Beyond Class: Anand Giridharadas – Caste a ‘Scourge That’s Held India Back’

By ⋅ May 23, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment
Anand Giridharadas (Photo: Darshan Photography)

Anand Giridharadas (Photo: Darshan Photography)

Anand Giridharadas is a columnist for the New York Times and the author of “India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking“.

He was born in Cleveland to Indian immigrant parents. His parents came from different castes, and raised him to ignore the proscriptions of the caste system.

Here, he talks with The World’s Marco Werman about how caste came into being and how India is gradually shaking free of it.

Discussion

2 comments for “Beyond Class: Anand Giridharadas – Caste a ‘Scourge That’s Held India Back’”

  • squirreler

    I agree with Mr. Giridharadas’ idea that caste has led to misallocation of talent and thus held India back.  I don’t know specifically about India, but this is along the same lines of the idea Bill Gates once related to a group in Saudi Arabia about technology - where only about 20% of the group was female.  When asked if it was realistic if Saudi Arabia could be one of the top 10 in technology by 2010, Gates said they probably wouldn’t get too close to the top 10 without fully utilizing half their population.  The same thing can be said of America though.  I am a civil engineer, and in my engineering classes almost 100% of the students had a parent who was an engineer (and therefore middle class or above).  In my graduate classes the vast majority of the students seemed to have come from very well to do families.  Especially in the undergraduate program, I know there could have been a brighter bunch of students.  But our education system as it exists doesn’t give very much information or opportunities to poor students to pursue careers in things like engineering.  So it isn’t the brightest and best students that get educated as engineers, or anything else really.    We may not have castes in name, but in reality, we kind of do.   
      

  • Shraddha Upadhyay

    I think Caste System is not that unrealistic as it seems in Anand’s interview. Hindu’s scriptures that have been written years and years back describe the same. The Vedas and scriptures talk about the classification of society through work , not through hereditary . With the Social confusion in India , it is adopted that caste is by birth –No it is not . It is by what act you do , and it is person’s responsibility to do the act that his/her caste has been called to do. For example Brahmin should use their mental power to give more and more to mankind , they should not be on the money thinking side, so if a person who is born in Brahmin family does not fulfill his/her responsibility – they should not be called Brahmin . Similarly if Baniyas are not in money making business but spearing spirituality and valued direction in the society they should be called Brahmin. So- that’s the definition we need to remember when we make a family tie , or when we mingle in the society. Although it is not that easy to change the perceptions of the people , with more and more nuclear families coming up and migration of people from their root towns to big cities – one day no one will know who is from where and caste system will change to some other system –may be white/black/red/blue.