‘Meet the Savarnas’ scrutinises upper-caste silence and examines the structural injustices of caste

Ravikant Kisana begins his Meet the Savarnas: Indian Millennials Whose Mediocrity Broke Everything with a gutting dedication: “For all the versions and factions of me that had to die for me to become the person who could write this work. You were all good and valid.” It is a line that doesn’t ask for sympathy but demands recognition – recognition of the loss, the fragmentation, the slow violence of caste that eats a person from within. What unfolds is an unflinching account of the silent, banal, everyday violences of caste, those that do not make headlines but form the bedrock of our society. The caste system is not a relic of the past; it is the design of the present. Kisana names it, locates it, and most importantly, positions himself within it. This is not a detached read; it tears into the system.

The silence of savarnas

With this work, Kisana joins the brilliant young anti-caste scholars like Akhil Kang, Ujithra Ponniah and Sumeet Samos, among others, who have taken up the task of turning the mirror towards caste-oppressors – the oppressed are no longer to be seen as a spectacle, a case study, or a data point. These writers have not merely written, they have...

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