The Jungle Prince of Delhi
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
And now the metamorphosis has come full, with meritocracy beginning to show its beautiful egalitarianism in India.
Can’t wait to see what comes next. India of 2050 is one of the things I look forward to the most in old age.
Obviously, it's one's personal choice to see the glass either as half empty or half full.
Au contraire, the largest upliftment from povery, and massive social mobility is what has driven India's 8%+ growth rate for more than 2.5 decades
I am sure it all started with good intentions - you set aside a portion of admissions for the historically oppressed people, they come up - they win, society wins and everyone wins at the end. Right? In practice though, it is more used as a weapon by politicians to expertly divide and conquer votes, kinda like redistricting in the US but much worse.
There is a reason for brain drain ...
These are just noisy words that people throw around without giving any concrete examples or offering any ideas on how it should be done. Like what does weighed down by caste mean actually in 2020 India? I see plenty of inter-caste marriages - I never did in the past. That's progress to me.
I lived there 30 years - 70s through early 2000s - and each time I visit I find that circumstances have improved quite a bit for the poor. I even saw my doodhwallah's daughter enroll in MBBS last time and the maid only had 2 kids (as opposed to when I was a kid the maid would have 5 or 6 because of lack of knowledge about birth control!)
It isn't exactly a do this and that and then suddenly billions will be "free" and prosperous thing. It's not a problem that has been solved - not at this scale certainly. Given the history and the odds I would say the progress has been nothing to sneeze at.
Individual anecdotes don’t mean very much. My parents had an inter-caste marriage 42 years ago. Does that mean there was no casteism then?
Also no cherry picking is needed to make my point. I asked you to search for ‘Dalit’, not ‘Dalit killings’.
I don’t like to get in shouting matches. I won’t be responding further.
That's what I did btw - eye opener if you are a simpleton basing your opinions on what the media chooses to highlight and what google tries to show you :)
Also I don't remember using any ALL CAPS words so not sure where you got "shouting match" from :) - probably a gut feel based pre-determination I am guessing?
India is one of the worst places (if not the worst) when it comes to inequality. Caste system is a proper evil that should be gone in 21st century if the country wants to call itself civilized. Millions of us have seen it first hand when travelling through it. It can't be expressed by mere words to a westerner, one has to see it. How deeply it is ingrained in whole society.
I did backpacking 6 months in the past all over it, and in some ways this shows you more of a country than any other way of travelling and integrating. One ex-girlfriend did spent few years living in Mumbai with her ex. She had no clue about real India, especially when I compared the backpacking with her. Like literally no clue. What I want to say - just staying there as a westerner doesn't make you automatically see all good and bad. Depends how dirty you want to get, how much off trodden path you want to go. How far from rich well educated people you want to steer.
Its perfectly normal experience to talk to young couple of brahmins with very westernish look on life and desires, even well traveled ones, who without bating an eye would say its perfectly fine to send poor 5 year old kids to fireworks factory or coal mine instead of school. Of course not their kids, just kids of the poor, so they can help their families. By losing their future, health and often even lives. This is quite recent experience and far from only one.
Is it getting better? I am sure it is and it makes me very happy. Is it still a very very long path to a fair society? Absolutely. I don't expect current western level of society in my life, maybe my grandkids.
A more accurate statement would be "caste is slightly less of a problem these days in Indian cities among 1) the more liberal educated classes 2) very low and poor folks living in chawls"
For the vast middle class folks and rigid rich folks, it is just as painful
That doesn't mean casteism is dead, just that statistically things are much much better for the historically oppressed.
I have hope for the new, educated Indian.
India has had the world's largest middle class emerge from poverty in the last three decades, and to somehow claim that economic (& social) upliftment has only benefitted the upper strata is mathematically false. If people were truly weighted down by caste,etc. this uplifted wouldn't be possible
Again, India still reels from literacy problems, and one's likely to see more inequity among the uneducated with regard to social strata.
[1]: I assume that this is the word you seek when you mention statistically
Unfortunately none of them thought of turning themselves into royalty; they were content being traders and hustlers. It strikes me that it would be very hard to perform that act of self-transformation today with Google and Facebook monitoring my every move.
Could social media make it _easier_ to do today?
It is just what displacements do I guess - the upheaval lifts some boats, sinks some and the world goes on.