Argument 1: Brahmins are in charge of Gothra

Nonetheless, the modern liberal Hindu despises the word “gothra,” continually accusing it of being a Brahmin preserve. Why was the swayambhuva referred to as Kusha a Kshatriya if it was a Brahmin preserve? Kushanabha, the son of Kusha, had a son named Kaushika, the legendary godly figure we now refer to as Vishwamithra.

Why do Rajputs belonging to the Paramara, Pratihara, Chauhan and Chalukya lineages trace their genealogy back to a Brahmin Agastya? Why are Gujjars, who are a subset of the Pratihara Rajputs, a reserved “backward” community if they are as brahminical as the liberal Hindu claims? Should they not be upper-caste supremacists due to their gotra privilege?

The very idea that there is some sort of brahmin motive behind the gothra serves one purpose: to obscure the lineages’ real, proud beginnings. In some Kshatriya lineages, for example, Agastya raised the ancestors from his sacrificed fire; as a result, the Kshatriyas deriving their ancestry from these bloodlines had a sage and a God (Agni) as their ancestors.

In the same way, Vaishyas who followed gotras like Mahawar assert a past resembling any swayambhuva (spawned lineage) descended from Brahma’s thighs. The liberal Hindu is unable to comprehend that even Shudras have a gothra. Nammazhvar, for example, came from a background where some of its branch lineages afterwards referred to themselves as Shudras. He wasn’t a Brahmin, yet today he is revered as a Saint who received moksha from Vishnu.

The western propaganda that only they have the reserved right to retain a claim to a lineage is the reason the gothra system came to be affiliated in a very biased manner towards Brahmins and the so-called upper-class Hindus.

Argument 2: Brahmins built the gothra to ensure “blood purity.”

Notwithstanding the fact that this does not support haphazard mating between lineages, it does establish the fact that the idea of blood purity alone is a product of western racial ideology. Why don’t all members of the so-called “upper caste” Hindu have white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair in a robotically consistent fashion if blood purity is such a crucial component of that caste? Why do some of my ‘pure-blooded’ Brahmin and Kshatriya acquaintances have black skin?

The idea of the gothra system’s alleged divisiveness is western propaganda, whose ethos is again based on the Abrahamic idea that since all humans are the offspring of incest, the lineage of whom you marry today should not even matter. Instead, the gothra system encourages controlled marital diversity.

Argument 3: Upper-caste Hindus have a gotra-based on close-mindedness!
If that were the case, the majority of Hindus from the so-called upper castes would be strictly endogamous. Despite this, data from the present day suggests that there are more mixed marriages among Hindus than among any of the minority religions in India that advocate egalitarianism (and we also observe that Muslims and Christians today place more emphasis on caste-based compatibility than Hindus do). Have you ever heard of a Rajput Muslim or a Chettiar Christian? What the heck?

The majority of Hindus either don’t know or are actively erasing their family histories because they believe that doing so makes them appear to be supremacists. Again, this is a personal issue for the inferiority-complex-ridden Hindu liberal rather than a problem with the concept of gothra, whose most diluted interpretation states—I repeat—that Manu’s ancestors were formed by God from a variety of self-made men.

Argument 4: Gothras have a polarising personality
It is genetic. Socially, it’s not. Modern science itself refers to the genetic variety and its maintenance as healthy.
Hindu Dharma views marriage as having as its foundation the controlled maintenance of one’s genetic diversity. So, one of the many factors that a traditional Hindu union takes into account before solemnising a union is the gothra. So, a Kaundinya cannot marry a Kaundinya, and so on and so forth. A Kaushika Brahmin cannot marry another Kaushika Brahmin. After all, if Hindu scripture and science concur, the former is liberal blasphemy, the latter is sacred, and yet acting in opposition to both is good behaviour.

Argument 5: All other “poor castes” were denied the right of gothra by the Brahmins.
If the Brahmins had truly intended to achieve it, they would have already done it when the Vedas were made public.

I could go on forever. The fact remains that many Hindu lineages have lost sight of their gurus. You cannot blame the notion and text for human foolishness and forgetfulness.

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