We need to talk about Caste

There’s a famous quote vis-a-vis Indian politics and election: “Indians don’t cast their votes; they vote their castes.”

The only problem with the above statement is nothing’s going to change unless we address the core issue of our society. Caste, whether you like it or not, is incredibly strong. It's beyond religion. In fact, much stickier than that. Cluelessness only makes it stronger. Especially if you grew up in urban India and never bothered to know why the labourers in the city generally belong to the downtrodden caste or for that matter, where your maid/help comes from, then you—and not the institutions in place—are partly to be blamed for your ignorance. The burden of privilege ensures that you stay away from the C-word. So much so you don’t even want to talk about it. Your excuse could be anything from “It’s irrelevant!” (Yes, it’s irrelevant because the generations that preceded you made sure of that but if you’re going to discuss the conditions in our country, you better do your homework) to “It makes me uncomfortable!” (Well, that proves the extent of your comfort more than anything else, sweetheart). The point being, not talking about something by calling it regressive is giving too much power to the regressiveness of the subject. Caste is all around us. It’s so prevalent that if you can notice the pattern, it’s almost there all around you be it urban or rural India. So why talk about it? And what difference would it make? Words are a powerful tool, if backed by facts and data. It can be a weapon of mass destruction too, if backed by falsehood and propaganda. That said, if we—the ones who have the voice to make a gradual difference—don’t try to understand the correlation between a person’s caste and his profession (or the lack of it), then who is going to? The politicians? Well, they are busy exploiting our ignorance for close to seven decades now. If we don’t sit up and see how caste affects the entire subcontinent—yes, it’s not limited to only India as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also have a steady caste system in order—that’s a major chunk of 1.68 billion people on the planet—then we are only fooling ourselves. If we’re going to stay aloof instead of digging deeper (like we do with the trends/memes that catch our imagination on the Internet) into the surface of a disease that has been making our society hollow for ages, then what’s the point in criticizing caste politics?

Lit AF (Adnan-Fawad)

One event can hold several ramifications and can even mean different things to different people. Similarly, one event can lead to another and so on but the reactions displayed during a given point of time may or may not lead to more reactions. That's how we are. And by we, i mean can't-reason-with Indians and born-for-denial Pakistanis—the lowest of lows on the face of this planet. 

Uri attack: An event that left 17 Indian soldiers dead and 19 injured while they were sleeping turned the tide towards Pakistani artists in the country. Interestingly, only one city and one industry seemed to matter: Mumbai and Bollywood. All of a sudden, popular opinion was demanding the departure of Fawad Khan. They couldn't think of anyone else but the Karachi-based actor; although, eventually, a blanket ban was proposed by the producers body IMPPA. The reasoning behind why Fawad was particularly targeted was as hollow as it can get after a terrorist attack. Logic becomes the last refuge in such scenarios. Some even called him a mediocre actor—which either means they haven't seen his films and can't accept the fact that the guy is a showstealer—and someone Bollywood can do without as if the Hindi film industry ever cared about talent as much as surname. It's a shame on so many fronts when artists are not able to travel freely but a bigger shame lies in the denial of what's really going on at the border. 

Surgical strikes: Less than two weeks later, Indian Army responded to the Uri attack by carrying out surgical strikes (lasting less than an hour in actuality and killing more than 50 terrorists) at LOC. If you are in the know, these two words are mostly associated with countries like Israel, not India. But then, times are changing and India isn't the nice ol' restrained duck anymore looking to score moral victory. Retaliation is back in fashion and this critical move was greeted with support from nooks and corners of the country. For a change, even the businessmen vocally supported the strikes despite the market crashing when the news broke out. Adnan Sami, a naturalized Indian singer of Afghan-Pakistani origin, too joined the bandwagon by tweeting in support of the Army. This didn't go too well with Pakistan Twitterati. Even though Adnan's tweet didn't mention Pakistan at all, it didn't matter. His anti-terrorism endorsement got (mis)construed as anti-Pakistan, especially because his father had served in Pakistan defence forces! What's most interesting is Adnan has continued to stick to his gun so far.

The contrast between the situations facing these two artists shows us that, at the end of the day, what really matters is where you wish to stand for your own benefit. Fawad could have easily avoided scorn (to some extent, at least) by condemning the cowardly terrorist attack in Uri but he chose not to. On the other hand, Adnan didn't have to trumpet his nationalism on social media but he simply chose to.

On the defense

Lately, sentiments spend a lot of time getting hurt. 

ABC said something in jest. DEF, GHI, MNO, STU and YZA get offended. PQR, VWX and JKL don't because they happen to be ABC's friends and know that s/he was just trying to be funny. The point being Justine Sacco is an international figure now. 24 hours ago, nobody cared whether she existed. One lousy *white* tweet and the lady (because of the way she conducted herself post that stupid tweet) has turned jobless, facing online harassment while providing free fodder for viral news.

Let's gear back a bit.

The issue here, at least for those who are offended (or want to be offended), is the utter generalization on Justine's part. She cracks a joke insinuating AIDS is restricted to Africans or blacks in general. Of course, she's grossly mistaken—factually speaking. At the same time, one can't dismiss the fact that she's white. If the offenders say that not all Africans suffer from AIDS, then she can rebut that not all whites suffer from AIDS either. For argument's sake of course. The prism remains the same. Perception differs. 

The real reason why her case got highlighted is because of the sensitivity attached to AIDS and its correlation to Africa. She would have had it difficult if she were to associate a country/continent with a joke on cancer. She was simply idiotic enough to choose the wrong disease. She should have gone for depression. Nobody flinches a bit while hearing a terrible gag on depression. On the contrary, people laugh along. Always. Which itself is a joke because depression is so damn neglected while it silently does the damage. Perhaps ignorance and humour work for each other. 

Let's gear forward a bit. 

Ironically, the aforesaid furore took place on an online platform. A mythical place where you could say anything and get away with it. Unless you fail to get away with it. Like Ms Sacco recently learnt. She just didn't realize the extent of poor souls she might hurt by her words. You see, the thing is these wounded folks never cracked a clichéd/chauvinist/jingoist/sexist/biased joke in their life, let alone posted something equally dumb on Twitter. They love each other like biblical God meant them to. They never post an offensive one-liner about a country they don't approve of or a football club they don't support. Just pure love trending everywhere. In such a scenario, it's hard to understand how sentiments end up injuring themselves so much. 

Oh, i forgot to mention the word racism above. How insensitive of me!