Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India

"It’s an extraordinarily powerful memoir, again, with a force to disturb, describing a world I thought I knew, but from the perspective of somebody who felt degraded, who was exposed to the roughest edges of the progressive Indian state and the upper castes. There’s one instance where she talks about her family just automatically bending whenever an upper caste person passed them. It’s almost as if this deference was embedded in their genetic makeup. Generations of servitude had made them just kowtow reflexively whenever an upper caste person appeared before them. Gidla is from Andhra. Her uncle was a revolutionary leader who joined the Naxalites, the Maoist guerrillas who have been waging an armed campaign to overthrow the Indian state. She herself attended some of India’s finest institutes of higher learning and moved to America. Her brother, her sister and herself now live in North America. She worked for a bank there, and now works in public transport as a conductor on the New York City Subway. She considers Indian history from a very Marxist perspective. Nehru is, to her, an agent of caste oppression. I couldn’t agree with that. I don’t believe Nehru was motivated or animated by any prejudice for the lower castes. I don’t think he quite appreciated the intensity of it. Reading Sujatha Gidla’s book can really make you appreciate the power, the viciousness of the Hindu caste system, and how absolutely degrading it is. It also takes the blush off what many Hindus will say about Hinduism, that it’s the most beautiful, peace-loving religion. The most beautiful, peace-loving religion does not devise the most sophisticated system of degrading human beings on the basis of their birth. Gidla is a hugely gifted writer. It is difficult to read her writing in this book and claim sincerely that India is a progressive, sophisticated country, the light of the world. Anyone who wants to understand the horror show that is the Hindu caste system ought to read it. I just want to add that Gidla’s uncle, the great Maoist revolutionary, quit the Naxalites because he found that, even within the Maoist guerrilla groups, there was caste prejudice against him. At the same time, what goes unacknowledged and yet is visible in the book is the contrast between the uncle and Gidla’s mother. Gidla’s uncle picked up arms and went into the forests of India to wage a violent campaign. He believed in violent revolution, but in the large scheme of things was a failed man. His entire struggle was a failure. Gidla’s mother, who endured brutality on account of being a woman as well as being an untouchable, made different choices. I thought her mother really came across as a hero of the story. Gidla was tortured by authorities in southern India. Despite that background, she went to some of the best institutes of higher learning in India and moved to America. Her mother is the unsung hero who found opportunities for her children in this morass of hopelessness. She saw to it that her children were not lost to the causes that had taken away other members of her family."