Recently a discussion emerged on Twitter about the relative success of Indians in America and Indian Americans and the origins of that success. While Noah Smith pointed to their cultural and economic status to begin the conversation, W. Bradford Wilcox noted the stability of the marriages of Indian Americans. There are lots of directions one could go with this discussion, but one response to Wilcox’s Tweet captures I think a way of thinking that is important to engage because it is influential:
Guess which immigrant group was colonized by a Western hegemonic power that indoctrinated the culture into American ideals, literally preparing them for upward assimilation? Also, Indian marriages are functionalist in nature, and not subject to ephemeral underpinnings of “love”.
One could take this as an affront to cultural or individual pride. That is, the success of Indian Americans being reduced to simply Western culture and civilization diminishes what they have achieved on their own (I’ll get back to the issue of marriage specifically).
This is not the issue that I want to explore, though I will note it here. Rather, let’s entertain the ideas and presuppositions embedded in this sort of assertion, and its correspondence to reality.
You could say that this attitude, which reduces non-Western peoples and societies as outcomes of Western history, is marginal. But the person who expressed the opinions is a graduate student in sociology, and this viewpoint does suffuse the assumptions of many educated Americans “in the know”, albeit less nakedly and brusquely expressed. Less enlightened Americans probably believe that Indian immigrants are just smart and well-educated (this is true), and that is the reason for their success (again, true). But those who are “in the know” “understand” that these sorts of reductive characteristics are outcomes of a particular historical process, and it is that historical process to which Indian American success redounds (“Well actually, British colonialism imparted bourgeois values to native allies in western India, and that’s why they succeed in the United States”).
Though I am not Indian American, I am obviously Indian American adjacent. Arriving in the United States just before elementary school, and growing up with parents raised abroad, I have a visceral understanding of intercultural dynamics which is probably not available to professional anthropologists. I am aware of elements of South Asian culture which are very different from American culture, and so am always curious about the new pattern of some Westerners to reducing South Asian culture as simply a postcolonial reaction to Western hegemony.
Obviously, on some level, the impact of that hegemony is hard to deny. Though Macaulay’s aspiration of creating “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” did not occur to full completion, the British period had a strong impact on the outlook and viewpoint of South Asian elites. Even those who were anti-colonial and anti-Western in orientation often reacted to European influence and domination. Their own nativist response would be incomprehensible without the British Other.
There is also the reality that for some aspects of culture native peoples may assert a deep and indigenous origin for practices and values, even if it is hard to imagine a particular phenomenon without European influence. A simple illustration of this is the popularity of drinking tea across the subcontinent, which arose through British commercial propaganda. Modern South Asians may not be aware of the origin of this deeply embedded aspect of their lives and assume it’s indigenous in a very deep manner.
A more subtle and rich illustration of this tendency is the Buddhist revival of 19th-century Sri Lanka. The peoples of this island have been Buddhist for a very long time, and have interacted with the Theravada societies of Southeast Asia for a thousand years. But, in the 19th-century Buddhism reformed itself in the face of Christian proselytization. Some Westerners, sympathetic to Buddhism (e.g., Henry Steel Olcott), were critical in buttressing the intellectual armamentarium of the local population. In the process, they may have influenced the self-conception of elite Sri Lankan Buddhists to perceive their religion as rationalist in a manner that was shaped by the post-Protestant Enlightenment and its critiques of Christianity. In this framework, Sri Lankan Buddhism can be thought of as fundamentally indigenous, but the movements of the last few centuries are impossible to understand without awareness of European influence, even if native Sri Lankans themselves now perceive these elements as deeply primal (i.e., the rationalist and less supernatural Buddhism is the “true Buddhism”).
Moving to the mainland of the Indian subcontinent, again it is not deniable that European colonial hegemony had a strong impact on the society. Consider that defining element of Indian civilization, caste. Some scholars have made a strong case that British systematic rationalization of governance and taxonomic anthropology of native peoples was critical in the crystallization of the caste-jati system (in particular, the 1871 Census of India). Yet genetics casts strong doubt on this claim as being the only explanation, as many jatis and broader caste groups, exhibit patterns of endogamy and relatedness which indicate the genealogical depth that is 1,000 years or more. As it happens, al-Biruni’s observations of India 1,000 years ago outlines a social structure which is broadly consonant with what we perceive to be Indian today.
What does this have to do with Indian Americans? First, it is famously well known that Indian American migration to the United States has been highly selective, biased toward individuals with high levels of skill and education. Additionally, these people are not a representative cross-section of Indians themselves in regards to ethnicity and community. There are, for example, very few individuals of Dalit background in the United States. And, there is a preponderance of individuals of higher status communities. Using the framework above, one might say that communities that have internalized European mores, outlooks, and skills, have been advantaged and that this is why they have immigrated to the United States.
The problem is that this is clearly wrong. Some communities in South Asia have been literate for thousands of years. This is well known. The Muslims who arrived as an elite class after 1000 A.D. noted which communities were literate, and elevated them into service. Additionally, other Indian groups were inducted into military service. This is not to say that South Asian class, caste, and professional affiliations have been communally static for thousands of years, but neither was the portfolio of skills and preferences arbitrarily poured into the minds of some Indians as opposed to others. Some Indian groups were useful in particular places and times to various elite groups, whether Hindu, Muslim, or British, and that utility redounded to the long-term trajectory of that community (e.g., Parsis).
In the American context, there is an underrepresentation of people from groups which are the majority of Indians, the broad peasantry. Rather, various mercantile communities and service professional communities are overrepresented (though there are farmers from the Punjab who have moved to the Central Valley). Much of the accumulated human capital in many of these groups predates the arrival of Europeans.
How a group of people reacts to new stimuli varies. The Indian Diaspora is highly skewed toward people from Gujurat and Punjab. In contrast, there are far fewer people in the United States from the upper and middle Gangetic plains, the civilizational heart of India (a fair number of peasants from these localities did migrate to Trinidad, Mauritius, and Fiji). The literate elites and landowners the Gangetic plain have not reacted to the legacy of European colonialism and globalization in the same manner as the literate elites and landowners of Gujarat. Some of this is happenstance, but some of it is probably the reality that Gujarat has long been integrated into the Indian Ocean trade networks, which even predates Islam.
This sort of analysis need not be restricted to South Asia. When Europeans encountered the Japanese in the 16th-century they were struck by their industry and ability to imitate and perfect new technologies. The isolation imposed by the Tokugawa in the early 17th-century dampened this perception for centuries, but after the reopening of Japan in the 19th-century the same underlying parameters came to the fore. The Japanese remained distinct, but also assimilated many Western techniques and social structures.
In this globalized world roiled by economic change and characterized by migration, there is a temptation to fall into the trap of simplistic theorizing. We must avoid that temptation if we are to understand the true shape of a thing, rather than the fictions one could spin-out from our theories and preconceptions.
Going back to the starting point of his post: the strong economic performance and robust families of Indian Americans is not just a function of hegemonic Western values. These people are not simply persons Indian in blood and color, but white in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect, though there is something of that, especially by generation 1.5 and above. But the entrepreneurial aspect of some Guju communities, to give an example, illustrates that folkways derived from the South Asian context have been transmitted to the United States. The “joint-family” is quintessentially Indian, and though it is not common among Indian Americans, it likely casts a shadow on Indian American family life (additionally, divorce is very taboo for many Hindus). Most Indian Americans today are immigrants, raised abroad, and their orientation and mores are fundamentally distinct from the native-born and native-raised.
Of course, assimilation happens. But even that is contingent. The America that the children of Indian Americans are growing up in is highly polarized and post-Christian. This has some downstream consequences for how 21st-century immigrants and their children view themselves in the body politic.
Razib is on the money as usual. I laugh at anyone who thinks Indo-Americans internalized “American ideals.” If anything, our ideals are near-diametrically opposed to those of Americans.
We are communitarians and they are individualists. We value family, duty (farz), and respectability; they value self-expression and independence.
What happens is that if you take very intelligent and conscientious people and plug them into a modernized, postindustrial society, Indian cultural traits act as force multipliers for success.
Even though Indians are a special case with their small, closed communities of more specialised people, its true for all migrant groups anywhere:
The ethnic characteristics matter but also, often more so, the subset which actually migrates, the social selection.
This can result in situations in which an ethnic group of migrants can be seen as highly adapted and well mannered, productive part of one society and an exact opposite, an objectively highly problematic immigrant group in another.
The situation can even change from one wave of immigration to the next.
In Central Europe the best example I personally observed are Afghans.
When the Afghan state collapsed, thanks to the American interventions, and Islamists took over, in the 1980s to 1990s mainly Afghans from the higher and middle classes came in, a lot from the administration of the former state.
All rather non-religious, well mannered and productive people with ambitions, many families.I know first generationers which are successful business people, academics and doctors.
In the refugee crisis of the 2010s the situation was completely different. A large portion of the New immigrants consisted of uneducated, even analphabetic young men, many with aggressive, criminal or religious Islamist attitudes.
Same state, largely the same ethnicities, but a completely different social selection of people with all consequences.
Razib,
“As it happens, al-Biruni’s observations of India 1,000 years ago outlines a social structure which is broadly consonant with what we perceive to be Indian today.”
Not sure if you came across this before already, but there’s an even earlier example (by almost four centuries) in Xuanzang’s travelogue from 645 A.D. (though the English translation is somewhat outdated):
“There are four orders of hereditary clan distinctions. The first is that of the Brahmins or “purely living”; these keep their principles and live continently, strictly observing ceremonial purity. The second order is that of the Kshatriyas, the race of kings ; this order has held sovereignty for many generations, and its aims are benevolence and mercy. The third order is that of the “Vaisyaa or class of traders, who barter commodities and pursue gain far and near. The fourth class is that of the Sudras or agriculturists; these toil at cultivating the soil and are industrious at sowing and reaping. These four castes form classes of various degrees of ceremonial purity. The members of a caste marry within the caste, the great and the obscure keeping apart. Relations whether by the father’s or the mother’s side do not intermarry, and a woman never contracts a second marriage. There are also the mixed castes; numerous clans formed by groups of people according to their kinds, and these cannot be described.”
https://archive.org/details/cu31924071132769/page/n187
«Guess which immigrant group was colonized by a Western hegemonic power that indoctrinated the culture into American ideals, literally preparing them for upward assimilation? Also, Indian marriages are functionalist in nature, and not subject to ephemeral underpinnings of “love”.»
It occurs to me that thera are some tension between the first and second sentences.
Thank you for sharing this, Razib. I was ignorant of much of the Southeast Asian history.
@Obs, I hope that western countries learn from their immigration mistakes, and recognize that vetting is critical for assimilation. The way facts are treated vs. ideology, though, I’m not holding my breath.
Of course, assimilation happens. But even that is contingent. The America that the children of Indian Americans are growing up in is highly polarized and post-Christian. This has some downstream consequences for how 21st-century immigrants and their children view themselves in the body politic.
Please elaborate, comparing (contrasting) with earlier immigrant groups from earlier periods of immigration when the US was less polarized and not post-Christian. For this purpose, perhaps the period that ended with the immigration laws of the 1920s. It would be especially useful for me if the elaboration attempted to disentangle these effects from those of either skin color (since most south Asians are perceived in the US as non-white: I say most since some can pass without much trouble) or religious difference (how non-Christians or non-Protestants were perceived in earlier periods vs. non-Christians today).
Thank you
This type of a theory, postmodernism or postcolonialism or whatever it is called, seems so silly and ridiculous in many of its conclusions I encounter that these days I am beginning to get rather bored of all Mr. Razib Khan’s posts on the topic. But apparently it seems (I’m not sure at all though) these types of views are gaining wide spread rapidly (or are already very widespread? In the Western world majorly?) so it makes me quite sad seeing Mr. Razib Khan having to spend his time to criticising these (which he does very well, of course, causing a lot of joy in my life).
“It occurs to me that thera are some tension between the first and second sentences.”
Indeed, I also perceived that. Maybe the major underlying theme in there, the recognition of which may help resolve the tension, is to categorically and no-matter-what oppose white people (probably of the British variety)(by probably criticising their indoctrination of Indians and also seemingly deeming as negative their insistence on the ephemeral ideals of love in relation to marriage) and to simultaneously put Indians (by admiring both their supposed victimhood by the indoctrination of a Western hegemonic power and their functionalist marriages which don’t pay much attention to the ephemeral ideals of love) on a high pedestal.
these types of views are gaining widespread rapidly (or are already very widespread? In the Western world majorly?)
spreading/more common for university-educated types.
or religious difference (how non-Christians or non-Protestants were perceived in earlier periods vs. non-Christians today).
most 1.5+ indian americans are following in the footsteps of secular jews, who created that particular ‘space’ as non-christian americans…
Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Razib Khan! You probably conveyed this in your post already when you characterised the opinions of the people not “in the know” as still sane enough and close to reality. I am gonna go ahead and give myself a -1 for poor comprehension mimicking the actions of the venerable feedback donor who brought my rather uppity recent self to reality, and God only knows how many more extremely cringeworthy errors I have committed in these two comments here though I am luckily free of the cringeworthiness myself because I am so blissfully oblivious to them, at least at this time.
[again, no idea what you are even imputing to me -Razib]
Razib…you said:
“How a group of people reacts to new stimuli varies. The Indian Diaspora is highly skewed toward people from Gujurat and Punjab. In contrast, there are far fewer people in the United States from the upper and middle Gangetic plains, the civilizational heart of India (a fair number of peasants from these localities did migrate to Trinidad, Mauritius, and Fiji).”
Yes, almost all the Indians I have ever met and worked with in the U.S. have been from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, or Telagana.
I can count the people I met from other areas on one hand…like one guy from Bihar, one woman from Kashmir, one woman from Rajasthan, and two people from Delhi. They were all born in India, most had arranged marriages – all have children growing up here. Only one of them, a woman is married to a nonIndian (a white guy)…she’s a Hindu as are most. Although the Kashmiri is Muslim.
How do you think that makes America different from places like the U.K. as far as the culture of the Indian Communities?
@Z: “I hope that western countries learn from their immigration mistakes, and recognize that vetting is critical for assimilation. The way facts are treated vs. ideology, though, I’m not holding my breath.”
European states have no immigration policy which deserves that name. What we have are international agreements and commitments, with the UN, like the Geneva Convention on refugees, other UN and Council of Europe commitments, the EU laws and so on. And that’s the problem, because a large portion of the immigration, especially the problematic immigration, is based on refugees and the legislation on asylum.
This goes so far, that a thug or radical Islamist, which is a criminal by the law of his country and being a most wanted, won’t be deported or extradited if “the human rights situation” in his country of origin is “inacceptable”. Notwithstanding that a lot of these countries are considered “allies” and we have trade agreements, send military and financial help and so on to keep this “inacceptable system”! Our politicians meet with their political leaders, send them money and help, but we can’t send criminals back, because they are so bad s**tholes (by our law!!!), not even murderers and terrorists can’t be send back there once they filed for asylum! Its an absurd comedy!
We help politicians and regimes to stay in power, which our asylum law says are hellholes and suppress their own people, but those refugees, for whatever reason, which come illegally to our countries can’t be send back! Even if they are criminals!
So yes, we have terrorists and criminals in Europe which are allowed to stay (right of residence), because they being threatened at home for acts which are against the law in almost all states of the world. Doesn’t matter and single states can’t change it any more, since they signed the treaties and committed themselves to this interpretation of human rights – or if they do, they being brought to trial by the UN, the EU etc. and get a staged s**tstorm in the mass media and social media, threats etc.
So your chances to get the right of residence is, in a lot of European countries, better if you being persecuted for extremism and criminal acts rather than if you are a normal person with good education who behaves alright and tells the truth to the authorities. Its absurd, but that’s our reality.
Political asylum was expanded and perverted in unprecedented ways – the Oligarchy wanted it. I remember very well that in the past only people with real political reasons were allowed. Coming back to the Afghans in the 1980s and 1990s, most of whom were really active for the state and anti-Islamists from quite different backgrounds. But they were real political refugees, persecuted for political reasons and a way close the European one.
Necessary excursion:
These anti-Islamist Afghans fled or were eliminated and silenced to a large extend. The American (plus Saudi Arabia and Pakistan a/o of course) intervention destroyed the base for a more secular and Western oriented Afghanistan completely. What the USA tried to re-establish from 2001 on, was supposed to fail because they helped to eliminate the very people which could have brought the country forward. By supporting the Islamists which killed and exiled them. All the secular structures and most of the social class was gone after the US intervention in the 1980s-90s. Needless to say: The US, especially under the Obama administration, still supported Sunni Extremism in a whole lot of countries as a political mean against “greater enemies” of the US geostrategy.
Anyway, single states can’t change it, there is no real immigration policy worth to talk about in most European states. If you are a thug from an “insecure country” and get a good lawyer, welcome on board. Millions at your home, weaker and poorer, even really persecuted while being decent, don’t matter, don’t change our relationship to that state, but once you cross the border, no matter which way (illegal, even by force), you can file your application.
As for the spirit at campus: The whole issue of this Cultural Marxist interpretation of the world, in an intellectual sense, is absurd if you analyse it strictly logically.
But it makes some sense, not just from the perspective of those which abuse this intellectual naivity for their greater goals, if you consider human behavioural and social principles:
If you can talk like that, you are in, if you don’t talk like that, you are ignorant and out, and if you understand and still talk against it, you are an enemy and should be attacked, even utterly destroyed. They construct a peer group with one belief and the urge to power, “feeling connected” by their belief and customs, like a tribe or sect.
Its about social distinction and recognising your tribe. When the young students enter the University, most still don’t speak like that, but to learn it, which is the first they learn, helps to be accepted and successful on campus. Especially those which aspire an academic career become dull copy-cats first and then they try to add their own, even “more correct and progressive” style and interpretation to it.
This is a competition about who’s the most pious, politically correct do-gooder and is best at using a language, simple, uneducated, raw and honest people don’t understand or reject. Because that’s a sign of intellectual and political quality of speech and thought. “Problems are complex” if the logical conclusions based on facts would contradict a political dogma of the PC crowd.
But things are very simple if its about the opposing side and criticism. Critics just want to stop or revert “progress” and “spread injustice” The opposition has to be psychologised, pathologised and criminalised, their voices being silenced, their arguments shunned, even the language necessary to express thoughts of importance being banned.
Really, its like a secret, distinctive mark you have to show when entering the “progressive” campus circles. Do you talk like us? Do you understand it? Or are you too stupid or evil?
Since its an artificial intellectual construct which is unlogical and against common sense, you need to get taught and learn it, step by step. That is, in a way, an intellectual test. You need a minimum intelligence and effort to get that far. This also shows “commmitment” to the peer group. Like in a religious group, you can quote the Bible or Koran, there you can quote the icons of CM.
“Normal people” without that indoctrination, regardless of ethnic, religious or social background, often laugh or think its sick if they hear the first time what the current paradigms in Humanities and Social Sciences in particular are about. They are surprised or shocked quite often, if you really explain it to them. Its like watching a psychopath the first time. You don’t believe people act like that.
Like some movie scenes which are very disgusting or extremely violent, people have to be desensitized and sensitized the same way during their educational career to internalize that sick way of thinking. With every educational progress, if they really follow the path, they come closer to the “higher truth” of Cultural Marxism which can explain the whole world as a succession of relations of power for material and personal exploitation of “the weak” by “the strong”. In this unfair world (yes the world is unfair, they are right about that). Any other meaning to ideals and behaviours beyond that Materialism is being ignored, so are the natural laws and the biologial reality of life, especially human life.
And at the center of all evils is European Imperialism. Its the boogey man which hides behind the worst exploitation and the most horrible crimes. Other peoples actions of the same kind being downplayed, any European atrocity blown up.
So while blaming their own ancestors and relatives, they can feel superiour double time:
1st: Because their ancestors were so super, so clever, they tricked the whole world – deep inside this absurd idea still makes them not just guilty, but proud also. Of course they were not superiour in any way, that would be against their moral, but still they did trick all and influence all and create all power relations blabla. Its a paradoxon of their worldview. But then again, they try to explain “it” in a Marxist way: By environmental, strictly economic-materialist factors which created this super-exploitative occidental civilisation, so different from the rest of the world.
2nd: They can feel so morally superiour because they sacrifice parts (not getting uncomfortable, that would be too much…) of their position of power to help those poor coloured and otherwise non-heterosexual-non-white-non-male people around the world, which suffer because of their super-ancestors bad deeds. And they are superiour to their own whitey people, because of their higher morality and deeper understanding of everything, since they know its all about materialist power relations.
Whether you belong to those chosen people of higher moral, can be seen in your “superiour, extra-sensitive, holy speech” and that you internalized intellectual concepts of high complexity, whether they are fact based and make sense or not. The higher truth of a new world of indifferent equality doesn’t care for simple logic and natural science, which is, since the end of Positivism at latest, corrupted and should societally deconstructed anyway…
Constructivist Postpositivism is so great, you can use your internal logic for “freeing people from old constraints and structural exploitation”, but nobody is allowed to question your concept of “individual freedom and equality of identities” and its consequences with factual arguments. Because all factual and logic arguments being dependent social constructs anyway. But only the opposing ones, not your owns! If you can use any sort of logic and facts for your vision its great, but if it doesn’t fit – no.
I know this is a general human weakness, but in CM it has system, its the very foundation of the ideology to ignore facts which contradict the own worldview and attacking those producing it. Even whole scientific disciplines were and still should be banned to prevent a discussion fased on real facts on the issue. “Moral stands higher than the truth” and they made a moral construct which they want to be untouchable.
Also, not that Constructionism and Constructivist approaches are completely off and useless in science, its good for testing your position at times, but the way these concepts being used, abused and connected to political and scientific reality is completely absurd and typical for CM to make itself invulnerable. No facts can hurt them, because all facts you can bring forward just document that you are “insensitive” and “against progress”, regardless of how wrong they are on the issue. They don’t need to discuss facts they don’t like think should be buried as deep as possible. Its below their moral and dignity.
[again, no idea what you are even imputing to me -Razib]
When you mention Caste you always use Nicholas Dirks Caste of mind – Which highlighted how ethnographic census along caste identities & colonial govt. policies increased discriminatory, prejudiced contesting behavior of caste communities but you instead always overlook this aspect to claim ‘Prior existence of Caste’ based upon Genetic results which highlight endogamous groups since atleast 2000 yrs. So some aspects of casteism were from pre-colonial times but colonizers used caste identities to give different rights to different communities {Check court cases of colonial period} which increased caste identity’s prominence in Indian lives & sharpened the caste conflicts.
Thus i asked while endogamy & various caste differentiation practices might have been connected to some extent before colonial census but why do you not acknowledge the role of colonial census in hardening of fuzzy caste communities & boundaries ?
I am a Trinidad immigrant. My DNA is the same as that which is prevalent in the Brahmin class… does that make me a Brahmin “peasant” or were the Brahmins “peasants” from the start! Agrarian societies and agriculturalist “civilized” the nomadic world.
Nice post. While some readers probably do get the impression this is “telling us what we already” know I think this kind of relatively sophisticated and accessible ethnography of diaspora groups seems like it has positive utility to the US cultural conversation, and should really be more widely read (I hope) by the people its aiming to talk to.
As history, a mild criticism is it does seem to me that you can get a lot of post-hoc bias in how communities perform. For instance were the Japanese really particularly outstanding in “their industry and ability to imitate and perfect new technologies” and does this present a continuity, or not?
I’m a big Japan fan (as of most smart geeky folk who came of age in the mid-late 90s), but certainly Taiwan and South Korea, where Westerners made no such observations of the Han Chinese or Koreans, seem to have converged on a similar economic level (free of Communism and with a particular stimulative economic relationship with the West). While we also find that Westerners of the same era made many observations of the Japanese as being a sort of conservative stasis of a society with little innovation in weapons and technology. Did an “underlying parameter come to the fore” or is cultural trait a shallower influence than specific economic reforms through a specific process that was fairly contingent on historical events (and particularly how exactly the Satsuma clan and their allies responded to events in Japan in the 19th century)?
Sometimes back projection of “folkways” can become ad-hoc and stereotyped narratives that can involve some selection of historical material to explain more recent trends through “deep culture”. (Germans “are engineers” because of deep traits, Scandinavians “are egalitarian” because of deep traits, Anglo-Celts “are individualistic” because of deep traits, etc. But probably none of this is really deep at all IMO, and where these patterns are seen mostly explained by recent economics or political bargaining processes which are either deep but non-cultural, or cultural but recent, shallow and contingent.)
@Deep: The genetic and historical proof for the continuity of endogamous caste (sub-)populations proves that there was nothing “fuzzy” about it.
You can argue about the boundaries social importance in the pre-colonial area based on historical, detailed research, not about its clear cut existence.
Adding to the refugee issue: Some of the most dangerous places for secular people of Muslim heritage were in 2015-16 in particular, refugee accomodations in Germany.
There were a lot of incidences in which the police was close to using live ammunition against an Islamist mob. Non-religious muslims in particular were attacked by the mob after some Islamist agitators claimed someone had “desacreted the Koran” and similar tales.
The authorities had to use more social workers, security and split the people according to their ethnic and religious background from the start. That’s how those poor and persecuted Islamist refugees behaved in Germany. The first thing they tried to do, after having applied for asylum status, was to lynch infidels in their refugee accomodation. This had no consequences for their legal status at all. They were just glad that most incidences didnt result in dead people and it was rarely in the (small) news if at all.
That tells you something about the bright future we’re approaching, exactly because we have no immigration policy, but just an asylum legislation. It doesnt matter what kind of people we get, as long as they come from “insecure countries”. Just recently laws were considered which could change the legal status if they do regularly visiting their home country in vacations – which they had left because of the supposedly horrible persecution.
Its a travesty.
Razib,
Don’t Amy Chua’s propositions in “The Triple Package” cover this topic quite well? (Have you read that book, and if so, what do you think of it?)
Thus i asked while endogamy & various caste differentiation practices might have been connected to some extent before colonial census but why do you not acknowledge the role of colonial census in hardening of fuzzy caste communities & boundaries ?
YOU FUCKING DUMBASS. are you not capable of reading?
Some scholars have made a strong case that British systematic rationalization of governance and taxonomic anthropology of native peoples was critical in the crystallization of the caste-jati system (in particular, the 1871 Census of India). Yet genetics casts strong doubt on this claim as being the only explanation, as many jatis and broader caste groups, exhibit patterns of endogamy and relatedness which indicate the genealogical depth that is 1,000 years or more.
This is not to say that South Asian class, caste, and professional affiliations have been communally static for thousands of years
Numinous, did not read. seemed to me a book which should have been an article.
// Some scholars have made a strong case that British systematic rationalization of governance and taxonomic anthropology of native peoples was critical in the crystallization of the caste-jati system (in particular, the 1871 Census of India). Yet genetics casts strong doubt on this claim as being the only explanation, as many jatis and broader caste groups, exhibit patterns of endogamy and relatedness which indicate the genealogical depth that is 1,000 years or more.
This is not to say that South Asian class, caste, and professional affiliations have been communally static for thousands of years //
One must look at regional histories if one wishes to underlying processes & since ‘Spatiality’ has only recently been acknowledged in the evolution of region & history of it’s inhabitants. Macro cultural explanations like Caste does not help in illuminating how diversity & evolution of regions resulted in the situation which got termed as Caste system {even though there is enough regional variation among these systems like South India Left hand Caste & Right Hand Castes divide during colonial times is replaced by modern tier system as govt. acknowledges it or Some regions in North East had only Brahmin & Shudra divide instead of 4 tier system etc.}
UK’s Inequality, region & DNA class divide –
https://theconversation.com/inequality-now-extends-to-peoples-dna-124444?fbclid=IwAR13fP7vPvHuPHP8eJXh6nbQCLLaFarItb7LqVCQYnlY7AuIkxx-QNY2cXY
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/opinion–the-nature-of-social-inequalities-in-great-britain-66607?utm_content=104035779&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-18198832
Or the question of specific DNA’s being linked to certain classes of people –
https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/09/commoner-or-elite.html
This brings into question what exactly is the difference between class & Caste because as i have stated before – Specialization & new forms of knowledge will always keep creating hierarchies & thus divisions like class or caste.
Caste was essentially a tier system of specialized professional guilds or lives according to the region’s geography where groups used to get recognition from Kings & used to receive gifts for their loyalties. Thus many communities claimed their rights to work in certain professions & this increased discrimination & caste identity claims during colonial times.
Before colonial period –
https://www.academia.edu/37740094/Social_Life_Issues_of_Var%E1%B9%87a-J%C4%81ti_System
http://jinajik.net/2018/03/cubelic-et-al-2018-historical-documents-from-nepal-and-india/?fbclid=IwAR2eHSAGgVFWc0OkVqvrLFeKjFD7A3oXHaHk-ltRLhS_gz_Gile83O6gwBM
Colonial Era –
http://www.internationalcentregoa.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The_Colonial_Origins_of_Ethnic_Violence.pdf
Book – The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence
Relationship of Caste and Crime in Colonial India: A Discourse Analysis
& there are many such papers and reports that conclusively provide how colonial discourse changed the perception, behavior of it’s subjects as well as how colonizers themselves evolved. So it allowed Colonizers high moral ground {as later they projected themselves as emancipators of oppressed just like Christian missionaries} while all Indians who had to scramble to compete in oppressive environment resulted in increased identity division which has continued since.
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// The genetic and historical proof for the continuity of endogamous caste (sub-)populations proves that there was nothing “fuzzy” about it. //
This alone is the reason why i keep mentioning the fuziness of caste or issue of boundaries around communities because this is the reason which does not allow any discussions regarding policies & their effects in India instead the debate always goes back & gets stuck in the frameworks formulated in colonial times & thus solutions too.
For e.g. –
https://www.ndtv.com/cities/uttar-pradesh-dalit-women-allegedly-denied-entry-into-temple-in-bulandshahr-report-2125240
Note –
These people used to pray here earlier but last week some men refused to allow them entry saying they would not be allowed because they were Dalits.
Why discrimination was not there earlier but is happening now ? Where is this question in academia ?
1) DP if you keep link spamming i am not going to post your comments
2) UK’s Inequality, region & DNA class divide i know this researcher, i know the data (i have worked with south asian and european data; there is NO equivalence in pop stratification). this is NOTHING like the genetic differences of caste/jati. the levels of endogamy in the UK are orders of magnitude smaller.
basically your link round-ups and abstruse prose just serve to obfuscate whether it is your intention or not.
// basically your link round-ups and abstruse prose just serve to obfuscate whether it is your intention or not. //
That’s not what i want, based on endogamy there can caste & class differentiation but taking various hierarchical features of all societies we can see the similar patterns based upon ‘spatiality’ & so to link these features to Caste endogamy alone is problematic. All problems in India are presented as the result of caste system & that’s why i question the narrative.
For e.g. –
I looked at spatiality to link it to class in UK’s DNA paper as opposed to Caste in India {As Caste gets blamed over spatiality in India whereas in class society the reverse is observed where spatiality is linked to class differentiation}.
https://www.livemint.com/news/india/the-geography-of-caste-in-urban-india-1569564507580.html
You looked at Class to link to Endogamy in UK’s paper to compare it to Caste.
I have looked at all Caste features separating them by removing caste {discrimination, endogamy, spatiality, comparative monetary conditions etc.} & found all of them to be in many other societies. So the problem is India is trying to see & deal with all these problems only from caste lens whereas all these social aspects are being dealt separately with great success by moving beyond class & caste perspective in many other nations.
My questioning is only to move the perspective towards solutions by making clear distinctions of these meta-narratives & not to obfuscate the debate.
Off topic.
Can someone explain to me how to read the Neighbor-joining networks of genetic distances? For example, in Figure 3 of this (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311057/#B32) page, what does the length of the branch indicate? For example, what is the distance Brahmin and Kapu vis-a-vis Brahmin and Vysya considering Kapu branch seems to be nearer to the Brahmin one than Vysya?