Of casteism, discourse, et al…

When I was watching the Netflix series, “Daughters of Destiny”, I walked into it with the back context that the protagonists, about four or five girls, were from the lowest castes in the social order, besides hailing from some of the poorest families. Their “saviour”, was Abraham George, an US returned corporate turned social entrepreneur, who started the Shanthi Bhavan School, on the outskirts of Bangalore. This was clearly a docu drama to higlight the "evil" of the caste system and set the premise for a Christian conversion agenda, my skeptical mind told me, as I ambled along the series.

As I continued to watch, my skepticism gave way to admiration – I would go to the extent to say whatever be George’s agenda or whatever be the motive of that skillfully crafted web series, if one individual has managed to transform the lives of children of so many underprivileged families, then he is a catalyst to social reform. Other assumptions and presumptions be damned.

Post watching this, a lot of questions which keep coming to my mind, resurfaced.

For some years now, many among the privileged castes in this country want to desperately believe that Brahmins and others from the traditionally privileged castes are now being marginalized, that they are being bashed, thrashed, and mercilessly called out for things done by their ancestors. And with the political climate of "pseudo secularism" thrown in, this set of people are deeply angry and unhappy.

While some of their grievances are true, and I do not discount those, I do believe casteism was taken to its deepest nadir in the last few centuries, when the privileged, particularly the Brahmin community, refused to even look at people from the lower castes. There is an infamous parable I have heard about a great grandfather of mine, who would stop eating and walk away from his lunch if he so much as heard the voice of the village tanner from outside. What sort of arrogance and entitlement was that? And why are we planning to forget any of it now? It should serve us as a reminder of an inglorious past - whenever we choose to cry hoarse.

In my 20s and my 30s, I never wanted to be an apologist. I used to abhor the fact that I was having to tell enraged, resentful people I knew that I was not responsible for the excesses of my forefathers. And that I owed no apology to anyone. But now, my views have undergone a fair amount of churn, and I choose to state my view a little differently than before.

My submission is this, and I have been saying this quite frequently to those who do not choose to see: Any social transition is going to bring its share of fair and unfair to all people. There will be a lot of muck that comes forth - 4 of the biggest upheavals in modern history of race (white vs black), gender (man vs woman), caste (privileged vs backward castes in Hindu society) and sexuality (hetero vs same sex) have thrown up the vomit that was buried deep in our underbelly. The narrative has moved or is moving rapidly from the first party to the second in each case, so there will be rage, accusations, counter narratives, slander (justified and otherwise) that will become a part of discourse. Why can we not be objective about this? Each one perceives the truth as he or she has seen and heard it. For every one person who is objective or rational, or data driven, there will be 99 who will be emotional and biased. And so be it.

It will be that we will tend to bucket all discourse and give it names.

When a person from a "privileged" caste speaks up against casteism, he will be labelled liberal or apologist, and when he doesn’t, he will be called casteist.

“The Daughters of Destiny” - at first sight, comes off as the ordinary story of 4 girls moving in and out of their lives, taking video bytes of the principal characters in the docu-drama, including family members. But, what really holds the narrative is the girls and their stories – the dramatic and extraordinary transformation they would have otherwise not been able to get access to, if they hadn’t landed in the place they finally came to be in. The docu drama patiently traces their metamorphosis in first, second and third person narratives over a number of years.

Among the many strong moments, I recall one of the girls poignantly making a remark, and in clear English, “It is simply unacceptable for people to look down upon another human being. I cannot bear to think I was born in a situation where my people have been looked down upon for centuries. I want to change all of it.” A moving statement - it was a teenager, who was asking very genuinely to be treated as a human. In a sense, she was declaring her fundamental right, and she had been empowered with the right skills to make such a matter-of-fact but powerful statement. It is as simple as that. And so be it. Why should we have a problem with her assertion? 

The twistedness of narrative in this day and age is not alien to me. So, if someone were to ask me, "Is casteism dead?", I would explain with a counter, "Has corruption been eradicated from our system?"

 I will not bother to explain myself repeatedly to naysayers of the caste debate, who want to live in constant denial or to the virulent "Brahmin" bashers who are in a tearing hurry to reach their fallacy of an idyllic "caste-free" world. The truth is far more complex. And we are in 2020, mind you - it is just too difficult a time in history for us to say who the victor is, and who the victim.