Kayastha Quotes

I realized that I belonged neither to the Hindus nor to the Mussalmans. How could I explain to my wife that while the Brahmins lived on offerings made to their gods, the Rajputs and the Jats had their lands, Aheers and the Gujars their cattle, the Banias their shops, all that the poor Kayasthas had were their brains and their reed pens! And the only people who could pay for their brains and their pens were the rulers who were Muslims!

Six of the fifteen prime ministers were Brahmins, at the top of the social ladder (Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, though he was a half Brahmin from the mother’s side, Narasimha Rao, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee). V. P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar were Rajputs, Shastri a Kayastha, and Gulzari Lal Nanda and I. K. Gujral were Punjabi Khatris—all upper castes. Two were

Mahidasa Aitareya, the author of one of the 10 major Upanisadas, was the son of a maid. In Chhandogya Upanisada, Satya Kama Jabala, the son of a maid and an unknown father was revered as a sage. Vishvamitra was a Kshatriya before he became a seer. Sage Kakshivat, a Vedic sage, was the son of a shudra maidservant. According to Mahabharata (Anushasana Parva 53.13-19), Sage Kapinjalada was a Chandala and Sage Madanapala was the son of a boatwoman. Even in our own times, Swami Vivekananda was a Kayastha and therefore technically a Shudra. Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata was the son of a fisherwoman; Vidur, the prime minister of Kuru King Dhritarashtra was the son of a maidservant and Valmiki was from a lower caste.

But tell me one thing, why do Bengalis still use surnames that indicate their caste? We used to do it in Kerala fifty years ago, now we don’t do it any more. But you people still use Mukherjee and Chatterjee and so on.’ I did not have an answer to his question, but I knew that the question was a well-meaning one, asked out of innocent curiosity by one member of the communist society to another presumed member. He did not know that I actually hailed from the Hindi heartland, where people wear their caste names like medals. Casteism in Uttar Pradesh is so rampant that it can lead to embarrassing situations in day-to-day life because of two certain surnames—Sharma and Verma. There are two varieties of Sharma, one the Brahmins and the other the craftsman community, such as carpenters, called Vishwakarmas. And there are two varieties of Vermas, one the Kayasthas and other the mallah or the boatman community. The uppercaste Sharmas and Vermas never miss a chance to point out that they are not to be confused with the other set of Sharmas and Vermas. I was witness to such an incident, while in college in Kanpur. Among my many friends, there were two Sharmas, one Anil Sharma, a boy from a well-to-do family, and another Sunil Sharma, who rarely spoke about his family. One winter afternoon, while I was having a smoke with Sunil at the parking lot, Anil came by. I introduced them to each other. ‘Meet Sunil Sharma,’ I told Anil. Anil somewhat hesitated to shake Sunil’s hand but when he finally did, the first thing he asked was, ‘Are you the Brahmin Sharma or the Vishwakarma Sharma?’ Sunil’s face went red with embarrassment, but he mustered a smile and said, ‘Vishwakarma Sharma.’ ‘No wonder. I could tell that,’ Anil grinned and took leave, leaving me red-faced. But that was then. Today, Anil could have been lynched for that arrogant grin, because power has gone to the hitherto-suppressed classes. Either way, the fact remains that caste rules. Compared to Uttar Pradesh, Kerala might be a paradise, where caste is nearly irrelevant in public life, but are there not people who still take pride in being called a Nair or a Nambiar or a Menon? I wanted to ask Mr Sankarankutty that, but I let it be. His question was, after all, a well-meaning one. By now, I had completely forgotten that a whisky bottle was sitting there. The conversation with him had distracted me from my hypochondria and I felt perfectly fine. After he left, I reached for my skipping rope and jumped five hundred times non-stop. I knew I was in perfect shape to climb even a mountain.