Popular multimedia artist and podcast host Anurag Minus Verma (Facebook demanded a last name when he signed up) once told me that he liked to go into the darkest and deepest corners of the internet. For a while, he obsessively watched live videos from Jat and Gujjar influencers. His animated character Karl Gujjar from Noida was inspired by online fights between these two dominant OBC groups.
So, when Anuradha Tewari, a Bengaluru-based founder and chief executive officer of a content marketing firm, tweeted an image of herself in a sleeveless t-shirt flexing her arm muscles and captioned it "Brahmin genes", it only revealed the biggest open secret that Anurag has tracked for years: the Indian internet space reeks of 'caste pride'. Tewari's Aug. 22 post has already logged 7.8 million views.
"People like Tewari are creating the biggest archive of how caste operates in India," says Anurag, who describes the digital space as a "modern Kurukshetra where everyone wants to be a Kshatriya… At least we are being more honest about how supremacy works."
Anurag, who shares his social commentary on caste pride through his animated characters Karl Gujjar and Ronnie Malhotra, says he welcomes Tewari's post because it takes the burden off anti-caste thinkers and writers to disprove the theory that anyone can be Brahmin; that jati and varna are distinct ideas with the latter being fluid; and that the caste system only exists because of the British. "Caste is a Western construct," J Sai Deepak, the Supreme Court lawyer who argued for Lord Ayyappa's right to celibacy in the Sabarimala case, wrote recently in The Indian Express. "The formative literature on it dates to colonial times and is the work of writers with deep-rooted prejudices against Hinduism."
Internet reply junkies descended in hordes after Tewari's post. The first group couldn't understand why the post had gone viral. They held that there was nothing wrong in asserting one's Brahminical identity. The other group slammed Tewari for being casteist. Tewari followed up her post by describing Brahmins as the "new Jews of India".
There's definitely an oppressed group but it's not the one to which Tewari belongs. Untouchability continues to thrive in modern-day India. "If you want a chair, bring it from home," a Dalit sarpanch leader was told in Madhya Pradesh recently. Dalits are routinely murdered for entering temples, building temples, sporting moustaches, marrying upper-caste partners, daring to enter institutions of higher education and drinking water from public taps. Bahujan women face more violence than most Indians.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, many of us continue to hold that caste no longer exists in India and all our successes and gains are because of our hard work and excellence rather than our privilege, unlike those who need reservations to get ahead.
If you don't see your caste privilege, check your rolodex and your "skill" of knowing just the right person to help you solve any issue, from setting up a meeting with someone to securing your child's admission in any school or university or getting yourself heard in the largely upper-caste Indian media. Police contact? Check. Political influence? Check. Old Boys' network? Check. If you were brought up not knowing your caste, you are definitely a member of the minority upper caste that enjoys maximum benefits. If Brahmins pay the most taxes, as some responders to Tewari's post proclaimed, it's because, as the World Inequality Lab report found, upper castes control 88.4% of this country's billionaire wealth.
It's writers like Manoj Mitta and Thenmozhi Soundararajan who light the lamps in this vitriolic discourse for me. "For most savarnas, it's very easy not to see caste. They avoid reflecting on their privilege," Soundararajan writes in The Trauma of Caste. "The shame, the guilt, and the horror of what has been done in service of their privilege makes them uncomfortable."
Mitta, whose book Caste Pride uncovered a treasury of unexplored material about the caste reform battles between orthodox and progressive Hindus over the last two centuries, says that while the "overt aspect of Hindutva is political Hinduism targeting Muslims, its covert aspect is Brahminism putting lower castes in their place even as it seeks to consolidate the Hindu community."
"Hence Hindutva circles are filled with people who abhor reservations without any concern about the rationale of historical injustice or the persistence of untouchability and caste prejudice," Mitta adds. "Brahmin pride in their 'genes' is precisely because there is very little systematic study on how Brahminism weakened India right from the medieval period." He cites the example of how Brahmin leaders of his kingdom refused to crown Shivaji as Chhatrapati because they regarded him as Shudra rather than as Kshatriya.
Tewari's tweet is just a tiny manifestation of a huge Indian problem whose existence we will first need to acknowledge.
Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.
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