The recent spate of Hindu k!11!ngs in Kashmir is not surprising, at least to those who place the truth above loyalty to strangers in power. For everyone else it is yet another ineffective reality check that does not even generate online outrage any longer. But why are H so obstinately immune to reality? Here are five systemic reasons, in no particular order but all organically linked and reinforcing each other to form a vicious cycle.
1. Collapse of caste
Nevermind the apologetic refrain of caste being a Spanish word, jaati is another name for community. It is the web of social life that makes humans human. Where there is no equivalent of jaati, there is exploitation in the form of totalitarianism. In the anthropocene era, where atomisation of society is celebrated as progress, the only kind of collectivisation that works is Totalitarianism. Religions and ideologies that are totalitarian in nature are bound to get the better of those that are not.
2. Embracing modernity
Collapse of caste is the breakdown of community, which results in the loss of custom - ideal conditions for the wholehearted adoption of modern modes of living and thinking. Grotesque ideologies like secularism, communism, vikaaans-ism can only find acceptance in a people made hollow by the debilitating effect of the original virus that teaches you to look at tradition with suspicion (advertised as critical thinking) and at mammoth scale technology with child-like trust. Losing tradition means having no skin in the game in anything at all and when you have no skin in any game, you are condemned to be a fence sitter even when your ass is on fire.
3. Education (Schooling)
Education, more accurately schooling, even more accurately indoctrination, is the process of imparting epistemic arrogance on the whole population, which is also why it is being made compulsory in many countries. Epistemic arrogance most directly manifests as overconfidence, the feeling of being right about everything, which is reflected in the overpowering urge to rationalise everything from religious rituals to political developments, just so that we may force-fit reality to the cage of our mental comfort. Psychologically, overconfidence makes us feel secure by training us to regard objective danger as subjective emotional malfunction that ought to be suppressed till it stops bothering us.
4. Economism
The reduction of life to the singular pursuit of money by all sections of society is in itself a form of totalitarianism, which is why it is all pervading. Economism, whether it is capitalist, socialist or anyotherist, is utilitarian in character and scientific in approach, implying that it believes that feelings can be measured like aloo pyaaz and a reasonable philosophy of life can be built on this premise. Honour, justice, love, courage and all things that make life worth living are commoditised by quantifying them as dollars (or INR if you will) and individuality is crushed under the weight of individualism, the ever so loyal servant of economism.
5. Statelessness
The modern State is a colonial enterprise and is, for the most part, incompatible with Hindu Dharma (not to be confused with individual sadhana). As a result, Hindu society is already secularised and sees religion as a strictly private affair. The codification of Dharmashastras was an exercise in gross reductionism that discarded 95% of what was Hindu life, yielding an alien law effectively hostile to the Hindu ‘way of life’. Hindus have no State to call their own and therefore, depend on the imagined generosity of politicians, who in all fairness are legally bound to serve the interests of transnational corporations (not unlike the East India Company).
Conclusion
Truth be told, there is little that can be done to make things better quickly. It is a long game played by forces much greater than us. But when the whole nation is fast asleep, simply waking up would be a revolutionary act.