Time was a cycle for the wise ones. The glittering stars of the heavens danced to the rhythm of the gods. A thousand mind-born Manus had birthed a thousand humanities. The Blessed Lord had sung his sacred song to a thousand suns and a thousand Arjunas. The divine comedy of karma had crossed a thousand ironies and a thousand tragedies. So for thousands of years, those believers of this great cycle, the Indians, did not write their histories. Indian history became stories moving from ear to ear. A magical tongue rang around sacred fires as these stories soon morphed into a society.

Soon etchings would erupt along the Indus, the Saraswati, the Ganga, the Yamuna, and more and more rivers. Many were lost with time as the history of India captured in its early construction returned to the soils and sands from whence it came. But some etchings evolved. The Itihasa and Puranas would form a cultural encyclopedia of ancient India. Poetry and prose defined its people.

The successors of these great reservoirs of Dharma were the Sramanas. Lord Mahavir and Lord Buddha would turn the wheel of Dharma as a grand march of fire-cloaked mendicants began across India and beyond into the unknown realms of Asia. India entered the Axial Age with a turning of the mind. In the golden shadows of these Mahatmas, we find some of the first records of those who journeyed to India – of the Greeks and the Romans. This is the India they saw.

A Land of Legends

For ancient Greeks, India was the edge of the world. A frontier of fantasies where ants dug for gold, where beasts with the faces of humans, bodies of lions, and tails of scorpions hunted passersby, where a great snake with eyes the size of Macedonian shields glared at Alexander’s troops. Beyond fantastical Odyssean stories, the Greeks also saw themselves in India. Tales of Lord Shiva were mistaken for the frenzies of Dionysus. Lord Krishna’s Herculean exploits reminded Greeks of the namesake. The ambrosia of the Upanishads had provided a familiar flavor of philosophy to Greeks who were lucky enough to encounter levitating Brahmans and magic-wielding Sramans. The remoteness of India made these mythical accounts ever more real.

Contrary to the politicization of the Indian subcontinent into a mishmashed South Asia today, the Greeks called it how it was. A diamond-shaped country. Extending from the Pamirs and Himalayas in the north, the eponymous Indus in the west, and the endless Indian Ocean in the south and east, Greeks viewed this region as one land with one people, albeit of various shades and customs. Much of what we know about the Greek experience of India comes from an ambassador named Megasthenes.

While details around Megasthenes’ life are unclear, he seems to have been an ambassador of a region known as the “White India” or Arachosia, now in southern Afghanistan, and traveled to the Mauryan court in Pataliputra, now in Bihar, on assignment. Some sources claim he would accompany Alexander into India, which is also how we get some of the admittedly exaggerated bits of the invasion. The details are relatively straightforward: Alexander forays into India and defeats Porus at the Jhelum River in northwest India. Alexander is impressed with Porus’ tenacity and makes him his vassal. The Greeks were at the edge of their understanding of the world. They heard rumors of a land beyond along a great river named the Ganges. Fatigued from their era-defining exploits, Alexander’s troops would nearly revolt at the sniff of his ambition to go further. Alexander would abide, but others would go on beyond.

Much of Megasthenes’ work, Indica, was unfortunately lost to Father Time. But luckily for us, fragments remained. Those fragments would be compiled and researched by later historians such as Arrian who assembled an even greater account also named Indica, as well as other curious Greeks and Romans such as Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, etc… These accounts comprise from the time of Alexander’s invasion in 327 BCE till a bit before 200 CE. So that is where we shall begin.

Log Kya Kahenge?

Before Alexander, the Greeks claimed conquerors such as Sesostris the Egyptian, Idanthyrsos the Scythian, and Semiramis the Assyrian, amongst others attempted to invade India but all failed. The whispers of the Orient found mention in Herodotus’ writings which he derived mostly from Persian hearsay. India was at the edge of existence and knowledge. But due to that Socratic curiosity. That Platonic embrace of the abstract, the unknown. That ambition of exploration inspired by Alexander’s guru, Aristotle. This trinity of knowledge traditions found adherents in those Greeks who would go where no Greek had ever gone.

Greek explorers noted the diversity of India while still recognizing a cultural continuity across the land. They remarked that northern Indians resembled Egyptians while southerners had Ethiopian shades but similar facial features to the northerners with all the world’s skin tones in the country. A savage, dog-headed people were said to descend from the mountains from time to time; most likely a war-like tribe donning the skins of animals. In the middle of India were echoes of Eklavya – tribals, some described as pygmies, who were excellent archers employed by kings. They spoke a similar language to other Indians signaling Sanskritization.

The Mauryan era Indian would be clad in a blinding white cotton, a white turban, and pierced his ears with white ivory. To cut this white canvas, many would dye their beards colors such as blue, red, purple, green, or complete the color coordination with white as well, each as a mark of rank. Soldiers were well-equipped acolytes of war with a colossal bow the size of a man that could loose arrows penetrating almost any defense. An oxhide shield, sometimes a javelin too, and a sword for close combat would round out the retinue. In general, Indians were observed to have a larger though sometimes slimmer stature compared to the Greeks, supposedly due to the abundance of the land.

Beyond physical descriptions, what interested Greeks was the Indian mind. In the typical fashion of antiquity, both Greeks and Indians viewed each other as barbarian cultures; nonetheless, a bonding over science and philosophy birthed respect among contemporary Indian and Greek writers. Greeks would record the downstream culture from Indian high philosophy with gusto.

Various peculiarities of India stuck out to the Greeks. For one, they immediately noticed the higher preponderance of vegetarians in India, mainly amongst the philosopher groups of Brahmins and Sramans, but also extending to some amount in the general populace. Much of this was conduced due to the abundance of grain, fruits, and vegetables. Meat was of course eaten as well, but it was the popularity of vegetarianism that stood out in the earliest Greek accounts from Herodotus’ time. Famous assertions were the lack of slavery and the presence of dharmayuddha, as Indian armies were said to mostly leave alone non-combatants, especially farmers, and not ravage lands like other peoples. We know from local Indian sources that both slavery and excesses of war did occur, but the reconciliation here may be that slavery in India was either rare or not as harsh as that of the Mediterranean. Ditto for the comments on war.

Caste is mentioned surprisingly sparingly by most Greek accounts with Megesthenes mentioning a 7-sectioned system. The 7 were the philosophers, farmers, shepherds, artisans, soldiers, bureaucrats, and high political counselors. Chroniclers did not seem to pay as much attention to it as it appeared as just another system to organize society and was much less rigid than the version that developed later, though some level of endogamy does seem to be observed. What they did take particular notice of was the life of Brahmins.

The Brahmin lifestyle was compared to the rigorous Spartans. Rigid, uncompromising, and punishing, Brahmins lived a life of asceticism with barely any possessions, only accepting those given to them by others for performing their duties. Priestly affairs, granting education, and honing philosophy were the main vocations observed. Brahmins were expected to refrain from meat consumption and sexual affairs, an obvious ode to ahimsa and brahmacharya still revered today in contemporary India. Parallel to these settled Brahmins were bands of roaming philosophers in the woods, the Sramans. Adhering to ahimsa and brahmacharya as well, Sramans traveled across the country begging for food and imparting their philosophy. Additionally, they would function as medicine men considering they cultivated many of the wild plants used in traditional Indian medicine. Curiously, amongst both Brahmins and Sramans, there were examples given of women studying philosophy among them, a call back to rishikas such as Gargi and Maitreyi of the Upanishads. The Greeks noted no discord between the white-robed Brahmin and ochre-draped Sraman, nor any general religious discord amongst the people. However, they did notice an interesting familiarity…

Tales of the Gods

Born under the canopies of now long-gone Indian forests, the crown of Indian philosophy took shape in the magnificent Upanishads. At the turn of the Common Era, a Greek geographer by the name of Strabo noted the similarities between Greek philosophy and what seems to be an Upanishadic proto-Vedanta. A world that is destined to be destroyed and reborn, one that is invigorated and inhabited wholly by a supreme deity. A century later, a Greek sage by the name of Apollonius of Tyana journeyed to India. Apollonius would be labeled as an anti-Christ for his similarities and contemporary life to Jesus Christ. A too familiar yet false prophet. An ascetic, a vegetarian, a celibate, and a mystic, Apollonius learned much from his journey to India. In a conversation with an Indian sage named Iarches, Apollonius was told of the transmigration of the soul via reincarnation and a notion akin to “Aham Brahmasmi” or being one with God.

Amongst the lay, a plethora of beliefs populated the land, all seemingly linked in some unspeakable way. Worship of Lord Shiva, whom the Greeks mistook for Dionysus, was common in the mountains. The mountain men were said to partake in a local “wild vine” that put its consumers in a Dionysian state. Those who lived in the plains were more likely to be worshippers of Heracles or should we say, Lord Krishna. Ritual worship of the sun, moon, and snakes is also noted. A stunning iconography of Ardhanariswhar, or a half Shiva, half Shakti form of Lord Shiva is recounted in the Deccan, complete with the Ganga on the idol’s head, a sign of the sacred geographic consciousness spread inside India.

Strangely, there is no mention of Lord Buddha or Lord Mahavir, though there are plenty of accounts of the aforementioned Sramans as well as austere yogis. The Greeks could not distinguish between Dharmic religions, rather rightly recognizing them as a syncretic system. Later Greek kingdoms in northwest India would bow to the Shakyasimha and create an entire artistic school around Lord Buddha’s worship.

The Golden Bird

The river valley empires of the Bronze Age were no strangers to international commerce. Thousands of years before Alexander set foot at the Indus, the Indus Valley Civilization was a key component in the export of minerals, animals, and materials west to the Fertile Crescent and beyond. Empires rose and fell. Peoples disappeared and were reborn. But commerce was constant. Wealth always finds a way.

To the Greeks, India was the embellished and exotic East. Indian textiles, spices, and minerals were in high demand across the trade networks of the ancient world. Upon visiting, the Greeks marveled at the abundance of the land and displays of wealth that contrasted with the extreme asceticism they also encountered.

Ports would adorn the Indian coastline from Sindh across the west coast rounding the tip of India in Tamil Nadu. Finished goods and raw materials from the rich inlands of India in places such as the Gangetic basin and Deccan would find their way to seaside cities such as Barbarikon (near Karachi in Sindh), Barugaza (Bharuch in Gujarat), and Mouziris (Muchiri in Kerala). Chroniclers such as Pliny lamented the massive trade imbalance between Rome and India as luxury Indian goods were all the rage amongst the Roman elite. Pliny would record an extensive catalog of Indian precious stones with different types of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, etc… only found in very specific regions in India. Pliny’s other notes would be compiled by an unknown author in a text dubbed Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which further zeroes in on the variety of plants used for export in trades such as dyes, spices, and medicine. In the ancient world, Indian goods were the premium commodity.

Ultimately, what is so striking from these accounts is the level of continuity you see across Indian history and even today. Whether in the age of the Mauryans or modernity, a fundamental thread connects Indians across eons. Whether in 223 BCE or 2023 CE, you will witness Indians giving up the world and wrapping themselves in saffron in the pursuit of transcendence. They chant the same mantras around the same fires, worshipping the same Gods. Vegetarianism was held in high esteem then and today. This doesn’t mean India has been static. India has ebbed and flowed with time, rising and falling as a people and civilization. But there is something that has kept India as “India” through all these ages. Indivisible, unbreakable, and captivating, what the Greeks encountered millennia ago is still very much alive in India today, and that is Dharma.

This is a repost from The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

Migrations have defined the story of humanity. From the great exodus out of Africa to taming the Patagonian wilds, layer upon layer of settlement would create continuums of people across the world. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, would describe this layering of society as a palimpsest, a parchment on which the original writing had been reused or refaced with new writing yet fragments of the old remain. No two societies fulfill this idea of a palimpsest better than India and America, albeit in different ways. Rhodes and Romans and the Renaissance and Rousseau would form a chain of thought bursting into a revolution as America recognized the Atlantic and ripped itself from Great Britain. Integral to this upstart nation was immigration. Echoing their fantastical Roman roots, Americans would be raised by wolves in this new wildland and welcomed any man dogged enough to join their ranks.

A dream was promised and sung across the world of this virgin country of opportunity and tenacity. This torch-bearing democracy would soon attract denizens of a land that hosted one the earliest forms of democracy in the world. Small numbers of Indians would settle on the golden coast of California in the 19th century. The iconic American revolutionary zeal and thirst for democracy would inspire some Indians to found the Ghadar Party in San Francisco in order to fulfill the destiny of a free India. Bhicaji Bhalsara, a Parsi from Bombay, was the first Indian to gain naturalized US citizenship in 1909 after a lengthy court battle. A small trickle of immigration would continue until the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act did away with national quotas paving the way for larger amounts of Indians to migrate.

Thank You, Come Again!

Today Indian immigrants are characterized as people of privilege. While it is true that many recent Indian immigrants come from the upper echelons of society (a still fairly poor society at that), earlier Indian immigration would come through familial connections via chain migration with 55% of Indian immigrations coming via a relative. Extroverted and proud Punjabis would escape a border state simmering with clashes between separatists and the Indian state while enterprising Gujaratis crossed the Atlantic rather than the Indian Ocean as their early diasporic ancestors had. Both were particularly mercantile and not exactly coming from the cream of the crop of their states. A smatter of other Indian ethnicities would join the caravan into Americana as an Indian presence slowly built up in a country found in the search for India itself.

Growing up in this era made me an eyewitness to the difficulties of these new immigrants. Every Indian uncle of that era has a story of landing at the airport with $20 in their pocket (debatable details but the stories thereafter captured the ethos of that statement). Thereupon, they were picked up by a relative and lived in a relative’s basement or a crammed single-bedroom apartment with other families in the bad part of town. They couldn’t score jobs in their field so they had to work overtime or multiple jobs at random minimum wage gigs. It was a difficult life filled with penny-pinching and forgoing notions of “fun”. But these early sacrifices would lay the roots of future success. As I grew older, I witnessed wealth-building in real time. That 15-year-old Toyota Camry run into the ground would be replaced by a fancy German car or nowadays a Tesla. The apartment that made a rickshaw look spacious as a Rolls Royce would transition to a quaint townhouse which eventually gave way to classic American Dream single-family houses. The uncles still wear their old faded shirts from the 90s and keep to their miserly ways, just now they do it in a bigger house and nicer car. Calling these people “privileged,” something many activists do today, is a mockery of a term that is already needlessly presumptive and banal.

Later on, skill-based immigration burgeoned allowing more high-skilled labor to join their fellow countrymen who were just starting their first businesses such as convenience stores, franchise restaurants, and motels after learning the ropes as ordinary employees. Once software began taking its first bits and bites out of the world, temporary work visas would allow another wave of Indians, many from southern states, to layer another chapter onto the Indian-American story. Bred in the hyper-competitive world of Indian education, these new immigrants would ascend across corporate ladders to become CEOs and begin founding companies at a record pace. This type of immigrant success is quintessentially American, but usually prior successful immigrants would pass the brown paper bag test. Over the years, a strong streak of entrepreneurialism, a widespread pedigree in STEM education, and a tenacious immigrant work ethic combined to make Indian Americans amongst the wealthiest of American ethnicities.

A Paper Tiger

The rise of Indian-Americans is in so many ways a fulfillment of the American Dream. Doubly so in that they are visibly colored minorities who observe a culture fairly alien to usual Western immigrants. Yet despite high education levels, economic success, and ascension into the upper echelons of elite institutions and companies, Indian Americans have the political pull of Alex Jones’ and Ilhan Omar’s lovechild.

Yes, they are a tiny and demographically irrelevant minority; but other small minorities are much more effective in lobbying for their interests. Additionally, one can point to the rise of Indian-Americans across not just politics, but also in tech, business, and other sectors in American private and public life. What’s there to complain about?

Over the past decade, American mainstream media has warned of India experiencing an impending genocide, economic meltdown, dictatorship, civil war, and various other omens of doom. Yet none occurred. The initial critique was directed at the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, but slowly the critique began extending to the entirety of the Indian state. Then it became Indian society. Then Indian culture unto the religion and finally to the people themselves. Harkening back to the colonial era takes of a “beastly people following a beastly religion,” this time rhetoric was dressed in liberal internationalism rather than European race science.

Example of the discrepancy between coverage of Hindus, Muslims, and Christians in The Washington Post

But since most Americans don’t care about foreign policy, none of this was really impactful to Indian Americans. This has begun to change with the twin ascent of DEI as well as Indian-American fortunes. The transition from mostly seeing Indian-Americans as clerks at 7/11’s to now the helms of C-Suites has resulted in more of a spotlight on a community that increasingly defies mainstream narratives on race and America. Attention for most and anxiety for some has now been capitalized on by DEIites as they seek to correct the wrong type of diversity forming in American companies. Narratives about a subcontinent half a world away are now coming home to America. And much of this water is being carried by Indian Americans, or we should rather say by South Asians, themselves.

The “South Asian” sees the nations of the Indian subcontinent as an accident of British colonialism. The Indian sees a divine geography united over millennia by culture and religion, namely Dharmic religions and especially Hinduism. Pakistan and Bangladesh are seen as religious rejections of this united identity, something Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, would surely agree with. The South Asian views newly made regional states as historic identities, yet the history of these identities are fairly new versus the numerous mentions of India in ancient texts. The South Asian views India as an imperial project. The Indian views India as a civilizational state on a quest for true decolonization. This conflict, between the South Asian and Indian, highlights the factionalism in the Indian American community. Besides Indian Americans, many non-Indian South Asian diaspora (IE Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) are just cynically settling scores abroad by bashing India. Simple as.

Trouble in Paradise

The primary allegation that the disciples of the New York Times allege is that Indian-Americans are bringing Hindu Nationalist extremism and their caste system to America. Yes, that Diwali party you attended was a fascistic ritual oppressing lower castes of whom you’ve never heard of. Due to the near vice grip on media and the ability to magnify a drop of an anecdote into an oceanic narrative, this notion is relatively unchallenged for many. These strange people are bringing their strange customs that enable their strange success. But one simply needs to scratch the surface of this rhetoric to reveal a relatively innocent truth.

Only about 51% of Indian Americans identify as Hindu, compared to around 79% in India. Only 47% of those Hindu Indian-Americans identify with a caste. Of those that identify with a caste, around 83% identify as General Caste, 16% OBC, and 1% each for Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste. This data omits those that identify with caste amongst other religions, but one can clearly see that caste affinity is low among Indian Americans. Eight out of ten Indian-Americans marry within their race but this marriage frequently occurs across region and caste, a relative taboo for Indians of the subcontinent. All this data points to the fact that caste just is not a big phenomenon amongst Indian Americans.

But some organizations seek to paint a different picture. Equality Labs, a group that has spearheaded agitations for awareness of caste discrimination and promotion of caste consciousness, relied on a survey with a methodology that included sourcing respondents from extremist activist organizations, targeting only specific communities for surveying, erroneous caste identification, and most egregiously as well as simply, an unrepresentative sample in ethnic composition, age, and sexual orientation. This survey has served as the bedrock of many frivolous lawsuits and policy recommendations by caste activists across America which simply serve the purpose of harassing and singling out the Indian-American and particularly Hindu-American community. Under a more rigorous surveying methodology such as from Carnegie, only 5-6% of Indian-Americans report being discriminated based on their caste with only 1/3 of those who alleged caste discrimination saying it came from Indians!

As for Hindu Nationalist extremism, there simply hasn’t been a religiously motivated terror attack committed by a Hindu in America. Nor any widespread accounts of discrimination. So there’s that.

So why the hubbub? Who is concocting this narrative and why?

Turncoat

Manu Joseph, a famous Indian writer, has noted that the right can never be as internationalist as the left. Leftism is a global and elite movement. A leftist from the posh parts of Mumbai will find much more in common with a Manhattan leftist rather than a Marathi a few kilometers away in some village. A central tenet of leftism is a critique of the majority culture and superstructure of politics, economics, and society. In India, this manifests as an extreme oikophobia where all of India’s evils are traced back to Hinduism. What is good in India is said to have been inherited from foreign conquerors whether of the Islamic or European variant.

Indian leftists gained mindshare in elite Indian institutions during Indira Gandhi’s government which required a coalition with the Communist Party of India to secure enough parliamentary seats. Part of the deal was access and later domination given to the Communists in academia and adjacent cultural organizations. As such, Western elites would interact with Indian “intellectuals” who almost exclusively came from a leftist bent. This has continued even to this day as dismantling this institutional vice grip is proving very difficult for the current government which is the sworn nemesis of these leftist elites.

This means that American media, academia, and other sections of the Cathedral rely almost exclusively on Indian leftists for their perspective on India. This creates a fundamental disconnect in understanding India as leftist parties have been resoundingly rejected in Indian politics while their ideology has been reduced to animating violent agitations as democratic gameplay isn’t their forte.

The animus towards Hinduism is now trickling down into America beyond just lecture halls and media sites. As mentioned before, DEI adherents find a momentous opportunity to scaremonger companies into hiring them for “consulting” in order to deal with this brown menace that doesn’t really exist. So issues are created out of thin air. Activists such as those in Equality Labs point to ridiculous claims such as Hindu vegetarianism is practicing casteism, that celebrating Hindu festivals is casteist, video games related to India are fascistic, and so on. Those issues become concocted fuel for puerile caste legislation such as that enacted in Seattle or SB403 in California, which explicitly singles out Indian and Hindu Americans legally. Some organizations even seek to integrate caste catalogs and quotas categorizing Indian Americans by their last name in the quest for “diversity.”

We now have a perfect feedback loop. Indian leftists supply apocalyptic visions of India and Indians to the West. Western outlets give them prestige and coverage. The South Asian diaspora capitalizes on this scaremongering to frivolously point out that the Hindoo menace has been exported to America and already penetrated the very heights of American society. White Liberals of course want to amend any form of oppression one can sift from their behind and also get to peg down those uppity browns. 2 birds, 1 stone. Indian leftists become more famous, diaspora activists get more paid, and white liberals get to play savior and cut the competition. Win, win, win.

Ultimately, Indian Americans will have to organize ruthlessly to combat this well-oiled machine. Hindu temples are mostly apolitical community centers that don’t engage in political activism as other “South Asian” centers of worship do. Differences in region and ways of worship will have to be put aside and a concerted effort from a united minority (with plenty of cash thrown in the hat) will have to answer continued misrepresentations and maliciousness towards their community. Luckily, Indians are crafty people. No wonder they’ve lasted for millennia. And if there is anywhere that determination can make an impact, it is the land of opportunity, the U.S. of A.

This is a repost from The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

Caste is the basic building block of Indian society and democracy. It decentralizes India and creates a fractal overlay across society enveloping every facet of life. Much can be said about its origins and heterodoxies, but today I want to explore how it influences politics and modern society. While caste’s impact on Indian society is mixed, I believe caste politics is the single most corrosive and destructive element in Indian democracy today. So many policy problems can be traced to the dizzying devilry that results from the lunacy of caste tribalism.

But why is caste so important to Indians in the first place? Caste serves multiple functions. Caste is a community. A sense of belonging and asabiyyah when times get tough. When the riots hit, it is your caste kin who will take and throw punches for you. It gives you your rituals, your traditions, your ways of worship, and so much more. Many castes have a divine origin story or a tale where their caste bravely overcame injustices from that caste. Caste is a polity. When election time comes, the candidate from your caste ensures your castemen will occupy government positions, be forgiven of crimes, and have a seat at the roundtable of power, perhaps even the throne itself. Caste is an economy. It can be a financial safety net, a business network, or a source of credit and capital. It can be the cornering of a market or government seats. Caste is all-encompassing, as real and essential as air and water for so many Indians.

So what separates run-of-the-mill 1990s Mandal-type caste politics from Jatitva? Jatitva is the political expression of Critical Caste Theory. Jatitva is Mandalism taken to its logical conclusions. It is the view that the Indian state should exist to be beholden to one’s caste. If Hindutva means a Hindu Rashtra, Jatitva means Jati Rashtras, where one’s caste must be the most powerful demographic group in their locale; if this isn’t achieved, then India must be decentralized heavily or even break. Jatitva means caste should define India. It claims one’s caste is more important than an overarching Hinduism, if not the rejection of mainstream Hinduism itself. Jatitva presents Hinduism as a societal ruse of ruin, Hindutva as a political conspiracy, and the Indian state as an economic oppressor.

A Feigned Death

Jatitiva is a decidedly reactionary movement against another recently reactionary Hindutva yet does indeed have deep roots. Years ago, Ambedkar claimed that Hindu society was a figment. He saw Hinduism as simply a collection of castes, each with such different distinctions that it was difficult to pin these people as a Hindu nation or consciousness. He would designate Hindus as rats living in their own holes, refusing to interact with each other. Now Ambedkar was a master at rhetoric but an amateur at history. Both Hinduism and this collection of castes lived simultaneously. Jatitva focuses on the holes as natural homes. Hindutva focuses on the fact that Hindus had become rats by staying in those same holes. But what really transformed the dynamic of caste was the advent of modern democracy along with the bureaucratization of castes during the British Raj and later during the Indian Republic. Some had their holes become deeper; others came out of the holes to explore horizons.

Now, everyone says they want to annihilate caste until election season comes, which in India means every few months. Even Ambedkar, who titled the idea and a book on the phrase was later reduced to a caste monger in the latter part of his life as the idea of caste annihilation annihilated itself. That is because caste is a useful weapon. A tool of division and dominance. It animates Indians, especially Hindus, in a way few other identities can. Much of this is not just nurtured in the Indian outback where community ties are understandably strong, but instead, a large source of caste divisions is sown in the mills of Indian bureaucracy and governance. Caste today is as much political engineering as it is a people’s evolution.

The result is one of the most vicious forms of identity politics on the planet. And just as with any other type of identity politics – it encourages irrational, anti-social, and inefficient behavior as well as voting patterns. It results in a profoundly dysfunctional Indian state and governance. Instead of focusing on developmental issues or blind justice, the Indian state concentrates on appeasing castes for votes. From giving a random statue the wrong caste identity to trying to pass an economic reform that breaks the stranglehold of a caste on a market, normal government policies quickly get covered in kerosene and lit aflame by the slightest spark that singes the pride of a caste. Violence quickly follows the “dishonoring” of one’s community as buildings blacken with ash, streets are stained red with blood, and a Netflix sepia tone engulfs the scene with dust rising amidst the trampling riot of an enraged caste. It all is pitifully pathetic.

Trench Warfare

Jatitva seeks the entrenchment of this system as well as caste itself. In no way are its adherents interested in any form of annihilation. Rather, they seek to jostle their caste into power, frequently by destroying or exploiting another caste in the process. Ambedkarites, regional caste parties, and even pan-India parties who tout the destruction of caste instead put every resource they can into freezing and deepening divisions. Caste rouses people to such an irrational (or rational depending on what we discussed before) degree, that it can easily override other pro-social and pro-state policies such as infrastructure and development, especially in local and state-related elections. Welfare marries caste as both central and state governments fashion caste-based sops into electoral arrows that they nock once elections arrive. Reservations are a trusted sword to scythe society over and over again as the original 22.5% (15% for Scheduled Castes and 7.5% for Scheduled Tribes) reserved category in education has ballooned to 50% across the country with many states breaking that limit and not just in education but also government jobs as well. And now we have the opposition bringing the guillotine as they propose reservations be raised to 75% with proportional representation not just in public positions but also in the private sector too. This is plainly untenable for individual achievement, societal stability, and country-wide development.

Identity politics is natural in a democracy, but the fractious and toxic nature of caste has morphed Indian identity politics into a radioactive monster. Every district, especially rural ones, descends into caste conflict and calculus as people only want a person of their caste as a candidate. This kills the opportunity for more qualified candidates who are chosen based on more meritocratic factors rather than simply what caste they are born in. Smaller castes are either pushed out or if lucky function as stranger kings settling and splitting the difference between larger communities. This ultimately results in a feudalistic outcome where a system of patronization dominates local Indian politics causing many violent criminals and corrupt caste mongers to win out on tickets.

Caste necessitates that demographics are destiny. The phrase “jitnī ābādī utnā haq” loosely translates to “as much as one’s population is one’s right.” More contextually, it means that however populous a caste is, it should receive just as much of a share. This call is gaining steam amongst the opposition as it seeks to use Jatitva to shatter the broad Hindu coalition amongst Hindutva. The execution of this phrase is one of the most surefire ways to slaughter the animal spirits of the Indian economy. Hereupon India faces a looming threat of Lebanonization. If the political structure and private corporation of India are reduced to a compartmentalized carapace of caste, it will only encourage further divisions and even violence. And fundamentally, Jatitva won’t just harm the macro potential of India, it will encourage an aeon of strife on a micro level as well.

The Tumor

Caste is indeed integral to the body of Indian society as we’ve seen so far. It serves important functions ensuring that the societal body keeps running, regardless of its inefficiencies. But like other appendages and organs of a body, it can also develop a tumor. Caste, especially due to the politicization of it in Jatitva, is now morphing into a cancerous mass.

Most pre-modern societies had a system to organize society. Caste was an expression of this with hierarchies and checks and balances that all ebbed with time and territory. But due to its ritualistic aspect in addition to the bureaucratization of caste, it has endured while other systems have crumbled – but not without a few changes along the way. Family caste traditions and rituals, a pivotal piece in the diverse expression of Hinduism, are eroding against the ocean of modernity. Instead, what we have left is a bare obstinate rock of caste pride covered in a toxic moss of bigotry.

Old hierarchies replay out like reincarnations in India’s rural areas. The scourge of caste discrimination still rings loudly when untouchables are denied temple entry, water access, celebrating weddings, mourning funerals, and so many other ordinary things in life that are the right of every human. Luckily these regressive bigotries are reducing, which means hierarchy now becomes horizontal. Each caste can hit back just as hard as the other. This has caused an internecine conflict to rage across the countryside. When caste conflict erupts, a Hindu ceases to be a Hindu, rather falling into the holes of caste. The Hindu becomes a Reddy, a Rajput, a Ror, a Ramnami, etc… tossing away religious brotherhood into the fray of fratricide. And it isn’t just riots that stoke this sentiment, simple elections do the trick just fine. A zero-sum mentality develops meaning every government policy is either an affront or an aid to one’s caste. ‘If it helps the other guy, it hurts me.’

This is the essential spirit of Jatitva. A maddening myopia. A parochialism that closes one off to a more cosmopolitan and expansionist Hindu identity. A zero-sum mentality where one’s village, one’s state, nay the entirety of India is reduced to a giant bucket filled with an assortment of crabs constantly knawing and clawing at each other to prevent one another from rising above the rest. The universality and grandness of the Atman is forgotten for the garment of caste. Rather than realizing the eternal transmigration of one’s divine body, they cling to the ragged cloth known as caste as if it is their only life and refuge. When one views everything through the prism of caste, an astigmatism forever features in their perspective.

An Ancestral Sin

Some say social justice is the antidote to caste, yet in a purported bid for social justice, India created its own version of a blasphemy law – the SC/ST Act. For the Ambedkarite, perhaps the biggest hypocrite in India (in a dead-heat competition with the Indian liberal), caste must be annihilated until one mentions a sprawling reservation or this heinous, acutely illiberal act that condemns people to jail simply on the accusation of discrimination from someone of a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe background. Many landed castes, whose fortunes waned and waxed with time have been clubbed into the OBC (Other Backwards Caste) category granting them access to benefits previously enjoyed by SC and ST folks despite their mixed past where they exchanged the mantle of oppressed and oppressor freely. Hatred against upper castes has ironically been mainstreamed by many upper castes themselves, as academia, media, and political offices are disproportionately upper-caste-dominated. Upper caste elites threw their own to the frenzied masses of mob revenge masquerading as social justice, as many joined hands with rabble-rousing caste leaders blaming every ill of society on folks who were starving either just as much or slightly less than them. Supposed sins of the ancestors have now become a mainstay in Indian political discourse as Jatitvadis seek to etch those sins into the foreheads of their enemies.

The twist of fate in caste’s tryst with modernity is that the future may provide upper castes much fewer incentives to identify with their caste if not outrightly abandon it. Already functionally a minority community, albeit one that consists of many market dominant groups, continued and heightened caste consciousness will serve no good to a group frequently and unfairly blamed for so many of India’s problems. The more urbanized upper castes are already moving away from caste consciousness with higher intercaste marriage rates, especially in more urban states. Caste traditions and identification with their caste is fading as class and a more cosmopolitan Hindu identity takes root as the canopy of Hindutva spreads. One Indian dichotomy of many is that more liberal urbanites vote for the right wing party while conservative provincials vote for the left wing party. This demarcation in many cases simply comes down to the difference in the grip of caste on one’s mind.

For adherents of Jatitiva, it is not caste that should be annihilated, rather they seek the annihilation of Hinduism as we understand it today. A common tactic of Jatitva is appropriating widespread Hindu beliefs as the property of a single caste or region. In Northwest India, it posits Jathera, ancestor worship, as the original religion of Jats. In Jharkhand, it frames tree worship as the way of the Sarnas. In Tamil Nadu, it joins Dravidian bile claiming Murugan and Shiva as Tamil, not Hindu gods. All of these are integral and ancient pieces of Hinduism common across India, yet Jatitva must uphold these falsehoods to fracture Hinduism. In many ways, caste is now becoming an antagonistic rather than a supplemental force towards Hinduism. This isn’t organic of course as no historical movements mimic these separatisms. These agitations are engineered.

Under the guise of progressivism and internationalism, the most “liberal” of Indian ideologues team up with the most regressive, parochial, caste-obsessed Indians to enact Jatitiva. Across my sojourn on a briefly popular application called Clubhouse, those who opposed India and Hindutva, whether Islamists, Ambedkarites, various ethnic chauvinists, or even supporters of the opposition (not much daylight from the aforementioned to be honest), all agreed on one strategy – heighten caste tensions to break the united Hindu vote and rising consciousness. Parochialism was the toxin of choice to spread across the neurons of the Indian mind. Jatitva is the culmination of years of backroom election strategizing capitalizing and accentuating fault lines within Hinduism.

The Indian is now faced with a choice: Will they once again descend into the tribalism of yore, whereby each caste quibbles with each other until quivering in defeat against a foreign foe? Or will the Indian uphold the covenant of the Republic, casting aside caste and advancing into cosmopolitanism? Unite or Die.

This article was originally featured in The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

India is changing. For years the BJP has been banging drums, tolling bells, and blowing conches to signal a New India. A mammoth mandate in 2019 was an early smoke signal for the fire that had erupted in the Indian market, but now a flurry of foreign praise answers the call of the drums, bells, and conches previously labeled as empty and enemy propaganda. Ironically, the newly found foreign admirers just a few years back cried wolf as they predicted India to turn into a hellscape due to what they saw as economic mismanagement, not listening to “experts,” religious tensions, some random picture they saw on the internet, or any other reason a comprador elite would pass on from the home country. What changed?

There are plenty of articles about India’s rise, but very few about why. The reason for this is that they would have to associate with someone untouchable in their ivory towers. The government primarily responsible for this rise is not only the arch-nemesis of the narrators of India to the West but also has a terribly difficult time presenting their case in a manner that doesn’t involve frothing at the mouth. There have been many mistakes made along the way. There are many critiques worth their weight. But one has to start acknowledging that something special is occurring in India. Let’s explore why.

The Shoulders of Giants

Artha or wealth was one of the 4 purusharths or primary aims of life instilled in ancient Indian thought. Indian merchants and sailors would span the ocean named after their land creating a trade network parallel to the Silk Road to the north. Luxury and legend defined the Indian brand whispering and wafting into bazaars and agoras in the olden times. Commerce was king in historical India, but the Republic of India inherited a different pursuit and prophet.

Socialism was in vogue as the economic vanguard of decolonialism. India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, a staunch internationalist, would herald this ideology. But what is fashionable does not necessarily feed. India’s growth would pitter and patter as later economists would bigotedly deride this period as a “Hindu” rate of growth, no doubt pinning the pitiful performance on the people rather than the premier. Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, would continue this socialist splurge so far as to declare India as “Socialist” in the Indian Constitution during her declaration of Emergency. This signal would be followed by the signage of acts resulting in the nationalization of private businesses, expanding the state into more parts of the economy, and increased taxes with slabs maxing out at 97.5% of one’s income.

Reprieve from the deluge of state intervention would come years later as Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. An energy crisis hit India as the chickens of economic mismanagement came to roost. Luckily, India would gain a golden egg from this moment of panic. Forced into economic liberalization, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao would enact era-defining reforms charting a new course for the country. Its citizens would promptly reward him with a crushing electoral defeat as the pill of reforms left a too-bitter taste amongst other misgivings. Yet like all good medicine, these reforms would heal and revive the body politic of India over the years. Soon, another brave reformist Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee would take a stab at the cumbersome beast of Indian bureaucracy. Slashing regulations, Vajpayee carried the torch of liberalization from the fallen Rao igniting infrastructure initiatives and kindling investment into education and healthcare. Straying from the path of sops as many of his contemporaries did, Vajpayee strode into the 2004 elections declaring that India was shining. Indians, on the other hand, did not see the sheen and gifted victory to the opposition.

As you can see, reform is not just thankless work in India, it is electoral suicide.

Peanut Butter & JAM

After an initial attempt to fulfill the dreams of out-of-touch Reaganite Neoliberal commentators, Narendra Modi quickly backtracked into Indian socialism during his first term. But he did it with a bit of a twist. So much was this contortion that much of the excess of typical Indian socialism, akin to the toxic 4x reused seed oil at a street food stall, was wrung out handily delivering a much more refined end product.

This streamlining was done through “JAM”:

1. Jan Dhan Yojana – A financial inclusion scheme aiming to give access to bank accounts to every Indian family.
2. Aadhar – A digital biometric citizen ID system that serves as the bedrock of both government and private transactions, KYC, and identification.
3. Mobile – The Government of India focused especially on mobile interfacing of the above 2 and built apps for things like digital payments (BHIM), government services (Umang), and healthcare.

These 3 would become the epitome of synergy and would be akin to financial alchemy as possibilities exploded due to the open APIs available built upon Aadhar and its cohorts. Perhaps the most advanced FinTech stack in the world, India Stack, would be built using these 3 essential parts. While the government launched many of these early on in Modi’s term, what probably, as well as controversially, kickstarted accelerating mass adoption was demonetization.

The same day Trump shocked the world with his 2016 victory, Narendra Modi sent a massive jolt across the country. Without prior warning, Modi announced that ₹500 and ₹1000 notes would need to be deposited into banks and later exchanged for new ₹500 and ₹2000 notes. Lines at banks lengthened while the economy contracted as the massively informal Indian economy leapfrogged into the digital 21st century. The government offered explanations such as curbing corruption, which is debatable, but what did happen was a rapid adoption of banking and digital payments. A FinTech rocket had taken off.

Aadhar required for bank accounts now meant the government had not just a more formal method of collecting taxes, but more importantly, a much more direct method of delivering welfare. This was a real revolution. Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT) would conquer the middle man as no more would the local thug or feudal politician take his standard and hefty cut. Rupees were delivered digitally straight into people’s bank accounts without a single finger touching them and only requiring a fingerprint for accessing them.

Anticipation over a liberalized India would be crushed under a slew of welfare. Unlike many of those who lounge in the cushy ideology of libertarianism, Modi was born into poverty brandishing his tea-seller origins as electoral street cred and acutely understood the bleak conditions that many of his countrymen were in. The late tenacious capitalist and stock czar, Rakesh Jhunjhuwala, christened Modi as a “distilled socialist” who wanted to ‘increase the size of the cake’ before handing out pieces of it. Essentially, giving Indians the opportunity to partake in the market before working on the market itself. Throughout his term, he enacted policies such as free grains for the poor, subsidies to farmers, building free housing, handing out free gas cylinders, enacting monetary healthcare support for the poor, and more.

But this doesn’t mean the government was Stalinate in its view of government involvement in the economy. As more families gained access to bank accounts, many also gained access to credit. In 2015, the government launched the Mudra scheme to provide credit to launch small and medium-sized businesses. This unique bottom-up approach to employment and capital creation presents a dynamic method for galvanizing India’s economy at a grassroots level.

Finally, is the Mobile Revolution in India. Unless you’ve been fasting from the internet, you must’ve noticed the Quorafication of many forms of social media. Indians are getting online for the first time. Mukesh Ambani, one of India’s richest men, made a massive $46 billion bet on the mobile internet market. Granting dirt-cheap data packages via his mobile service, Jio, he ushered in a tsunami of smartphone users into cyberspace. The thoughts, commerce, and connections of hundreds of millions of people became digitized within a few short years and continue.

All 3 of these economic evolutions have birthed multiple chimeric offspring in the forms of businesses and government initiatives unleashing a world of possibilities never before imagined in India.

All Roads Lead to Ram Rajya

 

Ram Rajya has captured the minds of Indian citizens and sovereigns since its inception in the ancient Ramayana. A utopian ideal of a society where Dharma, morality, safety, and prosperity reign under the benevolent leadership of Lord Rama. Modern Indian politicians frequently harken back to it as a template for the future if they are elected. But as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shows us, much of these lofty ideals rest on much more concrete material needs. While the current government waves the saffron flag of Hindutva to energize its supporters, what truly moves feet to the ballot and the index finger to the lotus is development. It’s one thing to upgrade the digital and financial sphere of one’s life; it’s another league to upgrade the physical sphere of one’s life. Perhaps the most impactful part of “Modinomics” is a manic and marathon push for infrastructure at every level.

In a house, electricity begins to light the room as you drink for the first time from your brand-new tap water connection. You walk out to see a proper road paved instead of a dirt path. You take the road to a brand new railway station where people are cheering the arrival of a train that looks like it belongs in Europe. You take the train to an airport inaugurated last week where you take the first flight of your life as your gaze meets the haze of the clouds until you finally land thunderously in another part of India you’ve never been to but always wanted to go to.

One person will most likely not experience all the above in one go, but hundreds of millions of people have experienced some “first time” from that story over the past decade. Many Indians experienced not just basic material needs, but the basic human dignity we all take so much for granted. These intangibles make up a future dividend of human capital that India will reap due to the very tangible infrastructure developments that are transforming the nation.

By securing twin wins in welfare and infrastructure, Narendra Modi also secured a reputation for empathetic development that had never been before seen in India. His government would continue eclipsing past regimes of India as his approval ratings would soar into space. This built-up political capital and goodwill of the citizenry would be his sword and shield for him to finally take on the deadly dragon of reforming the Indian economy and keeping his skin while doing so.

Tainu Suit Suit Sarkar

Now comes the true challenge. The ghosts of the Rao and Vajpayee governments haunted the Modi government. A first-term focusing on material basics, infrastructure, and a digital formalization of the economy yielded significant breathing room to walk the deadly rope of reforms. Modi had already backed down in 2015 on land reform laws as the opposition’s accusations of “Suit Boot Sarkar” rattled the veteran politician to wisely change course. Modi would back down again more recently as new farm laws aimed at revolutionizing India’s sclerotic agriculture sector were repealed in what many supporters still deem today as an intensely disappointing and cowardly move. Instead, reform would come in tip-toeing inches rather than heavy boots covering feet.

The government inherited a scalding 10% inflation rate on the back of the previous regime. The banking sector was a mess as non-performing assets (NPAs) ran amok amongst government finances. An Austrian fiscal deficit was practiced to the dismay of many as growth came in at disappointing numbers. Even the monstrosity of Covid and lockdowns barely budged the hawkishness of the government as they were widely criticized due to a relatively stingy relief package. Hayek would humble Keynes the next year as India kept a modest inflation rate compared to not only developing but also developed nations. A macroeconomic foundation was emerging from the ashes.

With the land reforms back on the shelf, the government decided to move in stealth. Firstly, to tackle the toxic NPAs that threatened to choke government finances, the government enacted measures such as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), an Asset Quality Review (AQR), Debt Recovery Tribunals (DRT), and recapitalization of banks (sorry, no cool acronym here) to clean up the banking sector and India’s financial foundation. These first-term incursions would be followed by long-awaited liberalization and privatization in the second term. Bit by bit, small sections of the government would be deregulated or privatized fairly quietly save the loud liquidation of the iconic and chronic Air India, which announced the seriousness of the government in this effort. Protests would erupt in parliament over Modi selling the nation to his Gujarati co-ethnic capitalist conspirators, but the opposition cribbing over corruption held no sway in voters’ minds compared to their faith in Modi’s gumption. Of course, the previous populist plunge naturally helped.

To capitalize on the increasingly formalized economy along with funding the welfare behemoth emerging, the government enacted the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as a national sales tax replacing various other tax codes. However, many businesses have found the GST still Byzantine as the constant tinkering of tax slabs has been a headache for small business owners. The taxes extracted have proved valuable for India’s newfound fiscal discipline accounting for 28% of the center’s gross tax revenues in 2022-2023.

But the government did not just use its fiscal flush to rain down welfare onto the poor, it also invested in and subsidized local businesses and manufacturing. An East Asian style protectionism developed as well as incentives to nurture these fledgling businesses through initiatives such as:

• Make in India – Focusing on 25 sectors, this initiative seeks to attract foreign investment and companies to create their products in India, thereby making it a global manufacturing hub.
• Atmanirbhar Bharat – On the flip side, the government launched this initiative to focus on manufacturing for Indian companies to reduce imports and build a vibrant local business atmosphere.
• Start-Up India – To promote entrepreneurship and technology companies, the government extended several benefits to start-ups including tax exemptions, access to funding, regulatory support, etc…

All of the above, as well as various other initiatives, are linked to the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. The PLI offers companies financial incentives based on their financial performance on metrics such as sales, investment, and employment generation. Nearly 26 billion dollars have been allocated for the PLI scheme across sectors such as textiles, electronics, pharmaceuticals, etc… The end result in all these is a ballooning of startups in India as a silicon Bangalore becomes gilded in addition to the rise of powerful chaebols that advance India’s strategic interests (sometimes controversially with a bit of a wink and nudge from the government) as Adani and Ambani mirror the brute economic might of American titans such as Vanderbilt and Rockefeller. An Indian Gilded Age just might be emerging.

A lot of the above is simply bread and butter economic development policy. Nothing too complex, nothing too fancy. The issue is that India prior either didn’t have a clean enough kitchen to cook in, or it was missing a chef who could cut through the cutthroat environment of the establishment. Now it has both.

Lastly, to insulate and augment all the above was a globe-trotting diplomacy. Securing pacts and petroleum, trade and tech transfers, strategies and securities, the diplomatic corps of India proved that a second set of suits would smile under this government, not just corporate ones. A “Hindu Nazi” government would bring relations to new heights with the Keepers of Mecca and Medina and various other Gulf monarchies. Combined with steadfast relations with the Russians, an energy oasis was cultivated amidst a storm of scarcity. India became an Asian Switzerland standing in between rivals while still extending the arms of friendship to both sides. An ancient term called “Ajatashatru” – the one with no enemies – perfectly encapsulates this transformation of India in the international arena. This evolution consolidated its position to weather economic shocks such as Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war via a smart economic and energy policy nestled by excellent diplomacy.

Many commentators slyly portray the recent Indian escalation as a natural consequence. Of course, it would’ve happened, wouldn’t it? Yet for decades, the Indian economy dragged in the mud. So abysmal was its condition that only recently have people gotten access to toilets. Toilets – imagine how much of a failure of governance it has been that such a basic amenity was a rarity in 21st-century India. India was willed into this position. A process was laid out and followed by a stellar team of ministers from various backgrounds, all while ignoring your favorite economists, experts, exponents, and so on. Narendra Modi was panned at and laughed at in 2017 when he rebuffed the intelligentsia and internationalistas of the world claiming “Hard work is more powerful than Harvard” in a thick Indian accent. Yet now it seems that not just Modi, but the people of India are having the last laugh.

This article was originally featured in The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

For a foreigner, India is an assault on the senses. A land of every extreme you can imagine, every data point you can parse, and every anecdote you can hazard is found in this heterogenous homeland. An opulent ancient structure makes way for decrepit shantytowns which morph into a 21st-century skyscraper. Blaring horns that find a home on every road transform into the blowing of a conch and eternal songs. Pollution stings your nose and strangles your throat until you find refuge in the appetizing aroma of an eatery. Every flavor is expressed in a single bite of a chaat, akin to instruments combining in an orchestra of taste. An omnipresent dust travels across your skin as you hold the hands of a loved one not seen in ages. At this point, I feel a bit like Rupi Kaur narrating a diaspora novella about a visit to the homeland, but I’m guessing you get the point.

India naturally evokes so many emotions. Growing up, visits back to India were infrequent. Beyond visits in my toddler days and just at the cusp of grade school, where anywhere you visit is a treat, my first fully fleshed-out memories of India were a visit in middle school. Poverty screamed during that visit as I went with my parents temple hopping and hi-hellos to relatives I would seldom see again. From Delhi to Uttar Pradesh to Rajasthan to Gujarat, almost all the temples were surrounded by such enormous filth that it invoked a profound shame in me. Like a sullen lotus in a sweltering swamp, the acceptance of such defilement of the divine was difficult to comprehend in a religion that placed such an onus on purity. Only a few temples, mostly in Gujarat, had I finally seen the pristine temples that were described as abodes of peace and bliss in the tales I had heard of a great Hindu past. Where was the respect for one’s religion and one’s self? I had still yet not learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that explains these terrible sights.

It would be many years before returning for a short trip in 2012 trapped in my uncle’s new flat for a wedding in Gujarat. Not much seemed to change from the prior trip. Gujarat was decent but boredom abounded being with older family. India still remained hopeless for me and something not to waste one’s mind on. A few years later, as I entered the workforce and learned about the vital process of finishing work quickly but still pretending to be doing it so I don’t get assigned more, I sparked an interest in Indian politics by browsing Reddit. Things seemed to be changing there for the better. A man who my parents and relatives back in Gujarat sang praises of had stormed into Delhi with a promise to profoundly transform the country. As I delved into his politics, I noticed a strange defiance of the left and right I knew in America. And slowly, I began to hope. While I initially had given up on India due to my prior visits and horror stories that would punctuate news, I still wore my Hinduness on my sleeve. And as a practicing Hindu, I would naturally want my spiritual homeland to thrive. Perhaps this is why I began to hope in the first place.

Most of my fellow Indian-American diaspora are completely ignorant of India; even more so in the mid to later 2010s than now. Mainstream media, South Asian influencers, and Instagram gave WhatsApp uncles a run for their money predicting a holocaust combined with an apocalypse in India driven by a Hindu Hitler. But I was reading different things. I read about infrastructure, welfare, entrepreneurship, digitization, and the heralding of indigenous culture. The differences would come to a head as I would play the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae in group chats and hangouts with my Indian-American friends defending the current dispensation of India. A few tongue-in-cheek kind words about Mr. Modi amongst stereotypical Manhattanites at a party in New York resulted in a screaming match that left a thought ringing in my head the next day during the ride back home – “How the fuck are my fellow Indian-Americans so dumb?” During a raucous Euro trip earlier in the year, my close friends told me to start writing about my knowledge and interests related to India. My only prior experience of writing was wasting hours arguing with people on Reddit. I tried then but gave up quickly after getting little traction. Months would pass by. After the Battle of the Big Apple, I felt a fire in my belly, and it was not from the extra lines of red sauce from my Halal Guys falafel platter at 4 AM the night before. I was going to write.

Long story short, I’ve written much about India since then. Now it was time to finally visit, and I have been greeted by a much, much different India. And luckily this time instead of my parents, I was accompanied by my girlfriend, who I would be lost without in so many ways.

Vipassana

Breathe is the metronome of human existence. As my plane descended onto Indira Gandhi International, a miasma covered the runaway and surrounding city. Fresh rain had humidified the air as Delhi’s infamous pollution thickened. An initial walkout reminded me of my trip over a decade back as my eyes began to sting and my lungs began to want to skip a few breaths. This deathly air was a constant across the lively NCR region.

Yet now there was a difference. Roads were actually roads rather than dirt alleys. Trash that had inundated the streets had dissipated. Slums were replaced by large buildings that would be just at home in an American suburb. The groundwork of Delhi had indeed changed despite its still hellish air. As the days went on, the sky remained a periwinkle grey even as the sun blazed scattering clouds from the stratosphere. As omnipresent as the periwinkle were posters of politicians plastered across the city. As I ventured into Haryana and Noida, this theme would continue so much so that I began to be annoyed by the sight of them (many of whom I admire). Something I did admire though that also was common were Indian flags across all strata of society. The tricolor was just as home on a swanky South Delhi society house as it was protruding from the uneven brick latticework of a favela. Patriotism reigned.

But what does patriotism really amount to? One incident, in particular, made me think about this concept. In a park near Connaught Place, I sat listening to a duo singing Bollywood songs with a large crowd around them. Upon their final song, they ended with chants of “Vande Mataram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” enthusiastically joined in by the crowd. Yet at the same time, a very old sadhu walked around begging for money, ignored by all. Draped in saffron, the frail man’s ragged feet showed a journey of ages. This ancient practice, the great sadhu begging for alms, would be disregarded amongst chants hailing the motherland. Luckily I was able to give him something, but the whole incident felt eerily jarring – the contrast of near-religious patriotism yet total ignorance towards the religion that was the bedrock of that patriotism. For what is India without honoring these great emissaries of Dharma, those who had indeed helped birth the concept of the nation itself? But then again, I am a foreigner. Who am I to judge?

One day brought me in the shadow of the Qutub Minar to a friend’s fashion studio and now expanding garment production facility. The spirit of not just entrepreneurship but specifically *Indian* entrepreneurship was rife in an unassuming building off a quiet Delhi alleyway. My friend and founder of his brand told me about his journeys across villages and bazaars sourcing uniquely Indian textiles to establish a luxury fashion brand. For inspiration, he explored the “Indo” in the extravagant Indo-Islamic artistry of Mughal India as offbeat animals and plants sprawled across his niche-sourced fabrics that have caught the eyes of India’s ever-expanding fashion industry as well as an ever-expanding clientele list. He explained how he wanted to make clothes not just for Indian aesthetics but also for the Indian climate. After all, Western clothes make uncomfortable bedfellows for the sultry Indian heat as I experienced myself. But above it all, what enthralled me most was seeing that authentically Indian entrepreneurship story as business met Bharat resulting in products you would not see anywhere else.

Dichotomies defined India, especially Delhi. I cannot tell you enough how unacceptably toxic the Delhi air was (seriously Delhites vote for whoever improves it and pay no heed to your “annadattas” to the west guilt tripping you and poisoning your lungs). Yet Delhi may also be the greenest city I’ve ever seen. The greenery is spread across the city adding a charm that is seldom seen in the grey concrete jungles of America. But perhaps the most surprising thing about India would be when one ventured out of the capital into the National Capital Region. It is there where I saw something special – India was beginning a transformation.

Civ

There’s a moment in Sid Meier’s Civilization games when you’ve accumulated enough resources, your borders are secure, and you’ve invested enough into technology that you just begin to build. Across your empire, construction abounds into an exciting potential in your quest for victory. India’s NCR seems to be in that phase today.

I’ve never seen more cranes in my life. Places like Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, and almost everywhere in between was filled with construction at a scale that had previously escaped my eyes. The glitzy silver skyscraper-laden Gurugram especially was striking as I had never imagined such a city being possible in India during my prior visits. The infrastructure boom heralded on the internet is truly visible on ground. Construction workers scour across buildings loudly labeled with their builder’s names (a bit tackily I’d say) as something special brews at the borderlands of India’s Iron Throne.

One particular area that astounded me was a visit to Omaxe World Street in Faridabad, Haryana. Buildings combining Indian and Classical European styles, albeit slightly crudely, were brimming with shops. Almost every functioning building had its lots filled with shops and every shop servicing customers, a sight that is very alien in newly built suburban plots in America. It is here where I gained such hope not just for Indian real estate or business but a burgeoning Indian middle class. Young, old, and families alike enjoyed the multitude of restaurants, shops, and even some very cool new VR stores. Next to the VR store, an inflatable slide was filled up with air and young children, one of whom yelled “Jai Shri Ram!” on his way down (I swear to God I am not joking with you haha), an encapsulation of combining an economic rise with a cultural rise as well. It’s hard to pin the feeling and why I felt it, but seeing this place as well as so many others, seeing ordinary Indians have stability and a springboard to ensure a better tomorrow for their kids, it was simply an awesome feeling. Perhaps it reminded me of my youth where I and so many other diaspora families saw wealth building and economic ascendency in real time over the years.

By the end, my trip felt too short. While I’ve focused on the positive changes, there were familiar sites of poverty and pollution across my trip. Many roads were abysmal, even at places as swanky as Omaxe, and in general the third world still loomed large. But things were getting better, much better I’d say. Better than I’d ever thought they would ever be thinking back at my earlier trips.

We took a short detour to Goa in the middle, which was an absolute treat. An eclectic mix of Portuguese colonialism, Maratha monuments, Russian tourism, amazingly aesthetic and tasty restaurants, as well as a place to clear one’s mind and escape into the trance of the waves. On the plane to Goa, I met an elderly Punjabi doctor, Inderpaul, on the plane. Born in Lahore 2 years before India was ripped in apart, the man has experienced the Republic since its inception. Inderpaul confirmed many of my initial feelings of progress, remarking that he had never thought India would get so far even in basic things like roads and sanitation let alone the penetration of high technology and rise of business behemoths. Inderpaul believed that special times were ahead as India had finally been led by a Special One, which he made me very aware of as a co-ethnic of the man he was referencing. And truth be told, I am inclined to agree.

Article originally appeared on The Emissary. Follow me at The Emissary on Twitter!

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.

A Pyramid Scheme

Propaganda is best when it is simple. The rhythmic chanting of a slogan. The Big Lie. Your friend’s Instagram reel. Your uncle’s WhatsApp forward. We all have been the recipients of propaganda. To persuade someone and make them feel informed, explaining something in a reductive way is essential.

Enter the caste pyramid.

If you’ve heard of caste, you’ve probably seen a rendition of the above before. This is the bread and butter of CCT. Knifing Indian society into neat sections devoid of context, absent of historical variation, and homogenizing the subcontinent into a single dish of oppression. But this meal has many courses. Let’s start with an appetizer to ready your palette.

To establish a baseline taste for the subject matter, CCT activists posit the genesis of caste with the Aryan Invasion Theory. The framing is that white “Aryan” invaders came into India from the steppe and subjugated its natives through the caste system. This subjugation became a religion that they deemed “Brahminism” and evolved into Hinduism. This near-prehistoric bone to pick forms the basis for millennia of oppression. But this story is deceptive at best and malicious at worst.

Emerging evidence points to the fact that caste predates steppe migration into India. Furthermore, large parts of the Vedic faith, one of the earliest forms of Hinduism, show local Indus Valley and tribal influence with the Vedic folks exclusively worshipping Indian geography, flora, and fauna. These apparently “white” invaders dedicated hymns praising “black” gods and would conduct rituals in order to attain dark-skinned children reminiscent of these gods. This also goes against the grain of the racialization of Indian castes as ancient Indians were much more accepting if not exalting of dark skin.

This early form of caste that India had was much more akin to a horizontal multi-tribe society. This is where jāti enters the fray as the spoiler to the vertical varna way. Moving within and between different varnas were these groups of people, jātis, who shared similar traditions, customs, & social markers. Conflict, competition, but more so cooperation between jātis would be a prime driver of many parts of Indian society rather than a static and oppressive pyramid. Jātis would become interdependent on each other as they engaged in rituals and customs that require assistance from other jāti groups, many of which still continue today such those captured in the Jati and Kula Puranas of Telangana. A ritualistic network began to form across villages and kingdoms. Of course, this doesn’t mean everything was peaches and cream, jostling over jāti dominance was indeed the origin of many forms of caste discrimination and societal control.

But it is a certain group of jātis who rest in the Brahmin varna that attract the most ire of activists. CCT’s central thesis is that a small group of “Aryan” elites, the Brahmins, a group that today rounds to 3-4% of all Indians, have used sociological sorcery across eons to enslave all other jātis and varnas into servitude and stupor. Let’s zoom out and look at how preposterous this is as well as the consequences of this claim. 97% of Indians now have their agencies removed and are postulated as near Neanderthalic in intelligence being hoodwinked by a group of wily unarmed vegetarian priests who have frozen Indian society over generations, evading and eliminating all challenges to power and upholding a mythical religion called “Brahminism” where all other Indians worship them just because. Not only does this assign Brahmins as a near superhuman species, but it is an intensely casteist notion that is massively insulting to the capability, intelligence, and history of all other Indians.

A Faulty Prescription

Integral to CCT is using the ink of ancient scriptures to paint a hellscape of ancient India. The strategy is to selectively magnify and distort “prescriptions” from texts rather than engage with the entirety of theology, scripture, or actual accounts of the historical realities of India.

We start with the 4 varnas of classical Hindu thought – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras – all emerged from a primordial Purusha – or Supreme God. The Brahmin from the head, the Kshatriya from the arms, the Vaishya from the thighs, and the Shudra from the feet. In this hymn, the Purusha Shukta, CCT activists claim is the source of the oppression of ages. Yet like so many other instances, they leave out the rest of the verse as the Vedas continue to describe other aspects of the world that come from this divinity including the moon from the Purusha’s mind, the sun from His eyes, the earth from His feet, and so on. The Vedas denote the entirety of existence as a divine emanation from a primordial God.

Caste is also linked to the concepts of karma and reincarnation. As one sows good and bad deeds, they reap the fruits in their later or next life. The caste one is born into is thereby a result of past deeds. This has indeed been a justification for discrimination on one hand, but the oft forgotten piece of this process is the nature of the Ātman or soul. The Ātman is seen as a source of radical equality in certain scriptures and by various Gurus in Hindu history as it contains an ultimate divine essence that all life shares. Indeed, various Hindu movements against caste discrimination revolve around this pivotal Hindu concept as a bulwark against discrimination.

This line of attack continues across various Hindu texts as the entirety of Hinduism is reduced to small PDF screenshot snippets of controversial verses. While many instances are of dubious translations or devoid of context, there are indeed bonafide controversial sections in certain texts; but to define all of Hinduism by these drops of controversy is denying the diverse ecosystem of thought in the ocean of Dharma. Just as we have a vibrant debate on various socio-political issues today, so did the ancients of India across eras and areas. Most movements against caste discrimination indeed emerged from Hinduism itself rather than breakaway religions or foreign ones as we shall later see.

So far-reaching is the demonization of Hinduism that CCT activists will glorify literal demons in Hinduism. Imagine you or I being livid over the portrayal of say Slytherins or Lannisters or whichever generally evil group that are apparently actually the real heroes of the story. CCT activists on one hand deny the historicity of Hindu texts and theology, while on the other hand claim that the evil ones in many of these texts are actually the ancestors of lower castes. These include demons (Asuras) who engage in heinous acts such as rape, wanton murdering sprees, and various other universally reviled acts. Even more ludicrous is that almost all of these demons come from Brahmin lineages in the texts themselves. The cherry on top is that revered ancient Hindu figures that have origins from lower castes such as Rishi Matanga, Maharishi Ved Vyas, Shabri, Guha, Vidur, Matsyendranath, etc… are cast aside in the narrative simply for their inconvenient caste.

Once the barrage against Hinduism has finished, the next pillar of prosecution is the false notion that Buddhism represented a lower caste revolution against Brahminical orthodoxy. This idea was championed by BR Ambedkar himself postulating a Pali Canon Revolution against the Vatican of Varanasi thousands of years before Martin Luther’s eerily similar Protestant Reformation. But all this shows is that either Ambedkar was woefully ignorant of actual Buddhism or he simply lied as a ruse for political power (a failed ruse considering his dismal innings during elections).

Buddhism just like Hinduism has a mixed record with regard to caste. Buddhist scriptures denote how Bodhisattvas could only be born in Brahmin and Kshatriya lineages. Other scriptures argue strongly against inter-caste marriage. Early Buddhism was a monastic faith of the urban upper castes where monks or sramanas would emulate the ascetic ways of Brahmins that Lord Buddha profusely praises in the Dhammapada. This is not anything near a social justice revolution against a reviled elite. Accounts from Chinese travelers confirm the resilience of caste as well as syncretism with Hinduism in Indian Buddhist societies as Vedic rite and ritual were well integrated, Brahmins were honored, untouchability was observed, and the classic 4 fold varna system prevailed across numerous chronicles by these adventurous pilgrims.

History is Heterodoxy

So now that we’ve got our prescription in order, what is the description of our issue? Well, as in most cases of any sociological topic, it depends on the time and the terra. Heterodoxy is so rife in India’s caste system that it can be difficult to discern what “orthodoxy” actually was.

Early Greeks and Chinese, some of the first foreigners to record their journeys across India, do not particularly pay special mind to caste. Some chroniclers mention castes, whether in a set of 7 or 4 or an innumerable count, but they see it as just another way to organize society mirroring their own. What they do notice that is different immediately is the way of the Brahmins, and this is exactly where CCT hits a massive hinge.

In countless Indian tales, the Brahmin lived a life of mandatory poverty. Their method of procuring sustenance was by begging (bhiksha) or simple professions such as teaching and priestly duties. Buddhist monks (bhikshus) would later adopt this Brahmin asceticism and austerity. Only later in history as new texts were created did Brahmins begin accumulating wealth, though many continued their practice of material aloofness and bhiksha. Some ancient Hindu scriptures confirm this “check” on the varna system as castes that had more ritual responsibility also had to adhere to more rigorous disciplines and rules in life. The Greeks especially were in awe of the Spartan discipline of the Brahmins they encountered.

Yet it is not just the bhiksha of the Brahmin that poses problems for the narrative of CCT, ironically the most misbehaving caste is that of the Shudra. The Shudra, who languishes at the bottom of the iconic caste pyramid did not conform to his duty of being oppressed. While caste fractured the potential of a widespread peasant rebellion you’d see in other societies, it harnessed a strong sense of asabiyya amongst different peasant or Shudra groups. Sickles slicing hay became swords slashing heads as Shudras would militarize and crown themselves rulers. Various chroniclers mention this phenomenon and some Shudra royals would proudly embrace their supposed “low-born” roots as they harkened back to the lotus feet of God crushing their enemies. So widespread was this phenomenon of Shudra militarization and mobility that it is not inaccurate to say that very large minority and even perhaps a majority of recorded Indian kings have origins in the “lowest” varna.

Over time, from the Shudra were born groups that would become exiled from the varna system altogether. There was no such thing as a “Dalit” in earlier Hindu scriptures; rather, untouchability emerged later as being practiced on and indeed by certain Shudra castes onto other Shudra castes. This horrid custom would become a long-lasting stain on the Indian psyche and society, but it was not a primal practice of Hinduism as CCT activists claim.

CCT presents the Indian caste system as akin to chattel slavery, particularly the Trans-Atlantic variant. Yet across history, violent slave rebellions have been ubiquitous across different societies, including multi-ethnic rebellions, but caste rebellions are nearly nil. This is a major disconnect in framing the caste system as an analog to American slavery. Caste was simply a pre-modern method of organizing society. Being born into a lower caste or class in any place in the pre-modern world could be a miserable existence, not just in India. What really distinguished caste was its metaphysical roots as well as an extreme level of endogamy that developed over time. And it is in these extremities that we start seeing externalities that profoundly shaped Indian society to this day.

With time, varnashram itself began evolving and calcifying and then evolving again. The original commitment to bhiksha, in many ways the vital axis of varnashram had waned as new scriptures explained away the lapsing of hereditary duties. Endogamy became much more rigid and prized around 500 CE as we see a mass adoption setting in. This means for much if not most of Hindu history, a highly rigid caste endogamy was not necessarily a cornerstone of Hinduism. India’s caste system is more endogamous in 2023 CE than in 23 CE or 2023 BCE.

With the arrival of extreme levels of endogamy, much of the churn in Indian society was reduced. The previously adventurous Indians seeding their ideologies across Asia and commandeering the wheel of Dharma across land and sea were now becoming increasingly parochial. Zeniths of purity replaced the zeal of pursuit. Groups of jātis could ascend and descend the varna system, but the movement of individuals was severely curbed. And of course, while other societies were not exactly paragons of individual liberty and social mobility, they did not have the extremity of a near-ironclad endogamy. Al-Biruni notes how knowledge would be effectively siloed in individual caste groups so that the cross-pollination of wisdom that led to technological advancement would slow in India. While scholars such as Dharampal note the wide array of educational opportunities to available to all castes in the years prior to British colonization, it seems for large parts of post-endogamy India, individual outliers were essentially outcast by this system.

Particularly terrible was the condition of the newly concocted “avarna” or untouchable castes. The injustices they faced would be a feature in various poems during the rise of the Bhakti movement. While the Bhakti movement was definitely not a social revolution against caste, it did feature a reignited pathway for spiritual liberation for many depressed classes and castes. As I said before, the strongest emanations against caste discrimination have come from Hinduism itself. From its birth in Tamil Nadu, the Bhakti movement featured lower caste saints such as Thiruppaan and Nandanar overcoming discrimination through faith in their God. The crown jewel of Tamil Nadu’s Bhakti renaissance would be the masterful Ramanuja, who went against the norms of his day to embrace many lower caste devotees he encountered including Kanchi Purna who he would revere as his Guru, a scandalous notion for such a learned Brahmin as Ramanuja. This thread of upliftment would be sewn across India as various Gurus and movements would be stitched across the subcontinental tapestry over time mending the injustices of caste discrimination. Just as Ramanuja had done, many of these Dalit saints would be joined by and empowered by their high caste brethren such as Ramananda of Kashi becoming the Guru of Ravidas or Dyaneshwar of Pandharpur redefining the worship of Lord Vitthala thereby creating an illustrious line of supposed “lower caste” saints in Namdev, Chokhamela, Janabai, and Tukaram. But unfortunately, some places had to wait longer than others to address the scourge of caste discrimination.

Vivekananda described his contemporary Kerala as a lunatic asylum due to the discrimination that lower castes faced. If CCT had a poster child, it would unfortunately be the highly stratified and ritualistically rigid Malabar of the 19th century. Dalits were said to have had to maintain 64 steps from upper caste Nairs and 128 steps from Brahmins during this time. They were not permitted to buy or ride in bullock carts and were barred from using roads for upper castes. Education and even inter-dining with other castes were denied. In certain regions, Dalit women were not allowed to wear an upper garment as it would be reserved for upper castes. This dehumanization would soon be fought by Dalits as well as leaders from other castes. Dalit leaders such as Ayyankali and Dakshayani Velayudhan would emblazon a path forward combatting these injustices joining forces with Hindu reform movements such as those led by Sri Narayan Guru to remedy these terrible conditions. These reforms would take root as Kerala would become a land associated with social justice as Travancore kings instituted various policies to amend these past wrongs.

While spiritual reform to aid lower castes was a part of Hinduism, what was missing was a social revolution to materially empower the lowest of Hindus. This is where more modern caste dynamics emerge.

Varna Vendetta

For some, the Hindu spirit was inextricably connected to caste discrimination and had to be exorcised. In Maharashtra emerged the most kinetic of all Dalit reformers as BR Ambedkar as well as Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule would sear their relationship with Hinduism in their quest for Dalit upliftment. This fractious approach to combatting caste discrimination would involve attacking Hinduism itself and a reductive but very mimetic rhetoric homogenizing and demonizing Hinduism into essentially a Brahmin conspiracy. Critical Caste Theory derives its animus toward Hinduism and conspiratorial thinking from these early activists. Ambedkar and the Phules would heavily and rightfully advocate for education as the deliverance from destitution that Dalits faced. Ambedkar later helped frame parts of the Indian Constitution and codify laws to protect Dalits in a fledgling nation as well as implement the reservation system which at the time was seen as a temporary measure. The temporary soon became a mainstay.

Dalits today still face discrimination and difficulties posed by the wider Indian society. From not being able to carry out funeral processions to being attacked for sporting a mustache or riding a horse to being barred from water sources or even temples in some isolated cases, still we have the doldrums of discrimination present in India. But due to Ambedkar’s provisions in the Constitution as well as modernity flattening caste dynamics, Dalits can push back.

Ambedkar’s legacy has blossomed in the Government of India as more and more provisions have been added and policies ensured to assist Dalits. In line with the British Raj’s bureaucratization of caste, the Indian Republic has continued to design caste-based policies, which in turn has also dug the heels of caste consciousness into the ground. While lifting up a section of society that is being discriminated against is very laudable, the methods that have caught wind over the years have started to cross the realm of equality of opportunity into the equity of outcome.

Reservations have increasingly begun to eat away at university and government entries. With caste-based reservation touching 50% across India, many states have further bitten into the pie with states like Chattisgarh amounting to 76% reservation for backward castes and Tamil Nadu at 69%.This squeezing of other castes has not only caused increasing resentment but also hurts merit opportunities and market efficiencies in India as more and more young people are pushed out of chances they otherwise would’ve tested into in a straight shot. Even castes who are dominant today and in the past now clamor to get into newly made OBC (Other Backwards Caste) quotas with some movements becoming violent uprisings. Certain welfare policies have also integrated this caste-based approach with the government reserving certain doles and opportunities only for lower castes rather than a more identity-blind approach such as wealth or income levels. And perhaps the most regressive part of these caste based policies is that they entrench caste divisions and animosity.

But perhaps the most raucous example of the overzealousness of social justice is the SC/ST Act, where a person from an SC or ST caste can accuse another citizen of a caste atrocity, and that person will be put into jail without trial and without bail. This profoundly illiberal act is the closest thing India has to a blasphemy law. The ease of use has created a backlog of false cases and perhaps even caused more alienation of Dalits in contemporary society as any conflict can trigger this act which could easily destroy an innocent person’s life. And in an age where Dalit groups can hit back just as hard in community quarrels, this act becomes even more potent. Just recently the Supreme Court attempted to lessen the strictness of automatic non-bailable jail. Thereupon riots swept India as the government caved in and amended the law to keep this draconian element.

The bureaucratization of caste has morphed into it an extremely corrosive force on Indian politics. Caste has become the basic building block of Indian democracy. Elections become fractal and fractious caste contests as instead of meritocracy, demographics becomes destiny. Dynastic fiefdoms masquerade as political parties using the cloak of caste. Frivolous quibbles about the assigned caste of a historical figure or seeing an economic reform as a zero-sum attack on one’s caste is an unfortunate mainstay of Indian politics. Yet rather than having qualms with this, Critical Caste Theory sings to the tune of this dance of division. To break Hindutva or Hindu unity, caste divisions must be emphasized. But the BJP has anticipated this move.

The dichotomy of the Dalit condition mirrors India itself. A land of contradictions and extremes, nuance rests in the chaos of an ever-changing India that can give birth to any anecdote and data point you can imagine. While Dalits today gain more rights than ever, they increasingly vote for the BJP, a sworn enemy of CCT activists and formerly known as a party of the upper castes. The reason for this is that Hindutva, the ideology of the BJP, is not only redefining Hinduism itself but also consists of a strong element of material deliverance. Spiritual reform and a material revolution scent the air of India. While many Hindu organizations are reviving the notion of Hindu emancipation across eras by including Dalits more in their affairs and leadership, the BJP has build a powerful and efficient welfare apparatus to assist Dalits like never before. Hindutva is now positing itself as an emancipatory force for Dalits as spirituality now comes with sustenance.

Urbanization, education, migration, and many other forces of modernity subsume bits of caste consciousness over time. While caste has provided social, financial, and physical security in the past, a strengthening Indian state slowly fills these needs. The fulfillment of caste now must be replaced by something else. Whether the new primary identity is religious, ethnic, political, or another form, the Indian will start to look at a new person when they look in the mirror. CCT activists lament this evolution into something beyond the prism of parochialism that caste has become. As caste consciousness evolves into a more cosmopolitan form, India will become empowered. But Critical Caste Theory does not even see India; rather it fundamentally views the subcontinent as South Asia, an accidental collection of disparate divided people. India by contrast is rooted in an eternal Dharma, uniting the land with pilgrimages and poetry that has stood the test of time. Ultimately, this battle over what caste was, is, and will be will fundamentally decide the fate of India and Indians.

Altars of sacred fire would dot the landscape, and the color of the sacred fire would be emblazoned on the robes of ascetics as they journeyed seeking something beyond. Marching into infinity, these seekers would spread a set of ideas, Dharma, that would invisibly bind the land. Places became pilgrimages and dirt became divine as the footsteps of these seekers would be followed by those who sought. An idea of India began to form.

That civilizational unity preceded political unity was recognized not just by Indians themselves but also by foreigners such as the Greeks, Chinese, Arabs, and others. Whether one came from Gandhara, now in South Afghanistan and North Pakistan, or Tamil Nadu in present-day India, they would all be called Indians. While India’s civilizational unity has deep roots, political unity is an emergent layer in the forest of the Indian mind.

Indeed there are ancient legends of a united India under monarchs such as Bharata who eponymously gave his name to India which is Bhārata. There is also Ashoka who fulfilled the political thinker, Chanakya’s, vision of uniting India under a single empire. More recently we have Aurangzeb’s fanatic quest to conquer all of India, which would be undone by the rebelling Marathas birthing Indian proto-nationalism in their bid to rid India of its oppressors, an idea labeled Hindavi Swarajya. In this chaos, the British would shame the subcontinent as it conquered its entirety via English brains and Indian bodies. And this is where it gets even more interesting.

A Union of States

India is not supposed to be here.

As the British left their crown jewel, cracks appeared throughout the vaunted gemstone. It would immediately split into 2, one part Islamic state that itself would soon shatter and one part secular republic, that is India. The latter was the inheritor of Raj in many ways. The boot of colonial rule was shined as a white foot was replaced with a brown foot. Very few laws would change even though monarchic domination gave way to democratic aspirations. India contained a multitude of religions, languages, castes, ethnicities, and various other divisions ripe for leveraging secessions. As the British saw the subcontinent descend into bloodshed with partition, they prophesized the eventual balkanization of India. It could never be a real country. What bound it together? For 1000s of years, the Indian cut the throat of his fellow Indian over any difference he could find. How would now be any different?

Yet the dreams of freedom fighters, the hope of the Republic’s first sons and daughters born in this fledgling, hopeless nation would transcend British and indeed global pessimism as India, Hindustān, Bhārata, Jambudvīpa, and many other names that have graced the subcontinent over 1000s of years triumphed over the parochialism of ethnicity, language, caste, and even religion.

Today, India is more united than ever before. One of the prime reasons for this is the rise of Hindutva. Beyond a constitutional basis, Hindutva has ignited the fire of civilizational consciousness in India just as Vedic fire altars did in India’s past. The fire of Hindutva is encased within the altar of development built from the bricks of physical and digital infrastructure that have transformed the fortunes of hundreds of millions of Indians. What many critics miss is what Chanakya pointed out thousands of years ago, “wealth is the foundation of Dharma;” or more recently as Maslow pointed out that fulfillment of material needs is the base of more metaphysical and spiritual needs. Because a Hindutva government delivered material success, people’s faith in Hindutva also rose regardless of its non-relation to delivering clean tap water or UPI.

This presents a tough problem for India’s opposition. While Hindutva reinforces underlying civilizational unity with Hinduism as the primary axis of commonality, the opposition cannot seem to provide an alternative uniting ideology. Instead, the opposition seeks to play a dangerous game denying Indian civilizational unity altogether. Whether by stoking regionalism, caste conflict, and even pitting Hindu gods and devotees against each other, the opposition seeks to transform India into what Rahul Gandhi has called a “union of states.” Ironic, as generations ago, Rahul’s great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, forged a strongly centralized state in the face of federalist ambitions by Muhammed Ali Jinnah and others.

This confederate turn is due to the fact that earlier attempts at toppling Hindutva have failed. The game of the Islamic vote bank has effectively othered Indian Muslims to such a degree that hasn’t been seen since the post-partition era. Economic development has become synonymous with the BJP and thereby Hindutva as well. On national security, the Center is seen as robust despite possible successful land grabs by China and embers of terror in Kashmir. Options are running out in the tactic of attack for the opposition. So instead of playing the game, why not break it?

Permanent Revolution

The ancient elites of India heralded asceticism as the highest pursuit; the modern elites of India herald activism as the highest pursuit. As the BJP thundered into 2019 with an even greater mandate than prior, they passed a flurry of laws. With a limp infantry on the battlefield of parliament, the opposition has opted for guerrilla warfare in the streets. Coordinating with foreign NGOs, media outlets, social media giants, and various other extra-governmental bodies, the opposition has engineered a format of disruptive street protests that choke parts of India and eventually the government itself into submission. Placing valiant visuals of the old, the women, the children, the sick, the picturesque poverty porn so fetishized in international media front and center, the opposition seeks to bait the government as behind this frontline of innocence is a show of brute force. A dance emerges as violent elements shoot from the shoulders of the pitiful in order to goad the government to bloody the border of bodies between them. Once the blood of protestors reddens the black of the streets, propaganda is achieved.

A flurry of frames erupts as both domestic and international elements pounce on the footage. A photo turns into a WhatsApp forward turns into a news headline turns into a Monday morning NGO meeting turns into a protest which ultimately turns into a riot. The same format has been observed in Shaheen Bagh, in the Farmer’s Protest, was attempted in the recent Agniveer Army reforms, and is currently underway in Haldwani as women brave the winter to face off against the government which simply seeks to remove illegal encroachments to build a railroad. But let’s parse this for a moment – what is the commonality between these and why did the Agniveer protests fizzle out?

The other 3 movements are predicated on turning political or economic issues into religio-cultural issues. Asylum for persecuted minorities in South Asian Islamic states became a plot to disenfranchise Indian Muslims. Decades-long awaited agricultural reforms became an attack on a mix of Sikh, Punjabi, and Jat pride. Railroad infrastructural needs are now becoming an attack on Islam. Yet the Agniveer protests, centered in the Gangetic belt, fizzled out due to them primarily consisting of people who are relatively low in regional consciousness as well as the failure to make the reforms appear as an attack on their religious or caste identity. To thwart a law, the opposition anchors the animus surrounding the law into identity terms rather than politico-economic consequences. And it is this heightening of identity wherein the overlapping idea of the opposition takes shape in decentralization.

As the Center fails in quelling these permanent protests. As they bow to the brutishness of the street veto. Frustration sets in for a voter. The central government cannot be trusted to take care of basics, to ensure the functioning of society, policy, and even democracy itself. An age-old mental disease rears its terribly seductive face in the mind of the Indian – parochialism.

‘The central government has betrayed their mandate! They consist of those other castes and ethnicities that are natural failures. If my caste or ethnicity was in charge, we would show them a lesson!’ And so on…

Farce of Federalism

Critics of Indian nationalism falsely point out that the notion of India is solely due to the British Raj. They ignore testaments from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain scriptures about the divine land whose names we uttered earlier. Even more nefariously, they impose modern state identities as the true form of the Indian subcontinent, a patchwork of linguistic states that have very little historic salience. This leads to a toxic and ahistoric linguistic identity which include features such as:

• The regional identity is by default secular; Hindu religious festivals now become secular regional festivals.
• Hinduism in the region gains a flagship deity, usually worshipped by all other Indian Hindus as well, but is framed as a symbolic bulwark against the hegemonic Hinduism of the BJP.
• Xenophobic rhetoric towards Hindi-speaking people crops up as well as the occasion jibe against Gujaratis as a potshot against Modi and Shah.

Now, this format has little chance to engineer a winning electoral coalition, especially in the face of the current BJP. But this game is long. This game has powerful incentives from foreign lobbies and feudal lords. Much of this manufactured supremacy is derived from the fact that many areas with strong regional identities have better economic indicators than the Hindi-dominant regions of India.

But as the derelict Hindi heartland rises in both population and income, states with strong regional identities will become ever more so insecure. With delimitation on the horizon as many Hindi-speaking northern states find the opportunity to expand their electoral slice of the parliamentary pie, even more parochial versions of regionalism may gain traction in order to seize the anxiety of power slipping. Over an extended period of time, this inter-ethnic tussle over power and resources will pose a long-term danger to the Indian state. The separatist conflicts in Kashmir, various districts in the Northeast, and Punjab have siphoned off valuable state funds and lives to ensure the unity of the union; repeated situations will pose questions to not just India’s development but the existence of India itself.

Integral in this federalist ambition is posing the Center as inherently antagonistic. One way to do this is by promising outsized welfare and freebies. Since the state cannot pay for these policies, the blame gets passed to the Center for being stingy with funds. These freebies are a consistent vote catcher in Indian politics as all sides use them to reliable effect. But in this process, a cancerous contest and an all-consuming addiction emerge as state finances get crushed, and the Center increasingly has to bail out badly behaved states. If the Center withholds, then the opposition follows the trusty process of framing the economic dispute as an ethnic one and fans the familiar ethno-narcissistic sentiments we discussed prior. Essentially, this process is “heads I win, tails you lose” for the states.

The AAP has played this game to great effect in Delhi as well as now Punjab, while the Congress successfully won a recent election in Himachal Pradesh with an unfeasible pension scheme (OPS) as a cornerstone policy. This competition to the bottom of the barrel also poses another long-term risk to India but this time from a forever familiar economic and development angle.

Jatitva

But what of the regions with low regionalism? What of the Hindi heartland whose heartbeat decides Prime Ministers? Herein possibly lays the opposition’s most insidious plan.

While regionalism can ultimately be checked by the central Indian state, navigating the taxonomy of caste is an entirely different beast. We are seeing a sneak preview of the opposition strategy in the state of Bihar. The government prepares to conduct a caste census, which has the aim to enflame caste conflict within the state. It is a bet that numerically higher castes will demand higher percentages of reservation, political doles, and a political voice. This will be magnified and repeated across India. Doubling down on this message of division, Bihar’s Education Minister Chandrasekhar, attacked a medieval Hindu literary classic, the Ramcharitramanas, as a casteist scripture. Ironic as the Ramcharitramanas was a key factor in spreading literacy across India as it was written in the Hindi vernacular, Awadhi, and gave access to more accessible religious literature for the lower castes and classes. It will not just be castes who are targeted, but ultimately Hinduism itself as it is Hinduism that gives India its civilizational unity.

To break Hindu unity, the opposition will risk the Lebanonization of India where proportionality in electoral seats, colleges, government jobs, and even the private sector will be strictly enforced. The free market and natural Pareto effects that lead to efficiencies and growth will be strangled to death as will India’s future. India will descend into caste strife which will be taken advantage of by both internal and external enemies as this current campaign of unity ends just as previous ones have – with Indians destroying other Indians.

And as I said before, this is also a long game. Across universities in the West, we increasingly see a Critical Caste Theory emerge similar to Critical Race Theory. All of Indian history and society is whittled down to caste, the conflict between the supposed high and low, the oppression of ages defines the subcontinent. Scholarships abound from the hazy world of NGOs as “Ambedkarite” voices are urged to apply in order to manufacture consent in real-time. Hindu heroes became Bahujan revolutionaries as every Indian figure becomes their caste first, Hindu last, or not Hindu at all. Every innovation of Dharma is framed as a Protestantesque rebellion against the Brahminical conspiracy of “Brahminism” or in other words, Hinduism, where a minuscule single-digit percentage of the population duped billions of people for thousands of years. Hindutva will go toe to toe with Jatitva as the mission for Hindu unity faces its greatest political test in battling caste division.

While foreign powers like Pakistan, China, and possibly others explicitly seek to balkanize Bhārat, I don’t believe this is the opposition’s goal at all despite their decentralizing actions. Rather they simply flirt with these elements as a tool to attain power. Essentially, the dividing line between the Indian right and the Indian left is that the former views the Republic of India as a successor to a millennia year old culture and civilization, while the latter views India as an accidental patchwork of different peoples welded together by the British Raj and god-like founding fathers in 1947. This clash of perspectives is what will define the tussle for the future of not just the 2024 Elections, not just the Indian nation, but indeed the Indian civilization.

Originally posted on The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

And yet neither fantasy prose nor bardic poetry can capture the chaotic current of India’s political maelstrom. For over 8 years, international commentary and their increasingly irrelevant local compradors have produced reams of toilet paper (single ply of course) that describe India as they want it – a failed state on the cusp of economic collapse – not as it actually is. According to them, the government is brewing a communal froth that overflows into a front-page genocide. A revolution of minorities and proletariat will soon shatter the state, as well as those pesky bigoted Gujarati politicians and profiteers, ushering in a return to the Nehruvian utopia that featured diversity, secularism, and abysmal development ripe for poverty porn.

Unfortunately for them, India’s economy has seen consistent growth balanced with fiscal discipline that has averted an inflationary apocalypse, a situation that no doubt would’ve arisen had the center listened to “experts” baying for a fiscal frenzy and did not possess such stellar diplomacy that has mitigated much of the current energy concerns found in the rest of the world. Minorities have overwhelmingly positive views of living as well as practicing their religion in India and Muslims flock to immigrate or even seek refuge under the rule of a supposed Hindu Hitler. And most emphatically, Narendra Modi remains the most consistently popular political leader in the world as approval ratings skim Himalayan heights.

Does that mean everything is rosy for the party of the lotus? Definitely not. In fact, prominent supporter ire has been a more pronounced theme than ever before in the past few years, yet the BJP maintains or even increases vote share as election victories abound and opposition governments fall to the quakes in the wake of the election juggernaut.

The Poison Pill

From an overt policy standpoint, I see the BJP as the dead center of Indian politics. While many airwaves are filled with party members spewing communal rhetoric and threats, examining the BJP’s actual policy record sheds new light on how the BJP rules.

The 2019 triumvirate of Article 370’s repeal, Ram Mandir, and the CAA was arguably the last big bang “Hindutva” win for the government. Even then, the CAA can be uncounted as it is not yet implemented. Yet it is in the failed CAA implementation and the subsequent fiasco that we take an integral lesson on where Indian politics is going.

The Citizens Amendment Act looked to be the surprise knockout blow after the 1-2 punch of Article 370’s repeal and the Ram Mandir verdict. The announcement took many off guard, and then the BJP coupled it with the NRC, an effort to confirm the legal citizenship of those living in India. While the CAA is a humanitarian law that gives relief to some of the most persecuted people on the planet, non-Muslims living in Islamic South Asian countries, the pairing with NRC evoked fears of citizenship revocation amongst some Indian Muslims. This deliberate misinformation combined with BJP spokespersons touting the twinning of these policies eventually led to widespread protests that quickly transformed into deadly riots.

In the background, a now internet-savvy India would receive a steady stream of news with a flood of forced conversions in Pakistan, a Talibani deluge cleansing Afghanistan of its last Hindus and Sikhs, as well as Bangladeshi Islamists ransacking temples with rivers of blood in their wake. These consistent tides of terror served as the subcontinental backdrop for the foreground of Islamist rioting within India.

For many Hindus, whether BJP voters or not, they saw Indian Muslims rioting en masse across India to prevent their fellow Hindu religious kin from finding refuge in India. In their eyes, nothing negative would happen to Muslim Indians via CAA (this is legally true), yet still, Indian Muslims unleashed a fiery fury across Indian cities. The NRC and even the CAA would be delayed thereafter, with the government citing COVID as the cause for delay even to this day. The entire affair was a cataclysmic blow to communal relations.

While the BJP had been shifting the Overton Window bit by bit in its first term, this was the first true tectonic shift. The violent reaction to the CAA solidified the mass alienation of Indian Muslims from the rest of Indian society. The protests at Shaheen Bagh proved to be a tactical victory, but a very massive strategic blunder occurred for Indian Muslims. This would be the beginning of a much more rapid rightward shift in Indian political discourse.

A Hindustani Dialectic

Curiously, this would also be the start of the BJP’s softening towards secularism. The CAA’s de facto shelving would be followed by the repealing of decades-long awaited agricultural reforms (no doubt to soothe Sikh sentiments and for the Uttar Pradesh election’s caste equations), various schemes outreaching towards minorities, and even suspending a star spokesperson, Nupur Sharma, for quoting uncomfortable verses in the Hadith. Recently, the BJP has been gearing up cadres to reach out to Pasmanda Muslims, a group carved out of less well-off Muslim communities in India whose origins come from local lower caste converts. All of this, along with related failures in law and order has incensed many BJP voters, especially vocal ones on social media. And yet, as we mentioned earlier, the BJP marches on in electoral victory and popularity.

What we are seeing is an Indian version of the Hegelian dialectic. The Hegelian dialectic is essentially when a thesis and anthesis merge to form a synthesis, many times with one more dominant than the other. The BJP is no more the invading blitzkrieg force that upended Indian politics. Now it is transforming into a party of governance that deals with entrenched elites, an antagonistic bureaucracy plus judiciary, along with micro-electoral arithmetic and feudal forces that give Indian politics its fractal, serrated, bloody edges.

The central command has doused the incendiary elements of the BJP and its ideological affiliates as their sparks frequently have the potential for societal wildfires. But I also believe there is a more cynical element to this. The various atrocities and injustices that Hindus face in the quest to uphold an uneven secularism do indeed help the BJP. Hindu resentment from issues such as blasphemy killings executed by minorities (many of which were related to the Nupur Sharma issue prior), the government solely interfering in Hindu institutions, and various other ires ultimately cause Hindus to gravitate, some begrudgingly, towards the BJP.

“If it is this bad with the BJP, imagine how horrid it will be with the opposition.” The world is run on incentives, and India, especially in its politics, is no different.

Blue Origin

An institution that offers infinite incentives in India is caste. As I’ve written about prior, the BJP has pursued a mammoth, marathon effort to usurp non-upper caste voters and has been met with stunning success. As recently as the Uttar Pradesh elections, a state famous for caste conflict and caste-based voting, the BJP captured massive voting percentages not just from its usual upper caste base, but also from huge chunks of OBC and SC voters as well.Recent polls also show how the disparity in upper and lower caste approvals/voting preferences dissipates when it comes to the BJP. On average, if you are a Hindu, the BJP will be your number 1 choice, regardless of caste.

A big reason for this has not only been the gargantuan infrastructure and welfare programs that disproportionately help the poor and lower castes, but also because the BJP has been directly reaching out to lower castes with caste-specific benefits, greater party leadership opportunities, and deification of lower caste icons, especially Ambedkar. Despite this at times preferential treatment, upper castes steadfastly support the BJP. In the Uttar Pradesh elections, they even increased their voting percentage despite the BJP’s largesse towards non-upper castes.

I believe this boils down to the fact that upper castes are losing their caste consciousness and seeing themselves as Hindu first, then their caste. Affluence and urbanization are death knells to caste in India, and the upper castes are attaining these at higher rates than other castes. Secondly, the poor are gaining a financial and even social safety net from better infrastructure, streamlined welfare, and better law and order provided by the BJP. The latter is integral in voting trends for Uttar Pradesh due to internecine caste violence. All these societal safeguards were previously in the realm of caste as an anemic government couldn’t provide these, only your kinsmen could. Thirdly, there is very little alternative for many upper castes as numerous opposition parties do not give them as many leadership opportunities at best or dog whistle pogroms against them at worst. Lastly is the BJP’s seemingly diluted Hindutva credentials, but more on that later.

While the successful navigation of caste in Hindu societies is one thing, even more audacious is the desire to enflame caste in Muslim societies. While South Asian Muslims have their own caste system of Ashrafs (descended from foreigners and uppers castes), Ajlafs (from middle castes), and Arzals (from lower castes), it is not nearly as stratified and penetrating as the Hindu system. Yet the BJP wants Islam to meet Ambedkar. Just as the Hindu politic was pitted against each other by caste, the neologism “Pasmanda,” consisting of Ajlafs and Arzals, is the cleaver that the BJP seeks to use to butcher a historically united Muslim bloc.

Pasmanda consciousness is not ubiquitous, but the BJP seeks to change this by touting its welfare schemes that disproportionately help Pasmanda Muslims due to higher rates of poverty in the community as well as stark imbalances in Ashraf versus Pasmanda representation in Muslim organizations. This is an extraterrestrial move for the BJP as it could alienate parts of its Hindu base via obvious communal issues as well as potential spillover in caste politics. But the BJP rests easy with its Hindu home base so far, despite its aggressive batting off home turf on the political pitch.

The Basis of Covering Its Bases

There is no political machine greater on the planet today than the BJP. You can hate their guts and wish every party member from the Prime Minister to a peon to hell, but you should still learn their craft. They are built to win elections. One can say they are faltering in their ideological clarity, abandoning their Hindutva roots as they engage in the Hindustani Dialectic. Perhaps it is simply incompetence, but that betrays their consistent winning instinct. The BJP are not revolutionaries, perhaps not even reformers for some, but they are surely incrementalists. The patient poise of their pace has led them to become the apex predator of Indian politics, a true political animal.

3 main factors explain this pace:

1. The Anti-Hindu nature of the opposition: The Indian opposition comprises many groups and leaders with a severe ideological antagonism toward Hinduism. This doesn’t mean the entirety of the opposition or those that vote for them hate Hinduism, but there are powerful entities, organizations, and individuals who have either personal or incentivized reasons to oppose Hinduism and its political expression of Hindutva. They have a loud and frequent penchant for insulting Hinduism and Hindus, a feature ripe for the BJP’s propaganda wing to popularize.
2. The BJP is a Big Tent Party: Because the opposition is seen as revolting to so much of the populace, the BJP captures ceded ground. The BJP can engage in secular and Ambedkarite pandering, things that regularly rile seasoned voters, because they have no choice but to swallow these overtures as they believe the alternative wants them and their ways annihilated. As the BJP’s election supremo, Amit Shah’s maximal electoral efforts are naturally neighborly to this Big Tent tactic as many hues of saffron and even other colors now find a home in the BJP.
3. The BJP is Hindu enough for the majority of Hindus. Okay, this will need a longer explanation.

This says something more about Hindu society than the BJP. There is a widespread trope that the BJP has been propped up solely by Hindu Nationalism. But more likely, Hindu Nationalism plays a secondary if not tertiary force in its ascent after the BJP’s development initiatives or perhaps even sheer disgust of the opposition. The BJP believes, possibly correctly going by voting patterns, that development in the form of infrastructure, welfare, and other economic programs is the primary vector of its party to win votes while Hindutva efforts are the bumper to solidify winning tallies.

There is also a federalist play to this as the center particularly has moderated its official messaging to near secular levels as it mainly popularizes non-partisan efforts and achievements. BJP-ruled states on the other hand coat their hands in saffron as they provide a steady stream of “Hindutva” wins, many of which are aesthetic while a few are kinetic, including location renamings, textbook changes, anti-conversion laws, cow protection initiatives, and temple restorations, the latter of which cannot be understated.

While most of these efforts will provide little electoral fruits, the imagery of renovated temples provides an entire basket of votes. Just as the BJP has rejuvenated hallowed and holy sites such as Kedarnath, Kashi Vishwanath, Ujjain, etc… there is one temple that will usher in a new era and stitch saffron into the skin of the BJP forever. Fought over for centuries, the site of Lord Ram’s birthplace will witness the rebirth of its temple after a verdict that handed the BJP its deliverance into the history of not just the Republic of India but the Indian civilization. Narendra Modi will preside over India turning on its axis and entering a new age as a quest that so many Hindus, kingly and common, died for will finally be fulfilled.

Each brick laid in Ayodhya. Each chisel chipping away at stone. Each bead of sweat dripping from the carvers of destiny. Each of these moves the Overton Window of India little by little till a new vision of India will permanently emerge. The Second Republic will be within sight. And for all the BJP’s politicking, their secular turn, and the ideological sacrifices to prop up that Big Tent; all of these will be eclipsed in the shadow of Ram Mandir.

Originally posted on The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

Yet I believe, as in most cases, there needs to be a Middle Path. The roots of Indian identity are deeply embedded in the sacred earth of the subcontinent. People are naturally moved by myths and stories. They fight not only for resources and material goods but also for ideas and gods. A state can only derive legitimacy from brute power for so long; eventually, it must also sustain trust and belief in something beyond the cold machinations of bureaucrats and bullets. A state must uphold something greater than itself. An idea that is based on principle, on struggle, on beauty. For India, the incarnation of that idea is obvious – Dharma. For it is only the wheel of Dharma that has outlasted every hegemon and human that has walked Bhārat.

The Unborn

The Vedas are described as apaurusheya or “not of a man.” They are said to be eternal and unborn, revealing themselves to great sages in each epoch. As the Himalayas have given birth to many of the great rivers of the subcontinent, cradling and nourishing the Indian civilization since time immemorial, so have the Vedas birthed various philosophies & ideas across Indian history; and as they shall again, age after age.

The latter part is the crux of the matter.

While the Vedic ethos promoted diversity in thought as different philosophies, darshanas, expounded and expanded from the minds of rishis, Indians have become more narrow-minded as time has broadened. By the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni, the inquisitiveness of the Upanishads had collapsed into a cesspool of arrogance and sloth of mind. Indian thinking for the last millennium has been masochistically enraptured by an intense and maddening myopia as al-Biruni narrates:

Al Biruni, while prejudiced in his own right as he gleefully watched Mahmud pillage the temples of infidels, was indeed spot on of the contemporary Indian psyche. Unfortunately, so much of that psyche has carried over today.

Notions from beyond the Indus have penetrated the Indian mind over successive empires of Turks and Europeans, but these catastrophic imperialisms seem to have furthered the insulation of Indian wonder. And even worse, many of those who are interested in the lands beyond adopt slavish attitudes crowned with inferiority complexes; constantly harping on the mediocrity of India and its people.

This bipolarity of thought has been the bane of India for a near century. On one hand, was a deeply conservative society resistant to reform consisting of individuals and communities overwhelmingly concerned with upping their neighbor in a contest of who starves the least. On the other hand, was an engorged anglophile elite who forced stern forms of socialism and secularism on the populace, ideas profoundly foreign to a society that worshipped a Goddess of Wealth and whose town center would be a temple.

Tabula Rasa Adbhutam

In the midst of Nehruvian reform and nagarik resistance, were the twin ideologies of Gandhian Swaraj and Deen Dayal Upadhyay’s Integral Humanism. While both were influenced by European thinking, Gandhian Swaraj and Integral Humanism derived inspiration from Dharma. Whether through the daring and grand universalism of the Bhagavad Gita, the oneness of Adi Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta, or the non-violence of Mahavir’s Jain ethics, Gandhi and Upadhyay drew from Dharmic faiths to create an “Indian” ideology. They also both favored a devolved federal and economic structure, something that Nehru wisely contrasted in his political endeavors but got a bit carried away within the economic realm.

Gandhi’s Swaraj placed primacy on the village as the base political and economic unit of the state. A strongly decentralized polity that sought to encourage non-violence, promote religious pluralism, and a strident self-sufficient economic structure. Various leaders have tried to implement these principles; but the reality of violent caste and communal strife in villages, the follies of pacifism laid bare by India’s neighbors, and the grasp of globalization have broken the khadi wheel of Gandhian Swaraj.

What has been much less examined and until recently implemented is Upadhyay’s Integral Humanism, the official ideology of the BJP. Upadhyay focused on a middle ground between the individualism of capitalism and the collectivism of communism. He saw both as grossly materialistic ideologies that could only be tempered by Dharma. Economically, it favored small-scale industrialization like Gandhian Swaraj. Upadhyay argued that the Westminister system that India adopted would enflame various ethnic, caste, and religious fissures and instead supported a Presidential system to dial down extremities and build consensus. Unlike Gandhian Swaraj, which would go out of its way to accommodate the proselytizing Abrahamic faiths, Upadhyay was keenly wary of expansionary elements in Christianity and Islam. He argued that safeguards must be put into the Constitution to mitigate these elements and ensure a successfully plural society.

These ideologies placed an emphasis on preservation along with policies to ensure the protection of Indian traditions and way of life. Swaraj and Integral Humanism wanted to keep Indians grounded, albeit in a good way, but did not have plans for Indians to take flight and truly rise. While much of the Bhagavad Gita, which lit the fire of freedom in the hearts of these ideologues, focuses on the preservation of Dharma, there is also a cavalier spirit of expansion. A grand universal message that peaks when Krishna reveals his panoramic, cosmopolitan, unanimous celestial form. The battlefield, the friends and family destined for death in Arjun’s gaze, and the many worldly reasons that Krishna initially offered to fight dissolved in the incinerating light of a grand and all-encompassing vishwarupa form of Krishna.

And this is where we must examine the other side of India’s ideological uniqueness. This is where Hindutva comes in.

The Saffron State

Hindutva is complex in origin but essentially was best articulated by Veer Savarkar in the midst of the Indian independence movement. Savarkar insisted on building the consciousness of a common nation (rashtra), ethnicity (jati), and civilization (sanskriti) to create a people ready for the difficulties of modernity and rise above the previous millennium of failure and subjugation. Decisively reactionary (though, how many ideologies are not in truth?) to both British as well as Islamic imperialism, Hindutva aimed to unite viciously tribal Hindus as well as Indians in general into a political unit that transcended caste, region, and language. To achieve this, Savarkar, an avowed atheist, turned to pragmatic rationalism over a religious foundation.

While what actual “traditional” Hinduism is up for debate, Savarkar rebelled against the norms of his time seeing them as handicaps holding Hindus back from modernity and prosperity. Savarkar would castigate the caste system and strongly encouraged both intermarriage between castes and the undoing of customs that discriminated based on caste. He even went as far as to chastise the one sacred cow of Hinduism – the ban on eating the sacred cow. Savarkar lambasted various purity rituals such as preventing conversions into Hinduism and restrictions on oceanic travel in addition to many others. Luckily for Savarkar, the multifarious and innovative nature of Hinduism allowed for several of these ideas to proliferate and eventually be patronized by political parties as well as social and religious reform movements.

Savarkar would have a fairly ignominious end of his life, being tarred due to his association with Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. His ideology would be seared from the public by Nehru as it was seen as directly responsible for Gandhi’s death alongside being viewed as a danger to India’s newfound secular nature. But just as Savarkar’s ashes were taken by the winds and waters across all of India, eventually so did follow the sparks of his pragmatic and fiery ideology.

The journey of Hindutva is a story unto itself, but for now, let’s focus on why it has been victorious. Savarkar’s pragmatism and realization of India’s twin fatuities, caste tribalism and Gandhian secularism, would erupt over the decades as the BJP took on the mantle of Hindutva to ascend to its current zenith. In brief, the success of saffron boils down to 3 main pillars:

• Economic agnosticism naturally evolved into pragmatism as the BJP would oscillate its pecuniary compass between the invisible hand of the free market and more so recently, towards the fiscal fist of the state. A manic marathon of infrastructure building, streamlined welfare delivery, and digital inclusion has led the BJP to outflank its adversaries from their own stalwart economic left field. Now, they begin their promenade to the right as privatization and economic liberalization become the next phases in India’s economic evolution.
• Savarkar cursed the madness around caste as Hindu division over one’s birth and background weakened a society already on the brink. The BJP has hammered this abundance of disunity as a primary reason for Hindu defeat over the centuries. The recent zealous appropriation of Ambedkar, pushing societal reform around castes, and integration of lower castes into leadership and organizational roles have caused the BJP to become the overwhelming first choice of the historically downtrodden OBC, SC, & ST voters. Thus securing a precarious brute majority of Hindu votes including their steadfast General category voters.
• While the BJP has continued a number of aspects of Gandhian secularism regarding appeasement of minorities, it has also dismantled various planks in both the political and societal sphere. Hindutva has indeed encouraged the concept of “the other” as a way to unite Hindus via communal rhetoric. Even so, many Hindutva supporters argue that their mission is one of returning to a baseline of law and societal expectations pointing to policies such as Universal Civil Code, treating religious spaces and schools equally, and ensuring societal parity amongst all Indians. Of course, many Hindutva supporters also explicitly aim for a Dharmic State that gives Dharmic citizens a “first among equals” status. That being said, the components of this Dharmic state or Hindu Rashtra are still up for fierce debate even within Hindutva circles. Saffron indeed has many shades.

Are all these an exercise in modernity? The first two pass the smell test on first sniff, but the third is a bit more complex. The return to baseline camp is thoroughly grounded in the modern principle of equality. It is mindboggling that one should adhere to different laws based on their religion, that only Hindu temples should be nannied and siphoned by the state, and how prevalently media gymnastics occur to cover up minority-related violence. On the other hand, many decentralized elements of Hindutva embody reactionary revenge that seeks to put minorities “in their place” and view the primary principle of politics solely as power.

Now we venture into the arena of what even exactly is modernity in an Indian context and how does it settle with the vibrant and rooted traditionalism of the Indian masses?

Archaic Innovation

Hinduism is known by a native term called Sanātana Dharma. Sanātanatranslates into “eternal” linking itself to the apaurasheya, unborn Vedas which reverberate through time and space ad infinitum. Across the saga of Dharma, various Avatars and Gurus are said to incarnate and inspire a return to the primordial Vedic way, innovating not by forgetting the past but by building a future with foundations rooted in the past. A restoration of Dharma, not a revolution against it.

Indian history is one of the most brazenly politicized fields in the world. It is extremely difficult to parse what India or Bhārat or Jambudvīp were in the past. Each Indian region had its own ever-evolving culture over the eons imitating and influencing other regions as well. Smritis were updated according to the era with various conflicting maxims and mandates. Yet, this is Dharma. One size rarely fits all, especially in India. Likewise, we can deduce commonalities that transcended time and space in India; this is also Dharma. Yet when it comes to modernity, the goal should be to adopt lessons and customs conducive to success in the present. Therein lies Indic victory; as the greats of yesteryear restored Dharma to the land, so we should aim to today.

Integral in the pursuit of modernity is a grand franchisement of a society’s members. Indeed, one of the most pivotal factors in the rise of Anglo-American countries was their embracing of Enlightenment principles that empowered individuals across the societal spectrum, not just a narrow aristocratic class. This form of dynamic meritocracy, where equality of opportunity is spread to increase competition and sources of progress, is something that should be wholeheartedly embraced by India. Whether the lessons of meritocracy come from the episode of Eklavya or the transcendence of one’s background in the story of the demon-spawn devotee, Prahlad, the tales of India’s past are replete with examples that provide bases of empowerment to India’s downtrodden and disadvantaged. As Upadhyay saw the essential oneness of Shankara’s Advaita as justification for ensuring the welfare of all Indians, Indians today can draw inspiration from tales of the past, even if our heroes don’t fit today’s notions of social justice, equality, and reason.

Additionally, we can go further in this vein where we derive modernity, whether values or even policies, from the rich past of the Itihasa-Purana and other scriptures that defined the culture of ancient India. In the lives of Narayan’s avatars, we see the dyad of bravery and compassion, a tempered action that renounced base feelings of hatred, jealousy, greed, and ego. Ahimsa is no Gandhian invention to be cast aside in the fire of Hindutva; it is an Upanishadic notion elaborated upon by the greatest of warriors, Bhishma, on his deathbed of arrows. Further, Bhishma’s counseling on the nature of Dharmic rule features as an early treatise on Indian political theory in the Shanti Parva. Chanakya’s Arthashastra builds on this providing a rich compilation of ethics, foreign policy, economics, and statecraft that still stands the test of time. There is so much from our ancients that is applicable today.

Meanwhile, the pursuit of modernity should not mean a wholesale junking of tradition as many fear or even want. If India detaches itself from its roots, we may see the disintegration of Indian society and even eventually the state itself. While Dharma is indeed contextual, the context has always been defined by wise scholars and saints, not vapid influencers and secular academics. And indeed the default of Dharma is to preserve. The Wheel of Dharma remains a wheel. The spokes retain their values for eternity. However, the scholars & seers of the present, charioteers of the sangha’sconsciousness, decide the direction & speed. So has been the Dharmic balance of the traditional and the contemporary across era after era.

The difference today is that democracy plays a fundamental role in the shaping of religion and culture. Seers and scholars are replete with understanding and expertise, but now sovereigns carry an even larger burden of defining Dharma. As Emporer Ashoka patronized the Buddhist Sangha and began the march of Buddhist missionaries across Asia, the RSS and the BJP play a similar role in acclaiming certain Hindu ideals and traditions in a bid to calcify their electoral coalition and achieve that miracle united Hindu vote spectrum. Many of these ideas will clash with certain strands of Hinduism as we see the interplay of tradition and modernity. A 21st century Samudra Manthan is on the horizon. With Indian thought as the serpent king, Vāsuki, the Indian state as Mount Mandara, and Indian society as the great Ocean of Milk, tradition and modernity will pull on each side creating a societal churn not witnessed in many years. In this churn of ages, we will receive both ratnas (gems) and halahala (poison) as India not only profoundly changes, but also deftly restores the grand audacity of thought that India nurtured long ago, in an age of Gods and Demons.

Originally posted on The Emissary. Follow me on Twitter!

What makes an Indian? Is it the passport? The genetics? The culture? The religion? The food? The fashion? All of the above? It’s a question that’s been hotly debated amongst the citizens of the Indian Republic since the bloody partition and independence of 1947. Praise of India’s diversity finds purchasing power both inside and outside its borders, but this diversity does come at a cost. Between religion, caste, ethnicity, language, and so many other identities, India at times seems to tear from its seams. Harbingers of hatred need no excuse to dig into the annals of history finding division and discord that can be applied today. One proposed division takes us to the time of India’s infancy. From the southern tip of the grand Indian peninsula came an ideology that posited that Dravidians, a speculative group of people who speak Dravidian languages, as the original inhabitants of the subcontinent. The patriarch of this ideology, EV Ramaswamy, known as Periyar amongst his faithful, spewed venom and violence against the “invader” north Indians and their Brahmin patriarchs and progeny.

But how accurate is this notion? Was there an idyllic, secular, and rational society prior to when the first horse hooves of the steppe stampeded into India? Did these “Aryans” bring a foreign religion called Hinduism into India as well and impose it on the Dravidians who followed a now lost faith? Half truths at least; full falsehoods at most.

Societies are stories. They are the fallout of generations of narrations about our past and who we are. Jawaharlal Nehru, freedom fighter and India’s first Prime Minister, sought to weave an “Idea of India” that was a composite tapestry of Hindu and Muslim fabrics. That tapestry has been torn to shreds for several decades now. Instead, it has been Hindutva that has supplanted the Nehruvian sacrament as the sacred fire of the yajna of yore engulfs Indians politics and a common Indian identity built on Dharma gains popularity.

But not all bow to the ritual of these ancients.

Politics Is War

There are few places where historical invasions animate the populace more than India. While much of this headspace is focused on more recent Islamic invasions of the medieval era as well as British imperialism of the colonial era, in some pockets of India, headaches originate from invasions in a time where history wasn’t even recorded in India. A missing memory of the subcontinent.

These battles are highlighted in the deep south of India, Tamil Nadu and lately have entered elite academic debates on caste. The conflict in Tamil Nadu is over the ancient peopling of India with an onus on the enigmatic Aryans. But this piece is not going to exclusively focus on the migration of the Aryans into India; there are many that do. What we will examine are the many migrations into and within India as well as the present political consequences. But first, let’s establish some quick background.

There are many stellar pieces on the peopling of India. A few I recommend are Razib Khan’s comprehensive piece, Stark Truth About Aryans: A Story of India and Aryāṃśa’s Sons of the Indus: The Indians; I will give a bare and brief synopsis below:

• The aboriginal Indian, whose genes run through the blood of nearly everyone from the Indian subcontinent, descended into the subcontinent around 50,000-70,000 years ago. This population would become known as AASI – Ancient Ancestral South Indian.
• The Iranian hunter-gatherer would enter India around 10,000 years ago and mix with aboriginals to form the Indians who gave rise to the Indus Saraswati Civilization.
• The steppe component entered India most probably in waves after 2000 BCE to 1000 BCE. They are usually the big hubbub as they are posited to be the legendary Aryans, but more on this later.
• The Austronesian component would enter from southeast Asia at a similar time of 2000 BCE to 1000 BCE.

There are other migrations into and outflows from the subcontinent as well, but for now let’s call the aforementioned out as the prominent ones we know of today. Feel free to dive into the 2 pieces I mentioned prior. I highly recommend them as they are treasure troves of information.

Indigeneity

One of the most potent lines of rhetoric that stems from Hindutva discourse is that it is fundamentally an indigenous rights movement. “Indigenous rights” – that phrase is a sacred cow today. Conjuring the bloody European campaign of terror that walked in lock step with colonialism, those who were crushed under the European heel are today demanding their reparations and retribution. In Western discourse, you cannot dare to cross these lines of persuasion. Indigeneity evokes powerful emotions and a primordial attachment to the land, where the spirits of ancestors connect to the soil itself.

But where Hindutva’s call of indigeneity faces hurtles is the proposed ancient migrations into India. Keep in mind that migrations have occurred across the world, yet this notion of indigeneity is only challenged in India. The nomadic Mexica people would clear out the valley of Mexico before they established Tenochtitlan and became the Aztecs. A substantial genetic portion and culture of the ancestors of the emblematic Greeks, Romans, hell, so many Europeans come from the steppe in the model we are discussing. The ancient Egyptians did not speak Arabic nor had a 1 to 1 genetic makeup to modern Egyptians. The massive Bantu expansion across Sub-Saharan Africa was not a Mandelan march of peace. Yet it is only in India that this standard of indigeneity is upheld. Indra, who rides an Indian elephant and blesses the agricultural Indian with rain for their crops, is a steppe central Asian god; but Zeus and Thor are decidedly Greek and Nordic. I think you see the double standard here.

Urheimat

While much attention and ire surrounds the entry of the Aryans into India, little is sounded around the Dravidians. And therein lies the hypocrisy. Politics flows from emotion first, then logic.

As we established prior, the Indian population is a mixture of 3 large waves or migrations. This 2nd migration consists of a group that was related to, but distinct from, Iranian agriculturalists in the Zagros mountains. In the shadow of the Zagros is where the people of Elam flourished. From around 3200-540 BCE, the Elamites formed the eastern frontier of the Fertile Crescent. The Elamites worshipped a menagerie of gods, many of whom they shared with Akkadian Mesopotamians, and spoke a purported language isolate; but some believe it had a cognate. The proposed cousin is to the east, in the Indus Saraswati Civilization; a civilization that the Elamites traded with frequently. The proposition is that the ancestors of the Zagros farmers of Elam kept moving east and mingled with the AASI Indians eventually forming the base population for the Indus Saraswati peoples (and much of the genetic makeup of modern Indians themselves). Ironically, this means there was an earlier set of Indo-Iranians prior to the Indo-European speaking Indo-Iranians. History indeed loves to rhyme and repeat!

Whether the Elamites were Dravidian cousins or not, we know that there was a split between those Neolithic farmers that ended up in the Zagros and those that ended up in Himalayas. This is evidenced from recent genetic studies confirming that a woman from the ancient Indus Saraswati site of Rakhigarhi was void of any Iranian Zagros farmer ancestry. The logic of these subsequent discoveries hints that farming may have even been reared independently in India in the cradles of its holy rivers.

But how do we know that the Indus Saraswati people were Dravidian? Well now we start getting to “homeland” for these Dravidians, in the southern realms of this ancient Indian civilization. The southern stretches were primarily spread across Sindh, Gujarat, as well as parts of Baluchistan and Maharashtra. We find geographic toponyms across this region with Dravidian-esque influence. Additionally, we have some scant linguistic evidence dealing with elephants. The hypothesized Proto-Dravidian word, “pīlu,” which meant splitting and supposedly references a tooth or tusk, is found in Mesopotamia circa 1400 BCE via the Akkadian pīri or pīru meaning elephant. This would make sense as trade did exist between both these lands. Regarding the northern realms, things are a bit more murky. Some hypothesize that they spoke a language that was completely wiped out or an ancestor of a language isolate found in Gilgit-Baltistan called Burushaski. However, if we go by the prior rhetoric of evidence, things get even more muddy. Of course the northern subcontinent is dominated by Indo-Aryan toponyms, yet more curiously are recent findings showing Sanskrit words related to music and trade that bear eerie resemblance to Sumerian words, indicating some form of contact. But for now, we’ll stick to more mainstream theories.

Returning to the model of steppe migration, it seems that this was concurrent with both a Dravidian migration into peninsular India as well as a thrust of AASI enriched Indians towards the northwest. This great Indian churn reminiscent of the Samudra Manthan motif or “churning of the cosmic ocean” in the Hindu Puranas is what produced the precursors of Indian culture and society today. The modern Indian was being assembled in this churn. Even more ingredients were added to the mixture through the east through Munda migrations from Southeast Asia. These migrants would particularly populate the DNA of India’s tribals or “adivasis;” a misnomer meaning “first inhabitants” that has been hijacked by political interests to misclassify these tribals as the original people of the Indian subcontinent. As we’ve seen, this is simply not the case.

As these Dravidians reached Tamil Nadu, they too brought with them Vedic culture. This is something that will cause heartburn to the fanciful separatists of Tamil Nationalist bent, but the earliest Tamil literature of the Sangam Era extols the Vedas and Vedic gods such as Vishnu, Shiva, Durga, and Indra. Even the much vilified Tamil Brahmins find praise in the earliest of Tamil texts. There was no separate secular notion in the Tamil nation. This was an Aryan land.

The True Aryan

Politicized almost beyond repair, the term “Aryan” is hotly debated amongst historians, geneticists, archeologists, and edgy internet posters across the globe. But why not ask the Aryans themselves?

The term “Arya” originally occurs in the Vedas referring those who adhere to Vedic norms or spoke the Vedic tongue, Sanskrit. Perhaps in an even narrower context in the earlier verses, it refers to those belonging to the Pūru tribe or its eponymous sub-tribe, the Bharatas. In later verses, we see this “Arya” term expanded to other Vedic tribes as well as being using in an abstract sense denoting “pure” or “noble.” Later Indian literature steadies on the dual definitions of “noble” or someone who adheres to Dharmic norms as an “Aryan.”

The common characterization of these Vedic peoples is that they came into India and wiped out the natives, completely destroying their culture and bringing their traditions as the new centerpiece of Indian civilization. But this is not true either. With climate and geological changes, the Indus Saraswati civilization waned eventually collapsing prior to the entry of the steppe people. These steppe people would come into India and indeed would conquer, but they would then be integrated completely. They came, they saw, they conquered, and then they were swallowed.

The people who wrote the Vedas were in love and reverent to the land of India. The rivers, mountains, plains, forests, even the literal dirt itself was holy to them. Their gods were flanked with Indian flora and fauna. They delved into philosophies and rituals alien to the wider world. They were a profoundly unique people who would not be who they were if they did not live and die in India.

Over time, many of the gods who found the most praise in the Vedas, the lords of the elements such as Indra, Varuna, Agni, etc…, would give way to other divinities who would eclipse them in prominence. Vishnu’s greatness could be gleaned throughout the early Vedic verses as he was frequently paired with Indra, Surya, Agni, and light itself. He was referenced as the guardian of the highest home, where a soul that has broken the cycle of reincarnation resides. The dawn of Vishnu and Shiva would arrive with the transition to the Puranas and Itihasa epics. In the Yajurveda, Narayana, a popular epithet for Vishnu, is mentioned as the supreme being. The icon of the Pashupati seal of the Indus, Shiva, known as Rudra in the Vedas also makes frequent appearances as a lord of storms and destruction. Adorned with a cobra for a necklace, his home in the Himalayas, the sacred Ganga river springing from his matted locks, and donning leopard skin, Shiva’s iconic Indian brand radiates his local roots.

But it is in the tales of the Dark Lord that we see a glimpse of which gods would rule the Indian mind. While popular narratives would tell you that a skin color apartheid was enforced by the steppe folk, what’s curious is that dark skin gods would become their supreme deities. They would even beg the gods for dark skin children. The Brihadarayanka Upanishad devotes verses (6.4.16) denoting the high merits and methods needed to conceive dark skinned children; merits and methods that were greater than those needed for lighter shades. Vishnu, whose avatars and epithets possess names frequently alluding to his dark skin color, would rise as a zenith of the Hindu pantheon over the ages. A possible peek into the rise of Vishnu’s prominence lies in the tale of Govardhan.

Krishna, Vishnu’s incarnation, watched as his adoptive father, Nand, prepared to pray to Indra to bless them with rain. The young Krishna would chide his father for fearfully worshipping a god who had grown jealous and arrogant with power. He instead told his father and the villagers to pray to the mountain Govardhan and revere their cattle for those were the true guaranteers of their agricultural success. An incensed Indra would send a terrible torrent on Krishna’s home, Braj, flooding the land. The legend climaxes with Krishna lifting Govardhan with his finger, protecting Braj from the storm, and humbling Indra into obeisance. Perhaps this represents the transition of which god(s) curried the most favor with the ancient Indians. Perhaps not, but it is a convenient tale.

As we continue along the lines of “whataboutery” regarding these Aryans, one eventually reaches a meditating monk under a tree. The Buddhist and Jain traditions, known as Śramanism, are postulated as rebellions or descendants of pre-Aryan Dravidian Indian religion. Yet as we’ve already established the deep roots of Hinduism in pre-steppe India, we must also establish the Aryan roots of Buddhism and Jainism. Both religions recognize caste as a feature of Indian society and even endorse it in some scriptures. Buddha self-designates his way as the Arya Dharma, a reviving of the true way of the Vedas not the corrupted version of his time. He colors his commentary with decidedly Hindu motifs that link his message and incarnation with the great tales and people of India’s Vedic past. Śramanism was a descendent of Vedic thought that would run parallel to orthodox ancient Hinduism (or Brahminism as it is maliciously termed by academia and activists), and both became intertwining strands of a common multifarious Indian Dharma, borrowing from each other with ease and synchronizing concepts with harmony.

Political Picassos

“War is deceit,” so said the Prophet Muhammad ages ago amongst the sands of Arabia. Many movements that outwardly appear to be extremely ideological in fact are power struggles for resources on ground. Periyar and his cohort of powerful landed castes in Tamil Nadu, used the garb of Dravidianism and mythical millennia old battles to oust the franchised Brahmins from their powerful positions in Tamil society. Endowed with British cooperation and historical success, the Brahmins of the Tamil country occupied both landlord and administrative roles in the colonial era as well as possessed a culture that strongly emphasized education. Periyar’s poison would flow across the veins of Tamil society with an intense animus of hatred directed towards the Tamil Brahmins. The offensive attire of fanciful rhetoric and minimalistic reductions of ancient migrations resulted in the gradual emigration of many Tamil Brahmins from Tamil Nadu. Additionally, we see almost anti-semitic-like conspiracy theories surrounding the minuscule yet prosperous Brahmin minority, where many blame every evil and sin of society on the conniving control and domination of Brahmins.

The power vacuum left by the Brahmins would be taken up by castes allied with Periyar. To buttress diatribes against the Brahmins, Periyar made it a point to paint Brahmins as Aryan invaders who imposed their religion on the Dravidian society, which he deemed as “secular” and “rational” as opposed to the “superstitious” and oppressive Aryan faith of Hinduism. Periyar would go so far in his malice towards Brahmins so as to encourage the literal hunting and killing of Brahmins in Tamil Nadu. While Dravidianism was supposed to be a panacea to casteism, still we see it unfortunately practiced in Tamil Nadu today. Meanwhile, increasingly violent and xenophobic oratory attempts to cleave the great Tamil culture from the Indian civilization.

So ironic this is, as much of India owes itself to Tamil Nadu. From the wise Vedanta philosopher, Ramanuja, whose ideas catapulted the Bhakti movement across all of India to the great Chola emperors (who funny enough referred to themselves as Aryans) who carried the Tamil crown across the subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Tamil Nadu functioned as the incubator and refuge of a Hinduism ravaged in the north during medieval invasions. Scores of Tamil scientists, especially the former Indian President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, would push Indian technology and capability forward making the lives of all Indians better. Yet today, it is Periyar’s ideology that dominates the Tamil political sphere.

One of the more disturbing parts about the effect of such simplistic takes on ancient Indian migrations is a niche form of genetic supremacy that is developing. While some embellish the stature of their steppe DNA, others claim themselves as the true aboriginal of the land due to their large proportion of AASI lineage. They go so far as even asking for reparations based on this poppycock of logic. While there is some correlation between mixes of steppe, IVC, and AASI lineages around caste, it is an imperfect and a diverse amount that is in the end, a mixture. All Indians are an amalgamation of these people to various degrees. There is almost no pure steppe, IVC, or AASI person in the subcontinent (the Andaman Nicobar people may be sole exception on the AASI front). The movement towards heightened caste consciousness combined with the advocation of an almost racial element to caste could be potentially disastrous for India.

India’s history is one of syncretism and synchronization. Multiple identities, ideas, and itihasas were welded together by the Vedic verses millennia ago. Both the Brahmins and Śramanas or priests and ascetics traversed the Indian expanse and spread the message of Dharma. Still, they all agreed on the inherent divinity and sacredness of the subcontinent, of Bhārata. That is what distinguishes these people, these ideas, and these philosophies from the rest of the world. Indeed, as one delves into the story of India, a story that encapsulates much of human history and audacity of both thought and action, one attains the truth in the Mahabharata’s triumphant epilogue: