Trolls descended on my timeline calling me a "rice bag" convert which is a casteist slur. The backlash was in response to a tweet that is critical of UP CM.
I am thankful for many of you who challenged this. But the reality is this, I am still a UC woman with immense privilege.
While being born to parents of mixed caste, and class - I am still the beneficiary of being born Hindu, whose family has had access to education for at least three generations.
This means these slurs don't affect me in the way it would -- when weaponized against others. It also means that it's our job to constantly challenge these bigots, every single day. Hindus, especially educated ones practice caste in the most insidious ways.
We justify these in the name of "culture", "practice" and "tradition". We do this by erasing other food practices, refusing access to those not like us to spaces of knowledge and resources. We are complicit in the constant violence that we enable.
Critique, anger, trolling, or even threats no longer affect me. So keep at it. But I will say this -- every time you let an aunt/ uncle, a parent, a friend or a sibling spew hate, comfortably share bigoted ideas without consequence or being challenged you become complicit.
You can follow @suchitrav.
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