Nobel Laureate Ackerlof gave an economic theory of caste (based on information asymmetry) after a short stay in India in the early Seventies. Strangely no Indian economist has bothered to do anything similar. Jean Dreze is not Indian by birth but has spent a lot of time in India that too without the benefit of air conditioning and a well stocked mini-bar. He writes in Scroll-
“Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path.” This powerful image from Dr Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, published in 1936, still rings true today.
But Ambedkarites will find this monster anywhere they look!
That would be obvious enough from the point of view of the oppressed castes, but they are not the only victims of the caste system.
Americans and Belgians are equally the victims of this monster.
India’s entire society, culture and politics are also casualties of it.
As is America and Belgium. Recently some penguins in Antarctica were dancing in a lasciviously manner. Why? Because of caste system.
If you are not convinced, you may wish to read Republic of Caste, by Anand Teltumbde.
more especially if you are a penguin who objects to lascivious dancing.
The book is not just about caste – it is a wide-ranging collection of essays that “deal with issues which may be taken as crucial for our collective survival as a democratic republic”,
That survival requires locking up nutters who want to assassinate the PM.
as the author puts it. Still, caste runs through it as it runs through India itself.
Not to mention people who eat an Indian takeaway and then get the runs.
From communalism to sanitation and elections to economics, Teltumbde helps us to see the pervasive and pernicious role of caste in contemporary India.
His own role was considered very pernicious. But it wasn't very pervasive. Nobody cared that he had been locked up.
He restores the centrality of caste to our understanding of Indian society and how to change it.
No he doesn't. The man is a fool.
This is an unsettling book. It is likely to cause you some discomfort at times,
if you insert it up your rectum- sure.
whatever your political leanings. Anand Teltumbde is a radical and fiercely independent thinker who is
recycling the warmed up sick of the early Seventies.
not afraid of departing from the beaten track. For instance, he is critical of India’s “status-quoist” Constitution, and even holds it responsible for the persistence of caste.
A reasonable view for a guy who is in jail. Interestingly, this book of his was published back in 2018 when he was first accused of a crime.
The main reason, as he sees it, is that the Constitution laid the foundations of caste-based reservations.
It already existed in the 1935 Act. This guy is married to Dr. Ambedkar's grand-daughter who played a big role in securing this.
Teltumbde presents a rare and provocative critique of reservation from a Dalit perspective.
No. Teltumde did well in life thanks to his powerful brain and scientific talent. He has an MBA and a PhD in cybernetic modelling. Sadly, he has no understanding of political science.
This critique is in tune with his conviction that the destruction of the caste system calls for renouncing caste-based mobilisation, because it reinforces divisive caste identities.
Cool. Join the BJP. You can rise by merit to the highest office in the land.
On this, he parts company with some sections of the Dalit movement. “There cannot be a caste-based solution to the problem of inequality,” he argues.
Dr. Ambedkar had no problem with 'Tardean mimetics'- i.e. imitating the superior. We want more deserved inequality so as to have better mimetic targets.
Instead, Teltumbde advocates working-class unity on an anti-caste platform,
Dr. Ambedkar saw that there was no working-class unity in the Labor movement in Madras Presidency and elsewhere. It was the Mill owners who wanted to bring in Dalits who were labelled as 'black legs' though they worked hard for their money and could rise by ability. The Unions also wanted to keep women out of the work place. Some Commies, like the cretin Saklatvala, supported this.
or rather, a platform that includes the annihilation of caste as a fundamental commitment – “class struggle with an anti-caste core”, as he puts it.
Naxalism which is pro-Dalit rather than OBC dominated. Why not ask for the moon instead?
He does not believe in the Bahujan approach of trying to unite a broad range of castes based on their caste identity, ignoring the conflicts that divide them (for instance, the exploitative relations that often prevail between Dalits and the “Other Backward Classes”).
But that Bahujan approach greatly changed perceptions. Indeed, Mayawati has turned Boddhisattva Ambedkar into an incarnation of Vishnu! It is a different matter that the Muslims preferred to ally with the Yadavs.
He feels that workers must organise as a class around their collective interests,
They did so and thus killed off any possibility of the proletariat becoming numerically preponderant. There is no such thing as the 'collective interest' of the working class. There is merely the 'insider' who wants to increase 'economic rent' at the expense of the 'outsider' who is condemned to low wages and harsh working conditions in the informal sector.
including the end of the caste system.
Do Dalits want to get rid of endogamy? No. They want to rise collectively. Some 'jatis' have done so and others are copying them. Conversion to prestigious religions like Buddhism can help as can avoidance of meat, alcohol etc.
That may seem like a natural strategy, since most workers are victims of the caste system in one way or another.
Though those who have no regular employment are bigger victims.
One would expect the rejection of the caste system to appeal to them and also help them to unite.
How? The fact is endogamy is about 'risk-pooling'. You never know when one occupation or locality will go down the tubes. You then need to turn to your own people in different occupations or localities to help you survive.
Class struggle and caste struggle seem to be made for each other.
but both quickly degenerate into shouting 'Death to America! Boo to neo-liberalism! Hindutva go to Hell!' for which some foreign NGO might reward you.
Instead, the two have diverged, and even turned mutually hostile.
They also tried to get in bed with the Islamists who laughed heartily and slit their throats.
The Communist movement and Dalit movement in India became rivals if not opponents.
The Communist movement has disappeared almost everywhere except Kerala. But Vijayan says he will be the Deng Xiaoping of India. We have no objection to that at all.
There have been some reconciliation efforts in recent years, but the legacy of mutual suspicion is hard to shed. As Teltumbde sees it, “the biggest obstruction to the growth of a politics of change has been the growing divergence between the dalit and left movements.”
Dalits are smart. They will always be around. Leftists are senile. They will soon die out altogether. What happened to Kanhaiya? He has joined the INC.
In his diagnosis of this estrangement, Teltumbde reexamines the early days of the Communist and Dalit movements in India. Communist leaders, or ideologues at least, were mainly from the upper castes (“mostly a bunch of Brahmin boys”, as Ambedkar said in one interview), and they failed to take caste seriously.
Ambedkar's pal, J.N Mandal, failed to take Islam seriously. He was Pakistan's first Law Minister. Then he and his folk had to run away to India. But then some Muslim Commies, too, had to escape to India.
That was partly because Communist ideologues had a simplistic understanding of the Marxist distinction between “base” and “superstructure” (a broad distinction between the mode of production, on the one hand, and institutions of a more cultural, ideological or political nature on the other).
This understates the problem. Communists thought of Dalits as 'lumpen' proletarians. They believed they were a parasitic class which would vanish once 'Socialist morality' prevailed. Don't forget the European 'Gypsies' are of Dom origin. Europe hasn't treated its Dalits well.
Caste, they thought, would vanish on its own after the Revolution –
'parasitic' classes would be slaughtered. Communists were completely deracinated. They imposed a Judaeo-Christian-Marxist value system on the Indian reality. The Hindu will readily accept that Bhagwan Valmiki belonged to the Balmik caste. The Leftists could never do so. There was a lady professor at SOAS who changed her whole view of the Ramayana, thus causing her to break ranks with her colleagues, after meeting Balmiks in London (where they are a prosperous and successful community).
meanwhile, it was futile to fight it without resolving class contradictions.
These evil bastards believed that Dalits must be 'immoral'. They would be slaughtered along with the 'kulaks' and the petty bourgeoisie and the 'liberal idealists' and the Right Deviationists and the Left Adventurists and the Trotskyites and the Browderists and.... let's just kill everybody to be on the safe side.
Some of them, perhaps, felt that the best way to fight caste is to ignore it.
Indeed, the Left soon found the best way to fight reality was to ignore it.
The failure of Communist leaders to address the caste question alienated Dalit activists later on.
The Commies viewed Dalits as cannon fodder. They were welcome to get killed for the Revolution so that it wouldn't be necessary to kill them after it. On the other hand, some communist leaders- e.g. EMS Namboodripad- did make pragmatic alliances of a casteist type. Because of certain peculiarities re land ownership in Kerala, the Communists were able to survive there. But pragmatism and a willingness to tackle genuine problems will lead to success regardless of ideology.
The alienation was reciprocal, as Communist leaders felt that the Dalit movement was dividing the working class.
Very true. High caste workers kept trying to cuddle and kiss Dalit workers. But those snooty Dalits were refusing to eat with them or marry their daughters.
Teltumbde’s analysis is persuasive, but I suspect that there is a deeper problem.
He is as stupid as shit.
When old-time Communist leaders “feared that confronting the issue of caste might lead to organisational break-up”, as Teltumbde puts it, they certainly lacked courage in overcoming that fear, but the fear itself was perhaps not misplaced.
Why side with a minority when, in a democracy, the majority has more votes? The problem for Commies was more complicated. The Kremlin liked Brahmin dynasts. Mustn't annoy the Kremlin. They'll stop giving us money.
Caste culture is deeply ingrained in India and it is not easy to persuade anyone, even among its victims, that the caste system is wrong in itself – not just untouchability, or caste discrimination, or what Hindu nationalists call “casteism”.
It is also difficult to persuade people that Mummies are evil unless they are tenured Professors of Feminism.
For many people, caste is a fact of life, and the idea of doing away with it does not arise.
More particularly if it doesn't exist.
Further, even those who resent oppression from privileged castes often value the modicum of togetherness and solidarity they feel within their own caste.
Also people like their Mummies even though this is disapproved of by Feminist high theory.
The caste-based mobilisations that Teltumbde deplores reflect the tendency of collective action in India to coalesce around caste or community (block voting on caste lines is a prominent example).
Actually, caste associations preceded political associations in much of the country.
Even Ambedkar’s visionary appeal for mass conversion to Buddhism failed to resonate much beyond his own community, the Mahars.
Ambedkar was repeating the argument of Ayothee Dasan and thus putting clear blue water between himself and the 'Aryanist' Buddhist North Indians.
To put it another way, the destruction of the caste system perforce includes the destruction of one’s own caste – that is a little bit like asking people to go around without clothes.
Such naked sadhus have gone beyond caste.
It is, thus, no wonder that inciting workers against the caste system per se is often difficult. This is not to deny that it may still be the way forward.
Why not incite workers against their Mummies and Daddies?
After all, there have been vibrant anti-caste movements in at least some parts of the country, notably Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.
But those movements could make life hell for Dalits.
Teltumbde’s vision of working-class unity with an anti-caste core may or may not be easily realisable, but it is an important line of thought and action at the very least.
If by thought and action you mean mental masturbation- sure.
The failure of Indian democracy
As mentioned earlier, this book is not just about caste.
But people will only read it because of the author's caste.
It is also a larger reflection on Indian society and politics.
Not Australian politics? Why not? Is the guy prejudiced against marsupial-molesters?
Many sections of the book are gems in their own right, from the author’s incisive analysis of communalism
Muslims want to kiss and cuddle Kaffirs. Why does nobody understand this?
to his astute profile of Kanshi Ram
who successfully mobilized Dalit and OBC workers in the public sector and made an ambitious, if Machiavellian, bid for political power though it was Mayawati's indomitable spirit which had the greater impact
and his critical appraisal of the Aam Aadmi Party.
We get it. Successful politicians are evil. Only abject failures should be praised.
If there is an overarching message in these essays, other than the ubiquitous monstrosity of caste, it is the failure of Indian democracy – a “charade” as Teltumbde calls it.
In a true democracy, the author would have been appointed the Viceroy. He would have refused due to caste is very nasty monster. Then he would have been declared the Queen Emperor. He would have refused due to caste is very horrible monster. Then he'd have been given Nobel Prize for Super Sciencey Smartness. He would have refused due to caste is hiding under his bed. It is very evil monster.
Indian democracy tends to appear in a rosy light to the privileged classes
No it does not. Rahul is privileged class. Like others of his ilk, he takes plenty of foreign holidays so as to get away from Indian democracy. Why be, as his brother-in-law put it, a 'mango-man' (aam aadmi) in a 'banana republic'?
because democratic institutions work quite well for them. But the same institutions (elections, parliament, courts, media, education system and so on) often work in a very different if not diametrically opposite manner for the underprivileged.
Privilege means getting cool stuff. Being under-privileged means not getting what the privileged get. Things may work differently in Belgium.
A prime example is the so-called justice system, which is more likely to look like an injustice system to the victims of arbitrary arrests, fabricated cases, gratuitous incarceration and other forms of judicial harassment – a routine way of preventing people from stepping out of line.
Or making them look deeply silly.
Teltumbde himself is a victim of this injustice system, incarcerated as he is today under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, or UAPA,
even though the fellow is only guilty of wholly useless activities
a draconian law that has no place in a real democracy.
which won't remain a real democracy for very long if it does not fuck up terrorists.
The health of Indian democracy looks even poorer if we think of democracy not just as a method of government but also as a way of life based on liberty, equality and fraternity.
Why stop there? Why not see democracy as a way of life based on never dying or falling ill or being scolded by Mummy or taunted by people who have found out you have a micro-dick? I'm not saying that's what happened to me. It was some other bloke who lives down the street from me.
In terms of these constitutional values, “there is not an iota of improvement”, as Teltumbde aptly puts it. In fact, right now the country seems to be going backward on each count.
India should try to be more like Sri Lanka which Dreze and Sen praised to the skies less than ten years ago.
There is one curious omission in the book – the absence of any discussion of gender issues.
Because the dude has a dick. If I were him, I'd claim to be trans-gender so as to get transferred to a women's prison.
This is not a criticism (the author is free to write on what he likes), but a disappointment. Just as communalism and class conflict are entangled with caste, as Teltumbde argues, so is patriarchy.
But patriarchy is entangled with vaginas. Ban vaginas!
Caste reinforces men’s obsession with the subjugation of women,
speak for yourself Jean. Most men are obsessed with women riding them hard and putting them away wet.
especially among the privileged castes, because a free woman is a threat to the purity and unity of the caste.
Also, she may give you gonorrhea. No. That's not the name of one of King Lear's daughters.
The connection between patriarchy and the caste system has been well recognised by a long line of anti-caste and feminist thinkers.
Though matriarchy or matrilocality too can have a caste system. By contrast, many patriarchal societies lack any such thing.
Teltumbde’s thoughts on gender issues would have enriched this illuminating book.
How? What great illumination is gained by saying caste is a horrible monster which is causing women to totes lose their shit? Why not simply say 'Caste is causing dicks to shrink'?
Republic of Caste is an invaluable introduction to the essential ideas of Anand Teltumbde,
but so is shitting into your cupped hands and examining your feces
one of the most important thinkers of our times.
When compared to Amartya Sen- sure.
The book is all the more engaging as it is written in a clear and lively style.
This was before he was sent to prison.
Teltumbde is a master at going to the heart of complex matters and putting them in simple, powerful words. Few books have made a deeper impression on me since 2002, when I stumbled on Annihilation of Caste in a dusty library of Allahabad and read it in one sitting.
It's a very short book. It would take about an hour to read. But it is a foolish book. Dr. Ambedkar had some notion of allying with the Muslims and thought that attacking Hinduism would please them. The trouble was that they wanted High Caste converts, not eloquent barristers who were more humbly born. Dr. Ambedkar redeemed himself, in High Caste eyes, by converting to the ultra Aryan Buddhist religion which had spread untouchability as far as Japan and Korea. Bali has Brahmins but no untouchables. Japan has no Brahmins but plenty of untouchables. Buddhism is what spread the taboo on the meat of 4 legged animals and the repugnancy of working with leather. Dr. Ambedkar's conversion was of a piece with Cassius Clay's conversion to a religion which still engaged in the African slave trade in the Fifties. On the other hand, it is true that Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962. But the Caliphate revived slavery in Iraq a few years around the time of Muhammad Ali's death. Usury may be haram but Slavery they considered halal. Meanwhile Teltumbde is neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. His own imbecility constituted the oubliette he now occupies.
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