learns of the idea of marrying a girl who had got a visa to Canada and joining her later with a spousal visa. The plan backfires when the wife remarries in Canada.

One would expect the film to end with the protagonist having a realisation to stay back in Punjab, develop some kind of patriotism and resolve to be a farmer. But, no. He still manages to go to Canada, albeit by other means! 

(P.S. On a side note, Trudeau's government tried to win the Punjabi hearts by apologising for the Komatgaru Maru debacle, having many Sikh ministers in key cabinet positions and expressing their undivided support in the recent farmers protest. Now the tables are turned around. Truck drivers, many of whom were of Punjabi descent, have started protesting against the country's Covid mandate and brought Ottawa to a standstill. Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, is said to have been taken away for protective custody!)

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Affirmative action can't last forever!

Yennanga Sire Ungga Sattam (என்னங்க சார் உங்க சட்டம், Tamil; 2021)

Director: Prabhu Jeyaraman

Suppose the idea of affirmative action is to uplift a particular community group and give an equal fighting chance to the oppressed to get their place in the sun. In that case, it should only be handed to one generation. After being given the levy, their offspring should not be expecting the same. Everybody only gets one chance. They are expected to pull themselves up by their boot-straps with the chance given to them. That is it. Freebies are not infinite. 

This film is one of the many new genre movies which highlights the plight of fringe people. The filmmakers named this movie a duplex as the real story with message starts with the movie's second part. The first part is essentially a draggy commercial that does not contribute much to the rest of the story. In a complicated way, it boils down to two scenarios.

The first instance involves an interview for a government post. The viewers are shown how nepotism, recommendations and quota allocations predetermine which candidate would probably succeed in an interview. A person from the higher caste has to work doubly harder to qualify for the same job as one from the scheduled caste. Things are not so straightforward, however.  A person who fails may genuinely be unimpressive but would cry foul anyway. A person from the lower rung of society may have been unexposed and deprived of many things because of poverty. Sometimes, people of influence get it anyway.

If we were to blame religion for the evil effects of caste in society, we even see discrimination within the houses of worship. It is not the religion at fault per se, but rather the people who act as pillars of the faith, in their greed to hold the rein of temple management, come up with rules and regulations at their whims and fancies. When intelligent discussions do not solve the problems, they recoil into the wisdom of ancient text to assert their point. Even within the four walls of the House of God, there is blatant discrimination.

The end result of not giving the job to the best man around only results in brain drain. Unfortunately, solving this issue is not easy. At a time now when identity politics plays a vital role in how a country should be run, politicians will continue pandering to populist politics. Level headedness is a rare commodity in the 21st century.

P.S. Extrapolate the message behind this story to our own backyard. Affirmative action cannot go on forever. It would only result in lazy, entitled rent-seekers who cannot survive in the real world. One black swan event, and they would just fizzle out.

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Against the wind!

Pariyerum Perumal (2018)
Story & Direction: Mari Selvaraj

The world out there is just there to bring you down. Those who succeed in life do so not because of the people around them but, despite the people breathing down their necks. The world is cruel, and every living day can be a struggle for some. But, the successful indeed have a treasure chest full of adventures and near-misses stories to tell about their journey to victory. These rag to riches stories may inspire another foothill soldier at the foot of the hill to scale greater heights. And at the end of the day, the ferocious desire to succeed burns within the individual. Events around him spark the tinder.

This is one such story of a person from the marginalised part of society trying against all odds to fit into Law College. He befriends a fellow female student who seems to be fond of him. Sure, we have seen such movies. A lone wolf with fighting skills that Hercules would be ashamed of, bulldozing through the army of the oppressors and proving his worth by the end of the film. Well, this one is different.

Equipped with picturesque aerial views of the Tamil Nadu countryside and the chaotic depiction of Thirunaveli town, we are shown caste discrimination. At the same time, it also exposes the broken education system where the underqualified is pushed up the ladder of education not based on their educational achievements but just to satisfy quotas of affirmative action. Imagine the protagonist entering a Law College without mastering simple English. The system failed, not that he is not clever; his school did provide good teachers.

His coursemates look at him with disdain for slowing them down and depriving another higher achiever of contributing to society from the word get-go. Despite the encouragement of others from the same boat, unshackling from the biases of society is not easy. The raging hormones of the young body are not helping either.

The story tells the transformation of a timid young man who grows up knowing his sanctioned place in society and not wanting to rock the boat to a hot-blooded bloke who screams out to exert his rightful place in the community - all done in a progressive art form that infuses celluloid artistry and real-life reality. The song 'Karuppi, Karuppi' is catchy. It combines a Tamil funeral wailing rant (oppaari, ஒப்பாரி) with rap lyrics and modern musical instruments. 

This film is said to be able to showcase the plights of the backward classes in India, much as Speilberg's 'Schindler's List' did to highlight the pain that the Jews endured during the Nazi occupation. Discrimination amongst people is as old as civilisation itself. It cannot be resolved within a single generation. But, like how the movie ends, it all starts with sitting at the same table and sharing a drink together. That also is already a significant achievement in certain communities in India when a person of the lowest of the caste denomination can sit eye to eye sipping chai. 

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