A Primer on Caste Privilege

Foot-soldiering for identity politics (ie. sleeping in the trenches because the cannon balls fired by the privileged are threatening to blow our heads off) is a weary business. No pay, long hours, the threat of upper-caste intellectuals descending like a hail of gunfire to destroy any sign of a discussion, the list is long. On top of that, some of us have to sit down to write manuals for the enemy because some of them don’t know how to tell the truth. If only they would stop firing for a few minutes and listen…

Hey, upper-caste people: Tell the truth. Go on, try it. It’s not that hard. Ok, I’ll help. Here’s a sample: “No-one has ever defined corruption. One day, it’s about a minister letting the government lose crores of money, and then, suddenly, its about someone not buying a Rs 5 bus ticket. (I have never travelled by bus, therefore I do not know that, in Chennai, for instance, rich people, who think they can get away with it, are more likely to not buy their tickets. Poor people cannot afford the awful fine that will descend on their heads if caught and are more likely to buy their tickets or have bus passes. Yeah, I’m too important to talk to bus conductors). As I was saying, if someone had defined corruption, and then conducted a survey to see who was more corrupt, then and only then would I be able to pontificate on whether there is any correlation between caste and corruption. As an upper-caste intellectual, I have benefited enormously from caste and the privilege it gives me, so I really should not be making grand pronouncements about lower castes’

Do you see how its done? You can tell the truth about caste by being aware of your caste privilege and only talking about things that you understand and know something about. If you prefer talking about things that don’t exist, allow me to suggest the writing of science fiction as a more appropriate career than that of being a public intellectual.

What is caste privilege you ask? It is the privilege you receive by birth that gives you access to power. Caste-ism is institutionalized – lower caste groups are always at the receiving end of caste violence which includes physical violence inflicted by individuals and groups, verbal aggression and insult, or exclusion from educational institutions. This blog over here has described privilege well and I’ll let them do the talking for a bit:

Revisiting “Politically Correct”
…Your privilege gives you the power to dismiss the decisions of non-privileged groups, and further deride them by turning “politically correct” into a slur. Part of engaging in a language of respect and equality is in recognizing the validity of a person’s choice to use language, and “politically correct” terms, even if you may not understand or agree with them…

Don’t make it about you
…Make sure that what you’re saying is relevant and appropriate before you bring your privileged experience into a conversation by and/or about a non-privileged group. And, furthermore, if people in that group react badly, don’t get angry at them! Reflect on the situation and use that knowledge to foster a better discussion next time…

Intent Isn’t an Excuse
“That wasn’t my intent,” all too often translates into “your reactions to what I did are invalid because I didn’t mean any harm.” The result is that it’s a defensive reaction that silences discussion on the issue and puts the words/actions above criticism. It, in essence, privileges the sayer/doer’s opinion/feelings over that of the non-privileged person or group that they have offended.

Ok? To describe lower caste assertion as casteist is not only false, it is also an expression of your fear of losing upper-caste privilege.

You do not have the right to dictate when and how lower caste political mobilization and expression will occur. There is a long history of Adivasi and Dalit-Bahujan political mobilization and resistance in this country that began much before the Indian National Congress and the idea of Indian nationalism were so much as a gleam in an Englishman’s eye. That’s right – anti-caste protest is older and stronger and more indigenous than anti-colonial protest ever was. Our villains are indigenous too (Isn’t that cool?) Lower caste communities have fought for the right to walk on public roads, to cover their breasts, to wear gold ornaments, to be given education, to be allowed dignity and the right to describe themselves and their histories (presumably they grew tired of scholarly upper-caste liars claiming that Shudras emerged from Brahma’s feet). They had to fight for and win these rights from upper-castes. They have won important victories in these struggles and there are many more battles to be fought and they keep fighting.

And they will win.

This terrifies you. Every instance of lower-caste political assertion terrifies you. Admit it. That is why you turn disgustingly self-defensive and abusive when your caste-ism is called out. This is why when the foot-soldiers of gender identity were protesting the gangrape in Delhi, you found it heroic. And when Dalits protest the degrading of Dalit-Bahujan dignity, you find it annoying. Admit your location and role in the oppressive system of caste. Being an ally to the Dalit-Bahujan cause is not an identity, it is a process. It is not something you are, it is something you keep doing. You do not get to claim that you have read one volume of Subaltern Studies and have magically lost your casteism. Your location on the caste hierarchy continues to grant you privilege, you continue to absorb casteist messages from the media, from your family, from your circumstances. Your privilege, the social circles you have access to, the media attention you get, the horrifyingly cheap domestic labor you employ and exploit, these are all enabled by caste.

If you’re familiar with concepts of white supremacy, white privilege and racism as systemic forms of oppression that deny equal opportunity and dignity to African Americans in the United States, then Brahmin supremacy, upper caste privilege and casteism should not be too difficult to understand.

No, caste is not race. I plead guilty to having made claims about caste having racial characteristics – I said once that it is possible to tell Brahmins apart by their physical features. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I will not make such claims again. Caste is not racial, it is not a form of eugenics.

But caste is sustained by slavery. Your nationalist history textbooks won’t talk about the British abolishing slavery in India in the nineteenth century. That’s right – the British banned upper caste landlords from selling their lower caste laborers, they banned upper caste landlords from leasing/mortgaging/hiring out land with the labor of lower castes tied to the land (which means lower castes had to work the land they lived on, receiving measly recompense in kind, rather than cash. One of your own has claimed that this arrangement was more beneficial for lower castes than wage labor. What can I say? Caste has made the concept of ‘freedom’ difficult to understand for you) Almost one percent of the south Asian population is enslaved in debt bondage now, almost all of them are from lower castes.

As privileged members of the upper castes, you have inherited the fruits of slavery ie. power. Power is not purely an economic value (people who argue for excluding the creamy-layer from reservations, I’m looking at you), it is also social and political. This means that a person can be poor and benefit from upper caste privilege. They can be rich and suffer the disadvantage and lack of respect that being lower caste brings.

As members of the lumpen intellegentsia, you need to stop claiming subalternity for yourself (yes, even in American academia). If someone calls you out on your casteism, it is an act of respect and love. If you cannot see that, your caste privilege is obstructing your vision. Wipe the fat from your eyes. Read Ambedkar. You’ll be fine.

- Malarvizhi Jayanth,

February 6, 2013

The author is a Shudra and a research scholar at an American university. She continues to work on recognizing her caste privilege and being an ally to the Dalit cause and she encourages you to do the same.

Postscripts:

~ I gratefully acknowledge Shuddhabrata Sengupta for providing us the fabulous phrase ‘foot-soldiers of identity politics’. I feel truly subaltern now.

~ To the unnamed Marxist friend who has given me the far more fabulous phrase ‘lumpen intelligentsia’, I am much more (and then some) grateful.

~ Significant portions of this posting could be used to talk about the stupid Vishwaroopam controversy as well. Apparently, Tamil Hindus do not have the courage or the intelligence to ask why a Chief Minister who cosies up to Narendra Modi would suddenly become concerned about Muslim sentiment. The reactions to this controversy and Ashis Nandy’s casteist nonsense have been a study in Islamophobia and fear of lower caste political assertion. No-one thought to conduct one decent interview with the groups requesting the ban on the film (a film justifying the American invasion of Afghanistan and a ban imposed by a court in this country) or those who filed cases against Nandy. As K. Satyanarayana has pointed out, the question of casteism remains. Who benefits from slandering disadvantaged minorities? If you cannot speak with subalterns, guess whose problem that is?

~ Here is another introduction to caste privilege
~ More resources to understand your caste privilege:

Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar
The Grammar of Caste by Ashwini Deshpande
Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia by Siddharth Kara (An excellent interview with the author about this book is here )
Residential segregation by caste higher than segregation by socio-economic factors in India’s seven largest cities – EPW article
Corporate employees are  mostly upper caste – EPW article

Slavery in India

“As my wife is dead and as I have two children, who have no one else except me, to take care of them, it would be a matter of regret to me if I were to be sold at so distant a place as Tellisherry.” Below is a transcript of sections of an inquest conducted to inquire into an attempted sale of slaves in Malabar in 1819, a few years after the buying and selling of slaves was declared illegal. The record in full is available at the Kerala State Regional Archives, Kozhikode.

Several Dalit castes were, in the 19th century, treated as slaves who could be bought and sold, mortgaged or hired out, their labour held in perpetuity by upper-caste masters. Colonial estimations of the slave castes in the Malabar and Kanara regions alone put the slave population to have been over 3 lakh. Not only was the labour of lower castes the ‘right’ of the upper castes, they were also taxed through various means including a taxation on ‘professional implements’ such as the barber’s razors. The direction of these taxes towards temples and royal treasuries is most visible in the records of former princely states that maintained an uneasy relationship with the East India Company and, therefore, maintained a grudging record of the revenue they collected. The labour and money of Dalit castes sustained the temples and palaces and form a substantial part of the ‘treasure’ they accumulated.

Kinds of caste slavery included the outright buying and selling of slaves, agricultural slavery that forbid people from migrating and the demand that certain forms of labour be performed for no remuneration. Colonial officials record, with horror, the wretched living conditions that people endured, of how they were fed meagre amounts only on the days they went to work, were not paid at all, forced to part with or from their children (so that they may be sold) and could be mutilated or murdered by their masters without any legal inquiry afterward. Agricultural slavery which tied several Dalit castes to the land on which they must labour at the mercy of their upper-caste masters was abolished in 1843.

Examination of Parropapoorate Oonykutty Nair, nephew to Oony Korasha Nair, aged 22 years, Cultivator by profession, inhabitant of Palati tarrail Deshom, Chelamoor Hobly in Calicut Taluk, taken on the 2nd Wrichigum 995 or 16th Nov 1819 before the Magistrate

Did you give Polear Teytria and Polear Kannan in charge of any one for the purpose of selling them or did you send them to Tellisherry? If you did so, state the particulars.

…I carried my jenam slaves Teytria and Kannan…for the purpose of selling them…I had determined to send them to Tellisherry as I would get at least one fanam more [there]…

Does the custom of the country sanction a Jenmakar to carry his slaves to places distant from that of their original habitations in order to dispose of them there?

When there may not be people inclined to purchase slaves at the place of habitation, they are carried to other places for that purpose.

How much did you intend to sell the slaves for?

I recommended their being sold from 20 to 22 Rs…

Examination of Polea Cheruma Teyitira, Son of Iralamhara, aged 50 years, Cooly by profession, inhabitant of Poluod tarrah, Chelanoor Hobly in the Calicut Taluk, taken on teh 1st of Wrichigum 995 or 15th June 1819

Who is your Tambooran (Master)?

Aripapoorate Oonykutty

Whom are you working for at present?

Oonykutty Tambooran not having paid his Revenue, he placed me under the Parbutty Tambooran and nine days ago self and Polear Kannan were sent to Tellisherry under charge of Mopla Amotty and Govinda-Erecha- for the purpose of being sold there – We stopt on the road one day; and the next day reached Tellisherry where we could, 4 or 5 days living at several places, at last we were taken to a place where there was a house and from whence orders were passed prohibiting us being sold there and directing us to be taken back to this place.

Would it be a matter of grievance to you if you were sold at Tellisherry?

As my wife is dead and as I have two children, who have no one else except me, to take care of them. It would be a matter of regret to me if I were to be sold at so distant a place as Tellisherry.

Where are your children?

They are with my Tambooran Oonykutty.

(signed)
J. Vaughan
Collector and Magistrate

Prethabhashanam/പ്രേതഭാഷണം

Translated from the Malayalam original in  the anthology Paristhithi, Dalithezhuthu, Pennezhuthu (Kerala University Press, Thiruvananthapuram, 2011)/പരിസ്ഥിതി, ദലിതെഴുത്ത്, പെണ്ണെഴുത്ത്  (കേരള സര്‍വകലാശാല: തിരുവനന്തപുരം, 2011)

Conversation with the dead

C. Ayyappan

“Listen to me. Talking to you, I am going to separate the stones from the rice in your mind. I alone remain here to talk with you who are shackled. I speak only the truth. I have no interest today in the trivial pleasures to be gained through lies. I’ll tell you why. I am only a corpse or an evil spirit today. The loss of peace and a tiny bit of self-interest now use me to read the daily news to you. You now have the lamp of knowledge and the immaturity of the sun is the youth of your wisdom. It is when the sun is extinguished and destroyed by darkness that a madness akin to the moon itches its way into you.

Your ignorance of the meaning of a suicide and a murder hunts and tires your vigour. Now, be healthy again. I will line your eyes with the naked truth. Don’t blink or move your head. What if my fingernail should touch your eye!

Let the beginning be about my suicide. I trust that you will have understood why it happened. How sad! It has come to pass that I should teach the grammar of my own mind. Such work is unhealthy. It is only because there is no other way that I am doing it now.

I don’t have to tell you that I was your dear brother’s secret lover. All that could happen between a man and a woman who were of age happened between your elder brother and I. That practice had begun when I was 15. I came to your house to spread out the rice that had been laid out to dry in the attic. When I was leaving, I became enclosed in your brother’s arms. I was bewildered. I blushed red under his lips.

Coming down the attic ladder, the boy said, “Then, don’t tell anybody!” It was then that I grew a little afraid.  That day I had become a prostitute. The idiocy continued for another six or seven years, when I asked the young man. “Will you marry me?”

The answer was a sincere question.

“How will I be able to marry you?” The helplessness in his question hurt me. Even if he was the primary school teacher, even a Christian could definitely not marry the daughter of the Pulaya woman who came to work in the house.

But, when I reached home one evening after seeing him, I was a little terrified: Amma was ‘chanting’ to Achan about how uncle’s daughter had gone astray. Would I also go astray? I couldn’t breathe. My breathlessness was unnecessary. The young man, even in his extreme youth, had been smart. Befriending the Pedros who went to the Thrissur Market with betel leaf, he had acquired certain things. In any case, those preparations were unnecessary. He was unable to give the gift that no woman can destroy. I slowly began to understand this when the desire to conceive a child of his and to spend my life raising it grew strong within me. When he came to know of my desire, he said he wanted to laugh, and spat. Then he raised his hand and slapped me. Afterward, he took great pains to force me to say that I did not love him. But he was defeated. Finally, he said he would commit suicide and then burst out laughing. That’s when I began thinking about killing myself.

Nothing gave me peace. Didn’t everyone know what went on between him and me? At home, my father shuddered at the sight of me as if at the sight of the thorny Inja. Some nights, he would wake me up and force me out of the house when needed, leaving me with a confused, throbbing heart. More intolerable was our neighbour Gopi Sir’s attention. He had tutored me after I failed English for my pre-degree exams. It seems that he had been in love with me since then. He was of the same caste. He wasn’t too bad to look at. He was a good man too. Yet, when I came to know that he loved me, I remembered the moment when, a long time ago, I was transplanting paddy with mother and playing around when I saw a stupid leech, swollen with blood, hanging from my thigh. Seeing it, with no courage to pluck it off, my arms and legs shuddering with disgust, I started screaming.

Once, faking joviality to hide his shyness, Gopu Sir said, “I’m wondering if I should fall in love with you!” I said roughly, “That is not necessary.” Vindictively, he replied, “It’s not like I’m going to make you pregnant.” I stood stunned, as if someone had hit me. There was no help for it, I would have to tell him the truth. I said, “There is another man I…” He interrupted me, “I know. But he doesn’t give a damn for you.” Hastily, shivering within, I walked away. I ended up in front of the man. I asked him, “Do you love me?” He hurled an ugly obscene word at me and grinned. I broke down. I wasn’t crying because it was the first swear word he had used with me. He didn’t love me.

Weeping, my neck became ensnared in a rope knot.

Now, about your father having killed your brother: I say that it is a good thing. I could have never thought, while I was alive, that someone would kill him. Let that be, you wonder in your grief why your father did it. Let me burst the boil of that grief.

On the sixteenth day after my corpse was interred, I rose from the grave.

I came straight to your house. He was not there. He must have gone to watch the second show of a movie, I guessed. Let him come. I came to your bedroom to see you. You had fallen asleep without remembering to switch off the light. I felt great wonder seeing you lying there on your side, holding on to your pillow, with your white pavadai ridden up to your knee. He came in then. He must have come to see why there was a light in your room. When he looked in, you were laughing. For a minute, he stood still as if struck numb. Looking around and then back at your face with confusion, he came to your bed. That was when, for some reason, you convulsed with laughter. Then he started paying attention to your behaviour. With a burning face and making consoling noises under his breath, he switched off the light. The light pierced and entered me. Was it fear or helplessness that made me scream? Your sleep was destroyed. You held on to him tightly. I slipped into your body through the cracks of your terror. Then I began to laugh. Your father and, in your wakefulness, you, began to cry. People put their hands up to their faces in wonder. Your behaviour was unnatural. Night and day, you wouldn’t let him alone. You did not have peace unless you were touching him. When he beat you, the music of laughter fluttered in your weeping.

It had become clear to everyone except your brother that my spirit had become one with you. In his understanding, you had gone mad. He did not believe in ghosts and devils, only in madness and rationalism. Many people said that I should be nailed down and taken to Chottanikara. But your father did not consent. When your relatives called him to question him, with great shame, he said, ‘If we did that, Rosa Kutty’s illness  may grow worse. What if she remembers all that happened before her illness changed?’

My fear had been about another thing. Would your brother do something thoughtless? If he should die, how would I smell the fragrance of his sweat like I could now? I relaxed when I remembered that, if he should die, he would become an evil spirit like me. He wouldn’t lie in the church cemetery. Then we could wander around happily. But I did not think, even then, that he would face a bad death.

You had been shackled and he had fallen asleep, hugging you. Your father, who killed him with a single blow, is a saint. But, like the actions of all saints, your father’s actions might be hard to understand. Why did he do that? Was it because the young man had used your illness to his convenience? I am not very sure. I can only tell you my opinion.

He did it because he loved me, not you. Your father is my father. I understood this after I died. Even my mother had not been sure. That’s probably because your uncle also came to have fun with my mother who had been employed in your house. It was God who made my paternity clear. God called me the sinner who had her nakedness uncovered by her own brother. I was not ashamed. I spat on his face and asked, “How can a Pulaya woman become a Christian’s woman?” That put a banana in God’s mouth. His eyes bulged. Then he hung his head. Let that be. Rosie Kutty, your father believed that I was your sister. If I should say that in God’s language, that poor man did not know that your uncle had also uncovered my mother’s nakedness before she was married. Then you may ask why he didn’t put an end to the relationship between your brother and me. He had forbidden it. The young man himself had told me. Father had called him once and admonished him, his face like a devil’s. “You must put on end to your interactions with that Pulaya girl.” The son, stunned upon seeing the father’s expression, spoke the truth: “I am not going to marry her.” That put a banana in his mouth too.

Now you understand all that happened, yes? The young man had uncovered my nakedness. When he held you tight, you had become me. It was with me, only with me, that he had committed a mistake. It was that mistake which father set right. That is why he is now imprisoned for life.

Now about my selfishness in this incident: I will leave you. In case I do not speak the truth for what it is – I had been afraid that a great accident would come to pass – I have a request for you. You should continue to live. Before that, you should help me. Call Parayan Kannan and have three measures of mustard put into my open grave. If that is done, I will not be able to come out. A corpse cannot leave its grave without counting out the seeds of mustard that have been put there. There is no night long enough to count out three measures of mustard.

I know you wonder why I am not eager to wander with your brother who is an evil spirit now. I think your doubt has passed. Light dawns on your face. You think that your brother is my brother now. You are mistaken, my sister. That is not it.

I had been looking forward to your brother’s death with great anticipation. I was holding my breath, waiting to spring at him from behind and close his eyes with my hands the moment his spirit left the body. His death and my realization of a truth happened simultaneously: He didn’t have a soul! All that he had had was the breath of life. What could have been the reason? Maybe it was because he was a rationalist who did not believe in the human soul.  Or it may have been the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the God who speaks in the language of the Bible.

So there is no salvation for me if I do not return to my grave. Don’t forget the mustard. I give you my freedom. You will find proof that I have left if you look at your legs. Where, where are those chains?”