That’s what I hear Prashant Kishor trying to tell the Gandhi clan of the grand old party in his incisive interviews with NDTV and Mojo Story.
Soniaji, Rahulji, and Priyankaji, with all due respect, you would do well to listen to this guy. He wants your party to continue being a strong, viable democratic alternative to the obscurantism of the BJP.
PK correctly identified BJP’s tripartite, winning formula as the rhetoric of Hindutva and Nationalism, matched on the ground with Welfarism.
The Congress needs to fight that with its own formula; utilizing the rhetoric of India and Federalism, matched on the ground with Employment and Growth.
That’s your message. Hone it down and regionalize as you deem fit. But stop playing this foolhardy game of 100% defense. Own your goddamn legacy, you guilded cage progressives, and don’t be afraid to throw some fucking punches. There are many of us who’ve been fighting these fascists for decades without any of your feudal backup or old wealth; You owe those of us who’ve kept punching up at the BJP (even as we wait patiently for you to adjust your fighting stance).
As far as the party’s Prime Ministerial face? One who can fight good fights as the face of the party for multiple election cycles? An electioneering face who can also be the face of governance?
It has to be someone with Hindi as their native tongue. I say this as a South Indian, mind you; But there is no way anyone from the east or south can be that face right now (unless they’re chosen post-coalition-making, a la Deve Gowda). If the Congress is going with an electioneering face, they would do well with a person from the Hindi heartland, preferably Dalit or OBC but with a very generically Hindu last name. Preferably from central India because the political parties of the south and east will always, by and large, resist the BJP in their regions but can’t challenge them in the north. Only a native Hindi speaker from the Congress party can do that. So someone, say, of Bihari origin, but educated in Delhi. Someone who’s also a gifted orator, with salt-of-the-earth roots, possessing a razor sharp intellect. Someone who’s guaranteed to bring in the votes left of the Congress, but also someone who can be a strong opposition voice to a weakened BJP central government in 2024, thus creating the foundation to win electoral battles beyond 2024.
Yeah, the Congress ain’t winning in 2024. But it can do better than 2019. Much better in fact (if the trends of the recent mood of the nation survey are anything to go by).
To do that however, the party bosses have to listen to the Prashant Kishors of the world. And they need to realize that their political candidates are the Kanhaiya Kumars of the world. The only Gandhi with even half a chance is Priyanka, not Rahul. She is absolutely doing the right thing focusing on galvanizing the women’s vote, and it’s perhaps first viable for her to look at getting the CM’s chair in Uttar Pradesh before making a push for Delhi.
But not yet. Maybe after at least one more non-Gandhi gets a chance to be PM. There are a lot of people who distrust the Gandhis and the BJP alike; And the Congress can still win many over with the right moves and adequate ego adjustments by the party bosses.
Until then, take full reigns of the party and foster candidates who capture the imaginations of India’s diverse masses. Don’t forget the words below:
Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana
To put it more succinctly…
Fight.
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Experimenting with a new format to produce an abridged geopolitical post with hypotheses and verifiable secondary sources for the reader to explore should they desire to do so.
My method of pop culture and geopolitical research, which has generally been the case for past pieces of such a nature, is as follows: When I take breaks from my daily responsibilities I watch/listen to either geopolitical podcasts, or mma videos, and occasionally will listen to a philosophy or popular science podcast (mostly to sound pretentious). I follow this up by looking up articles and papers when I have a moment to do so on the topics that interest me the most (usually when I have bouts of insomnia or when I’m on the crapper). I use these secondary sources as a way of bolstering the general hypotheses (written in bold, El-Cucuy style #champshitonly) that I dare to have about these issues.
Onward…
Drones Are Levelling The Asymmetric Warfare Playing Field In A Once In A Generation Way
Not unlike the bow & arrow or hand-held rifle, weaponized drones are a gamechanger for significantly disempowered geopolitical actors waging asymmetric warfare against vastly more powerful ones. Take groups like Yemen’s Houthi rebels fighting against a vastly more powerful Saudi-led coalition, or Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighting against the ridiculous military might of Israel. Drones even the playing field in a big way. They provide relatively inexpensive ways for the less powerful nation or group to bleed the wealthier, more powerful nation. This way they can accelerate ceasefire negotiations as equals across a diplomatic table.
There are other ways in which weaponized drones are changing the military game. Take two small, somewhat evenly matched states fighting over a swathe of territory like the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Drones were an absolute game changer for Azerbaijan smashing Armenia. Or take two mismatched regional powers, like Israel and Iran, with Israel having far greater military power and geopolitical heft than Iran. Iran has nonetheless been able to challenge Israel, often toe-to-toe in proxy battle theaters, with its own drone warfare adding heft to their traditional proxies (and this despite Israel being the world leader in drone technology). Drones can be engineered or reverse-engineered by anyone. Like the Enfield bolt-action in the 19th century, or the AK-47 in the 20th century, there’s no question about it – drones are evening the asymmetric warfare playing field.
Uttar Pradesh Election 2022 Trends Suggest A Wounded But Victorious BJP (With A Likely Modi Victory In 2024)
It pains me to say this, but it seems that, while the BJP is going to be wounded by their attempts to sell out India’s farmers to the highest bidders, UP is not Punjab. Their Hindutva-Welfarism still holds currency among a sizeable chunk of the electorate, including their upper-caste Savarna base, and portions of the OBC and SC communities. The BJP is likely going to be the single biggest party, thought not with the 312 out of 403 seats they have now, but more likely in the early to mid 200s. The Samajwadi Party will come in second for damn sure, the question is whether they can run the BJP close, and this could well be possible with India’s age-old protections against fascism – chaos and competition – potentially affecting the BJP in India’s largest state. This might be the best case scenario for the parties trying to uproot the BJP; With the SP leading the anti-BJP coalition, and the RLD, BSP, and Congress as the three likely players in distant third, fourth, and fifth positions, but with potentially enough seats to put an SP-led coalition over the mark (with enough sops that is). This remains the less likely outcome, but really the only route for an opposition coalition to come to power. The likelier outcome is, as I mentioned, a wounded BJP government in Lucknow.
Funnily enough, a weaker Yogi government in UP might be a blessing in disguise for Modi and Shah to retain their thrones in Delhi come 2024. Modi does not want a powerful Yogi in UP; a powerful chief minister now nursing potential prime ministerial ambitions. I doubt Shah wants that either because with Yogi challenging Modi, Shah might never realize his own ambitions at the PMO – with a newly empowered Yogi doing to Shah, what a rising Modi did to Advani during the end of the Vajpayee-Advani era of the BJP. Right now, Shah is a clear second-in-command (and some would say he holds the real strings over Modi, though I think those speculations are exaggerated). Modi and Shah want to rule India for as long as they possibly can. They have a great working relationship, built on garnering power and no small amount of ideological unity points. Some might even say, it would be in their interests for a wounded Yogi to limp into power on a regional NDAesque coalition in UP. They are already cutting Yogi down to size (the party’s publicity images have Modi basically big-brothering a petulant Yogi in the staged photo-ops). The Modi acolytes can claim Modi did all he could to save Yogi from embarrassment (and they would be partially right), Modi and Shah can launch a concerted bid for 2024 having successfully played defense in 2022. It is a sobering thought, but it is important, as someone who’s trying to adhere to reason and rationality, to remain true to facts. It’s quite possible that the BJP have to drive India further down the toilet than they already have for them to lose power at the center. They are well capable of that as their hubris and megalomania seems to have few limits. It will eventually lead to their downfall, but I think they still have a few more years in them. The Savarna middle classes of North India, and some other parts of the country, have also expressed a bafflingly undying loyalty for the BJP that can be classified as nothing other than a sociopathic mass delusion. I would be thrilled beyond belief if they got smashed, but I just don’t see that happening…yet.
And Finally, Chaos – Of The Caste And Regional Kind – Will Always Resist Hindutva
I have said it before. The caste, clan, linguistic, and regional identities of India will always be resistant to any homogenizing Hindu nationalist project. They will be bought over and will be negotiated with, but they will never give in to the homogenization. Not because of some higher morality. Far from it. It’s because there is too much entrenched power, cultural and political, behind these identities. There are too many vested socioeconomic interests preventing people and communities from being homogenized into some shallow fascist project (in a country where even the fascists can’t stop themselves from developing a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality). This doesn’t mean mini pogroms or mini projects of cultural genocide and ethnic persecution won’t keep happening. They will. But I think there is far more rational, organic resistance to Hindutva than your average, bratty English-speaking, progressive might give credence to.
The above map was provided by a certain Allice Hunter. It is a map of the Indian diaspora, darker the place, the more there are of us, the largest diaspora in the world if anyone is wondering (no prizes for guessing where India is). These people are often referred to as NRIs or non-resident Indians. I am one such person, and I’m coming to terms with that identity.
The above map is also a map of global Indian privilege, which is (as most things Indian are) guided excruciatingly obviously by historical caste privilege.
Now, as I try to grapple with the overriding fact that randomness guides so much of where we exist, who we are, and what we do – as living beings from a galactic, cosmic perspective that is – it leads me to smaller reflections around the way class and privilege operate within the microcosm of our human societies.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that whatever I have in terms of material wellbeing and social security is in no small part because I had the random, dumb luck to be born a privileged as fuck brahmin boy, in a patriarchal Hindu society.
For instance, I just learnt at the age of 41 that the ethno-linguistic sub-community I come from (Tamil Brahmins) is less than 2 million. This is not a poor community globally and let me tell you, I thought the number would be much larger. My fellow Tam Brams have garnered a lot of economic, educational, and political clout all across the globe. Indeed, not unlike sections of the Jewish community, the Tamil Brahmin community could be thought of as the “Ashkenazim of India” – at least according to Sadanand Dhume in an article praising the community as an “overachieving” one akin to their Jewish comparatives.
This is praise that your average Tam Bram is, of course, happy to wallow in. Not unlike the self-praise any community profers on itself.
Now, Tam Brams are about 0.15% of the Indian population (not fifteen percent, but a fifteenth of a fucking percentage point). Hell, the entire caste of brahmins constitute less than 4% of India’s population, distributed all over India. And yet, they are sensationally over-represented among the most privileged sections of the NRI community, which in and of itself can count itself lucky to be “NR” compared to the hundreds of millions who sweat and toil in the motherland – whose backs we have spring boarded off to foreign lands for opportunity and fortune; Foreign lands where we can conveniently erase the oppression from which we have benefited, and continue to benefit, from. And make no mistake about it, the only reason we are in these foreign lands, leading materially better lives than 99% of India, is because we come from families that managed to hoard land, education, or both, in order to get us there. We do the same for our kids so they can become elected leaders and captains of industry in those foreign lands that we happily integrate into, while trumpeting the great “culture” and “spirituality” of the land we just escaped. (Just so everyone is clear I ain’t knocking the rationale, just the inequality of access to a better life, is all.)
In any case, as a way of dealing with the self-hatred I’m finding myself mired in, I’ve decided to become a fifth column windmill tilter, the anti-brahmin brahmin, invoking my fifteen year old self who flushed his poonal down the toilet (I only did the fucking ceremony to make my parents happy and I wish I had the spine at that time to say no).
This blog will have to do for now, until some other platform makes itself available.
To that end, beyond ranting and raving, I wish to deconstruct a fascinating piece by mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, where he lays out the history and origins of caste hierarchies.
He starts with this pointed observation (and this really should be read in full by any outsider who has interacted with Indians describing their understanding of the caste system):
“Many people say that India’s caste system is simply a rational division of labour to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Those who say this usually associate themselves with the top two tiers (Brahmin and Kshatriya), less commonly with the third tier (Vaishya) and hardly any with the fourth tier (Shudra). If anyone says I am proud to be a Shudra, it is more from a sense of rebellion than wisdom or affection. And if people are proud to be Brahmin and Kshatriya, it has more to do with the desire to be dominant and less to do with wisdom or affection.”
Word for word, this is true. The Brahmin-Baniya-Kshatriya (i.e. Savarna) classes of India and the diaspora replicate this behavior.
Indeed, these same people, while abroad and gleefully wallowing in model minority status, will benevolently stand in solidarity with minorities in those countries or even far out struggles like Palestine (as was my, ultimately hypocritical, coping mechanism); All while fully cognizant that their own privileges were granted through millennia upon millennia of caste oppression.
And those privileges are very real, mind you.
As Pattanaik says:
“Vedas do speak of a diverse society. The dominant members of society, the Brahmins, the land-owners, the rich and the powerful, turned this concept of diversity into a hierarchical society. They did it using the Dharmashastras. In the Dharmashastras, including Manusmriti, the Brahmin jatis mapped themselves to Brahmin varna. They were not interested in mapping the thousands of other jatis.“
This is older than any other current structure of classism and racism mind you. Older than any of the various Abrahamic religions’ hierarchies of generational, indentured labor.
Vedic casteism might just be one of the original forms of patriarchy and social hierarchies. The following two paragraphs where Pattanaik deconstructs the system, highlight just how ancient these practices are:
“The chatur-varna system or the four-fold division of society was the hallmark of Vedic society. But it is completely theoretical, probably based on “aptitude” rather than “birth” but one is not entirely sure. The four tiers were – transmitters of Vedic lore (the Brahmins), those who controlled the land (the Kshatriyas), those who controlled the markets (the Vaishyas) and the service-providers (the Shudras).
In practice, Indian society has long been divided into jatis. There are thousands of jatis, as against four varnas. When people say caste, they are referring to a European term used to explain jati, not varna. We often confuse the two. Jati was an economic-political unit, based on vocation. You inherited your jati from your father. Jati was established by a relatively simple idea called “roti-beti”: you ate with members of your own jati, and you married a boy or girl from your own jati. A jati functioned like a tribe. Just as inter-tribe marriage is not permitted, inter-jati marriage was not permitted. Crossing jati lines could lead to violence.“
This continues to this day. Do not ever let any members of the hitherto ruling castes in India or the diaspora fool you into thinking otherwise.
But here’s the kicker. They genuinely think they’re better than you. The same way fundamentalist Muslims, Christians, Jews, Sikhs, or adherents of any other religious ideology think they’re better than everyone else, these fundamentalist Hindus think they’re better than everyone. As someone with deep insider knowledge, I can assert this to be true and then some. The stories, lifestyles, and narratives I grew up with as a member of one of the most privileged castes in India should make any genuinely progressive, thinking human being shudder with indignation.
Pattanaik explains why:
“Every society in the world has economic and political hierarchies. What makes the jati system unique is the hierarchy of purity. Some service-providers were deemed “dirty” and denied access to the village well and even human dignity. This is the worst aspect of the caste system, something that is often denied by apologists.“
This is the kicker. The function of purity (with patriarchal guardrails).
All religious ideologies have it.
But it takes on a whole new sense of geographic contiguity and temporal scale with Hinduism in India.
It must be dismantled and rendered to the trash heap of history.
Savarna Hindu culture has some of the oldest traditions of misogyny and sexism.
(and they probably don’t like talking about it when bringing up the thousands of years of great Hindu culture they like to celebrate…)
Your average upper caste Hindu male in all likelihood has had a pathetic, soft upbringing while being socially feted for achieving precious little other than being born with a penis.
Raja Beta, so the culture projects…
Raja, king. Beta, son.
Oh, have I mentioned that India is ranked 140 (and falling) in the gender gap index?
Yes indeed.
There are only 156 countries that are ranked, so there’s really not that far to go before the country hits rock fucking bottom.
Holy fucking regression, Batman!
*sigh*
You know, there are many reasons Sus and I choose to raise our family in America. It’s a helluva nicer life with more liberal social moors.
But above all, the single biggest reason is because America, while not perfect by any stretch of imagination, is far, far better for women and girls on average than India is. More freedom, greater opportunities, and lesser inequality.
The misogyny and sexism in India is off the charts.
Sorry raja betas… y’all a bunch of sociopathic little shits and you’re dragging the country down with your insecurities and ignominies.
Raja beta…pfft
Raja chutiye hai sab.
Arrey…
Sab savarna manuwadi chutiyapan se hua he.
Kaun hai ye andh bhakt log… desh barbaad kar rahe hai…haraam zaadey scumbag chutiye bastards.
Fuck ’em.
No surrender.
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Ask your average American, indeed your average Westerner, and they will likely have a positive viewpoint of the Indian diaspora – hardworking, generally smart, and with good family values.
They probably don’t know that your average Indian American very likely comes from a soft, privileged, upbringing, having internalized the kinds of everyday racism that we last saw in the developed West decades, if not centuries, ago.
(Oh, just ask any NRI, especially those in high falutin’ jobs, about his or her caste and watch them fumble and flail around like a beached salmon.)
The lay American probably doesn’t know that your average immigrant from India almost certainly grew up with domestic help; Domestic help (still called “servants” by the family btw) who were from significantly more oppressed castes; Domestic help who were likely far more undernourished than their Savarna employers (whom they still often have to refer to as “master” in the local dialect.) Savarna caste members are, how to put this delicately, quite blatantly honest about their feelings of caste supremacy.
Indeed, watch your average period film showcasing slave-owner households in pre-Civil War America, and I can tell ya, it doesn’t look a whole lot different than your average Brahmin-Baniya household in India today.
In case y’all wondering how I know this shit…ah well, it is to my great shame that I must admit to coming from such a community of Savarna Hindus – i.e. so-called “upper” caste Hindus (the ones with the most vociferous victimhood complex.)
‘tis why English is my native tongue, and why I’m a dual American-Canadian citizen, leading the underachieving life of a soft, privileged NRI.
Takes one to know one you see…
Let me exemplify my point with some numbers and nuggets of information from folks who are much smarter and harder working than yours truly.
With the backdrop of a legal case that revealed despicable casteist practices by Savarna Hindus in America’s Silicon Valley no less, Yashica Dutt (herself a Silicon Valley engineer and author of the critical, best-selling memoir, ‘Coming Out as a Dalit’) asserts thus in a gut-wrenching opinion piece for the New York Times:
“The overwhelmingly higher-caste Indian-American community is seen as a “model minority” with more than an average $100,000 median income and rising cultural and political visibility. But it has engendered a narrative that is as diabolical as it is in India: insisting that they live in a “post-caste world” while simultaneously upholding its hierarchical framework that benefits the higher-caste people.
Ranging from seemingly harmless calls for “vegetarian-only roommates” (an easy way to assert caste purity), caste-based temple networks that automatically exclude “impure” Dalits, and the more overt and dangerous arm twisting of American norms — right-wing Hindu activist organizations tried to remove any mention of caste from California’s textbooks in 2018 — caste supremacy is fiercely defended, almost as a core tenet of Indian Hindu culture.”
This is hardly surprising when you consider that “over 90% of migrants” from India to America came from dominant castes, i.e. Savarna castes, as shown in a 2016 OUP study, ‘The Other One Percent: Indians in America’ undertaken by Chakravorty, Kapur, and Singh.
Hell, when you consider that barely 3% of the Indian population has been on a goddamn airplane, and all privileged castes put together are barely 15% of the population, you can do the math and come to realize that even among the wealthier castes in India, there’s still competition to get on them precious flights out of the country (only to then celebrate a fascist leader who has led India down the toilet but that’s a discussion for a different day.)
Of course, not only is there this myth of the model-minority Indian-American, there is also oodles of insecurity…manifested by rape and death threats to anyone (in India or abroad) who dares question the sanctity of Savarna Hinduism.
One can only imagine the kind of vile filth that Yashica Dutt’s inbox and messages must have been subject to after she wrote her memoir.
If the experiences of Thenmozhi Soundararajan are anything to go by, it’s a sobering thought. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, she narrates:
“In the United States, caste does not operate with the same virulence as in our countries of origin. But the diaspora has seen our share of structural and interpersonal caste violence. I have experienced caste discrimination here: casteist slurs, untouchability practiced on me and my family, and aggression from police while protesting for our rights. When I came out as a Dalit-American woman, I faced rape and death threats that were part of campaigns to intimidate me. This violence forces many caste-oppressed people into silence.” (emphasis mine)
Ask anyone who has dared to speak ill of the Hindu nationalists, and they will tell you similar stories of such vile, despicable threats. (For crying out loud, I’m a veritable nobody with 64 followers currently on my blog, one of them being an alias of mine, and even I have gotten threats. One can only imagine what genuinely influential voices are undergoing on a regular basis. I shudder to think about it…)
The model-minority spin that the majority of Indian Americans and other members of the Indian diaspora, especially those who come from privileged caste backgrounds, put forward needs to be revealed for what it truly is. Enough is enough. As Dr. Suraj Yengde writes:
“We need to know the numbers of the beneficiaries of the caste system as well. Without this, the SC, ST census is akin to counting the protected species in a jungle.”
The lid needs to be thrown open, else historical caste oppression will never be dismantled in India. Your average NRI likely comes from a privileged, ruling caste background, whilst carrying around a gargantuan victimhood complex. We need self-reflection, not self-praise. And we need to use our privileges to expose the vile garbage and sickness that is enmeshed in our history.
The greatest hypocrisy of it all is that we’ll gleefully accept the goodies of model minority status in America and the West, while forgetting that our lives were led like semi-feudal, semi-colonial lords back in India.
We’ll put out tweets and posts supporting Black Lives Matter but barely even acknowledge the significantly worse atrocities towards oppressed minorities in India.
It’s nothing if not downright shameful.
(But not to worry, I’m sure there’s a festival celebrating Holi or Diwali at your local mall, for NRIs to eat junk food and watch shoddy artistic performances…all while celebrating their great “culture”…sab changaazi indeed.)
The caste atrocities in the land of my birth are even more brazen with the rising tide of Hindu fascism. Dalits are murdered, raped, and humiliated daily. Little has changed for millennia.
This is not hyperbole.
Precious fucking little has changed for millennia.
As I watch with a helpless rage…
It feels appropriate right now to at least state for all eternity that – just like the elite power mongers of other religions – Hindus who uphold the poison of a Savarna Manuwadi caste order are my sworn enemy. Even if they’re of my own blood.
For, within and without, this poison must be eradicated.
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Yesterday I was reminded with forceful clarity that as an Indian who stands in solidarity with Kashmiri Azadi, it is important to constantly evolve in one’s solidarity efforts. And for me that means digging deep into a multitude of nagging questions and uncomfortable reflections. For instance…
Why did it take me so long to stand in solidarity with the people of Kashmir and their right to freedom? So much longer than it should have really?
It’s only been a few years since I came out publicly in solidarity with Kashmiri Azadi, but I’ve been active with Palestine-solidarity work for much, much longer. It’s even more insidious considering Kashmir is way closer to the land of my birth and childhood – geographically, culturally, and politically – than Palestine ever could be.
No doubt the lingering insecurities and cowardice of majoritarian nationalism run deep.
Truth is, organizing in solidarity with Palestine was just easier to do, mostly cos I didn’t have to do some heavy lifting on deep-rooted nationalist baggage. Make no mistake, I am ever grateful for what I learnt and experienced doing Palestine-solidarity work, not to mention the fact that I met the love of my life through that activism. I will always be in solidarity with the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinian people. But like the Jewish or Israeli progressive who is progressive on everything except Palestine, I was the Indian progressive who is progressive on everything except Kashmir.
I talked the talk and said the right words to be the liberated thinker I thought I was (which I may very well be doing right now).
But deep down, the nationalism of my youth exerted and still exerts great subconscious leverage.
Which is why I think transnational solidarity must always be renewed to stay honest and grounded.
Especially the often fickle and feckless solidarity that emerges from a member of a rogue oppressor nation to his occupied brothers and sisters facing the brute end of that nationalist oppression.
So, as an Indian – no matter how long it may take for this latent jingoism to whither away – I hope to keep saying till my dying breath…
Azadi now.
Azadi forever.
Free Kashmir.
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Yet another voice stamped out by the forces of fascism and farce in India.
This hits a little closer home.
The city of my childhood is beautiful Bangalore no more, but is now officially McTrumpuluru, clad in saffron, choking on it’s own polluted contradictions, infused with an abominable lack of humanity.
But the cold-blooded assassination that took place yesterday in Bangalore, is part of a violently depressing pattern across towns and cities in South and South West India; Bangalore just marks another nail in the coffin of the fascists; the assassination of yet another great voice of progress and reason. The martyrdom of a warrior-poet who never took a step back in her glorious fight against the venomous right-wing forces that plague our times, Gauri Lankesh’s legacy will blaze a path forward for many, many others who will rise in her stead.
The forces of fascism and farce keep martyring great minds in various cities and towns around the Southwestern coast and inland in a curiously similar fashion. They seem to target those who light the way for others in life and death, particularly those who work utilizing vernacular media forms and are involved as rhizomatic figures in regionally strong, grassroots progressive movements in South and South West India, particularly Maharashtra and Karnataka (both states that the central, ruling BJP party, curiously enough, has established regional presences in but not as dominating political forces, which is what they desire.)
All the martyred warrior-poets were those who could clearly influence large numbers of people.
Narendra Dabholkar, anti-godmen and anti-superstition activist, martyred August 20th 2013, Pune. Shot at point blank range by gunmen on a motorcycle while on his morning walk.
Govind Pansare, leftist activist and best-selling regional author, martyred February 20th 2015, Mumbai. Shot at point blank range by gunmen on a motorcycle on Feb 16th, 2015 along with his wife, Uma Pansare, also a leftist activist, while returning from their morning walk. She survived the assassination attempt and continues to do courageous work in the area.
M.M. Kalburgi, progressive literary scholar and anti-superstition activist, martyred August 30th 2015, Dharwad. Shot at point blank range at his home in the morning by gunmen on a motorcycle.
And now Gauri Lankesh, progressive activist and editor of an influential regional weekly, martyred September 5th 2017, Bangalore. Shot at point blank range when returning home at night after work by gunmen on a motorcycle.
Oh, and did I mention that there are reports of cops thinking that the same fucking weapon might have been used in more than one of these murders? Not to mention the fact that they already have an organization as a prime suspect in the first three of them? Yeah, the Sanatan Sanstha, a fringe, Goa-based Hindu nationalist organization (with the most benign fucking website on the planet) but with direct ties to the mothership of Hindu nationalism, the RSS, via some militant group called the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti.
If this doesn’t smell of some larger conspiracy to bump off voices of freedom and reason, I don’t know what does. And it took me all of two Google searches to get the above information.
I don’t have all the answers. Clearly the authorities who seem to move at the lightning pace of thick, viscousy molasses when it comes to these investigations don’t either. Or maybe they do and are just corrupted by majoritarian fascism – something the South Asian subcontinent is well susceptible to.
But at least I’m part of a growing majority in India and within the diaspora who will not allow ourselves to be cowed down by the ignorance and malevolence of the Hindu nationalist supporters infesting the diverse and gorgeous global ethos of the subcontinent. We will follow, in our own humble ways, the paths that have been blazed by our great warrior-poets.
Indeed, if I may cynically paraphrase the breathtaking lack of vision and intellect shown by the Hindu fascists and their running dogs as they keep martyring our great lights…
How dumb are they?
What the hell were they thinking?
That fear and intimidation would actually work?
Idiots.
Right now, as I write this, there are thousands upon thousands of budding journalists, activists, intellectuals, truth seekers, and bearers of free thought who are fired up to be the next Gauri Lankesh, the next Dabholkar, the next Pansare, the next Kalburgi across the length and breadth of India – with a spark lit in their souls that no text or philosophical thought could have ever achieved.
Hindu fascists, like fascists everywhere, are too stupid and cowardly to realize that by martyring our lights, they do nothing but sow the seeds for thousands more to rise in their stead, super-charging the advancement of social and cultural progress.
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A recent article I read on institutionalized transphobia in India sparked a little thought journey for me around gender identity and indigenous spiritualities.
Specifically it led me to realize how little we know of the inherent gender egalitarianism and fluidity in Dravidian and other indigenous spiritualities of the subcontinent (and by “we” I mean those of us utilizing neocolonial, Eurocentric, patriarchal norms of understanding sexuality and gender).
Probably this is because these matriarchal spiritualities only exist in corrupted forms in India and South Asia now (albeit having sizeable influence still) – having been brutalized by many centuries of Aryan patriarchy, caste-based Manuwadi Hinduism, and misogynistic Abrahamic religious dogma. This has resulted in a multi-generational, multi-millennia erasure and subversion of these indigenous, Dravidian, feminist spiritual practices and norms…norms rooted in Dravidian matriarchy and liberated, fiery goddesses (who would normally kick the ever loving shit out of any fair skinned male god, bearded or otherwise).
In India and South Asia as a whole (not to mention parts of East Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and the Mediterranean while we’re at it), I do believe if we go back far enough we will realize a time when we all were part of matriarchal societies that worshiped various versions of the divine feminine as well as the earth and non-human souls – and those times could well give us templates to engage with in order to reject current patriarchal religions (all of the major ones today across earth) and the oppressive social, political, and economic ways of thinking and living that these religions spawn.
Currently I’m particularly interested in South Asian Dravidian matriarchal spirituality because it’s personally very dear to me. And it’s not as much of a stretch as one might imagine to reach back in time to understanding these matriarchal spiritual roots. A brief exploration of Giti Thadani’s Moebius Trip reveals a stunningly beautiful glimpse into past societies in the South Asian lands, mostly Dravidian-rooted societies, even going as far back as the Indus Valley/Harappan Civilization (which many now consider to be a proto-Dravidian civilization) where the divine feminine, as well as matriarchal and/or matrifocal or at the very least gender-egalitarian and/or gender just norms prevailed.
Of course, ever since the invasion of Aryan patriarchy – the foundation for the current misogynistic, Manuwadi caste-based Hinduism – and the strong global influence of the major Abrahamic patriarchal religions, the older matriarchal forms of spirituality have been marginalized, subsumed, and heavily corrupted by the major patriarchal and misogynistic spiritual forces of today.
But the great spiritual matriarchs still live on – in the subcontinent and across the earth. Kali, Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati are still prominent goddesses across India and especially in the South and East but with major influence in the North as well. In many regional societies and cultures, again especially in the South and East as far as I can tell, goddesses like Mariamman, Yellamma, Periyachee and many others provide spiritual foundations for countless people.
No doubt, many of these practices are steeped in regressive traditions, but I’m sure that as we slowly move towards genuine matriarchal societies, the more oppressive practices will be whittled away – and these goddesses can help subvert the multi-generational patriarchal narratives from within the heart and soul.
For I do strongly believe that it’s not much of a stretch of imagination to refashion our matriarchal roots for the modern era, an era where we dismantle (occasionally with fire) the dominant patriarchal social, economic, political, cultural and – perhaps most crucially – spiritual frameworks of today.
Referenced texts (and recommended readings):
Thadani, G. (2007[2003]). Moebius Trip: Digressions from India’s Highways. Spinefex Press.
Harris, R. (2007). “Aryan Patriarchy and Dravidian Matriarchy” in Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything. Link (accessed on June 5, 2016): http://www.integralworld.net/harris32.html
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