Critical Caste Theory: A Dubious Discourse - Part 1
I examine the nefariously familiar theory galloping around the halls of South Asian Studies academia & why it seeks to calcify caste in Indian society.
As a tsunami of social justice sweeps across the world today, the roots of traditions are uprooted in an unrelenting furor. In India, the axe of modernity grinds against the caste system as caste, the primary identity of many Indians, now faces pressure from more cosmopolitan identities such as political ideology and class. While many see this as a positive development, some seek not only to entrench these age-old divisions but also enflame the trenches with the kerosene of hate. Building upon and going beyond colonial caste activists such as Ambedkar and the Phules, modern sociologists devise a theory designed to shatter Indian society and grant deliverance to the lower castes of India. While much of this theory is plagiarized from the infamous Critical Race Theory of America, caste is not race and race is not caste. You cannot tell someone’s caste by the color of their complexion or the features of their face. With the rise of Hindutva attracting a rainbow coalition of castes granting a decisive mandate to the BJP in India, the opposition seeks to break this coalition by inciting caste tensions, and it is in Critical Caste Theory that they find a prophetic message to part the saffron sea.
Critical Caste Theory does not seek the annihilation of caste no matter how much it harps on this talking point. Rather, it seeks the annihilation of Brahminism, a polemic and deceptive term for Hinduism originally used by Jesuit missionaries and colonial scholars. It is in the rigid contours of caste that CCT activists see the opportunity to exploit and shatter the cultural and religious body of India and Hinduism. Upper castes must be made aware of their ancestral penalties of the past, privilege of the present, and penance of the future. The lower castes must be made aware of the oppression of the past, discrimination of the present, and revolution of the future. The cloak of caste must smother all discourse surrounding politics, economics, and culture. And most of all – caste must be framed as a simple, homogenous concept that conquers time and space; heterogeneity is heresy.
A Pyramid Scheme
Propaganda is best when it is simple. The rhythmic chanting of a slogan. The Big Lie. Your friend’s Instagram reel. Your uncle’s WhatsApp forward. We all have been the recipients of propaganda. To persuade someone and make them feel informed, explaining something in a reductive way is essential.
Enter the caste pyramid.
If you’ve heard of caste, you’ve probably seen a rendition of the above before. This is the bread and butter of CCT. Knifing Indian society into neat sections devoid of context, absent of historical variation, and homogenizing the subcontinent into a single dish of oppression. But this meal has many courses. Let’s start with an appetizer to ready your palette.
To establish a baseline taste for the subject matter, CCT activists posit the genesis of caste with the Aryan Invasion Theory. The framing is that white “Aryan” invaders came into India from the steppe and subjugated its natives through the caste system. This subjugation became a religion that they deemed “Brahminism” and evolved into Hinduism. This near-prehistoric bone to pick forms the basis for millennia of oppression. But this story is deceptive at best and malicious at worst.
Emerging evidence points to the fact that caste predates steppe migration into India. Furthermore, large parts of the Vedic faith, one of the earliest forms of Hinduism, show local Indus Valley and tribal influence with the Vedic folks exclusively worshipping Indian geography, flora, and fauna. These apparently “white” invaders dedicated hymns praising “black” gods and would conduct rituals in order to attain dark-skinned children reminiscent of these gods. This also goes against the grain of the racialization of Indian castes as ancient Indians were much more accepting if not exalting of dark skin.
This early form of caste that India had was much more akin to a horizontal multi-tribe society. This is where jāti enters the fray as the spoiler to the vertical varna way. Moving within and between different varnas were these groups of people, jātis, who shared similar traditions, customs, & social markers. Conflict, competition, but more so cooperation between jātis would be a prime driver of many parts of Indian society rather than a static and oppressive pyramid. Jātis would become interdependent on each other as they engaged in rituals and customs that require assistance from other jāti groups, many of which still continue today such those captured in the Jati and Kula Puranas of Telangana. A ritualistic network began to form across villages and kingdoms. Of course, this doesn’t mean everything was peaches and cream, jostling over jāti dominance was indeed the origin of many forms of caste discrimination and societal control.
But it is a certain group of jātis who rest in the Brahmin varna that attract the most ire of activists. CCT’s central thesis is that a small group of “Aryan” elites, the Brahmins, a group that today rounds to 3-4% of all Indians, have used sociological sorcery across eons to enslave all other jātis and varnas into servitude and stupor. Let’s zoom out and look at how preposterous this is as well as the consequences of this claim. 97% of Indians now have their agencies removed and are postulated as near Neanderthalic in intelligence being hoodwinked by a group of wily unarmed vegetarian priests who have frozen Indian society over generations, evading and eliminating all challenges to power and upholding a mythical religion called “Brahminism” where all other Indians worship them just because. Not only does this assign Brahmins as a near superhuman species, but it is an intensely casteist notion that is massively insulting to the capability, intelligence, and history of all other Indians.
A Faulty Prescription
Integral to CCT is using the ink of ancient scriptures to paint a hellscape of ancient India. The strategy is to selectively magnify and distort “prescriptions” from texts rather than engage with the entirety of theology, scripture, or actual accounts of the historical realities of India.
We start with the 4 varnas of classical Hindu thought – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras – all emerged from a primordial Purusha – or Supreme God. The Brahmin from the head, the Kshatriya from the arms, the Vaishya from the thighs, and the Shudra from the feet. In this hymn, the Purusha Shukta, CCT activists claim is the source of the oppression of ages. Yet like so many other instances, they leave out the rest of the verse as the Vedas continue to describe other aspects of the world that come from this divinity including the moon from the Purusha’s mind, the sun from His eyes, the earth from His feet, and so on. The Vedas denote the entirety of existence as a divine emanation from a primordial God.
Caste is also linked to the concepts of karma and reincarnation. As one sows good and bad deeds, they reap the fruits in their later or next life. The caste one is born into is thereby a result of past deeds. This has indeed been a justification for discrimination on one hand, but the oft forgotten piece of this process is the nature of the Ātman or soul. The Ātman is seen as a source of radical equality in certain scriptures and by various Gurus in Hindu history as it contains an ultimate divine essence that all life shares. Indeed, various Hindu movements against caste discrimination revolve around this pivotal Hindu concept as a bulwark against discrimination.
This line of attack continues across various Hindu texts as the entirety of Hinduism is reduced to small PDF screenshot snippets of controversial verses. While many instances are of dubious translations or devoid of context, there are indeed bonafide controversial sections in certain texts; but to define all of Hinduism by these drops of controversy is denying the diverse ecosystem of thought in the ocean of Dharma. Just as we have a vibrant debate on various socio-political issues today, so did the ancients of India across eras and areas. Most movements against caste discrimination indeed emerged from Hinduism itself rather than breakaway religions or foreign ones as we shall later see.
So far-reaching is the demonization of Hinduism that CCT activists will glorify literal demons in Hinduism. Imagine you or I being livid over the portrayal of say Slytherins or Lannisters or whichever generally evil group that are apparently actually the real heroes of the story. CCT activists on one hand deny the historicity of Hindu texts and theology, while on the other hand claim that the evil ones in many of these texts are actually the ancestors of lower castes. These include demons (Asuras) who engage in heinous acts such as rape, wanton murdering sprees, and various other universally reviled acts. Even more ludicrous is that almost all of these demons come from Brahmin lineages in the texts themselves. The cherry on top is that revered ancient Hindu figures that have origins from lower castes such as Rishi Matanga, Maharishi Ved Vyas, Shabri, Guha, Vidur, Matsyendranath, etc… are cast aside in the narrative simply for their inconvenient caste.
Once the barrage against Hinduism has finished, the next pillar of prosecution is the false notion that Buddhism represented a lower caste revolution against Brahminical orthodoxy. This idea was championed by BR Ambedkar himself postulating a Pali Canon Revolution against the Vatican of Varanasi thousands of years before Martin Luther’s eerily similar Protestant Reformation. But all this shows is that either Ambedkar was woefully ignorant of actual Buddhism or he simply lied as a ruse for political power (a failed ruse considering his dismal innings during elections).
Buddhism just like Hinduism has a mixed record with regard to caste. Buddhist scriptures denote how Bodhisattvas could only be born in Brahmin and Kshatriya lineages. Other scriptures argue strongly against inter-caste marriage. Early Buddhism was a monastic faith of the urban upper castes where monks or sramanas would emulate the ascetic ways of Brahmins that Lord Buddha profusely praises in the Dhammapada. This is not anything near a social justice revolution against a reviled elite. Accounts from Chinese travelers confirm the resilience of caste as well as syncretism with Hinduism in Indian Buddhist societies as Vedic rite and ritual were well integrated, Brahmins were honored, untouchability was observed, and the classic 4 fold varna system prevailed across numerous chronicles by these adventurous pilgrims.