Critical Caste Theory: A Dubious Discourse

As a tsunami of social justice sweeps across the world today, the roots of traditions are uprooted in an unrelenting furor. In India, the axe of modernity grinds against the caste system as caste, the primary identity of many Indians, now faces pressure from more cosmopolitan identities such as political ideology and class. While many see this as a positive development, some seek not only to entrench these age-old divisions but also enflame the trenches with the kerosene of hate. Building upon and going beyond colonial caste activists such as Ambedkar and the Phules, modern sociologists devise a theory designed to shatter Indian society and grant deliverance to the lower castes of India. While much of this theory is plagiarized from the infamous Critical Race Theory of America, caste is not race and race is not caste. You cannot tell someone’s caste by the color of their complexion or the features of their face. With the rise of Hindutva attracting a rainbow coalition of castes granting a decisive mandate to the BJP in India, the opposition seeks to break this coalition by inciting caste tensions, and it is in Critical Caste Theory that they find a prophetic message to part the saffron sea.

Critical Caste Theory does not seek the annihilation of caste no matter how much it harps on this talking point. Rather, it seeks the annihilation of Brahminism, a polemic and deceptive term for Hinduism originally used by Jesuit missionaries and colonial scholars. It is in the rigid contours of caste that CCT activists see the opportunity to exploit and shatter the cultural and religious body of India and Hinduism. Upper castes must be made aware of their ancestral penalties of the past, privilege of the present, and penance of the future. The lower castes must be made aware of the oppression of the past, discrimination of the present, and revolution of the future. The cloak of caste must smother all discourse surrounding politics, economics, and culture. And most of all – caste must be framed as a simple, homogenous concept that conquers time and space; heterogeneity is heresy.

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Did Hinduism Spread to South East Asia Via Missionaries – Response to The Print Article

On the 32nd Episode of The Indic Explorer Show, I spoke to Jeysundhar on How Did Hinduism Spread to South East Asia.

This is a response video with full historical sources on the Original Article written in The Print by Anirudh Kani titles ‘India’s Hindu preachers — How Shaiva monks converted Cambodia.’

Link Here-https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-hindu-preachers-how-shaiva-monks-converted-cambodia/1097764/

All Historical Sources used in this video are cited in the link of the Video Description.

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Episode 21: South India Post Vijayanagar Empire till 1857

 

Another Browncast is up. You can listen on LibsynAppleSpotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

Shrikanth talks to Maneesh about the History of South India post Vijayanagar kingdom till the year 1857.  He talks about the varies polities, their interactions and the Europeans among other facets that shaped the history of Deccan.

He wraps up the episode with the socio-cultural legacy of this period.

 

Sources and References:

1. History of the Nayaks of Madura : R Sathianatha Aiyar
2. The Nayaks of Tanjore : V. Vriddhagirisan
3. Textures of time : Writing history in South India – 1600-1800 – Sanjay Subramaniam, Velchuru Narayana Rao, David Shulman
4. Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan : Lewin Bowring
5. Symbols of Substance : Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamil Nadu – Sanjay Subramaniam, Velchuru Narayana Rao, David Shulman
6. Thomas Munro : The Origins of the Colonial State and His Vision of Empire – Burton Stein
7. Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not? Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850 – Prasannan Parthasarathi

8. India, Modernity and the Great Divergence: Mysore and Gujarat 17th to 19th c – Kaveh Yazdani

9. History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India – Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer

 

Brown Pundits