On March 3, 2024, Indian writer and lawyer J Sai Deepak delivered a talk on the UC Berkeley campus. HinduYUVA at UC Berkeley, a Hindu students’ group organized Bharatam, a presentation where Deepak spoke about the idea of decolonizing India. He encouraged the audience to own their religious identity and heritage as Hindus, and not examine Indian history through the lens of secular rationality.
Hindu YUVA at UC Berkeley is a chapter of Hindu YUVA USA, a student group with a presence in 75 colleges across the country. Due to limited seating, only some attendees joined in-person; it was also live-streamed on YouTube where it has 49,000 views.
‘Bharatam’
Deepak took the stage amid applause and chants of Jai Shree Ram from the audience. The title of the talk – Bharatam- was a nod to ‘Bharat’, another name for India. Deepak believes that this name is more appropriate, given that the word India is a colonial imposition. He pointed to this as an example of decolonization – a process by which we examine Indian history, society, and culture as insiders, and not as outsiders with a colonial perspective.
He cited the movements of Indigenous people in the U.S. and African communities to reclaim their identity and heritage as examples of decolonization going on – and celebrated – around the world today.
“Why is decolonization cool in the U.S., but not in India?” he asked.
He also touched upon the caste system, which is considered one of the biggest evils of Hinduism. According to Deepak, too often, the conversations focus entirely on untouchability and caste-based violence, without any reflection on the system’s basis in Hindu society.
“Varna is not a caste filter, it is a consciousness filter,” he said. “The jati-varna complex has been Bharat’s way of accommodating different tribes as part of the faith system depending on their collective consciousness.”
Throughout his talk, he also spoke about other controversial issues such as the movement to reclaim temples in India, and urged Hindus in the U.S. to make themselves visible in American public life without letting go of their Hindu identity.
“Respect the law here 100%, build fantastic lives for yourself 100%, but continue to have an interest in Bharat’s future. Or else, assimilate fully and renounce your culture and faith, so we know where you stand,” he said.
Protests outside the venue
Later that day, J Sai Deepak took to social media to share a series of posts and videos describing protests that took place outside the venue of his talk. In the videos, dozens of protesters are seen holding placards and raising slogans.
While their slogans are not audible, one placard read “No Trump, No Modi, No Netanyahu, Defeat Fascism”. On another placard, the words “You are not welcome here” were written in Hindi. The videos show a handful of protesters holding the yellow and blue flags of the Khalistani movement. This protest comes on the heels of an incident on February 26, when pro-Palestine protesters disrupted a talk organized by Jewish students on campus.
Videos posted on X show Deepak and other attendees confronting the protestors and raising slogans of “Vande Mataram”, “Jai Shree Ram”, and “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, but there appears to have been no violence.
Watch the recording of the full talk here.