I write this article with a lot of trepidation because, firstly I do not want to hijack a space that isn’t mine and secondly because I am myself work in progress, and call myself a “savarna in rehab”.
Much like the handful of people born in an oppressor caste-community, who are unlearning their caste biases and taking a massive U-turn from the values handed to them at birth, I too have had to cultivate a completely different set of values for myself. This included reading and learning to become self-aware, and taking everything said by most people in the community that I was born into, with a pinch of salt.
Nobody was born politically correct and neither am I. I do not want to sound “Holier than Thou” because I’ve had my share of brazen mistakes. I am writing this article because there’s only one thought in my head. If not now, when?
To the uninitiated, Rohith Vemula was a hard working and intelligent Dalit student who cracked the entrance exams conducted by the University of Hyderabad in the first attempt. He studied there under a rightful scholarship. He had witnessed the casteism faced by his mother (and he would face it too) right from his childhood, and this made him stand up to the barbaric caste system.
Rohith raised issues related to caste apartheid on campus under the banner of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). During his tenure as a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, the university stopped paying him his stipend of Rs 25,000 because of his protests against the caste system and this later escalated into a suspension; all a casteist charade organized by oppressor caste students who could not appreciate his efforts to end the inhuman caste system.
His suicide note reads, “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of stardust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living…” Rohith’s poignantly worded letter was also alluded to in the title of the movie, “Natchathiram Nagargiradhu” (translates to: The Stars are Aligning) directed by Pa Ranjith.
A few days ago, there was an another casteist attempt to butcher Rohith’s legacy as cops who attempted to close the case related to his institutionalized murder by claiming that Rohith lied about his caste and committed suicide to hide it. This was blatantly ignorant of the trauma that Rohith and scores of other Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi (DBA) students continue to face in educational institutions. After facing the wrath of public outrage, the case has been reopened by Telangana’s Director General of Police and reinvestigation is underway. If anything, these events highlight that attempts are on to reduce Rohith “to his nearest identity…” even in his death.
If this case of institutional murder does NOTHING to wake us Savarna queers up, then it is time for an ugly reminder or two,
1. LGBTQIAP+ people, especially from caste Oppressed backgrounds, from the Hijra community, Aravani and Kothi communities and more are systemically restricted from educational institutions, and face institutionalized violence that goes unchecked in these spaces.
2. Many of us LGBTQIAP+ people are yet to be sensitized on the matter of caste, and acknowledge our privilege within the community when we come from Savarna natal families.
WILL WE EVER DISCUSS RAINBOW CASTEISM?
The Mumbai Pride march this year that happened in February recorded a shameful turn of events when members of the Humsafar Trust – a part of the Mumbai Queer Pride Collective, that organized pride – were called out for disallowing Ambedkarite Queers from sloganeering the name of the visionary Dr. Ambedkar. There were attempts to seize the posters of Dr. Ambedkar that Ambedkarite queers carried along.
Also read: My Experience at Mumbai Pride
To the uninitiated, Babasaheb Ambedkar as he is fondly known as, wasn’t just an anti-caste activist, but an ardent feminist and a queer rights ally. YES, THAT’S RIGHT. He represented Dr. Karve in court when the latter was tried for writing affirmingly about non-heteronormative relationships. He referred to Havelock Ellis’s research & literature to defend his argument and stated that homosexuality is an absolutely human experience. It can never be denied that he upheld our rights before pride was even a thing in India.
When I shared a story on my Instagram, asking *interested* respondents to narrate incidents of discrimination within the LGBTQ+ community, many people willingly reached out to me stating that they had faced casteism. This article is to point out jarring discrepancies within the community, biases that could even have been my own.
Srishti, a non-binary person belonging to a marginalized caste, mentioned incidents of overlapping oppression – queerphobia and casteism. They gave an in-depth feedback on how strongly “rainbow casteism” has impacted them. In their own words, “there is not much difference between cisgender straight Savarna (oppressor caste) people and queer oppressor caste people. The groupism and exclusion of caste marginalized people is just given a rainbow tint. Queerness gives no one miraculous brownie points to be a better person. Like cis het people don’t acknowledge straight cisgender privilege, in the same token, Savarna LGBTQ people are yet to acknowledge their caste privilege. This results in disagreements such as on reparative action and reservation, which made me ultimately stay away from pride events.”
INTER-TRANS* NUANCES
Recently, a well-known trans content creator posted a reel on their gram with another queer friend, shot on a local train in Mumbai. The initial caption read, “tum katora leke aao, hum camera leke aayenge…” (you bring the begging bowl, we will bring the camera). The reel drew a lot of flak for using the marginalization of the Hijra community for the purposes of clout-chasing and garnering social media views. Many trans women called out the content creator for their lack of class awareness and understanding of the lives of the Hijra community. One comment by Vinnie read out, “I feel ashamed…if you celebrate your queerness by flashing your UC privilege in the eyes of the ones without privilege, your queerness is of no use…”. Vinnie also had a lot to bring to the table in terms of elitism – “It is funny to see people at bourgeois venues talk of acceptance when they themselves don’t acknowledge their privilege. I’ve been to events where my makeup was judged by a highly successful make-up artist without even realizing that I don’t have the privilege to buy expensive makeup…”
Kalvi, an Aravani Kothi trans woman, had similar experiences. “When I left home, I pinched one of my mother’s sari for sentimental value and wore it at pride, only to get judged and mocked. The condescending attitude borne for socio-cultural identities who don’t speak English is appalling…”
UNDERSTANDING THE OVERLAP OF LGBTQ+ AND CASTEISM
The other day, a close family member was dissing reservations in educational institutions teaching medicine. This personally hit me, because all the doctors who put me through unethical medical treatment and queerphobia belonged to oppressor caste, who may not have gotten in through affirmative action, but had considerable generational privilege that held them up instead. The reason they could put me and many others through queerphobia is because their caste location teaches them to do this.
It is this same caste that allowed the rapists at Hathras, the rapists of Bilkis Banno, and many others to never face accountability for their actions. It’s because of this casteism that a person can change her name, age and identity and lie about having a deadly disease like cancer to fleece money from other queer persons.
On the question of reservations, horizontal reservations are the pressing need of the hour to guarantee trans people equal opportunity in arenas they currently have little access to. This includes the field of medicine. What is now a casteist statement will tomorrow be a Transphobic statement, if horizontal reservations are indeed created for trans* and intersex people belonging to the DBA community. Savarna LGBTQ+ people need to wake up and smell the coffee. We need to analyze the similarities that exist between casteist marginalization faced by caste oppressed people and those that happen against marginalized sections within the trans community.
Recently, I went through the twitter account of plenty of Oppressor caste doctors who announced themselves as “unreserved” proudly. I saw their views regarding the LGBTQ community and it was putrid to say the least.
Plenty of times in life, we have been presented with evidence of how Casteism and queerphobia intersect. These are different forms of oppression, definitely, but there exist people who face both, and many a time, at the hands of a common oppressor.
Think of all the LGBTQ+ victims of violence. Has any one of them got justice? Arvey Malhotra’s mother still runs pillar to post seeking justice for her late child. Pranshu was bullied by 4000+ people on social media. Not one of them is in jail. And as if that’s not enough, the dastardly Trans “Protection” Act of 2019 has mentioned that the punishment for the assault of a trans person is imprisonment of “not less than six months, but which may extend to two years with a fine.” This is much less than the punishment for rape under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is imprisonment of “not less than seven years but which may be for life or for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable for fine.”
This reflects a systemic lack of accountability. The brunt of such blatant transphobia is borne most brazenly by those who are homeless and face additional forms of discrimination, like casteism.
According to a report by the Centre for Law and Policy Research, statistically,
1. It was Dalit trans people who underwent most amount of violence in educational institutions and were especially susceptible to sexual harassment at work, as it has been attested to by 33 % reporting various brutal forms of sexual assault and harassment at work.
2. 23 % of Dalit transgender persons have faced invasive, inhumane forms of abuse when seeking help from the police, including but not limited to denuding and stripping.
3. The most limitations in terms of accessing public transportation facilities have also been made faced by Dalit trans people, and this has also included vital public spaces – parks (50 per cent), police stations (46 per cent) and government hospitals (43 per cent).
Erasure is an intersectional form of prejudice which ruins the existence of multiple identities in its wake.
Rohit Vemula, and every other anti caste activist was, is and will always be relevant to the LGBTQ+ Community as well. Pride and LGBTQ+ rights can never be solely along the lines of “love is love”. It has to widen the scope of discussion to include discourse around Casteism, led by caste marginalized individuals.
I understand and completely admit to the irony that I, an Oppressor caste queer person, am speaking about this. My inner feeling of graveness, my inability to process the caste-apathy in the community, and my own need to take accountability for myself and use my limited reach to make more people aware of Rohit Vemula made me pen this article. There is this crushing embarrassment of the acknowledgement that this same article may not have received the same reaction had it been penned by an Ambedkarite queer, or even cis het individual. As a lay person, I observe the abuse on social media when an Ambedkarite individual discusses their lived experiences. When a Savarna person talks of casteism they get praised for wokeness, but when the same discussion is led by an Ambedkarite individual, it is led by admonishment. That’s the very difference (that right aligned queers don’t get) between Ramanuja discussing caste and Babasaheb doing it. Only one of them got brownie points, no prizes for guessing who. And only one of their legacy lives on in the LGBTQ community – again, no prizes for guessing who – it’s only Babasaheb Ambedkar.
CITATION FOR STATISTICS
‘Leave Your Caste Identity At Home’: Queer Dalits Lack Space In Indian ‘Pride’, https://www.outlookindia.com/culture-society/-leave-your-caste-identity-at-home-queer-dalits-lack-space-in-indian-pride–news-213593, Outlook India, January 18, 2024
