broadcaste
This is a text based documentation of zeropowercut’s research-presentation
as part of “Limits and Sites of Amplification” curated by Suvani Suri
at Listening Academy Delhi 2024; a program in collaboration between
Listening Academy and Sarai-CSDS (The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies) ︎︎︎
Investigating the synced phenomena of broadcast as broad-caste (how widely propagated myths sustain the bulk of caste system), this presentation will discuss how Listening is brahmanically deintelligentialized to manufacture compliance– historically via dissociative myths and more recently via Loudness that implements the mythideological dissociation physically into neighborhoods, rooms, and bodies.
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widely propagated dissociative myths that sustain the bulk of caste system are becoming louder and louder to ensure that the listening-body feels nothing but the broad-caste of power
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What are the notions of Authorship and Time when it comes to what we call “Folk” ?
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a folk play begins with introducing its characters as colloquial philosophical ideas. The words representing these colloquial ideas have multiple and complex meanings.
The text says “बिदेसी ब्रह्म”, that is Bidesi, the protagonist is BRAHM
Now, let us listen to how Raju Ranjan, a contemporary-folk artist remembers the line of the play
What is said and what is written are different
The text reads BRAHM, but what is spoken is BARHAM
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Brahm, often translated and spoken as Brahman is the sacred supreme of the casteist theism of Brahmanism. The term refers to mythological constructs such as eternal ultimate reality, supreme world truth, unchanging substance, source of everything, etc
All this is Brahman. Everything comes from Brahman, everything goes back to Brahman, and everything is sustained by Brahman
— Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.1
Translation by Swami Lokeswarananda
Translation by Swami Lokeswarananda
Though orthodox scholarly Brahmins may disagree; In populist Brahmanical propagation the idea is also associated with a multi-headed deity image ︎︎︎
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Barham, on the contrary, is a material-practice of the oppressedBased on oral anecdotes I have heard: “Barham” can be a personal practice of making a mound of clay to rest something that is making you restless or to rest a pain or suffering which medicines are not able to solve.
Barham can also be a site of Folk worship
audio by Raju Ranjan
image from internet
image by Raju Ranjan7
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In the textual documentation of the folk play, 
Barham is replaced by Brahm
a folk concept of the oppressed is replaced
by a hegemonic construct of the oppressor
such incidents of Brahmanical appropriation and folk erasure have History that goes back centuries
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What we know of Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma (eternal religion) was manufactured in the Epic Age [~ 400BCE to 400CE] via appropriation of popular and common ideas, images and narratives of Folk.Against the rising threats of new religion like Buddhism that challenged Brahmanical authority, Brahmins, appropriated the cultural and faith practices of the oppressed masses to mobilise them as inferior caste people into Sanatan Dharma (eternal religion), which is but a graded hierarchy in the guise of “eternal order”.
S.Radhakrishnan writes of this from his Brahmanical position —
The aryanisation was essentially a spiritual process. The Brahmin tried to allegorise the myth and symbol, the fable and legend, in which the new tribes delighted. He accepted the worship of the tribal god, and attempted to reconcile them in Vedic culture . [Epic Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Vol1]
Let us overwrite this excerpt from a non-brahmanical position —
The aryanisation [or perhaps Brahmanisation] was essentially a spiritual [read: subjugating] process. The Brahmin tried to allegorise [read: appropriate] the myth and symbol, the fable and legend, in which the new tribes [read: “inferior” masses] delighted. He accepted[read: approriated and weaponised] the worship of the tribal god, and attempted to reconcile them in Vedic culture [read: as a strategy to gain authority over the “inferior” masses]. [Epic Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Vol1]
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In the documentary “The Decision to Drop the Bomb”Oppenheimer quotes a precise moment of brahmanisation in which
an erstwhile tribal figure displays a supra-cosmic form
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There is this general notion of that folk has no individual authors, that folk comes from ancient unchanging practices of community,That folk is not only beyond author, but also beyond time. This notion makes “Folk” dangerously similar to Brahmanical Sanatan (Eternal) Order.
This notions sustains the ongoing Brahmanical appropriation, and it is possible, that this notion arrived only with Brahmanism.
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In the eternal order, Brahmins ontologise themselves and other privileged castes as authority on Knowledge, Power, and Capital.Contrary to this hegemony, are the workers, who are termed “Sudras”.
The term Sudra means “menial and knowledge-less”. More simply, it means “Less” or “lesser people”. The “lesser people” however, form a demographic majority.
In this ontologisation of worker’s knowledge as non-knowledge, it is not just people and their forms of work which is ‘menialized’ , but a cultural-total intelligence or a common understanding of knowledge is sudra-fied.
This dissociation from one's own knowledge and culture is mythologically imbibed in the eternalist epics
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Heinrich Himmler, a close believer of the ethics of these epics, imports the dissociative capacity of these myths to inspire the Nazis. He says—
“These deeds do not inflict any damage on our inner selves, our souls, and our characters. In the same manner, Krishna assured Arjuna that the latter acts would not pollute his higher self by completing his murderous duty: Whatever I do, it cannot pollute me. [...] The one who merges with me, frees himself from everything, and he is not bound by his deeds.”
On a more mundane and general level—
Even from a context outside India, if we look at how the term “Butchering” is used— when we say, “I have butchered the explanation of this text”—Butchering is supposed to mean having sabotaged something, but of course, butchering is an important form of knowledge, which supports us in our everyday.
“Butchering” is a common example of forms of work that are Sudra-fied. Such disenfranchisement dissociates the worker from their own work, knowledge, and reality.
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For the caste system to sustain, it is important that people are dissociated from their own sufferings.
It is only with self-dissociation that self-abjectification can be induced and people can be reduced as pawns in a propaganda that oppresses them-selves.
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To maintain this dissociative force in the mundane,
hegemony invades all forms of media broadcast
from films to news, from televisions to local celebrations
child perches next to loudness
covers their ears to protect themselves from loudness
distracted lets all the loudness in
imitates the adult dancing
dissociated unthinking sudra-fied
we imitate each other
interiors dissappear
disembodied by loudness
we feel nothing
Broadcaste
A research-presentation by
zeropowercut
Piyush Kashyap: Essay, Research, Edit
Raju Ranjan: Research
all images of loudness were taken within 100meters of zeropowercut’s studio
︎︎︎ to go back to the video-documentation page of broadcaste, click here