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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. O

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.
        blinkingled 7y ago
        > asked you to search for ‘Dalit’ That's what I did btw - eye opener if you are a simpleton basing your opinions on what the media chooses to highlight and what google tries to show you :) Also I don't remember using any ALL CAPS words so not sure where you got "shouting match" from :) - probably a gut feel based pre-determination I am guessing?
        saiya-jin 7y ago
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  I think the parent is saying that meritocracy and egalitarianism have increased in India when compared to 1947 which is not false. There are hardly any countries in the world which are fully egalitarian and meritoric in their approach. Obviously, it's one's personal choice to see the glass either as half empty or half full.
- throwGuardian 7y ago
  Wow - that is a strong accusation against a nation with laws to prevent just this, with oodles of "quotas" in education and government employment. Do you have any large scale research or evidence to back this? Au contraire, the largest upliftment from povery, and massive social mobility is what has driven India's 8%+ growth rate for more than 2.5 decades
  - justaguyhere 7y ago
    Those quotas are very much part of the problem. There are thousands of kids who have to settle for their second, third, fourth choice of college, because someone else needed to get in, even if that someone had scored less (often times laughably less) than them in the qualifying exams. Because you know, quotas I am sure it all started with good intentions - you set aside a portion of admissions for the historically oppressed people, they come up - they win, society wins and everyone wins at the end. Right? In practice though, it is more used as a weapon by politicians to expertly divide and conquer votes, kinda like redistricting in the US but much worse. There is a reason for brain drain ...

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.
      - blinkingled 7y ago
        > asked you to search for ‘Dalit’ That's what I did btw - eye opener if you are a simpleton basing your opinions on what the media chooses to highlight and what google tries to show you :) Also I don't remember using any ALL CAPS words so not sure where you got "shouting match" from :) - probably a gut feel based pre-determination I am guessing?
        saiya-jin 7y ago
sbmthakur 7y ago
I think the parent is saying that meritocracy and egalitarianism have increased in India when compared to 1947 which is not false. There are hardly any countries in the world which are fully egalitarian and meritoric in their approach. Obviously, it's one's personal choice to see the glass either as half empty or half full.
throwGuardian 7y ago
Wow - that is a strong accusation against a nation with laws to prevent just this, with oodles of "quotas" in education and government employment. Do you have any large scale research or evidence to back this? Au contraire, the largest upliftment from povery, and massive social mobility is what has driven India's 8%+ growth rate for more than 2.5 decades
- justaguyhere 7y ago
  Those quotas are very much part of the problem. There are thousands of kids who have to settle for their second, third, fourth choice of college, because someone else needed to get in, even if that someone had scored less (often times laughably less) than them in the qualifying exams. Because you know, quotas I am sure it all started with good intentions - you set aside a portion of admissions for the historically oppressed people, they come up - they win, society wins and everyone wins at the end. Right? In practice though, it is more used as a weapon by politicians to expertly divide and conquer votes, kinda like redistricting in the US but much worse. There is a reason for brain drain ...