WHO IS A BRAHMIN? The politics of Identity in India
By Gilles Chuyen,
Manohar, Centre De Sciences Humaines, Rs 725

This book deals with Brahminism in modern India and the politics of caste at the national level, with reference to specific pockets in Delhi, Agra and Chennai.

Caste exploitation and antagonism have been the stock-in-trade of social historians and Gilles Chuyen is no exception. The history of south India, from the late 1910s to the late 1990s, is marked by a struggle against the domination of Brahmins in the colonial administration and educational system. This struggle led to the adoption of a programme for the social uplift of underprivileged non-Brahmins. The non-Brahmin elites got together to launch a movement, which sowed the seeds of the Dravidian movement which swept Tamil Nadu some time later. In north India, on the other hand, it was only after the Mandal commission report that the importance of the backward classes was recognized.

The untouchables struggled to break the Hindu social code, which even denied them access to learning. In his writings, the Shudra activist, Kancha Eliah, vehemently condemns the violence the Brahminical model unleashed on the underprivileged. It is only recently that, as Chuyen notes, the untouchables, a heterogeneous group, have embarked on a search for identity.

The author points to the new school of militant untouchable literature in which the term, Dalit, is a revolutionary expression. For them Dalit, meaning broken or down-trodden, refers to the discriminatory practices which underlie Brahminism. This school opposes the Dalits? former pliancy. The political dimension of Dalit identity is associated with B.R. Ambedkar. For Chuyen, this militant literature is an expression of the Dalits? disillusionment with the movement, which seemed to have lost vigour after the death of Ambedkar.

Chuyen says that though both wanted to improve the condition of the oppressed, Ambedkar did not approve of Gandhi?s reformism and finally discarded Hinduism for Buddhism. For Ambedkar, the two enemies were Brahminism, which supported the caste system, and capitalism, because it was based on class. On the other hand, ?Gandhi, could not break away from the upper caste mindset and was therefore unable to take a radical decision in their favour.?