- TN has been ruled by two big dravidian parties for the past 40+ years mostly in alternate tenure. This time a new party contested in a lot of places , vouching it to be the alternate for the major dravidian parties. The person who contested on behalf of the new party in my friend's home town was a member of Caste A. So , the first thing he did after making his decision to contest , is to meet the leaders of the Caste Group and get their support. And Yes , as in every part of TN , he (being one among them , i.e நம்ம ஆள் ) was promised for full support. Because of this , there was festival mood through out the village , and everyone were pushed to vote for their man with the following advice : "Press the fourth button from top" (நாலாவது பட்டன அழுத்து).
- With all this advice , my friend went to the polling booth to cast the vote. There were two queues , my friend was surprised to see one queue being a lot longer than the other one , So , being intelligent (!), took her place in the smaller queue. Only after standing in the queue , she realized that a lot of people she knew were standing in the other queue and were calling(basically shouting at) her. My friend moved to the other queue and came to know the reason for two queues : "The other queue was for people from Lower Caste".
Caste Systems are deeply rooted in our country and form a very important factor in a lot of stuffs( believe , impact is slightly less in Cities) either directly or indirectly. I do not know how to solve these problems , may be as an individual we could remember the following quotes :
"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." (Albert Einstein)
"If you think some one is inferior to you , remember , there is already some one else thinking in the same way about you and by your thought you are accepting it."
Cheers,
jkyaar
