Monday, July 03, 2006

Francois Gautier sometimes amazes me with his passion. A french born Indian resident, he is married to an indian and is a passionate indophile. He takes active interest in indian politics and has written some very good articles contributing to the raging debate over reservations. In this article, and in a previous one he breaks the myth that Brahmins and other upper castes are the "privileged" ones in India. Infact, they are as economically marginalised as any of the other OBCs if not more. Two hundred years of British rule, fifty years of socialism have acted as a great leveller and distributed poverty equally to all sections of the indian society, brahmins or other upper castes being no exception. Is it justified to indulge in a reverse discrimination now and punish these sections of our society because they are supposedly rich and powerful even though it is clear that they no longer have the privileges of yore.

2 comments:

Wavefunction said...

Hit the nail on the head. Can't anyone make a detailed economic analysis that would sort out this issue?

Vivek Gupta said...

People have come up with rational arguments backed up by solid data, but listening to reason is clearly not a forte for our politicians. They will continue playing politics regardless of the cost.