It is 2021. It has become fairly clear that Brahmin hatred has become a common theme among all sides of the political spectrum. It is a known fact that the Christian missionaries, Islamic Organizations and the Left-Liberal organizations have always seeded and perpetuated Brahmin hatred for a long time, it is a new development that the Indian Political Right(“Hindu” side) is also showing signs of Brahmin hatred.
Today, when a Hindu is killed by an Islamic terror group like the PFI, the Left talks how a Fascist was killed, of how a Saffron terrorist was killed and thus projecting it as if his death made the world a little better. Now imagine what would happen when a Brahmin is killed - especially when the entire Left wants to annihilate him and the Right hates him. I expect a similar or worse response from people across the spectrum because killing a Brahmin for them would mean the world is devoid of one Jaativaad individual, a propagator of Brahminism, an exploiter, an oppressor and so on. So, I do not expect any condolences from anyone.
Despite all of this nonsense, we Brahmins have to survive and survive with pride. Contrary to popular belief, today a good number of Brahmins hardly earn enough money, do not have stable jobs, lose out on education and future of many looks truly gloomy. So, what do we do about it? Do we wait till a political party recognizes the issue? Can today’s political parties even take up Brahmin issues? especially when they are trying to construct votebanks solely out of SC/ST/OBC people?
This post is about Brahmins and what (I think) we need to do for survival. First, I want to discuss the problems Brahmins are going through. Next, I will discuss the kind of state support Brahmins get. Then I want to discuss the responsibilities we Brahmins have towards other Brahmins and towards Hindu Dharma. Finally, I discuss the need for a Brahmin support system which should ideally unite(or atleast loosely connect) all Dharmic Brahmins.
1. Disclaimer
Whenever anyone even talks about supporting or helping Brahmins(yes, helping Brahmins based on caste and not merit or financial status or such things), a lot of questions, apprehensions and opposition would arise from different type of people. In general, they would fall into one of these categories:
Why do the Brahmins need help? Aren’t they very rich, upper class and ruling elite?
Why should they be helped? Then deserve it because they exploited others for thousands of years.
No help should be given. It is our goal to annihilate them and Hinduism/Brahminism.
Hinduism can survive without Brahmins. Brahmins are not needed.
and so on. These statements represent the general sentiment of a group depending on where they fall in the political spectrum.
So this is my current take on all of this: Irrespective of all these questions or whatever the answers might be to these questions, Brahmins should survive and live happy, good lives. I belong to the Brahmin community and I want to see my people living happy, satisfied, successful lives and don’t want my people to struggle. I cannot see my people suffer when they are constantly subjected to different types of social justice and social engineering techniques. People across the spectrum say different things to justify the suffering, but for me, none of it is justified. My people are struggling and they are subjected to suffering, that is all - and we need to do something to get them out of it. That is the basic answer. Further, if groomed properly, there cannot be someone more Dharmic than a Brahmin. It is important for Brahmins(especially the urban ones) to understand that we have a special duty and responsibility towards Hindu Dharma, and I personally want us to keep up that responsibility.
Now to the second issue: What about the Brahmins on the Anti-Hindu side? What about them? There are a good number of deracinated, Anti-Hindu, Anti-Brahmin Brahmins on the other side - who constantly propagate Hindu and Brahmin hatred. Brahmins(people who are born in Brahmin jaatis/homes) who have gone out of the Dharmic fold have caused a lot of problems to our side. I fully acknowledge this issue, but I honestly don’t know what to do about it. I will delve into this later in the post.
Thirdly, one might ask if we should support based on caste - isn’t it better to consider Hindus as a community and then support Hindus based on merit or financial status etc., My answer is a strict NO. Intent here is to strengthen the my community, the Brahmin community.
2. What are the problems Brahmins face today?
Let us start by listing common problems Brahmins face today in India.
2.1 Guilt and Lack of Caste Pride
The notion of Anti-Brahminism and Brahmin hatred did not start today but a couple of hundred years ago by Christian missionaries. The same has been continued today and the entire atrocity literature has been agreed upon by both Left and Right.
When you are constantly told “Your ancestors are oppressors”, “You and your ancestors are outsiders”, “You are a foreigner”, “You genocided humans” and so on, it is natural to feel guilty. Along with that, our great education system has a good dose of Anti-Hindu and Anti-Brahmin hatred.
This Guilt and Lack of Caste pride manifests itself in different ways and in different degrees.
1. Brahmins on the Anti-Hindu/Brahmin side: I personally believe that these people are Anti-Hindu/Anti-Brahmin mainly because of their guilt. They are guilt-ridden to the core and thus by creating and propagating hatred against Hinduism/Brahminism/Brahmins, they cure themselves off their guilt. So many Brahmins are present in designated Anti-Hindu/Brahmin parties like INC, CPI(M). You can find large number of articles as to why CPI(M) is filled with Brahmins. The Left-Liberal media in India is filled with Brahmins - Barkha Dutt, Nidhi Razdan, Rajdeep Sardesai, Ravish Kumar(Bhoomihar Brahmin), Sagarika Ghosh, Swati Chaturvedi and unfortunately lots of Sharmas, Dwivedis, Trivedis, Shastris etc., Swara Bhaskar is also a Brahmin(she belongs to my community :-( ). Lot of Marxist/Anti-Hindu/Anti-Brahmin historians are Brahmins - D. B. Jha, R. S. Sharma, Akshay Ramanlal Desai etc., Even outside India, if you take a look at the people who propagate Anti-Brahmin hatred, they will be from Brahmin families. There are a large number of judges, Chief Justices in India who coming from Brahmin families - but most of them are thoroughly English educated and are simply Anti-Brahmin and even Anti-Hindu. The most painful thing to see is normal people born in Brahmin families becoming Left-Liberals and hating Hinduism and Brahmins - this one I can vouch for it, it is because of high degrees of guilt and self-hatred and nothing else. Tamil Brahmin and Kashmiri Pandit communities have gone through a lot, but you can find lot of people from Tamil Brahmin and Pandit community talking ill/ridiculing their own. This is an extremely serious issue in my opinion because everyone of them is a rabid Hindu and Brahmin hater. As a Brahmin inside the Dharmic fold, I think it is my duty to acknowledge this problem. It should be noted that if a Brahmin leaves the Dharmic fold, there are good chances that he/she will turn into a Brahmin/Hindu Dharma hater sooner or later. While this is true with people of almost every Hindu community today, I will stick to pointing out my community and what we can do about it.
2. Brahmins on the “Hindu” side: From what I understand, there are 2 questions to check if a Brahmin on this side is suffering from guilt:
Is Varna by birth or karma? Note that I am not even asking how our society should be. I am asking how it was in our past.
Was hereditary profession and endogamy(In essence the Jaati vyavastha) present as part of the Hindu society or not?
Most of these guilt-ridden souls give answers on the following lines: “Varna was always by karma”, “Colonizers invented caste and divided Hindus, until then Hindus were a single united mass”, “It was all karma/merit based until some selfish Hindus created the Varna-Jaati system” or gives some exceptions from Puranas or history about how a Brahmin became a Shudra etc., In essence, these Brahmins are in denial mode about their(Hindu and their own) past.
There are many Brahmin politicians today(from BJP, INC and other parties). Brahmins today don’t expect anything from the Left parties(INC, CPI). Obvious expectation is that the ones in the BJP would talk about their Brahmin community, the issues they have openly and help them because - in the way other caste/community leaders do for their people. From what I have observed, either these Brahmin leaders talk some useless nonsense like this which is only detrimental to the community. Once, Tejaswi Surya was asked why the Vedas were not taught to others, why was it “monopolized” by Brahmins. In my opinion, the right answer is that it was Brahmins’ hereditary profession to take care of nurturing and propagating Vedic knowledge, it was their job to take care of temples and dieties and so on - and that other Jaatis/communities had their own hereditary professions - and one couldn’t do other’s job. But he again went back to the apologetic answer that it was not like this before invasions and that the Brahmin communities “closed” themselves when invasions happened for close to 1000 years. He couldn’t tell it outright that yes, it was Brahmins’ profession and they did it. Instead, he put it on invasions which does not make any sense if you think about it. He along with other leaders are somewhere guilty that the Vedic knowledge was not taught to others.
Once you are guilt-tripped, you tend to not talk about the plight and problems of your community. You should have seen Brahmin leaders from the Right talking about Hindu Unity all the time. I think it comes from a place where you believe - Brahmins divided the society based on caste and that a ghor paap/mistake has been committed by his own community and now is the time to correct it by calling for unity. Every party out there has an OBC, SC and ST wings along with Women’s wing as well. They have dedicated people from specific castes/communities who talk about their caste, their people, their problems and how to solve them. BUT there are no UC(Upper-Caste) or Brahmin wing in any of these parties. Brahmin leaders mostly only talk about unity instead of problems in their community. And I believe that Guilt and lack of Caste pride plays a key role in these actions.
Now, let us talk about RW Youtubers and scholars: I should tell you that this space is filled with Brahmins. I will take 2 people: Mr. Sanjay Dixit and Dr. Subhash Kak. Both are Brahmins and have done tons of episodes on on what Caste is, Jaati is, Varna is and so on. But the narrative propagated is that the caste system that we come by today was fully a colonial invention. You may hear Subhash Kak here from 5:07. He talks about what Varnas mean at an individual level: “Depending on what task the individual is doing, in their home outside of what they may be doing as a part of larger society take on all these 4 different roles of Brahmin/Teacher, Kshatriya/Rajanya, Vaishya who works on growth and upkeep of society and Shudra is the one who does service”. He goes on to say an individual can take up any of the 4 varnas depending on the task he is doing - a person is a Brahmin when he is teaching while he is a Kshatriya when he is fighting, Shudra when he is offering some service to his home or someone else or a Vaishya if you do business and growth. I am no Hindu scholar, but I definitely know enough to tell that this is not how it was. An individual couldn’t “become” anything and everything based on what he did. Now take this video from Sanjay Dixit and get idea on how Brahmins in RW think. You may take a look at the comments to see how most of them are UCs/Brahmins and they just agree to whatever is told. The point I am trying to make is the following: Brahmins unfornately were told repeatedly that they are oppressors and that their ancestors divided the Hindu society based on caste/jaati/varna. They cannot accept the fact that society indeed was divided into castes/jaatis. Indeed there were endogamous communities with a certain hereditary profession.
About the normal BJP supporting Brahmins, they pretty much abide by what their leaders and the above “Hindu” youtubers talk. I am of the opinion that let alone pride, they hate themselves to a certain extent for being born a Brahmin and they want all this to be true to cure themselves off the guilt. These Brahmins are ready to take drastic steps to cure their guilt which I will talk about in some time - which is detrimental to them, their kids and the Brahmin community.
2.2 Lack of Brahmin History
When a person is in such a guilt-tripped state, it is natural to ask oneself: Haven’t my ancestors done anything good? Were they all oppressors? Why did they divide the society based on Varna and Jaati? Why didn’t they teach Vedas to everyone? and so on.
From what I have seen, Kshatriyas have their own history of wars and valor. Dalits are writing their own history of fighting against Brahminical oppression(irrespective of its truthfulness). What about Brahmins? Don’t we need answers to the above questions? Haven’t we done anything good in the past?
Let me give you a peek into what is going on with us Brahmins. The following is a tweet from Suraj Yengde, a Dalit scholar and ofcourse a rabit Hindu and Brahmin hater. His vision is to destroy Hindu Dharma and specifically Brahmins. His tweets are a testament to this.
I absolutely agree with him. Then what about next generation of Brahmins? If they are told they are oppressors and foreigners all the time irrespective of its truth, what are they supposed to do? The Brahmin leaders and Brahmin party supporters also feel guilty and thus don’t even talk about the Brahmin community, let alone talking Brahmin history.
So it is clear what is going on here: Brahmins are made to feel guilty about themselves and their ancestors and make them diss their own ancestors all the time and thus become socially orphanaged(exactly what Yengde tells). When the political party is struggling to decisively rewrite history from a Hindu perspective, when we have Brahmins who are “scholars” on this side who are ridden with guilt and no pride about their ancestors, will we ever talk about Brahmin history? The mistake we Brahmins did is to depend on these guilt-ridden people to help us and do work for us.
When you search for “Brahmin history”, you keep getting the usual caste discrimination, Aryans, invaders, Dasyus, foreigners and it is as if Brahmins have done nothing but crime in their past.
I consider this an extremely serious problem and it needs to be solved. When the entire political spectrum, all the communities think of annihilating Brahmins(the degrees are different ofcourse), we cannot survive without a strong Brahmin history. I believe we have the original sources of History present. We need to write Brahmin history using it. The great Maharshis were Brahmins, whatever vedic knowledge is present today and they proudly tell “It belongs to all Hindus” is available only because Brahmins preserved it, it is because of godly people like Shri Adi Shankara, Shri Ramanuja, Shri Madhwa that Hindu Dharma is prevalent here. The Smritis, Sutras were written by Brahmins. Large kingdoms were setup with the help of Brahmins, one such is the Vijayanagara Empire. The Telugu Land has the Niyogi Brahmins(out of many other Brahmin castes with lot of achievements of their own), who left their hereditary profession of priesthood due to circumstances and fought to protect the land and people - they have been rulers, war commanders and zamindars throughout. Mutts which were established over 1000 years ago still continue to exist and run with an unbroken set of traditions, they still are the authorities of true Hindu Dharma - these are not just symbols, but the live functioning of this unbroken Hindu civilization. Aren’t these achievements? When it comes to giving blood for the sake of Dharma, one should know how many Muslims rulers handpicked Brahmins and killed them - learn about what Sikandar Butshikan - the heaps of Yajnopavit that he created after killing thousands of Brahmins, and how many priests gave their lives to save the moortis/dieties at temples. Learn about how Tipu massacred Iyengar Brahmins in Melukote and for this very reason, this Brahmin community doesn’t celebrate Deepawali because of this. Aren’t these sacrifices? Shouldn’t a Brahmin kid today know his ancestors’ achievements? Know the sacrifices they made for us and Hindu Dharma to be alive today?
The point I am trying to make is the following: We absolutely need Brahmin history to teach it to our next generations. Imagine the consequences when every community has history of their own - which helps preserving their identity but Brahmins don’t have the same. We will lose our identity and in due time, every single Brahmin icon/identity will be appropriated by others in due time(has already started - Rajput kings appropriated by our own “Hindu” side). It is no one’s responsibility to write our history, it is ours.
2.3 The Temples and Archakas
Brahmins have been Archakas at temples for a long period of time. Generally, a family(or a couple of families) give everything for the temple. Being an Archaka at temples was(and fortunately still is) a heriditary profession. These Archaka lineages are not new - some are extremely old and it is going forward unbroken for many generations in many temples. My kula devata temple which is in a village near Magadi Road, Bengaluru has 3 families looking after the temple. This temple is said to have been build over 600 years ago and these families have been talking care of this temple for atleast 7-8 generations now. Similarly, there are so many temples across India who have certain type of such unbroken tradition.
There are 2 issues I want to pin point here:
1. Salaries of Archakas at temples: I had been to Mulbagal, a Taluk in Kolar District of Karnataka. Its territory was ruled by different kingdoms in the past - Cholas, Nolambas, Vijayanagara empire. As a result, it has a large number of temples, an extremely rich history. Avani is a village there and it has a temple complex of 6 large temples. Entire temple complex has 1 Brahmin priest who gets Rs. 6000 per month. He has to do pooje/Abhisheka/Alankara of all the 6 dieties and Archana, Prasada for devotees/visitors. Another fantastic Ganapathi temple is the Kurudumale Ganapati temple which has a Tamil Brahmin Iyer family as Archakas. Here, the family has been doing pooje for over 10 generations. They get Rs. 4500 per month as salary. Now I think these salaries are very less and not sufficient to take care of families in today’s world. While these are 2 anecdotal examples, let me share you a couple of articles which talk about how the salaries for Archakas at temples is systematically made less in many places: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Just search for it and you will get. These are age old temples(big and small) which are living nuggets of this unbroken civilization and the priest and his family dedicate themselves to these temples because of their devotion towards the god, a sense of duty and respect to their ancestors and Hindu Dharma. But these salaries are literally nothing and I am of the opinion that they are being starved purposefully - to kill our civilization. It is only their devotion, duty towards ancestors and Dharma that is protecting us and this civilization. So, what about these Brahmin lives? Should we leave them to starve with 2 kids and Rs. 3000 per month?
2. Removing Brahmin Archakas from temples: While starving them is one technique to kill Brahmins and this civilization, directly removing Brahmin Archakas from temples is a more direct and straightforward method to do it. To correct the “sins” done by these Brahmins, many non-Brahmin priests are being appointed in a number of temples. While SJWs are rejoicing, I see this as an unbroken tradition being broken and thus a small part of this civilization dies. It has started in Kerala and a couple of temples in Tamil Nadu. The VHP(Vishwa Hindu Parishad) has trained 5000 non-Brahmins and are planning to install them as priests in Government run temples(link). The Brahmins are now forced to leave their heriditary professions.
Notice what is going on. The system is forcing these Brahmin families to leave their heriditary Archaka profession and those Archaka jobs are being filled by non-Brahmins. Can Hindu Dharma exist or survive without Brahmins? Good part of the Political Spectrum answers with a firm “Yes”. Because in a time when anyone can become an Archaka and that breaking an unbroken tradition doesn’t mean anything, I believe it is possible. Ofcourse, it will not be the Hindu Dharma which was preached and preserved by my ancestors, it will be a different one but I think we are not in a place and time to discuss such important differences.
Question: what do these Brahmin families do if they are chucked out of their ancestoral professions one fine day? Because once the narrative of “Hinduism can exist without Brahmins” firms up(It is already firming up slowly) and is expressed in action, what institution do we as Brahmins have to provide them with safety and security? These are not just Archakas, they are scholars and have immense knowledge which we have to preserve and continue to propagate. They are people of our community who have worked hard for this civilization. They cannot be left alone. Note that they have given everything to keep up the traditions and we as Brahmins have a duty towards them. Unfortunately, because of our education, many Brahmins today don’t have that or even a little respect to what these Archakas and their families are doing. Let me reiterate that others might have hundreds of opinions about all these issues: That Brahmins deserve it, that all this is justified, that it is the Archaka’s karma or that he has a choice to come out of the Temple and so on. I have heard all such arguments. But idea is to note care about such things and think what we can do to our Brahmins.
2.4 Purohitas and Veda Pathashalas
2.4.1 Plight of Purohitas
Today, a number of Brahmins are Purohitas and they are called to conduct any pooje, homa, havana, vratha, habba(festival) and so on in our homes. There are 2 issues I want to point out here:
1. Replacement of Brahmin purohitas with others: Whatever we discussed in the previous section, the same can happen with Brahmin Purohitas as well. There are many organizations like the Arya Samaj which teach non-Brahmins Vedas and their interpretations, give them yajnopavit and so on. It should not come as a surprise if they train a number of non-Brahmin priests ready to do Pourohitya. Today, women are being trained as Purohitas too. They are given Yajnopavit as well. This on one side and on other side with Hindus going firmly towards “anyone can become a Brahmin or a priest” or “Hinduism can exist without Brahmins”, I think many of them in the coming generations will favor these new priests for instead of Brahmin purohitas. When this happens, their remuneration/salary decreases. If it goes below certain amount, they will be forced to leave the Purohita profession for the sake of livelihood.
2.4.2 Veda Pathashalas
Today, there are many Veda Pathashalas which are funded by large temples like TTD or traditional mutts across India. But we often see online and elsewhere that Pathashalas suffer from shortage of funds. Ofcourse they have a crowdfund link and many of us do contribute what we can. There are many Veda Pathashalas which intend to revive extinct or endangered Vedic traditions and rituals, like these(1, 2). It seems like these institutions literally run on crowd funds and they keep falling short of funds now and then.
2.5 Denial of opportunities
A common scenario which occurs: Brahmin kid gets 90% in an exam and doesn’t get a seat while a non-Brahmin gets the seat by getting 50%.
Different types of arguments happen when such a case makes noise on our circles(offline and online) and then we leave it.
I think this is a systematic way to keep good Brahmin (and UC) students away from good schools and colleges. Fine, do the kids from reserved categories do well? A large number of them dropout atleast from IITs, NITs and such premier institutions. You may google it and get a number of statistics and articles. Ofcourse, it is again blamed on Brahmins, UCs, discrimination and so on. I am from one of these colleges and know the kind of treatment SC/ST students get. First of all, they get a complete rebate on fees. Secondly, they get scholarships and money to buy things like mobile phone, laptops, calculator and so on. Every central institution has a special SC/ST cell to address grievances of such students. They get special coaching, special english training.
One anecdote I would to tell here. I had a friend who was in the same year as mine but was from a different branch. It was placement season and we were all preparing for interviews, writing tests everyday and so on. This guy was chilling. I asked him what his plan was. He told he’ll anyway get a government job because of his caste and he’ll chill. Such people exist.
But truth is, there is no point in crying over reservations, denial of opportunities because as far as the State and political spectrum is concerned, all this is good and should happen because it is justice. Will they ever tell when Justice is finally there? Not really. Because today we are asked to get 95% to get the seat. Tomorrow, we will have to get 98%. Later 99%. By Shri Rama’s grace we have been able to do well, but expecting every Brahmin to do exceptionally well(95-100) is insane. Ofcourse, today’s urban parents are all about hard work and motivation. Thinking 90% is bad just because you didn’t get that seat is insane. Some active steps are needed to give some cushion to these kids. We are literally putting them through tremendous pressure even after which they may not get the seat.
2.6 Intercaste Marriages and Hindu Unity
2.6.1 Intercaste Marriages
I oppose it. I am talking about Brahmins as a community, an an endogamous community. There is no point in talking about it if we are talking about Intercaste marriages.
Hindu Dharma mandates marrying inside the Varna and thus will be following it. It is a rule for people to marry within their Jaatis, hence will be abiding by it.
Now, to the more “rational” description.
Brahmins and UCs in general are guilt-tripped to a point where they are ready to give their sons and daughters for the sake of Social Justice or Hindu Unity. I don’t think many of them think about the issues and repurcussions this might have on their kids.
The Dalit atrocity literature of yesterday has been compounded with new literature comparing SC/ST people with the genocided African Americans and the atrocities they went through. My fellow SC/ST folks consume it without filter. Can I get married to a woman from a community which has been brought up hating us(Brahmins)? Will she respect my parents and family? Will she adjust to my family? I fear of her breaking my family. Will she take part in all the vrathas, festivals, homas, traditions with all her heart? Yes, these are Brahminical traditions which we follow and she might not like it - infact she will most likely hate all of it. If I demand her to take part in the vratha, what if she puts SC/ST Atrocities Act on me? This is a huge risk I won’t take.
Now, I can’t talk from a girl’s perspective because I am a man, but would like to talk from a man’s perspective who wants to get his daughter/sister married. Will a Dalit man take care of my daughter? What about all the inherent hatred they have for us? Will it all go away the moment he marries her? What if he and his family expresses the hate on my daughter? Ofcourse it won’t matter to others(because that is justice and Hindu Unity) but it will matter to me. What if he/his family threatens her with SC/ST Atrocity act? What if she is made to comply with things which she is not supposed to comply with using that damned Act? A chance I will not be taking at any cost.
The Left on one side decisively thinks that Brahmin women should be given Dalit men as a form of social justice and retribution. The Right wants it in the name of “Hindu Unity”. The Left and the Right wants to “Annihilation of Caste” but ofcourse only that one caste, not all. Remember what Yengde about his future generations having good history and proud ancestors - which means their caste/community is going no where. It is always about Brahmins and UCs. I am startled by how the “Hindu” side directly asks for our women. They say it is for the sake of Hindu Unity and if Intercaste marriages occur, Hindu Unity will get constructed magically.
I have no questions for the Left because their agenda is clear and I appreciate that clarity. The problem is with the Right and its “Hindu Unity”. Why isn’t marriages among Dalit castes encouraged? Among OBC Castes encouraged? Among OBC and Dalits encounraged? Don’t they need unity? Aren’t they Hindus? Isn’t that “Hindu Unity”? What is it with Brahmins or UC men/women with Dalit men/women? How does this all of a sudden bring about Unity?
Also, if a Dalit man marries a Brahmin woman, will his son/daughter give up on caste? Caste certificate? Hardly think so and it will be stupid for if they did that. In today’s setup, it is better for him to remain a Dalit and get all the government benefits. So, where is the “Hindu Unity”?
The government also acts as a broker(pimp) for doing this. State governments offer good monetary benefits if one does an Intercaste marriage.
Also, marrying inside communities is not unlawful, so why is everyone crying about this? This here is the key. If Bluecoat radicals takeover India(They are there on both sides), I am confident that they will ban intra-caste/community marriages forcing Intercaste marriages. I have seen radicals on the “Hindu” side who talk about pumping ICM percentages to over 50%. This cannot be done without a legislation. Think if even at that point “Hindu Unity” is achieved or not.
Academics, Politicians, Activists, party supporters do not have to think about all this when they talk terms like “Retribution” or “Intercaste Marriage” or “Hindu Unity”. We will have to face the problems, repurcussions which might occur and I obviously choose my family, their well-being, traditions over Hindu Unity.
2.6.2 Hindu Unity
The “Hindu” side is all about Unity today. The RW is building a beautiful narrative of pan-India Hindu identity and formation of a casteless society. And it is pushed again and again that Intercaste marriages is a key method to achieve Hindu Unity and casteless society. RW’s narrative is this, but does RSS-BJP’s actions, policies, laws actually implement this narrative? Does it support castelessness? Are its policies independent of caste?
As you expect, the answer is a big NO. Almost every single policy of theirs is based on Caste(ofcourse only SC/ST/OBC no other castes). Not just policies, they are known for doing massive caste-based appeasement in order to garner votes - 1, 2. I am of the opinion that it is their party, their policies, their strategy. They can do whatever they want. But all this is definitely not casteless. They are doing a lot of things based on caste, but the narrative being built is that the RSS-BJP is doing everything to create a casteless society. Now, when lot of your policies are based on Caste, it makes people think their Caste is important(and it is). This is definitely not the way to build this casteless society.
What is going on is the following: SC/ST/OBC have their caste identity fully intact because the large number of benefits you get depend on it. Therefore, no one belonging to these categories are never going to let go of their caste identity. But what about the unreserved category? We don’t use our caste identity anywhere - no where to get state benefits as large as the others get. Slowly, our caste identity is being diluted and obviously this is not a good thing.
The Political Right at max can talk about Political Hindu Unity. Take a look at how different communities voted for BJP: UCs(Brahmins, Rajputs etc.,), OBC, SC and ST. You will see UCs vote for the BJP en masse(Above 75-80%). What about OBC, SC and ST people? They have other caste-based parties(SP, BSP, JDS etc.,) as options as well and thus don’t vote like UCs. So, when UCs are voting in blocks for the BJP, whom should the Right Wing beg/plead for Political Hindu Unity? The OBC, SC and ST castes who do not vote for them, not the UCs. While the BJP is doing exactly just that - beg for votes by giving excessive amounts of caste-based benefits, RW is busy acting as if it is the Brahmins and UCs who threaten this “Unity”.
Because of this, I personally think this “Hindu Unity” project by RW is a sham and should not be directed towards Brahmins or UCs but others.
The above section was about problems I see in the Brahmin community. There are in general a number of problems Hindu Dharma faces which we will go through in the next section.
2.7 Brahmin Hatred
1. Poor Intellectual Response to attacks from Global and Indian Left: Today, there have been extremly vicious attacks on Hindu Dharma and Brahmins by the Left. Dismantling Global Hindutva is one such example. You may go through its twitter handle to get a glimpse of what they are thinking and what they want to do. They really want to annihilate Brahmins and Hindu Dharma.
"Hindutva violence is sanctioned by appeals to religion, God, and ancient texts."
Attack on our religion, gods and ancient texts - which form the foundation of Hindu Dharma.
"Nobody on this panel has denied that Hinduism is deeply imbricated in Hindutva."
Ofcourse.
“There is no Hindutva without Hinduism”
And to get rid of Hindutva(which is West’s enemy), what should you do? You need to get rid of Hindu Dharma.
"As scholars of Hindu tradition we are seeing how Hinduism and Hindutva are deeply intertwined."
They are “scholars of Hindu tradition” who see Hinduism and Hindutva intertwined.
"There are many people who believe that you are claiming to fight Hindutva, but actually you are just trying to save Savarna Hinduism. We have to take this question seriously."
Targetting Savarnas(Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas) again.
"What has emerged in India is a proliferation of Vedic nationalism masquerading as science"
I don’t even know what that means because the RSS-BJP doesn’t even care about Vedas and Shastras. But the Left calls it “Vedic Nationalism” - well that would be true Hindu Dharma I believe.
“At the heart of Hindu nationalism is not only a mythological but also an imagined Brahminical mytho-scientific corpus.”
“Brahminical mytho-scientific corpus”.
“Ayurveda seen as a ‘gentle’ science that masks cow vigilantism.”
Attack on Ayurveda.
"There is resistance, especially among the young. Jai Johar, Jai Bhim."
They see Bhim and Ambedkar as some kind of resistance movement, and here we have RSS-BJP idolizing him.
Untouchability may not be allowed now, but endogamy is, and maintains caste.
Look at how they target endogamy here.
"By embedding themselves in charitable work, Savarna women embed themselves in saviorist networks" that are casteist, patriarchal, and legitimized.
Its always the Savarna people - Savarna women do charitable work because they want to promote casteist and patriarchal.
"Unless we dismantle the caste structure, it is impossible to ensure social justice."
Read it as “Unless we dismantle Savarna castes”.
P Sivakami is arguing that there is a fundamental overlap b/w Hindutva and Hinduism. Hinduism, due to untouchability & endogamy, is barbaric — this is what Ambedkar said. Hindutva is a by product of Hinduism.
And thus, what should be dismantled in order to dismantle Hindutva? Hindu Dharma.
“I take Hindutva as political Hinduism, not a distortion of an older tradition but a continuation of it.”
It is in no way a political form of Hindu Dharma because they don’t care about traditions or anything. When I got to know that the Kashi Mahant conducted Pooja despite being in Sutaka period, I realized they don’t care about any of that. So, this tweet in essence targets Hindu Dharma, not Hindutva.
"If this is the nation of Hindutva, then there is no place in it for Dalits."
This is an outright lie. Every policy is made for SC/STs today. Politicians go to their homes and appease the shit out of them for votes. It targets Hindu Dharma again in the guise of targetting Hindutva movement.
"To date Hindutva forces have not launched any campaign to end the caste system"
Really? All the calls to Annihilation of caste? Casteless societies? Intercaste marriages? Increasing denial of opportunities for Savarna folks. It is definitely heading towards Annihilation of Savarna castes (which is exactly what everyone wants).
“The RSS wants to restore Brahminical supremacy.”
Sure.
“Its real goal was to keep untouchables and women from gaining freedom.”
“In the name of protecting religion, it was designed to protect caste”
The idea is that Dalits and Women will never achieve true freedom if they are inside the saffron fold. They go out of it and they would have attained freedom.
Now let us look at how Brahmins are targeted.
“The university was dominated by Brahmins.”
"Brahminical literature talked about a world that may never had existed."
“Brahminism played a very crucial role in the constitution of Nazism itself”
Look at the following:
“Caste-embedded Hindu identity is the brick wall.”
I am not sure in what context this was told, but the “Hindu” side also feels the same. Hindu side somehow wants to erase caste identities and just have “Hindu” identity.
"Brahmin Power breeds Kashatriya power, Vaishya Power and so on. "
So, what should you do to break all the power? Break Brahmins.
“If you subscribe to Hindu identity then you subscribe to caste identity.”
“Brahmanism is fundamentally exclusionary.”
So, what should you do to your Hindu identity and Brahmanism?
Remember what I was talking about Intercaste marriages and Brahmin women?
“Savarna women will have to become caste traitors.”
That is what this is about. It is about complete annihilation of Brahmins as a community.
“Hindutva is a Brahminical project of supremacy.”
One thing it is not is “Brahminical project of supremacy”.
So that is about DGH. It is clear that the Global Left wants to annihilate Brahmins and Hindu Dharma. Note that all forces in the Indian Left will talk DGH’s language. When such a vicious attack is made on us, what should be our reaction? RSS and BJP have lot of Brahmin leaders, Karyakartas. Aren’t they concerned that their community is getting targeted? I expected a proper response - with facts and data - telling how Dalits have been benefited in several ways by Hindutva/BJP government, how even Muslims have been benefited and so on. Along with defending Hindu Dharma - because that is the one under target. But what I saw was a few hashtags and this tweet by Ram Madhav.
Dismantling Global Hindutva was publicised to be a thunder, but ended up in a whimper, thanks to d efforts of @HinduAmerican n other Hindu groups. None cared. No news. Heard that there were more speakers than viewers
Such ignorance shown in this tweet. I am not sure he understands the impact such International conferences has on the minds of people. If you demonize Brahmins and Hindu Dharma enough, their genocide is the easiest because killing them would be projected as the world becoming a little better. Here, they are preparing grounds for annihilation and they are speaking about it loudly but I don’t remember a single Brahmin politician on the “Hindu” side talking about this. They didn’t even tweet about it. Let me tell you that this is what happens when you are ridden with guilt - it will stop you from talking, taking active actions to protect your community because in some part of your heart - you might feel that your community “deserves” it.
I found no other responses from RSS/BJP. But our RW youtubers and scholars also had conferences and sessions dismantling “Hinduphobia” - here is one video. There are many such videos. Much thanks to their efforts.
DGH is an example of what the Global Left thinks about Hindu Dharma and Brahmins and how the Indian Left simply pushes what the Global Left tells. The Political Right does not give a shit about any of this.
2. Targetting traditional Mutts and acharyas: This is a new trend that has started inside the Political Right and in other places as well. The Shankaracharyas are attacked and targeted repeatedly for being “regressive” or “casteist” and so on. If you look everything through modern lens, then it will be hard to digest what Hindu Dharma is. They have a place in the Hindu civilization. They are part of this unbroken civilization. Some Mutts are older than a millenium. Their pravachanas, the books they write, the literature the Mutts produce are a product of traditional Hindu Dharma. The Acharyas of these Mutts speak/write about issues which are extremely relevant to Hindus, Hindu Dharma. Some examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. If not the books and the website, I request go through the first 4 links - they are videos which give a fresh perspective into what kind of splendid works out traditional acharyas have done/are doing.
I have to clarify that I am not a practicing Hindu traditionalist. I do my daily duties, but nothing more than that. But I think we should not disrespect the Mutts and Acharyas. In my opinion, the Right is playing into the hands of the Global Left which wants to destroy Hindu Dharma, these Institutions which represent our civilization.
3. Continuous hate against Brahmins: As it is clearly visible, hate against Brahmins is very common, but in the last 10-15 years, this has accelerated.
The Ambedkarites are clearly Anti-Hindus and their sole goal is to annihilate Brahmins and Hindu Dharma. People like Chetan Ahimsa, Dilip Mandal, Chandrashekar Azad Ravan spew hate against Brahmins and Brahminism day in day out. Request you to go through theit timeline to know how they talk. In short, they want to do the following:
Annihilate Brahmins
Annihilate Brahminism
Which will apparently remove the caste system from our society. The reality is it will remove the Brahmin caste from the society, not all. Remember what Suraj Yengde said and what their agenda is.
In general, Dalit parties keep spewing hate about Brahmins. There have been instances where Brahmins have been physically attacked, their Yajnopavit has been cut and so on. A few examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.,
Activists, general public hating Brahmins and this evil lust against our women: 1, 2.
4. Here is a list of articles on Brahmin Hatred by different eitities: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and much more. If you want to know more, go to SwarajyaMag or OpIndia’s website and search for the keyword “Brahmin” and all you will find are reports of Brahmin hatred by different people. You should really go and search for it - you should know the scale of hatred against us.
As described in a previous subsection, there are many Brahmins who have gone out of the Hindu fold and are Left-Liberals and are rabid haters of Hindu Dharma and Brahmins. One such guy is Saket Gokhale. He calls himself an RTI Activist and keeps doing some useless shit. It came to light recently that he has misused lot of money he gathered through crowdfunding - 1, 2. I think it was proven beyond doubt that he had scammed which is why people on his own side started bombarding him on twitter. The Hindu side was doing the usual trolling without caring about his caste. But the Left’s mouthpieces started spewing hate towards Brahmins and Brahmin community because he from a Brahmin family. It is important to understand that in the end, it will come to your caste identity and your community will be targeted even though you have officially left it and even actively working against it.
2.8 Brahmins Safety
2.8.1 Dalit on Brahmin atrocities
Imagine what would happen with a Dalit girl is raped or a Dalit boy is murdered. Irrespective of whether caste was the reason or not, the victim’s caste is told a 100 times, tons of reports are written, outrage happens and so on. Everyone across the political spectrum will be on their toes to get them justice. That too if it is found out that the rapist is from non-SC/ST community (OBC/UC), then Brahmins, UCs, Hindu Dharma, “Brahminism” everything is abused to no end. The International media covers it the way it covers it - you all should know it by now. Every major media house, newspaper will report about this without fail. You should know that the Left keeps quiet on Muslim-on-Dalit atrocity because it hurts their Dalit-Muslim Unity narrative. Such cases are covered by journalists on our side like Swati Goel Sharma. She covers all the Dalit atrocities properly. In essence, all Dalit atrocities are covered.
Now, suppose the same happened with a 11-year old minor Brahmin girl - she is raped in a brutal manner, killed and thrown near a river. The body lies there naked for 4 days. Then it is found. And the perpetrator is a Dalit. What kind of reaction would you expect from everyone?
Yes. No reaction from anyone whatsoever. No media houses reported it. No noise from human-rights activists, childs-rights activists, female activists, feminists. The Left obviously was silent because the “Brahmins are privileged and are elite” narrative would get hurt if they reported it. Worse, Swarajya and OpIndia also didn’t report it (not sure why). In my opinion, it is because the Political Right’s “Hindu Unity” narrative will get hurt - because what is going on is inclusion of all Dalits into the Saffron fold. If such Dalit-on-Brahmin cases are reported, “Hindu Unity” would be shattered.
Hence, the crime went unreported by either sides’ mainstream media. Take a moment and think how sick these minds are to not report such cases because they would break a carefully constructed narrative. You may read about the case here - 1, 2, 3.
On one side, I blame the political agendas. On other side, there is always that guilt factor I spoke about in earlier sections.
Although this is one case, this is how media’s attitude has been towards Brahmins - the Hindu side better ofcourse. Let us see what this case was because this will help us get a practical view of what is going on with Brahmin lives and their safety. This village in Bihar is a Dalit majority village with only 2 Brahmin families staying there. Why are they there? They are Archakas at the temples present in Village. This family which lost the girl, also had lost another person about 22 years ago in a similar manner - a bunch of Dalits killed the Brahmin man in sleep and threw him into the well. And this family was apparently warned multiple times to leave the village.
I don’t know what punishment was given to these Dalit rapists. But irrespective of that, our girl child is never coming back. As part of the Brahmin community, what could we do to them? Absolutely nothing. Poor Brahmins, Archakas like these who give their lives for the sake of Hindu Dharma are fighting bloody lonely battles such as these.
Another case was where a Dalit Police Inspector blackmailed a Brahmin girl to be his girlfriend or get slapped with the SC-ST Atrocities Act. Again, I don’t think the Left reported it. The Right (Swarajya, OpIndia) didn’t report it. A few non-mainstream platforms reported it - 1, 2, 3, 4. Fortunately, a local Brahmin organization took up the issue and resolved.
Here is one more case where an 18-year Brahmin boy suicided because he was threatened with SC-ST Atrocities Act. Similarly, many Brahmin and UC men’s life has been ruined by Dalits using this Act and in other such ways.
2.8.2 Muslim on Brahmin Atrocities
You might think Muslims attack Hindus considering Hindus as a monolithic block of people. But that is false. There have been many cases where Muslims have targeted based on Caste and Brahmins-UCs and their women have been at the top of their list.
1. A couple of months back, a large scale illegal conversion racket was discovered by UP Police. The main culprit was Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui. He has been caught on tape admitting to target Brahmin girls, Kshatriya girls and other Upper-Caste girls.
2. In Karnataka, Brahmin girls are targeted at large scale by Muslims and trapping them through Love Jihad - article.
This section will never be complete without talking about the Kashmiri Pandit community. Again I ask the same question: If 5 Lakh Dalits are driven away from a place by whatever reason(here it is Islamic terrorism), what would everyone’s reaction be? The media? The state? I would expect atleast our side to go insane over the issue and to not leave it till the government does something about it. But reality is it was 5 Lakh Brahmins who got chucked out. What is the reaction? The Hindu side definitely outrages over it - no doubt about it. But the courts, the “Hindu” government don’t recognize this genocide yet. Also, as I have mentioned before, the Hindu side is showing signs of Brahmin Hatred. Consider this tweet by an IT Cell worker:
I am feeling detached from the people who identify themselves as Kashmiri Pandits and not as Kashmiri Hindus.
Many such IT Cell members have expressed such things. Persecuted Brahmins who have lost their motherland and identity are not even freely allowed by their own “Hindu” side to keep their surnames. Now, what is this guy’s caste? He is also a Brahmin (Pandey), but he makes such statements against other fellow Brahmins on his own side.
Why are Brahmins expected to do this sacrifice? Why should they? Its their identity, they can sport it. But the Hindu side wants its erasure in order to glorify the pan-India “Hindu” identity - but note that such demands are only kept for Brahmins and UCs. If they try to do the same for Dalits, Hindu Unity will truly get affected or you will probably go to jail under the SC-ST Atrocities Act.
3. State support for Brahmins
There are a few state governments today which provide some sort of support for Economically Weaker Brahmins - Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Each have a budget of couple of 10s of crores and are used to help Brahmins who come under EWS category. Scholarships for normal studies and vedic studies, free training for UPSC examinations etc., are provided. Recently, UP government also announced that they will establish a “Purohit Welfare Board” if they are elected back again.
4. Private Brahmin Organizations
There are a lot of Brahmin organizations across the country. It is impractical to go over each one of them. I will be going through Akhila Karnataka Brahmana Mahasabha’s(AKBMS) website. In short,
They have a number of smaller Brahmin organizationsa affiliated to it - each org in a different place in Karnataka. Over 500 such orgs are present - list.
Looks like they have an offline list of Brahmin cooks, purohits and Veda scholars including a couple of places where Veda classes are conducted.
They also have a couple of welfare schemes for cooks, purohitas, scholarships for kids.
Along with all that, they are quite active on social media and on ground. They keep meeting different Brahmin sabhas held at different places - news. I have seen that they also monitor hatred against Brahmins and they lodge complaints against people. A couple of months back, a complaint was lodged against Chetan Ahimsa. He was arrested a couple of days because of Contempt of Court.
But the highlight for me is their monthly, Vipranudi. It contains that particular month’s highlights with respect to Brahmin Community. This is February month’s copy. It has an interesting article on Brahmin Hatred and how it is increasing without any control.
Every state has this type of setup where there are a few State-level orgs and a number of smaller orgs under it. At the National level, there are a number organizations. I am not sure if there is one org which unites all the state-level orgs.
Apart from this, I don’t know much about these organizations. I plan to go to AKBMS’ office and get a thorough understanding of what they do.
5. The need for a Brahmin support system
I have tried to cover all the issues the Brahmin community faces. Certain things might sound like a hyperbole, but that is how I think at the moment.
There are hundreds of Brahmin organizations already doing lot of work. But here are a few things which I think we should be doing:
1. Writing Brahmin History and inculcating Caste Pride, curing our people off of their guilt is priority - based on subsection 2.2. Without this, I think there is no way we can keep the next generation of Brahmins from guilt-tripping. Depending on the degree to which they are guilt-tripped, they will either join the Left in destroying Hindu Dharma and Brahmins or will join the Hindu side who are not sensitive enough to atrocities towards Brahmins. Remember how Yengde rightly pointed out that a generation without proud history and ancestors ends up social orphanage - our kids are made to feel bad about their ancestors purposefully and we should change this.
2. As discussed, our Intellectual responses to attacks by the Left has been shoddy and extremely poor. We need a defense wing who can give fitting responses to our opponents. Have to mention that we had TrueIndology/BharadwajSpeaks with us but he was driven away from twitter. Anyway, I think we need a more organized way to deal with conferences like DGH and many such attacks.
3. If we have enough money, we should have an offense wing as well. There are so many amazing twitter handles, instagram handles which do immense research in exposing deep links of organizations like CAIR (Council on on American-Islamic Relations), IAMC (Indian American Muslim Council) with terrorist organizations and the Muslim brotherhood or relation of Audrey Truschke and many others with the Church and such Anti-Hindu, Anti-Brahmin organizations. We see lot of twitter threads here and there but I am not sure if they are in one place in an organized manner. We need to organize ourselves in a better manner.
4. Bring in a sense of community among Brahmins. Brahmins are just 2-5% of State’s population in most states. They are in slightly larger percentages in UP, UK and HP. Screw Muslims or Christians, WE literally are minorities in almost ALL the states. Sense of community and unity is most important.
5. Improve awareness about Dalit-on-Brahmins and Muslim-on-Brahmins atrocities. I am reiterating it, Annihilation of the Brahmin community is the goal. Knowing that, we should be extremely careful. We should be ruthless in making people aware of these atrocities and agendas - safety of our kids and people is the highest priority.
6. Organize funds for Veda Pathashalas and Archakas. Many of them are reviving almost extinct rituals and traditions, starting daily pooja at old, closed temples and much more. Every now and then, some school or the other asks for funds on SM and members who see that twitter/SM post will contribute something. I think we need a more organized way of providing funds.
7. Improve physical security for Brahmins living in such Dalit majority villages and isolated places. I cannot imagine what it is live in a Dalit majority village like that and live peaceful lives. Until they stay in such places, we need to ensure NOTHING happens to them. The people(girls, women, men) have to be clearly educated about such atrocities. They should always have safety gadgets like high-voltage tazer, strong pepper-spray etc., AND this should be done at scale. We also have to think of better ways of connecting with Brahmins living in such isolated places.
8. Many temples are fighting against the State for freeing them and other issues. There are other issues related to Hindu Dharma that needs legal attention. So many poor Brahmins have been subjected to false SC-ST Atrocities Act or such cases. As a support system, we should stand behind them and provide all the support and aid we can.
9. Finally build a strong network(a social one, an economic one, a monetary one) among Brahmins which will not leave a single Brahmin behind in terms of money, aid and support. It is our duty as Brahmins to take care of everyone in our community. We need to see how to build this network. To elaborate on the idea of building the network, I am thinking of the following:
Make a list of all the services different Brahmins can offer in one place: A certain Brahmin makes amazing snacks like Chakkuli, KoDbeLe, Murku etc., A Brahmin might be an amazing cook. One other might be into catering who prepares healthy, clean vegetarian home food. Another Brahmin makes all the arrangements necessary for a marriage. Another works at a bank on commission basis and helps people get loans. There are Brahmins who work as Purohitas. Other has a department store. Someone might be running a “Grandhige Angadi” - a place where you can buy things like Vibhooti, Kumkuma, Garlands, Banana leaves, Panchanga, Deepa, Karpoora(Camphor) etc., I personally know Brahmins who go home to home, roam in main roads, streets in hot sun to sell different kind of Appalams, Agarbattis and such items. I want to make a list of all these Brahmins and the services they offer - and possibly circulate among Brahmins first.
Apart from that, the best way to build such networks is by building schools. Private schools where we can freely teach religious education, history to our kids without the State interfering too much in it. When kids become friends at an early age, such bonds are everlasting irrespective of where you go. This is a long term project - 10-15 year one. If a civil war doesn’t happen by that time, I will guarantee that I will build/takeover atleast 5 such schools.
That is what I have in mind. Ideal goal is to not leave behind ANY Brahmin family. To not let a Brahmin feel helpless, hate the community he is born into (because this has started happening).
6. Conclusion
With that, I end this post. It is a long one, I have tried to elaborate on all the points I had in mind.
This doesn’t cover everything. We really don’t know what the solution is to reduce pressure off of our kids caused due to reservations, derth of resources which keeps increasing every 5 years. Most effective way is through legislations, but that is mostly not an option because no party likes to help Brahmins. So, let us see what we can do.
In Kannada, there is a saying which goes like this “The guy started digging a well for water when his house is already burning with fire” - to explain, it says that when the house is already burning, digging a well at that time to get water to extinguish the fire is useless. And it is already too late by then to take any kind of action. Similarly, before it is too late, we should do something about these problems, atleast some of them.
Thank you for reading.