The ideological infrastructures of racist Brahminism, Indian techno-capital, and architectures of violence

Figure 1: Caste discrimination at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)

This blog piece builds on my earlier analysis of the convergences and collaborations between Brahminism and white supremacy. I have argued previously that white supremacy, based on its ideology of inherent racial superiority, parallels and reproduces Brahminism, the ideology of the superiority of the Brahmin varna (caste). 

A key ingredient of the Indian caste system is its belief in the stability of the category of caste, passed on hereditarily, and to be managed through strict communicative practices that maintain racial purity (marriage, food, employment, housing, access to water etc.). The Hindu constructs of the caste system played a critical role in shaping colonial race science, with colonial administrators and record keepers forming their earliest categories of racial hierarchy based on the caste system, learned through their ad/ventures into India. 

The racist hierarchy of inherent categories of human beings, classifying human beings into structures of superiority/inferiority, connects the Hindu caste system with the race theory designed by the Nazis, forming the basis of the conceptualization of Aryan supremacy underpinning Nazi violence. 

Contemporary convergences between the Alt-Right and Hindutva form the ecosystem of global hate, catalyzed by the networked information infrastructures of digital platforms. The proliferation of racist Brahminism on Indian techno-capital shapes the architectures of global violence. 

In the rest of this analysis, I will analyze some social media posts by a digital marketing entrepreneur, operating from India's techno-capitalist hub, Bangalore, Anuradha Tiwari, who started the #BrahminGene hashtag. Tiwari is the founder and CEO of a content marketing company. In my analysis, I will argue that Brahminism as supremacist extremism is normalized and mainstreamed through India's techno-capitalist hubs, practiced and reproduced by engineers, programmers, marketers, techies, entrepreneurs etc. educated in the English language, performing modernity while deeply entrenched in the primitive ideological structure of caste, forming the backbone of India's development infrastructure and percolating across global techno-financial-capital. Brahminical constructions of merit propel this techno-entrepreneurial-financial class into the rungs of global success.

Moreover, the mobility of caste into corporate speak is an assertion of multicultural identity politics (often leveraging policies around diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI]). Fueled by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), regional Engineering colleges, and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) into the global infrastructures of algorithmic production, Brahminism mainstreams eugenicist hate into global financial technological platforms. The casteless flagbearers of merit across the Indian diaspora globally narrate the stories of model minority excellence.

Figure 2: Tiwari's post on a digital platform with the hashtag #BrahminGenes

Seductions of Brahminism and communicative inversion

Let's critically analyze Tiwari's original post that started the hashtag #BrahminGene. 

Dressed in Western attire, speaking to the IT-savvy, posturing-as-modern, young upwardly mobile audience in Bangalore and other similar IT hubs of India's technological future, Tiwari declares to her readers that she is unapologetically Brahmin (encouraging other Brahmins to be unapologetically so as well). 

The hashtag #BrahminGenes encodes the deeply racist and primitive ideological infrastructure of Brahminical supremacy, reproducing the most grotesque claim of race science, that there is a Brahmin gene that is supreme in the caste structure. 

The hierarchical construction of Brahminical supremacy has offered the communicative legitimacy for extreme forms of violence witnessed across India, based on the notion that these forms of violence meted out toward oppressed caste communities by Brahmins are justified through religious scriptures (references are made to Sanatan Dharma, meaning ancient, eternal, pure religion). This ideology of Brahminical supremacy constitutes the extreme forms of violence witnessed across India, including sexual violence (consider the rape of Bilkis Bano by Brahmin men during the Gujarat pogrom), directed toward Dalit and minority communities. 

Tiwari's post then communicatively inverts the hate and violence built into Brahminical supremacy by concocting the notion of "Brahmin haters," suggesting that the critiques of caste and Brahminism are forms of hate. This inversion of critiques of caste and Brahminism, deeply racist ideological formations that make up the architecture of Hinduism, as racism or hate, is a critical communicative resource in the racist infrastructure of Hindutva. It manufactures terms such as "Hinduphobia" and "Hindu hate" to prop up victimhood and silence anti-racist practices. 

Tiwari then goes on to assert herself as the harbinger of transformation, leading the change by wearing her Brahminism on her sleeve (aka muscle on display).

Brahminism's construction of supremacy

Figure 3: The material infrastructure of Brahminical supremacy, replete with the markers of consumerism

Brahminism is anchored on the projection of Brahminical supremacy, the supposed superiority of Brahmins in merit, strength and appearance.  

Note here the depiction of Brahmin pride, juxtaposed on the imagery of the Hindu symbol Om and a flexed muscle, colored in saffron. Consider here the strategic deployment of religion to uphold and propagate the caste structure.

Figure 4: Merit and strength incorporated into the Brahminical construction of Hinduism

Note further the imagery of Hindutva supremacy replete with the markers of capitalist excess, a red car, and sunglasses. 

The most primitive form of racism invents itself as the modern. 

Brahminical supremacy is a market. It sells. The car stamp expresses an assertive Brahminical supremacist identity, punctuated as Hindu cool. As a commodity, Brahminical supremacy creates pathways to a good life, and at the same time, is consumable as a symbolic marker of success. Attached to pride, it seeks to re-narrativize the cultural construction of caste-based racism, making it appear cool. 

The eugenics-promoting underlying ideology of Brahminism connects the concept of jati to genetic structures, suggesting that jatis retain pure genetic structures (Of course, all of this is pseudoscience, the same sort of pseudoscience that is promoted by the most despicable white supremacists). 

The constructions of "born of wisdom" and "built on strength" ascribe to the Brahmin gene characteristics of supremacy (merit and muscle). These characteristics of supremacy form the sources of pride. Note here the ideology of caste purity at work, which is operationalized in the everyday caste practices of Hindu culture.

Brahminism and capital

Figure 5: Tiwari's LinkedIn profile capturing the mobility of Brahminical supremacy into the techno-capitalist networks

Tiwari's credentials, her roles as Founder and CEO of a content marketing company JustBurstOut and as a TEDx speaker speak to the deep-rooted presence of Brahminism supremacy in registers of India's development (entrepreneurship, bridges to global markets, technology hub, etc.). 

Clients of JustBurstOut include strong brands with significant market presence, including some of India's significant healthcare providers. 

Her less-than-mediocre TEDx talks narrate mobility, talent sales, self-discovery, self-empowerment, heroic social change, and self-marketing, the sort of buzzwords that form the infrastructures of neoliberal capital, as cheap copies of US market-speak, popularized by self-styled lifestyle Gurus. That she is networked into TEDx to have a speaking platform in spite of her mediocre communication skills speaks precisely of the kind of meritless access that Brahminism brings.

Tiwari's posts upholding Brahminical supremacy offer a window into the ways in which Brahminism is a critical resource in India's techno-capitalist hubs. Mainstreamed into spaces of young upward mobility, it offers a chauvinistic narrative of supremacy, seamlessly integrated into notions of merit, success, and wealth acquisition. Brahminical feudalism finds its pathway into global modernity, reproducing its deeply misogynist, racist narratives.

Brahminism's victimhood, white supremacy and Zionism

Brahminism, much like white supremacy, constructs a narrative of victimhood, painting Brahmins to be under threat. 

Tiwari goes on to target India's affirmative action policy, the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes Act, designed to offer oppressed caste and Adivasi communities some safeguards against the systemic and historical violence of caste oppression.

Figure 6: The depiction of reservations as threat

The SC/ST Act and reservations are framed as threats to the upper castes, and this mobilization against reservations forms historically a critical resource in the mobilization of Brahmins to hate politics. 

The discourse of caste supremacy works to undermine the protections offered by affirmative action to communities that have experienced historic disenfranchisement. Moreover, the narrative of merit is propped up to attack affirmative action policies, framing these policies as destructive to Indian democracy. Consider here the everyday jokes that are perpetuated by upper castes around reservations and merit, lamenting about the incompetence of oppressed caste communities in professional jobs).

Figure 7: The juxtaposition of reservations in the backdrop of the narrative of taxation

The ideology of Brahminical supremacy is deeply embedded in India's articulations of neoliberal aspirations, placing the tax system (as unfair) in the backdrop of the attack on reservations and caste organizing. Note further the supremacist language around freebies, and the incorporation of the conversation on corruption to uphold the extremist ideology. 

This ideological extremism of Brahminical supremacy is woven into the everyday fabric of the postcolonial development structures of India and its imaginaries of neoliberal success.

Convergences with Zionism and white supremacy

In this project of constructing victimhood, Brahminical propaganda often draws upon Zionist propaganda, depicting Brahmins as the "new Jews of India," as targets of hate. 

Consider moreover the similarity here between Brahminism and white supremacy, evident in the narrative of white culture under threat from diverse communities. 

The "Great Replacement" narrative that forms the communicative infrastructure mobilizing white supremacist terror attacks convergences with Brahminical supremacy in the projection of this victimhood to legitimize terrorizing violence.

Figure 8: The comparison of Brahmins to Jews

This communicative inversion, the turning of empirical registers of Brahminical violence, to concoct narratives of Brahmins under threat, shapes the mobilization of hate. 

Brahminism's mobilization behind Hindutva continually reproduces fear and anxiety, placing upper caste fear as the key recruiting tool into the political project of Hindutva. Hindutva works upon this fear through its global networked structure to recruit funding from the diaspora for its projects of hate, sold under the guise of development. 

The #BrahminGene hashtag renders visible the infrastructures of Brahminical supremacy, incorporated into the structures of techno-capital, deeply tied to the peddling of pseudoscience (race as the basis of genetic supremacy). The violence that is integral to Brahminical supremacy, mediatized through neoliberal techno-capital in technology hubs of India such as Bangalore and Gurgaon, is introduced into and magnified through the global structures of technological innovation. 

India's knowledge hubs such as the IITs and IIMs, replete with this Brahminical hierarchy, concocted as merit, continually feed into the neoliberal project of techno-financial innovations the primitive racist ideology of caste. "Annihilating caste," to draw on the transformative work of B R Ambedkar, lies at the heart of imagining and building anti-racist technological futures rooted in justice.

Further reading

Ambedkar, B. R. (2022). Annihilation of Caste: A Landmark Discourse on Equality and Social Justice. Prabhat Prakashan.

Dutta, D., & Dutta, M. J. (2024). Discursive Construction of Race and Racism in India. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.

Dutta, M. J., & Chandrashekhar, S. (2024). Caste as communicative phenomena. Special issue call. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.