One of my constant philosophical internal struggles is comprehending the tribalism in human species as it overpowers the more harmonious social bondage we should have inherited from our primate ancestry. From my basic understanding of the primate behaviours, the primate social bondage is far less tribal at least within their own species.  However, as humans, we tend to bond as tribes than as a collective species. This is an intriguing subject as the people who seem to be against the innate tribalism then inadvertently fall into the very same bucket. I for one have to admit that in spite of my best efforts I have exhibited that in my own life.

I once considered myself a Marxist or a communist. I do miss those days when I could form a bond with the fellow Marxists but I don’t believe Marxism as a global solution anymore. Nowadays, I call myself a Marxist only when I have a get under the skin of a bunch of free-market capitalists. I don’t think I can be a Marxist as even Karl Marx wouldn’t be one today. The causal factors which led Marx to do his work don’t exist today. Quoting the Danish Philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” I do not think I can reverse history to go back to those old days. So belonging to these tribes will only come at the peril of restricting my thought and not learning.

For some time now, I have decided not to associate myself with any group. To put me into any of the groups mean, I concur with the view of the group. To continue to belong to that group when my views contradict the group is the very definition of non sequitur. I consider this true with everything, leftist, Marxist, liberal, socialist, feminist and to even some extent atheist etc. I am much more comfortable in calling myself into anti tribe than a tribe. I consider myself an anti-theist than an atheist, an anti-male chauvinist than a feminist, an anti-authoritarian than a leftist, an anti-conservative rather than a liberal and so on.

Over the last few years, I found almost all the public movements are shades of grey, the altercations between the public intellectuals have been personal attacks rather than ideologies and above all simple philosophies like free-speech, right to peaceful dissent and civil liberty have different meanings for different people. I also found some crazy people who capitalised on these divides. This has also coincided with the entire social media hysteria, lack of journalistic honesty from the mainstream media and finally everyone with a pen and studio calling themselves a journalist. I definitely see the positive side of this story but I can also see how crazy this has become.  I also realised that the current crop of people who call themselves the gatekeepers of the left have ended up with a thinner skin, thicker ego and lost the ability to have a sensible conversation with adversaries.

Therefore, I want to move from the cult mentality to the issues. I want to do this by using the same approach I use in my consulting role. I want to break down problems into facts, opinions and people. My approach can be broken down into the below four points.

• Take stance on issues based on facts. If facts change my stance changes.
• Call our hypocrisy, lies, and anti-fact behaviours
• Provide feedback to people based on issues and not based on opinions, or simply avoid ad hominem
• A converse of the above, never agree with opinions because you like the person
• Inductive fallacy – Avoid generalisation based on probability or carefully chosen pieces of evidence

I feel the present status of most discussion is a false dichotomy. If you are in the United States, then you are either a Republican or a Democrat. If you are in the United Kingdom, you are either a Labour or a Conservative.  My stand depends on the issues and not what the liberal or conservative philosophy says. The below table demonstrates the need to move from the cults of the left to the points on the right. I want to leave the usage of left and right to just this table and not what the meaning has become.

In doing so, I want to be extremely tough on few behaviours listed below.

1. Using one’s rights to erode other’s rights or using freedom against itself
2. Moving from left to right or vice versa
3. Calling everything a faith

Using one’s rights to erode other’s rights or using freedom against itself is a seriously dangerous trend. It is the incongruence where people want to use freedom of expression to shut other’s freedom of expression. The classic examples are when people want to stop speakers as they are offensive, especially when the audience is supposed to be adults. It has taken extreme forms in the recent years. You see the terrorists use the secular values in Europe to propagate religious intolerance. You see the students in colleges revolting against everything that they do not like to hear. Offensive speech and hate speech should not be stopped as the modern day acceptable speech was offensive few years back.

I am tired of this phrase moving from left to right or vice versa. I see the former more than the latter. As an audience to shows like the Rubin Report, I see these people a lot. However, the problem is very simple, just because you don’t agree to the left doesn’t mean you are going to agree to the right. That is a false dichotomy and people who do that have to be called out. It is not a journey if you learn people on one side are wrong as a natural consequence people on the other side should be right.  To simplify, if we find that Obama was wrong an issue it doesn’t mean Trump is right. It is a naive way to look at the world. Such people haven’t demonstrated any learning. It is again a tribal behaviour. You made a hasty decision assuming that everything was right in one tribe. You learnt it is not true. Instead of moving out of all tribes, you have joined the opposite gang with the same approach that made you join the first tribe. This is not an evolution as Dave Rubin generally wants to put. It justifies moving out but doesn’t justify moving into the next one.

The third one is a very tiring and a circular reasoning issue. Most people who say this start with the reasoning that faith is someone innate and end with that. Faith is something which evidence can’t break. Anti-faith is a behaviour where my position is based on the evidence presented and will change when evidence suggests the contrary. Let me take the most common faith, faith in god. The logic used to justify the existence of god is either because there is no conclusive theory to confirm the source of something or a based on stories of some individuals. The former is a logical fallacy called an argument from ignorance.  The latter is a mere extension of the faith. Now you need to have faith in other individuals who in turn will become the proof of god. This fallacy is called an appeal to authority.  If god appears in front of me and other’s in an undeniable way and consistently, then we will all start accepting God. Then God is not faith anymore, it is based on evidence. So, the logic still remains, believing in evidence is not a faith. It is like saying accepting truth is a faith. This carefully constructed wordplay intended to make the repeated assertions as a proof of the proposition.

I feel passionate about the topics listed above and the philosophies underneath. I want to do my best by basing it facts and logic rather than a cultish or mob hysteria. This would mean that I want to take stances against everyone I agree with on another issue. Truth has no obligation to be pleasant to me or even good for humanity. I want to be happy with truth instead of basing my life on lies.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar was once quoted saying “The history of India is nothing but a history of a mortal conflict between Buddhism and Brahminism.“. I consider the use of the words Buddhism and Brahminism metaphorical like Einstein’s god. While Brahminism stands for inequality, divide and discrimination, Buddhism stands for equality, love and peace. While all Buddhists and Brahmins might not entirely fall into those buckets, I can broadly accept the usage as a metaphor.

During the British rule of India, two groups started to benefit albeit at different levels. The brahmins who held the monopoly over social rules and education started to gain massive financial grounds by capitalising on their social status and knowledge. The Dalits who were discriminated and kept at the bottom of the social pyramid saw light through a government which didn’t care much about the Indian Caste Structure. Though, the British government didn’t change the structure at it roots it provided a way for the Dalits to see what can be done.

Post achieving their right to self-determine and govern themselves from the British, Indian government put in several constitutional measures to ensure equality in the society and upliftment of the downtrodden. However, that didn’t again fundamentally kill the biases in the society. It got questioned, suppressed and most commonly capitalised to the benefit of the ruling population. Now, it is raising its ugly head, just that this new version of the social software is much more dangerous. I want to break this down into happenings, reason and way forward.

What is the present state of India?

The caste system is rife with different sects of the society wanting to become the Brahmins of the past. When I last visited India, I found a rather depressing need for people to find out who is below them in the society. There was a sense of entitlement towards possession. I also saw an acute admonishment towards people who do possess lesser than oneself. There were plenty of cultish movements which had little regards for history or truth. I want to broadly classify this social phenomenon as the resurgence of the Brahminism in India.

As I mentioned above, the traditional brahmins have gained a lot of wealth, social status and power in the society. In the last century, there have been plenty of social changes, as a result, they had to give up their long-held right to dictate and discriminate the society. However, at their roots, they haven’t changed. They have found the erosion to their right to discriminate others extremely hard to accept while their accumulation of wealth as a matter of pride.

Traditional brahmins are not alone here. There are three sets of modern brahmins in the present day India.

1. Traditional brahmins – People who still call themselves brahmins by caste
2. Other castists – People who still believe in caste system and strongly associate themselves with a caste
3. Wealthy individuals – People with immense wealth to be able to drive around the society they way they wish

India, much like the US has a culture of entitlement and fate, where wealth is entitled and poverty is a result of fate; the crony combination of Capitalism and Theocracy. There are three indicators which have made me realise the resurgence of Brahminism in a more modern sense.

1. Grassroot movements spreading the righteousness of the religious & castist practices in India
2. Growing intolerance towards dissent and alternate viewpoints
3. Identity Politics – Realignment of people based on religion, caste and wealth

So, what are the evidence of each of these?

Grassroot movements: The social media has made the spread of  (mis)information extremely easy. Over the last few years, I increasingly see spread of messages praising the brahmins of the past, justifying caste systems, a neo-spiritual explanation for all the myths, a justification for past deeds of castists, a call for a fundamental belief system and above all a cry of foul over brahmins behind considered a venom of the caste system. I originally dismissed this as an aberration. I began to then see mass movements towards traditionalistic conservatism. Then I realised, my friends who were at least secular before are infected by this.  It has spread from just a Brahmin concept to a full-fledged rollback of social development. E. V. Ramasamy, popularly known as ‘Periyar’ was an anti-castist and a social reformer in southern India. He once said society cannot eliminate Brahminism without fighting Brahmins. It is so true. The torchbearers of the castist ideologies have just kept it hidden for decades. However, what is worse is that every other caste which was either discriminated or was on the periphery have joined the Brahmin bandwagon.

There is absolutely no intellectual honesty or a forum for healthy debate on the disconcerting Indian history. Freedom of speech as a constitutional right has been completely overruled by the right to get offended or more precisely right to physically attack blasphemy. Every cult or group having more than 50 members have enough hooligans and goons to cause chaos. In the past one year, India has witnessed attacks against non-believers, religious minorities in a location, women, individuals whose opinions are not accepted and worst of all attack on law enforcement for arresting a religious leader accused of raping minor girls. A bunch of activists who protested against intolerance and calling for freedom of speech were attacked under the name of nationalism. Anyone questioning any religion, especially the credentials of Hinduism is put behind bars or has to face mob justice.

Karl Marx referred to religion as the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” There can’t be a bigger testimony to those words than India. Religion has given people a tool to explain their status in the society, use it discriminate, use it to justify discrimination and use it to accept poverty and discrimination. Every religion feels superior using the same principles. Every caste seems to think the same way. The Wealthy feel entitled to their wealth either using Free Market Liberal principles or religious principles. Sometimes even they want to feel discriminated. The worst part of this is even the discriminated groups have now forgotten what they fought. They have made their new caste their identity and want special treatment. The identity of individuals seems to be their religion and caste. There is not a single secular party in India which has a truly non-religious aligned candidate. Parties decide the political candidate in an area is based on the major caste in that area.

So, what?

The most common question I encounter when I place this rather uncomfortable state in front of the fanatics is, “so, what? why is this Brahminism?”. I want to break this down to what exactly is happening as a result of all this. If one looks at traditional brahmins, their biggest levers were

1. Ability to dictate people’s position in the social pyramid
2. Education

M.K. Gandhi, himself a big castist supported the secular candidate Jawaharlal Nehru as the first prime minister of India. Nehru was a secular social democrat. He ended up working on making education free at best and affordable at worst. He worked with Dr BR Ambedkar to ensure systemic changes to dismantle the then social structures. He also ensured that businesses are controlled and regulated. Also, the policies were intended to ensure there is an equitable distribution of wealth and economic redistribution.

What has neo-brahminism done? It has undone the work of the first parliament. Secularism is just an abused word now. People who utilised the public education system from the early 1950s to late 1960s have not invested back into the system. They voted in favour of  private schools. The communities which were against discrimination now want the right to discriminate. The communities which had to stop discrimination are crying foul and want to discriminate again.

There are private schools, colleges and universities all over the country. These schools are extremely expensive and quite elitist. You cannot land in a decent university unless you are from one of these private schools. This leaves people who didn’t ride the first wave of social welfare or have subsequently been brought down with little or no scope of reviving their lives. The next genius could be languishing in the slums of Mumbai or the ghastly mines of Korba or the footpaths in Chennai or the stuck in the chaos of Kashmir. The only equality measure left in the system in of reservation, which is currently hogged by people who have already been capitalised. You will see a lot of people in India complain about reservation while virtually no one complaining about money in education. Caste as a means to bias in education is bad but money in education is just as bad if not worse. Reservation in education for underprivileged communities doesn’t take the opportunity away from people of privilege but money in education does.

Now, what?

There is no way to end Brahminism without taking the privilege out of the brahmins. Brahmins hold a grip over most critical events in a person’s life from birth to weddings to death. There is a social pressure to fall in line with their expectations. It can only be broken through education and counter approaches. We cannot silence them as that would amount to arresting freedom of speech. We need counter opinions to take the stigma out of not being associated with them. Once these key events do not require being associated with a brahmin, it takes the sting off their venom.

The next thing is to make education public and take money out of education. For this to happen, the government has to do the following

1. Slowly eliminate private players from education
2. Remove the system where seats can be bought by rich people
3. Ensure lodging and food can be made free to all deserving students

The only way to make this happen is to increase the budget for education. Make the corporations pay their share.

Brahminism is dangerous. It has corrupted the Indian societies for over 3000 years. There is no justification for the caste system and is utterly made up.