The latter half of this tweet is very very true and I’m speaking from my own family’s viewpoints. https://twitter.com/manishahire/status/1302244166672420864

Up until the last few years, my father’s Dalit family and their history and culture were swept under the carpet.

My mother though an amazing mother, who literally ran away and was ostracised from her UC family and cut off from their very burgeoning, sprawling estates, is still a casteist in many many ways.

It was only after sitting down with my father, (a rare occurrence) was I made aware of my Dalit roots.

There is a very significant difference in my mothers and my fathers outlook towards the world. My mother in her true UC way, is a couldn’t care less person, who thinks she’ll get away with what she wants while my father is someone who looks like he walks on eggshells in public

What I absolutely despise about my mother is that even after marriage she refuses to discard hinduism and always places her UC as some pedigree of a great upbringing. My father on the other hand doesn’t frequent temples. At all. And tenses up whenever caste is mentioned.

She is also very blind towards caste atrocities and Ambedkar is just a momentary historical figure for her. She also conveniently forgets the caste struggles faced by Shivaji or Jyotiba Phule.

She still has a problem sharing utensils, water with someone who she just met (aka doesn’t know the caste location about), I mean it’s not visible to others but since I live with her I know the signs.

Another big tell of my mother’s still ingrained casteism is how she refuses to ever clean the bathrooms. Ever. Up until a few years ago it’d be someone else doing that for her.

Another instance would be my mother always calling acquaintances by their surname while my father referring to them by their first names.

Another memorable event was my father refusing to watch Sairat and my mother watching it and just saying yeah this happens, it’s very normal.