Casteism is a deeply-rooted reality in India and troubling instances of it keep emerging on the Internet. Swati Khanna, a lawyer, shared photos of two cars with stickers reading ‘Brahmin’ and ‘Jaat’ in Delhi, and they sparked outrage on Twitter. “The obsession of Indians with their so called useless Caste. No penalties for these people yet?” Khanna wrote.
“Would challenge them to write the highest educational qualification of the female members of their family. That would be something worth rejoicing actually,” one Twitter user wrote. “They don’t understand even when placed where it is it’s worthless except the fact of proving how insecurity has no bounds for them,” another said.
Instances of casteism in India are sometimes overt like stickers on cars, sometimes much more violent and sometimes they masquerade as seemingly “harmless” things. such as the bizarre ‘Brahmin cookies’ freshly baked for someone’s thread ceremony. The cookies depict a Brahmin figure wearing a thread. The baking studio in question is known for custom-designing cookies for various occasions.
In a more overt instance, a Twitter user going by @peeleraja shared photos of restaurants and cafes in Bengaluru using the prefix “Brahmin” in their names, available on food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy. Most Indian societies are deeply casteist and the branding of restaurants with a caste name started a debate on the microblogging platform, with opinions differing as to whether or not the tag for the restaurants was meant to be a caste signal.
Recently, ‘pure veg’ started trending on Twitter after a user called such signs outside restaurants “offensive” and “un-inclusive”. “All these “pure veg” signs across food outlets are offensive and un-inclusive. Blatantly implying that other food preferences are “impure” and legitimizing the discrimination against people with diverse preferences,” the Twitter user wrote. It soon started a fierce debate on whether or not “pure veg” was essentially a caste signifier or if it meant unadulterated vegetarian food, that is, without eggs, onions and the like. Others said it means exclusively vegetarian food is cooked at such restaurants.
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