We have been considering going back and discussed this with some of the folks who came to Germany recently, where we live. They think we are crazy to go back now, as a Muslim.
I can see tons of new folks come to Germany now, many of them Dalits and Muslims on blue card work permit. Almost all of them have the same thing to say.
If you are an upper caste, Hindi speaking elite class, then you wouldn't see it. But if you are a Tamil, Dalit or Muslim then it is obviously frustrating to see the agenda the current central government is executing.
So we have kept the decision on hold.
But what the hell, I’ll say it. OP is an upper caste male. You won’t see many “India is doing great! I’m heading back there!” posts from Indian women or Indian Muslims or Indian Dalits. That’s what I meant.
I’m similar to the OP in that I’m an upper caste male as well. The difference between me and him is that I can understand and empathise with the difficulties faced by people different from me.
I grew up in rural area and I’m not a savarna. I studied in Govt institutions and most of my non-Savarna batch mates are doing just fine. We don’t need savarna apologists to tell us what is the ground reality.
Ok, go ahead and link 5 of them. Hyperlinks on the internet are free :)
> toxic empathy
What does this even mean, hahaha. Because I point out that life is difficult for women in India, that’s toxic? Pointing out that all the women I know who have emigrated don’t want to move back unless they’re guilted into caring for family, that’s toxic?
You throwing casteist slurs (“savarna”, twice) my way, accusing me of doing this for farming karma, that’s not toxic?
I have 11000 karma, you have 22. Karma isn’t even something I think about unless someone brings it up. It just passively increases. I certainly didn’t point out the shortcomings of OPs article for the 20 (?) karma I supposedly farmed on this thread.
I’d suggest you be less toxic in future. You can try to claim that you’re not using a casteist slur when you say Savarna but I’ve never heard anyone say that word without venom and hatred.
If you think the sources (thePrint, Soch) I shared have issues, point them out. If you think either video makes inaccurate claims, point them out. But please avoid ad hominem attacks on me.
- Toxic empathy: Toxic empathy is when a person over-identifies with someone else's feelings and directly takes them on as their own. There is an active group of upper caste (Savarna) activists trying to milk the lower castes' lived experiences and making it about them. I was pointing to that hypocrisy.
- I can assure you that Savarna is not a casteist slur, it is a real word used in the Dalit lexicon. It is akin to calling a White person "Caucasian". It was used by Babasaheb and other dalit pioneers and it is a staple word in Ambedkarite literature. I implore you to read real dalit voices from India like Dhasal, Hansda Shekar, Daya Pawar to get a real picture.
- I also find your claim that Indian women or Indian Muslims or Indian Dalits don't have any such stories. (sorry paraphrasing). I have seen first-hand what strides India has taken post 90s and downtrodden peoples kids have climbed up the rungs and are doing great. India is definitely not a wonderland like the Nordics or USA, and has a long way to go, but it is definitely not the case of only Upper castes are progressing and women, muslims and dalits are shunned at the bottom of the society.
India is going through a flux and the casteism is definitely a bane to our society, but we can not eliminate it if we do not understand how it manifests. Peace out, Atta Deep Bhava.
P.S. These are the 3 links I shared after a cursory Google search
- https://www.thebetterindia.com/267994/dalit-entrepreneurs-ov...
- https://www.thebetterindia.com/278570/assam-woman-builds-tai...
- https://www.thebetterindia.com/138014/shattering-barriers-hy...
P.P.S: I also find it sad that Indians drag caste into any discussion about India, but you never see them attributing "White male privilege" in discussions like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30987472 or this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30985684 (I know Whataboutism and all but you get the gist)
Usually "upper caste" christians, Ashraf muslims/Paki or pro-congress children of super rich or super powerful bureaucrats who benefited greatly from the previous corrupt regime.
OP could be a remarkably empathic and kind person for all I know. But this post doesn’t show it.
Meanwhile me, 8 year old account with 11k karma. I have the courage to say what I want tied to this identity while you don’t.
My point was that OP reckons India is great to return to. And I agree, it is! As long as you’re an upper caste male, like OP and I are. And even if that makes you uncomfortable, it is pertinent to the discussion of whether someone should go back to India.
Ironically, people like you insisting we shouldn’t discuss caste only makes this conclusion even more certain. We can’t fix what we won’t discuss.
Caste system is ungodly fucked. I once had an otherwise super hippy in the US explain to me why the caste system is totally okay because of “centuries of religion” or some weird shit like that.
Anybody who advocates for the continuity of the caste system is irredeemable scum in my book. Unfortunately, for me, I think that writes off a lot of people as irredeemable scum. Maybe I’m the baddie.
I implore you to take a rational look at Indian society and not rely on WaPo/NYT to know your own land.
Here’s a video that you might find illuminating.
- Caste Conundrum: Why do upper castes believe discrimination doesn’t exist? - https://youtu.be/vjt8aBoejho (1.4M views).
You speak of NYT/WaPo. This was published by an Indian newspaper ThePrint.
Now you might be thinking, that can’t be right. I’ve lived in India for a long time, I know it isn’t like this. That’s ok, I used to think like that too. Until I saw a map of india overlayed with the extent of untouchability practised in each district. Turns out, I lived in a district where it was barely prevalent. Here was me, living in one corner of India for decades and extrapolating that to the rest of India. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
You can find that map and see how prevalent this abhorrent practice is in the beginning of this video
- What Hathras tells us about Casteism in India - https://youtu.be/ELbdGh0-4T4.
Both videos are mostly in Hindi, with English subtitles. I hope that’s ok.
I am not saying casteism isn’t present in India but the way you are projecting is way over the top , especially in urban areas.
Do you know anything about the stringent SC/ST act.? It has now been abused so much against the upper caste , that few years back Supreme Court had to intervene and direct the Govt to not immediately arrest in case of an FIR. There was a huge protest by the SC/ST community over this order and within few weeks Govt had to bow down and pass an ordinance to repeal the order by Supreme Court.
Just Google about “misuse of SC/ST act India” it is mind boggling.
What you lack is perspective. Any action you take to stop a crime will lead to false positives.
Try and imagine any crime that happens. Let’s take a crime you feel less strongly about, dowry harassment. Every year thousands of women face mental harassment and physical and assault from their husbands and in-laws demanding dowry. Should we do something about this? It doesn’t affect you or me, after all. Let’s say we do anyway. Now we criminalise harassment related to dowry demands. What we find is that this new law makes no difference. No woman actually charges her in laws because she knows she’ll bear the brunt of their immediate fury. Ok, let’s try again, let’s make the crime non-bailable. Now more women come forward, which is presumably good.
But now we have a non bailable offence that requires minimal evidence before filing charges. Will this be abused? Almost certainly. There are at least a few cases every year.
How do we balance the two? If the standards of evidence are raised or if “false” accusations are penalised, we’ll have more false negatives. If the standards are lowered, we’ll have more false positives. There’s no way around this.
I don’t know the solution here, but I will point this out - people only complain about one side of it. They complain about whatever they can empathise with the most. Each side only thinks that either true harassment cases or false accusations is the worst thing, and we should eradicate them asap. There’s no acknowledgement there’s a trade off between reducing one and increasing the other. There’s no discussion about the total number of each, the number of unreported cases and so on.
That’s how you are. You worry about what will affect you and your family, which is false accusations.
I can’t make you care about other people. Nothing I say will make that happen. All I ask is look at the data and ask yourself - which is more prevalent? Discrimination against other castes or false cases against upper castes? Which has been more prevalent historically?
Looks like a template attack against those who doesn’t agree with you.
Anything I would say, you would attack it in a long winded response without trying to absorb other’s pov.
That you have touched the topic of dowry harassment, go and meet some good criminal lawyers in India from HC/SC. Don’t just read propaganda. They will clear all your misconceptions about just “few false cases” etc. (More than 90% of dowry cases turn out to be false)
All I will say is that extrapolation and generalization from personal experiences leads to biased perspectives. Your experience does not invalidates other's and vice versa. My recent experience in Rajasthan has been that caste dynamics is still in a healthy full flourish.
I agree, biases should be avoided. My point is that GP had a biased view of casteism which doesn’t help in eradicating it from the roots. He seems to be pasting the same links that confirm his bias and seeking internet validation in an article that has nothing to do with casteism. The real need is to bring the change on the ground by understanding the problem better.
That's your opinion and personal experience against his.
I have been in contemporary situations steeped in casteism as well as where it has played no role. Absence or weakening of caste dynamics in certain states does not make it a non-existent or irrelevant in others.
That national politics in many Indian states are campaigned along caste lines is proof enough that caste is well entrenched even today in many of the Indian states. Observing election campaigns and their results is in my view a good indicator where caste is a dominant force and where it isnt.
Please watch these two videos and let me know if you still think so.
- Caste Conundrum: Why do upper castes believe discrimination doesn’t exist? - https://youtu.be/vjt8aBoejho (1.4M views).
- What Hathras tells us about Casteism in India - https://youtu.be/ELbdGh0-4T4. (300k views)
Is it common in the US for people to refuse to come into contact with people of other races? To bar them from places of worship? To not even touch water they might have touched?
What you did was just whataboutism. It’s the “yeah it’s bad, but no worse than any other place”. But even if we allow this deflection, it’s not true.
> Yugal Raj Jain. He’ll be fine in India.
Indians will understand what my friend meant by that.