Hello there, fellow dvij,
Namaskaram.
If you, like me:
~ are a Brahmin with a Hindu last name living in India;
~ are gainfully employed and wealthy (which means you aren’t worried about where your next meal or rent or piece of clothing or phone recharge is coming from);
~ are educated (which means you have a degree of sorts);
~ are a cis het male;
~ know and speak the local language where you stay;
~ have a passport, vehicle, and a home, even if leased; and
~ are, have been, or will be married or in a steady, socially approved relationship, then, I have something to say to you.
And that is: You need to be, in fact, you are the cutting edge of dissent in this country and society.
You need to raise your voice and stand by the oppressed and the have-nots.
You need to be the loudest in your protests when atrocities against your fellow humans take place.
You need to be the first to speak up and speak out when you see injustice.
You need to be the one educating (where necessary), reining in (when required) and shouting down (as a last resort) your co-casteists and co-religionists from their arrogant perspectives that lead to shameful behaviour that is unacceptable to civilised society in 2023.
You. Yes, you.
Why? Because you are the safest, most entrenched, the least risk-prone section of Indian society. The person most likely to be heard and taken seriously. And least likely to be attacked or persecuted without the arduous ‘due process’. You are the last person they will come for. And they have a ton of others to go through first. You are sitting there, safe, well-fed, secure, and free. You are the recipient of a tremendous amount of privilege that you can choose to rest on, or put to use as a shield from behind which you can then wield the sharpest of weapons of dissent in aid of the less privileged, the oppressed, the have-nots, and in the interests of the larger and longer-term good of the society that you are a part of. And you know all of this.
It isn’t a secret that today’s society is broken. It was broken by us (those that fit that list above, and I used the word ‘us’ purposely, for I am as much a part of the problem as you). It is, therefore, our duty to be the first unto the breach to fix it.
Don’t think this is someone else’s job. It is ours. We ought to do it. Or else be ready to die a lonely and horrible death when eventually they come for us. As they will. And drag us away as we plead and try to tell them how we’ve been nothing but model citizens.
You see, the rabid, hungry wolves who will surround us, growling and salivating as they snap at our flesh from all sides won’t care that we were ‘pure’ vegetarian.
So, get up. Stand up. And raise your voice against tyranny. We owe it to the very society that we sit at the apex of and consider it our privilege to shit on others from our perch.
Let us do our fucking duty. Let us raise our voice to save others. Before it’s too late. To save ourselves.
Sincerely,
Kedar, a fellow privileged human.
