Background I am from a middle-class Telugu Brahmin family in South India. My understanding of caste is based on my experience living nearly three decades in Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune. I have some additional knowledge through school lessons, a few good movies, and the occasional newspaper or magazine article. My opinions are as a lay urbanite from an upper caste.
Enjoyed reading your post. The idea of 'race' is certainly strongly correlated with the genetics/biology of human population, so it is actually real. The ill effects of the Indian caste system are primarily because in practice it became hereditary & not so much because of the hierarchical structure. The Indian Caste system is no different from the professional groups of people elsewhere in the world - one can devise a vague mapping of sorts to establish some equivalence. To me 'caste' is like an emergent property.
Enjoyed reading your post. The idea of 'race' is certainly strongly correlated with the genetics/biology of human population, so it is actually real. The ill effects of the Indian caste system are primarily because in practice it became hereditary & not so much because of the hierarchical structure. The Indian Caste system is no different from the professional groups of people elsewhere in the world - one can devise a vague mapping of sorts to establish some equivalence. To me 'caste' is like an emergent property.