Over the tipline we are often asked by Indians living in India why we (as individuals) don’t blog more about certain Indian issues (especially those dominating the Indian media). The simple answer is that you most likely wouldn’t want to read what we have to say about many Indian issues. We aren’t Indian nationals, we all reside in North America, and we are all U.S citizens (except for our current guest blogger who runs our Canadian operations). This means that our opinions, at best, would provide some with a broader perspective on a given topic, and at worst could come across as ignorant or ill-informed. There are better places to read about Indian issues if that is what you are looking for. And yet, those of us who write for SM have definitely felt some resentment at times from parts of the Indian blogosphere, both when we blog an “Indian issue,” and when we don’t.
I know that the current hot topic in the Indian media is the battle over a quota system in Indian universities. I wasn’t going to write a post about it because the Indian educational system doesn’t affect me in any way. However, my mom mentioned the debate to me over the phone and we got to discussing it. I realized how similar and how different the debate in India is as compared to the affirmative action debate in the U.S. Being a graduate of the University of Michigan, the central battlefield for affirmative action in the U.S., I have some definite opinions on the subject and am generally in favor of affirmative action and the type of educational environment it leads to when implemented and executed properly.
My mom opined that she kind of supported the protestors in India. I pressed my mom on the matter a bit since I am more inclined to support a quota system of some kind. What about 3000 years of class oppression? You can’t just erase that with pithy protest slogans like:
DON’T MIX POLITICS WITH MERIT; QUOTAS: THIS CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE; MERIT IS MY CASTE, WHAT’S YOURS?… [Link]
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p>Time Magazine Asia breaks down the central arguments in the debate:
“Modern India should be built on merit, not caste,” says Dr. Sudip Sen, 34, a Ph.D. student in biochemistry at AIIMS. “What’s next — are we going to let a slow runner represent India in the Olympics? No, we are going to send our best runner out for the 100 meters, no matter his caste. It should be the same for all fields.”
Countless other Indian medical workers who have gone on strike this week feel much the same as Sen, which is why India’s sudden battle over affirmative action makes the ongoing divide in the U.S. over racial preferences seem tame by comparison. Public hospitals across the country have shut their doors to all but emergency services; private hospitals in some Delhi suburbs are following suit; trade unions have called for a morning of civil disobedience; and students at India’s elite business schools are meeting to plan their own protests. In spite of the disruption, the government has sworn that it will not back down, regardless of who resigns or how many protest. Increased quotas, it claims, are the only way to foster social equality at the institutions that are driving the Indian economy forward.
That fast-growing economy often makes it easy to forget India’s rigidly stratified past. But any country hurtling along the path to modernization is at risk of being occasionally slowed down by the weight of its own history, and in this case, India has been yanked to a crawl by 3,000 years of a strictly codified social pecking order. [Link]
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The underlying argument in support of affirmative action in India, as well as in this country, is that even though the system is “pretty good” today, you can’t just set aside injustices of the past as if they stopped having any effect on the present. In a perfect world everyone would advance only on their merits. The world has never been perfect though. Sometimes two wrongs is the only way to do right, especially given that family wealth has a way of passing from generation to generation, thereby maintaining social and class divides, and often strengthening them.
Unlike race or class, caste is not something that can be read in the color of one’s skin or in the cut of one’s clothes. Caste is written in a far more nuanced language of family name, livelihood, origin and identity politics; yet it is an issue that has managed to polarize the nation. Urban Indians, increasingly categorized by wealth, say that caste has no bearing on the kind of jobs they can get, yet classified matrimonial ads often list caste as a principal criterion in the search for a suitable spouse. In the countryside, caste defines not just social status and employment opportunities, but also access to education. [Link]
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p>Even having been born in America I can easily see the subtle ways that the unofficial caste system has been kept alive in the thoughts and attitudes of many Indian Americans. Caste was not left behind in India but rather came to America like a stowaway rat aboard a ship, and like a rat it does most of its business in the dark corners of the room. As I kept talking on the phone with my mom I realized what was driving my opposition to her support, albeit lukewarm, of the protesting doctors and students. I wanted revenge. I wanted revenge for all the ignorant comments I had heard about “Untouchables” on my trips to India. I wanted revenge against all the people that think being part of the Brahmin-caste actually means something, or is worth mentioning in casual conversation. I wanted the students to continue their hunger strike and I wanted them to ultimately capitulate. I feel bad for them and feel it is unfair that they should have to shoulder the brunt of Indian history, but even society has a collective karma. As many know well, bad karma cannot be protested away and doesn’t care about hunger strikes. It must be worked off, often through the suffering of those that appear to be innocent. Maybe it is a good thing that there is no easy solution to this conflict.
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p>The final decisions will likely be driven by politics anyway. India’s voting poor outnumber the voting middle-class and the rich:
“It is ridiculous to think that those protesting the reservation system are elitists intent on maintaining their superiority and that those who support them are representing the people,” says Andre Beteille, a Delhi University professor and scholar of social inequity in India. “This situation is not about caste, it’s about politics.” Cynics echo that view, pointing out that the lower castes who would benefit from the reforms are one of the most active voting blocs in state elections. [Link]
See related post: Americans love their Indian reservations
Abhi – the main issue is scarcity of seats in prestigious Medical, Engineering and Management institutes. For example annual intake of ALL IITs is same as annual intake of MIT.
Indian Express had a great article wherein the columnist compared this scarcity to scarcity of gas, scooter pre-1990s in India. Higher Education is one last strangle hold of government so as the protesters are saying this is all about politics and politicians trying to hold on to some power.
Won’t last long IMO – politicians clinging on that is.
Great entry abhi. I think this is a super important issue that is never objectively discussed. The wierd thing is that my mum and I discussed this issue over the phone too. She complained that her mood was “off” because of the reservations and quota system.
I also agree with affirmative action if it is properly administered but I don’t think that is possible in a country so populous and one with such limited access to primary education. The fact is that kids who score a 95% are finding it difficult to get into a decent college/univ. The caste issue only comes up because everyone wants a shot at a decent life and there aren’t any real alternatives if you don’t get good grades and/or get into the right college.
The fact that post-secondary institutions including IIM, Birla, IIT etc have mushroomed whereas primary education is ridiculously under-funded is also something that will eventually catch up the the economic well-being of the country.
PS: Personally I don’t think we (mutineers of South Asian origin) should care about the derision heaped on us by the Indian blogosphere. Jai Canada!
A lot of backward castes are financially well-off in urban areas. Not so much in the villages. I want to know if there are statistics on how many students, especially the backward castes, are from urban and rural areas. I would assume that a lot of the college population comes from cities and towns instead of villages. If that is the case, a big increase in the quota system would be the wrong move. Ofcourse there are other more important factors, but this is something I dont have any information about.
Caste and class are different. The endogamous nature of caste, and racial groups is the key to understanding the issue. Countries with disparites with between such groups, especially ones where the disadvantaged group is the majority, tend to have conflict (Indonesia, former Yugoslavia), quotas (India, Malaysia) or dictators (Iraq under Saddam Hussien, Cuba).
Are there more lower caste or upper caste people in India and what are the respective percentages?
Affirmative action is the cheap way out. Instead of actually spending money on improving the quality of pre-university education throughout India so that students from all backgrounds have a level playing field, the government would rather just pull a political stunt like this to keep their votebanks. While I really feel for the undercastes (Patent Pending), this is just a band-aid solution.
Is it unacceptable to even entertain the idea that perhaps there might be some inherent difference between european-americans and afro-americans and “latinos” (who in the US are more or less spanish speaking american indians) that causes them to be represented disproportionately in high IQ setting ? Perhaps this is one topic that should be studied in depth; lets not miss the answer because we don’t want to look. Similarily, might there be some inherent difference between the upper castes and lower castes that account for the disproportionate levels of success of brahmins ? I am no fan of Hitlerian eugenics programs because they are scientifically wrong. But that does not mean every human is created equal with equal potential at everything and that human races and castes contain equal proportions of people with talents.
Short Answer: Yes. (See this). Non-quota receiving groups make up 25-35% (of this hindu groups 15-30%) of the population depending on whose estimates you believe.
Long Answer: It’s complicated, depends on your definition of upper/lower caste, whether you include non-hindus and keep in mind the percentages and level of disparities vary greatly regionally along a general north-west to south-east cline.
the way it works is that the quota can only be filled if there are enough appicants. statistics show that there are frequently not as many applicants as there are seats available for them under teh quota system, and these seats are thus then kept empty. A solution for this would be to give the remaining unfilled quota seats away to the open category once applications were received after a particular date. Also, there was some controversy earlier in the reservations category for women that was introduced almost a decade ago, in that for every seat filled under the women ‘s reservation, there was one less seat available in the open category. it was totally sadistic demand and supply. its most important for primary education and the grassroots education to be available to all. thats where reservations are needed…. in the villages and slums where the attitude needs to be changed. teachers need to be given incentives. When a large percentage of rural children cant do the basic 3 R’s, how are they going to take advantage of the quotas in higher education? The teachers have no incentive to teach these kids. Whats the point? It all needs to work together hand in glove. As an urban educated Indian, I personally am not against quotas if it ACTUALLY benefits the people it is meant to, but at the same time i dont want my life to depend on substandard professionals. Empower people by all means, but do it the right way. Through Excellent and consistent primary and secondary education, and a simultaneous change in attitudes. This force is only going to antagonise the other students and create an unhealthy academic/professional environment. Quotas are only a temporary solution, and unncessary in my opinion to increase them any further. If anything, work on attitudes and stagger quotas so that they can be removed in the next half century. And think long-term.
It’s a dumb, simplistic, not to mention racist idea. Kinda like saying that India is poor because Indians have a low IQ. There is so much more to it than that.
This time magazine observation is totally stupid. “classified matrimonial ads often list caste as a principal criterion in the search for a suitable spouse. In the countryside, caste defines not just social status and employment opportunities, but also access to education. “
Are they telling that in America there are no such Ads. Open any paper in USA and you will see SWF seeks White male etc etc. That doesnt mean America discriminates on the basis of race. Marriages are a personal thing people prefer certain castes thats their business. Can time magazine find one ad which says only upper castes need apply. Any way in USA There is no mandatiry affirmative action. Blacks are more or less at the same levels as Dalits are in India. At least when you compare the rest of US population with blacks.
The whole American/European media is fixated with caste. And it makes good news whenever they talk about caste system in India. But the reality is that caste doesnt matter in urban India. Not that I know of.I have studied there and lived there for long . It does matter in Rural areas but how many Rural area student are we expecting after the Quota increase may 5-10. Are quotas going to improve the lot of lower caste in India- No never. These quotas will be gobbled up by the urban rich “OBC”.Most of these guys, I bet themselves didnt know they were OBC’s till they read the list from Mandal
I can accept the genetic argument may be “dumb” (ie false); I can accept it to be simplistic, but tarring and feathering an idea by labeling it “racist” (i suppose you mean it considers that human races differ from each other) is silly. “Racist” does not mean anything..its like saying heart disease is “racist” because it affects one group of humans (desis) more than it does WASPs. Regardless, if it can be proven to be false that different human races may have varying proportions of people with certain genetic attributes, I will accept it. However, recent finds make that look unlikely.
It seems this is all vote bank politics as usual in India. The pepole who stand to benefit from this policy far outnumber those who do not. When elections come the next time around the Congress will have at least one “achievement” it can sell. Merit, common sense, fairness et al be damned.
The hogwash about “3,000 years of a strictly codified social pecking order” is just that, hogwash. For a number of years there has been talk of introducing a bill that would reserve 33% of seats in the Parliament and the state legislatures for women (they have 33% representations in the village panchayats). However, this bill has not been introduced in Parliament. I guess rectifying “3,000 years of a strictly codified social pecking order” does not apply if you are a woman.
I believe the simple reason this bill has not been introduced in parliament is because all the bigwig politcians who make the decisions are scared to lose their seats. They don’t fight elections at the village level so let’s hvae 33% reservation there but not in my backyard.
Fuck all these Indian politicians. As long their seat is safe for them and their families the country can go to hell.
Abhi i understand that being a NRI, or a person of India orgin or whatever you may call it, things going on in India don’t directly effect any of you mutineers. Especially, the upheavals of the indian educational system. But, since you guys run a blog based solely on South Asia, i.e India. It only makes sense you would atleast report on something this big, happening in the country, if not really provide your opinion on it (like you have with this post). You guys cover so many stories directly from India, which in no way effect you at all, so it felt a bit odd that something this big was not even mentioned.
Also, the thing about 3000 years of caste/class oppression? See right here you do answer your dilemma on opinionating on something like this, this is the usual observation of someone outside India as they don’t really have any way of understanding the real situation in the country. Like so many commenters above have said this is simply vote-bank politics being played, where politicians are gambling the future of so many indian kids just to win some state elections. These protests are only the preview of what lies ahead, this time it might be worse then Mandal I.
Time Asia has mis-captioned the photo of the medical students protesting. Also the part about colonials not educating dalits is wrong.
“Regardless, if it can be proven to be false that different human races may have varying proportions of people with certain genetic attributes, I will accept it. However, recent finds make that look unlikely.”
What “recent finds”?
Anand,
Let me break it down for you. “Caste” is an artificial construct. Genetically, there is no such thing. Therefore, you cannot “analyse” any alleged underlying genetic factors determining IQ. It is like trying to claim that people living in New York are inherently more intelligent than people living in San Francisco, and attempting to base this on some kind of genetic component.
“I wanted the students to continue their hunger strike and I wanted them to ultimately capitulate.”
Excellent Abhi, I wish the anti-reservation students/Activists would go to any small village and see the reality of Caste system. Because I’ve seen it all in my village ad my friends circle.
I would like to share my experience here…. While I was doing my Bachelor of Engineering(B.E) in Tirupati(Andhra Pradesh), some of my classmates were dalits. I will nevet forget a guy whose father was daily labourer(he used to earn some 60 rupees per day). If not for reservations he would not stand a chance of getting into engineering college. He was really poor in studies intially because he used to struggle to understand english, but as we entered 3rd year of Engineering, he was doing far better then most students in our class, including me. After finishing, B.E he got admission in prestigous IISc,Banglore. He is now working in a big IT company. If not for reservations he would have ended up same as his father.
My village has a dalit president now(who used to work in our house), I cannot imagine my family allowing a dalit to be a village president without reservations.
The problem with these previliged urban upper caste students is that they dont know anything about reality of caste in Indian society
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
These ‘guys’ run a blog based on the South Asian DIASPORA with a particularly American bias.
As I understand it Sepia Mutiny was set up to give voice to American Desis and give an American Desi perspective on issues and bring to life the voice and experience and perspective of young Americans of South Asian ancestry. As it happens people from elsewhere in the diaspora, Canada, UK relate to Sepia Mutiny too. So it is a blog for the Desi Diaspora – Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi.
Since it has become hyper successful, people from India read it too, and mistakenly presume what you (a little arrogantly) assert, that it is ‘a blog based solely on South Asia ie: India’
You have to re-orient yourself and understand the Sepia Mutiny vibe. SM does not have a responsibility to blog on anything except what interests its writers. If they write on India, they do it from an unashamedly America Desi diaspora perspective. It certainly does not have a responsibility to do what you or anyone else thinks it should do, or write on anything that the incidental audience (Indians in India) think it has an urgency to write about.
It is important you understand this, so you appreciate the purpose and reason that Sepia Mutiny exists.
Of course people will write about India, there is no propriety right on writing about what anyone wants to. But the assumption you make that Sepia Mutiny is ‘a blog based solely on South Asia ie: India’ is so incorrect, so WRONG, that it needs to be corrected.
Peace and Love!
I hope the anti-reservation protesters fail miserably. Reservation will provide an opportunity for a large number of members of the Backward Communities to gain entry into Engineering and Medical colleges. These new engineers and doctors will attract huge dowries when matrimonial alliances are forged; the dowry money in turn will increase their spending power and this will result in enormous sums of cash being pumped into an already booming economy. Retailers living on this boom will incur tremendous financial benefits and will enrol their sons and daughters in private colleges for Engineering/Medical course and Dentistry/Nursing respectively! This new breed of professionals will satisfy the increasing demand for their trade in the rapidly emerging economy and if there is a surplus, will set sail to the US and Europe. The banks will have coffers overflowing with Euros and Greens, a billion millionaires, the streets of Cochin will be paved with gold. Ouch! These damn mosquitoes; can never get rid of these bitches! Peace
I fully agree with “Indianoguy”. The debate in India is completely hijacked by the vocal and assertive upper middle class! A pertinent perspective by the Editor of “Outlook” magazine: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060605&fname=Col+Vinod+%28F%29&sid=1
Here is the new mantra: Don’t do anything that will ‘endanger’ India’s rise as the greatest nation on Earth, don’t de-rail India becoming a Super-Duper Superpower by doing anything that threatens the middle class, don’t do ANYTHING to help the poor. Doing so makes you not only a socialist, but anti-national. The poor must wait patiently for the trickle down effect to take effect.
In the meantime, Indian democracy speaks with grace and simple eloquence: there are more poor voters than middle class ones, even those who live on virtually nothing can vote, making them the equal of the rich and high and mighty. And with that vote comes power – the power to make sure that they are not forgotten.
yes, genetically you’re right. but the problem lies in the social effects of this artificial construct. i have a sneaking suspicion it is a lot easier for wealthier, educated brown immigrants to see it as an artificial and irrelevant concept than for people who have actually been branded (and are still branded) ‘Untouchable.’
i happen to live in a country where affirmative action works and works for indigenous people who have been historically discriminated against. it does not affect that voting powerhouse that is the white middle class because there’s a smaller focus on quotas and a much bigger emphasis on scholarships and economic help, as well as academic and personal counselling and support groups for students while they study. maybe this would work in india rather than a focus on quotas, having scholarships for historically discriminated peoples?
also i think that the people who run this blog should be able to post on whatever they like, the only people they really have to ‘reprazent’ are themselves and their views, and i think they do a bloody good job of it too. people who want things whiter or browner can always look at the zillions of other blogs that exist, so there are heaps of people here who think you’re brown enough for us!
Abhi,
While I fully understand that your perspective as a US citizen would be different from that of an Indian citizen, especially on matters such as this reservations issue, since you were any way blogging about the issue, you could have done better than depend on TIME magazine’s perspective. As you very rightly mentioned, there are many better places to read about this issue.
May be those people are as much victims of the caste politics as the Dalits are? In your travels in India, have you interacted with sanitary workers, construction workers, taxi drivers, and other manual labor from the Brahmin community? Or has your interaction been limited to software engineers, MBAs and other such white collar types?
The labor market in Delhi and Mumbai is full of migrants from UP and Bihar, many of them Brahmins from the rural areas – no education beyond sixth or seventh class, no money to afford private education, no scope of getting government jobs because they belong to ‘upper caste’. And when it comes to voting, they vote the same as poor people all over India – based on who pays more for their vote on Election day.
IndianoGuy commented about his SC friend working in an IT company now, and if he was not educated through the reservation system, this would have never happened. Great ! This is exactly what the policy aims to achieve. So, thanks to quota system, today, IndianoGuy and his friend both are in the same economic and social class. And yet, some years later, IndianoGuy’s daughter has to score over 95% in an entrance exam for a professional or higher education, while his friend’s daughter has to score only the qualifying marks. What’s more, IndianoGuy has to bear the cost of education for his daughter, where as the Govt. would fund the cost of education for his friend’s daughter.
Now, I want to ask IndianoGuy and others who support the current regime of reservations, who should ideally be the beneficiary of the system? The children of one who has already benefitted from the quota in the past (and thus joined the creamy layer) or other deserving and poor Dalit children?
If we read the dozens of blogs and print media articles on this issue, one common solution that emerges is to increase the focus and budgets on primary education. If we provide free and quality education for all students till the age of 15-16, there will be no need for any quotas in the graduation and post-graduation levels. But the politicians do not seem to want to improve quality at the primary education level and thereby make it tough for the private school franchise industry in the urban and semi-urban areas of the country.
I can still understand the logic behind the quota system for access to education till under-grad level. But why in higher education? I can also understand the logic behind quotas in Govt jobs.But why quotas for promotions as well? It goes to show that just like Brahmins and Kshatriyas of yore believing that certain occupations and priveleges are their birth right, the creamy layer of today’s India feels that a quota system in every aspect of life is theur birth right. And this is hurting the real Dalits of India – the rural poor of all castes and communities. And the truly meritorious students.
One of the unfortunate by-products of reservations, is the increase in the number of private medical and engineering colleges, where one could simply buy a seat, by paying capitation fees or simply pay more through NRI quota. A friend of mine, who belongs to the creamy layer and is obviously a staunch supporter of the quota system every where, asked me once: “You guys cry hoarse that merit is compromised when an incompetent Dalit/OBC student gets into medical college. Then what about the incompetent, non-meritorious children and cousins of NRIs who come down to study medicine in Karnataka and Maharashtra? They will not be able to pass 12th class science paper in India. And yet, they become doctors and build huge hospitals.What about all the rich kids who pay huge donations and buy a medical or engineering seat out right? Isn’t merit getting compromised there? If its alright for a rich kid to buy his seat, why is it not alright for an OBC/Dalit kid to sneak in with the help of quota system?”
I can’t disagree with my friend. But where does this leave the quality of education in India? If we increase the number of seats, will it help assuage the demands of the non-reservation castes? What will it take us to provide compulsory, free and world class primary education to all children? What will it take us to make higher educational institutions be independent from govt interference? Can they ever follow the model of western educational institutions and learn to survive through industry-academia linkage?Why should the rural poor be made to bear the burden of these thousands who get subsidised higher education, and then leave the country?Can we expect students to start paying for the cost of their higher education through education loans?
Questions and more questions. We could discuss these issues to death and yet find that we are no way nearer to the answers. And if there are any answers, they are not tough ones.
Like Abhi says, yes, societies may also have collective Karma.And the Indian society may have to go through its collective Karma Phal, before redemption comes. If Indians and people of Indian origin do just one thing right – focus on primary education, primary health care and nutritious food for the rural poor, the individual and collective Karma will then ensure that all the other social ills will be gradually taken care of.
Jai Hind.
well said kumar n.
I just wikied “Demographics in India” to get some caste stats. The last census in India was apparently conducted in 2001.
“Population: 1,095,351,995 (July 2006 est.); 1,028,737,436 (2001 Census) Scheduled Castes: 16.2% (2001 Census) Scheduled Tribes: 8.2% (2001 Census)”
25.4% of a billion people is a lot but it still shows that the problem lies in the lack of access to primary and secondary education and insane population growth rates.
Great comments guys… keep em’ coming.
some excellent points made by Kumar N. another point is that it looks as if private colleges that don’t receive government aid will still have to institute quotas except for minority-run private colleges that don’t accept government aid. why shouldn’t all private colleges that don’t receive government aid either be required to implement quotas or all private colleges that don’t receive government aid be exempted from this requirement? why not affirmative action across-the-board?
No, that was NOT well-said, Kumar. Pallavi, it’s simple etiquette: if Kumar is going to write such a long comment, he obviously has so much to say about this subject that he should be creating a post for his personal blog, which he could then leave a link to in the comments section here. Some of us read Sepia Mutiny on mobile devices and scrolling through all that is massively annoying and totally unnecessary.
As for Jatin, who cluelessly thinks this blog is about “India”, check your reading comp skills, son. If you actually had been reading this blog, you wouldn’t have said something so unbelievably wrong.
What’s hilarious is your own comment contains the very reason to stay away from posts like this– these bloggers are fucked if they do, fucked if they don’t. If they don’t cover it, there’s much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth on the part of India-focused types. If they do cover it, it’s invalid and inferior analysis from ABCDs. Seriously, wtf do you want?
Well, sometimes you have to think in reverse to understand the way forward. The problem does not lie in the fact that you are American citizens, rather, it is to do with the truth that all Indians who read this blog want to be American citizens too:) Hence, this blog should assimilate the concerns of Indian citizens, who ultimately want to be Indian Americans and bear responsibility for addressing issues that may interest them. Hopefully, in another thirty years, a member of your incidental audience (Indians in India)will attend the SM meet-up organised by his son who has just been promoted to the position of CEO of the SM empire:)- just the thought brings goose-pimples aplenty! Jai Hind & God bless America!
As cute as your comment was my fellow Malu, it’s still slightly problematic. 🙂 What jumped out at me is that you wrote “Indians”, which, as soon as I read it, made me wonder, “Don’t Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis want to be American citizens, too?” We love our readers in India (Kush Tandon + Vij et al, what’s up?) but the majority of them have real issues with our choice to be inclusive. It’s logical for people who are Indian to be India-centric and write the way you did, but people who gravitate to SM-dom tend to think and write differently (and she is amused, b/c she typed that on her Mac).
another problem is that this post appears to cast the quota and caste problem as the stereotypically Brahmins (with Wikipedia link) vs. “Untouchables” thing (the only two castes mentioned in the post). it’s a lot more complicated than that in india. brahmins are hardly the only people because of whom one should feel a need for revenge and support the reservations 🙂
the quota system has been opposed by, among other people, Azim Premji, a Muslim (and therefore supposedly free of caste prejudices) and Sam Pitroda (a member of a lower caste). so this struggle is not only about caste but about class as well.
UberMetroMallu
You misuderstand what I was trying to say. For a start, I am not American, nor am I connected with the blog in any way. I am just a reader and an admirer of Sepia Mutiny. I value it because of the perspective the writers have on their world, a world informed by the reality of being Americans of South Asian heritage. I also admire their refusal to jump into a discussion on what is happening in India for the sake of it, unless, as Abhi has shown, something in his personal reflections makes him perceive the issue in a new light.
I also said the above in response to the assertion made by Jatin that Sepia Mutiny is ‘a blog based solely on South Asia, i.e India’
I found this to be arrogant not only for the assumption that South Asia and India are one and the same thing, but that can be put to one side for a moment. It is secondary to the fundamentally wrongnotion that Sepia Mutiny is ‘a blog solely based on South Asia’
Sepia Mutiny fills a gap and gives a voice to a particular segment of the South Asian diaspora, with a progressive American Desi perspective. Making demands that it change its agenda to suit people who fundamentally misunderstand the purpose is wrong. It’s best to understand this, so you don’t start making assumptions about what SM’s agenda or reason should be.
Like I said, I am just a fan of Sepia Mutiny. I love their personal perspectives. Nobody should make demands on them to write about anything except what interests them as individual writers. That is why SM is so distinctive. That is what makes it so good. And so different to every other similar blog around.
Anyway, this is off topic, so I hope this line in this thread does not distract from the subject. I just wanted to correct Jatin’s presumptiveness.
There are ten million Indian blogs with Indian perspectives. I don’t want Sepia Mutiny to change her uniqueness, independence or perspective to satiate or respond to any ‘demands’ of misunderstanding readers. I like her just the way she is.
We love our readers in India (Kush Tandon + Vij et al, what’s up?)
Kush moved to India?
I don’t know if he moved there, but I thought he was there now– he left something on the news tab about watching Da Vinci Code in Delhi while Manish could catch it in Bombay, wrt the whole censorship/controversy etc. I could be wrong. 🙂
Anna, you have found the right word :” INCLUSIVE” : ” We love our readers in India but the majority of them have real issues with our choice to be inclusive.”
I found this to be arrogant not only for the assumption that South Asia and India are one and the same thing, but that can be put to one side for a moment. It is secondary to the fundamentally wrongnotion that Sepia Mutiny is ‘a blog solely based on South Asia’
Just curious, do you have any data on the percentages of comments / bloggers / hits in this website from people who can claim their ancestry from other regions of South Asia (i.e not from India) ?. Bcos this blog deals with percentages, I don’t think it is a bigger digression.. 🙂
I would be curious to know how hit rates for a website could indicate whether the reader in America, Canada or England was of Pakistani, Indian or Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi descent! That woul dbe some good software.
um… how would one even go about collecting that data… an online poll… because we all know how accurate those are. The only other data you can really collect is just where the pageviews are coming from… but that doesn’t really give you any information on the what peoples’ ‘ancestry’ is.
I would be curious to know how hit rates for a website could indicate whether the reader in America, Canada or England was of Pakistani, Indian or Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi descent! That woul dbe some good software.
No, you can’t.. That’s why you should consider my statement in whole “comments / bloggers / hits”.. From the “comments / bloggers” you can figure out the ancestry.. I believe one of the earlier bloggers (Taz ??) claimed Bangladeshi ancestry..
i wonder if part of the issue is the unofficial system of having to make “donations” to get a seat at a decent college if one doesn’t qualify through the quota system. It seems that if so many parents weren’t forced to make huge donations/bribes to send their kids to the next best option, the government’s quota policies wouldn’t hit students who didn’t qualify so hard. I’ve always wondered how the colleges get away with doing this, and also why people don’t comment on this aspect of the problem as much…
i wonder if part of the issue is the unofficial system of having to make “donations” to get a seat at a decent college if one doesn’t qualify through the quota system. It seems that if so many parents weren’t forced to make huge donations/bribes to send their kids to the next best option, the government’s quota policies wouldn’t hit students who didn’t qualify so hard. I’ve always wondered how the colleges get away with doing this, and also why people don’t comment on this aspect of the problem as much…
Ponniyin Selvan – I think Ravin answers your question well. But I am curious to know, why are you curious to know? Most probably, the majority of readers of SM are of Indian ancestry. That’s lovely and wonderful, and it is also wonderful and lovely that we have Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Pakistani readers too – because it’s lovely and wonderful to be inclusive of all! As I know you will agree 🙂
Ravin,
Thanks for your link.. It is interesting, what I see is dots from all over the world (North America, Europe, India, Australia, Gulf.. But not many dots from Pakistan/Bangaldesh.. What country is that dot in Africa??.. 🙂
I believe it’s Cote d’ Iviorie (sp?)
The dot in Africa is the city of Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast, a former French colony.
Sepia Mutiny Disciple,
I was curious because I don’t approve of the term “South Asian”.. I am all for being inclusive.. But that should not automatically mean you deny the unique position of India.. For example why do you need to show an artifical parity between Bangladesh and India. At best it is like another state in India.. (say West Bengal). I don’t want to digress further from the topic. We can have this discussion some other time.. 🙂
All the more reason why this blog rightfully treads carefully on subjects like this. It IS a brown or desi or SOUTH ASIAN blog, so why would you want its perspective on such a charged topic when you don’t even approve of the way SM self-identifies?
It’s hard to be inclusive if that means bowing down to one person in the group. Everyone knows that India is huge and different and special blah blah blah compared to her neighbors. Even if we wanted to (and we don’t) we couldn’t change the truth. This has been debated ad nauseum on this blog– and the same thing still happens. People conflate “South Asian” and being inclusive with somehow diminishing the very country that most of us trace our ancestry to, which isn’t the case at all from OUR perspective. Transparent tactics which attempt to establish the futility or error in choosing to self-identify as South Asian are irrelevant at best and insulting at worst. As long as the people who blog here possess that mindset, where hits come from is not pertinent. At all.
Anna, It hurt to read your comments as you have misspelt Mallu in your very first sentence. As the great thinker Tyra Banks said: “I was like, oh my God, how could she do that to me?” 🙂 Like you, I too have been thinking about the large number of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans etc. who want to be American citizens. The competition is too much and the Mallus are getting sidelined. I think we need affirmative action pronto. Sepia Mutiny Disciple, That makes two of us: I’m not Indian either, I’m merely Mallu:) Appreciate your observations. Take care guys
Communis Rixatrix
Transparent tactics which attempt to establish the futility or error in choosing to self-identify as South Asian are irrelevant at best and insulting at worst. As long as the people who blog here possess that mindset, where hits come from is not pertinent. At all.
Fair enough.. That’s your opinion.. Let’s move on to the topic in hand..
Ponniyin Selvan,
I live under a rock that is easy to spot; it’s got a red-lungi-with-a-yellow-dot, neatly spread out to dry or not:)