Going by the title, you’d be forgiven for thinking this article is about Protestant groups in the 16th to 17th Century Europe. After all, radicals were often puritans, and puritans espoused Radical causes of the day and….wait, that isn’t at all what this article is about. We aren’t living in 17th Century Europe, and anyone who has been reading my blog would know that I don’t write about history here. Unless it has an implication on the present. Well, what I would like to speak about is deeply historical, but also deeply rooted in the present. Just not that history, or the Protestant present.
Okay, so why is it that I invoke the radical and the puritan ? Well, it so happens that one of the most radical ladies in all of India at the moment – Arundhati Roy – is getting some stick from the puritans in the radical camp. Personally, I don’t agree with most of what Roy says, and I don’t find her to be the demigod of the Left that some people make her out to be. Or did until she was “called out”. But the way in which she was called out deserves attention, both for the sheer irony of the whodunnit and the deeper message that this act is shouting out to us all.
First off, the context and the act. Roy has been a staunch critic of the present Modi government. This is entirely by choice, and one has to admire the tenacity and dedication with which she has stuck to her guns. Whether it’s JNU, or lynchings, or the Bhima Koregaon/Elgar Parishad case, Roy is always at the forefront of protests. Not unnaturally, she is a darling of the Left and the Liberals (they are not the same). Time and time again, she has braved the wrath of the state and the Right-wing organizations to ensure that her voice is heard, and very often, it has been heard. Credit where credit is due.
Now we come the act. A couple of days ago, she was attending an online webinar/meeting/conference/discussion on some liberal issue with some liberal elites from foreign shores. I fail to recollect what the issue was, since I am not the most avid admirer of the avant garde in Leftist issue-picking. Neither is it pertinent to note who the other panelists were, since there isn’t exactly a whole lot of variety in their ideas anyway. What is worthy of my digital pen, though, is that one of the panelists called out Arundhati Roy for her surname.
In any other context, shaming someone for being called something would be anathema. You call out someone with a Tamil surname for being Tamil, and all hell would break loose. You call out a Christian surname for being Christian, and you would be picketed for your prejudices and stereotypes. Rightly so. Your name is your identity, and unless you have an issue with it, no one else should. That’s just basic respect for each and every person for who they are.
But Roy was called out for her surname, and now she’s the one being attacked for her defense. You see, Roy is a Brahmanical surname. Brahmanical ? It appears to be a surname used by Brahmins, though it would be important to point out here that many castes have Roy as their surnames. I personally know of people outside the so-called creamy layer of society who are Roys. This is similar to how Ghosh can be an upper-caste surname and also refer to the cow-herder caste, which is definitely not part of the creamy layer.
But the foreign panelist rightly guessed that in Arundhati’s case, Roy was a Brahmin surname. Perhaps the fact that Roy has never claimed to be an SC or ST made it pretty obvious, because in the world of leftism and so-called progressive politics, if you have even an iota of anything unprivileged or exploited about you, you milk that to maximum advantage. Since Roy has not done this, it is amply clear that she is an upper-caste.
So what’s her defense for being upper-caste? A Brahmin to boot in a world that considers every Brahmin to be Brahminical and thus worthy of derision. Hence, a progressive who wishes to be considered one has to explain how she is progressive while carrying a Brahmin surname.
Considering how much she has already done for the Leftist causes, it was well within her right to flatly refuse to explain this. Instead, and again to her credit, she did give something of an explanation. Her explanation, in a nutshell, was that she was raised by a Syriac Christian mother and a Brahmo father, who later converted to Christianity. The import of her argument was that she has a progressive lineage, and she was never part of the Brahminical orthodoxy to begin with. After all, neither Christian nor Brahmo is Brahmin! Ergo, she is not a Brahmin.
Further, she reiterated that she didn’t fit into any historical categorization due to her upbringing, and while Syrian Christians and Brahmos may have had their conservative sides, she herself was not part of any such grouping. She went on to argue that caste is not about being Brahmin or not, and not about a specific set of arguments for or about Brahmins alone. Rather, Brahminism is about a social stratification that is present in other religions as well, and is part of a complex socio-religious rubric. Previously, she had argued that Dalits alone should not have the right to speak about caste, and in my limited understanding, it was implied that caste was everyone’s cup of tea and not just a dalit samosa.
This didn’t find muster with the puritans among the radicals (see where my title is coming from ?) She was called out in a number of Twitter posts, most notably by those going by handles like Dalit Chef, Dalit something-or-the-other, etc. They wondered why she had tried to claim that she was not a Brahmin when it was clear that her father came from a Brahmin background and her mother was part of a social grouping which was traditionally known to be conservative and elitist ? Why did she try to claim that she was not a Brahmin when by blood, she was ? And what was all this “whataboutery” about caste being present in other religions, or that caste is not about Brahmins per se but about social and religious stratification in general ?
To sum up, why is Roy trying to act “casteless”, as one Scroll.in commentator put it, when it is patently evident to all and sundry that she was, is and will be a Brahmin until she….well….does something or says something or acknowledges something.
Thus, it is not enough that someone repudiate their personal caste category (whatever it may be), and then write extensively about caste prejudices and structural violence against the under privileged in society in her works. It’s not enough that she even writes a foreword to Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, and cooperates with Dalit intellectuals and activists, giving their voice a mainstream respectability through her own reputation as a best-selling author. It is not enough that she has consciously sought to work for Dalit causes with no personal benefit and great personal risk and discomfiture.
In fact, nothing is enough. You see, the argument here is not what Roy has done but what she is. This existential question is narrowed down to a black and white palette where black stands for the darkness of Brahminism and white stands for the narrow definition of liberalism that is tom-tommed by the radical purists. She is Brahmin by blood, since lineage flows from the father (patriarchy anyone?) and her father was Brahmin. So if your parents were, at some point in their lives – usually by virtue of who they were born as – Brahmins, then you are damned and doomed to ashamedly admit that you are a Brahmin even if everything your parents and you have done your entire lives militates against such a categorization.
This is basically the argument of dwija or twice-born, but inverted in significance. Hindu scriptures argue that the twice-born are born and stay in this state unless they commit some unspeakable act which strips them of this status and damns them. For instance, dining with the a dalit. Here, the argument is accepted, but virtue and sin are inverted. You are a dwija if you are born one, or your parents are born one, and you have nothing to be proud of. You are part of the problem from the moment of your birth, and nothing you do in the normal course of things (in fact, anything and everything) will wipe that primordial sin off your record. Hence, a radical like Arundhati Roy would still be asked if she is a Brahmin by a foreign somebody who wants to earn some extra brownie points with the puritans. Your only hope of redemption is if you accept that you are a Brahmin, and then atone for being a Brahmin despite not being a Brahmin. Basically, mess up your identity to stay on the right side of the picket line.
To deconstruct (as breaking it down into digestible morsels of information is fashionably called) all of this, let’s start with the assumption that someone is Brahmin. What is wrong with saying so ? Nothing, since one’s caste is not who they are. It is who they were born as, and the actions and lineages of their parents and grandparents before them. The question, however, is why someone should be asked if they were Brahmin. To return to a previously stated analogy, would you call out a Tamil for being a Tamil ? This would only expose your own prejudices about Tamils. Similarly, Brahmins – like any and every other caste in India today – are a varied lot. Some are very orthodox and conservative, some are very liberal, and some are radical. Some may accept that they are Brahmins by accepting that it is part of their identity, and proceed accordingly. There is nothing so diabolical about being a Brahmin that you can’t espouse a liberal cause or fight for justice while being a Brahmin.
In fact, Brahmins were at the forefront of major social reform movements throughout the colonial and even the post-colonial period. The progressive movements of today often ignore the pioneering actions of these stalwarts in favour of an excessive and sometimes historically distorted deification of Ambedkar and his followers. It is rare to find a Rammohun Roy Study Circle or a Vidyasagar Study Circle created and run solely by Dalits, but Ambedkar Study Circles are dime a dozen. If Christians have their Jesus, Muslims have their Muhammad and Marxists have their Lenin and Mao, Dalits have their Ambedkar. No one else matters.
But what if you are not a Brahmin ? What if you consciously chose a different path for yourself and your children, and your children moved further down the road away from the identity of the Brahmin. What if the child does not see anything in herself that relates with what she understands – rightly or wrongly – to be a Brahmin ? Does she still need to accept that she is a Brahmin because of a random collection of letters appended to the end of her name ? Would it not go against what the person believes she is, and what she is fighting for ? Does anyone have the right to define a person based on just a three-letter word that has some specific historical or sociological connotation ?
If yes, then what is the point of fighting against caste, because most of us carry a caste surname ? If you will force even the most radical and most rebellious person into the straitjacket of your caste-based definition of who a person is, what is the point of fighting for annihilation of caste in the first place ? Let us all define ourselves by our castes, and take sides accordingly. The Brahmins, by this token, would have been wrong to usher in the Bengal Renaissance and the other social reform movements. They should have stuck to their privileges, and kept Brahmin as their primary and only identity.
Further, what is the point of fighting for individual rights then? What is the point of fighting for the woman who has divorced her husband, is estranged from her parents, and does not wish to have a surname at all ? What is the point of fighting for the people who refuse to conform and strive to give every person their due in a democratic society that is pluralist without stereotypes ? Because if you define yourself by your caste – or are forced to do so in the most progressive or liberal of settings – why bother in fighting for preservation of such open spaces ? We could just as well settle for khap panchayats where judgments are handed down based on the caste of the offenders. Then we would have erased two centuries of struggle against social orthodoxy, because if in the end the fighters themselves have to defend against accusations of hiding castes they refuse to belong to, why bother at all with any social progress ?
In the end, this attack on Arundhati Roy exposes a fundamental facet of the movements for the oppressed. Like all good movements, this one also proceeds with a binary assumption that one group is progressive based on their caste, while the other is regressive based on their caste. Progressives will win against regressives, or continue to fight. The problem here is that the definition of progressive is so narrow and so tone-deaf that it keeps cannibalizing those who have given their everything for the cause. If today Arundhati Roy is rendered illegitimate because of what her three-letter surname stands for – or is assumed to stand for – then what hope do lesser mortals have that one day, after they have sacrificed everything, they too will not be rendered illegitimate because of something they have consistently rejected ?
There are those who will claim that Roy is a sensationalist who goes after avant garde causes. While this is true to some extent, it is also true that the puritans demand a lot of sacrifice from anyone who wishes to walk the path of “progress” shoulder to shoulder with them. You have to start by identifying the inherent privileges you enjoy, such as good vegetarian food, or cultural festivals that may be rooted in tradition, or participation in social circles and organizations that are not considered liberal enough. All of this must go. Next, you must find how your social relations – your friends, your family, your neighbours and friends – are part of the caste nexus and how you don’t have enough Dalit friends, or Muslim friends, or some other acceptable category of friends. So you have to diversify your friend circle. Next, you must participate in each and every movement that is launched. You may have your own more conservative opinion about certain movements, but nope, nothing doing until you give your full-throated support to all of it. Finally, you must look within yourself and change your fundamental character, habits and beliefs until they conform to the high standards of the priests of progress. Finally, you must chop off undesirable parts of your name whether or not you actively identify with them or not.
But once you do all that, and Roy is pronounced guilty of not taking that last step – they will find something else to demand. Another sacrifice, another change in your life and your relations that would keep you in sync with the marchers. Falling behind is not an option, because everything that is left behind is regressive by the very definition of the march of progress.
All of this holds a vital lesson for any and every wannabe Leftist and/or liberal. If you choose to go with the flow, you will change yourself so fundamentally that you will not be able to go back. Then you will be called out when the movement takes yet another unexpected turn. A new cancel culture, a new something something matters, something will throw you off balance. Yesterday it was JK Rowling, who believed that (primarily) women menstruate. Today, it is Arundhati Roy, who didn’t provide enough justification for not being a Brahmin. Tomorrow, it could be you or me.
In the specific context of progressive politics in India, this challenge is all the more difficult. This is because while the conservative bloc demands adherence to rigid ideas of caste, religion and nationalism, the liberals are becoming no less dogmatic. Or should we say, those fighting about caste are becoming no less dogmatic. The liberal ideal of championing specific causes based on your own beliefs, and not changing them based on any one belief or movement, finds few takers today. As the Arundhati Roy episode reminds us, identity politics, no matter how progressive it may look, end up wrecking your identity or subsuming it in a specific context from which there is no escape. Are we ready to surrender the better part of who we are, who our friends and family are, and what our social moorings are, to keep up with the marching band ? We must choose wisely, because a sudden turn of the road may put us at the wrong end of their bayonets!