Until recently, words like “Brahminism” and “Brahminical Patriarchy” could be heard only in the humanities departments of Universities and colleges. And now, we have Jack Dorsey posing for a picture with a placard that said, “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy!” Of course, Twitter did try to disassociate itself with the content of the placard but the very fact that the head of Twitter India’s legal team did not find anything troubling with the placard goes on to reveal where Twitter stands on these issues.
It is important to remember that words like “Brahminism” and “Brahminical Patriarchy” make sense only from a Postmodernist perspective. Postmodernism views the world in terms of multiples power centres which interact with each other to construct the multitudes of social structures that we witness around us today. More importantly, these power centres are hierarchical in nature and consequently, the social structures arising from the interplay between them are discriminatory.
Postmodernism in the West
Postmodernism has its origins, like Fascism and Communism, in the West. Therefore, those were the places that these harebrained theories were first applied. Postmodernist academics identified the dominant group in these countries, the Whites, as most people in the country with the most ‘privilege’. Among Whites, it is the White Male who is the root cause of the problem we are told as the ‘Patriarchy’ oppresses women as well. And homosexuals are not part of the oppressive structure as well because they are oppressed by this system. Therefore, Western society is an oppressive structure built and sustained by heterosexual White Males to protect and perpetuate their own interests.
Based on the aforementioned worldview, the Postmodernist perceives Western society as an interplay between different power structures based on racial, gender and sexual identities where heterosexual White Males are the most privileged and hence, oppressive, followed by White Women and others. Intersectionality also assumes that there are different forms of discrimination which affects the individual. For instance, Black Males are more privileged than Black Women as the latter has to deal with Patriarchy in addition to Racism.
Such an analysis, of course, doesn’t make any sense at all because to reduce human society to a mere product of the interplay between various power centres is an extreme oversimplification. Only the ideologically blinded and intellectually confused could use a univariate analysis to explain the multitude of complexities in the world. But this line of thinking is extremely popular in humanities departments of every University.
Postmodernism in India
Coming back to India, liberals here identified Brahmins as the dominant power centre which shaped culture. And then proceeded to interpret entire Indian society in terms of Brahmins perpetuating and sustaining a structure that promotes and protects their own interests. And here, it is important to understand that Brahminism and Hinduism are one and the same.
Postmodernists understand very well that attacking Hinduism would be detrimental to their own interests and therefore, use the word ‘Brahminism’ instead. Intellectuals of the postmodernist variety exclaim vehemently that caste system is intrinsic to Hinduism and that as long as Hinduism exists, so would the oppressive structure of castes. Keeping this in mind, it’s not very difficult to decipher what postmodernists actually mean when they assert that they want to annihilate castes.
Through the lens of Postmodernism, just as the heterosexual White Male developed Western society to protect and promote their own interests, Brahmin men developed Hindu society for the same purpose. And just as postmodernists in the West are trying to destroy Western society to liberate the oppressed classes, liberals in India intend to destroy Hinduism to free the oppressed from Brahminical tyranny.
Postmodernism and Communism
Basically, Postmodernism is communism on steroids. Just as Communism perceived human society as a consequence of the interplay between various classes based on economic power, the Postmodernist has the same conception of human society but replaces economic classes with racial, gender, sexual and caste identity.
It is important to understand that although Postmodernism is Communism redux, it does benefit a great deal from the notions of the supremacy of individual liberty. It goes hand-in-hand with the deification of the self. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, everyone credits the Gods for the creation and sustenance of what can be construed as reality. Postmodernists, on the other hand, credit subjective human experience as the foundation of reality and whatever an individual says and feels, especially if they belong to the oppressed classes, should be construed as truth.
Therefore, if an individual feels he or she is actually someone from the opposite gender than what society regards him or her to be, then the person’s subjective feelings should be regarded as truth. If a woman feels she has been harassed, then that should be regarded as fact and the accused should be punished regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Needless to say, such notions of what constitutes reality is extremely problematic for a cohesive society. Postmodernism is intrinsically destructive as per their own claims regarding their objective. It is intimately linked to chaos as its perception of the world envisages an endless conflict as there will always be hierarchies in human society and as long as there hierarchies, there will be ‘oppressed’ and ‘privileged’ classes.
Postmodernism and Dalits
In India, Postmodernist arguments are benefiting enemies of Hinduism greatly. In many ways, the diatribe against Brahmins is inspired from evangelical propaganda. By pitting Hindu castes against each, they intend to convert Hindus to other religions. It’s not a conspiracy theory, they openly say it themselves. It’s a common lie which is perceived as objective truth by intellectuals and peddled by Marxist historians that Hindu castes embraced Islam gladly to free themselves from the caste system during the medieval era.
There is not a shred of truth in it but that’s what liberals believe. Even now, Dalits and backward castes are openly encouraged to convert to Islam or Christianity to ‘free themselves’ from the caste system. Enters Postmodernism and provides an ‘intellectual’ defence for evangelical and liberal propaganda with their interpretation of human society.
The Dalit-Muslim unity that is fantasized by liberals is also the consequence of Postmodernist philosophy. Politicians, of course, wish for it obviously due to vote-bank politics but there’s a separate reason why intellectuals endorse it and long for it. In their eyes, Dalits and Muslims are the two most communities oppressed by ‘evil’ Brahmins.
Therefore, they should come together to fight their common enemy and are perplexed by that fact that such a thing has never come to pass. The truth of the matter, however, is that Dalits suffer greatly due to Islamic fanaticism, much more than Brahminism in their day to day life. And Dalits have a lot more in common with other Hindu castes than Muslims because, quite obviously, Hindus. In fact, BJP’s resounding victory in Uttar Pradesh was a consequence of rampant minority appeasement by the previous administration which subsequently led to a significant chunk of Dalits shifting towards the BJP.
The Postmodernist response to such a rebuttal of their proposition is that the only reason Dalits and Muslims are so often involved in the conflict is that of a Brahminical conspiracy.
Hindu Society under siege
Hindu society has long been under siege from various Universalist ideologies. There has been a concerted effort to disassociate Dalits from Hindu Samaj to further cause of evangelical Christians and Islamic radicals. Fueling caste conflict has been a long espoused agenda to destabilize Hindu Samaj. Of course, universalist ideologies cannot be blamed completely for the struggles we endure and all sections of Hindu society are to be blamed for being party to the subversive agenda of anti-Hindu elements.
Therefore, it is crucial to remember that Postmodernists did not come up with the strategy to divide Hindu society on the basis of caste. They are merely providing an intellectual basis for the bigotry of other universalist elements and are transforming such vile bigotry and fanaticism into something honourable and a worthy goal to espouse. Postmodernists may be at war with traditional Christianity in other parts of the world but in India, Christian missionaries are their allies because they share the same objective: the destruction of Hinduism.
Much like their ideological predecessors, Postmodernists hold Brahmins responsible for every injustice under the Sun. I have earlier reported on the Nazi-like propaganda against Brahmins in certain Dravidianist circles. But until now, there was no intellectual defence that was offered for such disgusting bigotry. But thanks to Postmodernists, humanities departments in many universities are now involved in providing an intellectual defence for such terrible fanaticism.
