Yesterday I was thrilled to read the news about the US Supreme Court's decisions regarding DOMA and Proposition 8. At the time I received the alert on my phone, I was sitting chatting with Mr. Bollywood Heartthrob and immediately launched into a diatribe on gay marriage, bigots, ignorance and institutional discrimination. Thankfully my companion wasn't completely overwhelmed by my outburst of emotion and quasi-legal jargon, and it turned into an interesting conversation on the role of government. I found the conversation to be interesting, and so will share parts of it with you in the hopes that you do as well.
In the US, homosexuals have been treated as second class citizens, and will most likely continue to be treated as such by at least part of the country, if not the government. In India, there are many groups that have been discriminated against, but for different reasons than in the states. The caste system here is still alive and well, and I admit that I don't understand how it works exactly. I'm going to take a brief break in my musings to give you a basic summary of the caste system (at least as I understand it):
In the broadest possible terms, there are four castes/varnas historically: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors/kings), Vaishyas (merchants), and Shudras (laborers). If you don't belong to any of these castes, then you fall into the untouchables category - or Scheduled castes - which includes anyone who isn't Hindu and other outcasts. In reality, however, caste is a much more specific and personal identifier, derived from numerous characteristics of your life (or rather your parents' lives, since you really have no choice in the matter). Religion plays a big factor in it, as do regional affiliation, occupation, and some behavioral habits (e.g. vegetarianism). This results in there being thousands of different castes in practice. Thankfully, caste seems to matter less today than it has in the past - like in the days when an untouchable couldn't let his shadow fall on a Brahmin - but the caste traditions haven't disappeared entirely, particularly when it comes to marriage.
Anyway, back to what I was saying earlier. India has institutional discrimination based on caste similar to how the US has laws discriminating against African-Americans, homosexuals, and other minorities. To combat it, they have mandated affirmative action policies in Indian universities and with government jobs. They have passed laws - even a line in the constitution - prohibiting all discrimination based on caste. But discrimination doesn't have to be overt to be present - it can be sneaky. The laws themselves may not be discriminatory, but the enforcement of them is entirely subjective. After all, enforcement is in the hands of individuals, who may or may not have their own biases and prejudices, and who are held accountable for very little when it comes to the performance of their duties. A cop is free to vary the amount of the bribes he requests based on his perceptions of the person bribing him. The politicians who control the government budgets are lining their pockets with the money that is supposed to be spent on infrastructure and healthcare. As this money is being funnelled from its legitimate purposes to wherever it ends up, who's to say that the politicians aren't favoring one caste over another in terms of the distribution of the pilfered funds? It's the Indian form of pork barrel spending - on a larger scale and with even less oversight than what happens in the states.
One of the most obvious issues with discriminatory policies here is less about the non-preferred castes being intentionally abused, but rather with the higher strata of society being given preferential treatment by corrupt officials. Want a lucrative government contract? Better know someone high up in the government and make it worth their while to give you a recommendation. Need a "get out of jail free" card? All you have to do is buy it. How about permits for construction/permits/licenses/whatever? Grease the right palms with the right amount, and you can work miracles. My apartment building is the perfect example of politicians taking advantage of the system. In my neighborhood, the floors in any apartment building above X number of floors (I think it's 5 but would have to confirm) are considered illegal. One of my friend's apartment building in Worli is awaiting its destruction because it is in violation of this rule. However, my apartment building is largely owned by Members of the Legislative Assembly (similar to congressmen in the US), and so my building is safe at 30 stories. The apartment I'm living in (on the 22nd floor) has to be illegal - at least technically - but there's no way it will ever be torn down because my building has powerful political allies.
Of course, the issue I'm describing isn't unique to India. Corruption like this happens in countries all over the world - my own included. The main distinction for me is how public the corruption is, and how accepting the public seems to be of it. It also isn't specific to the caste system, although that plays a role. After all, it's possible to be in a high caste have no money and no connections, and those two things seem to play a greater role in determining your "luck" with institutional favor. The whole point of what I'm saying is that the system isn't fair, and that your willingness to work hard means little if you are facing some of the more daunting obstacles posed by the system's biases. By comparison, if you were born into the right family with the right connections, you can be incredibly successful with comparatively little effort required. Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying here to be that Indian people don't work hard - in fact many of them work incredibly hard...some of them because they have to, and some because they want to. My point instead is that someone with fewer connections has to work that much harder to reach an equal level of success as someone who starts out with the right kind of network.
This system has a multitude of repercussions, some of which I have observed first hand during my time here. One is the entrepreneurial culture in place - have you all noticed that at least 3 of my dates here have been with guys who have started their own companies? Since connections are the route to success, people here seem to be very good at building their networks and using that to launch a business. This is the upside of this palm-greasing culture - it provides opportunities to work within the (albeit biased) system to get ahead. The downside, however, is the apathy that people feel toward corruption, and how those less-than-honest behaviors seep into elements of daily life, completely removed from politics. Mr. Bollywood Heartthrob told me a story of a guy he knows who has dual citizenship between India and the US, which he received through marriage. The guy is rich already and doesn't want to work, so he doesn't have a job. However, he has somehow managed to get unemployment benefits from the US government, which he is then investing by buying land in Pakistan. My friend challenged him on this behavior - calling him out for his dishonesty - and the guy shrugged it off and said that he doesn't mind cheating the government because the Indian government cheats him so often. This mindset is more popular than it should be, which I find to be incredibly troubling.
As interesting as it is to discuss the crazy levels of corruption that the Indian government can get away with, I kept coming back to the same point: what can be done to fix it? If lack of accountability is allowing these behaviors to persist, then how do you institute accountability? My PoliSci 101 answer was the media - they need to be the watchdogs. Unfortunately, media licenses here are difficult to get, and most of the telecom companies are owned (at least partially) by the same rich people who are bribing the politicians to line their pockets. Ok so if the media is corrupt as well - or at least similarly apathetic - then who next? The people, of course. They can vote out corrupt politicians. But how do you get them to want to change the system rather than their current path of accepting it and working within its limits? My answer is education. If all children here are given access to a base level of education, then they can develop the critical reasoning skills to make the decisions for themselves that the system should be changed. Maybe my opinion is driven by the fact that I have about a billion teachers in my family (numbers may be slightly exaggerated) - but I believe education is the key to fixing most of the issues with India. Right now, many people consider it more worthwhile to be street smart than to be book smart. I'm not one to knock street smarts - of course they serve their purpose - but in no way should it be more profitable for the average person to cheat the system than to help build it up. Perhaps if more people were book smart, then the need for street smarts would be diminished. I don't know. I think I'm rambling at this point...
It's time for the bottom line: no government is perfect, but as long as the citizens of a country hold their representatives up to aspirational standards, then that country should progress upward toward meeting those standards. India faces a multitude of problems related to discrimination and equality, and I don't have the answers to how these problems will be fixed. At the same time, the US struck a major blow for equality with the rulings handed down yesterday, but we still have a long way to go before all citizens are truly treated equally in the eyes of the law. With that in mind, maybe our two countries aren't that different after all...
In the US, homosexuals have been treated as second class citizens, and will most likely continue to be treated as such by at least part of the country, if not the government. In India, there are many groups that have been discriminated against, but for different reasons than in the states. The caste system here is still alive and well, and I admit that I don't understand how it works exactly. I'm going to take a brief break in my musings to give you a basic summary of the caste system (at least as I understand it):
In the broadest possible terms, there are four castes/varnas historically: Brahmins (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors/kings), Vaishyas (merchants), and Shudras (laborers). If you don't belong to any of these castes, then you fall into the untouchables category - or Scheduled castes - which includes anyone who isn't Hindu and other outcasts. In reality, however, caste is a much more specific and personal identifier, derived from numerous characteristics of your life (or rather your parents' lives, since you really have no choice in the matter). Religion plays a big factor in it, as do regional affiliation, occupation, and some behavioral habits (e.g. vegetarianism). This results in there being thousands of different castes in practice. Thankfully, caste seems to matter less today than it has in the past - like in the days when an untouchable couldn't let his shadow fall on a Brahmin - but the caste traditions haven't disappeared entirely, particularly when it comes to marriage.
Anyway, back to what I was saying earlier. India has institutional discrimination based on caste similar to how the US has laws discriminating against African-Americans, homosexuals, and other minorities. To combat it, they have mandated affirmative action policies in Indian universities and with government jobs. They have passed laws - even a line in the constitution - prohibiting all discrimination based on caste. But discrimination doesn't have to be overt to be present - it can be sneaky. The laws themselves may not be discriminatory, but the enforcement of them is entirely subjective. After all, enforcement is in the hands of individuals, who may or may not have their own biases and prejudices, and who are held accountable for very little when it comes to the performance of their duties. A cop is free to vary the amount of the bribes he requests based on his perceptions of the person bribing him. The politicians who control the government budgets are lining their pockets with the money that is supposed to be spent on infrastructure and healthcare. As this money is being funnelled from its legitimate purposes to wherever it ends up, who's to say that the politicians aren't favoring one caste over another in terms of the distribution of the pilfered funds? It's the Indian form of pork barrel spending - on a larger scale and with even less oversight than what happens in the states.
One of the most obvious issues with discriminatory policies here is less about the non-preferred castes being intentionally abused, but rather with the higher strata of society being given preferential treatment by corrupt officials. Want a lucrative government contract? Better know someone high up in the government and make it worth their while to give you a recommendation. Need a "get out of jail free" card? All you have to do is buy it. How about permits for construction/permits/licenses/whatever? Grease the right palms with the right amount, and you can work miracles. My apartment building is the perfect example of politicians taking advantage of the system. In my neighborhood, the floors in any apartment building above X number of floors (I think it's 5 but would have to confirm) are considered illegal. One of my friend's apartment building in Worli is awaiting its destruction because it is in violation of this rule. However, my apartment building is largely owned by Members of the Legislative Assembly (similar to congressmen in the US), and so my building is safe at 30 stories. The apartment I'm living in (on the 22nd floor) has to be illegal - at least technically - but there's no way it will ever be torn down because my building has powerful political allies.
Of course, the issue I'm describing isn't unique to India. Corruption like this happens in countries all over the world - my own included. The main distinction for me is how public the corruption is, and how accepting the public seems to be of it. It also isn't specific to the caste system, although that plays a role. After all, it's possible to be in a high caste have no money and no connections, and those two things seem to play a greater role in determining your "luck" with institutional favor. The whole point of what I'm saying is that the system isn't fair, and that your willingness to work hard means little if you are facing some of the more daunting obstacles posed by the system's biases. By comparison, if you were born into the right family with the right connections, you can be incredibly successful with comparatively little effort required. Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying here to be that Indian people don't work hard - in fact many of them work incredibly hard...some of them because they have to, and some because they want to. My point instead is that someone with fewer connections has to work that much harder to reach an equal level of success as someone who starts out with the right kind of network.
This system has a multitude of repercussions, some of which I have observed first hand during my time here. One is the entrepreneurial culture in place - have you all noticed that at least 3 of my dates here have been with guys who have started their own companies? Since connections are the route to success, people here seem to be very good at building their networks and using that to launch a business. This is the upside of this palm-greasing culture - it provides opportunities to work within the (albeit biased) system to get ahead. The downside, however, is the apathy that people feel toward corruption, and how those less-than-honest behaviors seep into elements of daily life, completely removed from politics. Mr. Bollywood Heartthrob told me a story of a guy he knows who has dual citizenship between India and the US, which he received through marriage. The guy is rich already and doesn't want to work, so he doesn't have a job. However, he has somehow managed to get unemployment benefits from the US government, which he is then investing by buying land in Pakistan. My friend challenged him on this behavior - calling him out for his dishonesty - and the guy shrugged it off and said that he doesn't mind cheating the government because the Indian government cheats him so often. This mindset is more popular than it should be, which I find to be incredibly troubling.
As interesting as it is to discuss the crazy levels of corruption that the Indian government can get away with, I kept coming back to the same point: what can be done to fix it? If lack of accountability is allowing these behaviors to persist, then how do you institute accountability? My PoliSci 101 answer was the media - they need to be the watchdogs. Unfortunately, media licenses here are difficult to get, and most of the telecom companies are owned (at least partially) by the same rich people who are bribing the politicians to line their pockets. Ok so if the media is corrupt as well - or at least similarly apathetic - then who next? The people, of course. They can vote out corrupt politicians. But how do you get them to want to change the system rather than their current path of accepting it and working within its limits? My answer is education. If all children here are given access to a base level of education, then they can develop the critical reasoning skills to make the decisions for themselves that the system should be changed. Maybe my opinion is driven by the fact that I have about a billion teachers in my family (numbers may be slightly exaggerated) - but I believe education is the key to fixing most of the issues with India. Right now, many people consider it more worthwhile to be street smart than to be book smart. I'm not one to knock street smarts - of course they serve their purpose - but in no way should it be more profitable for the average person to cheat the system than to help build it up. Perhaps if more people were book smart, then the need for street smarts would be diminished. I don't know. I think I'm rambling at this point...
It's time for the bottom line: no government is perfect, but as long as the citizens of a country hold their representatives up to aspirational standards, then that country should progress upward toward meeting those standards. India faces a multitude of problems related to discrimination and equality, and I don't have the answers to how these problems will be fixed. At the same time, the US struck a major blow for equality with the rulings handed down yesterday, but we still have a long way to go before all citizens are truly treated equally in the eyes of the law. With that in mind, maybe our two countries aren't that different after all...
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