From Time: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...1198102,00.html



Simply put, Indian students are protesting AGAINST affirmative action, including lower caste students.


Questions for Debate:

1. Are the Indian students wrong for wanting to be judged by achievement as opposed to "caste"?

2. What implications does this hunger strike have on the need or desire for affirmative action in India?

3. How can the US learn from these actions?

While we all now what it is you're getting at, you perhaps underestimate the level of social disparity in India. Social stratification is much deeper in India than in the United States.

1. Are the Indian students wrong for wanting to be judged by achievement as opposed to "caste"?

Of course not. However, the millions of students who have trouble climbing the ladder are equally justified in asking for help. Unfortunately India's long and convoluted history makes fair development of equality very difficult.

2. What implications does this hunger strike have on the need or desire for affirmative action in India?

Well it obviously satisfies your need to discredit it at each and every turn. Other than that it obviously has none whatsoever. Some people obviously dislike Affirmative Action... you've just actually found some people who dislike it as much as you.

3. How can the US learn from these actions?

Uh... it can't. Sorry to burst your bubble though. Affirmative Action in India is almost entirely different than in the United States. Indian society is not only divided into various castes, but Tribes as well. These divisions very from region to region, and from rural to urban. Since such divisions are illegal the discrimination associated with them is almost always non-institutional, but it is still widespread. There are religious implications as well. Confused yet? Perhaps this will help:



The point I'm trying to make is that the experience in India is almost entirely different than that in the United States. Different causes, different responses, different opinions. The only thing to be learned from the Indian response to Affirmative Action-type programs in India is that discrimination is a global trait, and nobody has figured out a perfect solution yet.

Given the obvious attempt to turn this into another evils of Affirmative action in the US thread, I shall ignore the majority and deal with the central error in logic briefly.

Opponents of AA consistently pretend the alternatives are 'judgement by merit' or 'affirmative action', when in fact the very reason Affirmative Action exists is because true Judgement by merit is and has been impossible, in the Case of India, for thousands of years. Look into the situation Aevans, before thequotas were put into place, what percentage of academic entires came from the so called 'untouchable' classes? Thats right, they were doing even WORSE than Blacks in America before Affirmative action. If judgement by merit were actually possible or happening, then these quotas would never have been necessary.

I also notice you mentioned the 50 people striking against OBC quotas, but neglected to mention the hundreds of thousands of these OBC's who protested several years ago against unfair treatment, before the quotas were put into place.

For heavan's sake, the protest here isn't even against quotas, which have been in place for at least three years: they are against the recent expansion of the castes available for quota inclusion, previously just restricted to the Dalits.

You really didn't say a word while you sure typed a ton.

You said "affirmative action in India is very different than in the US", but you never even tried to explain why. Hmm....

The article explicitly states that there are kids who are affected by the caste system and affirmative action. It also even uses personal quotes by lower-caste students that don't want the help. One girl blatently states that she doesn't want other students to think she made it as a hand-out.

WHY is that different than the US?

from Vermillion


Good job with telling me your opinion, but did you even read the article?
from the article...


Ok. The article mentions that it's an issue in the country side, and it's an issue when getting married. What does that have to do with medical school entrants?

I believe that in the USA, all affirmative action does, particularly in school admissions, is create an atmosphere by which students are admitted who are far more likely to fail.
Want some stats?
http://home.sandiego.edu/~e_cook/

Interesting enough, the INDIAN kids want to be judged by achievement. All I want to know is where the American kids are with the same mantra?

We've established time after time that AA in education, particularly in contemporary USA (let's say the last decade or so) hasn't made a positive impact.

There must be kids in the US that don't want the handout. Why don't we ever hear from them?

Perhaps you should try reading my entire post. I make the issue quite clear. The social dynamics in India are radically different than in the United States, making your attempts to parallel the U.S. and Indian systems based on the objections of 50 people foolish.

Discrimination in India based on the caste system is not confined just to rural areas (I'd love for you to actually try and present a source for that), it just happens to be more prevalent there. This discrimination is bound up with the traditional practise of Hinduism and has existed for thousands of years. Later, it was exploited and emphasized by the British as a way to maintain social order, and as can be seen in numerous examples, the elites in India followed in their footsteps. Despite the secularization of the State, social ordering in India is still extremely prevalent.

I'm curious Aevans as to what research you've done on the subject, outside the article mentioned in the introductory post. The fact that you provide no historical and evidential support for your arguments, not to mention your factual errors, suggests that you have done none, but looks can be deceiving.

I said that Affirmative Action in India is different than in the United States. India is an entirely different country with an entirely difference society and the Affirmative Action program is administered differently... it seems to be that the burden of proof lies on you to prove that they are similar... not on me to argue that they are not. (Even though I have already done so.)

50 whole poeple Aevens- wow- what a number- considering that 50 poeple there fill a freakin' taxi cab- talk about a manufactured news item- what right winger picked up on THIS massive protest? LOL- in india- something margnally worth protesting has folks in the HUNDREDS of thousands in India- this is a TOTAL non-issue

Of course- you also have to ingore the FACT that Affirmative Action in the US DOES NOT involve quotas UNLESS wrongdoing has been found in a court of law, and has been described as a way to make the discriminated to be whole- in other words- only after an investigation , due proccess and remedy prescribed-

all of that the righties and racists ignore- because the facts of Afirmative action are much more practical than the racism that the right wing in this country want to engage in this country.

Racism and more importantly- caste-class-tribe issues are very, very different in India- we have no real paralell in America except that Christianity endorses and commands slavery- the Caste system is also part of the religion- so it runs very, very deep, and 50 poeple in India mean zip when it comes to a country with nearly a billion poeple.

[quote]
Unlike race or class, caste is not something that can be read in the color of one's skin or in the cut of one's clothes. Caste is written in a far more nuanced language of family name, livelihood, origin and identity politics; yet it is an issue that has managed to polarize the nation. Urban Indians, increasingly categorized by wealth, say that caste has no bearing on the kind of jobs they can get, yet classified matrimonial ads often list caste as a principal criterion in the search for a suitable spouse[/quote]


[/quote]


This statement is not entirely true. One can tell a certain amount of 'social caste' information by the way an Indian looks and speaks. The point of the quote above presumably is to suggest that caste is not as obvious a marker as skin color is in this country, but that is false. Caste-based features have been reinforced through centuries of controlled marriage and breeding. While I am not so god at it, my parents are, even with Indians born and raised in the U.S.

While my opinion on Affirmative Action is not solidly formed and seems to change as the years pass, I can unequivocally say that the level of complexity of the issues surrounding affirmative action and the so-called backward classes is much greater than the issues surrounding affirmative action here, perhaps, if for not other reason, than because there are varying degrees of 'backwardness' even within a given sub-ethnic group, and there are many of those groups. The closest India's situation comes to ours here is to say that Affirmative action as it was originally structures increasingly does less to help the lowest of its target and penalizes the middle class (who may not have disadvantages socially but are not financially secure enough to rise above the disadvantages created by affirmative action). As expected, the poorest of the poor are totally screwed and the richest of the rich can buy their way ito and out of anything.

Good job with using rhetoric and ignoring the questions CR. Why avoid the topic? OH, because it's hard to argue!!!!

The racism and right wing in the US? CR, no one cares really how you feel about a point. Post a fact, a figure, a link... anything. This is a rant about what you THINK happens.

CNN/TIME is NOT a right wing kook periodical. Did you even read the article?
Here's a great quote:


How do you argue this?
Want more articles? How about the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6051400461.html

Reservations and concessions, sure, are different. The way AA is approached is marginally different. However, the end result is the same.

I'm not really sure where you all got the number of 50 people, but the number doesn't matter. This got picked up by at least the associated press by the looks of it. It has reaching implications.

Why don't y'all try arguing those points? Use objective facts, as we all know the analogy about opinions...

How about like the apples-to-apples link that I used to show that educational AA in the US doesn't work.
http://home.sandiego.edu/~e_cook/

All the stats speak for themselves basically. More qualified white students are often passed over, and the rate of black graduation as near as I can tell in the past decade or so isn't better.

I personally have to mirror the sentiments of the Indian kids/doctors. In the event that they have the wrong last name or came from the wrong home town... why should their hard work be overshadowed by legislation? Wouldn't most if not all of their peers think automatically that they got in due to quotas?

OK Aevans, I'm out of this thread. You post here implies that, as far as you know, caste is and has been no problem except a bit in the countryside and sometimes when you get married. I wish, I really wish you knew how staggeringly wrong that was, and since you don't (though still feel able to assert about it) there is little point in talking to you about it.

All I can do is plead with you to spend a few minutes learning about the subject. You might learn how dependent on caste huge segments of India's society is, how dalit's were excluded frok all but most menial labout jobs for thousands of years until very recently, how 25 years ago there were NO (that is, Zero) Dalit's in India's higher education system, by process of deliberate exclusion.



Pity you didn't bother reading through my last post. Those 50 kids seem to want that, but the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS who protested in 2003, 2004 and 2006 seem to think the opposite, that government intervention was needed to stop the deliberate and continuous exclusion of the dalit from all but the lowest segment of society.




Complete fiction. That has NEVER been established, though you certainly assert it often enough. Funny, I look at rates of includion of blacks in society, education, white collar jobs the year BEFORE AA was introduced, and just 5 years later, and it SEEMS to prove a definite and obvious benefit.

Good job with Canadian or otherwise generic type cynicism.

I posted a very fact based comparison in my post, you tell me that I'm making it up? ...


In US education, for the most part a large number of minorities are accepted and don't make the grade. Furthermore, stating that affirmative action is the only way that black people could possibly have come up is horrifically insulting and degrading to black people. Who do you think black people are? Savages? They NEED the hand out? Of course not.

All my post, and surely my objective factual information (not a personal opinion diatribe) stated was that in India, the kids don't want the educational hand out... and in the US, historically it hasn't been effective anyway.

You manage to stick your foot in your mouth in Affirmative Action threads with impressive consistency. I am tired of this syrupy defense; calling for the abolishment of Affirmative Action because minorities can be hurt by negative implications stemming from the admissions process. If individual minorities fold academically from a real or imagined "stigma" they have bigger problems to worry about. This surrogate argument giving the impression that anti-AA supporters actually have the interests of minorities at heart is as phony as every argument that stopped minorities from advancing in every economic and social strata for their own wellbeing. Barring women from military service immediately comes to mind.

Veterans, athletes, poor and legacy students should start their own hunger strikes and wring their hands with concern about stereotypes attached to special considerations, including revenue-generating opportunities for the college, the admissions office takes into account. Perhaps they don't have hunger strikes because society is comfortable with these forms of positive discrimination:


Are the Indian students wrong for wanting to be judged by achievement as opposed to "caste"?
Yes. They should mind their own business and face their own insecurities without transferring it to (other) Untouchable Hindus, Christians and Muslims.

What implications does this hunger strike have on the need or desire for affirmative action in India?
Compared with massive protests calling for Reservation, practically none.

How can the US learn from these actions?
If India is the pulse of Affirmative Action we should compare the number of pro- and anti-Reservation protests and pat ourselves on the back. I'm not saying India is the pulse, but this question is an oddball.

Questions for Debate:

1. Are the Indian students wrong for wanting to be judged by achievement as opposed to "caste"?
No. If we subscribe to the paradigm articulated by the Reverend Martin Luther King, jr, to judge a man (or woman), by the content of their character, then the Indian students are dead on target.

2. What implications does this hunger strike have on the need or desire for affirmative action in India?
Hard to tell. Hunger strikes have more social cachet in India than they do here, so it may have more impact than we would normally think. On the other hand, hunger strikes are, I believe, more common in India as well, so......

3. How can the US learn from these actions?
Well, the US can either learn the line that Vermillion and UtlimateJoe are spouting. "Things are different in India, so affirmative action there is strongly justified" aka human rights are not universal. Or the US can learn the classical liberal line, as articulated in our Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal. This, of course, is another example of the fundamentally differing perspectives on equality between the Right and the Left. The Right believes in equality of opportunity, the Left believes in equality of outcome. The Right acknowledges that equality of starting points is impossible, the Left seems to believe that it is necessary to compensate for such inequality. India's caste system is, as they've noted, a sterling (although I suppose now it would be rupee) situation calling for such compensatory action. The problem with the Left's attempts to compensate is that such redress is only possible by imposing inequality. One of the core problems from the perspective of the Left is that the Right's methods of redress are much slower acting, and more prone to subversion, as the promise of the 14th Amendment that was subsequently torpedoed by Jim Crow illustrates.

I should note that if the schools in question are private, which I doubt is the case, then they should, as a legal matter, be able to set whatever standards they desire, whether numbingly discriminatory or a model of utopian equality. The right of free association includes the right of refusing to associate, thus it does not grant authority to inflict unwanted associations upon others.

I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to post again, but such obvious trolling is hard to ignore...



Actually, those were facts, facts you chose to ignore. Again. Nice job with the nation baiting though...



Yes, aevans, that is exactly what I am saying, that you completely and 100% made it all up, and that you post contained NO such facts, only more of your wild assertions.

You linked (twice) to a page which listed increased chances of getting accepted to several academic programs in the US if yiou were a minority (which isn't exactly a surprise, as that is the entire point of AA). There was NOTHING about it not having any effect, NOTHING about all those acceptees failing out, NOTHING to support your assertion. And by the way, thats not the ONLY reason you made it all up. Even if your assertion WAS true, that still doesn't prove your basic point, not even close.


There IS an argument that AA in the United States has served its purpose, that its no longer having the same effect it once did and needs to be reconsidered. I don't agree with that point, but at least there is some logic behind it. But thats not what you are saying, YOU are saying AA NEVER served any purpose, and NEVER did any good, and I'm sorry but that is simply 100%, completely, utterly and totally wrong. It is SO wrong that to make such a claim requires either NO knowledge of history or a deliberate attempt to ignore the facts.


-Segregated schools based on Black and White.
-Less than 1% of all college admissions were black people. Only in the wake of affirmative action measures in the late 1960s and early 1970s did the percentage of black college students begin to climb steadily (in 1970, 7.8 percent of college students were black; in 1980, 9.1 percent; and in 1990, 11.3 percent).
-Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans were legally barred from attending most public schools.
-In some industries (the AA bill studied the canning industry as an example) In businesses such as the canning industry, Blacks and Asian Americans were prohibited by policy from promotion to managerial level, and were housed in physically segregated living quarters.
-Across the country, 96% of all municipal police departments and fire departments remained all white and all male.
-Before 1970 there had NEVER been a single black State police officer in 44 states. (In fact the July 1970 Alabama supreme court decision to force hiring of visible minorities was one of the victories of AA)
-In 1979, women represented only 4 percent of the entry-level officers in the San Francisco police department. By 1985, under an affirmative action plan ordered in a case in which the DOJ sued the City for discrimination, the number of women in the entry class had risen to 175, or 14.5 percent.
-Similarly, a federal district court review of the San Francisco Fire Department in 1987 led to a consent decree which increased the number of blacks in officer positions from 7 to 31, Hispanics from 2 to 55, and Asians from 0 to 10.
-In 1960, the 10 million workers on the payrolls of the 100 largest defence contractors included fewer than 8000 blacks, most in janitorial or menial positions.
-Prior to 1974, Kaiser Aluminium hired only persons with prior craft experience as craft workers at its Gramercy, Louisiana plant. Because blacks had been excluded from the craft unions, only 5 of 273 skilled craft workers at the plant were black. In response, Kaiser together with the union, established its own training program to fill craft jobs with the proviso that 50 percent of new trainees were to be black until the percentage of black craft workers in the plant matched the percentage of blacks in the local labour pool.


Affirmative Action took a racist society where a black man COULD NOT get a fair chance and COULD NOT get conidered on the basis of merit, and changed it for the better. Within 5 years those numbers above had all changed enormously and positively. The effect on both women and blacks was positive and enormous and obvious. Are you honestly going to sit there, ignore the facts of reality, and claim that AA had no effect on the positions of Women and Blacks in US society? How can you justify such an obviously counterfactual position with, well... reality?


Oh, and those were just the factual mistakes in your assertion. You attempt to attack me with your " insulting and degrading to black people" is both tranparent, beneath contempt, utterly made up, and not orthy of response.




Funny, you did it again. I repeated the fact that you ignored, twice in a row now, about how your India example is factually wrong: they are NOT protesting quotas, they are protesting changes in quotas to include other backwards castes. Quotas have been in place for years. You also ignored the fact that though 50 people protested against the policy, hundreds of thousands protested FOR it (against government inaction) for years. Do those 'facts' not fit your wild assertions?

Or (as everyone correctly predicted) did you not care about India one whit, and just tried to use this as an excuse to start ANOTHER thread about how you think AA in the US is pure evil?


You have certainly demonstrated you know NOTHING about the caste situation in India, nor anything about the Dalit class. Or are you going to cobble together a fake high-horse and claim that 'saying the Dalit needed government help and could not have come up on their own is horrifically insulting and degrading to Dalit's? (Despite over 3000 years of systematic opression and esclusion from Indian society?)

Some of the inconvenient truths YOU so blithely overlooked:

1) MLK approved of AA- despite the right wing attempt to "white wash" him since they were forced to admit he was one of the greatest men that has ever been in this nation- you know, after the republicans lost thier various bids to keep from having a special day for him? You remember that little bit of republican racism at all?

2) Hundreds of thousands protested FOR this- a couple are against it. Maybe not a couple.

3) Thier caste system needed remedy- badly. got something better? I doubt it since you obviously really don't know anything about that religiously proscribed system.

4) AA isn't quotas at all- unless you have been found, by due process to be actively descriminating by race. Something the right wing just can't seem to handle- the fact that they aren't allowed to treat minorities like chattel anymore. Poor us.

Let me educate you. the caste system in India is pervasive through most aspects of daily life. Although it derived from an ancient form of social stratification, the modern caste system differs in that one cannot marry out of it or educate oneself out of it, even pray oneself out of it. The worst level of the caste system is the untouchable (popularly knows as the Dalit). Dalits have the worst jobs in Hindu society, do the jobs that no one wants to do (religiously/morally speaking), such as caretaking/dealing with the dead. With the Dalit caste, there are sub-castes with a stratification of their own. Within larger Hindu society, Dalits are anathema. You don't share anything with Dalits--food, clothes, a handshake. This is not just some quaint custom found in the countryside or just a barrier to marriage. In the past and even now, many people do not want to work alongside or be educated alongside someone who is 'untouchable.' There is still a considerable amount of violence perpetrated against Dalits. I will cite references if you need them.

Between the brahmins and the Dalits, there are yet a myriad of other castes--one's caste determines where one lives, who one can marry, what jobs one has access to, what temple one might visit, how one might pray.

The caste system has to go. Whether affirmative action is the way to do it--I don't know. But to imply that the caste system is a minor problem that doesn't affect education and career is either naive or ignorant.