The liberals had once fantasised about a caste-war to create a rift within the Hindu society. After utterly failing to create a divide within the indigenous faiths of the country, the usual suspects have now fallen back to their old tactics of abusing Brahmins to set a clear narrative that other communities in the country are inherently discriminated.
Continuing the same, Shekhar Gupta, the face of the ‘liberal-secular’ coterie of the country, took to Twitter to recently to share a series of tweets penned by Dilip Mandal, a notorious anti-Brahmin propagandist, who is often given space by ‘upper-caste’ Gupta to spew venom against upper caste communities, especially the Brahmins.
Dilip Mandal had tweeted a series of tweets on Thursday, to fantasise about how his life would have been if he had belonged to a ‘Brahmin’ community. Mandal, referring to his Twitter thread as a case of ‘Brahmin privilege’ wrote a long list of imaginary entitlements that he would be enjoying if he ever was a Brahmin.
Dilip Mandal, who several times in the past has shared anti-Brahmin sentiments, had attempted to imagine the so-called privileges enjoyed by the Brahmins in the society, which according to him, was denied to others.
In his post titled ‘Brahmin Privilege’, Mandal claimed if he was a Brahmin, how he would be revered by people referring to him as ‘Ji’ and a pandit. Further, he claimed there were certain privileges of being a Brahmin like entitlements in availing public accommodation, the food at restaurants, etc.
Most bizarrely, Dilip Mandal lamented over Brahmins getting to upload their profiles on exclusive Brahmin matrimonial sites, while others could not, which according to Mandal was a privilege.
2. If I am a Brahmin, there will not be any difficulty in getting public accommodation. I need not fear that people of my caste cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places they choose.
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) June 4, 2020
3. Almost all public places will be open for me….
In a way, Mandal’s indirect abusive attacks on Brahmins was laced with his extra-ordinary abilities to imagine things about fictional entitlement enjoyed by the community. Here are the tweets in which Mandal puts himself in the position of a Brahmin to make wrong claims that Brahmins of the country are beneficiaries of certain privileges, which is inherently denied to the people belonging to lower-caste communities.
6. I can upload my profile on Brahmin matrimonial sites and not face prejudice.
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) June 4, 2020
7. There is every possibility that the interview board I will be facing in a university department will have representatives of my caste.
9. Whenever I am told about our national culture or about Hindu civilisation, I am sure that I am hearing about something that is our caste heritage.
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) June 4, 2020
10. Whenever I will be travelling to any Hindu religious place, I will find no difficulty in getting accommodation.
13. Despite getting jobs under diversity principle, I will not consider myself less meritorious.
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) June 4, 2020
14. I will oppose affirmative policies of India and consider myself caste-blind or caste-neutral. Opposing reservation will not make me casteist.
Mandal also cried over how Brahmins could go to any music store to ask for traditional Indian music and end up getting something that has been produced by his own caste brethren. Further, he claimed how Brahmins could see defence secrets to Pakistan or China, without anyone pointing fingers at them.
16. My caste gets almost 100 per cent reservation for the position of a priest, but I dislike the constitutional scheme of reservations.
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) June 4, 2020
17. I will be considered eligible to speak on every topic. My ‘C’ grade work will be cited in research papers by virtue of my surname.
19. My love for the nation and patriotism are a given, and even if someone of my caste sells defence secrets to Pakistan or China that will have no bearing on my caste.
— Dilip Mandal (@Profdilipmandal) June 4, 2020
20. My caste is the mainstream.
The rest of anti-Brahmin rant of Dilip Mandal can be read here, where he makes similar insinuations to state that Brahmins have been enjoying unimaginable implicit privileges, granted to them by through the country’s socio-economic, political and legal systems.
At the end of his long rhetoric, Dilip Mandal, like other ‘self-made’ liberals, took inspiration from the west to peddle his narrative with a hashtag “DalitLivesMatter”.
This ill-found idea Brahmin privilege and the misconception that the Brahmins in India enjoy certain benefits, while others do not, is just another attempt to abuse and attack the community. The individuals like Mandal, who seems to have enjoyed a lot of freebies in their lifetime may think Brahmins have a special entitlement in the country. However, if at all he has the intellectual ability to objectively assess the ground-reality, it is in fact exactly contrary to what he claims.
Not just Brahmins, the upper-caste communities in the country have been the greatest victims of the imaginary caste-wars, which has made them the perpetual perpetrators while the other side has always been looked like a victim, also with their crimes being absolved.
For example, as Mandal claims about non-Brahmins not getting to register in Brahmin matrimonial sites, however, it is also equally true that the Brahmins also do not/will not get to register at any other sites which profiles individuals based on its caste. Though there may be certain discrimination faced by other communities as well, however, there is also no dispute in agreeing to the fact that Brahmins too face discrimination.
The reverse discrimination, being faced by most of the upper caste communities, is not even considered to be real. The branding of upper caste individuals as casteist for trying to speak up against the discrimination faced by the communities due to illogical reservation policies will not even fall on the deaf years of propagandists like Mandal, as they do not fit into their political narrative.
Shekhar Gupta pushes Mandal’s anti-Brahmin narrative
Unsurprisingly, liberals like Shekhar Gupta, who gets ecstatic about Brahmin bashing, pushes the anti-Brahmin rhetoric of Dilip Mandal, who commented on the post claiming that the anti-Brahmin tweets put out by Mandal was ‘brilliant’. Shekhar Gupta also went on to draw parallels between the age-old social institution of caste with the ongoing alleged social discrimination in America.
The false equivalence of caste – a time tested social institution of the Hindu society with the racial discrimination within the western societies was not only absurd but also a lack of understanding about the institutions of the caste system itself. Perhaps, Shekhar Gupta thought he could bring a home-grown revolution against Brahmins to create anarchy on the streets of the country by equating caste issues with racial discrimination in the US.
In his attempt to mainstream Dilip Mandal’s conspiracy theory of ‘Brahmin privilege’, Shekhar Gupta too deliberately ignored the discrimination often faced by the upper caste communities in the country.
If ‘Brahmin Bashing’ was ever a sport, perhaps the ‘liberal-secular’ Shekhar Gupta and his ilks in the media would have won a medal. The continuous anti-Brahmin rhetorics pushed by Gupta and his comrades in the media have now crossed all civility and now taking a dangerous turn.
