When caste cuts across borders

     Caste has been  discriminating people for various reasons since the later Vedic period. Originally one caste was attributed to a particular community based on their occupations which were then further subdivided into a number of jaatis.

    Each jaati came to be associated with a particular occupation. This was also the time when the codification of Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras began and the upper caste began dominating over the lower caste to keep the latter in subservience. The process of discrimination has continued till this day.

    The ace bowler, Muttaiah Muralidharan belongs to one such family of a caste considered to be inferior which migrated to Srilanka during the colonial rule to work in tea plantations as indentured labourers. These Tamil speaking people were termed as the hill people. The Srilankan Tamilians living in Northern and Eastern parts of Srilanka considered the hill Tamilians in Central Srilanka to be of subservient caste and hence discriminated against them. Muttaiah belongs to this Central part of Srilanka.

    Growing up in the midst of caste and minority discrimination, Muttaiah worked up hard to achieve his goals and became popular in the International arena. Today there is an uproar against making his biopic as the so called upper caste tamils cannot withstand the fact that a so called lower caste Tamilian is one amongst the most famous bowlers in the world. The project that was taken up by the versatile actor "Vijay Sethupati" had to be dropped.

    The film was about the difficulties faced by people in general and Muttaiah in particular during the civil war and how he rose above it all to stardom. If a real life story of inspiration is rejected because of a person's caste, then what is the maturity level of our demography? Can we truly call ourselves a democracy with such narrow mindedness? 

    Any society must evolve and avoid stagnation. In order for this to happen, the inherent inequalities in our social structure must be addressed. The fundamental rights ensures Article 14 which guarantees Equality before law and equal protection of law to all citizens and article 19(1) gives the freedom of speech and expression. These two are not absolute but qualitative. The nature of the quality must be seen in the spirit of the constitution which allows individual to develop in physical, social, intellectual, economical and ethical dimensions of life.