Most of us have heard the notion of “Brahmanism” or “Brahmanvadi” in a negative connotation, often in a derogatory manner. The academic literature is replete with such references where “Brahmanism” is used as an “abuse” and an “insult”. The defence given by the users of these terms in a negative manner is that an attack on ‘Brahmanism’ is not an attack on “Brahmins”.
The defendants say that Brahmanism is not about Brahmins per se, but it is about the prevalent caste structure in India which creates a divide and a gap between different castes. The defendants say that anyone can be a ‘Brahmanvadi’, even a Dalit can be a ‘Brahmanvadi’ and at the same time not every Brahmin is a ‘Brahmanvadi’. Therefore, as per the users of this word, Brahmins should not feel offended when someone mentions ‘Brahmanvaad’ in a derogatory, negative and insulting manner.
Now, the question arises: Is the defence given by abusers of these words justifiedIJ The vocabulary used in the literature and in the normal day to day usage leaves a deep impact on our conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious mind. The words ‘Brahmanism’, ‘Brahmanvaad’ and ‘Brahmanvadi’ have one thing in common i.e the core word ‘Brahmin’ in all three. So, when one is trying to attack the three terms mentioned above in order to critique the prevalent caste system, one is knowingly or unknowingly attacking the word ‘Brahmin’ as well.
Secondly, those who attack ‘Brahmanism’ are consciously or sub-consciously using the term in order to attack the ‘Brahmins’ because in their opinion ‘Brahmins’ are mostly responsible for all the lacunae of the caste system, which includes all the societal and historical wrongdoings done to Dalits and other castes in India for centuries.
This is precisely why Dalit thinkers have come up with the terms like ‘Brahmanism’ and not ‘Rajputism’ or some other ‘-ism’. If the argument is that anyone can be a ‘Brahmanvadi’, then why no other word have been coined to refer to this phenomenon.
It seems that it was done in a deliberate manner in order to critique Brahmins and the caste system at the same time, because in their thinking Brahmins and the caste system are complementary and supplementary to each other.
So, if one points out that using the word Brahmanism in a negative manner is just critiquing Brahmins, the other side can always argue it is not about critiquing Brahmins but critiquing the system in which Brahmins by virtue of being born as ‘Brahmins’ hold a high position in the social structure of the Indian society and Dalits by virtue of being born a Dalit have to face all kinds of discrimination.
These people talk about social justice when they critique Brahmanism but if one goes through their arguments, it seems that they are filled with revenge against the entire Brahmin community. One should understand that never ever in the history of mankind, ‘revenge’ from a particular community has led to ‘social justice’. This is because ‘violence’ gives birth to a ‘cycle of violence’ and the cycle goes on.
Often, Brahmins are ridiculed and targeted by calling them ‘Brahmanvadi’ even when the person or persons concerned have got nothing to do with any kind of caste discrimination against other castes. This ‘ridicule’ against ‘Brahmanism’ ultimately becoming ridicule against ‘Brahmins’ is a case of ‘classic conditioning’. However, this phenonemnon was explained by Ivan Pavlov, is a Russian physiologist who got a Nobel Prize in 1904 for his experiment on “classical conditioning.”
In the experiment, Pavlov showed that when a dog is presented with a bowl of food in front, the dog starts salivating (to put it simply, dog’s mouth starts watering when it sees food, which is a natural reaction). Pavlov continued to repeat the same experiment and every time a bowl of food was put in front, dog salivated.
At one point, Pavlov removed the food from the bowl but the dog still salivated. This was interesting since dogs learnt to associate food with the bowl and in the anticipation that bowl comes with food, dogs started salivating even when there was no food! So, food was leading to salivation earlier, in later stages even a subject associated with food led to the same conclusion i.e salivation.
Now coming back to the point, the same process of Pavlov’s experiment metaphorically happens in society as well. Here, when audience or readers or viewers look at the portrayals of Brahmins as cunning, evil, arrogant, violent, etc, they continue to attach these same attributes to any Brahmin when they come in contact with them in real life, even when the person concerned may or may not be cunning or evil. This is because the behaviour of audiences changes fundamentally.
Their ‘classic conditioning’ as Pavlov put it in his experiment, has already happened by then. As a result, societies where a particular group or community is portrayed in a negative light, it leads to attitudinal change towards them in real life as well. The portrayal of Brahmanism in literature, theatre and other medium is by often showing a Brahmin as an evil character.
The critics of Brahmanism have failed to critique Brahmanism without distinguishing the fact that they are not targeting Brahmins. Their failure to do so has led to the abuse of the word ‘Brahmanism’. One can understand this by another example. In many north Indian cities, the word ‘Bihari’ is used as a ‘slur’, a very derogatory remark and an abuse. Most of the times when anyone questioned those who used the word ‘Bihari’ in a derogatory manner often defended themselves by saying that they are not targeting every person from the state of Bihar, per se but only those who act or behave like one, meaning if anyone is behaving foolishly, he can be called a ‘Bihari’. This defence of using the word ‘Bihari’ in a derogatory manner is completely rubbish as it actually hurt people from Bihar who migrated to north Indian cities in search of better avenues.
Similarly, the jokes on Sikh community, the reference to castes like ‘Chamar’ in a derogatory sense, all lead to ‘classical conditioning’ of people’s minds. This is a psychological phenomenon. This is precisely why the law in India bans using the words which indicate the caste of a person, because it’s humiliating in nature.
In one of the cases this year, The Supreme Court in its judgment observed, “It is basically used nowadays not to denote a caste but to intentionally insult and humiliate someone. We, as a citizen of this country, should always keep one thing in our mind and heart that no people or community should be today insulted or looked down upon, and nobody’s feelings should be hurt.”
The point here is not why someone is criticising the caste system, the question is why use the word ‘Brahamanism’ which knowingly or unknowingly shows the entire ‘Brahmin’ community in a poor light. The choice of words and terms should be made very cautiously because if the word is not used carefully, the intended message of the speaker or author is not reached to the audience and an entirely different meaning comes out, hurting communities.
(The writer is research scholar at JNU)
