The Cost of Being a Liberal Millennial

I grew up in Kashmir, in a conservative Muslim society where girls were told not to laugh out loud. Dealing with patriarchy on a daily basis in addition to dealing with the violence of armed conflict made life pretty insane. When I moved to Delhi—I was the first girl in my family to move out from home for a job—I was told by my parents to be a ‘good girl’. They also told me never to marry a Hindu boy.

In our Indian society, a liberal is often accused of being a ‘sell out’ to Western ideas of freedom, of being disconnected from their ‘roots’. Us millennials believe that freedom is the most important human right, and are therefore viewed as a threat to the very fabric of Indian society. So what happens when you grow up liberal in a conservative family? When you realise you don’t hold the same ideologies as your family?

Ronald Meinardus, editor of ‘What it means to be a liberal in India’, defines liberalism: “Unlike other political mainstreams like socialism, conservatism, or religious fundamentalism, liberalism is not a closed set of ideological principles and values. The rejection of dogmatism, or—to put it positively: the openness to debate, dissent and diversity is one of the features of liberalism.”

In the land of caste oppression, where stifling of dissenting voices takes place regularly, where minorities are lynched, and where arranged marriages are the norm, what is it like to be a liberal-minded young person? Alienating and disheartening. I spoke to a bunch of young people ranging from 17-35, to understand what the conflict feels like.

RELIGION
Varun Rana, 34, a freelance journalist based in Delhi recalls his first act of rebellion, “The first time I realised my point of view was different from my family's was when they were discussing something about Muslims. I was in class VI, and one of my closest friends was a Muslim boy. During the Partition riots in Punjab, my grandfather’s family suffered at the hands of Muslim mobs. Because of that trauma, he didn’t like Muslims on principle. But he was a doctor, and that didn't stop him from treating all his patients with equal care," says Rana. His grandfather, who passed away last year at the age of 105, was also an honorary president and lifelong member of the Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement that follows the earliest Hindu scriptures, the Vedas.

One day, while he was still in class VI, Rana brought his Muslim friend home. “My grandfather didn’t say anything at that time, but later, my mother told me that he didn’t appreciate me being friends with a Muslim kid.” He had poked the bear. “That was when I got to see how deep our differences really went, even though nothing was spoken outright.” In school, though, he was taught that India is a secular, tolerant country. But he had started questioning it already.

The political ideological differences with his family were yet to come to fore. His family was an ardent supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the right-wing Hindu nationalist party. When he turned 18 and had voting rights, he made up his mind to vote for a different party. “I chose to study humanities, politics, economics. I wanted to make a more informed decision.” He says that his family never coerced him to vote for BJP. But many of his cousins ended up voting for the party that their parents had voted. Because, “Growing up, all kids crave for parents approval.”

CASTE
Yashraj Sharma, 20, a student at Amity University faced a different but similar experience. When his parents asked him to wash the metal jug which the Muslim labourers in his house had used to pour water from, he was furious. When he questioned it, his father slapped him. The discrimination started early. He had a friend in school, Mahinder Regar* from the scheduled caste / scheduled tribe community. Sharma meanwhile is from a Brahmin family, considered the highest-caste as per Hindu scriptures. “My mother would never let me play with him. But I liked him. He was my only friend in the neighbourhood.”

For Sharma, conflict arose when his parents donated money to the family of a man who had lynched a Muslim labourer in Rajsamand. (Sharma’s father is a BJP nagar mantri in Rajsamand.) This hate crime made the entire country sit up and take notice. Sharma says, “It’s so frustrating.” Sharma was so disheartened by the events in his hometown, he asked his sister to raise her kids in some other ‘sensible’ place.

The millennials who grew up in conservative households in India didn’t just have to make peace, albeit reluctantly, with their parents’ different political ideologies, but also with their diktats on ‘acceptable’ and ‘decent’ social behaviour.

“Being a liberal in India means taking a stance that is in dissonance with our country’s current political, social and economic structures,” says Karthik Shankar, 27, a writer and editor, in his essay The Disgruntled Liberal in the Meinardus anthology. Shankar tells us, “I grew up in an upper caste Hindu family. I have had long, deep discussions with my extended family about BJP and what it means for the country.” He grew up outside India (in the Middle East and Singapore) and when he returned to India in 2012 he became aware of how widespread conservative thinking was. “For example I grew up hearing that reservations are bad. As an upper caste Hindu, it’s been a process of unlearning for me. I kept reading a lot—B.R. Ambedkar, Gopal Guru and other thinkers.”

And what do Dalits and those from OBCs have to say when it comes to liberalism? Jyoti Vimal Raghova Jadtap, 31, from the OBC community tells me, “Liberals in the country need to bifurcate religion and politics in the country. Right now, religion is being used to divide the people.” Jadtap is married but says she doesn’t wear a sindoor or a mangalsutra, both symbols of a Hindu married woman. “I believe in freedom of expression as mandated in the constitution of the country. Currently, so many things are happening that are not in our samvidhan (constitution).”

I also asked people from the Dalit community about the concept of liberals in India. Do they view liberal democracy as limiting? Sushil Jadhav, a third year student at the Film and Television Institute of India tells me, “India has plastic liberalism. You are asking a wrong person this question. My sister celebrates all festivals, she’ll prepare some dish on Eid, celebrates Diwali, Christmas etc. But people [in our area] will not celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti.” He adds, “I had a friend who was Brahmin. One day he changed the wallpaper of his computer to a photo of Ambedkar. His father made him remove it.”

SEX & SEXUALITY
It isn’t just political ideologies that make a liberal an outcast in India, but also their belief and acceptance of all kinds and types of sexualities. Sex or sexuality are unacceptable dinner table conversations in Indian families. And those with a different take on sexuality or orientation had a different kind of storm to weather.

Yashraj Goswami, 29, grew up in a conservative and religious family. He teaches English at an university in Greater Noida. When he discovered he was homosexual, he couldn’t tell his parents in fear of hurting their religious sentiments. “I decided to be a celibate at the age of 14,” he laughs. “I came out to my parents after my graduation. I had been dropping hints to my mother.” The conversation went something like this:

Yashraj Goswami: “I want to wax my body.”
Mother: “Guys don’t do that. Only gay men do.”
YG: Have you seen any gay men around?
M: There are gay men around.
YG: What if I am one?
M: You could be.
YG: I am.

And that gave rise to hostility. His mother was shocked, “How is that possible? Are you sure? Should we consult somebody?” Goswami says that with time she has mellowed down and accepts him. He acknowledges he was lucky that she didn’t really get nasty. But with age, he says, “She is going back to her core beliefs, she is becoming more conservative.”

Mohsin Hamdani*, born in a Muslim family in Kashmir, identifies himself as a gay man but still hasn’t been able to come out to his parents. He once told me that he wants to live his authentic life, which means accepting his identity as a homosexual Muslim man. Islam forbids homosexuality ,and in certain Islamic countries across the world, it is punishable by death. Habib is torn. When his mother visits him in Goregaon, he introduces his live-in partner as a friend and a roommate.

Women from the LGBTQ community have it worse. In April 2018, 21-year old Rashmi Rana confessed during a police interrogation to killing her mother because she was opposed to her affair with a lesbian partner and constantly tortured her over it. There is invisibilization of lesbians in India. Grindr and Planetromeo are now mainstream gay apps. But there are hardly any such apps for lesbians. There is an othering of transgendered people. Practising homosexuality is a criminal offence in India. In a study titled ‘The Nature of Violence faced by Lesbian Women in India’ the researchers from Tata Institute of Social Sciences found that the main problems that lesbian clients went to mental health professionals for were: “Confusion, self-esteem issues, anxiety, depression, grief, non-acceptance, turmoil, anger, guilt, fear of sexuality, fear of rejection, worry about future, addictions and drop in scholastic performance.”

FOOD
The liberal versus conservative debate of course extends itself into food as well. Goswami’s mother is even more strident in her beliefs when it comes to her son’s food habits. “I am a vegetarian but I am tolerant of others eating meat at my table; but she won’t even go to a restaurant that serves meat.”

Fighting caste and caste oppression is a nuanced affair. And there are other subtle sacrifices too. “Whenever BJP is in power, scholarship for Dalits goes down,” says Jadhav. He says his father enjoys eating beef but after the ban on beef by BJP, he’s stopped eating it. “I do think part of being a liberal is acknowledging power differentials and being aware about how centrist viewpoints benefit oppressors. When Jadhav spoke of his father’s beef habits, I was reminded of my own. We haven’t spoken in a year because of our differing beliefs. In a conservative society, a community’s right trumps that of an individual. Conservatism will trickle down to your bedroom, will determine the selection of your partner, decide the food you eat. There are caste-specific matrimonial websites. There are religion-specific, region-specific, even hyper-local matrimonial sites.

The cost, therefore, of being liberal in a conservative society? Sometimes you lose the food you love, sometimes it’s a parent.

*Names changed on request
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