look at india.

there’s a lot more physical and genetic overlap between castes than between races. that means that in theory one can imagine a post-caste society as a matter of substance, since caste is much more strongly socially conditioned.

Substantively it’s not that different from race. Basically non-Indians lumped all Indians into one “Indian” race and treated the actual racial distinctions among them as some other kind of social cleavage. Admittedly that’s a bit of a simplified account, but the gist is that race and cast (jati) are almost completely analogous.

“In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.”

He could’ve thrown in caste.

i did wonder this. thanks for clearing it up

Turnaround of India State Could Serve as a Model. bihar? wow. no idea.

razib, This article provides a more balanced view of Bihar’s recent growth.

some might say that this is democracy without the restraint imposed by republican virtue.

Tragically, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal party is a member of the NDA, so I’m told that supporting them makes you a genocidal fascist.

Also, he hasn’t singlehandedly fixed everything that’s wrong with Bihar in only 5 years, therefore he doesn’t care about lower caste people.

Or something like that.