Theres something common in reactions to Ranbir Kapoors jeans, Brexit and Khan Market gang – ThePrint

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Among the many reactions to actor Rishi Kapoors cremation Thursday, one caught my attention. Ritu Rathaur, whocalls herself a Himachali Thakurian and Civilizational Hindu, criticised Ranbir Kapoor for wearing torn jeans to his fathers cremation.

Two things stand out. One is the obvious poor taste of the tweet and how it ignores that the Kapoor familywas asked by the authoritiesto go straight from the hospital to the crematorium in view of the lockdown, so obviously Ranbir couldnt change his clothes, even in the unlikely event that clothes were uppermost on his mind on the day his father died. The second is the word deracination.

Deracination means a removal or separation from ones native environment or culture, especially in terms of racial or ethnic identity, but the way it is used in India, it is less about race and far more about religion, language andclothes.

In India, if you dont engage with religion and religious customs (and particularly the majoritarian ones), you are called deracinated, because you obviously dont understand your culture and roots.

The use of the word in India assumes that anyone who is liberal, who speaks and thinks in English, who dresses in Western clothes and isnt concerned with a narrow and surface-level concept of Indianness, is deracinated. Anyone who talks about global issues and human rights instead of muscular nationalism is not in touch with real India. Never mind that there are many Indias, each of them equally real and valid the English-educated liberal elites Indianness doesnt get invalidated because of their privilege, and the white kurta-wearing funeral attendee isnt more desi than someone who wears jeans, ripped or not.

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It is also a lazy pejorative because, as sociologist Shiv Visvanathan told ThePrint, When we in India talk about deracination, we are talking of a very superficial way of looking at a persons Indianness. Its a failure of our use of language, we didnt look at the root of the word before using it to describe someone who is just more cosmopolitan.

It is the same narrow logic that compelled many people, in June 2015, to make snarky comments aboutwhy Indians were celebratingwhen the US Supreme Court legalised gay marriage, and the same argument that is dredged up every four years when someone questions on social media why Indians care who becomes the US president. Because, you know, real Indians should only be concerned with what happens in our country.

It is also the same narrow logic behind Prime Minister Narendra Modis use of the term Khan Market gang to describe the capitals elite class, epitomised by the Nehru-Gandhi family, whose ideas of secularism and diversity, and cosmopolitan, outward-lookingways are at odds with the Rights obsession with the glories of our (Hindu) past.

In a 2017 article, the BJPs National General Secretary, Ram Madhav (who also, in 2019, criticised the pseudo-secular/liberal cartels of Khan Market), wrote that Indias native genius is rooted in its religio-social institutions like state, family, caste, guru and festival, adding that at the time of Independence, conflict arose between a colonised Nehru and a Gandhi more attached to native wisdom. Nehru sought to take the country in the direction of the ideas he had inherited from the colonial masters and from his personal experience in Europe. The crucial formative years after independence were thus dominated by a western liberal discourse that had very little Indian content, Madhav wrote.

Incidentally, after the BJPs victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Madhav took party workers out for a celebration to Khan Market.

R. Jagannathan, editorial director of Swarajya magazine, says a deracinated Indian is someone whose mind is almost entirely driven by the English language. He told ThePrint, When you think and express yourself in a regional language, you are far more rooted. Not that one can paint everyone with the same brush, but yes, someone who is mentally colonised by the English language is broadly what I would call deracinated. Of course, English is an Indian language, but it should be used only for looking outward. Forcing it as the language with which to look inwards, at regional issues, is problematic.

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In his book,The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and The Future of Politics, British writer and social commentator David Goodhart divides people into Somewheres (those who are deeply rooted in a certain ethnic, linguistic, religious, geographical community and geography, typically conservative, often not well-educated, and wedded to homogeneity) and Anywheres (urban, well-educated, well-travelled, at home anywhere in the world).

Goodhart uses these terms to explain, and justify, the demand for Brexit in the UK, citing the sense of threat to their identity that the Somewheres feel due to immigrants, despite the fact that they are in a majority over the Anywheres.

The terms can easily be transplanted to India, with the whole Hindu khatre mein hai narrative of the BJP. In India, the Anywheres are also in a minority, but they do hold some sway over public thought, be it in the media, in cinema, literature, big business or the civil services. And yes, they do need to confront the fact that there is a disenchantment with them that has led to Narendra Modis consecutive landslide electoral victories.

It is not enough to just call all the Somewheres bigots and cocoon oneself in a bubble. It is also not enough to call all the Anywheres deracinated and out of touch with reality and cocoon oneself in that bubble.

Also read: Why does the Right-wing want to occupy Delhis liberal hotspot Khan Market?

It is similar to the fear that the institutions of marriage and family are breaking down but why is every change seen as bad? Marriage as it stood, as a patriarchal construct,wasin need of a breakdown and overhaul to accommodate a changed gender dynamic. Familywasa very narrow idea, and the nuclear unit, and now live-in partners, are changing that and its a good thing. These upheavals are not threats. These are signs that something that needed to change is finally changing.

To go back to the attack on Ranbir Kapoors clothes, Visvanathan says that theKapoor family actually carries the tradition of the deracinated Indian, what with bringing to India the idea of Charlie Chaplin, the proletariat and clown, as the hero. Rishi Kapoor also always carried himself with ease, didnt take himself too seriously, and its the same with Ranbir. The Kapoors did not adhere to standard nationalist models,they brokestereotypes.

Views are personal.

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Theres something common in reactions to Ranbir Kapoors jeans, Brexit and Khan Market gang - ThePrint