I disagree. I grew up poor and white, I was the "victim" of AA once, I come from exactly the demographic that racist demagogues play to, and I still disagree. Just as the original systemic discrimination has uneven effect (on both sides), so does AA. The beneficiaries of AA as it has existed in the US are not particularly likely to be privileged. In fact it really is a bit of the opposite, because it's much easier to skirt AA in professions requiring high levels of education and specialization. It mostly has its effect at the lower end of the economic spectrum, in jobs that even those who have been shortchanged by the educational system can do.
Do some rich minorities benefit from AA? Do some poor white people get the shaft as a result? Oh, I do know about that, and it sucks mightily. From what I can tell it's quite possible that India's reservation system is even worse. But that doesn't mean AA must fail. Flaws in a specific implementation of an idea do not necessarily refute the idea itself. The US version of AA, for all its many and great flaws, still seems net positive and a valid part of addressing systemic discrimination.
Indian reservation system is in bad state, and especially in the context of IITs/NITs it is worse due to the reasons I mentioned.
Honestly from the arguments I'm seeing in here, it really really isn't. From the perspective of a white guy with almost no understanding whatsoever of the caste system and its politics, I'm seeing exactly the same kinds of arguments here that I find being made by racists.
As someone from fairly higher cast but economically poor family, coming to US felt liberating where I could define & own my success irrespective of my cast, religion. Yes we have problems in US and I've faced discrimination too but it doesn't limit me from succeeding.
We should take this as a learning in US if we were to implement a reservation like system. Have it backed by data on who really needs it not driven by political climate.
The affirmative action in India is to reduce this gap so that their representation is comparable to their population.
Affirmative action is not "always bad." There are multiple purposes of affirmative action, some of which have NOTHING to do with the individual student.
About 60% of NFL alumni in the US are of African-American origin, and that number climbs every year. Most coaches in the NFL are either former players or coaches at some other level of football. The VAAAAST majority of coaches at the NFL level at ALL levels are white. Of the 32 head coaching positions in the league, only 3 are held by black coaches, and black coaches are more likely to get fired quicker than their white counterparts.
You know why? Because the owners are white. People hire who they relate to, and a white guy is going to relate to another white guy more than they will to most black guys. It's simple.
Same thing applies to affirmative action. A lower caste person who gets a chance and succeeds is more likely to hire lower caste employees. So even though those lower caste employees may not have been direct beneficiaries of affirmative action, they can still benefit from the network effect.
There is no reason to identify as "upper caste" unless one is interested in maintaining that hierarchy.
Actually it’s because being black isn’t an advantage in coaching the way it is on the field. White guys tend to suck at a lot of positions, but they’re perfectly capable of coaching. So you have a reasonable proportion of black coaches.
No high achievers are truly worried about being in a system with AA with regards to their personal employment and advancement. They're going to succeed regardless. The high caste people who are waiting for their (or are waiting for their kids') handout simply because they had good grades as a child are the ones who are the complainers.
It's not perfect, but it's not resource intensive and it's vastly better than the alternative.
But this is not what affirmative action is. The purpose of affirmative action is to help under-privileged people. If the help is going to privileged people instead, it's not affirmative action, it's corruption.
If it's really true, as you suggest, that some Dalit are rich and some Brahmin are poor, that some Dalit are privileged and some upper castes are not, then what does the caste system even mean? And why do people care enough that it's still a thing?
If you took your last paragraph, and substituted racial groups for castes, I think it would be clear that it doesn't make sense?
There's different kinds of privilege of course. You can be rich but still discriminated, you can be white but poor. And the way you need to help people who are poor is different from the way you help people who suffer from discrimination.
If poor people have a hard time getting access to something because it's too expensive, and you want to help them, then that money shouldn't end up with rich people. If a demographic group is kept out of universities or other opportunities because of their caste or the colour of their skin, then you correct that by giving them better access, maybe through a quota or some other form of preferential treatment that compensates for the effects of discrimination. And that shouldn't apply to people who don't suffer from that discrimination.
You need to address the thing that's going wrong, and not something completely different. Rich black people don't need money, they need to not get arrested over nothing by the police.
When we have programs that are specifically designed to help people monetarily, such as financial aid at colleges or welfare, they consider people's economic situation but not their race.
While I might agree about this being a bad outcome, I also don't think a "no true Scotsman" argument is helpful. What is described here is still affirmative action - just a bad implementation of it. Instead of trying to define them away, we should admit that such bad implementations can exist, and push for good implementations instead.
I know people from upper castes who were actually middle class farmers, and those from lower castes that got benefit from quotas even if they were rich[0].
Affirmative action is always bad. Because the people getting benefit of it are likely to be privileged. In this particular lawsuit, the discriminated was mentioned to be an IIT alumnus. It is basically hard to get into an IIT without decent investment in study materials / training to pass entrance exams these days. But still most of the seats are reserved for SC/ST/OBC and availed by people who are rich.
After reading this, some so called Indian liberals jump in to defend this is never the case. Go to an IIT and check the list of students who got in due to affirmative action (called reservation here). You will find most of them having wealthy parents because most students who write IIT entrance exams take coaching[1], and that's quite expensive.
Some media likes to highlight this or this may even give impression that upper caste Indians are casteist. They are not. But they are likely fed up with the abomination that reservations (affirmative actions) are.
Apart from that, there is likely chances of nepotism in bureaucratic organizations like Cisco.
Also, as for as I know, the caste system alone doesn't explain why South Indian upper caste people are more successful than North Indian upper castes (Brahmins / Baniyas) who outnumber them easily, and also appear more in IITs/NITs.