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I think the article present a lot of data, but misses the point entirely. Upper caste Hindus lead TECH firms abroad, as they have access to higher education. C

by yunohn 5y ago

I think the article present a lot of data, but misses the point entirely. Upper caste Hindus lead TECH firms abroad, as they have access to higher education. Commerce castes lead RETAIL businesses back in India. They miss the massive immigration of blue collar Indian workers too. They do a lot of speculation but completely ignore the business domain aspect, and hence don’t pose a logical answer to the question they themselves present. Quite shoddy journalism.

amriksohata 5y ago
It is very poor journalism with an intent to make a political point and bring up the caste system
- aldebran 5y ago
  Yup. It feels like someone saw a couple of datapoints and wrote some clickbait article with no meta point.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Bringing up the caste system is not a political point.
- instagraham 5y ago
  Calling any discussion on caste an attempt to "make a political point" is patently poor intellectualism, particularly when you're not exactly refuting any of the points in the article. Scratch but a few inches beneath any of the supposed critiques of this articles, in this thread, and we will find precisely the kind of ingrained casteism that pervades the upper caste mentality, convincing them that they are supposedly meritocratic and superior to the "quota" lower castes. Casteists are not the intellectual equals of their modern critics and it shows in the way they try to avoid discussion on it.
vsskanth 5y ago
I agree. Its low quality journalism completely devoid of any actual analysis of data about indians who emigrated and the businesses they run. Makes me wonder if I can trust the Economist to present me an accurate picture on topics I don't know much about. A similar thing happened with Politico where I read an article about an issue I am very knowledgeable about (H1B visas). It was very opinionated, riddled with factual errors, bad sourcing, incorrect or straight up omitting any data that didn't fit a predefined narrative. You just had to Google a little bit to find the actual data from DOL. Completely shattered my trust in them and makes me doubt everything they report on, if they couldn't be bothered to enforce basic journalistic standards.
- yob89 5y ago
  [dead]
instagraham 5y ago
From the article: "So why are Indian Brahmins doing better in business abroad? One answer is that because business in India favours those with established networks, talented Brahmins have tended to emigrate. A tradition of bookishness has made it easier for them to pass exams and enter the countries with the greatest opportunities." Merchant castes don't only lead retail businesses. "A study from 2010 of the country’s 1,000 biggest companies found that some 93% of board members came from “forward” castes."
- yunohn 5y ago
  That’s the only reason they present - Brahmins are bookish. I think that’s quite simplistic and lacks nuance given the amount of data presented beforehand. It’s not surprising that merchant classes that led businesses lead more businesses - not limited to just commerce. But my point was around the examples they gave, and the biggest companies that they named.
strikelaserclaw 5y ago
this is quite true, bramins were traditionally the most educated caste (because that is what their culture emphasized) , it makes sense that in an era when education is favored over "might" in the western countries, that the people valuing education for thousands of years would rise over other castes.

by yunohn 5y ago

amriksohata 5y ago

It is very poor journalism with an intent to make a political point and bring up the caste system

aldebran 5y ago
Yup. It feels like someone saw a couple of datapoints and wrote some clickbait article with no meta point.
pessimizer 5y ago
Bringing up the caste system is not a political point.
instagraham 5y ago
Calling any discussion on caste an attempt to "make a political point" is patently poor intellectualism, particularly when you're not exactly refuting any of the points in the article. Scratch but a few inches beneath any of the supposed critiques of this articles, in this thread, and we will find precisely the kind of ingrained casteism that pervades the upper caste mentality, convincing them that they are supposedly meritocratic and superior to the "quota" lower castes. Casteists are not the intellectual equals of their modern critics and it shows in the way they try to avoid discussion on it.

vsskanth 5y ago

I agree. Its low quality journalism completely devoid of any actual analysis of data about indians who emigrated and the businesses they run. Makes me wonder if I can trust the Economist to present me an accurate picture on topics I don't know much about. A similar thing happened with Politico where I read an article about an issue I am very knowledgeable about (H1B visas). It was very opinionated, riddled with factual errors, bad sourcing, incorrect or straight up omitting any data that didn't fit a predefined narrative. You just had to Google a little bit to find the actual data from DOL. Completely shattered my trust in them and makes me doubt everything they report on, if they couldn't be bothered to enforce basic journalistic standards.

yob89 5y ago
[dead]

instagraham 5y ago

From the article: "So why are Indian Brahmins doing better in business abroad? One answer is that because business in India favours those with established networks, talented Brahmins have tended to emigrate. A tradition of bookishness has made it easier for them to pass exams and enter the countries with the greatest opportunities." Merchant castes don't only lead retail businesses. "A study from 2010 of the country’s 1,000 biggest companies found that some 93% of board members came from “forward” castes."

yunohn 5y ago
That’s the only reason they present - Brahmins are bookish. I think that’s quite simplistic and lacks nuance given the amount of data presented beforehand. It’s not surprising that merchant classes that led businesses lead more businesses - not limited to just commerce. But my point was around the examples they gave, and the biggest companies that they named.

strikelaserclaw 5y ago

this is quite true, bramins were traditionally the most educated caste (because that is what their culture emphasized) , it makes sense that in an era when education is favored over "might" in the western countries, that the people valuing education for thousands of years would rise over other castes.