Answering the Upper Caste: Suraj Yengde Lays to Rest Questions the Privileged Often Ask About Caste 

Important issue indeed. Only the oppressed ones have the true feeling as to how hurtful it is to be discriminated and deprived.

He is wise . He is educated. He is brilliant, smart and very intellectual.

The wire please keep inviting him so that we can learn lots of things

I must thank T M Krishna for discussing the caste problems openly in media. We need more such debates on television channels with more and more participation from the upper caste intellectuals. Society cannot just ignore this age-old problem which is the biggest impediment in India's progress.

Merit in this country is the biggest MYTH ; it got killed the day the cunning bamman Dronacharya made Eklavya cut off his thumb - as gurudakshina to a ‘guru’ who hd not even taught Eklavya - and thereby decimated any competition to the mediocre Arjun ....Modern India hasn’t shed itself of that inglorious legacy as it still continues to honour its sports achiever’s by awards instituted in the names of the fraudulent coach Dronacharya and Arjun the overrated archer....

2:41 Q1: Why do you make me pay for the atrocities that were done by my ancestors? 8:02 Q2: Upper Castes includes all the FCs - why do you use the term "Brahminical" then? 10:11 Q3: Caste is found in all religions but why are only Hindus being targeted? 12:16 Q4: Isn't class the real differentiator today and not caste? 15:28 Q5: The violence that Dalits face often comes from the OBC community. Yet caste activists target brahmins. Why are OBCs not called out? 18:20 Q6: I treat my house help like family. Why do you accuse me of being casteist? 21:50 Q7: I don't believe in caste, I don't even use my caste surname. How could I be among the oppressors? 25:12 Q8: It's not always about caste at all, but I've noticed that being from the same community often makes for an easier marriage. It is culture. 28:16 Q9: How do you manage to connect every single thing with caste? 31:51 Q10: If you want me to engage with caste, you have to stop being so abrasive in your tone.

Absolutely Amazing … Thank U … Have to rewatch several times to digest and truly comprehend …

Absolutely wonderful initiative!! Proud to be a supporter of the wire

Brilliant questions and answers which we come through in every day life. Thanks for this Mr. Krishna and Dr Suraj

I think RU-vid democratised the human lives by bringing into light many issues. I feel uncomfortable when some exposed my previlages and felt liberated when I got saved from abuse of castism. Kudos to old and new leaders like Ambedkar and future visionaries like suraj. I feel main stream media need to run special edition everyday on caste attrocities and injustices. If brothers and sisters of India fail and suffers then how can we call Indian truley a great nation .

Long live Suraj....the brightest mind....God bless u. My Respect to Krishna for creating such an excellent discussion. Thnx a lot Wire..many thnx.

Young Guns of India 👍👍👍👍👍

The upper caste ask questions to frustrate and exhaust the dalits, mentally and emotionally, so that the discussion becomes tedious for the Dalits while the upper caste enjoy trolling them. And then slowly but surely, Dalits stop talking or speaking out altogether. And hence, the goal of maintaining the status quo is accomplished. And if Dalits continue to speak up, there's all kinds of microaggression and gaslighting done by the so-called civilized educated upper caste who claim to be professional and "consider Dalits as equals". That's the truth about the caste atrocities in India. The bit by bit chipping off of Dalit confidence and potential is the way casteism works now. And it'll never go away,but it can be kept in check, which hasn't been done in this country yet.

Excellent questions and answers.

The people with Money in INDIA earned by hook or by crook or via real estate hoarding or via prostitution consider themselves UPPER caste. These cannot be considered Upper Caste. The Highest caste are those who spend their time in learning, or in higher education, to improve themselves and their communities, or to encourage the Human Being to reach his or her full potential as the Highest form of Intelligence of all species. This can only be effected by Knowledge and Love and Respect of all Living Species

Brilliant insights from Dr Suraj. Appreciate Mr Krishna for taking this topic for discussion

Social stratification in human societies is universal. Most people want all the benefits, but don't want the TAG which comes with it. They must realize that it's a whole package.

Brilliant interview,thanks

When roti and beti exchange happens then casteism goes. As long as that is not done no change will happen.

Thanks WIRE for bringing this topic

Questions dont change because actions of the self proclaimed upper caste dont change . The brahmin - baniya cartel are still as bigoted as they come .

Two friends having cool discussion

This conversation gave me so many new perspectives. Thank you

I always face the same questions. From now on I will not hurt my mouth by explaining them. I simply share this video to them. Thanks wire Thanks T.M.Krishna sir Thanks Suraj sir

This is absolutely in the right direction

THE QUESTIONS TAGGED ARE MAJORITY OF THE UPPER CASTE GENERALISED MODERN QUESTIONS IN THEIR MIND. I APPRECIATE YOU FOR THAT QUESTIONS OF GENERAL SENSE.. SURELY SURAJ GAVE AN "EXPERIENCED FELT " ANSWERS TO THE MODERN GENERALISED BRAINS. IN MY VIEW SURAJ IS AN UPCOMING LEGEND FOR FUTURE AND HOPE FOR NOT ONLY DALITH BAHUJANS ,BUT ALSO AGAINST ALLTYPES OF ATTROCITIES IN INDIA .

Great to see Suraj yengde sir , ❤️❤️❤️

We need to face the naked truth, whatever dr said was that naked truth

Caste is a closed class structure, when it comes to marriage it's not about hierarchy (although some of the Hindu religious code books say so). In present scenario it has become a community issue. No Yadav will marry her daughter to a kshatriya or a Brahman ( I'm not talking about exceptions) neither a dalit will do so. So we see that caste has become a multidimensional blunder, it comes with community pride, economic discrimination, bigotry and identity politics.

Excellent.. Thank you Wire❤️

Congratulations to the interviewer Mr. TM Krishna too. It's not easy to stand apart from one's tribe either or to have differences of opinion. It can be a lonesome position. It's way easier to not rock the boat or to not hold the bull by its horns. 💕

Absolutely wonderful initiative by The Wire . It s Greatful to hear young public intellectual Dr Suraj Yegnde.🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Excellent and informative. We need more conversations like this. Good job, TM Krishna and Dr Suraj Yengde.

This video is worth watching 👌

Sikhs had become the richest nation in Asia far ahead of Hindustan. But the Brahmin-bania take over of Bharat 47 has pushed Sikhs into poverty and also without any political voice. Sikhs come from dalits only. Brahmin-bania are so cruel that they attacked the Darbar Sahib and also didn't allow Sikhs to have a state capital despite public promises by Nehru-Gandhi of the RSS gang .

Indian talent doomed by caste and favouritism

We do need to discuss the caste issues by the the upper caste intellectuals and address them in broader perspective. Why we continue with a system which decides the fate of a person right at the birth. How one can be superior or inferior just because he or she is born in particular caste?

Ban caste system by imposing law ...

It's great to hear their thoughts on this beautiful subject❤️

I was in class 10 , and my class teacher was collecting data for scholarship, if asked us to register as sc, st, gen, obc. That time I didn't know if my caste fall under which catagory, my teacher told me you are genral class , i felt so disappointed, i come i can be general , i should be some thing special 🤣🤣🤣

Wish other community and democracy alliance join together . Wish you India become casteless society

Salute Mr Yengde! Thanks Mr Krishna for passing the Mic & let Mr Yengde speak throughout.

There is not just class and caste discrimination but there is also a gender discrimination.

JEWELS: Dalits are paying for their education , we don't have an absolute economic study, if obc is committing a crime that he is not committing crime,that someone above him authorizing to do, civility applied only to the oppressed, living in a violent, obnoxious intolerant society, that shouldnot apply to the people who for necessarily are really you know living from hand to mouth, boling over generations, its kind of the lava or the mountains hasbeen torn apart and this kind of volcanic eruption is being noticed and why is it noticed because you are feeling the burn of it. So the idea of tone policing ,moral policing is good, but it should not applied only to the oppressed ,should also be applied to the oppressor and may be we can have a kind of equal dialogue.

Great talk..Thank you team Wire.

Caste in India in indians same as sleeper cell.

Greatest intellectual sir Suraj Yengre sir huge Respect nd big salute to your excellent work... India proud of you sir

Brilliant.

The resemblance to CRT is frightening. That is extremely counter-productive.

End castiesm , reservation will end after that .

many more needs to listen this to clear their doubts n confusion.. Superb Interview.

Dr Suraj is very comfortable using the term brahminical. He has his own definition for the term that includes all forms of discrimination and all prejudices. But for most people listening they dont know his definition. In general brahminism is what the people of brahmin caste do. They are mostly salaried and they don't do much of farming, small scale industries nor businesses. The exploitation in these sectors, that account most of the exploitation in the name of caste/class is done by other castes. The honor killings are done by other castes. He does not mention any one of those castes by name. He calls even their atrocities, even the casteism practiced by Christians "brahminical". Brahmins are not able to even defend themselves, when their deities are denigrated by people like Vairamuthu, or their temples are being ridiculed by politicians, when Periyar paraded their deities with chapal garlands, or when their goddesses were painted in a demeaning way by some painter Hussein or someone, there could not even get people to acknowledge, "this hurts their sentiment, but what to do freedom of expression is freedom of expression". The entire media gangs up against them. He is asking brahmins to speak out against atrocities committed by other castes against Dalits. But this scholar himself carefully avoids mentioning any other caste. The moral of the story is "be violent, react violently no body will dare mention your caste by name no matter what you do. Be like brahmins, stay non violent, they will use your caste name to describe violence done by other castes".

sir please make a video on 'All private sector jobs captured by RSS.'' This is how it happens. RSS put there person in HR of a company. And then that person keeps referring only RSS person for interview. Any senior person in the company won't come to know this because they are unaware of ''RSS favourism'' and they themselves cant call people for interview. This is bad for the economy as we know how talented RSS people are. Also this means talented hardworking non-RSS people are sitting unemployed.

Historians and those in humanities and political science will want to keep the caste system alive and running instead of working on abolishing it. Otherwise they will run out of jobs and livelihood.

Supoort his cause, not his haircut.

My dad made me have a thread ceremony as a kid,i refused n he said do it for ur grandfather.as soon as we came home from the temple i threw the thread out of the bathroom window.i was 12 i think.if at 12 i saw thru the BS why cant our leaders n most of our countrymen

I wonder if it’s possible to ever undo such a pernicious system. But one needs to keep trying. Thank you for getting these questions and answers together.

absolutely brilliant conversation. I love that T M Krishnan was only listening with respect and not adding his two bits to the conversation, thereby providing the model for how we have to learn now. The privileged caste has to stop talking and start listening (and hopefully learning) to the wisdom of the oppressed. Thank you for this.

🤔He has a point.

It is not always caste. Most of the time it is wealthy against the financially poor. This is in India and all over the world. The word caste is used in India but there is no label for this division on the western countries.

1) 2:41 :Why should I pay for my ancestors atrocities? Also, When you can inherit the property/wealth made by your ancestors why cant you inherit the results/consequences of their evil deed? which is payback/tit-for-tat.. This is big double std.. you only want good stuff you deserver not bad stuff? Also wealth your ancestors made is not via honest way but by again oppressing minority... 2) 8:00 - Why use "Brahminical" when uppre caste includes many forward caste people? Also, Tell me who wrote Shastras, Manusmriti- a gem ;-), mythology and claimed msg of GodNo one put their mind as much Branmins to retain their illumanity status in Indian caste system vai Shastra's. But IRONY they talk about dharma, satyaa, karma.. 3) 10:10 - Caste is found in all religions why are only Hindus targeted? 4) 12:18 - Isn't class the real differentiator today? 5) 15:28 - The violance that Dalits face often comes from OBC yet caste activists only target brahmins. Why OBC not called out? Also, Brahmins have chosen job to worship stone idol with ghee. OBCs are assigned to do other stuff. When carrying shit comes to table of course OBCs Brahmins all will join hands to force Dalit to do it. As OBC are 50%+ and Brahmin's are only 3-10%. They try to escape saying I was not in that 50% forcing Dalit to carry shit. Being architect of caste system Brahmin's will have to accept their fate 6) 18:12 - I treat my house help like family. Why do you accuse me of being castiest? Also, REALLY??? did you take your help passport for that next trip abroad youa re taking? is your help part of your insurance schemes with other family... "treating like part of family" is big strech... 7) 21:20 - I dont believe in caste dont even use my caste surname. How could I be oppressor? 8) 25:14 Its not caste. Being in same community and culture makes marriage easier.. 9) 28:20 how come you connect everything with caste? When you/castiests have linked everything to caste.. just pointing it & exposing it out can be irritating to you.. 10) 31:30 11) Reservation should be for poor people and merit & should not be based on caste.. Isn't becoming poor when your starting line was already set far ahead of start disqualifies you in merit part? In USA Abrahim Lincon(white man) took lead to abolish slavery that too in 1800 only. India with power of veda, dharma, culture, greatest in world... had to wait for Dalit leader to bring this issue to main table. Thanks to Ambedkar. 1 thing that bothers me is what if Ambedkar had not born in Dalit community..

I think Brahmins jada obc jyada dalit par atrocity karate hai mai bhi obc hu

His arguments and explanations are so good.

Suraj Yengde is so on point!

Are you addressing to Indian bhakts, do they understand anything like humanity, particularly gobar bhakts who borne from the seed of malpractice.

Amazing amazing amazing

Excellent ❤️👍🙏

GOOD SESSION. The question about caste in other religions wasn't answered.The treatment of DALITS by other religions also needs to be studied and questioned. The treatment of VALMIKI community in KASHMIR, The DALIT LYNCHINGS by MUSLIMS, The KILLINGs of DALITS not converting to ISLAM after marrying MUSLIM GIRLS... BE OPEN about all these, IF you are SERIOUS about CASTE OPPRESSION.

Absolutely brilliant interview.. Thank you @the wire team and the super talented Suraj Yengde.. always a pleasure to listen to you!

The answers you gave will be of great use to us., thanku so much sir,

Caste is the oldest form of institutionalised slavery and racial discrimination. People who now talk about meritocracy are the same people who devised caste to promote nepotism centuries.

They teach you about the British divide and rule policy in school which lasted almost 400 years What they don't teach you in school about Hinduism divide and rule policy They divide people in the name of caste and ruled for more than 1000 years... and this division weakened the country of India's size (7th largest in the world ) that is protected by sea in South and mountains in the north resulting 2 back 2 back invasion first Mughals and then British....... no offense to muslim community because majority of are converted because of caste discrimination

Suraj is a smart guy. 👍

The fact that caste is still a thing is really wild to me (an American). I've never once thought, when meeting an Indian person "oh, I wonder what caste they are". That's not even a thought here. America definitely has huge issues on class and race, but caste seems so arbitrary. How do you even know? I hope the whole world becomes more equitable for all.

TMK is an excellent host. Dr. Suraj is a well read man. Good interview. 🙂

Thanks Mr. TM Krishna and Dr. Suraj for bringing this interesting and important topic. I hope it will have some awareness among all the people who are connected with caste system in one way or the other. Casteism is a psychological insanity and the younger generation must be aware of it and be free from its conditioning. Also, the oppressed class seems to have doused the spark of anger, frustration they would have nurtured because of the oppression they face to some extent because of the reservation system they are enjoying. Because, there is no voice raised against the continuing oppression by them. The spark that had probably come into being long ago should have grown into a huge flame by now if it had been nurtured well.

Damn I like his hairdo

Great interview. Thank you Wire for discussing what one may term as the most critical socio-economic-cutural issue plaguing this country. The Brahmanical votaries will of course, reel out uniform civil code, population control, one education etc etc as the panacea of all the evils.

There are many subtitle mistakes please change them

Many more should listen to this interview

Stop asking questions to the marginalized , zoom out your lens and look at the bigger picture and ask questions to those who are in privileged position.

11:05; just as how the white European migrants to US hv to exercise severe racism against the blacks so as to get accepted as ‘one of theirs’ by the racists whites, the Parsis who are also migrants from Persia had to practice casteism against the subalterns so as to get acceptance by the influential oppressing castes. It’s mysterious how these migrant micro minority parsi community became so financially well off in such small span of time; this isn’t possible unless they prostituted with those who gave them refuge …

Todays youth should listen to this and understand where we people are?!

Krishna Sir, iam an admirer of not only your Carnatic music expertise but your crusade of caste system and its evils. You are an exemplary musician and listen to many times. I am reading your book Sebastian and sons whcih is a super cronicle of the people behind the makers of instruments and thier struggles with upper class hegemony. It's a must read for many. I am from Bangalore and IT industry. In my various discussions with my colleagues about you I can tell you about the backlash you receive from so called educated upper class. This backlash extends to your siging as even that is being seen through the lens of your crusade work. Prof Yengde you are an inspiration for everyone. With your background and the disadvantages that you have overcome to be in the postion you are in is a inspiration for many. Hats off to you sir. My honest appeal to everyone based on my experience is that everything starts at home. Each community will have to fight right from home to remove discrimination. Offcourse you will have backlash, you will be ostracised , you will called names, sneered and your own family will berate you, but if you have the courage of conviction then you can fight this battle. Above all the maker the greatest Architect made everyone equal in his compostion but it's we who discriminate and create divisions.

Dr. Suraj yengde is a top intellectual Who is world wide acclaimed and he is an inspiration ,great humanitarian and great amberkarite.

Here's some insight from a Parsee - there is a sort of caste system in this community as well. there are shehenshahis, and kadmis and faslis - it is a little blurry, except that the Priestly class is clearly identified. the job of the priest - a mobed - is restricted both by 'caste' as well as by gender. only those males belonging to priestly families can become priests. there are now women priests but they are not acknowledged as so by many, and they are referred to as 'para-mobeds'. and there is also the lowest rung of the hierarchy, the pall bearers or the nassaselars who often live in poverty, and may also face some sorts of discrimination.

"Brahmin women salivate for Dalits. Ask me" - Suraj Feminist Yengde

Dr. Yengde is a class act.

@ Krishnan, "why she/he, Dalits are your domestic help for decades and you (brahmin) are the authority?

Very intresting . Thankyou suraj

Thank you for this. Now all I've got to do is make this clear to people around me who cling to casteism and refuse to use their privilege.

At the end we all are humans there will be always looking things very differently, we all can talk on others but when it comes to us daughter is treated differently daughter-in-law is looked differently, before marriage brothers sisters relationship are different then when they get married, Dalits who owns money power is looked who doesn’t have, life is short just do good things if you can enjoy and Go

Great 👍

Jai Bhim

Best interview of the decade !

Dr. Suraj is smart to get out of this country and move up in life!

great take on tone policing @yengde

Actually discussion should be on answering to the Oppressed Section by Upper Caste why their is hegemony of you every where ? What you are doing to dismantling it ? How you (UC) are able to hold the Bramhnical Structure for such a long period of time? Because from where I see caste is not only about discrimination i.e. the one aspect of it. Caste is about structure which benefits the minuscule of oppressor community. Here, it seems like those bramhins/UC who complains about reserve castism (reverse discrimination) asking Dalit why you are fighting for egalitarian values ? Such Fragile Savarnas. 😄

The caste duration perfectly coincides with India's extraordinary economic decline. If Upper castes, the "custodians of knowledge", were so meritorious how could they let this happen. 85% of general category engineers don't have any usable skills.

Remember the name 'Sneha Parthibaraja' , first Indian women to get 'No Caste, No Religion certificate'. I'll be another one soon.