The good savarna project: A thread

The last few years of political rumination on caste has somehow led us to believe that this is about savarnas becoming better allies, and by extension better people. It’s not.

At the centre of our movements are caste-oppressed communities, whose empowerment and healing must come first. The truly anti-caste savarna is at best an enabler. A vital enabler, no doubt. But at worst, a distraction.

I know this sounds harsh. And I’m sorry, this is not meant to discourage anyone from putting in the work or be invested in your betterment. In fact, do more of it, but can you not expect DBA individuals and collectives to do the labour for you?

Caste isn’t our business. It’s your invention. You constructed this complex BS hierarchy. You have to do the labour, you have to decipher, you have to figure out how to be and how not to be. Why are you holding convos with us to help you become...more human?

Dalits (and other caste-oppressed communities) have been struggling and working hard to progress, breakthrough, resist, love, and live. Despite you. Inspite of you.

But your ancestors, and you today, on account of your social location and the privilege it comes with, have been actively blocking us from living our lives for thousands of years.

While we are on this terribly arduous journey, you can’t stop us to ask for tips on how to become a good ally. “Hey so I have just realised that I belong to a family that may have massacred a Dalit settlement. Can you, as a Dalit, tell me how to stop feeling guilty?”

No can do. The best I can tell you is a. get out of the way, meaning don’t stop us from progressing, b. stop centring yourself, meaning don’t set up platforms where you invite us to deal with your UC guilt,

c. find ways to help materially, meaning that job opening, that writing opportunity, that intervention when someone’s being casteist, d. educate yourself, and e. have difficult, long conversations with your UC families and friends

I find it incredibly annoying that some savarnas, particularly Brahmins, think that getting a hang of woke terminologies will cure them of their casteism. Or rid them of their obscene privilege.

No, it sure as hell doesn’t. If 3000 years of caste oppression has given us inescapable intergenerational trauma and a deep deficit of socio-political capital and power, think what it must have done to you.

Caste is a corrupt, inhuman construct. Your families have been living it, breathing it, and believing it for centuries now. You don’t know how to be equal. Your casteism is so ingrained that a few convos ain’t gonna cut it.

What’s ahead of you is a longass road to humanity. And it takes everything - social media calling out, real life calling out, difficult confrontations, reading, re-reading, learning, self-interrogations and deep introspections to get there.

If you’re invested enough, you won’t shy away from this process. And you won’t subject caste-oppressed communities through ugly social media drama, like someone did a few days ago (check my mentions).

We’re all in this together but not necessarily in the same ways. And part of your anti-caste labour is to figure out those differences. Part of your anti-caste work is to find out where you stop and we begin, where you step aside and we come in.