(Housekeeping first. Indosaurus is back and in form; “For Gandhiji” and “Liberal college bastions are taking body blows” and k jayas’s “30 seconds please“. Ordinarily I would open with viewer statistics; I’m dispensing with the ritual. The community is flourishing, and I would rather measure biodiversity than traffic.)
In DP’s telling India is down to three varnas: the Baniya, who owns the temple; the Brahmin, who guards it on salary and calls the arrangement dharma; and everyone else, rebranded anti-national upon objection. Stadium budgets flow to a state without medallists while the akharas that win them go hungry; the newsroom is Brahmin-bylined and Baniya-owned, the vegetarian canteen doing the work the salary won’t; ahimsa is reread as a doctrine of bloodless extraction.
Ahimsa Redefined
Take the milk, spare the cow; take the honey, spill nothing; empty an exchequer without cutting a throat and call it business. Nehru the Pandit, he reminds us, was unmade by Pandits while other men did the counting. And the merchant class, expelled from the fold in its Jain and Buddhist centuries, waited out the millennium and has made the priesthood its front office. “The Nagpur bowl is being refilled in Ahmedabad,” he closes.
The sporting structure he describes is not imaginary, India’s medallists come from Manipur to Kerala to Hyderabad, though Haryana’s share is so disproportionate. DP gives us a priesthood in service. But the priesthood that unmade the Pandit prime minister while other men did the counting was not obeying a master. I see a priesthood at war; with its own cousins.
The Sedimentary Elite
Every durable country is governed by a sediment. India’s old elite predates the Raj: strata deposited through the Sultanates and the Mughal centuries (the Rajputs kept rank by cavalry and accommodation), compacted under the Company, glazed by the ICS, lacquered by the licence Raj. Let’s call the true elite a basis point of its society, one in ten thousand, and give each member a network of a hundred: that is how a rounding error becomes a ruling class. The visible one per cent is essentially the network of the one-in-ten-thousand.
And that old Left-Liberal Nehruvian elite is post-caste in a very particular sense. It behaves like Bollywood: class first, everything else negotiable. It will happily admit the educated aspirant, Shudra, Muslim, anyone, who marries in and learns the table manners; long before it seats the pious, industrious twice-born up from the provinces, whom it privately files under country buffoon and hem them in with Reservations.
The Reservation Cleft
The snub is the point, and the snub is the recruiting sergeant. Reservations don’t block the children of the Old Elite, who anyway train in the West, but blocks their parvenu cousins. For the rural Uppers, the shakha supplies what the drawing room withholds: fraternity, status, vocabulary and eventually power. Hindutva is best read not as the lower orders storming the gates but as an upper-caste revolt of the provinces against a post-caste metropolis; a metropolis whose own bone structure is nonetheless upper-caste.
The Old Left-Liberal Elite looks on their rural Upper-Caste kin in a way a WASP may despise a Southerner but would never daresay to a minority for performing the exact same action.
Rahul Gandhi, a Brahmin whatever the exotic ancestry, personifies the drawing room; Modi, an OBC, commands a movement built and propelled by upper-caste cadre. The founders, cadre and intellectual infrastructure are provincial upper-caste, while the electoral coalition the movement later assembled reaches deep into OBC and Dalit India. Brahmins man both barricades. Hence the title of this piece.
The Elite Civil war
Nations inherit the pathologies of their founding elites, and the civil wars attending them. English liberty was less a gift from below than the residue of prolonged civil war within the ruling class; America is still litigating the quarrels of its founding stock. India’s peculiarity is the refusal to name its Left-Liberal elite at all. There is a half-serious case for titles: an aristocracy with letterhead can be balanced, taxed, mocked. It is the unnamed aristocracy that proves immortal.
(A Pakistan aside, since Kabir’s linked piece on provinces is still ringing in my ears. The provinces were not drawn for the parties, but they function as if they had been; redoubts where a movement beaten in Islamabad can govern, recruit and wait: the PPP in Sindh, the Sharifs in Punjab, PTI in KP. PTI are the proto-Pakistanis: the first cohort to buy the middle-class Pakistani identity whole – consolidation, not secession; the new Medina on layaway. Their war is generational: children formed by Pakistaniat against elders steeped in a shrine Islam that spent centuries absorbing local idiom alongside Hindu devotion.)
Which brings us to who actually needs religion. At the summit, tradition tends to ossify into heritage. No elite lives the orthodoxy: the Khans of Bombay are half-Hindu by blood or marriage, marinated in a Hindu environment whatever the surname. Tamil Nadu, Dravidianism’s own fortress, is so Hindu that the state emblem carries a temple gopuram even Periyar never troubled to contest; T.M. Krishna’s We, the People of India (a very good book and he is the Carnatic Singer of last night’s excellent performance) sits with that fact at length.
The Middle
Orthodoxy turns out to be a middle-class necessity: religion as portable code, standardised, legible, compatible with school, office and the nuclear family, lived exam to exam and paycheck to paycheck. The poor drift to the shrine and the syncretic edge because they have nothing to lose; the elite drift there because they have nothing to prove. The middle holds the line because the line is all it holds.
So yes: Nagpur’s bowl may well be filling in Ahmedabad. But look closer at the temple queue. The priesthood is not merely in service; it is in schism; metropolis against province, drawing room against shakha, cousin against cousin. Pattanaik sees a Brahmin who rented out his voice. I see two Brahmins fighting over what the voice should say. Civil wars are hardest to see when both sides wear the same thread.
Patnaik in my view tends to oversimplify a lot of things to the point that you lose sight of something( his drawing are very unique tho).
For starters,the two communities of Brahmins you mention, the elite suave brahmins and their country bumpkins are in reality one and the same, since this is not limited to brahmins but forward castes in general, let me use FC for referring to this class of people who have traditionally been dominant, who come for upper castes of all religions. While the more globalist ones among them ran the cities, the more rustic ones ran the villages with both using the necessary cultural methodologies to establish dominance in their respective areas.
It is clear that many rural FCs have joined the sangh in large numbers( barring member of religious minorities and those committed to the left or liberal thought), the urban FCs are not far behind. Ramesh Bhiduri who insulted his own colleges from the muslim community who happened to be muslim wins from south delhi for crying out loud, no bigger proof of the many suave, globalist and supposedly left liberal FCs have shifted over and still largely dominate the cities like their grandparents and parents did. This same pattern repeats in every Indian city, in the poshest of areas because for many of these people, power and privelege is an end in itself, very few of them are actually ideological.
One thing that getting bogged down in the ideological fights of the committed sections of the FCs hides is the declining relevance of this whole class of people as a whole. In rural politics the dominance of FC has effectivelty been ended by OBCs( though not being dominant does not mean one is not relevant). And in public education, and law Ambedkarites are gaining grounds on the FCs who have traditionally dominated these fields. Media is anyways dying so no need to consider that. And with increase in the number of SC/ST and OBC entering the professional courses like enginering and medicine, their dominance in the sciences will also be ending within this century.
The only exception to this reversal of dominance is the private sector where FCs, particularly traditional mercantile communities are still dominant, this is one of the reason why so many FC have a huge love for the private sector and immediately associate it with merit despite many organizations being both badly managed and even lagging behind govt counterparts in many cases. I wont bet on this dominance remaining though, and by lets say 2050 the way these look will also be changing quite a lot
In conclusion, the upper caste and class people of this country are much more united, largely are still dominant in the same areas their grandparents were by switching sides( so no the left liberal upper caste/class of the citys have just changed sides, not lost power) and this dominance is being chiseled away to relevance and as time goes one will decrease more and more as SC/OBCs and STs start taking a more center stage.
It is these people we should keep an eye on as to what they do.
>this dominance is being chiseled away to relevance and as time goes one will decrease more and more as SC/OBCs and STs start taking a more center stage.
It is these people we should keep an eye on as to what they do.
This is….indicative of why I find LeLi social justice warfare rhethoric so problematic and the opposite of constructive.
Instead of the focus on making a larger pie, the focus is always more on ‘redistribution’, “chiseling away dominance”.
Even reservations and affirmative action – policy mechanisms that I view merely as imperfect tools – are converted into some sort of moral holy sacred cow that can never be questioned. Is the purpose to spread opportunity and access to more folks or to preserve a flawed mechanism just because you’ve assumed its the virtue-signaling sole preserver of righteousness?
//This is….indicative of why I find LeLi social justice warfare rhethoric so problematic and the opposite of constructive.//
You really love to make generalized remarks on others, for some reason.
I would love it if there are more govt jobs, more educational institutions, more focus on improving the standards of educational learning in govt schools but for this you need to call out the party in power and keep on agitating something that many in this country dont want to do, or are opposed to.
if we are not increasing the pie, because we are not putting pressure on the state to improve services, increase instituions then at least those who come in a handful of institutions should be from a wide class of people. Reservation is defended against those who oppose it, because the opposers who love to punch down neither want to question the state on its failures, preferring to victimize themselves for some reason, and in some cases are genuinely hostile to the presence of a class of people who have historically been shunted out of education.
My statement was prophetic in nature, the communities that have been outside of corridors of power, are gaining more ground and those that have had access to power without competition are afraid of it, the anti reservation narratives that dont want to question the state or the general category people in power and the reflexive belief in privatization as a marker of merit, when that is not clear are reactions to this fear of losing dominance.
>are reactions to this fear of losing dominance.
There should be no ‘fear of losing dominance’ in a meritocracy. “Preserving/inheriting dominance due to ancestry or allocating it due to identity” is not a desirable outcome. And this is what all of us should be aspiring for and working towards. Instead of moronic efforts on identity driven ‘chiseling’.
I agree but I dont think many GCs do, and their ignorance of common bad management in private spheres similar to public spheres, their greater anger over the presence of reserved category employees over bad general category managers( just bringing this up due to reserved category people competence being questioned in the first place) and refusal to hold the govt accountable for less schools of good quality over blaming people who have been historically discriminated, shows this lack of understanding on something very basic.
You are …going in circles with yourself.
Nobody has ever denied existence of inequity. The discussion is about how to go about addressing it.
There are no holy cows in the quest for progressive solutions.
Yes there are no holy cows.
But not all criticism is coming from a place of wanting to do better, some like most anti reservation narratives dont have many peoples best interests in mind.
so now you are a mind reader about motivations of those who disagree with you?
Most of the arguments at least in case of reservation are outdated and have been throughly exposed for being anti reserved in general.
You cant on one hand be concerned/ against people getting into institutions on reservation and then blame the failures of these institutions on the lacking capability of these entrants and act like you have their best interests at heart.
Same way one cant legitimately be taken seriously if they think that reservation is some sort of a punishment against GC people if you cant even be as angry over govt failing in creating good quality institutions.
Many of the narratives here are over 20 years thst I have been hearing since 2006, some of the people here are older than that, it cant take so long to understand the duplicity of blaming reserved for all sorts of failures and then saying you want to do good by them.
That many love to reflect and analyze others, the inability to do so for yourself makes this even more illuminating.
you shouldn’t……conflate different commenters into a monolith when you are engaging in debate. Its…quite silly really.
So you admit conflating all leli in one brush and making generalised statements is very silly as well? Because I have seen many do the very same thing.
Do you disagree with the anti reservation points raised by others? That the presence of these people is a reduction of merit? That the private sector being driven by merit is a lie, as seen from the same mediocrity being ever present there? And thst reservation is not some agenda against GCs but any thing that makes it seem that way are due to govt failures that the people who are angry over reservation dont criticize?
Beyond that unless all govt schools in india become like the telangan residential schools, and all people have access to that quality of education, talking about removal of reservation and making it more based on economic criteria is foolhardy.
The only real reform is how to ensure more people reach it, which things like creamy layer and subcategorization are trying to fix.
I have, to my knowledge, not ever attributed others’ statements to you.
I think you should re-read some of our ….’conversations’. Maybe you are confused who you are arguing against.
You have literally tried to portray my disagreements as stereotypical of some left liberal tribalism and other typical behaviors.
you are clearly …..more than a bit personally wounded and have lost some objectivity. I’m going to wait for that to pass before I engage with you. Good luck.
I actually dont care about bad argumentation but it is fun for me to see all those who smugly pontificate and caricature their opponents either not recognizer or feel annoyed at being judged themselves.
Noticed you are not denying you tried to pontificate and pass judgement on me, at least I admit what I am doing.
The only exception to this reversal of dominance is the private sector where FCs, particularly traditional mercantile communities are still dominant, this is one of the reason why so many FC have a huge love for the private sector and immediately associate it with merit despite many organizations being both badly managed and even lagging behind govt counterparts in many cases.
It is okay to be strongly ideological but it is not ok to make demonstrably false statements so confidently. Private enterprise is the only thing that is even remotely competitive at a world-class level in this country. Going by your thread, the day is not far when we start calling for representation in sports teams as well.
You do realise, with respect, even sports and the private sector isn’t necessarily meritocratic.
There is such a thing as Old Boys Networks, which are extremely nepotistic.
oh come on, surely you are not arguing for sports to be less meritocratic?
oh come on 🙂 surely your argument isn’t that sports should be ‘less’ meritocratic?
I think sports selection is inherently very political as well.
It is one thing for people to play favourites for whatever reason – no Indian fan is ever satisfied with the playing XI for India in any format. It is entirely another to legally mandate someone’s presence in a team when they just aren’t good enough. I’ll give you another example – the US Army tried mixed gender units for some of their special units. The women just couldn’t meet the physical standards of those units so they eventually abandoned the idea because your team is as good as your weakest link. To be clear, I am not against women in armed forces. I am against representation for its own sake.
I think he’s……trying to balance the playing field as it were. 🙂
“Everything” is political arguably. Does not necessarily mean identity driven quotas are something to argue in favor of.
I’m….pretty sure that’s not what you support. Or am I wrong?
//Going by your thread, the day is not far when we start calling for representation in sports teams as well.//
What exactly is wrong with this?
Most of the issues in our educational institutions and business, whether private or public is bad management, which is ubiquitous in India, why is bad management in private institutes that also see nepotism, low productivity, stagnating wages and poor quality not seen as betraying merit whereas the same in public institutions are, with problems in public institutes wrongly blamed on reservation even if reserved people are not in leadership positions in most public institiutions.
This dichotomy is a result of bias on part of the FC not objective proof of merit otherwise there are multiple govt companies that are also doing well and managed properly and many private companies doing badly.
Textbook example of ‘what exactly is wrong with this’.
Do you really think that reservation in sports, if it ever does happen, wont check for fitness or basic competence, along with willingness to improve. You do know that this will only be a greater focus on cultivating talent, not sending people who are unfit to compete right?
In practise it will only mean more schools like the below, not anything else.
An Innovative Model for Inclusive Education | The India Forum
To a …fundamentalist ‘reservationist’ hammer, everything is a nail.
Are you talking about yourself by any chance?
The person whose residental school I linked, will fundamentally disagree with you on reservations, even Anand Teltumbde who you all dismissed is not as gung ho about reservation as it exists today, but you guys would never know as you think everyone is a walking caricature. There are many discussions on how to improve the reservation system and make it better among the left, because they dont want to waste their time punching down like many anti reservation people do.
The only one who thinks that there can only be one reservation or at least in case of sports, better focus on cultivating talent, should not be the main priority is you. You should get over this habit of projecting your own thoughts and views on others.
Most of the issues in our educational institutions and business, whether private or public is bad management, which is ubiquitous in India, why is bad management in private institutes that also see nepotism, low productivity, stagnating wages and poor quality not seen as betraying merit whereas the same in public institutions are, with problems in public institutes wrongly blamed on reservation even if reserved people are not in leadership positions in most public institiutions.
Non sequitur. If the problem is bad management (it indeed is) then how would just changing representation change that? It will just be more representative example bad management. What we need is better education opportunities that will ensure better learning outcomes from early on in a child’s journey because by the time an under-privileged child is in high school, it is already too late. The RTE was a step in the right direction IMO. Degrading standards at higher education and public institutions just for representation isn’t.
Btw, I do agree that the problem is not reservation itself but the archaic bureaucracy that will sacrifice even its own children at the altar of paperwork in triplicate and process.
Thank you. I was too disinterested in correcting such a lazy, illogical argument.
Time bound reservations to the economically deprived would be far more beneficial imo. Secondly, its high time that a thorough data based review is undertaken to assess the pros/ cons of the current system using objective metrics. This was the topic for a term paper by a student, unfortunately we were unable to access data pertinent to evaluating it.
Read somewhere that LKY had implemented a grassroots program for the Malays in Singapore which actually worked quite well. Need to find some credible sources on that.
That would be interesting. Do let me know if you find anything on it.
Why do you think the only solution that others want is to allow people of different communities to get there by seniority.
The best way is to focus on fundamentals, better schooling, more attention to those from historically discriminated backgrounds and better policing for bad behavior.
Many of the anti reservation narratives completely ignore the widespread mediocrity in our system, hold up the private sector as some bastion of “merit” and instead of demanding better from thr govt, spend an inordinate amount of time problemitizing the presence of diverse communities at lower levels in hierarchy.
//Reservations don’t block the children of the Old Elite, who anyway train in the West, but blocks their parvenu cousins. For the rural Uppers, the shakha supplies what the drawing room withholds: fraternity, status, vocabulary and eventually power. Hindutva is best read not as the lower orders storming the gates but as an upper-caste revolt of the provinces against a post-caste metropolis; a metropolis whose own bone structure is nonetheless upper-caste.//
One thing I want to repeatedly emphasize reservation is not a punishment or a conspiracy against upper castes of any categpory.
In the first case, the old elite and the rural uppers are kith and kin, who had different areas of influence and largely still do, because many of the old elite are also queuing up to the shaka. Both are also very anti reservation and would not have liked it to be there if they could help it.
The reason that this is there is that in absence of substantial social change, that would destroy the institutions and patterns of dominance that both the old elite and rural uppers benefit from, reservation is a small price to pay for keeping much of your socio-political dominance. Without reservation, the masses of India would be much less keen to engage with the state and the system at large. The whole furore over paper leaks in India is that it breaks one of the promises made to this section of society that if you work hard and get an education, you will be rewarded, so dont challenge the status quo too much, dont ask too many questions of your elites.
Both the old elites and rural uppers as you call them are united in what you also say is a post caste metropolis that they will have to sacrifice their privilege for.
I would like to flag an issue with Calvin’s commenting style in the threads. He posts too many of them at one go and almost all comments are longform. If he has so much to say he should write a post, which admin has offered him more than once i think, else he should extend some basic courtesies and keep his comments short and precise. If I have strayed out of my lane, admin can completely ignore/delete this comment
But you can skip over them; that would be over stepping on the Admin Team.
Yes I do skip them anyways if they are too long.
what happens to signal ratio in that case?
noise to signal is about abuse and courtesy.
The most popular man in the country is a Shudra.
Of the 31 CM’s in India, only 3 are Brahmin, just under 10%
I cannot remember the last time I saw a Brahmin in politics in my state, it is possible we have had a Brahmin CM, but not in my lifetime.
The largest business houses in India are still Parsee owned, with Tatas, Godrejs, Wadias, whatnot.
Basically the entire premise is that Adani and Ambani own everything and every govt secretary is Brahmin, except there are no stats to back it up, just perception from decades ago. Get the latest cadre numbers.
Counting caste is an appalling abominable disgusting business. I’m off to have a bath.
Brahmin is a euphemism in this case.
I don’t think Devdutt is talking euphemisms. And I don’t think it makes sense to use these words as such anyway. The views of caste are very different from each POV. A euphemism needs to have a common meaning, induce a similar feeling amongst readers.
We use Boston Brahmins. An apex elite..
Westerners and Chinese can look at this with detachment and consider Brahmins = elite.
Bollywood associates Banias with alternating ostentatiousness and miserliness. Brahmins with superstition and orthodoxy. These -ve stereotypes have been reinforced for decades now.
To an Indian context, there is a lot of baggage with these terms, the euphemism will not be universal.
The Varnas are too intermingled with Jatis, arguing about their original intent is a pointless exercise.
Calvin/XTM are doing a version of western press and ideological comrades do i.e. anything good from India is ascribed to South Asia and bad is associated to India and specifically to Hindus when appropriate. So brahmanism/hinduism has to bear all the burden of classism and elite predilections. ofc western tutelage (liberalism/missionaries) is always pitched as a panacea.
The 24 families of Pakistan have concentrated their wealth in much fewer hands yet attract much less scrutiny in comparison. This is to the point that even Pakistani contributors blame their Hindu heritage for the startling inequalities in their nation instead of their own policy decision. In comparison to their systems and economy India seems like a perfect liberal democracy. But I can understand the need for that propaganda.
If you look at the American Tributary states around China almost every single one of them surpasses China in terms of GDP per capita, Standard of Living, etc. However, the American Tributaries around India are all around the same ball part or explicitly worse than India in terms of their GDP per capita and other such metrics with the exception of Sri Lanka perhaps. Bangladesh which looked like a competitor initially is going through turmoil again due to its unstable government. Therefore, American propaganda has to take the form of only ideological coercion instead of economic and ideological coercion in the case of China.
what propaganda? I’m a bit surprised at how the Commentariat aren’t able to intellectually disentangle issues on equity without resorting to ad homimens and name calling
It is all propaganda if it looks like a caricature of somethng I read a many years ago, a very basic way to avoid engaging with arguments different from yours.
exactly where did I say this? please quote specific references?
Was I wrong to read this reply of yours to Indosaurus “We use Boston Brahmins. An apex elite..” as “steel-manning” or “charitable explanation” Calvin’s original attempt to ascribe all short-comings of Indic civilization to Brahmins?
Calvin has massive anti-GC / Brahmin blinkers on.
I actually dont.
You very glibly blamed the failure of our public institutions on reservation, aka implying that presence of reserved category people who supposedly lack merit is why they are failing.
I merely pointed out that the direction of any institution is determined by those at the top who are general category people. If you can blame the failure of instituions on presence of reserved category employees then I can also say that the people whose job it is to manage and chart the direction who happen to mostly be GC are also to blame. This is what is called a counter example, it does not show I have any hatred.
But given that my logic is ultimately the same as your own, I do wonder if you have an anti reseved category blinker on, as I said classic RW projection.
Your blinkers are blindfolds at this point. Good luck drinking your own KoolAid.
Whatever arguments I make, are using the logic in your arguments against reserved people.
If you see any blinkers, they are a reflections of your animus towards reserved people. As I have repeatedly mentioned, right wingers world over love to project their own biases onto others.
Maybe he’s still fairly young? His words have the ….confidence of a ‘believer’. I feel like most, his intentions aren’t wrong, just misguided.
It happens in youth.
I am not a believer, just know how to argue and use people logic against them.
If you have so much time to pontificate, apply it onto yourself,it is much more immature to reflexively try to dismiss arguments you dont like through categorization, to pontificate about others characteristics but not your own and to only know about opposing arguments through caricatures.
I dont need your or anyone else patronization, apply this to yourself, I know who I am and not ashamed to be so.
You wouldn’t have to proclaim that if your positions weren’t just pontification and endless dismissal of other perspectives. Almost every Indian commentator has told you so.
I am just replying to other pontification in the first place.
If you guys love to make a caricature of left wing viewpoints, and then smugly dismiss it based on this caricature, why is an observation from my end that is largely based on what you guys have said such a big issue? If you can pontificate on others you should be ready to be pontificated on as well.
I have dismissed only those narratives that come from a reflexive prejudice of others, be they thinking those who criticize your favorite party are some sort of enemies or thinking that the presences of historically disadvantaged individuals are somehow responsible for institutional degradation, the point is many can dish out criticism but cant take it on themselves.
I have not been as dismissive on other perspectives, just disagreed with them, two very different things.
Its a….markedly youthful trait. Being overly sure of one’s own perspective. It kinda falls apart on serious examination – for eg, when he made tall claims about Guru Shishya funding for “hindu schools”.
I gave the right information later but you conveniently ignore that and I was right about everything else I said in a counter to arguements raised.
lol, you made a false equivalence about funding for hindu schools by the government vs others – cited data from an arts program that explicitly excludes schools as ‘evidence’. Took premature victory laps about “my media”.
When the obvious error was pointed out, all you could muster was minutes from Lok Sabha question hour dating back to 2016? and that too a miniscule amount? Comparing a few lakhs to thousands of crores is …silly.
And after all this, your takeaway is “I wuz rIgHt AbOuT EvErYtHiNg”?
We all can make mistakes and be misled by bad info. But its about whether one has the maturity to accept corrections. If not, then…
//lol, you made a false equivalence about funding for hindu schools by the government vs others – cited data from an arts program that explicitly excludes schools as ‘evidence’. Took premature victory laps about “my media”.
When the obvious error was pointed out, all you could muster was minutes from Lok Sabha question hour dating back to 2016? and that too a miniscule amount? Comparing a few lakhs to thousands of crores is …silly.//
The answer showed gurukuls are supported by the govt didn’t they? That it is lesser than some other schools you have in mind has more to do with lesser demand, not that this support is not present. If your media keeps on harping about madrassa but does not mention that provision exist for gurukuls to also get support and state funding should that not be pointed out?
I can accept correction but all I have gotten when confronted by facts you are either not aware of are pontification on left liberal characteristics, dismissal due to it being similar to a caricature you encountered and all sorts of lazy argumentation.
Relax dude, I’m not trying to pick a fight with you.
” am not a believer, just know how to argue and use people logic against them”
Your two great qualities are modesty and self reflection
I know how to self reflect, I am trying to write shorter comments and use simpler language afyer your criticism.
If you can logically counter what I say without trying to pick apart my character or claim you have practical experience that I lack then I would like to hear it.
The rigidity of belief and sublime confidence of being the only sensible one in a perceived sea of fools is exactly what makes one a “believer”, saviour of the unwashed heathens (pun intended). 🙂
You are commenting on yourself when you use such words.
Please stop trying to find a caricature to reduce every disagreement to, it is bad and lazy argumentation.
I was referring to my original post, rather than Calvin’s comment.
Yes Brahmin is a short hand for elite.
The point of the article is that the Left-Liberal elite, which has a genesis in a millennia of a making, and has predominantly, if not universally Upper Caste origins, is more guarded against Upper Caste rural bumpkins (who have the Socio-historical capital to threaten) rather than sub-altern masses.
This is a tale as old as time; Revolutions only happen the disaffected sub-elite is able to rally enough of the population.
Ariminius or even the French Revolution when the Nobility cast its lot agains the King. Or even in the Iranian Revolution when the Military turned against the Shah, which explains the IRGC.
Through the lense of an Upper Caste civil war the BJP’s rise as political hegemon is perfectly understandable.
You do the mistake, my friend, to presume I am ideologically, rather than intellectually, driven.
>Yes Brahmin is a short hand for elite.
Is there a reasonable argument to be made that such usage is, by nature, problematic?
Its one thing for early 20th century folks to ply such …terminology. But other such words conflating religion/ethnicity with class/status would immediately be rejected, no?
we should never be shy talking about structural privilege..
the Ashraf elite of Pakistan (which is built around a particular core) is a good future topic. the 1,000 families
>we should never be shy talking about structural privilege..
Of course, but accuracy matters.
I think we’ve been talking at odds for days.
RNJ + my claim – You cannot use Brahmin as a catchall term for privilege in the Indian context. Brahmin is a jati collection now and it no longer has meaning as the scriptural Varna, but is a specific indicator about a group of people. Varna fluidity has ossified for 500+ years, possibly 1000, it is well out of living or ancestral memory.
Your claim, which is understood by Agni. Brahmin is a Varna, and is a catchall phrase for elite people at the top of current Indian society, used in the sense of Boston Brahmins.
You will not be able to reconcile this.
I think the idea of an Apex ethnicity setting a dominant template, well after the passing of its era, is very instructive here.
I’ll elaborate my thinking in a future post. Waiting for all the current ones to marinate 🙂
I think we’ve all grasped your point. I cannot accept your terminology though.
It’s sort of like Lupita Nyongo as Helen of Troy. She’s very beautiful and I don’t really want to object to race bling casting, but my subconscious rebels against it.
Very apt analogy.
//Calvin’s original attempt to ascribe all short-comings of Indic civilization to Brahmins?//
Where have I done this?
Are you referring to my pointing out that many institutions, public and private are run by people from general category( who are not just brahmins if you are not aware.) so if you think that they are failing, the blame should go to the people on the top, aka the general category.
THIS is largely a response to the common anti reservation narrative that the presence of reserved category people is why these institutions are failing. If you can use the background of people who have historically been discriminated to blame their mere presence for the failures of our institutions, in modern day then why should we not extend this to the people at the top who are actually deciding the direction these institutions are going in as well.
I have never spoken about Indic civilization as a whole, but specifically talking about public institutions whose failing are ascribed to resrvation wrongfully. I dont want to repeat this, but please read what is written rather than inserting your own caricatures so you can easily dismiss opposing arguments mentally. I have never blamed the failures of Indic civilization on anybody. Please give me examples of this if you can find them.
I think that’s an unfair characterization of XTM’s views.
DP is not a serious “intellectual “. He did make a valid observation on the class that governs India. The shrewd Gujjus run India. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Indosaurus is right in that jati and Varna are now all mixed up. I would go further to say that all jatis/ varnas / religious minorities comprise now of the elite class of India which XTM refers to as the Boston Brahmins (atleast that’s how I understood it).
Exact. Thank you Agni.
The “Boston Brahmin” class of India is the Nehruvian Left-Liberal elite.
Where have I done what you describe?
Have you read what I have written? I did not reference brahminism/hinduism anywhere at all. Nor did I reference liberalism or missionaries anywhere.
If anything I am disagreeing with XTM about the salience of these categories to begin with and saying the more fundamental conflict is between communities that have traditionally had power and those that have been shut out but who through education and affirmative actions are entering corridors of power.
Please reread what I have written, I dont know how exactly you are misunderstanding what I have written on such a fundamental level.
Reason #1932923 why I find INC and RaGa’s power hungry redistribution rhetoric and ‘caste census’ divisively disgusting, if not outright treasonous.
Leadership in India should be focused on delivering public services, development, economic growth, and strengthening Indian unity in diversity. RaGa and the INC do not pass this simple basic litmus test.
pattanaik being a ‘ karana ‘,which is a kayasth caste ( scribes, clerks, hence literate, and also meat eaters), is continuing an age old battle with brahmins, the other literate caste. this quarrel has been happening over the centuries in the gangetic plains. so no need to worry too much.
in south india, kayasths are not present, and the role of clerks was done by brahmins.
Saraswat Brahmins and Bengali Brahmins are also non-vegetarian. Not to mention a big number of MH brahmins have also incorporated non-veg in their diet.
The real quarrel is between the two literate jatis, wherein kayasth’s claiming equivalence to Brahmins.
Doing priesthood duties and vegetarianism are on Brahmins’ side.
Being connected and worldly wise is on kayasth’s side.
yes..
It started with fish, then….
Lol yes. Saraswats have the distinction of being neither here nor there as far as far as the “Brahmin” tag is considered. The super conservative Namboodris and the MH brahmins did their best to disqualify the Saraswats from getting the Brahmin tag haha. KP’s are also Saraswats. Most Saraswats trace their origins to North Western India or Kashmir.
the gawda saraswat brahmins (kamath, pai, prabhu etc) in karnataka, kerala are pure vegetarians.
Not all…
Whatever the excesses of this navel gazing, one thing I will agree on – I am …unimpressed with the sports infrastructure buildout in AMD. Neither is the state a crucible of sporting culture, nor is the climate conducive for this.
It is one argument to justify investment in industry, and transport infrastructure along the bijness coastline of Bombay to Gujarat. But why should Ahmedabad be patronized as the ‘next’ sports city of India?
There is a reason that Indian cricket chose Banglore for locating its ‘center of excellence’. There are many other spots in India that can stake a claim. AMD is……..undeserving.
I don’t think most infra is funded from the center but at the state level instead. Every state should feel free to build more sports infra. If Haryana feels that it deserves more sports infra its govt should build more instead of enviously look at the Gujjus.
Don’t make silly claims that can’t be backed up with evidence. There is no way the ‘sports complex’ in AMD is being built without central funding.
You have some evidence of that?
30 seconds of googling shows you this. Can we not be disingenuous.
I’m not saying that Guj state government isn’t spending on this. But point is, that there is a very strong argument to be made that it would have been better for the games to be hosted elsewhere.
Actually, one of those instances when i was genuinely clueless. Sport tends to be a blindspot, I didn’t even realise CWG2030 was in India. Thx for that. I hope it goes off better than the Delhi games.
It’s possible that they decided to keep in in AMD so that they would be able to have a tight control on corruption and any spiralling scams.
I imagine that would be the prime criteria over any Gujju state sporting prowess. You can trace the downfall of the Cong gov and the 2012 anti corruption movement to the 2010 games and 2009/10 2G scam.
we know that ‘games’ hosting funds massive civic infra upgrades. Not saying AMD is a completely horrible choice, but this could have been used to build out a ‘second’ city by the new airport by BOM. or somewhere in UP or Bihar. Or Andhra. Imagine using this to upgrade Patna or Lucknow into a proper major metro.
India needs to resuscitate its great urban centers in the hinterland – its modern day Ujjain, Pataliputra and Kausambi.
It’s the price Mumbai pays for being indecisive politically. UBT blocked several important projects across the state. DF is trying to make the ‘third Mumbai’ happen but its a bit touch and go rn. A lot of folks I know got in on the land around the Vadhavan port, its started to spike even before the port is finished.
To all,
I removed all the comments (or tried to) relating to the controversy about 0M’s upcoming article.
Let us see what the article has to say.
AMD is the practical political choice. I agree with you completely, political expediency perpetually forces bad choices upon us.
Bangalore Chennai should have had a bullet train by now, it’s a no brainer……. except its been 10 years and they haven’t been able to get the AMD one done in Modi’s backyard.
delays on the freight corridor and bullet train are among my frustrations about the BJP administrations failures.
Land acquisition is an issue I understand, but the freight corridor was such a simple easy peasy project. No new tech, just laying old school rail tracks. And funded with almost free money. And STILL we are years late.
Dholavira “SEZ” has been sitting approved for close to what almost 20 years now? State govt in Gujarat is BJP and so is the center, and still here we are.
For the image obsessed, they prefer the lower level gripe of Make glorious Gujarat at the expense of the country, rather than running the risk of someone train wrecking the high profile CWG under circumstances out of their control.
I feel this is a Modi-Shah issue, they have a delegation aversion. Himanta & Assam would have been an option.
Yes, Modi-Shah delegation issue and from what I see as increasing insecurity vis-a-vis any upcoming BJP face be it DF, Himanta or their bugbear Yogi is turning out to be detrimental to both BJP and the country.
Surprising given Modi’s own rise was one against the entrenched BJP elite!
Political continuity is considered more valuable than economic ascendance. Just look at the bullet train project. The largest portion of the delays comes from the fact that MH has much worse land acquisition laws and much more of a checkered history with the party governing the state. For the most part land in Gujarat has been acquired and had laid down the rail. In a country without a good land acquisition law the national level projects are going to be delayed. The best we can do is keep financing more projects simultaneously so even if they are delayed they still ended up being executed.
oh its all MH eh?
Now explain Dholavira.