Thread by @DearthOfSid

"Debrahmanising History" by Braj Ranjan Mani: A thread with key points.

"A benign amnesia shrouds the conservative and anti-dalit-bahujan stands of Indian nationalism, which permits academic and popular projections of the essentially upper-caste leaders such a Gandhi, Nehru and Tilak-Savarkar as non-partisan leaders."

"Nothing can be more hypocritical than the claims of academic neutrality and objectivity that is invoked by 'disinterested' social science. There is a writer behind every writing, and it matters from where one writes, to whom one writes, and with what objective and perspective."

"The 'neutral narratives', their plurality and intellectual splendour notwithstanding, provide the mental furniture, even the life-blood, of reproduction of caste-class inequalities."

"As Aijaz Ahmad articulates it, colonialism is not held responsible for not only its own cruelties but, conveniently enough, for ours too."

"Invented histories, myth-making, and armoury of stereotypes merge seamlessly to create convenient narratives and myths which masquerade as history of India."

"Viewing the world from top, elites construct and interpret events or evidence in ways that trivialise or ignore the resistance. Whey they recognise resistance, they do so reluctantly—even grudgingly—and only when it attacks the formal institutions of power."

"The task of philosophy, as Marx stated, is not merely to understand the world but also to change material conditions and reconstitute society so that the few are not able to exploit the many."

"Elite controlled agencies and apparatuses—religious institutions, political parties, academia, the media, art, and literature—sells the status quo by presenting it as natural and good for everyone (Gramsci)."

now*

"Injustices are continually interrogated, dissented, and contested by the sufferers; thus keeping alive the cycle of subordination-exploitation-protest-continuum that carries the hope of a revolutionary turnaround."

"To produce knowledge was to recapture the pristine knowledge of the past alongside its vision of social hierarchy as a natural phenomenon. Thus, the past was continuously invented and kept alive by the present."

"Yes, caste is not race and class, it's more vicious than them. Lay people understand it perfectly when they say ; What comes by birth and can't be cast off by dying—that is caste."

Add: Malayalis may have heard this as a (casteist) proverb: "ജാത്യാലുള്ളത് തൂത്താല്‍ പോകുമോ!"

"The concentration of purity and privilege at the top and humiliation and disabilities at the bottom—intrinsic to caste system—is not simply a system of interdependence, or a mere division of labour, but implies a structure of organised violence."

"Brahmanism represents a cultural-religious construction of power. It stands for the aggregate of the sacerdotal literature, hierarchical social structure, and religio-political institutions that have kept the masses ignorant, servile and disunited."

"Graded hierarchy embodies a built-in mechanism to guarantee the perpetuation of the social system and prevents the rise of general discontent against inequity."

Add: This is why Dr. Ambedkar said "inequality is not half so dangerous as graded inequality."

"The structure of marriage, sexuality and reproduction is the fundamental basis of caste system. It is also fundamental to the way inequality is sustained." ~ Uma Chakravarti