Interviewee: John Boopalan

Interviewer: Dhanya Addanki

Location: East Boston Public Library, Boston, MA, USA

Transcriber: Serena Rodholm

Dhanya Addanki: 0:01
This is December 20, 2019. We are in the East Boston Public Library with John Boopalan and John, how are you doing?

John Boopalan: 0:09
Good, good. Dhanya Good.

DA: 0:11
That’s good. Can you tell me a little bit about where you live, today?

JB: 0:14
Sure. My wife and I, with our toddler who is now stringing words together. We live in Watertown in Massachusetts.

DA: 0:25
Nice. And how far away is that from Boston?

JB: 0:29
Watertown is probably about 10 to 12 miles. Yeah. It's 10 to 12 miles.

DA: 0:35
So can you tell me the journey a little bit about how you came to be in Watertown, Massachusetts.

JB: 0:40
Sure, sure. So I grew up in India, our family moved a lot. So I was born in a former French colony which is Pondicherry and from Pondicherry, we went to Vellore in Tamil Nadu or Tamil Nadu and we were for a few years in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates. Then I did a year of hostel life in Chennai, Madras. And then we eventually settled down in Bangalore city. So, that's where our home is. My parents' home rather. And they still live there in Bangalore. So, I ended up in Bangalore and twists and turns took me to formal theological education. And after I got my M.Div., an M.Div. is a Master's in Divinity. So after I, the first year, I did my theology, I was just completely...sold. I was just sold downright sold. I wanted to read everything. I wanted to learn everything and we can talk about more, we can talk more about how that just changed. everything for me, completely changed everything for me. But after the first year, the second year on, I knew that I just wanted to study theology as much as I needed to, in order to teach. So that became my dream. So from my second year of my B.D., I wanted to just do everything in order to get to a place where I could teach, because it was in that classroom that I was transformed. And then I said to myself, “Oh, my God, what a transformative space this can be.” Not by default.

JB: 2:42
And so that took me from, that brought me in some sense the United States, because all the Mavericks in India want to come to the United States or other places, and some of my mentors, some of my mentors really encouraged me to come to the United States to get my Ph.D. because they said, “It's just a better education system, access to resources is just extraordinary.” And, you know, in India, the latest books that we would have would be dated back by at least five years, would be the latest books that we have. And here when you come to– I got my Ph.D. at Princeton [Theological] Seminary. So that was my first year in the United States at Princeton, New Jersey. And I walked into the library, and I saw that the new arrivals section would be replaced every day. That every day, you look at the new arrivals section, it's a different set of books. That's the number of books that you have access to, in addition to journals and everything right, so access to resources was just amazing. So if I had to write a 10 page paper I had to narrow down my bibliography by cutting out stuff that I didn't want to cut out. And that's a very radically different situation from an Indian learning situation. I went to one of the best colleges, I would say, the best theological college in India, the United Theological College in Bangalore. And even there, we would arrive at, like, maybe if you got 30 books on the subject, it'd be like, “Whoa! We got 30 books.” And here, we could easily get 300 to 400 books on a particular paper topic, and articles and whatnot. Right? So that's a little bit about why I got here, because I wanted to really study and get the best of the best and then be informed enough to be able to teach in a classroom. That was my goal.

JB: 4:43
So I got here in 2010, I think I came first for a Th.M., which is a one year advanced degree, and then I reapplied to the Ph.D. and then I got in, and so it was five years of that. So that was so 2010 to 2016 was Princeton Seminary in New Jersey, Princeton Theological Seminary. So I finished that. and was applying to various things I wanted to get a few years of just lived experience after my Ph.D. in the United States. And I love home by the way, I just love India. So I'm not one of those people who want to live here. I love living here. Don't get me wrong. I love living here and I do want to live here, right, for a few years. But I love home. I’d go home today. If somebody said, here's a job, I’d go today, I’d buy my tickets, right? So, but I did want to get a few years of lived experiences, whether it's teaching or whether it's pastoral work, I wanted a few years of that.

JB: 5:48
So, as I was finishing up my Ph.D., 2016 May, I graduated and was simultaneously applying for jobs. And I got a year long postdoc, which was actually one of the best experiences of my life. I got a year long postdoc at the Episcopal Divinity School [at Union] in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So that’s not far from Watertown. The neighboring town, the neighboring town. So I taught there for a year and did some research and then converted my Ph.D. dissertation, reshaped that into a book, got my first book out. And so that was 2017. And then, unfortunately, the Episcopal Divinity School shut down. And they closed their physical campus in Cambridge. And they moved, the corporate entity moved and went and joined Union Theological Seminary in New York City. So the postdoc came to an end and I was hoping for something longer, but that didn't quite turn out that way. And so I was looking for other stuff, and then there was this church in Newton Centre in Newton, which is on the other side of Watertown. So Cambridge is on one side, Newton is on the other side. And I applied for this associate pastor position in an American Baptist Church, not a Southern Baptist Church.

JB: 7:09
The American Baptists. It's a big difference. It doesn't solve all the problems. American Baptists are also very diverse in their theological persuasions. So we may actually encounter folks who seem like they're theologically more at home with the Southern Baptists, we do encounter people like that, but generally speaking, very, very different species. So I saw this associate minister position, I applied, they liked me, and I liked them sufficiently.

JB: 7:44
And I said, “Okay, I'll do it.” So we signed the contracts from 2017… March I've been there through now. So we moved them from Cambridge to Watertown. And that's how we ended up in Watertown and I work at First Baptist Church in Newton Centre. Yeah.

DA: 8:06
Take me a little bit back to Bangalore. I want to hear about what drew you to studying theology? Tell me a little bit about your identity, your family, and just the things that drew you to wanting to study and come to the U.S.

JB: 8:27
Right. So, back to Bangalore. So, theology was not the first destination for Bangalore. I also got my undergraduate degree in Bangalore because my bank, my parents made Bangalore city home. So, my high school and then my undergraduate degree I got in Bangalore. Initially, I did not want to study theology. When I got my undergraduate degree in chemistry, zoology, and environmental science, I wanted to pursue a career in wildlife biology, that is what I wanted to do. So I was on track to do that. So, I was finishing my undergraduate program and I was applying to various master's programs in wildlife biology and conservation. And for whatever strange reason, I felt what Christians would say is a calling. When Christians say calling it could mean anything, it could range anywhere from having a bad stomach and loose motion to hearing the voice of God. So I don't know where mine fell, but it's somewhere in that spectrum. Right? So I felt the call.

JB: 9:37
I think part of the reason why I felt that call was also in– at home on my father's side, my father grew up in what is popularly called the Bakht Singh assemblies. And these Bakht Singh assemblies were started by this guy called Bakht Singh, who was a Sikh convert, a dominant caste, Sikh convert to Christianity. And this was an itinerant preacher In the early 30s, and people around him said, hey, what a great movement this is, we should institutionalize it in some sense. So in the late 30s, it became a church but, and there are several distinctive features of the Bakht Singh assemblies, which I treasure a lot, including encouraging inter-caste marriages, which was actually a very distinct feature. But they didn't talk about it. They just kind of did that.

DA: 10:27
Why do you think so?

JB: 10:30
Why do I think they did not talk about it?

DA: Uh-huh.

JB: 10:33
This is a very, very interesting question. You know, I'm still figuring that out. The charitable reading is that they had an emphasis on witness, right? So you're set apart you're people who are “We are a people who are set apart. We are a holy people.” The distinctions that the world imposes on people are distinctions that no longer matter. So in some sense Galatians 3:28 is not just rhetoric, right? “There is no longer Jew nor Greek” means that there is no dominant caste and less dominant class. There's no high or low. Everyone is on the same footing. Right? So witness was very important at Bakht Singh assemblies. So that's the charitable reading. The other reason why they didn't talk about caste, the more critical reading would be I think– I think they thought that if they thought it did not matter, it did not matter.

JB: 11:38
That's the story of my life in some sense. I think folks in the Bakht Singh assemblies very well meaning folks thought wrongly, that because they thought caste did not matter, for instance, in the assemblies, in the church, therefore caste did not matter in the world. Therefore, they felt no need to talk about caste, I think, because they thought it doesn't matter. It didn't matter to them, therefore, it doesn't matter to the world, or it should not matter to the world. But it did matter in the world, which is a different story. But I think that's one reason.

JB: 12:17
So my father kind of grew up in the Bakht Singh assemblies. My grandfather was a preacher. My grandfather was a preacher. My father is a preacher. So I kind of grew up with stories of the Bakht Singh assemblies, right. And in the Bakht Singh assembly, it's the priesthood of all believers. So there is no ordination. There's no formal ordination, anybody can be a priest. In some sense. We don't even use the word priest. And so this was formative for me. So Christianity, in some sense, mattered a whole lot. And matters to me a whole lot, even today, but I'm talking about the Bakht Singh variation of it, right. So I got curious. So I had all these stories floating around me. And suddenly I just got very curious about it all. And so I started reading Scripture with an extra interest. And then I said, “Maybe I should pursue theology, maybe just give that a shot.”

JB: 13:06
Right? But because I gave you my definition of what a calling is, it ranges from one end to the other, right? So I wanted to take some time off after my undergraduate degree, and figure out on what end of the spectrum, I was in my calling, whether I was just having a bad stomach one day and thought God was talking to me, or whether in fact, there was something really meaningful in it for me. So after an undergraduate degree, I took a whole year off. I took a year off. And it was such an interesting thing because I applied to a fully funded masters. I was put on the waiting list and then I was off the waiting list. They called me and said, “Come thank you, pack your bags, and come. We are ready for you. Somebody dropped out. So you're in.” I told the guy, the director of the school. I said, “I'm not coming because I'm taking a year off to study theology.” And he said to me, “You mean something like being a priest?” I said, “Yeah, something like that.” He said, “Okay, all the best.” I said, “Okay.”

JB: 14:07
So I took a year off and my intention for the year was I said, “Okay, I want to kind of retrace my grandfather's steps.” So my grandfather was an itinerant preacher. And right before he died, he joined the Christian Medical College in hospital in Vellore, which is a very famous hospital in the south of India, and he joined the Religious Works Department, which is now called the Chaplaincy Department. So I reached out to the hospital and I said, “Hey, my grandfather was, you know, a staff and the chaplaincy back in the day and I'm taking a year off to kind of discern my sense of calling. I want to pursue theological education, but I want to make sure that this is really what I feel called to do.” So, I, my intention was spend six years in the chaplaincy, and they very graciously said, come. So I was a volunteer in the Chaplaincy Department, in the same department that my grandfather was, who's kind of a legend in our family. And I was there for a few months and seeing people who came in with a lot of hope and died. And people who came in with no hope, and went out happy because they were healed. Cured– really taught me a few things about life, life's highs and lows. And I was able to, in some sense, kind of just say, “Yeah, I like this. You know, this thing matters to me.”

JB: 15:32
Talking about God and the world, both within myself and with folks around me, you know, all of life's ups and downs matter to me. And if that's what theology is, yeah, I want to pursue it. So that's what brought me then to the United Theological College in Bangalore. And I was unsure because you know, the Bakht Singh assemblies are generally theologically kinds of weight. So when I told elders of the church, you need a letter. Right? So I said, Can you give me a letter? I want to study theology. And these guys said to me, You should pray about it. [Laughs]

JB: 16:14
What I didn’t say, what I thought was like, “Hey, dudes, listen. I love Bakht Singh guy? Like I grew up in this church. I am a Bakht Singh kid, right? I won't come to you if I didn't pray about it. I took a whole damn year off [laughs] to descend my calling. And you asked me to pray about it as if it's something I did not do.” Right? So then I said to myself, there's something wrong here. There's something wrong here. And that's why I answered the question about caste in the way I answered it, is because there's a certain, certain illusion here that I needed to kind of break out of. And so in some sense, that was a kind of departure for me because that kind of said to me, maybe there's something wrong with the system here. There may be something right within, but something was wrong with it. And I needed to depart from that and pursue formal theological education. And they said, “Don't go to UTC [United Theological College]. UTC is a liberal school. You will backslide in your faith.” I said, “No, I want to go to UTC.” And then that's what took me to UTC. And very common people would ask, “Has your faith been shaken after you started studying theology?” I said, “No man, it’s been strengthened.” I love it. I love this stuff. So anyway, that was my journey into theological education or took me to study theology at the United Theological College in Bangalore.

DA: 17:52
Okay, tell me a little bit about your grandfather.

JB: 17:54
Oh, yeah. My grandfather, the legend...of the family. All stories begin and end with my grandfather. He was the original Poopalan the p, p as in Princeton, Poobalan and you know Tamil people, right? My father is Tamil on my father's side, Telugu on my mother's side. Tamil people interchange the P and the B's. So you could say Poobalan. You could also say Boopalan. Right? And my dad we still make fun of him today because when we were born. Right? Me and my older brother and my younger sister, three of us siblings, he gave us the last name Boopalan like B! For what joy I am yet to understand. My grandfather was a Poobalan, my father also had Poobalan in his name, but we were Boopalans [Laughs]! And everyone's like, “Oh, is it like a fake name? Did you change something about your identity?” “No man, ask my dad! Ask my dad!” [Laughter] He did some funny stuff.

JB: 19:05
Going back to my grandfather. So my last name comes from my grandfather. He was the Boopalan. He was the first Boopalan. Munna Swami Boopalan. So my grandfather, he was the first convert to Christianity from my father's side. And he's Dalit. My grandfather's Dalit, my father's Dalit. So my grandfather was the first convert to Christianity. And there's a story that around the age of four or five he was at a Christian school studying at a Christian school but his family was Hindu. And his mother had the most terrible stomach ache that was chronic. I think it lasted several weeks and months. And so one day my grandfather when he was about four or five came back home and said, “Hey I don't know what the deal is. But you know, at school, they talk about this guy called Jesus, that he heals people. So you know what, I don't know how to pray and things like that. But if this Jesus dude is real, maybe I can say a little prayer and his name, and if it works, it works, right?” Which is so interesting, because my interpretation of that five year old grandfather of mine doing that, in some sense, for me represents the Dalit approach to Christianity. It's predominantly functional.

DA: Say more about that.

JB: Like it needs to function [Laughs] It’s like a light switch, right. So when you switch on the light, you expect the light to work. So you switch it on when you need the light. But if the light doesn't come on, you have no use for it. It has to function. Religion has to function. So this is my interpretation of it. Right?

JB: 21:08
My five year old grandfather, I don't know whether he'd agree with this interpretation, but it is mine. So he prayed, and it functioned, the prayer functioned. And for whatever reason, maybe that's how long it lasted, or maybe it was a consequence of the prior. We don't know. But the story goes that it is a consequence of the prior. And so my grandfather said to himself, “Okay, this works, right, this works, it functions.” He suddenly gives it a shot. So that's the story of my grandfather's conversion in some sense. I think when he was a little bit more critically self aware in his maybe teen age, he was just disillusioned with Christianity because he thought Christian leaders were not necessarily the best examples. The folks he saw around him in his village, for him were not the best examples of what the Christian faith needed to be. So he was a bit disillusioned. And here's where the story gets really interesting. So, the story that we've heard for most of our lives is that when he was 14 or 15, one of his uncle's and this was when the British Empire was still ruling India, right. So the story goes that one of my grandfather's uncle when my grandfather was about 14 or 15, or something like that, told him “Hey, you know, there's a great like, cook job like you can be a cook in the British Railways, which means we need to go to Mysore to get trained in cooking, baking.” Basically, cooking for white people is what it is right? But the story is, it functions again. It functions in the Dalit impulse, right? It needs to function. If it doesn't function, I find something else that works. Right?

JB: 23:14
So, so cooking for white people worked in the sense that it functioned. It's a means for livelihood, a good one. And so my grandfather went, accompanying his uncle to Mysore and then learnt the trade of cooking for white people. And eventually, I think he came back to Vellore, which is kind of his hometown, Vellore-Chittoor that kind of area. He set up his own bakery in a very famous school, which is the Voorhees College. So here’s a canteen and Voorhees College, and he did pretty well for himself.

JB: 23:50
And then he had a fuller conversion. Not necessarily maybe conversion is not the right word there because he's already kind of verifying as Christian at this point, but a fuller sense of like being called now. And so he became a preacher, so he gave up his canteen, and just went around preaching and he was a great singer and musician. So he went around preaching, got a little folk band to accompany him. And that's what he did. That's what he did. And, eventually, he ended up at the Chaplaincy Department at the Christian Medical College. And the story is longer, but let me stop there and say that was the, that was the story that we heard of him when he was 14 or 15.

JB: 24:38
Now, the other story that I came to know of more recently, is slightly different. It changes the plot, right? This stuff the same series of events, but the plot is now radically different. So all this story is, apparently my grandfather told my father who's the oldest In his family, right? That when he was 14/15, which was the time before he went to Mysore, right? So far the story is he went to Mysore to learn cooking, to cook for white people, make money, get a livelihood. Now there is a different story now, the story is that when he was 14 or 15, he was grazing his family cattle. They were they were in a Dalit colony right? And Dalits even today graze cattle in common areas. And apparently he ran into a landlord, a local landlord, who said, “You can’t graze your cattle on this land.”

JB: 25:47
And apparently my grandfather was not pleased. [Laughs] I think he hit him. [Laughs] I think he hit this dominant caste landlord for trying to humiliate him or put him in his place. And so he fought back, in some sense fought, emphasis on back. And the story goes that he was going to get into some trouble. And his uncle said, “Why don't you just come with me to Mysore?” [Laughs] Right.

DA: Wow!

JB: 26:33
And so the story gets really, really interesting now, like, I told my dad,”Hey! That changes everything! That changes the whole plot. And I said, “Tell me more about– Tell me more about your father. Why was he like that?” And apparently, he was a huge Periyar fan. So he didn't have time for, in some sense, time for bullshit. So he, he didn't care for myths that people said for a long time. If they didn't function, then they should. Right, so that changed the plot and when I heard that story I said, “Ah..okay, great. Now that's great. So that's, anyway, two kind of two origin stories for this legend grandfather of mine.

DA: 27:22
Wow. Like you can, you can get killed for doing that. Yes. So he took a risk for sure. Do you think that kind of spirit lives in you and your dad's side of the family?

JB: 27:38
You know? It's very tempting to make oneself the hero of your own story, right? So I want to say Yes, right. I want to say yes. I want to say yes. But if it is, in fact a yes, time will tell. Right? But I want to say yes. I want to say yes. My father even though he is very shy about some of these things. Even today, he's shy about his Dalit identity. So for my dad, I don't think even today he would say, “I am Dalit” publicly. I don't think he would use the word Dalit.

DA: 28:23
What word does he use?

JB: SC

DA: Ah. What do you say when you talk about who you are and your identity?

JB: 28:32
Dalit. Dalit is a political term. Even the Government of India doesn't recognize the word Dalit. [Laughs] The Government of India would rather say, SC. Scheduled caste, scheduled for affirmative action. Your historically marginalized caste sure and we’ve scheduled you for, affirmative action. Your scheduled caste. So my father has always been open about his scheduled caste identity. And because my father's marriage was inter-caste, he told us a story from our very young childhood days that when he got married, he told my mother's side of the family that he was SC, and that they should know that.

DA: 29:18
How did they react to that?

JB: 29:21
It's a, that's a big question. Yeah. This is actually such a fascinating topic. Because today I'm a big believer in intersectionality. Right, which means that we can't talk about one particular wrong without talking about something else. So I can't talk about caste without talking also about gender, without also talking about religion, without also talking about class, without also talking about sexuality, right? That's just what needs to be done. That's the responsible thing to do. And I think it's a natural outflow of any liberationist impulse. So, I say that kind of at the outset to answer you– to respond to your question, because my grandmother, my mother's Naidu, my father's Paraiyar. Those are the particular caste identities, right? My mother's mother, so grandmother from my mother's side. Her Naidu husband left her for another Naidu woman very, very early on in their marriage. So really he married out of necessity. He married my grandmother because his family said he should. He never loved her and he deserted her right from the very beginning. So my grandmother, raised my mother and my mother, sister, two daughters she had, on her own without her husband. So in some sense, my reading of it is she saw through the lie of caste.

JB: 30:57
Caste is a lie. It continues. It was a lie it always was a lie, and is a lie even today. And the lie is basically, if you protect your caste identity, things will be well for you. Right? That's, that's the lie. That's the lie. It's partly true in terms if you see it in terms of power and control. It's true. But in terms of a good life, it's not true.

DA: 31:25
Say more about that. What do you mean by that?

JB: 31:28
In terms of power, see most people today marry within their caste. It's because of power. If you're from a dominant class, it means that somewhere in your history, you have some land. It should amount to in the Indian context. You have land, you have gold, and stuff like that. You have wealth, you have accumulated wealth that has often been accumulated at the cost of unpaid slave labor almost. Right. Of Dalits, of tribals, and other oppressed communities in India, right? It's accumulated wealth. Wrongly accumulated wealth. [Laughs]

JB: 32:10
But still accumulated wealth, often land, often gold, and other kinds of things. So people marry within their own caste at the end of the day, even if they don't phrase it in such a way for precisely that. They'll get a piece of the pie, they'll get a piece of the land, they’ll get some gold. Who doesn't want a pot of gold. And in India, a pot of gold is not like a metaphor. It's a thing. You literally have a pot of gold waiting for you if you’re dominant caste that will be given to you at the time of your marriage. Doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman or whatever. When you get married, you will get a pot of gold, you probably get a piece of land, you'll get other stuff. Who doesn't want that? It's power. It's control. That way, but in terms of a good life, no. I’ll give you another example of what this means. Go back to my grandmother, I will talk like my grandfather and my father talk endlessly about this thing. Never get done here.

JB: 33:15
One last thing, right? I have had and continue to have friends from all across the caste spectrum, right. And I know several of my dominant caste friends who will date across caste. And they really love these partners of theirs. They truly genuinely love them up until the point of marriage.

JB: 33:43
Really, that's it. Most often when it comes to marriage, that's it. They would have dated for two years, three years, four years, five, six, ten! They are, truly, madly, deeply in love. And they say bye. And they marry from their own caste at the end of the day. Why? Power. Power.

JB: 34:11
They don't really, they might not even love these people. You know, that's the tragedy of India. That's the tragedy of India, people if they don't live a good life. They live a life that is based on power and control and hierarchy. And what I'm basically would call graded inequality. It’s not a good life.

DA: 34:32
And it carries over to the US.

JB: 34:34
Yes! Oh, absolutely. As a matter of fact, if you come to the U.S., all those equations, they– it's like it's quadruples in some sense quadruples, or, or is it multiplies exponentially, right? It's like a geometric progression. In India, it's an arithmetic progression, right, two plus two plus two. United States is like two into two into two is like just like woooo! If it's a pot of gold in India here is like a, like a whole bit of gold, right? So caste works that way. So that's why I'm differentiating a good life, from a life that is based on control power, inequality, oppression, whether one sees it or not that way. So I think my grandmother saw through the lie of caste, marrying a Naidu didn’t mean...watch my words here...didn’t mean anything to her. Right? It didn't mean anything. It didn't mean what it was supposed to mean.

JB: 35:40
It was supposed to mean power. But she didn't have it– was supposed to mean that her daughters were well taken care of. They were not. So my grandmother worked in the fields to raise her two daughters. And I think it was working those fields and meeting all these Dalit women. [Laughs] My grandmother had a raunchy sense of humor. Like she cracked like the dirtiest jokes, like dirtiest jokes, and she’d tell us kids like non-age appropriate stuff. Right? And I was telling you this because we grew up with a grandmother when we were very young, she raised us on our own– my parents kind of went abroad to make money and all that.

JB: 36:29
And, and so my grandmother saw through the lie of caste. I can say more. I’ll bring this to a close with this response. My grandmother saw through the lie of caste and raised her mother and my and her mother’s, sister, the two daughters. And so my mother was the first convert. From my mother's side. She was the first convert. She studied at Osmania University and she hung out with a lot of Christian girls. And see when in India, when you say Christian girls, Christian boys, it's code word for Dalit boys, Dalit girls. This is what we should recognize. Now it's changing today, which is, which is a slightly different thing. Today if somebody says Christian it is still mostly true, because most Christians are Dalits and tribals in India, that's just the truth of the matter. So my mom was hanging out with these Dalit Christian girls, right. And I think she saw that they had a good life. Good Life, good life. And I think she was curious about their good life. And curious in such a way that it's– I think she seemed to think that this Christianity stuff really mattered. And so my mother's conversion story is that God spoke to her in a dream. That she saw her dream and that was the beginning of her conversion. And she went and joined the church and she joined the Bakht Singh assemblies. So she joined the Bakht Singh assemblies. And she has a very interesting story, to again lie of caste, right? She didn't want to do nursing. My mother's a very smart woman, she wanted to be a doctor, a medical doctor. And she didn't have the money to do it because, hey, didn’t want land or money, right, because she was deserted by her husband who left her for another woman. So my mother went to her Naidu village people and knocked on the doors and asked them for a loan.

JB 38:32
And they said, “Go to hell.” [Laughs] All the men, all the men said, “Go to hell.” Because, if you don't have a man, you're nothing. Right? So you're the daughter of an ideal woman maybe, but an ideal woman who has no husband. So I think my grandmother and my mother kind of saw through the lie of caste. That doesn't mean that caste just ceased to exist in their minds and in their beings. That's not true. But at least they saw through the lie of caste that opened them up, opened them up for possibilities of inter-caste marriage. And that's why I think when my father said he was SC, initially, I think there was a, like a, like a knee jerk reaction like, “Oh, oh, like, oh, you're not like the dominant caste, but we are.”

JB: 39:31
So I think this is the challenge today, right? What do you do in that encounter? It changes everything. But they chose a good life.

DA: 39:41
How did they do that? Tell me a little bit more about your parents story.

JB: 39:44
I think it's because of the church. I think it's because of the Bakht Singh assemblies where distinctions did not matter. In the Bakht Singh assemblies distinctions really did not matter. They emphasize that a lot. So Bakht Singh assemblies even today are multilingual and multi-ethnic, so they say language does not matter. And in the actual church proceedings language does not matter. Because if I'm Telugu, and I go into a service, and somebody's preaching in English and they recognize that there is a Telugu person who doesn't understand English, or another vernacular, they will make it a point to translate the sermon into Telugu or into a language that I understand. So all services are multilingual and multi-ethnic because they really believe that distinctions did not matter. And they treated those distinctions such in the church, and so I think there was this meeting of these two different realities, one reality from their past where their identity was Naidu. And another reality from the church, where their identities did not matter and should not matter. And so when it came in this marriage proposal was a proposal that was proposed by the church, the church elders recommended that my father and mother get married. And so I think in the meeting of these two different worlds they chose the better. I think they chose better. They did not let the temptation of caste lure them into a life that was not good.

DA: I think okay, so the Bakht Singh assemblies they want. They don't want caste to exist.

JB: 41:32
I don't know about that.

DA: Okay.

JB: They thought it did not exist in the assemblies and we treated it as such within the church,

DA: 41:39
But when you left the church, it was back to a world where it very much–

JB: 41:45
Yeah, when you left Sunday morning outside of Sunday morning, caste is everywhere.

DA: Do you–

JB: Actually during Sunday morning, right, including Sunday morning.

DA: 41:55
Do you think that that experience you were talking about shaped the way that your father looked at himself?

JB: Yes.

DA: And your mother saw through the lie of caste. What did growing up with those examples, how did that shape your identity?

JB: 42:10
it shaped my identity in such a way that we did not give a damn about anybody's position in society, whether it's caste ranking, or whether it's class ranking, whether it's gender ranking. I learned a lot about gender from my dad. I'd say, he embodied a certain positive masculinity for me. So anyway, on that later if need be, but it shaped me in such a way that distinction did not matter. They really did not matter. Even today, if I see there's a hierarchy I there's like a gut reaction. I hated like, just, I hate it as like a visceral reaction. I think it's because of the way our parents raised us, partly because of the church, but partly because of the own way in which my parents did it in their particular idiosyncratic way. [Laughs] Distinctions did not matter. And so we, I'd say for the most part, we were just free in the world. And that was so liberating, just free in the world unbound, unbound by anything.

JB: 43:41
Partly because we were blind, in some sense. Blind that the world could actually be menacing and oppressive. We were actually blind to that. And that's, I'd say, part of the privilege of my growing up that we were actually privileged in a very strange way, even though I'd say it's partly good but but partly not [Laughs] But privileged in such a way that we were– because we were blind to some of these societal realities on the one hand, but on the other hand conditioned to treat distinctions as non-entities. We kind of grew up free in the world.

JB: 44:28
So that formed us, all of us three siblings, but me talking about myself for me. So for me, distinctions did not matter. nothing mattered. No distinction mattered. And so there was a very strange kind of goodness, because it also comes with a certain blindness, because I didn't know what caste was. I just didn't. If I knew what caste was and was then still free in the world. I wish I was like that. I wish I could rewrite my history, but I can't. But I would have– I would say today if my parents were able to do that, oh man, what a life that would have been. I would have just been so free in its truest sense of the word in the truest sense of the word free, I would have been free. But I don't think I was free in the truest sense of the word. Doesn't mean that I was not free. I was still authentically free. But it was not fully true. Maybe authentically free. Take that back. I was free partly, but not fully. I think that's what it did for us.

DA: 45:48
So when did you get to a point in your life where, I don't know. There are people especially in the diaspora that find out about their caste.

JB: Yeah.

DA: Especially when you come to this country, and people think that the ocean will delete whatever caste that when you move to another country, you know, we all know that it plays out in very similar ways no matter what country you go to. So, I'd love to hear the story about when, if there was a moment where you fully realized.

JB: Yeah.

DA: What did you do then? What were the steps to actual freedom and liberation, instead of the part freedom that you were talking about before?

JB: 46:40
I'd say for me, in some sense, my Dalit identity was never hidden from me, right. But it was the way it functioned. The way the story functioned, was non-confrontational. It was just a thing that we knew, but we didn't know why that mattered or how it mattered. Why it was important. Why it was not, In some sense, it, it did not function at all. It did not function in any way. Because it was just a story. It was merely a story. It was merely a story. It was never hidden, but it was merely a story. It's almost like saying I like eggplant. You know, it's like I like eggplant. I always liked eggplant. Caste, something like that. It just has no function. [Laughs] Other than that, I eat eggplant. I have a good time. [Laughs]

JB: 47:44
It has no other function. It doesn't have a political function.The eggplant I mean. But if you're actually Dalit, any question of identity has a political function. If you're a woman in India, that has a political function. It means that you're treated like a second class person. You do not have the same rights as a man in India. If you're a Dalit, you don't. You're not even human. [Laughs] So I'm saying the story was merely a story did not function because if I knew that in the in the world outside of my family, that SC/Dalit meant that certain other people would view me as less than human, what would that have done to my sense of identity? How would that have functioned very differently, I imagine. So I'd say it started functioning. When I started studying theology, my very first year. Very first, yeah, I'd say my first month of formal theological education. There's a story in the Bible about this guy called Saul.

JB: 49:05
And there's a story of his conversion when you know, he is persecuting Christians. And then the story of his conversion is, when he's persecuting Christians, suddenly Jesus appears to him and says, “Why are you doing this stuff?” And then he's basically the short of it is that he feels really sorry. But Jesus is, “No, that's not good enough that you feel sorry, I'm gonna blind you.” [Laughs] So the dude's blind. And so he's on his horse, he's blind. And then the irony is that he has to go to a Christian, for his blindness to be healed. And so he goes to this Christian guy and a Christian guy is like, really scared because he's a person who was known to persecute Christians is now coming to me for prayer to be healed. But nevertheless, the guy prays and he's healed. And when Saul is healed, there are scales from his eyes that just fall off, and suddenly he's able to see the world in a new light. That's the story of Saul. How Saul becomes Paul, and the scales just fall off from his eyes, right? I'd say for me the first two months of formal theological education, when I encountered liberation theology, and societal analysis, and learned about the world, the beautiful things about the world, and ugly things about the world, how the world can be a kind place, but how it can also be a very violent place. The scales fell off my eyes. It just fell off my eyes in a way that I was not even prepared for. Because it was just so utterly transformative and radically changed everything for me. And so then I'd go back home and be like, Hey, what's up people? [Laughs] Why do you? Like do you know the word Dalit? I did not even know the word Dalit until after my undergraduate degree. Can you believe that? Can you believe that? I didn't even know the word. That's how blind my family made me despite being open about the fact that we were SC. So when I learned the word Dalit when I learned about caste, and when I learned how society in fact, is a very, very casteiest, caste ridden, caste informed society where caste matters in everything, everything from who your friends are, where you eat, what you eat, who you marry, who you vote for, who you think are good people and bad people, what stereotypes you have of yourself and others. It mattered everywhere. There was not one single aspect of life that was not casted and when I realized that I said, “Oh my god, this is scary!”

JB 51:58
And so I had to reorient my identity, and I said, “If my if on my father's side, I am this. And if theology means that our sense of purpose and orientation in life has to be steered by people in spaces that are last, that are made last, that are made least, that are made lost by violent forces, and that's where I need to be. That's who I am.” And so I started telling myself a little bit, “I am Dalit. That's what matters to me.” Right? And I told that to my mom who's not Dalit, I told that to my dad who is Dalit. And, and I started asking questions. My dad did not appreciate that at all, which is very interesting. My mom was indifferent to it. My dad did not appreciate it, which is very interesting, because you’d think my Dalit father would be the one who's welcoming all my Dalit curiosities. And he was like, “Dude, what's wrong with you? I didn't raise my son to become like this. Like, why am I bringing out all these like, the stuff that like I, I've raised you in a way that these things don't even matter to you and now it suddently matters to you now you're going around the world saying you're Dalit. Why are you going around and saying you’re Dalit?” My dad actually had a problem with that. He did not want me to say, “I am Dalit.”

JB: 53:35
And I'm thinking to myself, “Dude,” to my dad, “I just went through hell. Like I went to hell and back.” It took me several months, years. Now, I'd say in retrospect, to say that I am Dalit took me a lot of time because you know, I have a mixed caste identity. And so part of me is like, can I even say I'm Dalit? What does it mean? What function does it have? All those kinds of things, right? Finally, I was in a position to say, “Yes, I'm Dalit.” And for that, and when I said, “I'm Dalit” partly, yes, it's true, right? For me, yes, this is true. This is something about me, but partly also had to function for me. And the function was that, anytime violence is present, my Dalit identity calls me to make that violence visible, to call that out. Not simply to name it, but to address it to intervene in a situation of violence, right. And so that's the liberationist impulse, partly theologically driven, partly politically driven by Dalit identity. And that's how I came to self identify as Dalit and started asking questions, and I can tell you more about what those questions revealed about practices within my own family. What that meant for my own relationship with my Dalit relatives who did not want to me to say, “ I am Dalit” to the world.

DA: 55:03
Yeah, I would love to know some of the questions and how they were answered. [Laughs]

JB: 55:09
So one day we are attending a wedding, family wedding. This is a Dalit wedding. This is like everyone around you is Dalit. Like literally, like every single person that I'm looking at, is Dalit. So I am like, “Man, I am surrounded by a sea of Dalitness. This is super. I'm enjoying this feeling. I love it!” This is all internal dialogue, right? All until my dad goes up to one of his cousins. Dalit cousins. These are people who grew up in Dalit colonies, right? So this is not like simply like namesake Dalits. These are like Dalits with lived experiences, like they lived in a Dalit colony, right. Even today, like India is a hugely hugely segregated deeply, deeply segregated place. Every village almost, almost every village there's a Dalit side of the village and there's a non-Dalit side of the village. Everybody knows this. It's known. And these are people who grew up on the Dalit side of the village. My dad, my dad, his cousin's, my grandfather, all these people grew up in Dalit villages, Dalit colonies, right? And these are folks who don’t want to talk about Dalit. They don't think they are Dalit even. For whatever reason. They don't want to use that term, to self identify themselves. They won't even say I'm SC some of them. So my dad, right. He goes up towards one of his cousin's, when I'm there, I'm there and he's like, in Tamil, he's like, “En pa, ivan paaruppaa - ulagathukkellam poyittu ‘Dalit Dalit naanga Dalit Dalit’-nu solluraanpaa (Hey man, look at this guy - he’s going to the whole world and telling them we’re Dalit).”

JB: 56:53
Right. So he's like, my dad is telling his cousin in front of me that I'm going around, telling the world that “I'm Dalit. I'm Dalit.” So my uncle from this day I hate, he has a visceral reaction, right? This is how shame is so real right and in some of our Dalit communities. Not in all. I’ve met some very proud Dalits, very proud Dalits I’ve met. I met some proud Dalits who made it in life, who earned big money, and have a parai, which is the Dalit drum right like in their living room mounted for everybody to see. So we have some proud, proud Dalits. So by no means is shame universal. No, but there it is real. It's very real. As in my uncle, and partly my dad. Also my dad is a very interesting guy. I think he's partly proud of me, but partly, he's like, “Can you scale it down a little bit?” No. “Why do you have to be like an extra Dalit?” [Laughs]

JB: 58:02
“Like, can you just be like, an under the radar Dalit?” I think my dad would be very happy if I'm like under the radar Dalit. I don't think my dad will be very pleased when I interview like, put it on the web page like: the Dalit Christian, John Boopalan. He just wants John Boopalan to be a guy who has a Ph.D. Who is a nice, charming guy who's free in the world. That's the John he wants. He doesn't want John to be a Dalit Christian. Right? So when he introduces this subject matter to my uncle, my uncle has a visceral reaction. And you know what he tells my uncle, “We're bad.”

JB: 58:41
“Chee, chee, chee, chee, chee, chee, chee, chee.” Which in Indian vernacular is like, is like, “No way. No way. No way, right?” “Chee, chee, chee,” is what that is. It's like, “No way. No way, man. Oh, no. Sheesh, sheesh, yikes, gross, gross.” This is a translation of “chee, chee, chee, chee, chee, chee.” So I'm like, “Oh. is this a bird song? Is this a mating call? What is happening here?” [Laughs] And verbatim he tells me “chee, chee, chee, chee, chee.”

JB: 59:20
“Namma antha pee jaathi illappaa” Which translates to, “We are not that shit caste.” So I'm like, “No dude, we are not that so called “shit caste.” Whoever has brainwashed your mind into thinking that it is a shitty caste is first of all shitty and you're shitty to have internalized that. I will proudly say I’m Dalit. There is no shame associated with being Dalit. That's why I won’t say I’m SC.

JB: 1:00:02
I say, “I’m Dalit.” So, political identity. So they have had very, very interesting conversations with my parents. Most Indians even today, if you have like in India that we call like a servant, which is basically a maid, like a house help, right? A domestic help. Most domestic helps when they enter the home, they leave their footwear at the gate or at the doorstep and then they will enter your home. And that's a remnant of caste practice. So, when we had help in our home, they'd always do that and everybody knows this, it’s like so commonplace. Nobody even questions it. Right? It's like, yeah, that's how things should be. That's how things are. So when I said hey, listen, if we have a domestic helper at our home, he or she can take the footwear off, that's fine. But they need to come inside the house and take their footwear off. [Laughs] They cannot take their footwear off outside the house and then come into the house. Let them come into the house with their footwear, and then take their footwear off. And they can shove their footwear wherever they need to shove it, but they need to first enter the doorstep. I said, “I will not have it.” And then everyone's my home's like, “What's your problem, dude? Like, why are you reacting like this? Like something's wrong with you.” So I think part of the part of affirming oneself, Dalit identy, is also coming to terms with some of these things. So those are some stories I could say more. These are just endless, endless stories about what it means to affirm ones Dalit identity. What are the consequences of those things?

DA: 1:01:52
Yeah, I think if you could tell me one more story and then we'll get into the consequences a little bit because I, I want–

JB: Yeah.

DA: People to know these things–

JB: No sure

DA: Our community to understand.

JB: 1:02:03
Right? See my grandmother. I'll give you two quick stories right? My grandmother would have a separate glass for the domestic help. My grandmother, whose daughter whose– husband left her, who saw through the lie of caste, whose daughter married a paraiyar man, has a separate glass for domestic help. And this is again a remnant of caste-based practice, which is very, very common, by the way in India. Very common. So, like frighteningly common actually, because nobody questions it. It’s like common practice, right? Yeah, sure. It is like how you put on your gloves when it's cold or something, you know, nobody questions it. So I said to them, “You can’t do that.”

JB: 1:02:47
So, I would make tea. [Laughs] And I would pour it into, intentionally pour it into regular cups that we all drink out of, and give it to the domestic help just to irritate my grandmother and finally she came to a stage where she was comfortable with that right? Which is a great ending to the story. Now, because all of us siblings, my older brother, me, and my sister we’re all kind of– we're not conditioned by caste logic at all right? So we all married who we want to marry. As I said, in my case, I intentionally told myself, I am going to marry a girl. And that's what I did. But in my sister's case and my brother's case they all fell in love. And they didn't like say, I want to marry somebody...They didn't say that they’d marry over that but the point is really, that's the last story I'll tell for now, is that it calls for all these changing of practices within our family and outside too.

DA: 1:03:49
So what are some of the consequences that you have, other than the uncle that shall remain unnamed.

JB: Yeah, yeah.

DA: What are some of the consequences that you have had for being so vocal, because it's very similar with me by saying we all want to live in this casteless utopia that doesn't really exist. But there's a lot of shame. This conversation will make a lot of people deeply uncomfortable, especially Dalit people. Especially Dalit Christian people. So we’re doing a great job.

JB: No, no, no, no,

DA: 1:04:25
So I'm wondering for you, what have some of the consequences, been for being so vocal about your identity?

JB: 1:04:36
I'd say there have been some negative and some positive consequences. The negative consequences are... see I was always free in the world right. Now I say I'm Dalit, I am still free in the world, but it comes at a certain cost because, especially those who are dominant caste, they don't want you to be Dalit Christian, they only want you to be Christian.

JB: 1:05:03
They don't, how do I put this. You know, recently I was reading, anybody who possesses privilege of any kind, if they are well meaning, and most people today will say they are well meaning,[Laughs] but if people possess privilege, they are happy to talk about social transformation from a distance. That they can maintain a distance that does not make them feel uncomfortable by which is another way of– another translation of that is that distance should be such that their self identity and privilege is not questioned. So, if you get too close, if the distance becomes not that distant, and if they're put in a position where they have to kind of question their self identity or come to terms with a privilege, and maybe shed some of their privilege and do some internal and external work, that is a hard thing for people who have privilege to do. So I think part of the negative consequences is when I'm like Dalit in somebody's face, I think they don't know what to do with it, especially if they have not come to terms with their privilege they don't know what to do with it. So rather than saying that they are part of the problem, that we are all part of a problem of a caste in society. They'd rather say, “You're the problem,” because you're talking about caste.

JB: 1:06:46
And one example that comes to mind is a famous seminary, a former seminary professor of mine, who told in response to something I said, he said, “You throw the word caste and it divides us. You throw the word caste, and it divides us.” And I told him, I said, “You're wrong, because you're making the assumption that we were unified before I threw the word caste. We were never unified. We were always divided.” That's what I think Dalit affirmation does to somebody who has not come to terms with how divided we are as a society. That when you say, “I’m Dalit,” they'd rather say, “You're the problem.” Rather than saying, “You know, what, we are collectively part of a very violent world. Let's work together to make things better and live a good life.” No, no. So I think some of the negative consequences had to do with that. So in seminary, I'd say I'd lost some opportunities because I said, “I'm Dalit.” Would you believe it if I told you, and this is true, that dominant caste professors invited me to their home, and cautioned me and encouraged me not to talk about caste. [Laughs]

JB: 1:08:16
They encouraged me, they invited me to not talk about caste. And they told me that I am associating myself with all the problematic Dalit people, all the people who are dividing society by saying, “ caste caste caste.” That I should disassociate myself from them.

JB: 1:08:44
These are people who are probably you know, I would have gotten a few brownie points with them if I said, “Okay,” and if I played along. Out of there I probably would have made some–would have done a few good things for myself. For me, power, power, power. I said, “No, no, thank you. I'm good. I'm good. I'm happy. I'm happy. The happiest I've ever been.” [Laughs] You want me to not live a good life. Right? And then I've had classmates who would come up to me and ask me, “John, are you Dalit?” And my question to them always has been, like, first of all, what's wrong man? Like why are you inflecting your voice in such a way as if being Dalit is a problem? As if it's some sort of like bad thing. I'm like, “Yeah, man! I’m Dalit.” [Laughs] Like why did you change your voice? Like [softly] “Dhanya, are you Dalit?”

JB: 1:09:48
Like why do you have to change your whole damn tone? Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah, but that's the– what's the word I have in my mind is not coming out of my mouth. That's the, what's the word for when something's not resonating? When it just puts you like, just–

DA: Unsettled?

JB: 1:10:12
Unsettled, yes it's like a word like there's a synonym for unsettled. It's the dissonance, that dissonance that has actually negative consequences. I can say more about that. But they're partly negative consequences, but partly I'll say, I've never been happier. I meant I have a community of Dalit people, who have just welcomed me who have said, “Yeah, man, you're Dalit. Don't worry.” Like when I was struggling with my sense of identity, they're like, “Yeah, man, you're Dalit. [Laughs] Once the fluids mix, you're Dalit.” [Laughs] They’re like, “Once the fluids mixed across caste, you're done. Welcome to the other side. You are Dalit.” [Laughter]

JB: 1:11:02
Right. So people who have been like so, so, so welcoming, and I've never been happier. I have a sense of pride, I have a sense of responsibility. I have a sense of responsibility to redress violence wherever I see it, whether it is caste, or intersectionality, speaking with a gender. Any kind of violence has to be addressed. So I'd say positive and negative. And the positive far outweighs the negative. But I will say that with a little bit of humility, because that also takes a certain privilege to say that. It's not always that Dalit story of every person in India, to say that, I'm affirming my Dalit identity, and that always means positive things for me more positive than negative. For many, many people, the truth is that it could mean both positive and negative and sometimes the negative outweighs the positive.

DA: 1:12:00
And I think sometimes the hiding is a survival tactic.

JB: 1:12:03
Yes. Right for sure.

DA: And there's definitely a certain sense of privilege that I have that you have that we can be open about these entities and know that it'll make things uncomfortable and it can get bad, but at the same time, it's going to be okay at the end of the day, and I think, yeah. Yeah.

JB: 1:12:23
Yeah, for sure. For sure, for sure. And there's a certain privilege with that. With that we have to acknowledge too, I acknowledge it. Sure. Sure.

DA: 1:12:35
I do want to talk about some of the concepts of your book. You talk about rituals of humiliation. You talk about– there's just so many things I but what specifically struck me was rituals of humiliation. You coined that term, essentially, right? That has not existed anywhere else other than..in that particular way?

JB: 1:12:55
Not in that particular phrasing. Yeah, not in that particular phrasing, but yeah.

DA: 1:13:00
Yeah, can you just tell me a little bit more about where that came from? Any life experience? Or you told me a little about your grandfather, and somebody trying to put him in its place, but just take me through what that means and what it is?,

JB: 1:13:15
Of course, it's a fancy term I coined in some sense, partly informed by Gopal Guru’s book, Gopal Guru is a Dalit scholar. He came out with a book, Humiliation: claims and contexts. I think is the subtitle but it's humiliation, right? And he actually talks about humiliation. How humiliation operates. And so that book informed a lot of my sensibilities because it was such a, like a groundbreaking book in some sense. And then, and that really confirmed for me what I've been studying all along from my first year of theological education, that wrongs of caste have never left, never left us. Was it 1945 or 1947 that untouchability as a practice was abolished. It's now a punishable crime, which is the most ironic thing in modern day India that on the one hand, the practice of untouchability is abolished legally and is even punishable. And on the other hand, untouchability is the brute fact of life every day in India. [Laughs] And so, humiliation is very real, even today. And it operates based on several things. There's not just caste based humiliation, but I was interested in caste based humiliation. I said, caste actually operates in the world today, operates in India, operates in the United States, operates all around the world. It's a global menace. And so I said, so I wanted to understand how these historical wrongs operate today, right. So, I wrote the book partly for myself in some sense, because as I saw it, wrongs are everywhere. Wrongs based on race wrongs based on caste that everywhere is so common. And so I wanted to establish and argue for how to understand wrongs today that are based on caste and race that people say don't exist.

JB: 1:15:37
But they in fact do exist. And rituals of humiliation became a way for me to interpret modern day wrongs of caste and race. And just going back to my first year of theological education, the first few years of theological education. After I saw the world for what it was, through social analysis, liberation theology, just a critical approach to social practices. Violence was everywhere. And then, you know, I realized that I don't even need to dig to see violence. Even today, if you pick up like a mainstream, mainstream, national newspaper, caste based wrongs are everywhere. So I gave myself a project for a class presentation. I said, I'm just going to take a look at one mainline newspaper for two weeks and just highlight all caste based reported wrongs. It was wild. It was wild. It ranged from people Dalit, Dalit. Human persons being tied to trees and beaten the shit out of literally, and they were made to eat their own feces. Like we're talking about 21st century India to Dalit like under-aged Dalit laborers being thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil for asking for wages. Like I'm talking about, like 21st century India, right. So you don't need to look beyond what's already in front of your eyes. But once you see caste, you see it everywhere. Really, it's everywhere. It's like when I came to Massachusetts, and I had to get an easy pass.

JB: 1:17:36
And I was like, What's an E-ZPass? Right? And then once I got the E-ZPass and put it on my windshield, E-ZPasses, when I saw E-ZPasses on every car, I was like, “Oh, man, E-ZPasses are everywhere!” Caste is like that. It's like having a baby. Once I had my baby I saw that babies are everywhere. I saw strollers everywhere. I saw babies everywhere. I could say how old they were like, what stroller if that was a good stroller or a bad stroller. Like a jogging stroller, pushing stroller. I saw the whole thing everywhere. Caste is like that once you see it. It's like everywhere, is like everywhere. He's like, “Oh, damn, it's like here is there it's everywhere.” I lost my train of thought. What was the question?

DA: Rituals of humiliation.

JB: 1:18:21
So it's everywhere, right? So rituals of humiliation for me became a way to describe common everyday practices that are based on the logics of race, on the logics of caste, but are very, very common and are practiced in such a way as if they are not based on those logics, but are in fact based on those logics. So those are rituals of humiliation. And I define rituals of humiliation in several ways. One, the practice needs to have a logic that is based on caste or race historically, that logically you should be able to trace that logic in a practice. Right. And two, the practice needs to have had legal, cultural, or religious sanction in the past. Today, it may not have that religious, legal, or cultural sanction, but it's still practiced. Even in the absence of those sanctions, it's practiced. And therefore, my final point about rituals of humiliation is a social practice is a ritual of humiliation if it fulfills these first two criteria. And if it fulfills these first two criteria that is based on these historical logics, based on sanctions that are no longer true, no longer prevalent, they are still rituals of humiliation. And now they are still the rituals of humiliation even if that is not dependent on the intention of the person enacting it. So even if the person says, I didn't mean to do that, it still continues to be a ritual of humiliation. So if somebody says, “Oh, I'm vegetarian.”

JB: 1:20:19
Right? And I'd say to, especially if it is an Indian person, for Americans is a different deal. Violent in a different way. But if any Indian says, “I'm vegetarian”, I always tell the Indians who say, they’re vegetarian, “Do you know how violent you are? Do you know what a violent statement that is to say you're vegetarian?” They're like, “Why is that violent? We're peaceful. We don't eat animals. We are good people. Compassioned, all being sentient beings. All crawling, creeping things are sentient beings. We don't eat them.” I'm like, “No, it's violent because you have stereotypes of people who eat meat that are based on caste. You treat people who eat meat as less than human. So when you say you're vegetarian, it's very violent.” So anyway stuff like that, right? So those are rituals of humiliation too for me. And I can give you examples, but that is what I mean by rituals of humiliation. Very ordinary, everyday practices that are based on logics of caste and race that are very, very widely, widely, widely, widely prevalent. And I can give you examples, but I wanted to stop there.

DA: 1:21:26
Yeah, I mean, can you talk a little bit about the intersection of caste and race? I know that you talk a little bit about that, but I’d just love to know your thoughts.

JB: 1:21:34
Both in India and the United States, we've had two very historical significant moments, historically significant moments. Both nations fooled themselves that they've written themselves of caste and race. So an average American, well meaning– an average well meaning American might say something like, “We are a post-racial society.” Just as an average dominant caste Indian who was well meaning would say, “Caste does not exist anymore, maybe in some remote village, but for the most part, caste does not exist.” And that's because in the United States because of civil rights, in the United States because of civil rights and in the Indian context, because of post-independence and the Indian constitution with affirmative action, and so on and so forth people say caste does not exist. Just as in the United States, people would say after the civil rights movement and all the affirmative action that exists, caste and race don't really exist in a post-racial society. We are a post-caste society. We are liberal democracies. Anybody who wants to participate in the political process has the means to do that. And therefore if something is wrong, then you just participate in the political process and make it right.

JB: 1:22:53
Right. So those are some similarities between the two contexts. But the other similarity between the two contexts is it's not been very long. [Laughs] It's not been very long, since caste and race actually had political legal ramifications. People could not drink out of the same water fountain. People could not play in the same park. And we are talking about people who are still alive who had to experience these things. So it's only in the recent scheme of things, that things have changed, so called changed. So called changed, right? So that's one similarity. Another similarity is both caste and race put people in boxes, in categories. It's not simply boxes, right? It's not just a different box. But these are boxes that have like legal consequences. It's a matter of life and death. If somebody views you as less than human, if you don't count. If a person does not count in somebody's imagination, these have consequences. People are killed every day because of these things. So these are some similarities between race and caste. And so to make that comparative kind of comparison between race and caste was important for me because of my own interest in intersectionality too right. Because if we have to address wrongs globally, and the more we facilitate these kinds of conversations, the better prepared we will be to address violence, I think in India. I'll give you two quick examples. I start my book with the namaste example. Most Americans know namaste, right. Most every other Indian knows namaste. If you say, “Namaste” to an Indian person, nobody would say that's a violent expression, but I will say it's a ritual of humiliation. Namaste is often a ritual of humiliation because I've seen this in my own life. I've seen it. Like it's so common and I say this in my book, too. If you're in India, if you go to a marketplace, or to a government office, or even to like a provision store, like a convenience store. You just stand there and watch when people exchange “namastes” if a less dominant caste person, if a Dalit person tells a dominant caste person, wishes them “namaste”, the dominant caste person has a range of options. If they're well meaning they could say, “Namaste” back to you, but they need not. If a Dalit says, “Namastae” to a dominant caste person, the dominant caste person has the option of simply dismissing you by acknowledging your “namaste”. They say, “Sure thank you for saying, “Namaste” to me. I receive it, now goodbye.” [Laughs] It’s what happens in India. It's very, very common. Very, very common because “namaste” is based on caste. “Namaste” is only strictly exchanged between two equal caste ranking persons. So if a so called inferior caste ranking person says, “Namaste” to a superior caste– so called superior caste ranking person– it’s simply received. It’s simply received.

DA: Yes, of course you do.

JB: You of course you recognize my divinity because I am divine, but you are not. But thank you for acknowledging my divinity. Right. There's a famous theologian Her name is Kelly Brown Douglas.

DA: 1:26:24
I know her well.

JB: 1:26:26
She wrote a book called Stand your Ground. In the book, she tells the story of how she took her two year old son to a public park. And her two year old son in the public park was playing on one of these things, one of these car things that are there in the public park, right. So two year old is in this, and there are two white boys who run, who run towards her two year old son screaming– and Kelly Brown Douglas is black. So she's talking about her two year old black son who's in a public park. And there are two white kids running towards him, shouting, one of them shouts, “Get out of there before I put you in jail where you belong.” And Kelly Brown Douglas says that these two white kids were hardly seven or eight year old kids, like seven years, eight years. From where did these two white kids who were hardly seven, eight. Get the idea that a black body does not belong in a public common space. From where did they get that idea? For me that's a ritual of humiliation. Because it takes its root from these historical logics about who belongs in spaces. What spaces are considered predominantly white spaces? And what happens to bodies that are not white in those spaces even today? They are rituals of humiliation. Where did these young kids who are hardly seven eight get these ideas from?

DA: 1:28:18
And there's a common thread between how all people in power treat people that they don't believe have power because we have power. Not in their eyes.

JB: 1:28:28
Power and what another theologian, Billy Jennings calls a diseased imagination. An imagination of the world and imagination of other bodies of people who are different from us. Who we racially mark. Who we mark by caste as other. Who don't count in our imaginations. Who doesn't count in some people's imaginations. How we treat them. What consequences it has for public life. These are rituals of humiliation. Maybe I should say something particular about my mixed identity and what Dalit means for me, right? Today, for instance, people do marry across caste. It's rare. It's rare. Let me let me emphasize rare. [Laughs] But people have a way of picking on some of these rare stories and making it seem as if because there are inter caste marriage that happened here and there, that caste doesn't matter. First of all, inter caste marriages for those who have privilege is easy enough in some sense for those who don't, it's a matter of life and death. Honor killings based on caste, because of inter caste marriages are a real thing in India. People get murdered because they marry outside of the caste. They get like hacked to death in broad daylight in India. It is no joke, right? And, but simply for some people to say, you know, inter caste marriages happen therefore, these things don't matter. Like in my family, I'd say because of our mixed caste identity. There was The danger, I think, of being assimilated into a caste way of operating in India. In India, a caste way of operating is not necessarily an operation in which you always say, “Caste caste caste, I'm dominant caste, I'm dominant caste.” You don't even need to do that. All we needed to do, I think, to perpetuate caste was to marry somebody from a dominant caste. [Laughs]

DA: Say more.

JB: 1:30:33
You know. I could have easily married somebody from a dominant caste. And I'm not, first of all, I'm not saying I'm a good person because I did not marry somebody from a dominant caste. I'm not saying that, right. I'm not a hero, for not marrying somebody from a dominant caste. But would I have been if I married somebody from a dominant caste? I would have been a very violent person. I would have just assimilated into a caste society. I could have and I would have if I did. And I say that because oftentimes in inter caste marriages, the second generation has a choice. When they marry, they could easily marry people from dominant castes because of their mixed identities, mixed caste identities, and that really perpetuates caste. And I'm not saying that people should not marry others from dominant castes. Now at the end of the day, I leave from a Dalit liberationist standpoint. I'd say whenever fluids mix across caste, I'm like, “Yay, yay. Yay. Let your tribe increase!” [Laughs] You know, I'm always like that.

JB: 1:31:37
Because it really– it fundamentally goes against caste logic, when people come together across caste. So I don't say don't marry somebody from a dominant caste. But I'd say the Dalit liberationist impulse would mean that no matter what our life choices are, those who are marginalized by violent systems in society. Those persons, those situations must be the ones that drive our sense of being, our orientation in life. That's what I'd say. And so for me, I think having agency over my own story in my family's story for me now means that I will very, very often tell the story of how my grandfather beat this dominant caste person for trying to humiliate him. When all he did was graze cattle. Right? For me, that matters, because that means that this is a story of resilience. It's a story of saying no to violence of caste, and saying yes to a good life. I think that's what it boils down to, for me, and that you choose the good life over a violent one. And a convenient one.

DA: 1:33:01
Absolutely. I do want to talk a little bit about how caste has shown up for you in the US. Has it shown up for you at all? I’d love to hear about it.

JB: 1:33:10
Yes! Everywhere.

DA: 1:33:13
Say more, I'd love to hear.

JB: 1:33:14
Everywhere. Most Indian Americans– I'm talking about Indian Americans. These are like, really, they're not Indians. [Laughs] They look like me. And you in some sense. I mean, I shouldn't probably compare. Let me just say that people who look like me, right? Who are brown skinned, but they were not born in India, right? They were born in the United States. They are American. They're Indian American, only their hyphenated identities, which is just a sad truth of racialized society right. They’re Indian American not American, Indian Americans, but they’re really American. They are not even Indian. I'm talking about Indian Americans. They marry even within their own damn caste. I'm like, “You’re not even born in India, but you're wired.” Interesting, isn't it? These are people who are American who are not born in India, but wired in such a way that they marry from their same exact caste of people who are also born in America. [Laughs]

JB: 1:34:28
So, these are people like born in America who are marrying each other from the same caste, and they don't recognize that as a perpetuation of caste. They’d say, “Culture.” Culture is a code word for caste. When Indians say culture, they mean caste. They say no same culture. We were family friends, our parents knew each other, we go to the same church or temple or whatever. Same caste. Basically it means that Indians are living in America, Indian Americans, completely segregated. Completely segregated from other Indians who don't belong into the same caste. It's unbelievable. And I have white people coming up to me and saying, “Oh, I have this wonderful Indian friend and the mean Indian American friend, or I have such a lovely Indian friend. They have a slightly different take on India than you do. But you also seem so lovely. And they seem lovely. And I’m having a really hard time understanding this whole caste thing because my other Indian friend tells me that caste really doesn't– is not a thing.” And these are their lovely Indian friends who married from the same damn caste. I'm like, don't you see the irony in this?

JB: 1:35:53
There was this famous movie that came out, Meet the Patels. And I talk about this in my book. Meet the Patels right. This is a dude– Indian American dude– and you know, that's a sad story. It is like a tragic ending, in my opinion, because it seems like a lovely ending because he didn't marry from his own caste but married a white woman, right? This is a story of a every, like almost every other dominant caste Indian person. The story of every other dominant caste Indian person is they feel liberated from caste, they won't marry somebody from their same caste, but they’ll marry a white person. And they think therefore they are free of caste. I'm like, people, no, no that is caste logic, caste logic. So, in my opinion, I'd say the ritual of humiliation actually. Because you think you're liberated from caste by marrying a white person? No, no, really, and we can talk about proving it. I'm happy to talk more about that and I make the case for why I think that is ritual humiliation. I'll make the case.

DA: Please do.

JB: I’ll make the case, because the caste systems, like a Varna Jati system. It's like it's also color– influenced by color. Me even right. Because I'm kind of light brown, in some sense, people think I'm dominant caste because I'm light brown. And when I say “I’m Dalit,” it confuses them because they think Dalits are all like dark skinned. Which Dalits can be, just as dominant caste people can be. So color is a lie in some sense, but it still operates as part of the caste logic and whiteness for what it is in the United States. Whiteness has power. Right? Whiteness has power. Whiteness is a thing. Marrying somebody white is really the equivalent of marrying somebody from a dominant caste India, dominant caste Indian person because you're marrying into a position of power, which is what the same caste marriage is. So it's a lie, to say that you're liberated from caste by not marrying somebody from the same caste, but marrying a white person is the same logic. You're marrying into power, whether you perceive it like that or not. It functions that way. And that's why it's a ritual of humiliation because it functions in that way, even if you don't intend for it to function that way, right. So Meet the Patels is that ending which is a tragic thing in itself. But it's more scary for me– it's a tragic ending, right? It's a really tragic ending. It’s not a comedy at all. Which is what it says. It is not a comedy, it is a tragedy actually, a real sad tragedy. But it's also frightening, because in addition to being a tragedy, it's also a damn joke. [Laughs]

JB: 1:38:34
It's a damn joke. Because Meet the Patels makes public, intentionally or not, a practice in the United States where Patels, just Patels, and Patels by the way is a caste right? These are Patel's, folks who belong to the same caste, have like a convention yearly convention, just for the purpose of meeting other Patels to meet other Patels and get married. That's the whole sole purpose of a Patel convention, matrimonial convention, or whatever they call it. A Patel matrimonial convention or whatever as they call it. Its intended purpose is for Patels to marry each– to meet each other from the same caste and marry. This is the United States. These are people who are not even born in India. And if that's not violent, and if we don't see that as violent, what have we done to ourselves as human persons?

DA: 1:39:35
Correct. Absolutely. [Laughs]

JB: 1:39:41
And I don't mean to call out Patels, right. I'm not saying Patels are bad people. But that's an example for me to say that this is so common. Violence is so common, so common, and so accepted and portrayed in ways that seem like they're harmless, but in fact are deeply, deeply, deeply violent and perpetuate caste logic, perpetuate racialized thinking, acting, you know? These are wrongs in some sense.

JB: 1:40:19
My name is Sunder John Boopalan. I am Dalit. I am a Dalit Christian. I'm a theologian. I'm a liberation theologian. Because I believe that those who are made least, made last, and made lost continue to be made that way and we are called to change that. Yeah.