#anti caste

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

The "you people are celebrating the return of casteism" crowd is so funny to me. How are you so sheltered that you thought caste went anywhere in the last 10 years?

This is India. A country where you can't utter someone's name without bringing up their caste. Since I don't really use a surname, I've had countless instances where people would repeatedly ask my surname and even when I told them I didn't have one, they'd just be reduced to asking for my caste directly. This is the country you're talking about. If you were oblivious to the caste hierarchy so far, it's because you're privileged enough to not have to think about it.

Not to mention, do you believe the upper caste politics that the BJP and RSS love are normal and free of caste? Trying to assimilate everyone into this upper caste idea of a Hindu without actually doing anything to remove the caste hierarchy isn't the anti-caste revolution that you seem to think it is. You have to meaningfully remove caste barriers for that to happen.

- Mod S

[anonymouswarriorhumanist]

We Need to Talk About RC and South Asian Representation in its Stories

Hey beautiful people, this is going to be a long post yet a very important one. From a Desi (A South Asian) to my fellow Desis and non-Desis (who especially need to hear me out).

I know the popularity of Romance Club as an interactive game. And being a South Asian makes me wanna pick literally any story that represents us. So, I went into RC's stories promising South Asian representation: Kali: Call of Darkness and Kali: Flames of Samsara. Apart from the poor research done on Indian culture which is too niche and trivial to be understood by everyone (relating to Indian languages and North-South differences), there is yet another aspect of Indian society that the game not only completely misrepresents but even whitewashes and this is very harmful to people, especially those with no knowledge of Indian culture, picking up the game to learn smth and that is: CASTE.

While playing the game, I am sure many of u may have come across such terms as 'Brahmin' or 'Kshatriya', 'Vaishya', or even 'Shudra'. And I am sure many of u may even have a rudimentary understanding of the same. This is the caste/ varna (Sanskrit term) that has plagued Indian society for thousands of years. And these terms basically divide desis even today. I especially want non-South Asians to understand that these terms carry a history of violence and discrimation. This was the chaturvarna or the 4 varna/caste sys wherein groups were ranked on their superiority to each other.

1.Brahmin-Priestly class

2.Kshatriya-Soldiers/ warriors/kings

3.Vaishya-merchants and traders

4.Shudras-Servants/slaves, (the lowest rung on the caste ladder and the most miserable)

Do keep in mind that this is not some class sys similar to feudal Europe or France, but this is CASTE which is very diff from what a non-South Asian may imagine. Notions of purity and pollution guide the caste sys (which may not influence class). A Shudra person was considered impure and hence an 'untouchable' and their mere shadows were considered polluting on the other 3 castes, so much so that they were ghettoized. In South Asia, servile work is generally considered 'polluting' and a complex history of multiple factors relegated this strict division of labourers, In simple lang, a Brahmin priest's son could only be a priest (which was a divine occupation and revered) and a Shudra's son could only do work considered appropriate of his caste which usually translated to things such as manual scavenging (still in India) and servile work considered 'polluting' from which they had no respite. This system was horrible towards Shudras in general as their labour was appropriated by the upper castes for their own gain very similar to how African slave labourers worked at white plantations if I hv to draw a rough comparison. Shudras/Dalits (the term 'Dalit' means broken/oppressed and was given by a Dalit leader and Indian legend Dr. Ambedkar to help uplift this community in Indian society) are subject to not only physical but structural violence. They were barred entry in schools, wells, tanks, roads and literally everywhere since their presence of 'polluting'. Now I have 2 more points:

In RC, I know everyone loves the male leads, and rightly so. But u need to understand that Ratan Vaish and Amrit Doobay won't give a fuck if a Dalit person died in front of them no matter how caring they might be. Since Brahmins were the priestly class, they hegemonized control over Hindu deities and mythology and only they could 'talk' to Gods (according to them ofc and their superiority complex). Amala is a Basu (a Bengali Brahmin surname) and hence both Doobay (again Brahmin) and Vaish (def upper-caste surname) r after her. If Amala was a Dalit, Amrit would hv raped and even killed her (Dalit women and the sexual violence enacted upon them by upper-caste men....again to draw a comparison similar to black women being raped by white men during slavery and jim crow eras: Google Hathras Rape case) and Ratan would have ignored her. ( Notice how Amrit was having an affair with that temple lady. She is most likely a Shudra as most Shudra women were forced into sexual slavery in temples by Brahmins like Amrit. Therefore, he treats her like an object and throws her away once Amala i.e. a woman of his caste falls in love with him. A Dalit woman's body is disposable and objectified here. Look at the complete whitewahing of power dynamics in that sexual encounter with Amrit and the temple dancer).We all need to understand that a similar fate would hv befallen Deviya Sharma (again a Brahmin woman) as even she would have been raped and ignored by other Brahmins and upper caste men in the story such as Ram/or Kamal etc. Arhat is likely a Shudra and Deviya will never bat an eyelash at him since his only job is to be in service to her tiger which Deviya probably treats with more respect than she does Arhat. My point is RC is mass producing these stories for the hyper-privileged White people of India i.e. the upper castes and that is Brahmins and Kshatriyas and Vaishyas. Dalits have rarely been entertained in representation much less in India than in abroad. But that is not what I am pissed abt. What I am pissed abt is that an American sitting in their home will check this story and see terms such as Brahmin or Kshatriya thrown abt without understanding them and then even internalize the harmful notions about these terms and caste in general in both stories abt a bunch of upper-castes freaking out over some goddess ritual.

Be very careful people in what u accept and what u don't bcoz even if it is a game, many non-Desi people may not have the relevant positionality (and that is completely fine!) to understand how the insidious caste sys is being shown and represented by RC. It is being glorified even (ik in the earlier chapters of KCD where Brahmins r shown as saviors of society and keeping Indian society stable when in reality they have done nothing but dehumanize and alienate Dalits for generations) and downplayed and even whitewashed as some trivial division. If RC wanted to publish a story about upper-caste people then pls go ahead but don't you dare whitewash it and glorify the caste sys. When impressionable audiences see all this, it is in their best interest to know the ugly truth about Indian society and not some cheap exotisation of the same. BE BETTER, especially for the Dalits who have suffered so much in South Asia. I am also attaching some material as I would greatly appreciate it if more people knew about the horrors of the caste system and how it plagues Desi society even today.

Discrimination (all types) r shitty and needs to kicked in the balls. Many times, it is subtle and while we may not know much, it is our responsibility to know more and try our best to stop it in whatever way we can.

Thank you for staying and take care y'all.

[curtwilde]

"High Tea at the Kapurs" by Karuna Ezara Parikh

[bfpnola]

[foxglovedforest]

I LOVE THIS GENRE OF PHOTO

[queer-azadi]

Blog Rebrand !!!

We were originally fuzzy-feminists. Our blog had kind of died and our interests had shifted from primarily feminist to a rather more inclusive and Indian view. We will now mainly be posting about politics especially in Indian circles and have a much more intersectional perspective. In the current political environment of India we think it is important to have leftist, secular and queer inclusive voices. We view organised religion critically and are fully caste abolitionist. Also due to the moderators' sexualities we also largely focus on trans and aromantic experiences. We believe pride is political and should be left aligned.

Check us out if you want to follow a leftist and queer Indian blog!

[moonlit-hexes]

i bring the - most of h*ndu concepts that you have stolen and incorporated into witchcraft (karma, yoga, chakras etc) are all rooted in oppression and casteism - vibe that most white and western witches do not appreciate.

[metamatar]

I don't know the word vomit I did in your inbox earlier is savarna guilt. Holy shit that would be pathetic, wouldn't it? Fuck.

hey anon, i feel like you wouldn't want me to publish your previous ask. sorry i took a while to get to this! what i'd say about your sense of what replaces what religion did for you viz community is this –

not all ritual has to be rooted in caste and a commitment to destroying hinduism is not one to never celebrate a fall harvest festival, which most of the religious holidays this month are. many of these festivals are synthesizing and appropriating preexisting community traditions and the hindutva project is trying to standardise them into an upper caste form – local dalit communities will have different and meaningful practices and traditions. i recommend studying nastika, shaivite, bhakti, buddhist, sikh and all sorts of anti caste traditions from the subcontinent – resisting caste is hundreds of years old and you will find something worthwhile and joyful. you will find rituals to revive and reinvent and remix. this does not have to be a lonely path! guilt does not seem productive, your emotions do not your contribution to a movement make. read and watch movies w your friends and join up with your local amdekarites!

all that said. maybe im the wrong person to answer these questions. im godless and faithless. the clean honesty of it appeals to me. many many people lose their faith across the world, everyday. they thrive. when the old world dies and the new one is born, there is always hurt and longing and pain. it is a worthwhile struggle and you will wonder after how you lived any other way tbh.

[enigma-the-mysterious]

The more time passes, the more casteist and islamophobic desiblr gets. They don't even try to hide it anymore

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

okay i abhor the manusmriti as much as you do but to compare it with nazis or call it the nazi bible is disgusting.

it's holocaust minimalism. no one who followed the manusmriti carried out a genocide where 6 million people were brutally murdered.

it might feel good to call it wrong and morally depraved, however you need to understand that not every bad thing is equal to nazis. this is exactly what has led to a resurgence of 'hitler was right' posts recently.

It took me a while to sort through the post you were mentioning, and yes. I have found it, it was a post from 4 years ago.

Let me first apologise if this has hurt sentiments. I was wrong in using the words 'N*zi incel' for people who follow the Manusmriti (to the T)

But if you would hear me out, please-

The Manusmriti is the basis of a system that actively suppresses, tortures, and excludes MASSIVE sections of people. It is the set of behaviours encouraged to makes sure people uphold this system. (Caste system)

I will not spend time looking for the exact words again, but that book is FULL of racial (caste) hierarchy and patriarchial practices. Methods very much used by Hitler.

What hurts me when you say that this is holocaust minimalism- is that the Manusmriti has influenced Indian society eons before the Nazis even came. The Nazis systematically executed 6 million people (among them not just Jews, but queer people, disabled people, ROMANI PEOPLE) within 1 or 2 generations of enacting similar rules and policies (remember, the Nazis didn't win in one day) then the Manusmriti took a couple thousand years to establish itself as the rules of a social system which weeded out 'impure' people from 'pure' people (i.e the Savarnas, and Brahmins in particular). This deliberately kept Dalit and Adivasi people (Also conquered indegenous peoples in the subcontient, whose land and culture was taken away for the rulers of the time) excluded from access to even basic essentials, demeaned and dehumanised them THE SAME WAY THE NAZIS DID TO THOSE THEY CONSIDERED 'IMPURE'.

What I mainly am upset about is how can you not consider the caste system equally as bad as the holocaust? Is it because you don't hear about it as much? Dalits and Adivasis are beaten, abused, and killed EVEN TODAY, so imagine what the number of dead people has been over the years it has been practiced. We might not have the counted numbers or even a close estimate of people who have been killed by caste related violence, but does that discount the damage this system has done? Is it because the bodies are brown?

What I want you to understand is that the Nazis were inspired by ideologies just like the ones the Manusmriti thrived off of. Although Germany and India are very distant, the two systems are tied to one thing: Purity and Exclusion.

If you still cannot see how Nazi ideology and Manusmriti are linked, perhaps you do not abhor it as much as you think you do.

-Mod G

[anonymouswarriorhumanist]

Halloween season is here and so is the hypocrisy of savarna asses.

(A little Personal Rant Below):

I was born in an Indian Christian family. Though, I have long since renounced my faith in religions as being a patriarchal structure for domination, nowadays I see a whole lot of Upper caste Hindus, both Gen Z and Millennials jumping on the western bandwagon of Halloween and the hysteria around it.

Halloween is a pagan festival with Celtic and other pagan origins that was incorporated into the wider Chritian framework and made into All Hallows Eve or the day when u remember dead people from the family, etc etc.

I have not seen All Hallows Eve being a popular festival atleast in India among Christians, but western and Spanish-speaking nations do take it srsly apparently.

What is most surprising is to see Savarna Hindu Indians being more excited for Halloween than any Christian person I have seen in my life. Even if we forget for one moment that Halloween had pagan roots and say it is a Christian festival, you gotta love the hypocrisy.

Savarna Indians will not hesitate to bash Christians back home.

Eg: A best friend of mine who is a Kayastha Hindu sanghi girl (My disappointment stems with how she didn't evolve politically with me and due to this I never try to talk politics with her.) Loves Halloween yet whenever she meets me, she doesn't hesitate to be micro aggressive to my Christian identity ( yes, I can scream and cry all I want that I am an atheist but I will always be dogmatized based on my western surname). We won't even be talking about religion and suddenly she would feel the need to bash our old Christian school (one question: if sanghis don't like Christians, why tf do they send their kids to their schools?) And look at me weirdly and say Christians this and Christians that. Then with a straight face, fawn over the aesthetics of Christmas or Halloween (pretend they r Christians for one moment).

Another friend of mine is a Kanha Bhakt :) yet she too would go crazy over Halloween but is sanghi af. All over insta, people like these in india are going crazy over Halloween yet they won't hesitate to trash Christians in india or support parties that kill or murder them.

As usual, Shameless upper Caste Hindus and their Countless Hypocrisies.

As for me, like I said before, I have always been dogmatized as a Christian even if I scream and shout I am an atheist to these savarna Hindus. So I have decided to own my identity. If they want me to be a Christian villain for them who goes around converting innocent people, so be it!!!😊🤭😉

The co-optation is wild here. And as again, I hate sanghi UC Hindus for another reason.

[curtwilde]

AMBEDKARITE BACKGROUND ffs just say low-caste itna sharmata kyun hain?

Of course the account is called devi uvacha

[seaoafthoughts]

I’m an oppressor caste teenager in the US and, outside of talking to my parents and other family about caste (which has only minimal effect on them no matter how much research I bring up or evidence I use), I don’t know how to better throw my support behind the anti caste movement. I don’t have financial independence yet to contribute monetarily and I’m just consumed by the guilt of not being active enough

hello dear anon,

so i’ve been contemplating how i should answer this exactly and here’s what i’ve come up with-

1. i understand that its hard to talk to your parents and other family members about caste. its the one topic everybody and their mother loves to throw down on at any table and the conversation always goes sideways fast.

but i suggest you don’t give up. you don’t have to have full blown out conversations about it all the time. they will refuse to listen.

so every time someone says something casteist say something along the lines of "what/who made you think this was perfectly reasonable to say out loud?" and wait for them to try answer. you don't have to continue this conversation but this statement you made? its for you. its to remind yourself that the nonsense that they're spouting is bullshit. and they don't even have a reasonable explanation as to why the holy fuck they thought it was okay to say outloud.

2. savarna (oppressor caste) guilt is useless in terms of supporting the anti-caste movement. a parallel example to this would be - imagine how useful white guilt is in a conversation of racism. it occurs, it happens but if one focuses on it they make the entire narrative about themselves again rather than what they're trying to support.

remember - guilt is an easy emotion to succumb to. let yourself feel it but don't focus on it. it doesn't do anyone any good.

3. if you don't have monetary means to help out yet; read, learn and help/volunteer in some shape with organizations who are actively doing some excellent anti-caste work in the U.S right now.

Equality Labs - https://www.equalitylabs.org

National Academic Coalition for Caste Equity

Ambedkar-Phule Network of American Dalits and Bahujans

Ambedkar Association of North America

Ambedkarite Buddhist Association of Texas

Boston Study Group

and so on. these are a few of the organizations that i know of and have been listed in the high profile seattle city council resolution to stand against caste discrimination in all forms.

when you finally do manage to gain some monetary funds, pls do donate. money is the most expressible language in terms of support sometimes.

4. finally, you are a NRI teenager who's aware of the caste privilege you hold. this means you do have more power than you realize. get creative with that knowledge. learn as much as you can about casteism and the number of ways it warps itself and presents itself innocently. you cannot expect DBA people to teach you what you can already find with a simple google search.

the onus is on you. its a personal responsibility. keep that in mind and keep moving forward.

good luck. jai bhim.

[empyreanebula]

i was able to donate a while ago for the library of emancipation (they met their goal!!) & the books arrived today 🥰

[anonymouswarriorhumanist]

Please can u worry abt thr native Christian population in India too with a percentage of only 2% living in India and which has rapidly declined since 1950 census?

Bangladeshi Hindus are suffering but Indian Christians in ur native nation r suffering the same way. Why are Nuns being gangraped?

Pls answer

Hindus are being gangraped, lynched, and having their property destroyed in Bangladesh rn. Amidst all the news coming out of there don't forget about the minority that always ends up dealing with the brunt of chaos. in 1971 most of the victims of the genocide were Bangladeshi Hindus and everyone conveniently leaves this detail out.

(And i know some mf will either no true scotsman this or say that it's all lies and that all the videos coming out are fake or propaganda from the BJP or something instead of another event in a long chain of violence. The Hindu population has crashed from 30% at independence to 9% today. Estimates say that in the next 30 years, Hindus will be extinct in Bangladesh)