but that was just a lie.
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That’s what they all say …
So is there anything special about the merchant caste Gujaratis (other than the Parsi), or is it mostly just fluff?
http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21683983-secrets-worlds-best-businesspeople-going-global
The article is fluff. Wikipedia is your friend. Contrast Gujarat with Maharashtra.
It was the Maratha Empire not the Gujarat Empire.
Thanks, I thought Gujarati trader groups were also dominant in Bombay and did far better than the Maharshtrians there, at least that was the impression I had from reading Sowell’s books (And he constantly references how entrepreneurial and business-minded the Gujaratis are known for being, since it’s in India with endogamous castes I was wondering if any selection was involved.)
Wiki seems to tell me Gujaratis have been known for being entrepreneurial throughout history (because of the trading castes, I assume), there doesn’t seem to exist a stereotype like that for the Marathis.
Do you have any hard numbers on how well the different caste groups compare? I don’t really care about the states.
Gujurat was part of the Maratha empire – Maratha are muscle power ; Gujurati upper caste merchant castes, esp Jains and Banias and Parsees, dominate business in Bombay – there are no major Maratha business castes
I’m not saying the Maharashtrians are better or smarter, only the Gujaratis aren’t something special comparatively.
I only have personal observation. For a quantitative comparison, I don’t know enough about the casts. But it’s not so hard to look at IMO results. I bet dollars to donuts there’s more Maharashtrians than Gujaratis, this compares only high caste groups since the IMO is many std to the right.
I can decode caste from names – I use data from California 2016 National Merit Semifnalists
Gujurat Total = 32
of which
Brahmin = 8
Hindu Merchant = 4
Jain Merchant = 11
Patel Landlord = 9
Maharashtra total = 26
of which
Brahmin = 18
Maratha Landlord / warrior = 4
Backward caste = 4
at least on first glance, Gujurati Jain merchants are very competitive with brahmins
Looks like I’m wrong. Can you do the same for http://www.imo-official.org/country_hall.aspx?code=IND&column=awards&order=desc?
Above reply was to rec1man.
The main India IMO coaching center is in a Maharashtrian brahmin town, and it is advertised among their caste
I went thru the list, lots of Maharashtrian brahmins , very few Gujuratis , but Math IQ is not equal to Business skils, Brahmins suck at business ; to win in business, need to have a Shylock mentality
Total = 112
Brahmin = 57
Christian = 1
Dalit = 1
Merchants = 16
Kayasth ( Scribe ) = 13
Landlord = 25
20 Bengali, of which 5 brahmin, 12 scribes
2 Gujurati, of which 2 Jain merchants
23 Hindi, of which, 12 brahmin, 8 merchants
5 kannada, of which 4 brahmin
36 Maharahstrians of which 16 brahmin
2 oriya, of which, 2 brahmin
16 Tamil, of which 15 brahmin
4 telegu of which 2 brahmin
—
I’m missing something here.
I see that there’s a recent claim that the caste system, at least in the sense of inhibiting out-breeding, goes back only about 70 generations.
http://dienekes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/history-of-extant-populations-of-india.html
Even if true, that’s still almost 2000 years. As we now know, that’s not nothing with regard to human evolution.
Oh quite: but what fascinates me is that an “ancient civilisation” isn’t all that ancient, at least in this regard.
I doubt there are very few ancient things that are as old, much less older. Languages and customs change quite rapidly.
He said he was high-caste but that was just a lie.
He felt hounded by his low-caste status.
That must have been… ruff
You ain’t never been a Brahmin and you ain’t no friend of mine.
Doesn’t pass the smell test.
he? https://www.google.com/search?q=Yashica+Dutt+%C2%B7&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgrs-L98vKAhUK3mMKHRUgA3UQ_AUIBygB&biw=1484&bih=740
Guess I’ll have to be more careful when I’m punch-line drunk.
Dutt is a brahmin surname in Punjab , and she has a phenotype of skin tone and features that can easily pass as Upper Caste / Brahmin
She is from Rajasthan, and some of the local dalits – Meghwal, have 60% ANI, and easily
within the brahmin ANI range
just for shucks, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Dutt sounds very German to German ears
I am curious if frequent readers of this site considered that caste system is a historic attempt of selective breeding of humans. For example, if we as society artificially inflated reproductive fitness of intelligence and created a group of highly intelligent people (equivalent of brahmin), there is no guarantee that this group would stay highly intelligent unless we continue putting selective pressure. This is why caste system failed, because it isn’t genetic equivalent of meritocracy, but “you are in” club.
Failure implies some sort of purpose.
And that the purpose was to alter the population’s characteristics. Given how long it’s lasted, I’d say it’s wildly successful at doing what people want it to do.
I always figured that the purpose of the caste system was to keep the blood of the conquering Indo-Europeans “pure”, rather than select for intelligence, but of course I’m no expert.
Well it seems “19th century” Europeans came up with this band-aid racial caste explanation about almost any social/cultural differences found inside India, and all this they say is created by some conquering “Indo-Europeans” for racially purity. Never mind there was never any proof about any of this assumptions being shown as the real reasons how or why castes began in India. And 19th century Euro-centrics were wrong about quite few things about their conquering Indo-Europeans, like how they brought farming, civilization and metal technology into india, but these disproved ideas can be easily ignored by many even today. But what can’t be ignored today is that many Western/European scholars still can’t explain why Indians have diverse concepts like varna, gotra and jāti in explaining social/cultural differences. But not only that, they cant explain what these terms mean or how they came about. And now Western/European scholars have also stopped calling Indo-Europeans a major invading force, but only a small scale migration, and we have to believe West has figured the purpose of the caste system. Now it is year 2016 and the Kurgan hypothesis for Indo-European homeland is falling apart too, plus r1a1 y-dna can’t be linked to the same hypothesis either. But hey! I’m no expert on this subject either.
Pretty much the opposite of the truth: the Kurgan hypothesis is essentially proven, and we know the steppe origin of R1a.
Mesolithic Samara samples and later Yamnaya individuals all turned out to be R1b, not R1a, so that’s should be the end of this R1a Kurgan link that many people like Spencer Wells were arguing about. therefore R1a in india must have itself another origin to it, and R1a itself probably came out of the east of the urals or central-asia. And Kurgan hypothesis is essentially not proven either, its just popular but linguistic and genetic(chg-hunters) evidence is pushing the proto-Indo-Europeans more towards west-asia. like i said earlier Kurgan Indo-European homeland is slowly falling apart.
You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.
When I was traveling in India, I had asked this questions to many Indians. But a priest (obviously Brahmin) at a most famous Brihadeeswara Temple gave me most satisfying answer.
He believe every body should have appropriate place in this world. If every body know his or her role in a society, there will be harmony in human relationship. There is no need to fight or compete. Without that, people will be confused and start to fighting each other for social positions. He believed Caste system should be used in the whole world to avoid human conflict. Indeed, it is actually a kind of job security for every body. For example, funeral service, slaughter, cleaning garbage ect are reserved for lower caste people. No body will compete from upper caste. When I was in Varanasi, a low caste funeral guy bragged about his job security and good income.
Certainly I do not agree with this kind view of world. But as traveler, I do not pass judgment on thing I see. Rather I am like a sponge that want to absorb knowledge about every thing. This priest was obviously ignorant of most thing outside India despite of his perfect English. He thought China had similar system like caste or feudal ranks. I told him China got rid of feudal classes more than 2000 years ago by a conquering Emperor (one with terracotta soldiers at grave) who united whole China because of his kingdom first started using meritocratic system for social and military promotion which even attract enemy people to join his force. This priest said: it is sad you guys lost beautiful caste system.
Strangely he has a point. During Chines feudal era (Shang and Zhou dynasty), the society was relative stable. Zhou dynasty lasted over 800 years due to such stability (in other words: lack of competition within society) because every body was clear in their positions in a society. So is my theory of human depigmentation based on hereditary social positions.
I believe that any system violates nature rule ( survival of the fittest) will fail eventually. Lacking competition mean lower selection pressure. Low selection pressure will lead to reduced ability to survive for any species. Dodo is such example.
In Guns, Germs and steel of Jared Diamond, human Dodo example were obviously present. Secured life due to lack of competition is good in short term; devolution in long term.
A lot of north Indian Dalit girls are very attractive and could also easily pass as upper caste. Further south and east that’s not the case though.
Politician and salesmen lie all the time to get social approval. He just was not good enough with it. Bit of psychopath will help liars sleeping far better in the night . If you have hard time hiding or manipulating your emotion, better stay out of business of verbal social manipulation. Hypoalgesia can make someone physically tough. Psychopath (lack of emotional pain) can make someone emotionally tough which is good for social manipulation.
In society, truth does not sell (if it is, Galileo will not be killed). Popularity (social approval) is the goal of most people.
Ops, should be she. I should read Razib comment first before commenting.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo/49685402.cms
To the best of Wikipedia information (and my humble perception), Galileo was not killed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Death
Oops, another mistake. Need more coffee.
It’s extremely sad. It’s a terrible culture (for a lot of reasons) and personally I think 90% of hinduism should be relegated to the dust bin of history. The caste system is an aribitrary license to treat some people as lesser than others even though there is barely any genetic difference between castes in some regions.
I can think of worse.
Careful: next thing you’ll be pointing out that Communism and Nazism are forms of socialism, and who knows where that will lead? Or maybe you had followers of the Prophet in mind? Doubleplusungood.
So can I, but I’m still glad I’m not a part of it.