Dear Paki-Tin,
I am extremely thankful to you for taking interest in our cause. I have gone through your blog and it is fantastic, thought provoking and is full of information that must be presented to every young Asian mind in the UK. I have to thank you for supporting us. We need people who oppose Caste discrimination in the UK and are willing to take part in a massive social reform and education of young Brit Asians to develop their identities in line with British Values and not based on obsolete and discriminatory bigotry.
It is fascinating to see the view points of people when they speak about racism. The same people make a complete and very fast u-turn the moment you present them with caste issues and go into denial mode. As someone, who has personal experience of both, caste discrimination is considerably more painful, particularly in British situation. Hindus and others who are still trying to maintain the caste divides have to be re-educated in human rights and British Values. I am going to forward the link to your blog to the rest of our members.
Regards,
Davinder Prasad
General Secretary
CasteWatchUK
Posts
I'm not sure exactly how the Caste system works. I'm Gujarati by origin but caste is something I've never come across in any of the Gujaratis I know. My Pakistani friends on the other hand, can be quite obsessive about their caste (they're Muslim). I'd appreciate it if you could explain to me how it works.
ReplyDeleteHi Shafiq, the caste system has been around for hundreds of years and played a huge role within Hinduism. In Sikhism, the caste system was outlawed but is still practised widely.
ReplyDeleteFor the Muslim community I know that Ashrafs and Ajlafs are examples of caste as well as the influence of the Hindu religion amongst the Islamic community. Then there are the divides between Sunni and Shia Muslims etc and other more obscure groups such as the Kharijis and Wahhabis. I can only talk from my own experience and cannot go into a lot of detail but it seemingly exists.
The notions of caste however hold less water in a UK context - class kills caste.