But, as the media in india was mostly controlled by neo-liberalists and ideologists like marxists, there was no alternate views allowed.

Even now, if you tell some one that caste system is good, they will NOT ask “how?”.. rather, they will start abusing you..

The caste system would have collapsed long, if there were no reservations. Infact, it is the reservations, which made caste in to race, where each caste is forced to organise itself to demand something from the government..

Its the 21st century, “Wake Up People”. You walk around with a smug attitude and an intellectual superiority complex but you show how provincial you really are by defending these outdated concepts.

When people wake up and see its just about money, power and land they will realize that this is just made to divide those who have a right to the world’s resources. The ruling class which exists in every country uses the same techniques that Britain used to colonize India. Take the minority make them the ruling class and let the rest fight for the crumbs that fall to the floor.

Societies with public (primary, secondary) education, as bad as it often is, go out of their way to group students of similar ability together to facilitate learning.

How strange then it is to throw unprepared students into what is supposed to be a rigorous course of engineering at university without so much as preparatory school, just because they have had social and economic advantages. This is a recipie for failure and the height of ignorant social engineering. Id does NOT help these people, as the author points out it often instead harms and disgraces them.

James, I am sorry to tell you I did not. What I read was an article warning about a potentially disastrous government policy that may drive many young girls into bondage and maybe their murder, with also a good example of how the “kind hearted” government bureaucrats have failed the very same people they are trying to help. Mr. Bhandari’s opinion on people of lower castes, if he intended to show one at all, is totally besides the point.

It doesn’t matter which caste he belong, matters what his thought is. Jayant demonstrates his pain been lowly race against white people but he doesn’t feel how the lower caste people felt from his article. Are they not human being?

James, the focus of the article is how damaging government intervention becomes when “good intentions” substitute good sense. The most problematic issue is the potential disaster that this dowry program could become for young girls in India – few of Mr. Bhandari’s critics seems to focus on that. If any of us had to be careful not to offend any one in this world with what we wrote or say, we would be mute and silent all the time.

Did the nay-sayers notice the statement about highly-regulated manufacturing? Gee, might that have _some_ impact on the ability for people to acquire capital goods (like a sewing machine or tractor) to improve their own condition?

“White Flight” took hold after the Fed.Gov began the welfare and other race-based programs of the Great Society and War On Poverty, even home schooling has a stigma of being a “white” phenomenon.

It is the so-called (by _government_) “minorities” that have the most to gain by the repeal of government interventions.

Freedom of association must include freedom not to associate (something modern “civil rights law” seems unable to understand). And any “antidiscrimination” law leads to a quota system (something denied when such “civil rights” regulations come in). This is because it is not possible to get into the mind of an employer (or the person who runs a school of whatever) and see WHY they choose one person over another person – so, to enforce “antidiscrimination” regulations, sooner or later “there are X per cent of a certain sort of people in this area, so you must have X per cent of this sort of people here” comes in.

Quotas for certain sorts of people in certain positions came in India in about 1950 and they were supposed to go in a couple of decades – instead they have been extended and got more complex. And the present government (the Congress party in partnership with various leftist parties) plans to extend them further – for example by telling private school that they must include X per cent of certain sorts of children regardless of the ability of these children.

The idea that something that is privately owned is a private place (not a “public” place) seems to even more dead in Indian law than it is in American or British law.

These increasing regulations are matched by increasing government spending in India (the overall goverment deficit is already vastly bigger than in the United States – and America is at war). This “we will pay you to marry this sort of person” is just another example of mad spending.

A lot of people talk of India being one of the great economic powers of the 21st Century – if the present type of government continues this will not come to pass.

Don’t you think 70% portion of his article is trying to prove that how stoop low the lower caste people are. It doesn’t matter which caste he belong, matters what his thought is. Jayant demonstrates his pain been lowly race against white people but he doesn’t feel how the lower caste people felt from his article. Are they not human being?

Thanks for your notes.

The irony is that a month back I wrote an article at Mises.org (titled, Should Coke be banned in India?) in which I mentioned how bad and demeaning the caste system in India is. All of those who find my present article “shallow” were missing at that time. On that occasion, I was blamed for showing that India HAD a caste system.

As you rightly say, my present article has absolutely nothing to do with justifying the caste sytem. I am merely showing how ugly state intervention is in this area. Nothing else.

But to respond to the comments on the blog…

I live in Vancouver (Canada). One thing I have learnt during these years is my utter revulsion for people who are sympethetic towards me for my being a non-white. I have always found that they are actually the most racist – they are sympethetic towards me because they think I am a lowly race.

The lower caste people in India are indeed tortured by the state and the higher caste. But the way out is not sympathy and alms, which is only making the situation worse.

I am NOT a higher caste Hindu, as a lot of people assumed. I did not mention this as I don’t think it matters.

James, Mr. Bhandari is not justifying the caste system, he was indicating the problems of imposing quotas upon universities by government fiat. It is not that he believes the untouchables are generaly less cultured, but that by way of misguided policies, people of lesser skills get a place in a university because of their background, when instead they should be held to the same standards as everybody else.

He also indicates (correctly) that the dowry policy will only encourage people of lower castes to sell their girls to the highest bidder – so he can marry them and collect the dowry. After this, I am sure most of these girls will either be abandoned or murdered or sold into prostitution. Few of Mr. Bhandari’s critics have even placed their attention on this potential human disaster, focusing more on his trivial college anecdote.

I graduated from University of Indore. The situation is exactly the same all over the country, not only in this university.

As promised, I hope you will do your research and confirm the authenticity of my statements.

Methinks you missed the central point. that is, if there are impediments to free social association based on classes or groups, the solution is the removal of those impediments. Period. Inducement to force associations that would otherwise not have been chosen merely replaces one sort of wrong with another.

Methinks you missed the central point. that is, if there are impediments to free social association based on classes or groups, the solution is the removal of those impediments. Period. Inducement to force associations that would otherwise not have been chosen merely replaces one sort of wrong with another.

Bhandari criticizes the government that first supported the caste system in India, not just the “dowry”. Looking back in History, it took alot of government intervention over the past 400-500 years in India to create the caste system that oppressed so many, and Bhandari merely states that the government cannot enact a “reversal” type social intervention to better the situation.

It is much better to have racism and have equality with the law (equality in authority) rather than NO racism but inequality in authority. In the former situation, racism only prevents “discriminated” people from entering onto the racist’s property, and no, widespread racism would not create market forces that would have the “discriminated” people starve to death, as long as there is universal respect for private property and equality in authority. However, if there’s inequality in authority, it doesn’t matter what race you are, you’re right’s and life are in danger, and who cares if other people judge you by your skin color when you’re property just got taxed away completely for being wealthy?

And here’s another question for you “discrimination is the ultimate evil” lefties out there… why would captialism develop such a democratizing force such as the internet, or ebay, where it’s almost impossible to identify the race of your site viewers or buyers? I bet you wouldn’t have thought such a question would be asked by this pure Indian Punjabi-Hindu would you?

It is plain to see that far from removing a system of privilege, the Indian Government is instituting a new system of privilege. That it runs in the oppposite direction to the old system is irrelevant, it is just as harmful.

I smell no racism in his article. How can it be racist to say that if people want something, they should earn it? How can it be racist to want equality before the law.

The notion that the article is racist is symptomatic of the idiotic view put by leftists that equality of all before the law is racist, and the granting of special privileges to certain groups is “non-discriminatory”.

Political correctness is truely plunging us into an Orwellian time.

The best thing for the Indian Government to do about the caste system is nothing whatsoever. It should not try to reengineer society, that will only sustain the caste system.