‘Brahmin Genes’ and Claims to Structural Oppression While Being the Oppressor

The endless recurring of violent sexual assault, inane caste rage over the most minor caste assertion from the marginalised, the daily dehumanising in labour, in education, in policy and in media– the same stories, the same characters, the same excuses and outrage, and the same forgetting, all returning continuously. The ghost of Nietzsche haunts the mind.

In the light of this cosmic torment, when one hears Tiwari suggest that Brahmins are the ‘new victims’– the only possible reaction is to laugh. Laugh maniacally. She and handles like her and their supporters/amplifiers are untethered from history. They are exempt from eternal return. They are living in lightness. As Kundera would say ‘like a shadow, without weight’. They can unironically and with a straight face claim victimhood.

Thus Brahmins and Savarnas live in independent moments, from day to day, from instant to instant, tweet to tweet — no past recurring, no future affected. They can, thus, be the aggrieved, the sufferers and great champions of their own great suffering which they have built and narrativised in complete disconnect from anything that was before or is now. They stand as immaculate beings. Like infants who respond only to instinct, who demand attention and cry when denied. And feel totally self-righteously justified and even offended if anyone tries to link them to any structural or historical continuity.

I am not sure if such cultural constructionism is genetically transmitted or if (more likely) it is a function of the social anthropology among such Savarna communities, but this is what I understand when I hear ‘Brahmin genes’. In that sense, I find no issue with Tiwari’s image-tweet. It is not about muscle mass, it is more about the epistemic out-of-touch with any reality.

This is the peak lightness of Brahminism. This is the peak lightness of Savarna culture to which Twitter will endlessly return because Tiwari or Chaturvedi or Sharma or Bannerjee or Iyer or someone similar will flex their ‘genes’ again. And claim victimhood when they are questioned over it. We shall return to this article again then.

(Ravikant Kisana is a professor of Cultural Studies and his research looks at the intersections of caste with structures of privilege and popular culture. He is available on Twitter/Instagram as ‘Buffalo Intellectual’. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect or represent his institution. Further, The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the author’s views.)