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View From The Outer Harbour
By: Thalmann Pradeep Pereira
OF BRAHMINS AND BRAHMINISM
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran
made his appearance at a conference against Zionism, the Jewish extremist
ideology, and, completely missing the wood for the trees, he yelled for
the "wiping-out" of Israel from the map of the earth. He would have done a
great service to humanity if he had restricted himself to calling for the
wiping out of the ideology of Zionism, which most definitely requires wiping
out just as Islamic Fundamentalism or any other religious extremism requires
to be wiped out. President Ahmadinejad did a great disservice to the cause of
progress by failing to distinguish between Israel and Zionism, between Jews
and Zionism.
It is much the same fallacious type of thinking which rabble-
rousers use to whip up the base emotion of hatred against an entire community.
These types of thinkers inhabit a black-and-white world, in which, leave aside
colour, even shades of grey do not exist. In India the anti-Sikh Riots in the
wake of Indira Gandhi's Assassination and the anti-Muslim Pogrom in the wake
of the Godhra incident, were the result of such hate-ideologies fuelled by
identical arguments as that of President Ahmadinejad.
In Goa, we have similar arguments regarding "Brahmins". Goa's
oral folk-history has it that the Gaud Saraswat Brahmins migrated to Goa and
supplanted the indigenous Gawda and Kunnbi tribes from their lands. The
Brahmins, by virtue of their access to learning and consequent access to the
durbar of every king of whichever dynasty happened to rule Goa, made sure that
the reins of the administration (and the lands revenues!) remained firmly in
their hands. Even the racial-supremacist Portuguese Regime was served by an
army of Brahmin "empregados". In fact it was a local Brahmin called Thimayya,
(lusitanized to "Timoja"), who, having fallen in disfavour in the court of
Adil Shah, invited and guided Afonso de Albuquerque to come and conquer Goa.
Incidentally, this very important fact about Thimayya was
completely swept under the carpet in Manohar Parrikar's (in)famous VCD on the
Struggle for Goa's Freedom. But more important is the fact that this
suppression of a stark historical truth was aided and abetted by all the
Catholic and non-Catholic "secular" persons who served in the Script Committee
of the VCD. Even most of the subsequent barrage of criticism against the VCD
missed this point.
This brings us back to the bitter critics of Brahmins! It is
fashionable to see a Brahmin (or, "Saraswat") conspiracy at every turn of the
road. But it is important to maintain the analytical distinction between
Brahmins and "Brahminism". The pernicious ideology of Brahminism is nothing
but a caste-supremacist ideology. This ideology requires to be wiped out. But,
unfortunately, most of the historical victims of Brahminism give clarion calls
for wiping out Brahmins, a la Ahmadinejad!
The entire Script-Committee of Parrikar's VCD was most
definitely not composed of Brahmins. But, most definitely, that entire Script-
Committee was composed of persons imbued with the pernicious ideology of
Brahminism. And, equally definitely, all Brahmins in Goa are not imbued with
the ideology of Brahminism. It is extremely important, for a sane debate on
any issue, to bear these facts in mind.
The caste-supremacist ideology of Brahminism retains
its "original" flavour only in a feudal set-up. But it takes a queer shape
when it has to work itself out in a capitalist world. Pure Capitalism
recognizes only the power of wealth. Indeed, the French Revolution of 1789
unceremoniously guillotined the heads of all feudal supremacists! But, in
India, while capitalists may prosper in their factories, the landlords still
dominate the rural countryside. It is this transmutation of Zamindari,
(masquerading as its "abolition"), which provides a fertile soil for casteism
to prosper. And, coupled with the money-politics of Capitalism, what we see is
the enrichment of some sections of the Dalits who then adopt the very same
ideology of Brahminism in their approach to various issues. These enriched
Dalits thereby become part of the ruling elite. The ruling coalition requires
the presence of such elitist Dalits in its ranks for claiming pan-caste
credentials for itself. The rise and prosperity of such elite Dalits is a part
of the political project to maintain supremacist ideologies in Indian society.
Equally, the periodical war-cries against all Brahmins(or,
Saraswats), are also a part of the same political project to deflect attention
from the complex changes brought about in the caste hierarchies by the
development of the capitalist sector of the Indian economy. The plain fact of
the matter is that the polarization of wealth in the Indian economy has given
rise to a handful of super-rich Dalits and many super-poor Brahmins. And while
the super-rich Dalits are embracing the supremacist ideology of Brahminism,
many of the super-poor Brahmins, driven by nostalgia, refuse to give up their
supremacist notions based on their caste identities.
The infantile talk about "Conspiracies by Brahmins" ignores the
fact that the majority of the Brahmins are today incapable of implementing any
conspiracy, while in fact the real "Conspiracy of Brahminism" is being
zealously implemented by non-Brahmins who have climbed up the capitalist
ladder of wealth and are vitally interested in safeguarding their
plutocratic "merit".
Till the next Monday, then, Happy Thinking!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
“Harbour Times” (31-10-2005)
