6 ms·

The Jungle Prince of Delhi

83 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

neonate 7y ago
http://archive.is/iYBQy http://archive.is/iYBQy
- dreen 7y ago
  FYI my corporate DNS blocks archive.is, but changing the TLD to .today works http://archive.today/iYBQy http://archive.today/iYBQy
nikhizzle 7y ago
Partition was of course a great Trauma to many families. But to us two generations down who were only told the good parts, it was a strange social experiment. One of the things I find most fascinating from knowing a bit about my family moving from Lahore to Delhi and Calcutta (and saw echoed in this article), was how much social advantage remained when 50% of the people you knew moved together at one. And then it was also fascinating how quickly that advantage evaporated for the next generation in a changing India. My grandfather and his siblings, arrived to or quickly acquired in India relatively cushy private sector or government jobs. Frankly, In today’s world jobs they would not be qualified or hired for. They continued a life of extreme advantage. My parents generation, caught between new and old India had a much higher level of struggle to make it. I can’t comment on the current generation first hand, because my parents chose to leave instead fight it out there. 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.
- kranner 7y ago
  As someone who has lived in India for most of his life, I can assure you we are very far from being meritocratic or egalitarian in any way. People are weighed down by the poverty, caste and religion of the families they are born into. Very few escape this fate. You can point to a few success stories but I can tell you of thousands more that will never escape the general circumstances of their birth.
  - blinkingled 7y ago
    > People are weighed down by the poverty, caste and religion of the families they are born into 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.
    - kranner 7y ago
      What does weighed down by caste mean? Go to google news for India and search for ‘Dalit’. Count the number of people beaten up and killed for being lower caste and trying to drink from an upper caste well or marrying an upper caste person. In the last month. 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?
      - blinkingled 7y ago
        Individual anecdotes are not meaningful but cherry picked stories from specific google searches is a-ok? (Try searching for "stories about dalit success" and see if you are willing to change/rebase your viewpoint based on that - just like you originally did with a different search.) Nobody said it's a solved problem - but denying that things are much better than they used to be is just biased nonsense.
        kranner 7y ago
        My anecdotes are biased nonsense while yours are not. This is uncomfortably ad hominem and I don’t know how to respond civilly but let me ask you why you think I would be biased? I live in India. India is home; I don’t enjoy portraying it in a bad light. 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.
rajekas 7y ago
I grew up in Delhi where every landlord and most of my neighbors were refugees at one point. A good friend's father had a large hole in his forehead from having an axe taken to it during the riots. 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.
- pattisapu 7y ago
  > 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?
embit 7y ago
On a slightly different note, this is superb journalism. This is what keeps me reading New York Times.
shriphani 7y ago
What an amazing story! I have heard so many incredible stories about the partition - some good, some bad. It is just what displacements do I guess - the upheaval lifts some boats, sinks some and the world goes on.
v77 7y ago
Wow, what a story, well told.

83 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.is/iYBQy http://archive.is/iYBQy

dreen 7y ago
FYI my corporate DNS blocks archive.is, but changing the TLD to .today works http://archive.today/iYBQy http://archive.today/iYBQy

nikhizzle 7y ago

Partition was of course a great Trauma to many families. But to us two generations down who were only told the good parts, it was a strange social experiment. One of the things I find most fascinating from knowing a bit about my family moving from Lahore to Delhi and Calcutta (and saw echoed in this article), was how much social advantage remained when 50% of the people you knew moved together at one. And then it was also fascinating how quickly that advantage evaporated for the next generation in a changing India. My grandfather and his siblings, arrived to or quickly acquired in India relatively cushy private sector or government jobs. Frankly, In today’s world jobs they would not be qualified or hired for. They continued a life of extreme advantage. My parents generation, caught between new and old India had a much higher level of struggle to make it. I can’t comment on the current generation first hand, because my parents chose to leave instead fight it out there. 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.

kranner 7y ago
As someone who has lived in India for most of his life, I can assure you we are very far from being meritocratic or egalitarian in any way. People are weighed down by the poverty, caste and religion of the families they are born into. Very few escape this fate. You can point to a few success stories but I can tell you of thousands more that will never escape the general circumstances of their birth.
- blinkingled 7y ago
  > People are weighed down by the poverty, caste and religion of the families they are born into 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.
  - kranner 7y ago
    What does weighed down by caste mean? Go to google news for India and search for ‘Dalit’. Count the number of people beaten up and killed for being lower caste and trying to drink from an upper caste well or marrying an upper caste person. In the last month. 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?
    - blinkingled 7y ago
      Individual anecdotes are not meaningful but cherry picked stories from specific google searches is a-ok? (Try searching for "stories about dalit success" and see if you are willing to change/rebase your viewpoint based on that - just like you originally did with a different search.) Nobody said it's a solved problem - but denying that things are much better than they used to be is just biased nonsense.
      - kranner 7y ago
        My anecdotes are biased nonsense while yours are not. This is uncomfortably ad hominem and I don’t know how to respond civilly but let me ask you why you think I would be biased? I live in India. India is home; I don’t enjoy portraying it in a bad light. 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.

rajekas 7y ago

I grew up in Delhi where every landlord and most of my neighbors were refugees at one point. A good friend's father had a large hole in his forehead from having an axe taken to it during the riots. 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.

pattisapu 7y ago
> 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?

embit 7y ago

On a slightly different note, this is superb journalism. This is what keeps me reading New York Times.

shriphani 7y ago

What an amazing story! I have heard so many incredible stories about the partition - some good, some bad. It is just what displacements do I guess - the upheaval lifts some boats, sinks some and the world goes on.

v77 7y ago

Wow, what a story, well told.