It is a game of power, said my father, when we talked about caste. I could not contemplate it entirely when he said that to me two years back, only to find out that he might not be entirely wrong. My mother does not like it when I talk to drivers while travelling, but I find them the most interesting stories tellers. All you need to ask them is, “how long have you been in this city, or how long have you been in this business”, and they can share with you their entire life story.
“I have seen my entire shop burn down” told Furkan to me, when I asked how long he has been in this city and when did he started driving. From running a successful business, buying Verna, having five employees to seeing it all burn down and then starting all over again, although we are of the same age, it seemed as if I am talking to an elder brother.
He started his business at a place considered as hub for whole sale business, at a place which was predominantly owned by a different community, who possibly just because were born in the place considered it to be their own, and so when his business started expanding, when he started experiencing life better than those who have been living their since ages, when he started to feel as though the king of the place, his shop was burnt in an accident.
They are right when they say that blood runs thicker than water. There is no denying that Furkan had some great friends in the community, but when it came down to supporting him on this, all he found were sympathetic eye gazes. “No one said a single word”, said Furkan. “Why did you not fight further”, asked the vogue in me, to which I got a deadly stare.
The stare that questioned me, questioned my audacity to even ask this question, don’t I already know that no matter how hard he would have fought, he would have lost it. That burning of the shop was not an accident but a warning, a warning that if he don’t move away from this place, he might get killed and no one will say a word. Don’t I already know that the law that is there to support the victims is made up of the same people who burnt down his shop at the first place. Don’t I already know that he has two kids, that he has to feed as well, how could he have chosen a lost battle over the life of his own children.
The stare that looked at me with a disappointment, screaming that you might have got better education than me, that you might have won this small battle of going on a small solo trip, but even after that, there is a very little understanding that you have of how the world operates. There is a reason that we say that we are in kalyug, that the world is moving towards its end. We are moving so far away from life in the process of owning life, so far that the real meaning of life sounds good only when written from the hands of a privileged person, spoken from someone who has a strong security net.
It was in the deadly silence that I realised that it is always about the power, always about money, always about possessing life and this Earth, that the battles have been fought, that the division of the caste happened. That caste is not about being Brahmin or a shudra, although has been made into, the four caste talked about the stages of life. In the same life, you can live as part as Brahmin and also as Shudra. But, when someone in the family did achieve the mindset of a Brahmin, assumed that now his entire clan has become a Brahmin, the smarter ones manipulated the ones who fought different battles into believing that they were correct. Probably, also because they learnt science.
For an entire state who does not know that fire could help them against animals, having someone who taught them, showed them, would have made this person the ultimate god. And out of these many ultimate Gods, some of them misused the power, like the materialistic possession, to be not shared with anyone. He must have told stories that since he is God, his children are God as well. Well, if not God, that if he is an Engineer his kids are Engineer as well. May be in those times, when schools did not came into picture, people only taught their disciples or people from their same community, might be because of this we went deeper into the roots of caste.
There is a sense of privilege hands and a sense of security when I write this, but caste is similar to sati. Assumptions, or things that worked in earlier times, but we are choosing to stay with them, even when we migrate from our own communities in search of a better life. The only thing that cuts caste and religion is money and education. Imagine being a poor pseudo Brahmin, you still going to have to listen to the orders of the President of India belonging to a schedule tribe. There is nothing you can do about it, but you will never do it from a schedule tribe person earning the same money as yours.
Look around and you will find that most communities that are considered backward are also the ones who are not supported in their upliftment journey. They are often the people who live in places with no proper roads, with no proper sanitation, often the most basic things like education, good drinking water, better medical facilities get declined to them.
All of this to ensure that the people who once saw the darkness of life never get to the light in it, never get to experience the beauty of life, and the unnecessary fight for survival is forced onto them. Well, the politics of life! The manipulations and the fear instillation and a fight for generations to come.
I have nothing to preach, after all no matter how much I deny it, I have been born into a family which the world identifies as that of Brahmins, to top the ones that have been masters of astrology. But, thinking that this makes life easier, it does not, because the division of caste is one thing, then there is division of class.
I was 6 when I over heard an uncle saying to his wife, why do you invite these people to parties, they don’t even a good pair of suit to wear and sit with us! I was in class 10th when my father forced me to take pictures of a a girl same age as mine, who was his boss’s daughter. I hated it, hated it to the core. I remember coming back home thinking who the fuck was this girl, why should I take some one else’s photos while she is being treated like a fucking princess. May be one of the reasons I don’t like doing a job, because it reminds me that somebody is my boss as well!
All I know, and know for sure, that no matter you lose the fight of caste( after all it gets decided even before you are born, and its a long fight to be fought), the fight for class, the fight for education must go on and must be won.
Avantika Tanubhrt
Tanubhrt.This.Side 
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