Re: Baidi's are like Shahs and Brahmins?
Being Brahmin in north is far more tougher than anything even upto recent time, try being pandit in kashmir, the promised land of Mahrishi Kashyap:) Not only physical threat to life, brahmins had to fight the idological threat of Jainism, buddhism, and finally Islam, It was ideological strength of Brahmins because of which Hinduism remained in India, other wishe hindus might have been like another set of Parsis. There is nothing wrong in having a caste,I am jatt and proud to be that, but discrimination is wrong thing, to me even reservation sometimes seems like discrimination. Southern India is also very rigid, I have never in my life seen, a gowda of karnataka marrying lingayat of his state freely, may be discrimiation is little less but it always was, I lived 4 good years in Karnataka, the social setup is more rational but casteist at the core, their everyother caste forms a group of people, in AP it is Reddys, Naidus, kapus etc. Reddys being more politically powerful that brahmins, remember APJ kalam's wonderful experience with his Iyer teacher and him during his child hood days as mentioned in "Wings of fire".
I commend the achievements of Brahmins. Some of the most brilliant minds in Indian cultural history were brahmins. That caste also contributed most of the greatest social and religious reformers. Having said that one must not deny that their attitude towards the less fortunate also played a great role in conversion to other religions among the lower castes. The situation in South India is not as rigid as in the North. That does not mean that caste system is absent, it is just different. There has been more tolerance in the past 75 years. We do not have cases like honor killings for marrying outside your caste in the rural areas like U read about in N.India. I know cases where couples from different castes have run away to the city to get married. They many not be welcomed back easily to the village but there is usually no mob baying for their blood or relatives following them to the city to kill the couple for bringing "dishonour".
Gowdas and lingayats can marry . I had a friends in school and college who were products of inter-caste unions. The enmity between the 2 groups is due to fight for political dominance. Lingayats are also different in that they do not consider themselves hindus per se. They reject the authority of the vedas and the caste system. They are devotees of Lord Shiva.
Check out Periyar and his movement which sparked a anti-Brahmin movement in most of South India. There were similar movements in other parts of South India on a smaller scale.
Even pampa , Ranna and Ponna the historical literary scholars you mentioned who wrote versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata were jains.
All the dominant castes you see today the reddys, the naidus, the kapus, the gowdas etc were once considered sat-shudras by brahmins. It was only that they were rich in land ownership and the previous generation's hardwork in education that some even got labelled as "forward castes". The Indian setup of reservation system on basis of caste is what is one of the main reasons for the political enimity. Now they are competing with each other to be allocated back into the "backward caste" bracket :D
While there is nothing wrong in being proud of your origins and background, the caste system as it is today is redundant. If you must have caste, it is better to adopt the early vedic syestem where caste were based on ability and occupation and not heriditry. I personally know a family with 3 generations of doctors who belong to the "weaving community". The most recent generation hasn't even seen what a loom looks like yet they consider thenselves to be a family of weaver caste.
Karnataka Minister in state Assembly has announced that per capita income of the Brahmins is lesser than all communities including scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, yet they have nothing to help them when it comes to education and jobs and must duke it out in the general category. This is also another brand of ridiculous.