Dharmakirti

Touché.

Such radical takes are always a hit on HN because they are essentially playing to the gallery. Leaving social media is futile if you don't take efforts to maintain contacts with your friends and families in other ways.

You do understand that Twitter is not a representation of the society in any meaningful way, right?

Indias software sector is so starved of talented resources that they have already started tapping into rural areas. e.g. navgurukul.org

> hate for capitalism is pretty old in certain parts of the world.

I would like to have a different take. India has a strong merchant class since aeons and market economy was never a taboo culturally. You can see that in the entrepreneurs like Bansals, Agrawals, Shahs that are at the helm of Indian Unicorns. So yes, there is a skepticism about 'western' capitalism, but not for market economics.

> One of my first memories is waddling along to the ration shop (cheap subsidized government shops) with my mother to buy rice and kerosene for cooking.

Man you just rekindled those memories. I still remember the dusty ration card book (from PV Narsimha Rao's times, I guess).

> people here tend to look down on these cheap curry-consultancies

HN is very parochial when it comes to outsourcing and the vitriol some people here have for H1-Bs is sad. Our stories are the other side of the coin which shows that these curry-consultancies are making some real dent in the universe for the rest of us.

I can tell my personal story if that matters.

Background: I come from a non-UC, rural yeoman farmers family. I grew up in rural India and used to spend my summer and winter vacations working on our family farm along with my cousins. I was the first Engineer in my family and studied in a Government college, and most of my batchmates were from a similar background, with over 50% of them being lower classes.

I have witnessed India's progress from the front row and it is something my parents or grandparents could never have imagined. Many of my friends went on to achieve great prosperity, some being C-level at Unicorns, others helping build Indias nuclear submarines etc. There is substantial wealth in the hands of my 4th tier town folks and I can see the signs of (relative) prosperity. Most households have people working in the private sectors and the wealth does trickle down.

I visited a Govt. hospital recently and I was surprised to see that it is not an ugly damp place it used to be. Granted, it is not on par with NHS or US hospitals but neither is it a god forsaken place.

The infrastructure is also much better than it was in the 90s. My grandfather would be shocked to see the Nagpur Metro and would think Aliens built it.

I am also proud of the fact that India does take special care of wild life and is actively working to preserve the amazing biodiversity it has. Of course there will always be pressure from humans, but the heart is at the right place.

It’s telling that you skipped the real criticisms about your toxic empathy and lack of solutions to the casteism problem. Grovelling in firanghi forums and seeking gora validation by finger pointing will not help eliminate the problem in rural India. Avarnas are not a karma farms for savarnas on the internet.

> extrapolation and generalization from personal experiences leads to biased perspectives.

I agree, biases should be avoided. My point is that GP had a biased view of casteism which doesn’t help in eradicating it from the roots. He seems to be pasting the same links that confirm his bias and seeking internet validation in an article that has nothing to do with casteism. The real need is to bring the change on the ground by understanding the problem better.

No we should definitely discuss and eliminate casteism, no disagreement on that. But you don’t comment “White male privilege” in all the other posts, right?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are tons of posts by Indian women, Muslims and Dalits that show that they’re also ascendant, but if you only look at -ve aspects you will always find dirt.

I grew up in rural area and I’m not a savarna. I studied in Govt institutions and most of my non-Savarna batch mates are doing just fine. We don’t need savarna apologists to tell us what is the ground reality.

Thus is a dog whistle for casteism. This is a standard modus operendi of a certain section of opinionated people to drag caste into any discussion about India. Caste is a complex topic but this discussion has nothing to do with it.

the deracination in this comment is astounding. I grew up in rural India all my life and this cartoonish casteism is no longer part of the mainstream Indian society. There will be isolated cases, but I’ve seen times and again people freely drinking water from a _pyau_ irrespective of the caste of the person.

I implore you to take a rational look at Indian society and not rely on WaPo/NYT to know your own land.

> they have been succesful in maligning him as a racist for speaking the truth.

This comment is so full of intellectual dishonesty. Razib Khan's controversy is a result of his so called cancellation by Left-liberal media like NYT/Times which are decidedly against Hindu nationalism.

In fact, Razib Khan is the founder of Brown Pundits, which is arguably more center right and has more Hindutva supporters than left-liberals. I found Razib Khan and Omar Ali both to be a prudent and neutral observers of the developments in subcontinent and are more leaning towards Hindutva (in its original spirit)