The raking up of Bharat’s “caste problem” by the west is a deeply political project. It is a project through which the so-called caste narrative is being viciously whipped up at multiple levels to map every conceivable injustice and inequality in the world from racism, and apartheid to colonialism and the injustices inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the world to the “caste system of India”. The west has found a new whipping target, as it were, one it can hold responsible for all its historical wrongdoings and the horrors of slavery and colonization to absolve itself of the worst of crimes against humanity, as it were.
What else explains that in a vast leap of imagination, social science theory in western universities now constructs the premise that it is caste, and not race that is responsible for all injustices pervading the world. That is, racism supposedly has its origins in the caste system, and that framework of caste works better to understand the working of oppressed structures in society rather than interpreting these through the framework of racism.
The moment the word caste is mentioned, one invariably connects it with Hindus and the oppression of lower castes in Hindu society. Thus, indirectly, the upper-caste Hindus become the origin of all global inequality, according to the current wave of social science theory linking race to caste. In other words, the Brahmanical hegemony must be dismantled to make the world a better place to live in, as per these folks.
This dangerous theory maligning Hindus, sowing seeds of hatred amongst them, and whitewashing every conceivable crime of the western elite and Abrahamic faiths by passing the buck on to the “caste system of Hindus” was till now mostly limited to the academia. However, that too has its own dangers since academia, especially in the sphere of social sciences, is deeply connected with political activism. Thus, the possibility of the woke movement forcefully linking caste to race impacting public policy in Bharat and at the global level is not too far-fetched. But now, this rabid anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat propaganda masquerading as “social enlightenment has made its way to Hollywood as well.
A movie called “Origin recently was recently released in Hollywood. The movie directed by Ava duVernay is based on the book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson. The film hasn’t been released in Bharat yet but it’s already making waves on social media because it features Dr BR Ambedkar as well. It’s being touted as the first Hollywood movie featuring Dr Ambedkar. In the movie, Dr Ambedkar’s role is played by Gaurav J. Pathania, a Professor in the United States.
Thus, the movie is being touted as a revolutionary one featuring Dr BR Ambedkar, the champion of the struggles of the scheduled castes in Bharat. So far so good. But the premise of the movie is disturbing and reeks of propaganda. As per a review of “Origin” by Hindustan Times, “The film explores discrimination through the lens of India’s caste system, American racism as well as the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany”.
Yet another review of this movie published in The New York Times says, “The inspiration for “Origin” which DuVernay both wrote and directed, is Isabel Wilkerson’s acclaimed, best-selling 2020 book “Caste”. In it, Wilkerson argues that to fully understand the United States and its divisive history, you need to look past race and grasp the role played by caste, which she sees as an artificial and static structural “ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups”. Caste, she writes, separates people – including into racially ranked groups – and keeps them divided. These separations, as the subtitle puts it, are “The Origin of Our Discontents”.
“Origin” supposedly connects Ambedkar’s experience with an 11-year-old Black Boy who was not allowed to celebrate a Little League championship with his friends in the same pool in 1951. The film reportedly depicts Dr Ambedkar’s childhood as well including the incident when he was forced to sit on the floor of his classroom. If it was a movie solely focusing on the struggles of Scheduled Castes in Bharat and the role played by Dr Ambedkar in championing those, the movie would have been a legit one. But what is problematic is the fact that the movie deliberately conflates race and caste in a highly political anti-Hindu project.
The movie might be depicting the struggles of the Black American community poignantly but ironically enough, it does a disservice to those struggles by diluting their historical specificity and forcefully linking those with the narrative of caste oppression in Bharat. Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” on which the movie is based is highly problematic in its conception of all inequalities and discrimination from the framework of caste. In her book, Wilkerson equates slavery in the United States with the caste system in Bharat. She tries to equate African Americans in the US with the Scheduled Castes in Bharat. In her book, Wilkerson also reportedly claims that the Upper castes marry within their castes to maintain the purity of their lineage.
OpIndia critiques the book pertinently in an article titled “‘Unspoken caste system that shaped America’: Oprah Winfrey sends book, that needlessly drags India into a debate about slavery in the USA, to 500 professionals”. “The objective of the book is to assert that a system of racial hierarchy still persists in the USA.
However, in doing so, she equates slavery in the United States with the caste system in India, which is a preposterous lie. While the author accurately describes the horrors of slavery in the United States, by equating it to the Caste system, she presents an extremely twisted view of Indian realities. … in her attempt to elaborate on the horrors of slavery, Isabel Wilkerson ends up dragging Indian society through the mud even though Indians have nothing to do with slavery at all. It is a regular feature of Western liberalism where attempts are made to universalize local phenomenons. It appears to escape their notice that by engaging in such endeavour, a lot of nuance is sacrificed at the altar of politics and complicated matters are force-fitted to suit preordained objectives”, says the article.
Since the movie “Origin” is based on Wilkerson’s work, she is the prime protagonist of the movie. Actor Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays the character of Wilkerson in the movie. The film depicts her story as she journeys over several continents to supposedly explore how the idea of caste apparently underlies racism across cultures.
Wilkerson is reportedly portrayed reading Dr Ambedkar’s “The Annihilation of Caste” for apparently seeking an answer to many questions that rose in her consciousness after learning about the 2012 killing of Trevyon Martin, a young Black Man. The book apparently shakes her to the core and Wilkerson decides to travel to Germany and Bharat to investigate the underlying issue of caste and its connections to all forms of inequalities. In the movie, Wilkerson also meets Dr Suraj Yengde, a “Dalit Scholar” a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He reportedly provides her with some information on the caste system.
For the uninitiated, Suraj Yengde is a rabid Hindu hater and what I call an anti-Bharat activist who has gotten enormous name and fame as a “Bharatiya Dalit activist” but he spits venom against Bharat and Hindus in most of his talks and video interviews. In one of his talks, he rapturously declares that Bharatiyas should be ashamed for sending Dalits to sewer, perhaps forgetting the fact that he identifies himself as a Bharatiya Dalit activist as well, and that’s what makes him the poster boy of western media.
Suraj Yengde is the western elite’s poster boy of the global “Dalit movement”. He is the classic example of a woke icon who constantly plays the victim card to shun any opposition to his views and constantly spits venom at the so-called upper castes. What is problematic about the kind of “Dalit movement’ represented by the likes of Yengde is that it isn’t as much concerned with undoing the historical injustices meted out to scheduled castes by providing them equal opportunities in education, employment, etc. as it is on the complete annihilation of Sanatan Dharma. Make no mistake. The “Dalit Movement” represented by the likes of Yengde wants to eradicate Sanatan Dharma and call for the genocide of Brahmins. Suraj Yengde openly brands Brahmins as criminals and calls for their genocide. An article published in the Firstpost in November 2022 reveals more about Yengde’s aggressive anti-Hindu politics.
Suraj Yengde is also the poster boy of Critical Caste theory; a new social science theory being developed on the lines of the Critical Race Theory. Critical Race theory, developed in the context of racial inequalities in the US, suggests that racial discrimination is not merely limited to personal prejudices of individuals but is deeply embedded in any entire system of systemic prejudices, and thus to reverse racial discrimination, merely giving equal opportunities to the hitherto exploitation is not enough. The system now needs to compensate for those historical injustices by giving them rewards and incentives, even if they don’t deserve it. In other words, Critical Race theory calls for a new kind of discrimination and attacks meritocracy at its very core. Critical Caste theory is being developed along similar lines, thus arguing that caste privilege is embedded at the very core of Bharatiya society, thus holding all upper-caste people responsible for the historical injustices meted out to Scheduled castes, and thus aggressively attacking the achievements of the so-called upper caste people, even if they have achieved these things purely on the basis of merit.
The” Indianization of Critical Race Theory” has been explained lucidly on noted author, scholar, and a pioneer in the research on civilizations Rajiv Malhotra’s website. He rightly points out the links between the increasing popularization of Critical Caste theory in western academia and the political project to single out the Hindu community of the US by making targeted laws ostensibly banning caste discrimination in the US, when no evidence of caste discrimination in the US exists whatsoever.
Thus, the weaponization of caste by the western academia and its co-opting of the “Dalit struggle” into the “global oppression” narrative is a dangerous trend that can have serious consequences for Hindus in the times to come. If this continues unchallenged, Hindus not just in western countries, can be subjected to illogical and oppressive policy structures limiting the opportunities available to some Hindus simply because they happen to be “upper-class”.
“In the weaponization of Critical Race Theory for India, any group that can be convinced to oppose Indian civilization is a useful ally and is given the status of a victim. Besides the Dalits, the most important among them are the Indian Muslims and the LGBTQ+ communities. Once these victim identities are crystallized, they are weaponized to dismantle the structures, and provoked to attack in all directions”, as Rajiv Malhotra puts it.
Lastly, the most important point that all these anti-Hindu propagandists seem to miss is that “caste” is not even a Bharatiya-origin term for that matter. The word caste is derived from the Portuguese and Spanish word Casta, which translates into lineage or race. The association of caste with Hindu Dharma is a product of British colonialism and the missionary strategy to pit Hindus against each other and lay the ground for Christian conversions.
The Hindu concept of Varna is more apt to describe the stratification of society in the Bharatiya context, and the system of Varna as originally envisaged was based on a person’s qualities and characteristics, and not birth. For example, if we were to apply this system to the present Bharatiya society, it means that if a person has an aptitude for learning and intellect and advances their life in that direction, they are a Brahmin irrespective of their surname.
Ironically enough then, it is the western category of race that brought the evil of caste discrimination in Bharat and not the other way around. Perhaps, we need to develop our own social science theory of how caste in the Bharatiya context can be better understood through the framework of race and colonialism. What is stopping us from doing that?