Caste clamour on Internet sets in!
This is an article published in Indian Express dated 12th June, 2010. The link to this article is given below.
Internet has given castes a new dais. For identity-hungry castes this new domain called the ‘Web’ has just added fire to the frenzied factionalism. Ashok Kumar finds out.
Indian subcontinent is not only a land of various flora and fauna, but also, undeniably, the land of thousands of castes. You as a person can love these castes or hate them but you certainly cannot ignore them because it is they, which define the bottom lines of socio-politico-cultural-economical India.
Sounds outdated, on the face of it! You might even question the validity of above proposition in the economically liberalised and upwardly mobile developing India which boasts of one of the best tech schools in the form of Indian Institutes of Technology and Business schools like the branded Indian Institutes of Management.
But the achievements of these world-class institutes and other science-generated heights does not in any way negate the absolute presence which the age-old caste system of India still wields on the enlightened and the ‘not so enlightened Indians.’
In today’s world and times whatever matters has to find its presence on the worldwide website. Standing by this fact how could the varied castes of India who certainly has a say in almost all the trades can be oblivious of the presence of Web. Take any major caste of India and it has its presence in the form of its own Web pages or Websites.
The moot question, then arises, is, what is the drive, which makes these Websites, a necessity in todays’ era. And what all is spread on these Websites in the form of content and information and how do these Websites give the respective castes an edge over others, who are yet to discover themselves on this unexplored domain.
The maiden glimpse of all these Websites, displaying caste-based information is enough to give you an idea of the fuel, which sets the lights on for their existence. It is that quintessential urge to satiate the thirst of ‘identity crisis’. The space available at the World Wide Web provides just another avenue to quench that desire of disclosing one own identity and let the world acknowledge.
Castes in India have been homogenous units, which allow their members to marry in one’s own community. Now, these websites have come as a new help for people looking for the prospective grooms and brides for their children. All those people who are interested in looking for a suitable guy or girl for oneself from one’ own community just need to register on the site of their respective castes and can free themselves from the un-required burden.
The quest for ‘identity’ can also be looked through the names adopted by the caste based websites, the brief history of the origin of the respective castes, pioneering politicians of state and national level, athletes who have represented the country in various sports and the prominent administrative and police officers as also the prominent scientists belonging to the respective communities.
The most surprising part of this caste based information is that they are run by the so called upwardly looking population of their communities which explain that the level of development on the economic and educational front just cannot stop them from actively participation in this display of web identity on the Internet.
Some of the prominent features, which are displayed without many variations by almost all the communities, comprises of their respective histories, people, their distribution according to their spread in different states and districts, gotras or clans, which are like the sub groups of the communities.