Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies with their deconstruction as their main motive.

The first big idea developed in the US specifically pertaining to its domestic society was Critical Legal Theory which later led to the more general Critical Race Theory. Critical Legal Theory addressed the problem of systemic bias in the structure of US laws. The proponents explain that the law supports the interests of those who create the law. A power dynamic that favors the historically privileged and disadvantages the historically underprivileged. The wealthy and the powerful use the law as an instrument for oppression in order to maintain their place in the hierarchy. Its leaders seek to dismantle social structures, except that its target is a reformation of the legal system. It sees the law as cultural hegemony codified in statutes and defended by jurisprudence.

The first major discussion on Critical Legal Theory came from Postmodernism which shifted the focus from the individual to the group identity. Now the fight for legal rights was on behalf of a group rather than an individual. Each group identity could demand that it be recognized collectively as a victim, not necessarily because of what was taking place then but because of what occurred in history. The same thing was applied to Black people in America and SCs and STs in Bharat, they were recognized as a group who are disadvantaged not because of their individual merit but because of history, and that too associated with the entire group of people. The focus was on criticizing the legal system as a hierarchical structure that helped Whites dominate Blacks, men dominate women, the rich dominate the poor, Hindus dominate the Muslims (Although Hindus have been under subjugation for the last 1000 years), Dalits are subjugated by upper Caste Hindus and so on.

Expansion of Critical Race Theory

Now that the foundation was set up, the time was to expand Critical Legal Theory into Critical Race Theory which holds that all aspects of American life should be seen through the prism of race which was replicated in Bharat as all aspects of Bhartiya life should be seen through the prism of communalism.

Derrick Bell Jr., the first tenured African American professor at Harvard Law School, is considered the originator of the doctrine developed in the 1970s that late became known as Critical Race Theory. The movement initially distanced itself from Postmodernism for being too abstract and not practical enough. Eventually, by the 1990s, Postmodernism got repurposed within a Marxist framework and is now an important foundation of the movement.

Critical Race Theory began with a revolutionary diagnosis of society and then mobilized a social movement based on it. It states that the structures of White privilege are the foundation of everything in literature, art, social norms, civil and criminal laws, the constitution, real estate practices, the structures of media, the structures of government, the structures of corporations, and who runs them. All of these institutional structures in modern society hide systemic racism. Since the globalization era was just started, Bhartiya professors and scholars of social sciences accepted these theories with folded hands and customized them to the Bhartiya society. They replace race with Dalits, Muslims, and every other group that was considered oppressed by them. Now they want to deconstruct every structure present in their own country since the ideology was imported, they were on similar lines to the left liberals that were present in America.

The basic claim is that the Whites formulated the idea of Black inferiority to justify their slave trade and colonization over the past five hundred years, whereas this culture of defining anybody as inferior originated from Christianity itself. One thing is called anti-thesis which means that you are giving your own theory or thesis regarding one particular thesis or theory that is pre-existed and goes against it. Like Capitalists had a thesis of the more you work the more you earn, then the Marxists gave an anti-thesis that was aimed at deconstructing Capitalists. Similarly, Critical Race Theory demands its followers to construct an anti-thesis that will fight every kind of old structure. This can easily translate into activism on the ground, such as: opposing how universities admit students and the way history is taught, undermining the founding fathers of the constitution, and so forth. Those who don’t fight are actually part of the problem. They are protecting the elite. The only correct way forward is to support the anti-thesis, which is deconstructing, revolting, arguing against these structures, and dismantling them. All these activities can be seen in humanity courses where students from JNU, Jadavpur University, etc. protest everything that the government does for farmers, education, culture, the political front, etc. They do not care whether they understand the issue or not, they just want to practice their imported and appropriated Critical Race Theory.

Black Lives Matters link with Critical Race Theory

The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013 to protest against the prolonged and systematic American police brutalities and unfair treatment of Black Americans. But the egregious murder of George Floyd by a While policeman in 2020 and many other similar incidents awoke large swathes of Americans to the reality faced by many Blacks in America. This also raised mainstream awareness and support for Critical Race Theory.

In effect, the BLM movement has catapulted Critical Race Theory with vigor greater than any previous Marxist-inspired movement in American history. But one thing worth mentioning here is that this BLM problem was broadcasted worldwide and people from across countries tried to customize this with their country and local issues. For example in Bharat left ecosystem very swiftly grab this and turned this into Dalit Lives Matters and Muslim Lives Matters garbage because the Bhartiya Left front is completely brain dead, they only know how to import ideologies from the west and localize it to Bhartiya conditions so as to sustain the flow of funding from the overseas to support destabilizing or elements who want to deconstruct everything about Bharat like they are trying in America.

Even the Indian Cricket team reciprocated the gesture of kneeling down before their matches while they don’t have any connection to BLM whatsoever because this racist problem is a Europe and American problem, but Bhartiya people are still mentally colonized that they feel that the Europe or American problems are their problems as well, this is the mindset that Bhartiya people need to rid off as soon as possible if they want to move ahead independently in future or else Bharat would always try to look for the approval of west and would not put forth their point of view and their local issues.

Intersectionality mix with Critical Race Theory

According to the concept of Intersectionality, one cannot simply understand the oppressor/oppressed dynamics based on a single type of social division, such as race, gender, and class. There are multiple social forces, identities, and ideologies that express and legitimize the dynamics of power over the disadvantaged sections of society. It is the view that when a person shares multiple identities, the combination of identities suffers a unique set of issues. For example, Blacks have a certain set of issues and women have another set of issues, but Black women have issues that are not appropriately addressed by either group in America.  Black women are not adequately understood simply as Blacks because Black organizations tend to cater largely to men. Nor are Black women adequately understood simply as women, because most women’s groups are dominated by White women. So the kinds of prejudices a Black man faces differ from those faced by Black men, and those faced by White women. Now replace Black with Muslims and White with Hindus in Bhartiya condition, since copy paste art of Bhartiya left-liberals is no match in the world.

This concept of intersectionality urged the creation of Black women as a separate and distinct category, in Bharat Muslim women, Dalit women, and ST women, and within these women, there is subcategorization of further sub-low caste that are defined as intersections inside sections of society. We recall that in classical Marxism the notion of class subsumed all kinds of oppressed people. It was important not to divide the oppressed into small groups that could end up fighting each other and diluting the collective impact. But due to Intersectionality, the list of separate minority identities is exploding. For example, Feminism has fragmented into numerous sub-identities: Liberal feminists, neo-liberal feminists, Marxist feminists, socialist feminists, Islamic feminists, Indian feminists, lesbian feminists, etc.

The various victim identities are organized into a hierarchy of oppression. Those located at a low position in this hierarchy are called ‘protected classes’ which gives them a special status under various laws, in terms of protection against discrimination, like SCs, STs, in Bharat, and Blacks in America. The present reality suggests that the loudest, most aggressive, and best-organized activists tend to win in this societal game of victim rights. This is an entirely political matter in the hands of those that control the discourse on Critical Race Theory. We point out there are no special Intersectional categories of victimhood available for Kashmiri Pandits, Punjabi Hindus from Pakistan who became refugees, Tibetans living in exile in Bharat, and so forth.

The reality of Critical Race Theory

               The elephant in the room is that there was racism and social injustice for thousands of years prior to the White people. And racism is caused not only by Whites. For example, Africans and all other cultures too have a history of group identities exploiting and oppressing each other. Africans practiced slavery among themselves, which had nothing to do with their encounters with Whites. There were African oppressors, and African oppressed. There were Arab oppressors and oppressed among themselves, and there was slavery in Muslim kingdoms sanctioned by Islam even to this date. There were Whites who were slaves of other Whites in Europe. So did the ancient Romans, and so did the Chinese. Nor are all White people necessarily exploiters or privileged.

Now the Indian Americans present a dilemma for Critical Race Theory: Are they oppressed given that they suffered prolonged periods of colonization under a combination of European and Muslim invaders? Or are they enjoying privilege given their educational and financial success in the US? Clearly, the premise of Critical Race Theory is too simplistic because of the binary oppressor/oppressed it has inherited from Marxism.

The same could be asked of Christians. Historically, Christianity has a dreadful record of oppression of the natives of all continents. The Pope has apologized to many native peoples for the Church’s past atrocities. Should the Christian structures be dismantled as per the tenets of Critical Race Theory?