There is a difference between Eye-Opening Critic and Vitriolic Rant
A Review of Meet The Savarnas by Ravikant Kisana
I know I am playing right into it. That is the catch 22 of Ravikant Kisana’s Meet The Savarnas. If I criticize it then I am part of the problem, the typical well-meaning Savarna girl who is basking in the privileges of her caste and refuses to accept the realities of people who are not part of her community. If I agree then I am that intellectual who agrees for the sake of the argument and pretends to be bringing about change when all she is doing is reading and discussing about the book. If I pity them I am at fault. If I don’t then I am at fault. No matter which path I pick I will always be part of the problem. For a book that intends to rally people against caste based discrimination and assignment of characteristics purely due to caste, it sure does that a lot with the Savarnas. Does it become alright because it is punching up and not down ?
Meet The Savarnas is the author’s attempt at opening the eyes of people towards the sheer injustice of the caste system and how they are treating people. It talks about how almost everything in India is coloured by caste and yet most people who are at the top of this caste system seem not to notice. The author defines Savarnas as all people within the caste system so he is not talking of just the upper caste educated elite Brahmins but of all the people in the caste system even the ones on the lowest rung - Shudras. So who are the ostracized then, you ask ? It is the “untouchables” of the olden days. The people outside the caste system altogether. The Scheduled caste and scheduled tribe of today — Dalits. The other community of India relegated to menial tasks like waste collection and sewer cleaning.
At this point I should give you, the reader, a disclaimer. I did not read the whole book. I DNFed it for reasons that will be apparent to you as you read this article. All my opinions are hence based on the first 27% of the book (the number is precisely what my device shows me I have read). I tried to give it a chance, to sit through the whole thing but I couldn’t.
I am in no way denying that India has a caste system or that it is a problem. I will also agree that people at the top of this pyramid are often blinded to the ones below. Often unaware of their own privilege. I definitely would respect an eye opener to my own privileges. I truly did enjoy Mano Joseph’s sarcastic take on the avocado elite (I am one). However, this book is not anything close to that. This is a rant masquerading as critic.
It comes off as more of the author airing out his own grievances for being of lower caste, or rather being poor. The author seems to confuse the two even when he is trying to point out that the two are not the same thing. Let’s be clear. The caste system is real in India. Caste based discrimination is real too. However, the problems that the author is pointing out, relating and tying to caste is more often than not a problem of class. Not caste.
The author agrees that he had internalized biases of his own. But the problem is he seems to think those biases have got to do with caste and caste alone, which is not true. The more he tries to draw a distinct line between privilege due to caste and privilege due to money, the more blurred the line gets. Caste and money are tied together often but that does not mean there are no poor or middle class brahmins who struggle. That also does not mean there are lower class people who are doing better now thanks to someone in the family managing to secure a government job despite the odds being against them. In today’s day and age all it takes is one family member to uplift a family.
He goes on and on about how he had been ostracized, how he did not fit in, how he lacked the cultural capital to blend in and was doomed to mimic what he could never be. There were doors that were locked to him, rooms he would never get to see. Does all this sound familiar to you ? This is exactly what a middle class American says about the ultra rich elite circles. This is infact what any lower strata says about the one above it.
What I am trying to point out here is that this is not a unique caste problem. It is not even an unique India problem. This is every society ever. Cultural capital is a mixture of things. Sure, caste is one such thing in India but even beyond that there are other factors like which city you grew up in, how rich your family was, who you were in proximity to. For example, someone living in the slums of Mumbai will have a very different cultural experience than one living in a slum in some second tier city or someone living in a far-flung village. A kid who grew up watching the rich kids up close may be locked out of their world but would still have more cultural capital than the ones who grew up oblivious. And of course there is money. A lot of the author’s insecurities would disappear with money.
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And that is the crux of it. This book is about the author’s insecurities. The intense desire to belong that the author felt during childhood has not really gone away. He says he is flipping the script and shining a lens on the upper caste. But the truth is he is seeking validation. He is hoping that this very section of people will read his work, his astute observations and finally recognize him for who he is and acknowledge his talent, his worth. Finally he will have the adoration of the upper echelons who have till now ignored him. Maybe the author has failed to consider that the doors are closed to him not because he is underprivileged but because he is too desperate for validation and is mediocre. The same mediocrity that he is projecting on to the Indian Millenials as per the title of the book.
“The elite savarnas rarely venture into the parts of the city that fall below the glass floor. In parts of Mumbai, they now offer ‘slum tours’ — a perfect semiotic synthesis of the sign and signifier. It is a journey into the netherworld — a territory to visit, witness the spectacle of, and return from as soon as one can.”
This excerpt is a perfect example of the author confusing caste with money. People in the Mumbai slums are not there because they come from a certain caste, they are there because they come from not rich backgrounds. If you actually venture into the slums you will find that there are all castes present. Remember Savarnas also includes the people under OBC (Other Backward Castes) category in India. And the slum tours he speaks of is largely for white tourists looking for the “poor India” experience. I do not live in Mumbai so maybe there are some ultra rich Indians that also take part in it but that has got little to do with caste. From what I know of Mumbai and its slums, the people there are proud and not at all of the victim mindset. They are all about the hustle. I wonder what they would think of this portrayal of their lives.
“The commonly held maxim that the Bania community is good in business cannot be universally accepted as they have routinely demonstrated a willingness to forego profit rather than risk caste pollution.”
This line makes you think Banias are some elite caste. But they are not at the top of the caste ladder. They aren’t brahmins. If it were true that caste hierarchy is everything then most rich and influential people in India would have been Brahmins, the most privileged caste. Even the Banias would not have had a chance. But the Banias are one of the richest communities. As for risking caste pollution, this is again not a uniquely Indian caste thing. It is a business community thing. Any business runs on trust and business communities around the world prefer to do business with people they know and trust. Unfortunately that often ends up being people within their own circle, who would inherently understand their ways. This is true for Parsis, this is true for Jews and yes it is true for Banias. So yes, if you are not born into a business family you will be locked out of the connections that business family children have since birth. That is how the world works, not necessarily a caste thing. And it is good for business. The snark in this statement is uncalled for. I know the author is trying to be sarcastic but it just comes off as bitter jealousy.
As someone described it on reddit “this book is a long rant with no substance”. The author has essentially closed himself to any and all criticism by saying that the book is so hard hitting, raw and uncomfortable that it will be difficult to like. It is none of those things. There is a difference between raw and petulant. It is not that the book isn’t well written. It is. It uses big words in fact, words which any English speaking population around the world will not know the meaning of without a dictionary. A little ironic in my opinion but that isn’t the problem either.
The problem is the vitriol. The author’s bitterness seeps into the pages. He is insecure, seeking validation, and essentially crying about the cards that he was dealt in life. He keeps repeating the same thing over and over in different ways. All his analysis is coloured by his own life experiences and everything is attributed to caste. The author himself has had an elite education. He himself is blind to the struggle of people who don’t have the same privileges that he does. Not everyone can write a book about their experience and get it published. If the Savarnas were truly the big bad villains he makes them out to be then this book would never be published.
There is a severe problem of ostracization, discrimination and violence against Dalits in this country. This book however is far away from the realities of it. Most of this happens in tier 2 or tier 3 cities or villages. That is where the caste presence is the strongest. There is an occasional skirmish in big tier 1 cities as well but that does not compare to the statistics elsewhere in the country. The book seems to be from the perspective of people in tier 1 cities.
Caste privilege in India is very real. Income Inequality is very real. Problems exist. Some are born with a silver spoon and some are not. Life isn’t fair. Some people choose to focus on making their lives better with the cards they were dealt and others choose to cry about it.
If only the author was coming from a perspective that was a little outside of the box. If only he was a little less mired in emotions himself, the view would have been a little more objective and the criticism more accurate. This book is not helping the Avarnas. It is instead diluting their case by giving others like me the opportunity to point out the discrepancies in this book. The author himself is now a well earning, educated professional living in his own bubble, unable to see outside of it. That is true for everyone, even me.
My biggest critic of this book would be that it helps no one. It does not help any Avarna, brings about no change, throws no new light on to things, does not give you much food for thought. It only helps to lighten the author’s heart. I cannot even say that there is something in this book that I did not know before. Anyone who picks this sort of a book would already know and those who do not know will never read this book anyway.
Maybe this is a book that works for someone out there. It didn’t for me. There is just too much hate and insecurity in this book. I would not recommend.
