IDENTITY, one’s sense of self and its persistence, as shaped through ascriptive and subjective processes, is natural to humans as social beings.
It would be truer to say that 'oikeoisis', 'belonging', is natural to certain species. But a dog can be part of one's family without having an identity different from other dogs.
Kurt Lewin coined the term 'genidentity' to denote an existential relationship underlying the genesis of an object from one moment to the next. But Identity is not Lewin's genidentity. The thing may be a confabulation. Oikeiosis, on the other hand, is something continually re-inscribed by social interactions. It is this which undergirds 'Identity'.
Identity politics, however, is not natural.
The Price equation holds for a certain type of oikeiosis- viz. that which arises from common ancestry. Families do exist. Common ancestry does create bonds. Kin-selective altruism is a real thing. Human oikeiosis, like many other things about us, is plastic enough to extend to artificially constructed septs. This is because it makes sense to promote the fitness of lineages which will promote our lineage's fitness.
It is articulated through a persistent sense of discrimination and oppression, either innate or induced, along the axis of ‘defining’ one identity from among many. Identity politics thus necessarily veers towards becoming essentialist. Consequently, rather than understanding oneself as having heterogeneous and multiple identities, people are provoked to support the politics based on a particular identity.
It certainly makes sense to reject a 'Grievance Studies' approach to one's own sense of identity. But, surely, oikeiosis is about more than nurturing a common sense of grievance or venting ire at an alterity? In the case of Dalit technocrats- why should they not group together to ensure that there are more Dalit billionaires? Clearly, these are people who are highly meritorious but who, for historical reasons, don't have a good network to raise capital. So, there is a gap in the market which it is profitable and socially useful for those with domain expertise to fill.
Dr. Ambedkar had no problem raising funds from Kanpur millionaires while also serving poor Dalit factory workers in the slums. There can be, indeed there are, a variety of Dalit identities just as there are a variety of Jat or Patel identities.
An essence is something true in all possible worlds. There is nothing wrong with 'essentialism'- strategic or otherwise. The truth is that Dalits are smart, motivated, and not subject to any sort of brain-washing of an occult, religious, sort. Obviously, they will flourish in many different ways just as every other group can flourish. What matters is whether they give a helping hand to each other and work with others for the upliftment of Society.
Although ‘identity politics’ can draw on intellectual precursors from Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) to Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) – writers who have actually used this specific phrase – it became more pronounced in the second half of the twentieth century through large-scale political movements (second wave feminism, Black civil rights in the U.S., gay and lesbian liberation, and the American Indian movements) which were based on claims about the injustices done to particular social groups. The specific discourse with its contemporary baggage has gained prominence only in the last twenty years. These social groups highlighted their identity in response to the experience of cultural imperialism (including stereotyping, erasure, or appropriation of one’s group identity), violence, exploitation, marginalization, or humiliation by others.
Identity was a good stick to beat senile Marxists with because they truly were shit. Telling them they were shitty little racist, misogynist, cunts was a good thing. But, of course, what was even better was just ranting even crazier paranoid shite than those professional paranoid nutters. If one of them sidles up to you to shit in your ears about Trump, turn the tables by accusing him of sodomizing Trump so incessantly that the poor woman has turned completely white. You can't tell me this is not a conspiracy orchestrated by the Grand Wizard of the KKK to 'whitewash' proud Ethiopian sisters like Donaldananabana Trumpolezi and turn them into supposedly White 'billionaires'.
Of course, 'identity politics' does have its practical side. The Law can create protected groups with superior entitlements or remedies. There are sound careerist reasons to get on this bandwagon. The thing may be faintly distasteful, it may be undignified but pecunia non olet- money don't stink.
There has been considerable scholarly interest in identity politics, highlighting its egalitarian and preservationist dimensions.
But that 'scholarship' is worthless.
The protagonists tend to see it in positive light because of its democratizing potential. It may, however, be noted that the specific dimensions of identity politics come forth, not as its generic attribute but in the specific context of a particular identity. The focus of this essay being annihilation of caste, it deals with politics based on caste identity, particularly by Dalits, who being the worst victims of the caste system and sans any stake in it, were expected to be the torch-bearers in the struggle for annihilation of caste.
The fact is, endogamy is a good solution to a range of coordination games including the 'stable marriage problem'. Dr. Ambdekar's Brahmin widow wasn't exactly embraced by his community. 'Marrying out' can, in effect, mean that the 'creamy layer' detaches itself from its ancestral roots and assimilates to a power elite.
The workaround is simple. Ensure that every type of Dalit feels supported in pursuit of excellence. This is something the market can get behind because it represents an arbitrage opportunity. So long as some Dalits are better at 'talent spotting' within their own community, the market will accord them an interessement mechanism. If you are doing a lot for your community, nobody cares whom you marry. The same applies if you are rich. Look at Neville Wadia- descended from, the Muslim, Jinnah- but very rich. He was accepted as a Zoroastrian while many others in the same boat were not.
Caste is considered as constituting the basic identity of people in the Indian subcontinent.
No. It is an attribute which can be used for affirmative action in accordance with the law only if such a stipulation is made by the beneficiary- not otherwise. So it isn't 'basic' at all. By contrast, race was 'basic' for America and South Africa and so on- at a certain period in history.
Classically, it draws upon a hierarchical notion and a corresponding association of rights and obligations.
This is far from clear. The Brits ruled India. They didn't have a notion of caste but did have one of primogeniture with respect to hereditary entitlement. However, they found it both natural and convenient to move to a notion of equality before the law with some measure of acknowledgement of customary usage as well a type of 'sovereign' immunity which could be extended to landlords such that they enjoyed freedom from arrest on their own estates.
Initially, some Indians banded together into caste associations to advance their interests. Thus there was a Mahar association and a Kayastha association and so on and so forth. But there was no 'hierarchical notion' of 'rights and obligations'. Why? Princes had such things but above the Princes was the Crown in Parliament which needed to make a profit, or at least break-even, on the Empire racket.
Japan had Caste and Untouchability and a ban on beef- indeed, no meat from four footed animals was allowed- and a somewhat corrupt Buddhist clergy administering the hated 'danka' registration system. But Japan got rid of the lot because it wanted to be rich and strong. That is what 'annihilates' Caste and Indians are totally on board with that- though endogamy may survive as it always has simply by providing a better solution to the stable marriage problem.
Caste thus formed a continuum ranging from the notional superior-most Brahmin sub-caste to the inferior-most untouchable caste, the precise identity of which would be impossible to determine. This haziness of castes is the result of their sheer numbers as well as their dynamism. Caste, contrary to its commonplace notion, is not a static category, and has been constantly evolving through splits and mergers, in turn giving birth to new castes which, according to their material strength, stake claim to a higher ritual position vis-à-vis other castes in their respective locale. Likewise, geography determines the varying modes of living of people, which also made a difference to the social position of different castes. Caste thus constitutes a lifeworld of the people in the subcontinent with fluid boundaries.
This is false. Endogamous castes can't constitute a 'lifeworld' if there is geographical and occupational mobility- which is truer of the landless than other communities. On the other hand, it is certainly true that men have the same 'lifeworld' as their wives- which is how come I have PMS.
This lifeworld was defined and concretized by the British colonial regime through the establishment of a modern state in India with its concomitant reliance on techniques of measurement.
Bullshit! The Brits had been ruling for quite some time till the fad of conducting a Census and compiling boring statistical shite took hold. But the thing didn't matter in the slightest.
The 'modern state' in India depended on money and shooting people who got out of line.
The decennial censuses instituted from 1872 as a part of this process
was a factor in mobilizing Indians against the Raj. Each time a Census report come out, British power weakened.
enumerated, codified and ranked the castes, shaping and solidifying identities of people in a manner that could be used by the colonial state.
But if the thing was useful, it was already used by whoever it was who controlled territory in India.
As Chakrabarty observes, the colonial scheme reconstituted the meaning of ‘community’ or ‘ethnicity’ and gave Indians an important political message that would involve them into negotiating with the state for their betterment.
This is nonsense. Nobody gave a shit about the thing though, no doubt, it had some nuisance value. This is an academic availability cascade of a particularly boring type. It makes sense to say France or Japan or Germany used their Census data for a French or Japanese or German purpose. This did not happen in India because a Bureaucracy of an essentially alien type existed. Some bureaucrats wasted a little money and may have got appointed to some learned society back in Blighty off the back of this sort of exercise. But they didn't matter in the slightest. Nor do worthless cretins like Dipshit Chakrawhogivesafuck.
Expectedly, it unleashed a new dynamic of caste mobilization,
Which had already been occurring
making representations to the colonial state necessary for getting a higher rank than what was accorded to them in official records.
But, this 'higher' rank was useless. Nobody was fooled.
Initially, these mobilizations took the form of caste associations. The innate aspirations of castes to be ranked higher in the caste hierarchy manifested in constructing a self-image of high origin based on myths. Every caste, including the untouchable castes, had such myths that showed its origins as emanating from Brahmins, but which had fallen as a result of the intrigues of high caste people. It thus externalized the blame for its current state. Even as these castes accused the Brahmins of being the cause of their degradation, they did not discard the ritual framework but rather sought to emulate their customs, rituals, ideology and way of life, a process which came to be known as sanskritization.
This is absurd. For the purpose of Army recruitment, one may have wanted to be classed as a 'Martial' caste. But actual 'Baniyas' did not want to be classed as Brahmins- who, apart from the Nagari sort, were poorer than them. As for the plentiful Kshatriya, Maratha, Jat and other proud ruling clans, the very notion was ridiculous. The truth is Monarchs had loyal hereditary Brahmin servants for whom it was a point of great pride to consider their master to be the living embodiment of the Godhead. They considered it a privilege to appear bare chested and with back bent before the Monarch even if he personally found this distasteful. He was welcome to employ a well dressed Muslim Dewan. Indeed, the more aristocratic the Muslim, the happier the Hindu purohit. It was right and proper that the Master be served by those of highest merit.
When the British adopted policies of compensatory discrimination in terms of reservations of seats in the bureaucracy and provincial assemblies while extending self-government to the natives, the numbers game became important and new groups began to form on the basis of resentment against their non-representation. This further fostered the interrelated processes of the formation of caste federations. It gave a fillip to caste mobilization to enhance their numbers (to claim higher representation) and in the process began assimilating castes with loose boundaries. The aim behind this amalgamation of castes, however, was purely political.
Was it, though? The fact is, endogamous groups were competing by adopting 'costly signals'. It made sense for them to amalgamate so as to reduce wasteful status competition by establishing a 'pooling equilibrium' featuring cheap talk. At the margin, endogamy was eroded- but not really. The 'stronger' jati assimilated the spouse from the weaker or numerically insignificant sept. Europeans, it turned out, were a 'universal donor'. JRD Tata's Mum was French- in 1908 he was declared a Parsi. Rahul's Mum is Italian. He's a janeodhari Saivite Brahmin.
With development in the means of communication, some castes seized the opportunity for horizontal integration, bringing about a pan-Indian caste-unification. This process, eulogized by some sociologists as ethnicization, basically transcended the ‘classical’ caste boundaries and brought the collective to bear a new ‘ethnic’ identity. It represented a fusion of castes, and thus expanded endogamy. Scholars saw in this ethnicization of caste a potential to bring about positive social change, since it imparted a new identity, which apparently ignored caste-differentiation and grouped them into larger units, albeit based on caste.
This is bullshit because 'lateral' integration was more salient. There was no 'ethnicization' because India was already defined as an oikumene were settlement and marriage involved no change in ritual status.
This process of ethnicization reached its radical high point in the non-Brahmin movement launched by Jyotiba Phule in Maharashtra
But failed immediately and completely
and later, in the Dravidian movement of Periyar in Tamil Nadu.
which succeeded almost immediately and very completely because senile sententious Tambram Gandhians were so shite, Tambrams flocked to their traditional protectors- the Dravidian cultural, commercial, and agricultural, elites- all of whom have fighting spirit and understand that Gandhi had shit for brains.
T.Nagar- considered a Tambram bastion- is named for Sir Pitti Theagaraya Chetty. Us cretins may have worshipped Gandhi but only advanced under the direction of sensible people like this Chettiar. But then, these guys were always our patrons. Of course, if we didn't really want to be priests, we were welcome to work hard and master useful crafts so as to join them in creating prosperity and securing peace for our common Tamil Eelam. But, to be useful in any non soteriological context, we had to be prepared to 'cross black water' and settle and learn and earn where Technology was more advanced or Mercantile Opportunities were more abundant. It is the Tamil steel under the Brahminical scabbard which endowed Shyamala Harris or Indra Nooyi with the dauntless will to achieve. No doubt, there is a Tamil ethnicity. But can any Indian Tamil really say it conflicts with Indian Nationalism?
It was basically catalyzed by the new ideas coming from European missionaries, which were propagated in schools, and eventually culminated in the theory of an ‘Aryan race’.
But this posed no real difficulty. Some Indians of all castes have big noses. We say those are 'sharp' features. That is Aryan. Jeddu Krishnamurti was pretty dark. But a Viceroy's daughter had no difficulty embracing him as the Universal Messiah.
Based on a study of the Indo-European linguistic family, William Jones in 1792 had invoked a notion of common, original race whose branches had migrated towards Europe and India. This notion was further developed during the mid-19th century by German Indologists such as Albert Weber, R. Roth, A. Kuhn and J. Mohl, constructing theories of a ‘Sanskritic race’ and ‘Vedic people’. When these ideas reached India they were immediately picked up by the likes of Tilak and Dayanand Saraswati for Hindu revivalism, arousing self-esteem among Hindus that they were the superior people who once ruled the world.
I'm guessing Tilak and Dayanand Saraswati were fairer skinned and more Caucasian in their looks than the average Brahmin. But, our 'Yogishvara' Lord is Krishna- which means 'black skinned'.
These very ideas were used by Phule for an entirely opposite purpose. He constructed the ethnic identity of bahujan (shudra-atishudra), castigating Brahmins as invaders who enslaved the natives, and thus provided the lower castes with the motive force to fight. For the first time, all non-Brahmin castes were invited to unite on the basis of a common ethnic background – as the original inhabitants of India – against Brahmin domination.
Why? Because some Brahmins, like Tilak and Dayanand, were battling the only real domination which obtained then- that of the Brits. But, it is important to note, Phule phailed. The Marathas had once been dominant and became so again. They don't give a shit about caste. Nobody who believes in God- or, at the least, in making themselves powerful and prosperous- gives a toss about paranoid just-so stories.
Although, Phule’s satyashodhak idiom was imbued with the symbols of kshatriyahood, the movement escaped the sanskritization trap since it rejected the upper castes as role models, calling them invaders, and despised their culture.
Which they themselves found despicable in many respects. So they changed them and did well in life. But the same thing was happening all over the world.
A similar pattern developed in the South with the Dravidian movement, which engineered caste fusion by endowing the lower castes with an ethnic identity, not only as original inhabitants but also as Buddhists, as articulated by Pandit Ayothee Thass.
Poor fellow, he had been listening to Col. Olcott. He didn't know that Japan had begun its rise by kicking Buddhism in the goolies. But Jamshed Tata and Swami Vivekananda did know this. They met on a ship and decided the way forward for India was the setting up of Institutes of Technology- not indulging in stupid paranoid lies.
It catalyzed the ‘adi’ (original) movement transforming erstwhile caste indicative sabhas (organizations) into Adi-Dravida Mahajan Sabha and Adi-Andhra Mahajan Sabha in the then Madras province.
What was the upshot? Those who did smart things with what little they had, went forward. Those who talked stupid paranoid shite fucked over their own rising generation.
Caste mobilization for political purposes followed two inherent strategies: one, to assimilate many castes under the same identity and stake a claim for a larger part of the pie,
Fuck is wrong with this cretin? Does he not get that the Brits couldn't bake much of a pie out of a shithole like India? There could be competition for the crumbs let fall from their table- or later from the hole in the begging bowl that was India's Gandhian soul- but you could make more money emigrating and becoming a plumber in Dubai or a hot dog vendor outside the UN building in New York.
It was a different matter that doing smart things in India itself- as the 'Andhrapreneurs' did, or various Refugee communities did- could enable even better diaspora outcomes which fed back into the home state. But this was the old story of mercantile castes- Chettiars, Marwaris etc- creating remittance enclaves.
There was one other phenomenon, arising out of the Nationalization of the Banks- viz. the Government taking the down side risk on real estate speculation as well as some 'industrialization' of a relatively capital intensive sort. But, we notice, Indian companies used this process to off shore assets. In other words, pie-baking in India was about getting the fuck away from a jurisdiction where paranoid nutters were continually sharpening their knives to cut up a pie which, once the process began, would immediately turn into a liability on India's balance sheet. To give a simple example, you can try to grab a slice of Cairn's pie but then Cairn sues the fuck out of you and so India ends up paying twice for Cairn's share. This is shit, Teltumbde should know about. He was a fucking Professor at a Business School while all this was going down. He kept mum. No wonder he was tolerated! Perhaps, he was steered towards Phule's foolishness by his paymasters. That's why the fucker is now in jail. He genuinely doesn't know where the bodies are buried.
and two, to cordon themselves off from being usurped by others in this process in order to preserve their own share for themselves. While the former strategy was adopted by the upper castes, the latter came to be adopted by the maturing Dalit movement under Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Fuck off! Ambedkar and Mandal- and later Mayawati- wanted Mahars, or Namasudras, or Jatavs, to monopolize the 'Dalit' share of the pie. But JN Mandal allied with the Muslims till his people were chased away. Ambedkar was such a cretin he actually became a Buddhist! Bali had Brahmins but no Untouchables. Japan had Untouchables but no Brahmins. Why? It was Buddhist- till the people rebelled and burnt down a lot of shrines and forced monks to get married and behave like decent people. After than Japan began to soar.
At the root of ‘identity politics’ lies the idea that only those experiencing a particular form of oppression can either define or fight against it.
No. It is the the root of justiciability based on locus standi. 'Identity politics' is just paranoid shite. Mobilization or 'enrollment' on the basis of 'class action' can, firstly, secure protected status for that class and then, by consent decrees etc, create mechanisms whereby members of that protected class gain authority to advance their interests.
The battle against gender discrimination cannot be fought by men, just as the anti-racist struggles can only be waged by the victims of racism. In the context of caste, the issue of identity came into prominence when Dr. Ambedkar publicly denounced the Depressed Classes Mission of V.R. Shinde in a Depressed Classes Conference in May 1920 at Nagpur. This declaration effectively catalyzed self-articulation of the Dalit movement and stressed the importance of an autonomous ‘Dalit’ identity. The ‘Dalit’ identity also acted as a shield against Dalits drifting either to the capitalist Congress as ‘harijans’ or the communists as ‘proletariat’.
Why? Ambedkar was a barrister. By the elementary law of Trusts, he could either say 'Dalits are shit. Non-Brahmins must be their guardians'- which would not have pleased the Brits because their own Government had said it didn't want any such responsibility- or else he could say what he had been specifically trained and educated to say- viz 'Dailts aint shit. They can speak for themselves just as well as anybody else'.
At that time, it was not obvious that Gandhi was shit. He shouldn't have been allowed to speak for anyone by reason of having a lot shit inside his brain. Still, I can't deny that families like mine gained by their worship of that cretin. But then we also gained by worshipping cows. The difference between us and Teltumbde is that we feel no obligation to ascribe stupid paranoid lies to cows which we then have to mull over in a pseudo-scholarly manner. 'Om is just Moo spelt backward!' Buy that T-shirt and get on with your life, is our motto.
The real impetus to promoting caste identities came from the increasing competition in politics from the late 1960s.
No. The impetus came from the fact that Indian mathematical economists had fucked up completely. There was no harm in doing 'import-substitution' for a year or two in the late Fifties. Taiwan and South Korea and so on made that mistake. But once the need for devaluation became clear, it was obvious that you had to go the Irma Adelman route- i.e export led growth plus raising agricultural productivity by fair means or foul.
The blathershite 'Bania-Brahman-Kayastha' combine had fucked up. India could neither feed nor defend itself. The productive classes had to kick these cunts in the goolies. To get rich is glorious.
At the time of the transfer of power, the Congress had emerged as the unchallenged party
Fuck off! The Muslims would not vote for it. But the Hindus did. So Partition became inevitable.
which claimed to speak for all in contrast to the identitarian claims of the communal parties, both of the Hindus and the Muslims. The strategy actually worked to assimilate all the others, including the Dalits and tribes.
No it didn't. J.N Mandal was stupid enough to side with the Muslims. Just as Ambedkar was India's Law Minister, so was his pal Pakistan's Law Minister. But Muslims kill Namasudras- because they are infidels- and take away their land. So, the truth is, there was no fucking strategy. Ambedkar and Mandal fucked up and lost their place in electoral politics. Congress didn't matter. Muslims killing non-Muslims did. That's it. That's the whole story then and that's the whole story now. Islam is a real thing. It works differently from Hinduism because it is a religion of a wholly different sort. If it has sensible, preferably hereditary, leadership, then it is greatly superior to anything Hindus come up with. That's why plenty of Hindus prefer to run their businesses from Dubai or whatever. True, they hedge their bets because of certain geopolitical fault-lines in the region. But they are very loyal and appreciative of good Islamic governance wherever they get the chance to flourish under it.
But that's also true of British jurisdictions.
While it pretended to make India an ‘ideocracy’ by adopting an idealized constitution, in reality it continued with the colonial state apparatus
which was, au fond, the pre-colonial state apparatus
in its coercive essence
as opposed to its non-coercive fantasy
(insofar as all the operative laws like the Indian Penal Code were adopted in toto) and followed policies laid down by the bourgeoisie.
i.e. by smart people who knew what the were talking about as opposed to crazy beggars or serial rapists
This phase was publicized by the intellectuals, both of the Left and Right, as Nehruvian socialism merely because Nehru’s rhetoric and its facade resembled the Russian planning system. It actually operationalized the Bombay Plan formulated by the Indian capitalists on the eve of the transfer of power in 1944-45. It provided a 15 year blueprint of investments, which in effect was translated into whatever policies that newly independent India followed.
Fuck! This cretin knows shit about India's economic history! Yet he lived in India! Why is he so ignorant and stupid? Does it have something to do with his PhD in 'cybernetic modelling'?
I think I now understand why this fucker fucked up so massively. He thought his Doctorate was genuine. It wasn't. It was shit. He was then pointed towards paranoid stupidity of an identitarian, gesture political, type coz he was as stupid as shit and hey! if you can get hold of a token Dalit- that too one married to a bona fide Ambedkar- then watching the fool fuck up over the next twenty or thirty years is exactly what the Doctor ordered.
This is the guy we should have got on board to find and finance Dalit billionaires back in the Nineties. That's what India needs. Ambanis and Adanis competing with first or second generation Mahar and Jatav entrepreneurs. Ambedkar would have approved. Gandhi would not. Why? Coz ordinary Indians would have better electricity and cell phone and infrastructure provision. This means my Gandhian Dad and Nehruvian Mum would have gotten better value from their pension and savings. But so would everybody else. What's wrong with that? Caste does not exist. God does. India, like the rest of the planet, will disappear. Mum & Dad & every Indian's immortal soul will be more commodiously accommodated. Not mine. My Theodicy is the assurance of a death for this fat and flatulent body equal to the finality of my soul's suicide out of sheer shame at being so unworthy a son.
As a part of, or sequel to, this plan (to create investment opportunity and a vast market for capitalists in the countryside)
as opposed to the plan to shit continually upon the countryside with stupid paranoid lies
and to address the aspirations of people (expressed through numerous peasant movements during the freedom struggle, reaching its high point in Telangana),
High point? That was the nadir of 'peasant movements' foolish enough to buy into Commie bullshit. The thing failed completely and justified so draconian a repression of the Reds that they remembered their Grandmothers! The fact is Tanguturi Prakasam didn't just beat the fuck out of the Commies, he also proposed dismantling the big factories a la Gandhi! In other words, the Indian State showed it was prepared to prevent the formation of the very industrial proletariat which the Commies wanted to make their vehicle to Dictatorship! Islam, of course, did a better job of fucking over the Reds- but then the Reds had committed atrocities on Muslims subjects of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Stalin backed the creation of Israel and forced Muslim Communists to endorse this. Thus, Islam had no illusions about Communism and was prepared to meet force with force.
as also to overcome acute food shortages faced by the people, the government undertook half-baked land reforms,
The Indian state can't undertake shit. Either land ownership changes or it does not. The evidence is, the Indian State lost the capacity and the willingness to keep track of land ownership, forget about ownership enforcement, as revenue from doing so declined.
But this is always true of any widespread enough economic activity which can't pay for its own regulation.
followed by the capitalist strategy of promoting the Green Revolution.
As opposed to the Socialist strategy of starving to death- like the Bangladeshis- while demanding PL480 aid from an Uncle Sam you continually denounce as Satanic.
It created a class of rich farmers from among the middle shudra castes and seeded capitalist relations in the vast countryside.
Yet, a class of this sort had always existed- EVERY-fucking-WHERE! What changed was procurement such that capitalization of 'rents to ability' changed in a manner which rendered Indians better fed and immune from Uncle Sam's blackmail.
While the middle castes were hugely enriched and empowered with the collapse of the traditional jajmani system, the Dalits were reduced to being dependent on them for wage labour.
This cunt wrote this in 2012! I thought the thing was a joke when I wrote my first novel 'Whiskey's Secret' back in 1985!
Why is this stupid cunt pretending that Dalits were 'clients'? If so, what was Ambedkar getting so worked up about?
How fucking stupid and ignorant do you have to be to speak of 'incipient capitalist contradictions' in a country which had had agricultural markets and tax-farming landlords for hundreds of years? The fact is that India had a class of capitalists who had risen out of the agriculture and pastoralism and so forth 2300 years ago.
The incipient capitalist contradiction in the countryside began manifesting through the faultlines of caste at the hands of the culturally unsophisticated shudra rich farmers wielding the baton of Brahminism into the new genre of caste atrocities starting with Kilvenmeni in Tamil Nadu in December 1968.
So- kids- what have we learned today? Brahminism is a baton. But 'culturally unsophisticated' guys outside the Brahminic pale- i.e. anyone at all- can wield Brahminism as a baton.
Thus, if the Taliban smashes your head in, it is 'wielding Brahminism as a baton'. The same is true if the Chinese Communist Party does it. After all- they are 'shudras'. Trump wielded Brahminism as a baton. Now Biden does. But so does Putin and Xi and BoJo and Macron. The only guy who doesn't is Modi. How come? He is not a Brahmin.
The class of rich farmers initially backed the Congress as the node of the vast countryside, but soon realized the importance of their own position and developed political aspirations. They created their own constituency, covering an entire band of middle castes, making use of their ritual non-differentiation and fanning the perception of a threat from the rising cultural assertion of Dalits in the villages. They soon made their mark in politics, graduating from gram panchayats to the state assemblies through the regional parties, precipitating a political crisis that consequently resulted in ushering in an era of coalitions by the mid-1970s. Thereafter, politics became extremely competitive, making the caste blocs very important.
Gram Panchayats acquired importance later- in the Nineties. OBC politics was established under Socialist leadership in the Fifties in the North. Elsewhere it had a regional flavor. Kamraj Nadar could be said to represent this new class of politician. The elites had their sights set on Cabinet office at the Center. They thought the humble 'backward caste' politician would serve their interests while keeping a check on their forward caste rivals in the Districts.
Still, this narrative does fit the trajectory of people like Karpuri Thakur and, later on, the Mandal era. However, the fact is 'caste blocs' had always been important. The Communists knew this. In Kerala, it was caste, not ideology, which gave the Reds their first elected Government in the late Fifties- a fact much broadcast around the world.
The political parties began promoting caste identities to break as well as consolidate people according to their electoral strategies.
All political rivalries had a caste element. In the South, in the Eighteenth Century, the French noted the invention of 'Left hand' vs. 'Right hand' coalitions. Mughals too knew of the importance of such formations. European Missionaries had been working within these fault lines since the Seventeenth century. It is foolish to pretend India was one big happy family till some backward castes made a grab for power so as to check Dalit 'cultural assertion'.
The weakening of the Dalits with their repeated fragmentation rendered itself amenable to such intrigues. The reservation policy and the way it was operated only benefited increasingly smaller sections of the majority caste among Dalits, which created resentment in the next contending castes to demand their share in the name of all other non-beneficiary castes. The first such demand was voiced in Andhra Pradesh by the Madigas and has since caught the fancy of similar castes in many other states.
I think Karnataka Madigas had voiced such a demand in the Seventies. However, despite various Commissions of enquiry recommending sub-quotas, successive administrations have dragged their feet on this. Meanwhile, the 'creamy layer' has won widespread acceptance on the basis of merit and efficiency. Still, there can be no question that the security of a Government job does wonders for an extended family and there is a cascading effect on life-chances for the entire community. One may have ideological objections to Reservations but what is the alternative?
Scholars have criticized identity politics on many counts.
But if those scholars live in advanced, industrialized, countries, we should ignore them.
Liberal political theorists such as Arthur Schlesinger, David Hollinger, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and others have argued that a strong sense of group identification endangers democratic processes and social cohesion, inhibits the ability to form political coalitions, and substitutes the determination of group membership for critical reflection, thus producing what Cornel West calls ‘racial reasoning’. Notwithstanding the Left’s compromises in going along with/collaborating with the popular identity movements, many leftist scholars such as Eric Hobsbawm, Michael Tomasky, Sean Wilentz, Robert W. McChesney, Bart Landry, Jim Sleeper, Todd Gitlin, Immanuel Wallerstein, Richard Rorty, Nancy Fraser, among others, have criticized what they see as the turn to identity politics.
How is this relevant to India?
Identity politics fractures the body politic by emphasizing difference at the expense of commonalities; because the focus on identity offers at best a reductivist politics, one that reduces assessment of political position to the process of ascertaining identity and makes ‘a fetish of the virtues of the minority.’ As Gitlin points out, all forms of identity politics are reductive: they are all ‘overly clear about who the insiders are... and overly dismissive of outsiders.’ He thus finds an emphasis on identities ‘intellectually stultifying and politically suicidal.’
Politics is reductive. You have to collapse a multi-dimensional decision space into a choice function of a simple type. Either this guy gets that office or it goes to some other guy. This may be 'intellectually stultifying' but what is the alternative? Do nothing, till the country is invaded and we are all enslaved?
Faced with growing opposition and sustained attacks from the Right, the Left and the centre, identity based social struggles no longer enjoy what used to be a wide support to, and positive view of, minority social movements. The accusation that identity politics is prone to essentialism has been among the most persistent criticisms. Identity politics, celebrated as politics of difference by postist movements (post-structuralism, post-modernism, etc.) is basically meant to de-centre or subvert, rather than to conquer or assert by seeking to reclaim a stigmatized identity, to revalue the devalued pole of dichotomized hierarchy.
In other words, to simply talk nonsense.
While this criticism could well apply to the identity based politics of Dalits, the specificity of caste as a vicious identity, unlike any other, needs to be additionally noted. Identity integrates people sharing that identity. The racial identity of Blacks, for instance, brings coloured people together to make a common cause. Yet, there is nothing to differentiate them from the shades of darkness within that identity. When the sexual identity of gays or lesbians is invoked, all who identify as such are expected to come together and it is unlikely that any further divisions will emerge within the identity to fragment them.
I suppose this was written before lesbians went to war with trans-people.
The essence of caste, it may be seen, is not an identity but a hierarchy.
No. Caste can exist without a hierarchy. But no enterprise or institution or organ of government can exist without a hierarchy. There has to be a chain of command. There must be a 'buck stopped' method of verifying legitimate commands from illegitimate ones.
In Science, there is a hierarchy such that hypotheses which have been falsified have to yield to those which have 'paid for themselves' technologically. In Medicine, there is a hierarchy between the guy who is allowed to slice you open and the janitor who is not allowed to approach you with a scalpel.
Under exogenous pressure, caste feigns as identity but once the pressure is removed, it seeks hierarchy within and begins splitting. This in part explains why the ethnic identities constructed on the basis of caste in the emancipation project have not worked.
Why not simply admit that some Dalit castes look down on others? Surely this is also true of non-Dalit castes? But then some White Americans look down on other White Americans. How is this a big problem?
The Dalit constructed by the Ambedkarite movement as a pan-Indian identity of the ex-untouchables appeared viable at one time, but in reality failed to bring all the untouchables together.
This was also true of the 'Harijan' identity invented by the Gandhians. As for Commie slogans of the unity between workers and peasants and students- they were even more hilarious. Mao's genius was to get the students to beat those he didn't like and then to bring in workers to beat the students and to chase them into the countryside where they discovered that the peasants smelled bad.
Now it is getting further splintered along sub-caste lines. All the ethnic identities, both earlier and now, which used caste as their basis have met or will meet the same fate.
In which case why whine about Brahminism's baton?
This disintegrative tendency in caste could be effectively thwarted by the promise of material pay-offs, which dwija castes in colonial times and some of the middle castes during the post-independence period (Gounders, Nadars, Marathas, for instance) could create to build what is called their ‘social capital’. This aspect, eulogized as the utility of castes, may bring prosperity to the castes, rather than annihilate them. The recent comical phenomenon of Dalit capitalism need not be seen as emulating this aspect; it aims to grab state largesse for the prosperity of a few in the name of caste.
No. The aim is to get Dalits to make lots of money, and pay lots of that money in taxes, by making and exporting nice shiny stuff. It is what Dalits want to do. Them guys are hella smart. If they currently have low transfer earnings then there is an arbitrage opportunity here which private equity should be rushing in to fill. Perhaps it is. It would be nice if us ordinary blokes could get to invest in this as well.
Surely, it in no way will lead to a denial of caste. The manner in which the ruling classes have welcomed the idea, with the state enthusiastically rushing in to reserve four per cent in value of all government procurement, actually exposes its comprador character which is necessarily inimical to the interests of a vast majority of Dalit masses.
'Comprador character'? How stupid is this guy? Comprador was a joke word even when I was at Skool. Is the Indian Government actually foreign? Is Narendra Modi's real name Nicholas Maugham? How can the government of your own country turn its own citizens into 'compradors'?
Consider Rajesh Saraiya, who is based in Dusseldorf. Which Dalit is he hurting by having lots and lots of money? What of Kalpana Saroj, head of Kamani Tubes now worth 100 million dollars? She employs hundreds. She got her start with a small Government loan. She has paid hundreds of thousands in taxes. The Government made a very shrewd investment as did anyone who invested in her Company. How did this Dalit girl who faced great adversity rise up? It was hard work, thrift and enterprise. Yet Teltumble thinks she is a 'comprador' who is hurting the vast majority of Dalits! The guy taught at a Business School! He has an MBA! Yet he holds an utterly absurd belief!
Identity politics has a therapeutic utility. In a fast changing world that pulverizes everything, people yearn for a fixity of identity in direct proportion to their powerlessness to counter the vertigo produced by postmodern disarray. The incomprehensibility of the modern world only leaves behind crumbs of hope for people like the Dalits,
Kalpana Saroj came to Bombay as a 12 year old bride. She was bewildered by what she saw. Her in-laws beat and abused her. Her father took her back to the village. She returned to Bombay at the age of 16 to work as a tailor. She learnt to use industrial sewing machines. But even then, she hadn't enough money saved to pay for medical treatment for her sister. Her life had been full of tragedy. She got a small loan from the Government and opened a small furniture business. This was a terrible crime she committed! She turned into an evil comprador!
Kalpana Saroj is not providing 'crumbs of hope'. She is providing a big birthday cake of hope to hundreds of millions of women from very poor families. She is now married again and has two kids. Yet she works as tirelessly as ever.
Why is Kalpana, who produced a movie on the Khairlanji atrocity, honored and feted in India while Teltumble is in prison? The answer is Kalpana has made the country richer. Teltumble has talked vacuous yet mischievous shite. He may be innocent of the charges against him. But we don't greatly care. Whether he was framed by the Naxals or got sucked into some stupid conspiracy by reason of his own paranoid cretinism does not greatly matter. In jail, or out of it, the man is useless.
often inducing a psychological vulnerability which pushes them to seek shelter under identities. Identity politics provides a much needed intoxication to ignore the infirmities of the real world, thus creating a false sense of power. It obviates the complexity of their goal. These vulnerabilities, in turn, help vested interests to further prop up identities. The identity cobweb not only clouds the goal of annihilation of caste, but may well negate it altogether. The claim of identity mongers that since caste can never be destroyed it should be strengthened, needs to be questioned. Whether brought out in the open or not, it is implicit and inherent in the argument behind mushrooming identities among Dalits.
I suppose this guy is saying 'splits within the Dalit movement are naughty'. The problem is he is also saying 'Dalits are as stupid as shit. They shouldn't take loans from the Government and get rich. Instead they should just remain very very poor and very very ignorant because...urm... that's what Prophet Marx wanted.
The identities such as Dalit, Dalit-bahujan, mulnivasi, and even Buddhist, are not the ‘real’ caste identities.
True enough. But, for a specific policy purpose, 'real' caste identities can be bracketed together. No doubt, this bracketing needs to be reviewed from time to time but this is true of any policy instrument.
Their very intent defies caste logic insofar they strive to bracket together the most oppressed castes. Moreover, this kind of reading smacks of a gross misconception of caste. Each and every identity constructed with the idiom of caste, howsoever anti-caste it may profess to be, has only ended up reinforcing it. The monster of caste can only be annihilated by an alternate idiom of politics based on class. Difficult as this may sound, history does not provide short cuts to cure its infirmities.
So we are back to Marxian class-conflict as the driver of historical change with a nice Revolutionary blood-bath just around the corner, after which all the kulaks and the petty bourgeoisie are killed off.
But that type of Marxism has perished everywhere. What Marx actually said, as the Chinese Communist Party decided in the Eighties, was 'to each according to his contribution'. The State benefits by helping people like Kalpana Saroj get a foot on the ladder. As her contribution goes up, her standard of living goes up. Everybody benefits. Saroj remains proud of her identity. She knows she could not have got the spiritual and moral strength to persist and to prevail but for her parents and her community and her Religion. This is 'oikeiosis'. She has internalized the values of her community. This does not mean her identity was pre-determined. She had to work very hard and to take risks to get where she has.
Teltumde too is the author of his own fortunes or misfortunes. He could have taken the road of 'talent spotter' of Dalit entrepreneurs. His academic credentials endowed him with credibility in that respect. He chose a different road- that of a senile Leftist blathershite. Now he is in jail. It takes a certain sort of genius to fuck up so completely. Alternatively, you can just subscribe to Marxism of an infantile sort and then hang around with other senile nutters till the police come for you and you end up either in prison or a padded cell in a psychiatric hospital.
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