The Economist is wrong. Brahmins become CEOs in US not because of quotas in India

Indians CEOs, who are mostly Brahmins, might be 'minorities' in the US but they are the beneficiaries of the new American ‘caste system’.

The Economist, one of the most influential journals in the world, has recently published a column titled ‘Why Brahmins lead Western firms but rarely Indian ones’. The finding is correct but the causes it attributes for this phenomenon are wrong.

The magazine is wrong when it blames ‘affirmative action policies’ like caste reservations in India for why Brahmins don’t lead Indian companies. Whereas affirmative action policy in the US is actually the cause for why Brahmins lead Western firms.

The article has three main ideas. First, some of the big (and not so big) companies in the West are led by CEOs of Indian origin. Indian talent finding space in the Western corporate world is a normal affair, considering the fact that Indians are granted around two-third of America’s H-1B visas for highly skilled workers. Many of these Indian CEOs in the United States are Brahmins.

Second, Indian boardrooms are dominated by traditional business castes known as Baniyas. In India, the Brahmins dominate many arenas like academia, science and law, but not top corporate positions. It cites a study from 2010 that says 93 per cent of board members in India come from “forward” castes. Of them, 46 per cent are Vaishyas or Baniyas.

Third, the author offers three explanations for this disparity: One, businesses in India favour those with established networks (mostly Baniyas and, in some cases, the Parsis). This led Brahmins to emigrate. Two, Brahmins have a “tradition of bookishness”, due to which they easily pass exams and enter the land of opportunities. Three, Brahmins are forced to leave the country because of affirmative-action policies in India.

 Illustration by Ramandeep Kaur | ThePrint

The first two points are based on empirical facts and there is not much to debate. Though it’s amusing that in The Economist list of seven ‘big’ corporations headed by Indian CEOs, the columnist has also included OnlyFans and introduced the company by saying that it’s “a subscription service featuring content creators in various stages of undress”. Setting aside that trivia, let’s put the three explanations of Bramhins’ success in Western corporates under scrutiny.

The Brahmin privilege

The argument that the Baniyas rule the Indian corporate world largely holds ground because most corporations in India are traditionally family-owned and, in many of them, the biggest stakeholder or the promoter group, provides the CEOs. Kinship, familial relations and caste-affiliation might have played a role in selecting the top managers. As most of the big businesses in India are owned by the Baniyas, it’s not surprising that in the Forbes list of India’s wealthiest in 2021, in the top 20, 12 are from the same community. This might have impacted the prospects of managers from other castes, especially the Brahmins, who are traditionally the most privileged community. The Economist column also cites a report that says ‘Agarwal’ and ‘Gupta’ are the most common surnames of corporate board members. Despite having some merit to this argument, it seems far-fetched that due to so-called Baniya domination, Brahmin talent is leaving India. Top echelons of the government sector, judiciary, media and many more fields are still dominated by the Brahmins.

The second reason cited, which talks about the Brahmins having a “tradition of bookishness” and thus becoming more competent, is almost racial and hints at eugenics. These ideas and theories were debunked long ago. It’s true that having a tradition of education in a family puts a person in an advantageous position. This advantage is popularly known as ‘cultural capital’. But this does not explain the migration of any social class or group. Cultural capital can be used for nation-building too. So it was more a question of intent.

The third reason is more atrocious. Blaming reservations for the migration of the Brahmins is beyond comprehension. Since The Economist column is talking about the corporate sector, it must be noted that despite long-pending demands, the Indian corporate sector has never been under the ambit of reservation policies. Unlike the US and European countries, Indian corporations do not follow any affirmative action or diversity programme. To blame the reservation for Brahmin migration to the West is a travesty of logic.

Migration to the West

Indian migration, mostly by the Brahmins and other dominant castes, to the West started much before the affirmative action policy was introduced after Independence. And even after constitutional obligations, reservation policies were never implemented in letter and spirit. It was in 1973 that the scheme of reservation of seats for SC/ST students in the Indian Institute of Technology was introduced. OBC reservation in IITs was introduced as late as 2008. Most of the IIT graduates, who are in higher positions in global corporations, are graduates of the pre-OBC reservation era.

Indians migration to the West was not due to ‘push’ factors. The only ‘push’ factor was the government controlled-economy and that reason also waned after 1990, when the economy opened up. The Brahmins, or for that matter Indians of any community, migrated because the grass was greener on the other side. It was the socio-economic pull from the West that led them to migrate.

The phenomenon of Indian corporate leaders, mostly Brahmins and now Baniyas, finding good positions in the West can be due to two possible reasons.

First, because people from advantageous social groups, here, the dominant caste elites, started migrating early, so they had the first-mover advantage. Current generations of these communities are getting the benefit of social-caste-family connections and networks built over years. This is their accumulated asset that they are exchanging for admissions and jobs in the West. Communities lacking this social capital are laggard. Their “bookishness” is not sufficient to make them eligible for migration. It’s easy for a dominant caste student to ask their faculty, as in most of the cases both are from the same social background, to write recommendation letters for college admissions in the West.

Look at which community has global connections in India.

Second, Indians are the ‘right’ type of minority/immigrants — they are also called the ‘model minority’ in the US. As diversity has become a moral project in the US, universities and corporations are trying to make their intake more diverse. Blacks and Native Americans, and to some extent, Latinos and Hispanics, have fought for their rights. For dominant whites, if diversity goals are fulfilled by the inclusion of the Indians or other non-black groups, it probably suits them. It must be explored if Indians are grabbing those positions that should actually go to the Blacks, Hispanics or Native Americans.

The American ‘caste system’

Indians, or as The Economist says, the Brahmins, are at the top of the ladder in corporate houses because they are probably the ‘right person’ at the ‘right time’. An ideal Indian CEO in an American company can be described as a person who has done his graduation from a highly-subsidised, world-class government institution in India, in most cases the IITs, then used his family connections, caste affiliations and financial muscle to migrate to the US for higher studies, and taken the advantage of the affirmative action policy in the US to get a good job.

Thus, the most privileged social group in India after a smooth metamorphosis becomes a minority — an oppressed identity in the US — takes the avatar of Person of Colour (PoC) and grabs the jobs that should ideally have gone to a Black or a Hispanic person. This co-opting is now being debated in the US. Isabel Wilkerson, in her book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, argues that “around 2040 when the non-Hispanic White majority will probably disappear, the whites will rush to co-opt insecure mid-caste nonwhites — ethnic groups who have profited from affirmative-action programs that the Blacks fought for.” She predicted that the Asians and Latinos will “vote up, rather than across, and usually not down.” She envisages the Indians as future collaborators of whites in perpetuating the American ‘caste system’, in which the Blacks will remain as the permanent bottom.

Has that process already started? Maybe, and the Indians, most of them Brahmins, might be the beneficiary of this historical process.

What does this mean for Indians from oppressed castes? Will these Indian CEOs ever try to incorporate the diversity of Indian society while recruiting Indians? As the Indian dominant caste is situated in the middle of the American colour hierarchy, it will be quite difficult for them. Isabel Wilkerson tersely says, “When you are caught in a caste system, you will likely do whatever it takes to survive in it. If you are insecurely situated somewhere in the middle — below the very top, but above the very bottom — you may distance yourself from the bottom and hold up barriers against those you see as below you to protect your own position.”

It seems that large Indian masses, most of them from the middle and lower castes, have no reason to celebrate the success of Indian-origin corporate leaders in the West.

The author is the former managing editor of India Today Hindi Magazine, and has written books on media and sociology. He tweets @Profdilipmandal. Views are personal.

(Source: The Print)

In India, it’s OK to hate reserved quotas – until it benefits your community

The Cabinet has announced 10 per cent reservation for economically backward upper-castes: a transparently populist move from a BJP government gearing up for election year. But it has also turned a demographic that has been traditionally critical of reservation policies into supporters of the same overnight, writes Dushyant Shekhawat on Arre. Read on: 

When I was a teenager seeking admission to Mumbai’s colleges, the one word on everyone’s lips was “quota”. Xaviers College had a Catholic quota, Jai Hind had a Sindhi quota, and almost every institute had a sports quota. And then there was me, an average student with average marks, ineligible for special treatment of any kind – except my privilege – praying that my name would make it onto one of the accepted lists. Luckily for me, my grades were good enough to get me into the college I wanted to attend, but I remember wishing I could have had the safety net of a quota to rely on during the waiting period.

Yesterday, far too late to quell my admission anxiety, the Cabinet announced 10 per cent reservation in government jobs and educational institutes for the economically backward from the upper-castes, who have traditionally been excluded from India’s many reservation programmes across the country. Apart from being a transparently populist move from a BJP government gearing up for election year, the announcement has also had the effect of turning a demographic that has been traditionally critical of reservation policies into supporters of the same overnight.

Since India came into being, upper castes have been spectators as the Schedule Castes and Tribes, followed by OBCs, became beneficiaries of reservation policies. The resentment at being left out from the affirmative action programmes sometimes boiled over in the form of protests, like those against the Mandal Commission in 1990, and the student protests that took place in 2006, or more recently, the Patidar, Jat, and Maratha agitations across the country. Perhaps the seeds for yesterday’s announcement were sown during those protests; in 2006, the BJP and their student wing ABVP were in support of reservation, but wanted it to be extended to the poor among upper-castes as well.

Not only does this move have no precedent, it probably won’t be passed in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP doesn’t enjoy a majority.

Illustration: Akshita Monga

The Cabinet’s decision was met with a round of support from BJP faithful online, with the hashtag #SaavarnoKoSammaan trending on Twitter, as the BJP’s traditional vote bank lapped up the latest PR stunt. And yes, despite all the furore the announcement has created, at this point it remains just a publicity stunt. Not only does this move have no precedent, it probably won’t be passed in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP doesn’t enjoy a majority.

It is also likely that the Supreme Court will strike down any proposition to create 10 per cent reservation for upper-castes, since such a move would mean more than 50 per cent of the seats in government institutions are blocked on the basis of reservations. Crossing the 50 per cent limit would require an amendment to the Constitution, as well as completely reimagining the concept of reservations and how they’re implemented in the Indian context.


According to the father of the Indian Constitution BR Ambedkar, reservations were a measure to be used only for “communities which have not had so far representation in the State.” By this definition, the upper-castes currently in a position to benefit from the Cabinet’s latest reservation proposal would be ineligible due to having been adequately represented in state bodies and institutions. Also, in 1992, in the landmark Indira Sawhney, Etc VS Union of India and Other, Etc case, wherein the Supreme Court analysed the legality of quotas and the concept of backwardness in detail, the court stated that “a backward class cannot be determined only and exclusively with reference to economic criterion. It may be a consideration or basis along with and in addition to social backwardness, but it can never be the sole criterion.” If the Supreme Court is to follow its own precedent, it will have to reject the Modi government’s latest proposal as unconstitutional.

The real irony here is that the predominantly right-wing supporters of the BJP have often been vocal critics of reservation in the past.

Even though these might not seem like the best conditions to announce such a radical reservation programme, there was no better time than now for the Modi government to take this decision. Promising jobs to upper-castes via reservation is an act of magician-level misdirection, that detracts attention from the fact that this government’s record of providing employment – a crucial plank for the BJP’s 2014 campaign – has been unsatisfactory. So badly has that affected the electorate, that unemployment played a key role in the party’s defeat in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh state assembly elections last month. As political commentator Dhruv Rathee pointed out, “10 per cent of zero is still zero.”

Despite these obvious shortcomings, the BJP’s upper-caste Hindu voter base has celebrated the announcement of the reservations for upper-castes like a victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The real irony here is that the predominantly right-wing supporters of the BJP have often been vocal critics of reservation in the past. When particular communities have agitated for reservations in their name, for example, the Patidar agitation in Gujarat or Maratha agitation in Maharashtra, both BJP-ruled states, arguments were made against reservation being a political stunt to undermine the government and thwart meritocracy. In 2015, at the height of the Patidar protests, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat weighed in on the issue, saying that India’s reservation policy needed a review.

It is unclear if Bhagwat meant an arbitrary announcement that brings yet another group of citizens under the already expansive umbrella of India’s reservation quotas, but that appears to be how his ideological disciples in the government have chosen to implement his words. The BJP’s recent defeat in the state assembly elections is sure to have set alarm bells ringing, and it has been reported that the RSS feels like the BJP is losing its appeal to its core demographic, upper-caste Hindus. This move might be a last-ditch effort to lure back disenchanted supporters.

We view reservations as an unfair practice, right up until it becomes fair in our favour.

As the debate over whether these reservations can even be effectively implemented rages on, it will be amusing to watch previous critics of reservation defend the policy just because it can suddenly benefit them.

Which takes me back to the time I was seeking admission to college. The students eligible for any of the multitudinous quotas were gleeful about the inherent advantage they possessed, while the have-nots grumbled about having the deck stacked against them. I’d be hard pressed to come up with a better analogy for India’s relationship with the reservation system on a national level – we view it as an unfair practice, right up until it becomes fair in our favour. After which it is taken as something completely routine, and praiseworthy even. The debate over the Cabinet’s latest decision regarding reservations is just another example of the same attitude.

Spouse can’t take caste of other spouse after marriage to knock-off reservation benefit

The Supreme Court, on Friday, refused to allow a woman to take benefit of reservation just because she was married to a man who belonged to the Scheduled Castes (SC), asserting that caste is determined by birth and not by marriage.

“There cannot be any dispute that the caste is determined by birth and the caste cannot be changed by marriage with a person of Scheduled Caste. Undoubtedly, the appellant was born in “Agarwal” family, which falls in general category and not in SC…”

The Court was hearing a petition filed by one Sunita Singh challenging a judgement passed by Allahabad High Court, which had upheld her termination from the post of Vice-Principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) at Pathankot, Punjab.

Sunita Singh  had been granted a caste certificate by the District Magistrate in 1991. Relying on this certificate and her academic qualifications, she was appointed as a Post Graduate Teacher in 1993. She also completed an M.Ed. during the course of her service. However, two decades later, her appointment was cancelled on the ground that she had taken the benefit of reservation without belonging to the Scheduled Castes.

While the Supreme Court upheld her termination, it directed that the order of her termination be modified to one of compulsory retirement, in view of the fact that she had served as a teacher and Vice-Principal of the school “without any black spot in her service career for about 21 years.”

Taking a lenient view, the Court  ruled, “…we have also kept in mind that the appellant has neither played fraud nor misrepresented before any of the authorities for getting the caste certificate and while continuing in service based on the caste certificate. No questions were raised against her till the complaint in question came to be lodged, even when the authorities had seen the High School Certificate, Marks Sheet etc. showing her caste as Agarwal at the initial stage.” It, therefore, modified the impugned order to that extent, but clarified that this shall not be treated as a precedent.

(Source: Star of Mysore)

Heights of Reservation ?

Grandfather (took benefits from reservation) : Worked in Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)

Father (took benefits from reservation) : Worked as an Engineer in Indian Telecom Service

Mother (took benefits from reservation) : Worked as an Engineer in Indian Engineering Service

And even Tina Dabi filled her IAS form from the SC Category.

Tina Dabi scores of prelims :
Paper 1=96.66 , CUTOFF GEN=107.33 , OBC =106 ,SC=94 ....so officially she passed UPSC preliminary as a reserved category candidate ....used the quota .....She couldn't have even cleared general cutoff.

52.8 percent is what she scored in her mains.

Stop making her a hero of the UPSC exam.

Now, the question arises, will Tina's children apply from general category?

The Answer is No. Even they will also be eligible to avail the benefits of reservation. There is no limit on how many times a so called SC family can take reservation benefits.

And when someone says that reservation system needs to be reviewed.

Whole media and all MPs start targeting him.

The curious case of Tina Dabi and Kuldeep Dwivedi

Leave aside Mr. Ankit Srivastava as many are arguing that being a failed candidate he is just making an issue out of nothing.

Take the example of Kuldeep Dwivedi. He is a Brahmin by caste and hence can’t be privileged to get age relaxation, more number of attempts, concession in fees and above all low minimum qualifying marks – cut off. But, why should one choose Kuldeep Dwivedi who got 242 All India Rank? Is it fair to compare AIR 1 to AIR 242

The comparison becomes necessary to focus on economic background. Kuldeep’s father is a security guard working with Lucknow University. If you are thinking that he is having a government job then you are wrong. Surya Kant Dwivedi, the father of Kuldeep, is working for SIS Securities which has a contract with Lucknow University and hence he drew salary from SIS. Before joining SIS, he paid Rs. 1200 to the company as a security for dress. Being an upper caste, he can’t claim any social security. He doesn’t hold any ‘red card’ for PDS. He is not considered Below Poverty Line, because this line is factually incorrect and a person earning Rs. 8000 per month can't be under BPL category, but that can be easily gotten by someone belonging to so-called low caste.

Tina's father is General Manager with BSNL. Her mother is also an IES. She had always lived in Delhi without any overt or covert economic issues or even social issues.

Who should be your role model – Kuldeep with 242 rank in 3rd attempt or Tina with 1st Rank in her 1st attempt?

Kuldeep Dwivedi has fetched far much more marks than Tina Dabi in Civil Services Prelims. He had to devote time for Prelims, while Tina started Mains preparation directly.

Tina is just an example. There is no denying that she is an inspiration for all young girls of India. But, she is a way to show how Reservation system is being exploited by top layer of the social strata in a particular category. Children of IAS officers of SC category are easily cracking Civil Services Examination or IIT JEE and CAT, among other prestigious competitive exams. While dalits living in village are unable to cope up with new competition that even they are seeing in their category. It is not about Tina Dabi, it is about other SC candidates who could have ‘rightfully’ used the reservation policy.

This is why I hate Reservation. Love to hate it too.

(Source: LinkenIn)