Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Story of Indian girl thrown in fire gets varied treatment

I was first interested in this story about an untouchable girl who was thrown in a fire in India because of the story's brief explanation of the caste system, which adds context to the story. The story mentions, but does not explain the relation between the Hindu religion and the caste system, but does try to explain where the various castes come from. For a more detailed explanation this BBC article is a good start.

Then, this blog entry on USA Today shows multiple accounts of the event leading to a good example of the Rashomon effect, a psychological term referring to how different observers can have unique perspectives even when they all witness the same event.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This benign potrayal of Hinduism continues the American media does not have the guts to go after the darkness called Hinduism be it the racial persecution of inferior caste Hindus or the genocide of religious minorities like Muslims Sikhs and Christians in India, like the recent Gujarat genocide of Muslims in India in 2002 taking advantage of teh september 11 attacks and the corporate media manufactured anti-Islamism.

Amanda Sturgill said...

Thank you for your comment. Do you think addressing these issues would be appropriate in an article of this type? Is it a matter of guts or a matter of lack of understanding of the relationship between religion and culture?