Not every writer writes just to give information. Sometimes, there are people who hold up mirrors for the sole purpose of making readers uncomfortable, and taking the act of reading away from pleasure and trivial awareness. Ravikant Kisana’s Meet the upper castes: the Indian millennial generation whose mediocrity broke everything It unsettles and unsettles the very audience it is written for; Upper caste.
As the title suggests, this book is a perceptive reflection on the rich Varnashram. It is divided into eight chapters upper caste Bringing culture(s) under critical scrutiny by denaturalizing everyday life. It forces the reader to take a look at their own complicity. against The embeddedness of caste in the everyday phenomena of social/collective life is something that many people see as ‘natural’. At a time when experience is losing its value and the act of listening is missing even from places that are unimaginable without it, Kisana manages to weave together his experiences with valuable critical social science insights. The result is a story that is deeply intimate yet clearly critical, a narrative that feels familiar yet distinctly novel at the same time. Employing fractions of non-upper caste In his autobiography he has told the story of the upper castes.
Corporate upper ecosystem
Kisana’s story, in its early stages, repeatedly draws attention to the complex workings of a corporate upper caste Ecosystem, a way of thinking and living that has been brought to life by B-schools and IITs in the last two decades. As India reels under the burden of unprecedented challenges (most of which are self-inflicted to some extent), many of these management professionals and technical gurus are found sharing ‘success’ and ‘struggle stories’, as well as offering “expert” advice highly detached from social reality. The author argues that this class reaction against young and marginalized people is reflected in the ‘podcast’ in the form of mockery and insults, the latter’s desire to travel abroad. From Narayana Murthy to Radhika Gupta, these ‘successful’ professionals’ self-proclaimed knowledge of how much work one should do per week – to paraphrase Max Weber’s famous call – is a upper caste Morality whose basic desire is to suck the ‘happiness’ out of their lives and mock and delegitimize their aspirations.
Despite their secular appeal and liberal conduct, these professionals revered in B-schools come from a certain caste background and form a specific social type. Prominent business tycoons such as Ambani, Adani, Mittal, Jindal, Agarwal, Goenka and Birla, who have a monopoly in the Indian economy and continue to determine political fortunes, all belong either to the Bania caste or from adjacent business communities such as Parsis, Bohra Muslims, Khatris, etc. They enjoy a “competition-free monopoly on commerce” by “refraining from the ambitions of the direct ruling class and accepting the spiritual hegemony of Brahmanism”. The market is often seen as a casteless space, although the material economy of South Asia is entangled in caste-based labour, showing us what Ambedkar called the division of labour. From people running grocery stores and small laundries and salons to chicken sellers and restaurant kitchen staff to waiters, caste marks a vivid presence.
There is also serious misrecognition of competence in management schools. Beyond the CAT score, which is mainly related to certain syllabus and time management, what is often celebrated and becomes important for entry into the hallowed halls of these institutes is English fluency, fashion sense and personal grooming. It translates, among other things, to ‘placeability’. Once inside, any talk of social justice on any group or topic is dismissed as “anti-business.” All of these create an environment and culture – what Bourdieu would call ‘habitus’ – where ST/SC/OBC students who manage to get into B schools also “spiritually internalize”. upper caste world view”, which is clearly anti-intellectual and motivated entirely by ‘commercial success’. Here, the author shows that intellectualism is tolerated as long as commercial success is achieved.
Additionally, one has been constructed upper caste Ecosystem where this culture can be nurtured. This includes the separate schools to which the Marwari-Bania communities send their children; Places that are light in terms of workload but heavy in terms of appearance requirements. The author suggests that such a culture transfers to B schools, where more work is viewed as rigor, shallow ideas are passed off as insight, and critical inquiry is often dismissed as lacking seriousness. Commenting on the management education ecosystem, Kisana argues that “For an academic discipline that is so obsessed with ‘staying ahead of the curve’, management pedagogy in India has remained strangely stagnant, devoid of imagination and completely deaf to the rapidly changing economic system.”
love, sex and caste
Let’s look at the fifth and sixth chapters upper caste Aspects of love, sex, romance and marriage. Intimacy and love, thanks to the widespread caste-less reading of ‘compatibility’, are enjoying a disturbing acceptance. Kisana’s perceptive interrogation of these age-old spheres of association, belonging and relation makes a compelling case for critically understanding how a person’s ‘status’ and ‘suitability’ as a potential romantic partner is mediated through the registers of caste. English speaking rational and ‘balanced’ upper caste Urban elites who never miss a chance to publicly declare their individuality and how they differ from their family elders rarely distance themselves from traditional virtues. They do this to “preserve” the family name. Presenting important nuances of romantic and intimate entanglements in caste hierarchies through the lens of gender, the author brilliantly depicts the sufferings of the non-caste.upper caste dating upper caste and offers complex readings of intimacy, masculinity, desire, and open-mindedness.
The caste based basis of marriage in India is known. However, Kisana is engaged in informing its readers about “the moment when the wayward son or the rebellious daughter returns to the home”. He argues that marriage among the progressive upper castes is a perfect case of either obedient progressivism, or a thoughtful and measured rebellion. Other than this, upper caste Monoculture is rapidly flattening pluralistic visions of what marriages could have been. This growing one-dimensionality is troubling because it is invested in marriage as a spectacle related to the status of the family, a means to family happiness, rather than a testament to the upliftment of the community as a whole.
upper cultural machinery
The last two chapters of the book throw light on the regressive politics of the elite class upper caste By critically engaging the cultural system in the study of things like ‘feudal’ and ‘developmental’ among other things. Kisana mentions how upper caste Elite people hover around convenient and soothing key words like optimism, happiness, positivity and enthusiasm.
What stands out is the repeated emphasis on understanding upper caste cultural machinery through a certain ‘thought paralysis’, something that is largely responsible for their “feeling of being unquestionable and superior”. The author wants his readers to at least be aware of how absurd this Brahmanical epistemological claim/belief is. Given the overwhelming hegemony of this cultural apparatus, we rarely question its ‘fascinating aesthetics of dissent and criticism’. In view of this, upper caste India’s position as the moral guardian of a particular idea remains uncontested.
Kisana’s work is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding a culture that, despite its undemocratic and discriminatory essence, talks about democracy and equality, and appears to enthusiastically support freedom of thought and expression. Elite patrons of this cultural system often do not want their children to grow up in India, yet speak and write extensively on the idea of India. Invoking this obedient and facilitative activism is an intellectual responsibility that must be addressed. Ravikant Kisana has played his role by writing this book.
Irfanullah Farooqui and Suraj Gogoi teach at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
