There is a very real economic divide between rural India and urban India.
Even if you were from a feudal landlord family, 30 years ago you might have not even had running water or electricity. But at least you had a solid house, instead of living in a mud hut (if you were lucky) like most Dalits and Nomads in rural India back then.
If someone from an elite rural family came to the city, their privilige automatically becomes moot because in a purely capitalist society Money begets Privilige.
In the 1990s-to-present, there was a massive migration from rural India to cities, and a number of formerly priviliged Men (it's men who become migrant workers) were at the bottom rung of the urban social ladder. And they were/are PISSED. So in retaliation, they began organizing their own Castes to fight for political power and quotas.
Also, in India, Affirmative Action is a Quota System, unlike the US where Quotas are unconstitutional. This means you are playing a Zero Sum game where one family's Affirmative Action might doom your family to poverty.
This makes the situation highly volatile.
They are easily manipulated by populists and ideologists, prone to use violence and prone to be sexist, racist etc. I guess that is becaise the way they see themselves, or what they think society expects them to be, is something they do not get. Hence the incredible amount of frustration. Frustration that breeds, especially when combined with a sense of entitlement and inhrained superiority, radicals like nothing else. Bonus points if thes can see themselves as the victims, conspiracy theories go a long way in building some groups conspiring against them.
I'd like to understand. Let's use white male young men school shooters in the US.
OP > So in retaliation, they began organizing their own Castes to fight for political power and quotas.
You > the way they see themselves, or what they think society expects them to be, is something they do not get. Hence the incredible amount of frustration
What I'm interpreting your comments as, is that people should just "stay in their lane"/ caste/ station at birth and not cause trouble/ accept their rung of society
If ypu read my other comments on caste systeks and discrimination, it becomes clear that is the exact opposite of what I mean.
The solution is not for everyone else to adapt around the greavances of frustrated individuals and groups that cannot adapt to change. The task is on those frustrated individuals to find ways to adapt whatever they have adapting to in a changinf society, because the only these large changes can be surpressed is by oppressing others. We all know where that ends.
Those frustrated young men (and it is mostly men) so, they are actually in a pretty bad spot. Those that actually act on those feelings are just plain pathetic so, the others, well, society owes them some form of support. Just don't ask me what kind of support so.
The much much worse proboem so is the people in power, read populist and nationalist movement and political leader along with their religious counterparts, that use those men to further their own goals of power. More often than not, that use ends in violence and death. No idea what can be done about that neither, other than voting for parties that are not like that and keep tbose radicals out of government and power as much as possible. And that approach doesn't always work neither, nor is it even possible in a lot of places.
And no, I wont stay in a lane someone else put me in just because it would hurt that other persons feelings. And neither should anyone else, ever.
Isn't the same also true about e.g. protests against the Vietnam War, or... probably about almost all protests ever.
Young men are more likely to stand up and actually do something. Sometimes good things, sometimes bad things.
It’s probably closer to the welfare queen trope. Yeah, there are a few people who cheat the system, like any other system in the world.
Thaw existence of cheaters does not negate the very real problems and challenges faced by the actual “victims”.
The numbers aren't always going to be exactly equal to representation, sure. But when you have a group that comprises 40% of society only represented by a half percent in prestigious university faculty positions, you need to step back and figure out what's going on there. These people are not genetically different or of lower intelligence; they've literally been not allowed to hold these positions even if they wanted them and could be qualified for them.
Frankly, your point of view is advocating for bigotry and oppression, and I suggest you re-evaluate why that is so.
Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud so.
India has been an extremely poor country for a long time. It’s not a situation like the US where there were plenty of opportunities available and some segment of society is gated out of them. Almost all Indians save for a narrow clade of people who worked directly under the imperial administration of the British Empire had access to anything, and even those were the cream of the crop from the pre-British days who could translate their prior privileges to getting ahead of their peers in the rat race.
It’s basically tautological to say OBCs are underrepresented in the upper echelons of society. That’s literally how the category is defined. The system was set up from colonialism on down to leave very few positions with contemporary standards of dignity for “natives” to occupy.
OBCs are > 50% of India's population my some measure which tells you they are extremely powerful in an democracy. They engage in this race to bottom where they want more legal discrimination that favors them at the expense of another.
One can easily see that the most powerful politicians everywhere in India are mostly OBC. India's current PM is an OBC, so is the CMs of some of the richest states like Maharahstra, Tamilnadu or the most populous states like Uttar Pradesh. Making a claim that this group is somehow "oppressed" is like claiming Teachers Unions or NRA being politically oppressed. It is other way around.
After Independence, Affirmative Action/Reservation was created so Dalits and Nomadic Tribes who were traditionally outcastes in South Asian society could be integrated into society.
Yet, in the 1980s-90s, Agrarian and Feudal Caste politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav (Yadav), Lalu Prasad Yadav (Yadav), Chaudhary Charan Singh (Jatt), Bal Thackarey (Maratha), YRS Reddy (Reddy), etc began pushing to expand Affirmative Action to include those castes that are traditionally Feudal Lords/Zamindars and oppressed Dalits and Nomads.
When this expansion began in 1992, every single non-Dalit caste saw that if they could lobby hard enough, they could also be give guarunteed Affirmative Action for college admissions, government jobs, welfare, etc.
This is why even some Brahmin majority castes like Paharis were given Affimative Action by being treated as an OBC or Scheduled Tribe.