Hadi Awang's caste system

FMT - Christian, Hindu groups want Hadi to retract ‘caste’ remarks (extracts):

'caste' of clean & unclean Malaysians

The Council of Churches (CCM) has taken PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang to task over his remark that Christianity was a religion which practises “caste”.

Its secretary-general Hermen Shastri said Hadi’s remark was a gross misrepresentation.

He said that “caste” was not integral to Christian doctrine and practice and pastors were not considered “sacred” and above reproof. [...]

MHS president RS Mohan Shan said that although what Hadi said about the caste system in Hinduism was true, it was no longer practised in Malaysia and India.

“The requirement that priests should be from the top of the caste system is no longer happening nowadays.

“Now, anyone who studies Hinduism can become a priest at a temple.

“I am advising Hadi not to do this (make the remarks). Why should he confuse our Hindu community in the country?” he said, adding that it was not a healthy statement to make in a multiracial country like Malaysia.

He said PAS was free to do whatever it wanted but it should not make an issue of the caste system. [...]

Earlier today, Hadi had issued a statement to clarify reports which quoted him as saying that a PAS government would implement a “two-cabinet” system, which would exclude non-Muslims from being policy-makers.

Hadi said his proposal was not an attempt to introduce a “religious caste” system, which he claimed existed among Hindus and Christians.

The dictionary defines 'caste' under sociology as

'an endogamous and hereditary social group limited to persons of the same rank, occupation, economic position, etc., and having mores distinguishing it from other such groups'

or

'any rigid system of social distinctions.'

Taking the second and far more simpler definition, namely, 'any rigid system of social distinctions', it's obvious that even we Malaysians have several caste systems.

For example, there exists the caste of the 'Brahminic' bumiputera and the caste of pariahs, namely, the 'nons'. The distinctions are not mere ethnic divisions but also materially associated as well.

While currently the shadows of 'nons' are allowed to overlap with the shadows of bumis, at one stage our laundry was in danger of imposed caste separation, but thanks to the interventions of HM Sultan Johor and HRH Raja Perlis, those religious 'Brahmins' were told to f**k off. 

The system of our social distinction or division is bloody 'rigid', so much so there is no doubt our social divisions can be called castes as per a caste system.

Thus, within the Malaysian context, there exists two caste systems, with one based on bumiputera-ism and another based on religion. And need I add these are true caste systems because the social distinctions are again mighty 'rigid'.

Just recently we have two issues to forcefully remind us of just how rigid our Malaysian social distinction can be, namely:

(1) the Malaysian Association of Muslim Scholars (PUM) insisted, despite being warned to “watch their words”, there could be religious violence over the court decision on unilateral conversions, with its objective presumably being the protection and preservation of (the numbers in) the Muslim community, especially of those children who were unilaterally converted,and

(2) the 'bin Abdullah' saga of Malaysia, in which the ulamaks have been insistent a Muslim child born out of wedlock must carry the patronymic of 'bin Abdullah' (meaning: son of the slave of Allah) which will automatically label the child as a 'bastard'.

Despite a Court of Appeal ruling that the National Registration Department (NRD) acted outside its powers when it followed Islamic fatwa issued by the fatwa body in 1981 and 2003 to issue the patronymic 'bin Abdullah' to register a Muslim child born out of wedlock, against the mother’s wish to use the father’s name, the director of the NRD insubordinately ignored the Court's ruling to continue following the fatwa.

Such is and has been the rigidity of our Malaysian social system, to wit, a caste system, that the director of the NRD, a public civil servant, had been willing to defy a Court ruling just to follow a fatwa. Just how rigid the caste system has been.

That's right, and in the 'bin Abdullah' case, the fatwa in turn breeds a further caste system of legitimately born and those illegitimately born as bastards.

The irony of Hadi Awang's two-cabinet division along religious line is yet another caste system in the making even as he accused two other religions of having caste systems. That's why in preaching and criticising caste systems, his divisiveness of his god's children into castes has been f**king ironical.

But there is truth in Hadi's allusion to the caste system being practised among Hindus, even in Malaysia.

About 10 years ago, Baradan Kuppusamy wrote in Malaysiakini about internal MIC manoeuvrings during its party election campaign, where he highlighted the case of MG Pandithan, the president of the Indian Progressive Front (IPF), who was formerly from the MIC. Pandithan passed away in April 2008.

Pandithan was a sworn enemy of Samy Vellu and, though seriously ill in hospital at that time, campaigned against the MIC president. What had been sad about the whole sordid situation was the ugly business of the caste system that the Indians in MIC foolishly subscribed to.

Pandithan was of the lowest caste. Once upon a time he would have been described as an ‘untouchable’ or by the derogatory ‘pariah’. That term was euphemised by Mahatma Gandhi to ‘Harijan’ or ‘children of God’, based on the word ‘Hari’ being another appellation for Lord Vishnu.

But the caste itself rejected the term ‘Harijan’ as condescending and called themselves ‘Dalits’, meaning ‘The Oppressed’.

So Pandithan called himself a Dalit and in fact chaired the first World Dalit Convention held in Kuala Lumpur in October 1998. Pandithan was then president of the World Dalit Association. He brought together Dalit leaders from all over the world, including India’s late bandit queen Phoolan Devi.


Though he was ousted from MIC and a Dalit, his influence in the Indian community was significant which was why a stream of MIC brass (no doubt Brahmins) trooped in to visit him in hospital during the MIC party campaigning period - separately of course, wakakaka.

But the saddest part of all was while Pandithan was helping to get votes for Subramaniam, the political foe of Samy Vellu, Subramaniam was trying to put some distance between Pandithan and himself.

Baradan Kuppusamy attributed the seemingly strange reason to the MIC consciousness of caste. Upper caste MIC members would have reacted badly if Subramaniam consorted with Pandithan, a Dalit. In fact, Subramaniam would lose votes.

Samy Vellu’s Tamil Nesan exploited this Indian disgraceful discrimination by reporting that a Subramaniam victory would have brought in Pandithan as Subramaniam’s successor as the next president of MIC.

Baradan said Subramaniam was pissed off with that fabrication, but unfortunately for him (or maybe fortunately because of his lack of courage) he lost some votes because of that.

Sad, wasn't it. Caste my balls.