More than a book....

Reading a book and wishing with all your heart that it was a work of fiction; hoping that the protagonist had no resemblance with anyone dead or alive... Such a feeling was a first time for me. Yesterday, after my regular dose of net and facebook, when I settled down with the book, I was pulled into a world which I never thought would exist. By 2 30 in the morning, though I was done with the book, I was still haunted by that world. And I was searching; searching for a clue which would tell me that it was a not real. What I got was a confirmation that author never felt the need to exaggerate the incidents to make it readable.


Najib, the protagonist, was a young man from north Kerala, who was struggling to make both ends meet. Married and expecting his first kid, Najib found it hard to resist the temptation of the 'Gulf dream', when an opportunity came his way. Like any typical to be 'Gulf Malayalee', he too saw the middle east as a land of opportunities; a land that would help him provide a better life to his mother, wife and kid. But the reality was starkly different. 

'Aadujeevitham' (Goat days) is a malayalam novel by Benyamin which takes us thru the life of Najib while he is in Saudi Arabia. He gets trapped there and is forced to lead the life of a slave. For three years, nine months and three days he spend as a slave, he never even once took bath, all he ate was khoboos soaked in water, only shade he had from the desert sun was that of an old cot and the goats he had to look after were his only company. All thru this period he was forced to do back breaking work and was promptly beaten up when ever his master felt him breaking any rules(using water to wash up, talking with anyone-there were hardly anyone in the first place etc) or not working hard enough. Slowly Najib identifies himself with the goats and consider himself one of them. Najib's goat days are full of harshness, suffering, humiliation and pain. But the goodness of the book lies in the way it portrays divinity.

Despite the hardships he went thru, Najib never lost faith in his God. He believed that there was a divine hand that was leading him through. And he was right!! It was proved not just once, not twice, but four times!! He realized that Allah at times even travelled inside expensive cars!!! It is the essence of the book, the message that whatever hardship you may face in your life, if you believe with all your heart that some divine force will take you through, you will be proved right!! Books like The Secret and Alchemist convey the same message, but it is only now I am convinced that it has some merit!! Aadujeevitham-a must read for anyone who loves life...


P.S:
Priyappetta Ibrahim Qadiri, ningal oru satyamanengil-satyamavatte ennu njan aadmarthamai praarthikkunnu- ningaliloode njan ente daivathine kaanunnu..!!!
(Dear Ibrahim Qadiri, if you are real (and I wish you be real), I see my god in you)

Manja Veyil Maranangal (Not a book review)

How often have you read a book and thought, 'can it all be really true'? I am sure anyone who read Da vinchi Code would have. And that in itself adds to the beauty of the book. Taking reader to a world where facts and fiction are clobbed together in such a way that the reader finally ends up becoming a researcher to see if what he read was really true or not! Such books not only provide you with satisfaction of reading a good story, but an awareness of the history behind the plot. I just found one such book! 

The name of the book is 'Manjaveyil Maranangal', a malayalam book by Benyamin. On the surface the book is about circumstances leading to the death of two people (I dont want to name the characters who die, coz even it could be a spoiler!) The gripping investigation story leads us to even more fascinating historical facts. Once you start reading it, like a true page-turner, the book will haunt you till you have read the last page and beyond.

More than the story, I was fascinated by the history behind the plot. It talks about the rites and rituals followed by an old christian family in Kerala. It is said to have striking similarity with Hindu practices. Early Christians in kerala, also known as Christians of St. Thomas, used to follow many of the Hindu customs. Hindu beliefs on transmigration, fate etc were taken up by them. It is said that they even had caste system and followed untouchability!! Another fascinating fact that I came across in the book was that in Kerala, during the period between 9th and 13th century, there was a Christian King, by the name Raja Thoma. The kingdom,Villarvattom, was close to Kochi and its capital was a town called Udayamperoor. This town also has huge significance in the history of Christianity in Kerala, and India.

So how did Christianity begin in Kerala? It began much before spread of the religion in other parts of the country. It is said that in 52 AD, ST.Thomas the Apostle came to Kerala. As he visited many parts of Kerala, local inhabitants including namboothiri brahmins converted to Christianity. Later in 4th century, the visit of Thomas of Kana also helped in spreading the religion further. These early Christians are today called Saint Thomas Christians. They were part of Church of East that was centered in Persia. 

Now church of East has a history of its own. It is based out of Nestorius's doctrine, which believes that the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ were separate. Hence Virgin Mary was not 'bearer of God' but 'Bearer of Christ'. That in effect removed divinity from Virgin Mary. The Roman Churches condemned Nestorius's doctrine and the religious practices of the church of East. Hence the animosity of Portuguese, when they found that St.Thomas Christians aligned with Church of East, can be understood. 

Even though initial relation between the early Christians and the Portugues were cordial, within a century's time things turned upside down. The Roman church patriarchs wanted to bring St.Thomas christians under their control. Aggressive measures were adopted for the same and finally in 1599 through Synod of Diamper(Udayamperur) ancient Christian Church of Malabar was brought under the Roman Catholic Church. 

However many of St Thomas Christians resisted the Synod. The growing resentment agaist the Synod lead to, in 1653, what is known as Coonan Cross Oath(Koonan Kurishu Satyam). It was the swearing of a large gathering of St.Thomas Christians not to accept the faith of the Pope of Rome. The group gathered at a church in Mattanchery and read aloud the oath touching a stone cross. Ropes were tied to the cross and those who could not touch the cross held to the rope while saying the oath. The stone cross is said to have bent because of the weight and hence the name 'koonan kurishe' (bent cross). 

Even though St. Thomas Christians stayed together during Coonan Cross Oath, with in a decade, they were split into Syrian Catholic and Malankara church factions. Syro-Malabar Catholics, Chaldean Syrian, Jacobites, Syrian Orthodox, Syro-Malankara and Mar Thoma Church factions emerged from further splits that happened with time. Thus along with Roman Catholics, Latin Catholics, CSI and Protestants, we can see that the Christian community of modern Kerala is rich and diverse, both in terms of faith and factions. 

The origin of Christianity is only a part of the interesting facts that the book presents before us. The place called Diego Garcia might not be familiar to many of us. The fact that Diego is a collection of diverse Indian culture may come as a surprise and that many of the Indian languages are spoken there will be a shocker. There is no doubt that the author did his homework well. All his research works are well reflected in the book. Benyamin's ability to present them as a plot for an exciting investigative story make the book a special read...

Love Tracking

T1: But she was so hot buddy. Lets say it was love at first sight. I just want her name.
T2: I cant help you mate. I am sorry.
T1: Just this one time, plz. Count on me for your nxt two months' mob bills.
T2: Hmm... ok.. juz the name, right? Where did you see her?
T1: She was sitting in one of the cubicles in X1 cyber cafe. I even know the number of the system which she used.
T2: Brilliant! You made my task easy. All I have to do is get into the database of the cafe. There I will get details of every one who visited the cafe in the last one year, thanks to IT (Amendment) Act, 2008. Juz gimme a min...
T2: There you go. Going by the day, time and system id you mentioned, your new heartthrob's name must be Mansi.
T1: And..???
T2: What And?
T1: Is that all you can get? I thought you ll get me atleast her mob number as well.
T2: Dont challenge me buddy.... You wanna see what else i can get?
T1: yaa let see...
T2: Mob number is easy. Its already there in the cafe register. There you go 099xxxxxxxx. Let me see if I can get her UID from UID database. It should not be difficult. I have got thru their firewall like a million times!!
.....
T2: Yuppii....!!! Got it!! we have her UID. Now things are much more smooth man... Give me sometime and I will let you know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Let me see if I can take a peek at NATGRID using her UID. (National Intelligence Grid is a government initiative that targets to network 21 available databases across government and private sectors).
.......
T2: Buddy, take a look at this. Your queen seems to be having three bank accounts. She went to AA hospital twice in last one month but luckily the insurance cover took care of most of the expenses. There is another alternate number that she uses. And she has done a huge withdrawal yesterday using which she booked ticket for two to Singapore mate. So she is going somewhere. Lets see who she is going with. The airlines database link to NATGRID should help me there.
.......
T2: Yo, Yo... This is getting better. Hey man, do you want to know exactly where she is now?
T1: Wow, will you be able to tell me that?
T2: Ya dude. Looks like you are lucky. I can help you out in her case man. See the name of the person your Mansi is going with. It is Mohammad Hanif. The name is all I need man! I have a fake profile in CMS (CMS - Central Monitoring System is a centralised mechanism that can assist in lawful interception of communications from landline, mobile and Internet. Although it can be used only if there is a lawful interception law, it seems to have been tested recently without any lawful interception law in India). Using that profile, I will register Mohammad Hanif as a terror suspect. Adding Mansi as a co-conspirator, I can get clearance to track her as well. To hell with old methods of getting sanctions from the Home Minister and going to the communication providers for tracking. Now all i need is a reason to believe that one person is a potential suspect and her mobile becomes a virtual GPS for me.
............
T2: Gotcha!! Look at this place in google map. It seems to be the place from where the mob signals are coming. The location matches her address in UID. So this is where she is now. Hey, look her mob is ringing. You wanna listen to her?
.................
.................
T1: I think I love her. Atleast I love her voice.
T2: Hey lover boy, that was not what I was thinking. Did you notice she said she was going again to the internet cafe?
T1: Ya, I was thinking of going there myself. I juz wanna see her one more time..
T2: What if I help you see her sitting over here?
T1: What:
T2: Yup. This cafe was covered under NTRO(National Technical Research Organisation develops technology capabilities in aviation and remote sensing, data gathering and processing, cyber security, cryptology systems, strategic hardware and software development and strategic monitoring) surveillance program. The whole cafe is covered with monitoring devices. Let me see if I can get access to those camera feeds.
......
T2: There you go! May I present to you, your own sweet, love at first sight lady.
T1: I was expecting a better clarity. I can hardly make out her face yar...
T2: This was installed by India govt. What did you expect??
T1: She is getting up. Hey, she is moving towards the rest room. Is there...
(T1 turns and looks at T2)
T2: (With a naughty smile)... Juz enjoy the show...!!!!
.......................
......................
 As you might have understood, i am a very bad story teller. I guess you might have also figured that telling a story was not my intention. Whatever i have mentioned here could happen to any of us. With so much of hacking going around, it will be a monumental task for the government to protect its database(its record so far is not very encouraging). 
It is an unfortunate fact that even in India, a muslim name could bring trouble to a person. Sad but true fact. 
There was a huge controversy in 2007, when one camera was found hidden in the restroom of NTRO office.

I hate Sainath

 Oh, I absolutely hate him. Every time I read an article by Sainath, it leaves in me a sense of anger, frustration and desperation. Anger at the blatant lies that he exposes. Frustrated about how the system is busy projecting a halo around itself while deep down every thing is rotten and festered. And desperation at me being just a mere witness, bawling a lot, yet doing nothing!

  I have, for the past few years, always felt proud when the numbers on agriculture production were quoted. From 2006 our agricultural production has been on the rise, and for the last couple of years, we have been setting new highs in total cereal production. In spite of everything they say bad about agriculture, at least something is going well, I thought. The pulse village initiative and the efforts to bringing Green Revolution to East India are showing some results. And with the increase in production, we at least have the food we need to feed our people. We should be much better off than the pre-reforms era, when we had neither food nor a way to distribute whatever was available, I kept thinking until this guy comes along with his numbers.

  With his uncanny ability to read between the lines and uncover hidden truths in the flashy statistics projected by the government, Sainath has once again come up with a beautiful article. He shows us how those records set by us in crop production are decreasingly getting translated to food at the hands of poor. Would you believe that at an average, a person living in the pre-Green Revolution era(1956 - '60) had access to more food grains than someone who is living today(2006 - '10)!!! No mate, its not the population growth that should be blamed here. Our food production has grown at a faster rate than population growth, meaning, per capita net availability of foodgrains should have increased, irrespective of the population growth. But we are witnessing a reverse trend.

  What is more disturbing is that this trend of declining net availability was not always the case. Till a certain period in Indian history, we saw an increase in the net availability. The Success of Green Revolution had made India a food excess state. And the increase in food production was indeed impacting the net food grain availability in a positive way. More food was now reaching our people and its rate was increasing. But then, come a particular land mark in Indian history, there is a sudden reversal! And ever since, quantity of food that reaches the people declined steadily; sorry fact is that it continues even today. No points in guessing the historic land mark; it is the economic reforms of 1991.

  We have all been made to believe that pre 91 era was a period where the policy aimed at 'distributing poverty'; where the burden of the poor was borne by the rich. And post '91 represents a period when the government allows the rich to get more rich, but a part of that richness will be utilized in up lifting the poor. 'Let the rich get richer, but the poor also should get better' was the thinking. Everyone knew that it was a folly. But even the most pessimistic would have thought that with increase in production and wealth, at least some of it would 'trickle down' to the poor. What better way than quoting the great journalist himself to show how wrong we were.

 "If production is rising, which it is; if the upper classes are eating a lot better, which they are; and if per capita availability keeps declining, which it does- that implies three things at least. that foodgrain is not getting to those who need it. That the gap between those eating more and those eating less is worsening. And that food prices and incomes of the poor are less and less in sync" - What a statement, sir! Ladies and Gentlemen, The king of Indian journalism- Take a bow

  The situation is to get a lot more worse. With the new policies on PDS, more poor will be kicked out out of the PDS.(It is a relief that the planning commission, after much 'research' found out that 2200 paise a day was sufficient to live king size. People who got kicked out are actually rich! They just don't realize it. Its more of a physiological issue, you know).  A universal PDS with a structured exclusion criteria is the need of the hour. Example of states like Andhra and Tamil Nadu stand testimony to this fact. But Indian think-tank decided that we are already spending too much on subsidies and so a universal PDS is not economically feasible. It is another matter that the cost for Universal PDS will be only a fraction of the concessions enjoyed by the corporate sector!! In a system where the policies are under corporate control, what else to expect?

  The government has started to realize the importance of agricultural sector. You cannot ignore the helplessness of the corporate sector here. If government want to project India as a 'destination-next' state, Indian economy must grow at a steady pace. If agriculture is neglected, then for GDP to grow by 7-8 percent, both manufacturing and services sector will have to sweat their heart out. At the same time, if there is even a 4 percent growth in agriculture, some 10 percent growth by manufacturing and services would ensure the targeted 7-8 percent overall growth. Hence government helping agriculture is a bitter pill that the corporate sector is forced to swallow. But is it too late?

 In the last decade ('91 -'01) close to 7.5 million people quit farming. This decade, the figures will be more disastrous for sure. Government has neither done enough to make farming profitable nor implemented any policies to attract youth to take up agriculture. It is important to increase the productivity and profitability of small farm agriculture. Attracting and retaining youth in farming is the greatest challenge faced by the sector and even in the present budget there is no provisions for the same. With the poor getting more poor, and government policies are only accelerating that trend. This is the grim picture of rural India that Sainath presents before us.

 A journalist becomes successful when he is able to convey through his words, the very raw emotions that he felt while writing them. The frustration and anger that I felt reading the article would have been first felt by Sainath when he wrote it. I am sure that millions out there felt the same way as I did. Even though it makes him one of the best journalist I have had the honor of following, I hate him still!!!

My Take on Q-Net

 The success of Network marketing companies like Q-Net is that they are able to re brand themselves from being a product based company to a platform for enthusiastic entrepreneurs who hope to see their returns grow over time. All you need is an initial investment and enough heart to go out and find people with similar tastes for doing business. It, to me, offered a window of opportunity-financially as well as in developing my personality- especially in India, where youngsters who would risk 30K for some business ventures were not that very difficult to find. But something was not right. Something somewhere was being over looked. And I wanted to find it out.

  It starts with the idea that Q-Net is a platform for doing business. I will be interested in doing business with the company only if I get some profit out of it(well that obvious, isnt it?). It means that I pay the company 30k and the company is happy to give me back more than what I had paid it! Why would any company be interested in doing that? Unless it is somehow making profit, a huge amount of profit! Even after paying me more than what i had invested, the company is still making profit! That sounded ridiculous to me. Then I realized that the secret is in the volume of new members joining. The more i have people joining under me, the more profit I will get. If I am able to add an infinite number of people in front of me, then every new member added to the end of that infinite chain would earn me a profit! The profit i earn is infact a part of the amount those new joiners had paid to the company. 

 So what fraction of that new joiners' money did i get? To make that calculation, I placed myself at the end of the line. So I am the person who just joined and is trying to find potential businessmen. Above me, there are infinite number of people, ready to help me find a new member and to share the profits with me. For me to get my first paycheck I need to add 3 each to both sides. Once they are added, thanks to these six new members I will get my first paycheck of 11.5K. Where did this 11.5k come from? Ofcourse from the investments made by my six new apprentices-each of whom had paid 30k each. 

  Now comes the maths part. So I being at the level just above the six new members, the whole of my 11.5k will be paid from their cumulative investment. But does it stop here? No. There are more people above me waiting for their share. So what happens to them? Lets take the person directly above me(let us call him Laloo and let me be on his A side). So for him, all six are on the his same side. So if Laloo need to make his 11.5k, he will have to find another 3 people to be added to his B side. That means, three from my six members and three new members on his B side will give Laloo his 11.5k. The converse would be that only half of Laloo's returns are paid from my six apprentice. If we go one step higher-that is to the person just above Laloo's, we will find that only one fourth of his return of 11.5k is being paid from the six i had added. You will find that as we go higher up, the share of the my six sheep goes on decreasing, and it decreases in a geometric progression pattern. 

 So if there are infinite number of people above me, then the total amount taken out of the investments of the six new members i had added can be represented using the following equation

                          Total Amount = 11.5k * (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + .......) (G.M with r = 1/2)

                                               = 11.5k *  1 / (1 - 1/2)

                                               = 23k

 It is this amount of 23k that came as a complete surprise to me. It meant that when i help the company to raise 1.8 lakh rupees(30k * 6), it takes 1.5 Lakh as its profit and 23k is distributed as returns for investors like me! Q-Net being a company based out of Hongkong, and with almost zero investment in marketing, almost the whole of this amount flows out of the country. So essentially what i do by investing in Q-Net is help 1.5Lakh rupees flow out of every six people added and in return, I get 23k as reward! I wouldn't have had any problem in such a massive outflow of money, had there been a reason. If Q-Net was being paid for a product that is in demand or for a service that is being sought after, then it would have well been fine with me. But here, the drain of 1.5 Lakh for every 23k is happening for absolutely no reason! I pay the money, not to buy product, but to give 10 percent of it to a few of my fellow men and the rest 90 percent is taken out of the country as profit for Q-Net; and this I cannot accept!

 Venturing into entrepreneurship is always praiseworthy. Entrepreneurs have always been beacon of hope in the society and they form the engine that drives the country forward. But every business should have an underlying purpose. It is this purpose that should motivate us in our venture and not the prospect of making money alone. Money, like food, matters only when you don't have it!

Q-Net Way of doing business

 I heard about Q-Net almost a month back. When it was presented to me for the first time, it sounded one of the most promising investment proposal. If I had enough captial with me at that time, I would have been doing business for Q-Net rather than writing this blog. But today, I look at the way they do business from a different angle and what I see from my current perspective does not look bright. Now I have decided that I dont want to do anything with Q-Net. So what really happened, you would ask. The best way to answer this question would be by describing the two different perspectives I had with the Q-Net style of business.

  Q-Net is a product based company that uses network marketing for sale of its products. It is based out of Hong Kong, and has been in this business for more than a decade. So how does Q-Net sell its product? Suppose you liked something offered by Q-Net and bought it. Now you can also be a sales person for the company. But there is a catch. You can sell the products only to two people and not more! So if A, B, C and D are your friends, then you can sell the products only to two of them, say A and B. So what if C and D also like the product? They cant buy it from you directly. You can introduce them to A or B and then ask either of them to sell the products to C and D. It does sound a bit restrictive method of doing business right? If you have 10 friends who could be potential buyers, they cannot buy the product directly from you. You will have to make them buy from A or B. And if A and B have already found their own buyers, then you have to go around and find who these new buyers are and see if they have sold their products. If not, then you can introduce your friends who are willing to buy the product. Why would anyone take such trouble?

 A major reason why people are willing to take this sort of trouble is the way Q-Net has branded itself. Anyone who buys product from the company is not a buyer for them. He is an adventurous and ambitious businessman. The amount spend on the product is more an investment than the price of the product. So if you buy a product, you are more a business person willing to invest some of your money in a promising entrepreneurship, than just a buyer. The success of Q-Net is that it is able to almost completely erase the buying-product-at-a-price concept from its networks and replace it with invest-for-maximum-return kind of thinking. You come into the network, not to buy the product, but to do a business. And just like any other business, you need to raise an initial investment. As a token of appreciation from Q-Net for doing business with them, they will send you a product worth the amount you have invested. Thus it is a double bonus-not only do you get return for your investment, you will also be given a quality product worth the amount that you invest.

 We saw the image change of Q-Net from a company selling products to a platform to do business. If I am interested in doing some business, how will I get returns for my investment in Q-Net? It is by finding more such people who are interested in business. The more number of people i find interested in investing their money, the more returns I will get. But there is a catch! I can add only two persons as my fellow business partners. If i find any one else willing to do business, they will be added as the partners of my partners(Remember my friends A,B,C and D?). So A and B will come directly under me as new business men and C and D can come in as friends of A or B. It would mean that whatever return I get by adding C and D, A or B(whoever added C and D) will also get a share(In fact they will be more benefited than me!).

This catch means that if I want to increase my return then I cannot do so by adding someone directly below me. But i will have to add the new person below C or D. Thus, to get more returns, I will have to help those who have joined below me. Converse would mean, if i did not find A and B, those above me would help me in finding someone. Thus you are not alone in this business. There will always be someone who is willing to help you in finding a new partner. This spirit of team work will give you a feeling of protection-a feeling that someone genuinely want to help you prosper and help in increasing your confidence and increases your chance of maximizing your profit.

 Now lets see how their business works. I will have to put in an initial investment of 30K(By buying a product, which is mandatory to start the business). Then I will have to add people below me. If i have 3 people each added to my A side(A,C and D) and B side(B,E and F), then I am guaranteed of a remunerative amount of 11.5K. As I go on adding 3/3(i.e 3 each on A side and B side), for each 3/3 I will get 11.5K as my return. The company check for such 3/3 pairs on a weekly basis. So if I add A and B in the first week and they add C,D,E and F on the second week, I will get my 11.5K on my second week. In the third week, there are 4 guys-C,D,E and F- on the look out for prospective business men. If all of them are able to find their partners in the following week, for me, there will be two pairs of 3/3 which translates to 2*11.5K as my return. Thus if everything goes as per the plan, I would be able to make a profit from my investment by the month end! I know it is a bit far fetched. Practically, by the end of the year at least, chance of me finding enough people below me to ensure profit is high.

 If you were expecting me to disprove the above claim, of break-even within a year and profit from there on, then you were wrong! I believe that it is very much possible. I am not here to prove that  Q-Net is a fraud company. In fact, those who introduced this proposal to me were as genuine as anyone could be and were already into this business. I also don't think that they were fooled into it. And I am almost certain that they will get back their initial investment and a lot more profit from this business. So whats really wrong with me? What is bugging me?

 The problem is that I started to look at this business structure from a different perspective. So what is this different perspective? This post has already become too long to include the other side of the coin. So shall we wait for my next post to discuss the reasons why I don't want to do this business even though I find it legitimate, good value for my money and where teamwork is not an option, but a necessity. 

The coming of Aryans

 The first Aryans to come to Kerala were not Namboothiris(Kerala Brahmans) but Buddhist and Jain scholars. In fact by 1AD, Buddhism was a popular culture in Kerala. But with the coming of Shankaracharya, Hindu culture began to spread and slowly Buddhism was almost completely wiped out of the state. During Sankham period, though Aryans made their presence felt, the socio-economic structure that we talked about in the last post were not changed much. It was during the period after Sankhakaalam and 9AD that the society saw a major social transformation.

 This period, between 2-9AD, could be related to the mythological story of Parsuraman. The Brahmans had come to Kerala and had settled in 32 villages( called Ooure or Aadigraamam). {Legend has it that Parasuraman brought 64 Brahman families with him from north to Kerala}. It is believed that most of them came from south Maharashtra region. Even though they were less in numbers, the brahmins reached the helm of socio-economic hierarchy in the state within 6-7 centuries, and this myth that an avatar had brought them to a new land to set up new social order was popularized to justify their ascending to the top of the social ladder.

 But what enabled them to gain upper hand? A major reason was the popularity and spread of Bhakti movement. We have seen that during Sankham period, Buddhism and Jainism had its followers in the state; while most of the Dravidian religious beliefs were based out of kaavu(a place for worship). It is said that during this time, all three cultures had a harmonious existence. But with the coming of Bhakti movement, the influence of these cultures started to wane. The Bakthi movement reached its peak in Kerala during 8A.D when Sankaracharyar traveled across the state(and the country) to revive and spread Advaitha Vedantam. Aryans started construction of temples and were successful in making temples the center of Hindu religion.

  The popularity of temple culture had a deep rooted impact in the shaping of caste system in the state. Brahmans ensured that the running of temples, or at least conduction of rites and rituals inside sanctum were exclusively their right. This helped them in gaining social acceptance and respect. The fact that royalties regularly sought advice and suggestions from religious cleric also helped the Brahmans in moving up the political ladder.

 9AD has a lot of significance in Kerala History. History of Malayalam language begins here. Malayalam calender, kollavarsham started in this century(there are different versions on how and why kollavarsham began). Also the second Chera dynasty, also known as Kulashekara dynasty came to power during this time. The Brahmans had started to play a significant role in socio-economic and political affairs of the state by then. Also the growth of temple culture gave rise to different sects in the society who were dependent on temple. Thus there were chakyars who were actors conducting drama in the temple;varyaars were responsible for financial management of temple chores; marars who were experts in different art forms.  Those nairs who held large area of devaswam land later on became a different sub caste known as nayanaars. Thus we see how temple culture had a major impact in shaping of caste system in Kerala.

 To meet the temple expenses, rulers used to donate land to the brahmins. Such lands that were given to temples came to be known as Devaswam and those donated to brahmins were called Brahmaswam. The rulers did not levy any tax for these lands as they were given for a religious purpose. Also during wars(Chera kings used to have frequent wars with Pandyas and Cholas), brahmaswam and devaswam lands were spared from attack. Slowly local people also started to do bhoodanam for religious reasons, to evade from tax or to protect their lands for foreign attacks. Needless to say, devaswam and brahmaswam lands increased and thus the spiritual heads of the society also became landlords. kshetra kudiyaan  were responsible for looking after the land and they engaged Adiyaalars to do the farming works. Usually the kudiayaans were dravidians while adiyaalars were either Negrito or Australoid races. Slowly the role one played in the land started to reflect his position in the society-Brahmins, who by now enjoyed prominent position in socio-economi-political front were at the top of the chain while Pulayar, Parayar etc. who constituted the Adiyaalars were at the bottom.

 Once the caste hierarchy took shape, was imperative for the upper caste to make it rigid. It helped them remain at the top of the 'food chain'. The customs like aiytham or untouchability ensured that there was no mixing of Brahmins with other lower castes and by allowing only the heir to marry(veli) the feud within the family for land and property was avoided. In the later years, this rigid scheme of things meant that only a very few in the society enjoyed a life of luxury and freedom. For all others life gave only loneliness, suffering, pain and poverty(contrary to popular belief, majority of namboothiris also fall into this group!).

 The objective of this post was not to give an overview of Kerala history, but to discuss how caste system in Kerala originated and to show that it was not a natural transition from the occupational background. In most of the cases, the lower castes were forced into the moulds prepared by the upper castes when it came to occupation. The system was then made as rigid as possible so as to reduce inter mingling to the minimum. It is this rotten system that I refer to when I talk about caste system that existed in India.

PS: Kindly do not take any part of this post personal( saying from the experience from one of my fellow blogger :):)). Since it is a hot topic I have tried to be as accurate as possible. The source for most of the facts given above is 'Kerala Vijnjaana Kosham'. If you find any inconsistencies please point out the same :):)

The Caste System

this article is inspired from a post by subodh(I guess he too wanted something like this :)). It was indeed a bold article and truly he deserves credit for writing up such a wonderful article. But there were a few aspects in it with which i could not agree upon, which resulted in me writing this. The crux of his article was that occupation is the basis of caste system. Though the claim does have merit, it is not entirely accurate. The influx of numerous races into India and their subsequent overpowering and subjugation of the existing race also played a major role in the the rigid caste system that existed in India at the time of independence.

 India is a land of the immigrants. In a major ruling by the supreme court, it said that the original race of the country was actually the aborigines living in the Andaman Islands(http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article1081343.ece)! Different races came to India at different phases of its history. Most of the time, the visitors possessed a better social structure and technical skills than the natives and were able to easily overpower them. Thus the negroid were forced into the jungle by Australoids and whey were subsequently forced to give way for the Mediterraneans (we call the Dravidians, who build the Indus Valley civilization) and they were replaced by the Caucasoid(or Aryans). Most of the times, the new comers pushed the existing race away from the river valleys into the interior of the subcontinent- a reason why Dravidian languages are more prominent in the south and Devanagiri in the north.

 This much of what i said is not undisputed i guess. I refute the line of thinking that there was an occupational structure existing in the society and that went on to determine the caste structure. I believe that it was the racial heirarchey that led to a group taking up an occupation/role in the society. To illustrate my point, let me take up one example-that of Kerala. Similar to other states, Kerala too has its list of 'forward castes' such as Namboodiris, Nairs etc.; 'OBC' (Ezhava, Viswakarma etc.) and Scheduled Castes (Parayan, Pulayan etc). Most of these castes were not formed as a result of the role they played in the society but from their racial background. To understand how the present scheme of caste system came into being in the state, lets go a bit deeper into its history.

 The period between 5 B.C and 2 A.D in Kerala was known as the Sankham period. Though its not where Kerala history starts, for our convinience, we will have it as our starting point. During Sankham period in Kerala, as is the case with all other states in the country, aadivaasi and tribal groups that are now enlisted as the SCs played prominent role in the society. They constituted aborigines and australoid races. They formed different groups called gotras which had their own unique customs and beliefs. Sankham period saw the emergence of agrarian economy in the state and had trade relations even with the Europeans. The social status enjoyed by the aborigines then would have been vastly different from what they experienced later on in 18th and 19th century society.

 The two most prominent castes in Kerala, Nair and Ezhava are thought to have appeared between 3 and 4 A.D. Ezhavas are believed to have come from Eezham, which is the native name of Sri Lanka. They are usually given the credit for popularizing coconut cultivation in the state. Earlier Ezhavas were followers of Buddhism who later on adopted the native culture( i dont say converted to Hinduism as i believe Hindu religion is more an amalgamation of various cultures than a religion in itself). There are many theories on the emergence of Nairs. But i found the hypothesis that they were descendants of nayari tribes of central Asia most convincing. The Naga tribes in other parts of India also trace their roots to Nayaris. The custom of having sarppa kavu(Snake garden) in Nair houses is pointed out as an evidence for their link with the Nagas and Nayaris.

  Even during this time, we can see that the caste hierarchy has not taken a definite shape. This will wait until the Aryans start to have a definite hold on socio-economic-cultural milieu by the 10th century. I dont want to make this post too big to read by including that part here. So we will wait for the next post to see how the coming of Aryans had an effect on the social fabric of Kerala.

P.S: Since I am dealing with a hot topic, i have tried to be as accurate as possible. Please do point out any inconsistent facts in the article.