alt Hacker NewsI guess the difference is social mobility in the US exists, a lot of successful founders in the US come from poor beginnings. In India you cannot legally change your caste for your entire life, if I’m not mistaken.
Seems like it isn’t a system worth defending. China has so many issues, it also blows my mind that people around here defend and praise China like they’re doing good things. They aren’t.
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If Indians could change their caste officially, everybody would be lower caste. In fact there are often protests and agitations by members of certain upper castes to label them lower caste. See this for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_reservation_agitation
It's a catch 22. India tracks caste because they're trying to get rid of it. America doesn't track race or social status or whatever. Legal status means nothing really. Especially in urban India, it's becoming very irrelevant what your background is. Are there bigoted regressive people? Yeah of course, but I mean... Those are everywhere. Are there more in India than elsewhere? Probably, compared to urban western nations. But India is like a century behind on social progress id estimate. Still ahead of China where your status is literally tied to your place of birth though.
As for changing caste... You only need to reference it if you're seeking government benefit. If you don't care about it, stop keeping track, and don't share it with your kids... They'll never know and just get assigned general or whatever they call it. Of course, since caste is literally genetic, anyone doing a genetic test will quickly figure it out. However a gene test is not enough for seeking caste benefit status if I understand correctly, so this is as erased as you can get
Caste is mostly irrelevant in India outside of liberal arts department of so-called elite universities.
There are some pockets where this is not true, but they are exceptions.
And those comments aren't defending it.
Upward mobility is available in India, too. But remember that to have "upward mobility", there needs to be place at the top. For a country which has been under hundreds of years of regressive colonial rulers, there is not much place at the top.
Global wealth is much more in the US than in India right now, so it is not wise to compare rags-to-riches of the US with those of India.
India's government jobs, elite engineering and medical seats have a legal 50%+ quota for "lower" castes people. Did you know that? So, I am saying, 50%+ students graduating ALL elite engineering and law and medical and nursing schools, etc. are from these "lower" castes. Did you know that?