Recently,
the brutal 4,000 year-old Indian caste system and its "divine"
justification for class hierarchy has come under attack. Modern scholars
examining the Sanskrit roots of Hindu mythology have found references to a
story about a nomadic Aryan tribe's conquest of darker-skinned indigenous
peoples. The Sanskrit word for caste - varna - also means "color." One of
the original functions of the caste system, which prohibits inter-caste
mingling, may have been to preserve the racial purity of the ruling class.
WE ARE NOT YOUR MONKEYS, a
song composed by Daya Pawar and sung by Sambhaji Bhagat, offers the dalit
(lower caste) perspective on the Ramayana story of Hindu legend, one which
refutes the notion of divine superiority.
Textile mills once were
the backbones of Bombay's economy, and their laborers provided the city
its working class culture. Today, foreign investment and rising
real-estate prices have made selling mill lands more profitable than
running them. Mill 'sickness' is now an epidemic. OCCUPATION: MILLWORKER
records the courageous action of workers who, after a four-year lockout,
forcibly occupied The New Great Eastern Mill.
WE
ARE NOT YOUR MONKEYS
OCCUPATION: MILLWORKER
