HomeOpinionsFounder-Editor of The Wire claims 'Dalit Porn' article by Suraj Yengde is fake, here...

Founder-Editor of The Wire claims ‘Dalit Porn’ article by Suraj Yengde is fake, here is how a viral screenshot led to outrage and debate

The plausible believability of the above screenshot is an effect of the collective mainstreaming of such debates. Satire is a humorous take on what is happening in society. The fact that elements of a distinct 'Dalit' identity were mixed with the usual left-liberal sexual 'liberation' tropes to create the satirical screenshot, and that seemed so 'real' to many, is also a satire in itself.

A screenshot of a purported article by Islamo-leftist portal The Wire, advocating for ‘Bahujan’ content creators to “conquer” porn, which the author, Suraj Yengde, calls the “last frontier”, has gone viral online. As per the viral screenshot, the Dalit rights activist argues that Ambedkarite ideology must penetrate the ‘frontier’ of pornography for ideological expansion by targeting Brahmin women. Though the screenshot carries believability given the anti-GC shenanigans of both Yengde and The Wire, it is fabricated, rather satirised.

In the viral screenshot, the headline of the article that was never published reads,The Case for Dalit ‘Porn’ – Why Bahujan Content Creators Must Conquer this Last Frontier.”

Meanwhile, the summary reads, “Every ideology needs pop-culture tools to expand. While Ambedkarite ideology has enough auto-tune songs and Reels, we are failing at pornography, the largest consumed content. Revolting as it may sound, Bahujan content creators must work on porn ideas e.g. a Brahmin or Yadav housewife having sex with a sanitation worker who comes to clean toilet.”

OpIndia scanned The Wire’s website and social media handles to check if the article the viral screenshot features was ever published, modified or deleted. It turned out that no such anti-Brahmin piece was written by Suraj Yengde, nor was it published by The Wire. As per our research, the viral screenshot is most likely fake.

Siddharth Varadarajan, the Founding Editor of The Wire, put out an X post on 27th March, blaming ‘casteist, Hindutva-infected Hindus’ for the creation and circulation of the fabricated screenshot, claiming that these people fabricated a fake story and tried to pin it on ‘respected scholar’ Suraj Yengde and The Wire.

“Hatred and perversity among casteist Hindus, especially those infected with Hindutva, know no bounds. Some of them have gone to the extent of fabricating a fake ‘story’ based on their sick minds and tried to pin it on a respected Dalit scholar, and on The Wire,” Varadarajan wrote.

The screenshot is fake, but why did people think it was real?

While Varadarajan was quick to drag ‘casteist’ Hindus and Hindutva into the matter, and hailed Suraj Yengde as a ‘respected scholar’, the fabricated screenshot landed as plausible since it neatly fitted into the pattern of Yengde’s anti-Brahmin rhetoric rooted in caste ‘conquest, as well as The Wire’s persistent anti-Hindu propaganda.

Yengde has written numerous articles on ‘Brahminical patriarchy’, with an obsessive focus on Brahmin women. His articles and social media posts often villainise upper-caste Hindus for supposedly not marrying their daughters to Dalits due to their belief in caste purity.

Suraj Yengde’s anti-Brahmin rhetoric goes beyond scholarly commentary and is seeped into blatant misogyny and objectification of Brahmin women, as exemplified by his social media posts.

In one such post, Yengde wrote, “Brahmin girls salivate over Dalit man. Ask me.”

In another post, Suraj Yengde, while responding to a Brahmin man’s post, asked the Brahmin community to “give away” their daughters to Dalits, as if they are some objects, and are expected to share their ‘privilege’ among Dalits, as if the women are things that should be passed around.

He also has a record of distorting Hindu history and scriptures to peddle anti-Brahmin propaganda.

In addition to sexualisation and objectification of Brahmin women, Yengde harbours blatant hatred for them, calling them the “weapons of deflection” and having no sympathy for them.

With such a demonstration of caste-revenge fantasy, extreme extrapolations like the porn-industry “last frontier” claim come across as real. There have been many occasions when Dalit ‘social justice’ activists advocated for ‘claiming’ upper caste women as some sort of trophies of historical payback.

There are multiple instances of Dalit voices and activists openly objectifying general-caste women, especially in India. Not just politicians, even IAS officers have given statements asserting that women of the general caste are some sort of trophies or objects that must be shared with Dalits for the social justice agenda to become successful.

Also, with the influence of Western liberal ideas of segregating everything from food, music, and literature into distorted binaries of ‘black and white’, Indian Liberals too have started a movement of copy-paste, applying the same ideas in an Indian context, which is inherently wrong, because Indian cultural nuances have not worked in Western parallels. Indian cultural diversity has evolved in its own distinct hues where Western categorisation cannot fit.

screenshot of an article in Vice

There has been a plethora of articles, books and discussions about Dalit food, Dalit music, Dalit ‘Gods’, Dalit practices and whatnot, where Indian Left-liberals, in their desperate efforts to fit into Western SJW circles, categorise Indian socio-cultural aspects into the dishonest and insufficient binaries of Dalit Vs Upper Caste. These discussions have often turned into ludicrous comparisons and wrong claims.

Screenshot of an article justifying and supporting porn as a ‘weapon of destigmatisation’

The plausible believability of the viral screenshot is an effect of the collective mainstreaming of such debates. Satire is a humorous take on what is happening in society. The fact that elements of a distinct ‘Dalit’ identity were mixed with the usual left-liberal sexual ‘liberation’ tropes to create the satirical screenshot, and that seemed so ‘real’ to many, is also a satire in itself.

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Shraddha Pandey
Shraddha Pandey
Senior Sub-Editor at OpIndia. Email: [email protected]

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