Take me back, someone,
To that day of eternal bliss
The day I first discovered
My alter ego.
The day I wandered
Beneath the darkness
Of a swarthy sky,
Listening to surreal beings
Drifting through the autumn air,
Musing on Life and Death;
On how humans part,
And how their memories
Remain within us
Like footprints left upon the sands of Time.
— Medhavagmi
It was during my college days in Chennai that the corruption case filed by Subrahmanian Swamy against Jayalalitha became a major topic of discussion. I was interested in debates and politics, and I lived on Cathedral Road, very close to the residences of both the ruling party and the opposition. I had the opportunity to witness political drama from close quarters. Yet, I never paid much attention to Tamil Nadu politics because I felt it was too dramatic to be analysed objectively.
However, this particular case had become a matter of national interest, and I decided to look a little deeper.
One day, I spoke to a police friend about an article my colleague in the media had written about Puratchi Thalaivi. He gave me a very different perspective and spoke about her personality, her relationship with material comforts and her strong desire for power. That was perhaps the first time I really started listening to what people in Tamil Nadu had to say about their Chief Minister.
Later, when my mother happened to mention Jayalalitha, I decided to share my criticism of her. Until then, I had mostly been a listener. My mother patiently heard me and then said just one thing.
"Please read about her past and the path she had to travel to reach where she is now before you comment on her."
She then quietly hung up the phone.
At that time, I had a fairly negative opinion of Jayalalitha. Perhaps some of it came from what I saw every day. She would leave her residence with a large convoy, and the SUV in which she travelled would have men holding on to the sides while hailing her. I thought it was excessive and felt uncomfortable watching such displays.
There were also plenty of stories about her luxurious lifestyle, including stories about saffron milk, rose milk baths and many other details that were discussed as fact or gossip. Her chair, which she carried with her wherever she went, was initially a source of amusement for me. I also heard stories about how people were expected to behave around her, including the way some men would bow before her or avoid looking directly at her while speaking to her.
At one point, I had formed a very harsh impression of her.
All of that changed when I began to learn more about her life.
I became a great admirer of Madam Jayalalitha Jayaram. I have never called her Amma. I have always called her Jayalalitha because I have never considered myself a blind follower. I am simply an ordinary woman who admired her abilities while also recognising and criticising her faults.
The first interview of Jayalalitha that I watched was Rendezvous with Simi Garewal. (To watch the interview click here). What stayed with me was the transformation of a deeply emotional young woman into one of India's most powerful and influential women.
"It has been a tempestuous life," Jayalalitha said of her own journey.
Her journey from being a film star to becoming Chief Minister is certainly worth reading about. To my knowledge, only one detailed biography of Jayalalitha is available online. (Click here)
The second interview I watched, among the relatively few she gave, was with Karan Thapar. (To watch the interview click here). I remember being impressed by the way she handled his difficult and often sarcastic questions. She remained composed and responded with confidence.
That interview made me appreciate her ability to handle pressure and defend her position.
Jayalalitha was undoubtedly a remarkable and complex person. She rarely allowed her emotions to overwhelm her in public, even during some of the most difficult moments of her political career. One of the most disturbing incidents she faced was the violence and humiliation she experienced in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, including an incident in which her clothing was reportedly pulled and she was subjected to deeply disrespectful behaviour.
Yet she continued her political journey.
She was a charming and multifaceted actor who was trained in several forms of dance. Less obviously, she was also well read, witty and intellectually confident. She was comfortable speaking in English and Hindi and could hold her own in serious discussions.
Her entry into politics cannot simply be explained through her association with MGR. She had her own abilities, particularly her command of language, her intelligence and her capacity to communicate.
Two months ago, while returning from New Delhi, I happened to get into a discussion with a fellow traveler who used a rather disrespectful term while referring to Jayalalitha. I found it difficult to accept, especially because his view seemed to be based largely on the corruption case in which she had been convicted by a trial court at that time.
He spoke very strongly against her.
I acknowledged that Jayalalitha had a well known fondness for luxury and that there were serious questions surrounding her political career. But I also felt that those issues should not completely overshadow an assessment of her administration and her contribution to Tamil Nadu.
What matters to me is the impact a government has on ordinary people. Whatever one's opinion of Jayalalitha as a person or politician, it is difficult to deny that she built a strong administrative and political presence in Tamil Nadu and introduced or supported several welfare measures that reached large sections of the population.
Since my fellow traveler and I were both from Kerala, I asked him about our own state government and the benefits he had personally experienced. That conversation made me reflect on the differences between the two states.
Coming from a middle class family, I had often felt that the government existed mainly in newspapers and television news. When I moved to Chennai, I began to understand how visible and effective a state government could be in the daily lives of ordinary people.
I simply asked him to name five positive or negative things Jayalalitha had done for Tamil Nadu before criticising her. He struggled to answer.
That stayed with me.
I felt that it was unfair to judge a politician only by the number of silk sarees she owned, the controversies surrounding her or the corruption allegations against her without knowing anything about her administration or her contributions to the state.
I believe a reasonable approach to criticism is to understand both sides before forming an opinion. Politicians deserve scrutiny, but they also deserve to be judged by their complete record. This is particularly important when discussing a woman who held enormous political power in a largely male dominated political environment.
My views about Jayalalitha changed because I took the time to understand her journey rather than relying only on the stories and impressions that surrounded her.
She was far from perfect. Neither was she a figure beyond criticism. But she was undoubtedly a woman of extraordinary determination, intelligence and political ability who broke several barriers in her time.
I conclude by paying my respects to Jayalalitha Jayaram, a politician who left an indelible mark on Tamil Nadu and on Indian politics.
RIP Jayalalitha Jayaram.
The spectacle of Mother Nature,
After several months.
Perhaps an apt way
To cleanse the soul.
A soul perplexed,
Lost in confusion.
A soul quietly burdened,
Drubbed into anguish for times unknown.
Raindrops on the face,
Droplets on the leaves.
The scent of the earth,
And the rhythm of nature.
The first rain,
Felt by all five senses.
Washed away the wounds
Cast upon the soul.
Vows to bring peace,
And the harmony once cherished.
Reminding us of what is worth holding,
It leaves with a gentle rustle.
Leaving behind a soul replenished,
Blessed for the journey ahead.
A smile upon the face,
And an impact upon the soul.
Medhavagmi
That immediately bothered me.
Can a religion as diverse and ancient as Hinduism really be defined as being “based on a caste system”?
I believe this deserves a closer look. Caste discrimination has been a serious social reality in India, and it has caused enormous suffering. It should neither be denied nor defended. At the same time, we should be careful about presenting caste as a simple, divinely ordained system created by the Vedas.
My purpose here is not to defend the caste system, nor to attack anyone because of their political or social beliefs. It is simply to examine what Hindu scriptures actually say about varna and whether the modern caste system can fairly be presented as a direct teaching of the Vedas.
I will also leave the Manusmriti largely outside this discussion. I do not consider it a religious authority for my own beliefs, and I disagree with many of its ideas. It is important to distinguish between different Hindu texts, their historical contexts, and the practices that developed in Indian society over many centuries.
Caste has been one of the most difficult social problems in India's history. It has created discrimination, exclusion and unequal treatment, and those realities cannot be brushed aside.
At the same time, there is a common assumption that the caste system in its present form was directly created by the Vedas. That assumption deserves examination.
The word “caste” itself does not come from Sanskrit. It comes from the Portuguese word “casta”, which referred to lineage, race or social group. In Indian traditions, the words varna and jati have different meanings.
This distinction is important.
Jati refers to the many social groups and communities that developed within Indian society. Varna refers to the four broad categories described in several Hindu texts.
Treating varna and the modern caste system as exactly the same thing can therefore lead to a very simplified understanding of Indian history.
One of the verses most frequently brought into discussions about caste is found in the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, in the tenth Mandala.
The verse describes the universe as the body of Purusha, with different parts of creation emerging from different parts of that cosmic being.
It says that the Brahmins came from the mouth, the Rajanyas from the arms, the Vaishyas from the thighs and the Shudras from the feet.
If this is read literally and in isolation, it can certainly appear to describe a hierarchy, with the Brahmins at the top and the Shudras at the bottom.
But there is another way to understand the passage.
The same hymn goes on to describe the Moon as coming from the mind, the Sun from the eyes, Indra and Agni from the mouth, the wind from the breath, the sky from the head and the Earth from the feet.
If coming from the feet automatically meant being inferior, then the Earth itself would have to be considered inferior to the Moon because the Moon comes from the mind.
That clearly does not make sense.
The imagery is therefore better understood symbolically rather than as a ranking of human worth.
The body needs every part to function. The mouth, arms, thighs and feet all have different functions, but one cannot meaningfully say that the human body can function without its feet simply because the feet are lower than the head.
This does not mean that later societies never used varna to justify hierarchy or discrimination. They clearly did. It means that we should not automatically read every later social practice back into the earliest Vedic symbolism.
The distinction between varna and jati is central to this discussion.
Modern caste is largely associated with birth based social groups, while the idea of varna in Hindu texts is often discussed in terms of qualities, abilities, duties and social functions.
The Bhagavad Gita, for example, describes the four varnas in relation to qualities and actions.
This is also consistent with passages that describe people according to their character and conduct rather than simply according to their birth.
The Rig Veda itself contains an interesting verse in which the speaker says that he recites hymns, his father is a healer and his mother grinds grain. The verse presents people performing different occupations within the same family.
This is worth considering when discussing the idea that ancient Indian society always followed a rigid hereditary division of occupations.
A society obviously needs teachers, farmers, traders, administrators, soldiers, craftsmen and many other occupations. Having different social functions is not, by itself, the same as saying that one human being is inherently superior to another.
The problem begins when social roles become fixed by birth and are used to deny people dignity, opportunity or freedom.
That distinction is important.
The idea that personal qualities and conduct matter can also be found in several Hindu texts.
The Bhagavad Gita discusses varna in terms of qualities and duties.
The Mahabharata contains discussions in which a person's character is given greater importance than their birth. In the Shanti Parva, qualities such as truthfulness, forgiveness and compassion are associated with the ideal Brahmin.
The Upanishads and other texts also contain discussions that make it difficult to reduce Hindu identity to a simple hereditary caste structure.
There are therefore many strands within Hindu literature, and they should not all be reduced to a single interpretation.
It is also important to acknowledge that Hindu texts themselves contain ideas that have been interpreted differently by different communities and at different points in history. Hinduism has never been a single institution speaking with one voice.
None of this should be used to deny the historical reality of caste discrimination.
Caste based exclusion, untouchability and discrimination have existed in India and have caused profound injustice. The fact that a particular practice may not be clearly commanded by the Vedas does not make the suffering caused by that practice any less real.
India's social history is complicated. Caste developed and changed over centuries through religious interpretation, social customs, political institutions, economic interests and local traditions.
Colonial rule also played a role in how Indian communities were classified, recorded and administered. But it would be equally misleading to claim that the British simply invented caste. Caste based social divisions existed in India long before British rule.
The honest position is somewhere between those two extremes.
We should neither pretend that caste was created entirely by outsiders nor claim that every aspect of the modern caste system was directly commanded by the Vedas.
Caste has also become deeply connected with modern Indian politics. Different political movements have used caste identities in different ways, sometimes to demand representation and justice, and sometimes to build electoral support.
That political reality should not be used to dismiss genuine discrimination.
At the same time, caste should not become a convenient weapon for portraying an entire religion or an entire community as inherently oppressive.
India's political debates are complicated enough without turning Hinduism into a caricature.
Criticising caste discrimination is necessary. Defending inherited privilege is not.
But neither is it necessary to attack Hinduism itself in order to oppose caste discrimination.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was one of the strongest critics of caste and one of the most important figures in India's struggle against caste discrimination.
His writings also show that the historical relationship between varna and caste is more complicated than the simple claim that they were always identical.
Ambedkar wrote that the early varna system could be understood as a class system in which individuals could change their class when they became qualified.
This does not mean that Ambedkar accepted the caste system. He did not. His life and work were devoted to challenging caste based inequality.
His work is important precisely because it reminds us that the question cannot be reduced to a simple argument between people who “support Hinduism” and people who “oppose Hinduism”.
The caste system has caused real suffering in India and deserves serious criticism.
But criticism should be based on history and evidence rather than on an assumption that the entire caste system was simply handed down by the Vedas.
There is a meaningful difference between varna, jati and the caste system that developed historically in India. There is also a difference between the symbolic language of the Purusha Sukta and the later social structures that came to be associated with caste.
Hinduism contains many traditions that emphasise character, conduct, knowledge, compassion and spiritual growth. It also contains texts that have been interpreted in different ways across centuries.
For that reason, I do not think Hinduism should be defined simply as a religion “based on a caste system”.
At the same time, acknowledging the philosophical distinction between varna and caste should never become an excuse for ignoring caste discrimination or defending inherited privilege.
The better approach is to acknowledge the injustice, understand the history honestly and examine the scriptures carefully.
The values expressed in prayers such as “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu”, wishing for the wellbeing of all beings, reflect an aspiration towards universal welfare.
Hinduism is a vast and diverse tradition. Its history contains both profound philosophical ideas and difficult social realities. We should be honest about both.
Rejecting caste discrimination does not require rejecting Hinduism.
And defending Hinduism should not require denying the reality of caste discrimination.
A serious discussion should be able to hold both truths at the same time.