CRITIQUE OF INDIAN IDEOLOGY: BRAHMAN MAN'S BURDEN

A famous Dalit activist, Bhanwar Raghuvanshi, told this story. He was an RSS Swayamsevak since childhood. He was branded as the new age Dalit Hindutva uprising, resembling tokenism. Once some Brahman fellow comrades (his Swayamsevaks) were invited by him for dinner. They obviously came. They talked about world politics and Indian politics, critiqued congress, the opposition party, critiqued liberals and then with a certain reversal, they said, we will not be able to have dinner here. This was a huge shock to him since he invited them for dinner only. He recalled how he was part of the mob who demolished Babri Mosque and since childhood, he used to come to the daily ritualistic Shakha (daily activity) of RSS and how he one day, became, unknowingly the Swayamsevak. 

Once, he expressed his desire to be a Pracharak (Literally, an idea propagator). The senior brahman authorities of the RSS told him that our society is not yet ready for a Dalit pracharak. If he wishes, he can be one, but if someone someday behaves like a casteist to him, he is not allowed to speak because he will weaken the positive morales of the organization. What is interesting that he was told that we don't need thinkers or Vicharaks but Pracharaks. They want people who can spread the propaganda not contribute in them. 

Interestingly enough, I come from an RSS family. My Grandfather has been a Nagar Sanghchalak (City chief of the RSS) for some time, and since childhood, we had the dress and we used to visit Sakhas. We were devout swayamsevaks. One day, I expressed a desire to speak to the RSS crowd. So, what used to happen in special occasions like Vijayadashmi that one day, two people used to coordinate, count how many people are there, make them stand in a line and one of them, chants their Prarthana (Prayer). These were boring jobs we used to do. I was bored of this. I wanted to do what my grandfather used to do. He used to give a speech and I was fascinated by some ideas about Hindu supremacy at that time as a child. I wanted to express myself. I asked them for a chance. They said I cannot do that until I was trained by the Nagpur councils, do some courses that they offer. I found one thing peculiar. Speakers, as different they may seem, they all echoed same set of ideas. And all of them were Upper castes. It was not like Dalits were not allowed to join the organization but there was certainly a caste consciousness negative in spirit. I used to feel a mundane sense of discipline of mind where thinking alike was promoted. If your creativity is going against the major agenda, it is not allowed. 

Also, if you mention things like casteism, and people used to do it, but there is a specific way to mention these things. These were as follows. You were not allowed to critique caste as a system. But at the same time, you were not allowed to openly profess in some official occasions about your caste and your caste supremacy as it will damage the organization's image as a Hindu organization. So, Caste was the unwritten, hidden collective unconscious of the organization. Every person of RSS that I saw, hated every other person in a suspicion that he is favoring his own caste. In my area in Jharkhand where I come from, there is rivalry of two castes, namely Rajputs and Bhumihars, both upper castes. This rivalry has economic angles where there is a monopoly of contractors of these two castes. Actually, my city Patratu was a thermal power plant for which Government started to issue tenders for some minor maintenance here and there. There, it started a feud between Bhumihars (a caste I belong) and Rajputs (a caste the topmost authority of RSS of our city and the richest man of the city belongs). This hatred is often masked at the national level, but it is very much evident in the local levels. People fight and the internal politics of RSS is very much casteist. 

Here, if we think in terms of Zizek's approach to Ideology critique, we see here a clear case of Prohibition being prohibited. You are not only allowed to not speak against casteism, that is to be anti-casteist, but then you are also not allowed to be openly casteist. Caste should be a part of a hidden secret. The hatred should be masked by a false unity as a Hindu consciousness. 

Now, come to the opposite side of the spectrum, The liberal spaces. In the recent Student elections at JNU, a new thing and for good, happened. BAPSA (Birsa, Ambedkar, Phule student association), a third party breaking the binary of the left front and ABVP emerged. What was interesting, among other things, was the argument why the people who started BAPSA did not join the left front. Although many students, including the president who got elected this time, Dhananjay, is himself a Dalit student, was in the left front, many decided not to join any of the existing student left parties like AISA, SFI or DSF but to create a third front. The reason they gave was wonderful, they said, "we did not join ABVP because, we think they do politics of violence. Also, that it seems to us an identity capturing ideology where you are not allowed to assert yourself and pride of being a Hindu becomes a mask of hiding our pain of caste oppression." But what he said about the Left front, "We did not join left because what left does is Saviour politics, we do not want saviors anymore, we want people who join us being our followers, just believers of Anti-caste movement, no Upper caste leadership please". This highlights the deadlock we are in today. 

Putting Zizekian ideology critique glasses on, we see, two fronts the left and the right and both are offering them a solution out of their deadlock and the real proletariat is asked to obey once again, in some kind of different post-modern casteist tendency. Let us understand this phenomenon correctly. This, we can call, the new age Brahman man's burden.

On one hand you have an obscene organization like RSS. Earlier, the radical Hindutva guys had direct obscene masters who were openly casteist.  You can still see the echoes of these voices in the statements given by Shankaracharyas of the four Mathas around India. They are the same old naive casteists. And the new generation Hindutva poster boys oppose them. But, within the organization of RSS nowadays, this is not the casteism that is found. It is neo-casteism. How? It is as if they have accepted the premise that ok, this is something not very good for their power capturing, so they publicly denounce casteism, but what is very interesting is how, in underground, it is almost as a norm in RSS to be a casteist. This, in effect, is expressed in their caste rivalries within RSS and many times, general public knows this when an RSS insider like Bhanwar rebels and opens up. What is most interesting is how you are not even allowed to speak against oppression in the name of unity of RSS itself. 

On the other hand, we have, liberal spaces which have the stupid patronizing attitude which is more horrendous. Not only, you were suppressed and oppressed due to your caste, your attempts to come out and lead will be hijacked by liberal voices which are brahmans basically. It is like, Brahmans defending Brahmanism, and brahmans going against Brahmanism. It is the real Brahman man's burden. You have brahmans leading Dalit audience providing them discourse for their struggle. This leads me to another incident. I, when I was in an institute pursuing my masters, the Dalit history month came and the Dalit students approached me for presenting a book, that is to read the book and explain it to them. It was The Caste of Merit by Ajantha Subramanian. I objected saying, "but I am a brahman. Don't you guys think, a Dalit person should come and explain it to you." They told me that they are very much burdened by studies and research that no Dalit student came up for the task. Now, this is a very interesting incident. On one hand, as a naive liberal, we can say, oh! so nice, Dalit-brahman solidarity or Dalit students finally studying so much so that they feel education is important. Another liberal perspective is that they are not organized enough as Dalits. But I see it in two terms. First, they do not want me to be their leader. They want me to work under them as a worker. They said, prepare a write up. Show us the write up and we will approve what to say and what not. People around me, of course Savarna people (students) who were my friends said not to do it because, this is barring my freedom to express what I read. This led to some controversies also when Dalit students tried to intervene too much, the Literature club, occupied by standard liberal students, resented. But I was hard struck that whatever they want me to do, I will do. And everything happened finally according to their wish. So, I take out two conclusions from this, they are burdened by the oppressive education system, which is training them to be a capitalist consumerist, hence they cannot do the activism, but at the same time, they want to be the leader of their own struggle now, not a follower in their own struggle. The liberal left wants to be their Saviour, their leader and they do not like it, and rightfully so. The real left is the ones who got left behind, not the elites who wish to save them. NO PATRONIZING NO MORE. 

RSS wants to co-opt them as Hindus and to be Hindu for a Dalit is to remain Dalit and face oppression as a ritual in Hinduism. And also, the Neo-Casteist ritual that they will not be allowed to announce their oppression. We see, on social media, the Dalit Hindu voices, where young men say, "I am a Chamar but first I am a Hindu". This Hindutva interpellation in the Subaltern groups like that of Dalits, is due to, I claim, the liberal Saviour complex, the Brahman liberals, not giving space to the marginalized, marginalizing them further, in an attempt to uplift them. This is pure Brahman man's burden, we are the one who will uplift you, O my dear Dalit! this naive stupid politics of being a Saviour is part of the problem. The solution itself, when becomes a problem is horrendous, is worst. 

I recall, finally, an article written by Prof, Dilip Mandal, A Dalit scholar, on Gail Omvedt and how Arundhati Roy is seen as an appropriationist. This is precisely, I want to say, in terms of the Zizekian lens of Ideology critique. Zizek says, the present deadlock that we are facing where on one hand, we have a global right hegemony and a liberal left incapable of doing anything but some micropolitics here and there, political correctness and so on, is due to the way the left liberals approach the problem. They try to appropriate everyone marginalized within the Marxist discourse and not give them spaces as allies. This hijacking of brahmans as their Dalit ideologues and Dalit discourse scholars is just an exemplary of that. We need to break out of this deadlock. Give them place as equals, do not try to make them equals because if casteism is false identity and they are basically equals, the attempt to further equalize them seems casteist. Do not try to be cunningly casteist. As Osho would have said, a problem that just seems a problem and it really is not, should not be solved as a problem, it should just be realized as an illusion and let it take care of itself. It is annihilation what we aim, not stupid identity politics. We do not want to fall in love with this caste identity, which ever caste it is, we want to demolish it. Representation is ok, but not enough. 

REFERENCES

1. Why Gail Omvedt is celebrated but Arundhati Roy was seen as appropriation (theprint.in)

2. Zizek, S. (2009). The sublime object of ideology. Verso Books.