My Casteism and Privileges: Test for the Upper Caste/ Savarna in Academia and Beyond

Prologue

Academia, whether in the US or India is a deeply exclusive space, available to a select few. These few are often picked and pruned on the basis of ‘merit’ which is a pre-legitimizing step toward any production of knowledge. Often liberal students, in particular perform wokeness in order to legitimize their scholarship or appear subversive on social media platforms. I am guilty of perpetuating this performance by seeking to publicize my attempts to address my casteism and access points within academia and beyond. This piece of writing is an attempt to engage with fellow upper caste people by redoing the models provided by Devon W. Carbado and Peggy McIntosh. Of course, Hindu upper castes are diverse groups but as historically privileged communities, each one of us benefits by keeping Dalit and Bahujan voices in the margins.

Confession as Performance

In 2019, I asked my Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) course instructors, NM and PB about the relevance of a prescribed essay written by Shailaja Paik. I insisted that the 2014 article wasn’t making any new feminist methodological claims about commonalities between African American and Dalit testimonies. NM was annoyed at my flippancy and wondered if I had come across any similar works in the past. She added that Paik was one of the few Dalit researchers in the US academia. At that point of my time, I read the inclusion of the essay as an act of tokenism, particularly when PB mentioned that they need not justify their course material. Retrospectively, I went on to see this inclusion as an attempt to reconfigure the canons of feminist writing. While I have bitter memories from that classroom and Delhi activist spaces, I would strictly use this essay, to address my casteism that fellow research student SNS alluded to, in a recent Facebook comment. It is irrelevant whether I knew about Paik's caste before the exchange. Nivedita Menon's patronizing comments about Raya Sarkar and the latter's attempt to expose sexual harassers in Indian academia, have taught me huge lessons.  The very fact that I was so dismissive of a researcher, indicates a liberal casteist belief on what good writing looks like and a paradoxical wokish propensity to decide the terms on which syllabuses can be de-Brahmanized.

Of course, as a Kayastha (upper caste) person, this was not the first time that I was being casteist. My English medium school education facilitated my understanding of caste, only through reservation policies. Though I was forced to recognize caste-based atrocities reported by news media, I failed to see how the education system encourages casteism by looking down upon students who have access to the affirmative practice. In short, I came to caste via both constitutional provisions (which I read as discriminatory) and reports of violence (which I read as a disturbing but a normal aspect of Indian democracy). As an undergraduate student in Scottish Church College (SCC), I contributed vocally to the collective anger, shared by the upper caste ‘unreserved’ (UR) students. “We” were casteless, until we spoke about reservation! Of course, “we” didn’t feel irked by the Boses and the Guhas occupying teaching positions. We celebrated this Brahmanical hold on knowledge production. Unsurprisingly, we were also annoyed if Other Backward Class (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) students, got admission under UR seats. “Don’t they have reservation? We have to work so hard!” A former friend, once told me in a different context, how liberal crowds such as those in Kolkata or Delhi didn’t/doesn't want to see Dalit and tribal students in academia. Their very presence either in reserved or unreserved seats, was/is seen as a constant threat. Thus, in 2014, when there was an UR vacancy in an M.Phil. (English) course in University of Hyderabad, I took it for granted that as the next UR person, I am entitled to it. When the OBC candidate who was ranked above me, was moved to the UR seat, I broke down. My tears were the product of the very casteism, that had made me equate UR with upper castes. I also convinced myself, somewhat like Saheli Biswas’ upper caste female friend, that rich SC and ST students were being unfair to poor students from all communities. Such an accusation uses shame to silence Dalit voices and simultaneously reinforces the idea of the quintessential poverty-ridden Dalit who should not aspire toward dignified ways of living. In liberal upper caste circles, reservation is always seen as a privilege and not a means toward representation.

When I came to JNU, I was convinced that I had sufficiently interrogated my casteism and can call out the practice, without sounding problematic. You see, liberals find a way to camouflage their casteism and repackage it with some other names, or use friends from marginalized backgrounds as evidences of their wokeness. In trying to be woke and expose academic kinship (that many critics of Sarkar’s 'List of Sexual Harassers in Academia' practiced), I ignored the nuances of canon-making. Retrospectively, I think I ignored the mental health of the teaching community and my friends, while being only concerned about my own. Let me clarify this further. While I believe I can still call out casteism, I need to be aware about my intentions for doing so. Am I performing wokeness or expressing solidarity or doing behalfism? Each of these intentions has a different goal. I think it is important for savarnas to check each other's casteist practices. However, by doing so, they don't claim to be superior over those who are more casteist. Closeted casteism is a real thing and often does not even reach social media.

Making this writing public is a continuation of my interrogation and not a closure. Being a liberal Bengali, I am capable of performing various forms of wokeness. I write today after being reminded once again that the onus to educate upper caste people shouldn’t be on structurally marginalized scholars. Moreover, why does every upper caste researcher want to extract knowledge from the margins, when there is so much material available in our hate filled WhatsApp family groups? I am grateful to Delhi friends who often called me in and also dismissed me with “fuck-offs.” Perhaps, moving away from ‘home’ and coming to Delhi University made me recognize some of my casteism. However, I wonder if such realizations have come at the expense of Dalit and Bahujan lives. After all, upper caste students disproportionately gain from interaction with marginalized voices and use that knowledge to secure PhD positions or tenure-track jobs in Global North. As Sumeet Samos continues to remind everyone, universities and societal structures cannibalize Dalit and Bahujan lives – Rohith, Muthu, Payal, Delta, Anitha and many more.

Engagement

I have a few questions for upper caste readers (including first generation students like me, studying in the Global North) who don’t recognize caste privilege as part of their everyday living. Often we claim to be as oppressed as other minorities under the umbrella term, 'people of color', thereby erasing the histories and practices that gave us access to academia. While this essay is not centered around anti-blackness in Indian cultures, recognizing one's everyday casteism will hopefully allow upper castes to be better allies against oppressive nation-states, without hogging the limelight. The following questions are an attempt to reiterate that reservation is about representation. You cannot be anti-caste system and anti-reservation at the same time. As Arpita Sarker just told me, upper caste people must arrive at labels by acts of doing, rather than advertising them, even before understanding the stakes.

1 . Do you have had any ancestral landed poverty (however little)? How did you receive it?

  2. Despite being “poor”, do you still have access to Hindu wedding rituals and the food that is served in such events?

  3. What does your poverty look like? Do you have relatives who may have offered to financially support you (even if in a condescending manner)?

   4. Do you or your family have any domestic help? Do you serve them in different utensils?

   5. Did your family ever tell you that your “help” is unclean? Did you ask yourself how can unclean people keep your house clean?

   6. Do you clean your own toilet? If not, why? Who does it for you?

   7.  Have you ever been told by parents not to touch manual scavengers? Did you give a similar advice to others?

   8. Have you ever been stopped from entering a kitchen, not your own? Have you stopped anyone because you felt they were not clean or pure? (This includes concerns around menstruation which is a caste based Brahmanical taboo).

   9. As a student or a teacher, have you judged people if they do badly in certain exams or tests? (This could be ableist syndrome too). Do you judge them more if they belong to SC/ST/OBC categories? If yes, why?

  10. Are you likely to question the qualifications of a teacher if they speak English with a certain accent or don’t look ‘respectable’ enough?

 11. In school or college or workplace, did you ever make any classmate/colleague uncomfortable about their access to reservation? 

12. Do you support giving admission or jobs to an upper caste person under reservation, meant for OBC, SC or ST candidates? Have you justified this by emphasizing the lack of "good candidates"? 

13.   Do you appreciate diversity and find yourself more willing to talk to students of color in the US, while looking down upon Dalit and Bahujan students back in India?

14. Is your research focused on a marginal community or movement? Will you be getting fellowships or salary on the basis of that?

15.  Even if your research has an impact on the communities and persons with whom you are working, are you willing to give it up if this is disproportionately profiting you?

16.   Are you currently supporting Black Lives Matter but not reservation in India? Why?

17.  Did you ever feel that you would like to avail reservation too? Does that mean that you support reservation as long as you are able to access it?

18.  Bharatiya Janata Party government has now reserved seats on the basis of income level. Does that make you happy? Why? Remember, reservation isn’t about economic conditions.

19.  Have you ever judged a rich Dalit or a lower caste student availing reservation? If yes, why?

20.  Do you feel that if someone’s parent(s) had access to reservation, their children should not avail of it? Do you then believe that structural oppression can end in a generation?

21.  Have you shamed a Dalit or a Bahujan student for wearing expensive clothes? Do you routinely shame yourself or your upper caste cousins for doing the same?  Do you imagine and see a Dalit student only in terms of poverty?
[1]

22.  Do you recognize your birth and family lineage as privileges?

23.  Have you equated reservation with nepotism? Are you familiar with the reasons as to why the Indian constitution provides for the former? Have you heard of Poona Act?

24.  If you believe that caste-based reservation should not be there, can you provide data to support it? For instance, how many Dalit persons are employed in senior positions within academia?

25.   Do you feel that Dalit persons are well represented in politics? Can you identify any Dalit woman politicians except Mayawati?

26.  Have you ever made fun of Mayawati because of her accent, clothing or gait? If yes, why?

27.  Did you notice how most teachers, scientists and bureaucrats have upper caste family names/surnames? Do you notice a recurrence of these surnames in other professions like manual scavenging and cleaning? What you see here? Caste privilege or ‘merit’?

28.  When you think of a Dalit person, how likely are you supposed to envision a doctor or a teacher?

29.  Do you see violence against Dalit and other caste minorities as normal? Why?

30. Do you believe in inter-caste marriages? Are there any such marriages in your family?

31. Do you fetishize Dalit and tribal bodies but envision matrimony with people from your own caste?

32. Have you heard of self-respect marriages? 

33. Do you feel more angry/sympathetic when the victim/survivor of a sexual assault looks fair or “beautiful”?

34.  Ever since India has been grappling with the corona virus, have you blamed any lower caste, Dalit or tribal person (particularly those from the “Northeast”) for it?

35.  Are you making similar claims about Muslims? (Caste endogamy and Islamophobia are related.)

36.  Have you come across any “untouchability” jokes on social media? Do they make you laugh?

37. Do you have Dalit or Bahujan friends? Have you used them as evidences to deny your casteism?

I am not in a position to face caste-based discrimination and these questions may seem too stereotypical. But I hope that the questions make fellow upper caste people, including those who describe Bahujan writing as “garbage” (and simultaneously express solidarity with Dalit feminists), to be more self-critical. It is never too late to apologize and be a non-intrusive ally. I repeat, unlearning  casteism is a long process. There is no closure.

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[1] 18, 19 and 20 were suggested by Saheli Biswas.