Marx on Religion and Caste

Past few months have demonstrated that the people can have delusional happiness by not only consuming narcotics but also consuming news about it[1]. For many of us, it also reminded Karl Marx’s metaphorical use of it. In the present situation, it’s rather intriguing how this narcotic is so closely interlinked with a religious right-wing government and with all its shenanigans literally and figuratively.

When you see some of the Hindu sects/groups consuming opium as part of the religious traditions, one could almost make a comment that it’s a literal demonstration of Marx’s irreligious observation. It’s as if some people have understood all they need is the stimulation of neurotransmitters to experience god. This psychedelic expression is observed in other religions too. 

Sufi Islam’s obsession with wine and women as manifestations of god experience, the trance that is found in many religions, are probably some of the other examples. These are extreme cases of religions but in general every ritualization serves the same purpose. In some parts of India, rituals have been infantilized with activities like keeping the dolls or enacting child’s games with the deity. Some religious people would explain it as the literal expression of the philosophical understanding that the world is a theatre and humans are dolls in a puppet show. Overlooking the fact that gods are part of the puppets(or the only puppets, it’s as if tit for tat puppet show), we may find that (which is true for any explanation of god or ritual) the philosophical understanding itself is limited by the knowledge of man-made institutions. While we can dismiss religious people’s unmethodical explanations, one would wonder whether Marx was thorough in his observation or not.

It probably ambitious of me to criticize Marx without fully understanding his structural-functionality approach to Socialism, but I believe, I can point out the variables he might have overlooked before making the observations on religion.

Before venturing into religion, I should comment on the other area where I feel his observation failed completely, the caste system. According to Marx[2]:

“the caste system of India was based on the hereditary division of labour, which was inseparably linked with the unchanging technological base and subsistence economy of the Indian village community.”

It’s true that many castes are occupation based. However, it’s strictly not division of labour in Adam Smith’s terms. Here the division of labour is intra-caste than inter-caste. Also, the division of the occupation is hierarchical than isolationist. Privileged castes could take up other occupations without the loss of their caste. The unchanging technological base and subsistence economy were the results of the caste system than the foundations. However, the biggest drawback was that, Marx didn’t understand that the foundation was purity and pollution rules as correctly observed by many Indian sociologists. Even Gandhi, with all his casteist biases understood this fact and tried things like cleaning the toilets. I consider Marx’s theory on the caste system is flawed mainly because the dogmatic Marxists of India failed miserably when it comes to the caste system. The class system is part of the caste system, however, in India, the class struggle has no meaning without the caste struggle. I would even say, the class struggle is irrelevant in Indian society. Marx correctly observed how the caste system degenerated the Indian society. However, it should have been up to the Indian Marxists to come out with a proper explanation on the foundation of the caste system based on their direct experience than building upon the Marx’s flawed theory. I believe this lack of direct experience or feeling about the caste system in Marx’s theory can also be observed in his views on religion.

The main variable that Marx missed about religion was ‘identity’. He only talked about ritualization, but failed to notice how religious identity also plays a big part as it is the only basis for pride or self-worth for many people. Marx missed this point as religious identity didn’t play any part in his life. 

Marx’s father converted to Catholicism from Judaism to overcome the oppressive limitations enforced by the Christian government. As an oppressed community, many Jews would have strongly clung to the religious identity as an act of defiance. But for Marx’s family, a religious identity by itself was irrelevant. It should be noted that Marx’s father too was a revolutionary for a liberal society. His pragmatism was based on enlightened view about the religious identity than the opportunist turn. With this background, it’s no wonder that Marx didn’t see religious identity as a matter of pride or shame. Religion not only provides illusory happiness but also illusory pride. This aspect is missed completely in his observation about religions.

[1] https://scroll.in/article/972593/rhea-chakraborty-arrest-shows-how-india-sees-drug-addiction-as-moral-failing-not-the-illness-it-is

[2] https://www.cpim.org/marxist/200203_marxist_caste&class_jbando.htm

OBC Illusion of Caste Liberation

 One of my relatives is against reservations and the term 'OBC' in general. According to him, we should be allowed to get on with our lives without any of these terminologies defining us. 

Some of my other relatives have the same opinion. They are against reservations and feel it didn't help them in anyway and they were further burdened by the negative portrayal and mockery of the OBCs by the privileged castes.

There is a grain of truth in this about the affirmative action if you consider numerically smaller castes like mine[1]. Most of the reservation benefits are cornered by the numerically stronger OBC castes. However, it need not be a deliberate injustice, as the effective qualified population of the numerically stronger castes is far higher as compared to the smaller castes and the jobs and education seats are highly limited. Also, the OBC reservation percentage(27%) is far lower than the OBC proportion (40-80%) in the population. With the new EWS (reservations for privileged castes), the situation has become worse for them. But it doesn't negate the fact that the opportunities are still better with the limited reservations for all OBC castes than the situation with no reservation.

But what these anti-reservation, anti-OBC relatives fail to understand is their lived experience as under-privileged castes is still true. The person I mentioned in the beginning of this post, started his own civil engineering consultancy. However, he had to close it down as he couldn't compete against the Telugu speaking feudal caste contractors in Bengaluru. According to him, they have a vice like grip on the construction scene because of their money and muscle power. While explaining this he made a strange observation.

He felt, the Telugu feudal caste had the monopoly because the Kannada feudal caste was weak and Tulu feudal caste didn't have numbers. He would have had a better chance if the native(Kannada/Tulu) feudal castes were stronger as the Telugu feudal caste was highly parochial as they wouldn't allow anyone else to prosper.

The whole conversation was a surreal experience. I wondered whether he was aware how pitiable situation OBCs like him find themselves in because of caste realities.

- He failed in a venture because a privileged caste has monopolized the industry

- He was hoping other privileged castes to counter them as he felt his own caste stood no chance

That's exactly the caste reality he has faced but doesn't even realizes it. The problem is failures make people put the blame completely on themselves. This probably is heightened by the "lower caste" birth. The failure to recognize injustice of the caste  system stops them from identifying with the OBC identity.

Reference:

1. Less than 1% of OBC castes corner 50% reservation benefits, 20% get none, govt panel finds

OBCs and Affirmative Action - v

I always felt the lack of a collective identity of OBCs was the biggest reason why they, as a group, were regularly fooled by Hindutva. Playing up their insecurities with Muslims and Dalits, the Hindutva has managed to channel the strong anti-Muslim and anti-Dalit feeling to their political and social advantage.

For a time after the Mandal commission report, the OBC representation in politics was reaching their proportion in the general population. However, the privileged castes seem to be getting back to their disproportionate representation owing to the support of communalized OBCs. However, nothing compares to the way they have been regularly fooled in affirmative action.

Previously, in some cases, they weren't allowed to compete in general category thus ensuring the disproportionate reservation for the privileged castes, whereas, the actual reservation for the OBCs was lower than their representation in the general population. Now, we have a new situation where OBCs are completely deprived of their reservation and to rub it on the privileged caste reservation have it intact when it comes to all India Medical seats.

"Since 2017, the OBCs have been denied reservations both in PG/UG medical seats under All India Quota. Thus, they are denied 3000 seats every year which are transferred to General Category. This year also, the same injustice continues," the association's General Secretary, G Karunanidhy said.

 It's difficult to sympathise with the OBCs when you see their bigotry and casteism in the present situation. Their baggage of insecurity and inferiority complex is both frustrating and pitiful.

Creating Diversionary Gods

In one place, Hindutva is trying to create a god out of Ambedkar by continuously shouting that the Congress committed blasphemy against him and on the other hand, it’s jailing Dalit scholars who embody Ambedkar’s intellectual outlook in the public life. This zeal to make Ambedkar a hallowed figure who should have been respected more is a diversionary tactic. Most of our gods serve the same purpose.

Ambedkar was a scholar who once observed drily that both Gandhi and Jinnah had been made demigods by Hindus and Muslims respectively. For him, that kind of personality cult was detrimental to society in general. Now, of course, the question is, can there be any good in this? Gandhi as a representative of a pacifist god who fought against colonial slavery or, Jinnah as a secular god (since that was what he wished for Pakistan after dividing the country in the name of religion), could have made any difference?

We do know that neither of them turned into such gods. Basically, the personality cult is created by the followers and it’s their idea how a person needs to be worshipped that creates the legacy (unlike the godmen/women who create their own personality cults). Many rationalists and social scientists have opined that creating gods has been beneficial for the dominant classes as they could control the common people with a system called religion. However, in many cases, the gods or spirits come from the lower strata of society. How does that fit here?

In my region, we propitiate many spirits whose origins were from lower castes or women who suffered. According to Marxist historians (or at least a Marxist historian from Kerala), it’s a way for the underprivileged castes to create a safe space for themselves from the oppressing privileged castes. We have Kordabbu, a Dalit who suffered because of the casteism becoming a ‘daiva’(spirit) or Siri, a woman who suffered because of the patriarchal (even though the region was matrilineal) oppression becoming a ‘daiva’. Did Dalits and women get their safe space in old times because they had these spirits guarding them? A laughable conjecture. In fact, the privileged caste males had easily assimilated those worship within their religious sphere and actually oversaw them. The worship is not about the suffering but about the miracles or materialist betterment or about the basic fears of infertility and diseases. None of these has anything to do with societal drawbacks that led to the sufferings of those people and which continued to oppress the majority of the population.

Could Kordabbu have been a more effective spirit? What if the power of the spirit was in protecting people who suffered caste oppression or in punishing people for the caste oppression? Would that have put doubts in the privileged caste men? Would that have brought down the caste system?
In the story of Siri, she was conned and made to fend for herself by the menfolk. She was attacked too. However, while she suffered the material loss, she didn’t get raped. She performed a miracle and escaped from the situation (or punished the men). I suppose a tragedy figure because of physical and material suffering was acceptable to become a spirit but getting raped would have made her impure and she would never have been treated as a spirit. I wonder if we have any spirits who were raped. Could they have been effective spirits against the sexual attacks against women? Could Siri have been more effective as a daiva against abusive men?

Neither Kordabbu nor Siri as spirits could change the system that made them suffer in the first place. As I discussed previously, in the folk story of Mangale, she renounced the privileged life to be with her love. However, Brahmanical narrative has turned her into a materialist goddess(who in the earlier days was worshipped as a spirit) for the aspirational class. Whatever might be the origin of these spirits, the later narratives were created by privileged men. Whatever might be the identity and background of those spirits, now they speak the privileged tongue. The privileged men could never understand or identify with the caste or women oppression as they themselves were oppressors and more importantly hugely benefited from it. And for generations they knew that they got away with it, so it’s inconceivable for them that any spirit would punish them for those atrocities. Their fear and desire were related to wealth, health and security which they had, unlike the underprivileged ones.

The Marxist theory that religion for privileged men is a way to control society and for underprivileged people is a way to create a safe space for them is only half-truth. In reality, religious space has always been controlled by privileged men. They allow a token identity for the underprivileged in their sphere to give them an illusion of dignity.

This is the same game plan being played by Hindutvites. Ambedkar’s natural heirs are the intellectuals and scholars of the Dalits. Ambedkar’s true spirit lives in them. However, Hindutva wants to suppress them but wants to create a god out of Ambedkar for the aspirational class Dalits to give them a token identity. I wonder if they will succeed or not.

Random thoughts - Positivity or Wishing Away?

In my opinion, symbolic solidarity should be community-driven events. The government shouldn’t get involved in it. People should show solidarity with the government by following the rules and regulations enforced by it to mitigate a situation. Any symbolism, they should be sceptical.

In any dire situation, you could be one of the three players. A person in power, who needs to make decisions and come up with plans to mitigate the situation. A person not directly affected by it but also has no say in anything. A person who is directly affected by the situation. I would consider the issue of manual scavenging as an example here. 

Mr Modi in his book(now withdrawn) ‘Karmayog’ wrote that manual scavenging could have been a “spiritual experience” for some of the Dalit castes. It is one of the positivity that the caste apologists routinely dispense of.

Manual scavenging is a problem. Wishing away the problem by viewing it in a positive light as a spiritual experience means different things to all those three players.

For a person in power, it’s just shirking responsibility under the guise of hoodwinking positivity. For an unaffected person, it’s a way to feel good about themself by reinterpreting the guilty feeling and imagining it non-existent. For the person affected, that kind of thought is unthinkable(the statement angered many Dalits) or if they are forced to accept that, it shows the total breakdown of their life or total hopelessness of their situation.

That is an extreme example. Normal people might not think in that way. But there are other situations, where people try to channelize positivity in the name of solidarity. But the difference, between the people who have power and the people who don’t, remains the same as in the above example. Italians showing regular solidarity during the crisis which is organized through social media messages or we holding candlelight vigils for our fallen soldiers within our own communities are like second or third group people with no actual power. But if a government does it, it’s a different matter.

We need to show solidarity with the government by being obedient to the laws it enacts to mitigate the situation but we need to be sceptical if the government itself indulges in symbolic solidarity. It’s basically shielding itself from any kind of criticism by equating its inadequacy even with all the power to the common people’s guilt feeling borne out of the helplessness or lack of power. It’s also very evident from the previous solidarity symbolism that people tend to misunderstand it and make the matters worse. The community-wise spontaneous solidarity gestures are still welcome as it doesn’t give additional work to government organizations to clear up other mess that might arise.

Reference:
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/pm-modis-views-manual-scavenging-have-changed-quite-bit-over-seven-years

Hindutva Movement and Muslim Population Growth - II

One can’t help but notice that all the fiasco surrounding Assam NRC disaster is the direct outcome of the exaggerated claims of the Vinod Rai height made by the Hindutvites against the Bangladeshi Muslims. According to the report, out of the 19 lakh illegal immigrants more than 50% are Hindus. This is probably not unknown to Bengalis themselves as I’ve heard one of them making a comment, a few years ago, that more Hindu Bengalis than Muslim Bengalis are migrating to India.

However, it’s undeniable that Muslim percentage in Assamese population shot up in recent decades. What we need is an analysis of this phenomenon. My previous post on this same subject, I mentioned how Hindutva movement turned Muslims further inward looking which resulted in a slower decline in the birthrate. I wonder whether that could be the case in Assam too.

A situation similar to Babri Mosque demolition happened in Assam a decade before that. The Nellie massacre of 1983 supposedly against the non-Assamese but which resulted in the massacre of thousands of Bengali Muslims. Now let us compare birthrates of Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh, West Bengal and Assam.
According to 2011 census:
Bangladesh: 2.3
West Bengal: 2.2
Assam: 3.1

While the Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh and West Bengal show similar birthrates, Assam’s Bengali Muslims have nearly an additional child in each family. What are the social factors responsible for this difference when all belong to the same linguistic/ethnic group? In my opinion, it’s the communalization of Assamese society. I wonder whether this new NRC-CAA lunacy will further slow down the declining Muslim population growth in India.

Reference:

Hindu-Muslim fertility differentials in India: District-level estimates from Census 2011