Ram Guha lives in Karnataka but does not know Kannada. He hopes to make up for this deficiency by writing articles in English depicting himself as stupider and more ignorant than the most bigoted shithead in the Kannada literary world
n the Kannada literary world, Devanura Mahadevaa Dalit who depicts the Gowda caste as incessantly raping and exploiting Dalits who, it must be said, tend to be off their head on drink
first made his name through short stories and a novella, Kusumabale, of striking originality and power.It was awarded a prize by the Government in 1990. Six years later a Gowda became Prime Minister of India. Coincidence? Don't be naive!
He has since won respectfrom people who don't know his language
for his political integrity
i.e he is wholly useless
and his moral courage,
he doesn't care that everybody is having a good laugh at him
for his refusal to succumb to the seductions of state patronage,
he once refused an award which- to be fair- nobody had heard of.
and for his identification with the disadvantaged and the oppressed.If he weren't Dalit, the State wouldn't want to co-opt him.
He is a passionate advocate of inter-faith harmony,
But Muslims don't want to harmonize with Dalits whom he depicts as alcoholics or supine sex objects.
his commitment to pluralism
he hates the upper castes
witnessed most recently in his going to a market in Mysuru to buy halal meat when a ban on the product was sought to be imposed by thugs of a Hindutva persuasion.
Like Kharge- whose mother was killed by Razakars- Mahadeva probably reserves his affection for terrorists of a different persuasion. It isn't enough to be Dalit to get a prize from the sickular establishment. You have to eagerly advocate the slitting of your own kaffir throat.
In July, Mahadeva published a tract outlining his views on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.
You should hear what they say about him.
A week after it was printed, the website The News Minute reported: “A critical exploration of the RSS, the book has been flying off the shelves since its release, prompting the state’s rightwing ecosystem to unleash all its arms to discredit both the book and its author.”
But other news portals confirmed that the pamphlet was shit. The author thinks India is 'Federal'. But there was no Karnataka till the Indian Union created it. He is opposed to the GST. He doesn't seem to understand that its existence is not due to a RSS conspiracy but plain economic common sense. Manmohan wanted to implement it but Sonia's coterie were against any sensible reform.
MPs of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as those who pass as “intellectuals” on that side of the political spectrum, unburdened themselves with a torrent of abuse aimed at the author. No matter; the tract sold tens of thousands of copies, being discussed and debated in the farthest corners of the state.
The BJP has strengthened its CM in Karnataka by giving more power to him to impose Kannada- a long standing demand of the author. Congress may be hoping for a Dalit-Muslim alliance but Mahadeva is rejected by educated Dalits because they were forced to read his stupid shite at school and disliked his depiction of his own people as drunken sluts wot can't even spick Kannada gud, let alone Inglis.
Happily for those of us who do not read Kannada, Mahadeva’s pamphlet is now to appear in other languages, including Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.
A hilarious own-goal! The RSS gets publicity just when it is making a big push in those states. Annamalai, in particular, stands to benefit. Incidentally, saying Modi is the head of the RSS is foolish. Modi is popular. The proper strategy is to say that the head of the RSS is some crazy wierdo who smells bad, not the most popular Indian leader today.
I have recently been reading the English translation, by SR Ramakrishna, which is soon to be published as a book.
Another translation is already available on the web.
Endorsing caste inequalities
The main text begins with quotations from MS Golwalkar and VD Savarkar, the two ideologues who have shaped Hindutva as it is today.
Fuck that! Modi and Modi alone defines Hindutva today.
Here we find Golwalkar justifying the caste system
as Gandhi did. Nehru, btw, was against reservations.
and its in-built hierarchies, on the grounds that they have scriptural sanction, and Savarkar urging worship of the Manusmriti, notwithstanding the fact that its endorsement of caste and gender inequalities is so antithetical to the Indian Constitution.
Not in the way Savarkar interpreted it. In 1935, he wrote
“Scripture-based caste division is a mental illness. It gets cured instantly when the mind refuses to accept it. The seven indigenous shackles whose breaking will liberate this Hindu Nation from the illness and demonic possession that is caste division are as follows: vedokta bandi (prohibiting certain groups from Vedic worship), vyavasaya bandi (prohibition of certain occupations), sparsha bandi (untouchability), sindhu bandi (prohibition of sea faring), shuddhi bandi (prohibiton of re-conversion), roti bandi (prohibition of inter-dining), beti bandi (prohibition of inter-marriages).”
Manu was not describing heritable caste but a social ranking according to autonomously developed spirituality and self-sacrifice. But caste, even of this sort, is still Maya- delusion. Just make money, pay taxes and educate your kids. The honeyed wisdom of the Chandhogya is yours. Read the Vyadha-Gita if you don't believe me.
The Savarkar quote chosen by Mahadeva is especially telling:
“Manusmriti is that scripture which is most worshipable after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law. That is fundamental.”
This is descriptive, not prescriptive. But Smriti is inferior to Shruti and Shruti, according to Vedanta, says Law is a samskar and samskars are Maya- i.e. delusive.
Another quote from Golwalkar has the RSS ideologue calling the federal system of a union of states “poisonous”, urging instead a unitary political system based on the homogenising principle of “One Country, One State, One Legislature, One Executive’’.
Which is what India has. It is a Union not a Federation. Karnataka was created by the Union Government. It has no shred of sovereignty of its own. The US has dual sovereignty because it is a Federal Republic. India is nothing of the sort.
Devanura Mahadeva draws our attention to the crudity of what passes for thinking in the RSS.
No he doesn't. He draws our attention to his own stupidity and ignorance. But, that's cool coz the guy has been writing miserabilist shite about how shitty Dalits are for decades. That's why he was coopted and his shite was put on the curriculum.
The Sangh’s Bible, as it were, is
The Vedas- for its Hindu members. Christians in the RSS have the Bible for their Bible.
a book of Golwalkar’s entitled Bunch of Thoughts, but, as Mahedeva writes, “If you look inside this book for anything that could be considered a ‘thought’, or ‘chintane’, you will find absolutely nothing. What it offers is only a set of random, dangerous beliefs, and that too from a bygone time.”
But Golwalkar's time is itself bygone. Why babble about it? The least this cretin could do would be to gas on about Deendayal Upadhyaya- a man so stupid he hadn't the nous not to get killed by falling off a train.
(Having read the book several times myself, I entirely concur with this judgment).
But, those who have read Guha's books consider his judgment to be shit.
The RSS’s ideology is so narrow-minded that, as Mahadeva remarks, “forget about anyone else, no sensible Brahmin even can accept this devilish view of the past that the RSS presents”.
So the guy is an expert on Brahmins as well. Cool.
Mahadeva writes from the perspective of a defender of the Indian Constitution.
of which he is entirely ignorant. Ambedkarites take the trouble to learn English. They don't write stupid shite in some regional dialect.
For all the lip service leaders of the RSS and BJP pay to that document, in truth they are deeply averse to its core tenets
which are
1) autochthony- the Constitution establishes itself and is not established by anything in the past but is deemed to spring, in immemorial fashion, from the soil
2) India is a Union, not a Federation
3) that the President can suspend the Constitution. It can be abrogated, amended, replaced or wholly done away with.
It simply is not true that
pluralism, caste and gender equality, freedom of speech, and federalism.
are 'core tenets'. Pluralism went with the abolition of separate electorates. Gender equality wasn't there ab ovo. Freedom of speech went with the First Amendment. Federalism was specifically guarded against.
Mahadeva goes so far as to suggest that “the more they damage the Indian Constitution, the more victorious they feel”.
Nobody gives a shit about the Constitution. Winning elections is what makes Modi feel victorious.
He continues: “To destroy the Constitution, the RSS and its affiliates are committing unspeakable acts.
RSS is raping Guha.
They are playing games they shouldn’t be playing.
RSS is playing sex-games with Guha.
And not just one or two!
Guha is being gang-banged.
They are waging a war to overturn the federalism that binds the states and the union government, and that constitutes the bedrock of the Constitution.”
There is no fucking federalism! Telengana was created by the Center's fiat in 2014. J&K was downgraded to Union Territory status a few years later. In that particular case, there was some doubt as to dual sovereignty but the Bench removed this doubt in 2016. Like other States and Territories, J&K has no 'shred of sovereignty'.
Mahadeva acidly remarks that since coming to power in 2014, “the BJP has offered Golwalkar its guru dakshina by burying federalism, by stifling to death the federal system that constitutes a critical part of the Constitution”.
Had Mahadeva abandoned Kannada for English, he could have tried to follow Ambedkar's path. At the least, he could read Ambedkar's comments on the dangers of a 'dual polity' which is the reason Ambedkar rejected Federalism in favor of a strong center with subsidiarity- i.e. devolved powers to the States.
Mahadeva also highlights the scant regard for the truth, the distortions of the historical record and the fake news that the Hindu Right has long been known for, now amplified by WhatsApp and Facebook. As he crisply puts it: “Falsehood is their family deity.”
Mahadeva, being a Dalit, knows all about family deities and how 'sensible' Brahmins think because...urm... well, he hasn't read Ambedkar.
He examines the many falsehoods propagated in textbooks issued by BJP Governments controlled by the RSS, which seek to poison the minds of our children with hatred for Indians who do not happen to be Hindus.
While he himself is seeking to poison minds against Hindus.
Dominant position
To his credit, Mahadeva acknowledges that political forces other than the RSS and the BJP have also contributed to democratic decline. As he observes: “When you look at India’s political parties, these are the facets you see: 1) single-person led party (2) family-controlled party (3) a party led by an anti-Constitution organisation. All three are detrimental to democracy.”
By (3) I suppose he means the Communist party which rules Kerala.
However, it is the BJP that is in power at the Centre and in many major states too. Given the dominant status the Sangh Parivar occupies today, it was imperative of Mahadeva to focus on the pernicious social ideology of the RSS and its dangerous political articulation through the BJP.
The guy lives in a BJP ruled state. Why couldn't he just focus on what is going on right now? Why the 'cut and paste' of Gowalkar and Savarkar?
To be fair, Mahadeva does raise one important issue. The Government is making it difficult for Hindu women and Dalits to convert even though, he says, it was those Hindus women and Dalits who voted the BJP into power because they genuinely believed that Modi would give them burqas and personally perform circumcisions so they could embrace Islam. Mahadeva says BJP is classifying Hindu women and Dalits- who, since birth have longed for nothing but conversion- as on a par with the mentally incompetent! This raises the question as to why Mahadeva- who, we know, buys halal meat- does not convert to Islam. I suppose he is waiting for Amit Shah to come and lovingly perform his circumcision. Indian constitution is demanding nothing less! How long must Dalits wait for Union Home Minister to come and prune their foreskin so that they can convert to Islam with proper dignity? Supreme Court must take action. It is not enough to declare Hijab an essential requirement of Islam, all Hindu women must be converted and provided with burqa. However, only Dalit males need to be circurmcised by Amit Shah.
Mahadeva does mention Goolihatti Shekar- currently a BJP MLA from a reserved constituency- who claimed his Mum had converted to Christianity and thus had to be re-inducted into Hinduism (which was not the case because Hindus can attend Church as much as they like without the Church itself regarding them as Christian) in some ceremony. Apparently this dude is harassing Church-goers. But Shekar is not RSS. He was elected as an independent and then was made a Minister by Yediyurappa. Then he defected and tore his shirt when the Speaker disqualified him. It appears that Mahadeva isn't really interested in Gowalkar and Manusmriti. He has a bone to pick with some other Dalit guy who has done better for himself by siding with the ruling party whereas he himself is having to publish a stupid pamphlet to curry a little favor with Congress.
Mahadeva also talks of the promises made by the lifelong RSS pracharak Narendra Modi when he came to power, such as the return of black money, the doubling of farm incomes, the generation of millions of jobs. These promises have remained wholly unfulfilled.
All politicians made promises along those lines. Modi still appears the most able to deliver.
Instead, economic inequalities and disparities of wealth have grown alarmingly.
Wealth is bad. Nobody should have it. Except the sort of wealthy Foundations which subsidizes Scroll- right?
Among the principal beneficiaries of Modi’s prime pinistership have been people like Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani (both incidentally from the prime minister’s home state, Gujarat).
Ambani and Adani and Modi should become as useless as Guha. Only if everybody is useless will equality prevail.
However, it is the ideological rather than economic critique of the RSS and the BJP that constitutes the heart of the exercise. This is a brilliant excavation of the totalising and homogenising impulses of the RSS.
All ideologies have a nomothetic aspect- i.e. they 'totalize' and 'homogenize'. Guha is making out that the RSS is a high IQ enterprise. Most Indians think it is more like the Boy Scouts.
In the space of a few thousand words, Mahadeva lays bare its intrinsic authoritarianism, its casteism, and its majoritarianism.
What has got Mahadeva so worked up? Reservations for the economically weaker section of the population. Only Dalits should get affirmative action. But Amit Shah should come and circumcise them so they can convert to Islam.
Recently, swayed by an invitation from the smooth-talking RSS sarsanghchalak, a group of elite Muslim males in New Delhi came away thinking the Sangh was amenable to change. They should read Devanura Mahadeva’s pamphlet.
If they belong to the elite, it will confirm their belief that Hindu Dalits are superstitious drunkards who are incapable of reasoning.
So should every thinking Indian, whether Muslim, Hindu, or neither. Mahadeva’s tract distils the learnings gleaned from decades of study and experience.
The charitable view is that he expected some monetary or other benefit by writing this shite. The problem is that Dalits no longer believe in 'koogumaris'- a type of demon which calls to you and, if you answer, strikes you dead.
He has carefully read the texts of the most influential Hindutva ideologues; and he has personally witnessed the operations of the Sangh Parivar in Karnataka.
But, clearly, he has been completely ineffectual these many decades. Fuck will he achieve now that he has become stupider and more ignorant than the average Dalit?
He has seen how organisations like the RSS, the VHP, and the Bajrang Dal have sought assiduously to expand their footprint in his state, by infiltrating the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the police, by creating fresh disputes around religious sites, by outright thuggery on the street.
But he is unable to communicate anything about what he has witnessed. Why? Either, there was nothing to report or he is a shit writer.
Mahadeva knows that if the Sangh was to be ultimately victorious in Karnataka, it would signal the end of the state’s pluralist and humanist traditions, its rich literary and intellectual culture, the very possibility of reason and civility in public life.
But Mahadeva's own writing- shitty though they may be- show that the State's pluralist and humanist tradition involved Dalits being fucked over in every possible way by Gowdas. True, they got their own back by getting drunk and soiling themselves but that didn't greatly contribute to 'reason' or 'civility' in public life.
It is thus that Devanura Mahadeva issues a gentle call to action, a plea to all those who oppose the RSS and the BJP to come together on a common platform to restore the foundations of the Republic and rescue it from being further ravaged by the fanatics on the Right.
The guy presented the preamble to the Constitution to Rahul Gandhi as part of the Bharat Jodo stunt.
It is worth quoting his call at some length:
“At least now, forward looking groups, organisations and parties should rise above being just little streams; they should flow collectively as one river. To be able to do that, they must abandon the unhealthy attitude of being pure and superior to others. They must give up their ego, and develop the humility to accept that hundreds of paths might exist for attaining an aim. They must put an end to their leadership squabbles.
But Kharge- also a Dalit from Karnataka- is saying that Rahul and Rahul alone should be the opposition candidate for PM. But that moon-calf is unelectable.
Rather than insist narrow-mindedly that they lead, or that their party lead, they must join a broad alliance to save federalism and the Indian Constitution and the diversity that is the life breath of India.
Also they should hop on one leg while gently sticking a finger up each other's ass-holes. I'm not saying that would ensure Modi's defeat in 2024, but it would be fun to watch.
They must come together to build a participatory democracy, where all citizens and communities participate, to create a culture that is tolerant, loving and free of distinctions of high and low.”
And where reserved seats and quotas are a distant memory.
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