# Why is India lagging behind China? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 24, 2011, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446 "2011-09-24T10:56:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/63 "2011-09-26T19:39:00Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Well, from an efficiency standpoint, it’s much better to allocate manpower based on inclination and ability than on an essentially randomly assigned basis. > > In other words, people who code software because they thought they’d enjoy it and went to school for computer programming are, _ceteris paribus_, likely to be much better at it. With a large enough labour market, which India has, that level of sorting and allocation will take place unless you posit that all people in a caste are good only for jobs their caste isn’t allowed to perform. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/64 "2011-09-26T19:45:15Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Well, from an efficiency standpoint, it’s much better to allocate manpower based on inclination and ability than on an essentially randomly assigned basis. > > In other words, people who code software because they thought they’d enjoy it and went to school for computer programming are, _ceteris paribus_, likely to be much better at it. Does the caste system “randomly assign” individuals to jobs such as software coding? There’s no software coding caste, is there? Furthermore, modern Indian firms, especially technology firms, are well known for mixing different social groups together contrary to tradition. The same thing happens in top educational institutions. No doubt, caste does not have negligible negative effects on individuals and society, but not quite in the ways being conceived of in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/65 "2011-09-26T19:46:13Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > As **Acsenray** has pointed out, you definitely can believe in the caste system and not in Hinduism. Only today I read about Muslim communities in the floods in Pakistan that refuse to occupy the same relief shelters because they’re from different castes. The caste system, especially its hereditary variety, is an almost entirely cultural phenomenon much more akin to nepotism than something religiously sanctioned. Has it acquired religious trappings over time and used religion to reinforce its position? Sure. Is it inextricable from Hinduism? Not at all. In fact, and only since you’ve brought it up, I would argue that there is more sanction for slavery in the Bible than there is for the caste system in Hindu scriptures. My understanding of Muslim castes is that it’s (1) rare, and (2) only superficially related to the Hindu caste system. Muslim castes are more simple racism where group A is better than group B. Hindu castes are more complicated than that. > [@bldysabba](#): > > While you claim to talk about infinite shades of gray, you tend to take a very simplistic view of the situation at hand. That of caste as the be all and end all. It’s not an uncommon viewpoint, just an incorrect one. It is most correct(but still not absolute) for the castes at the ends of the spectrum - the untouchables and to a lesser extent the Brahmins. If you’re interested in finding out more, one of the most authoritative writers is G.S Ghurye whose book “Caste and Race in India” has run to five or six editions IIRC. Here, from an article in the American Sociological Journal([link)](http://home.uchicago.edu/~aabbott/barbpapers/barbghur.pdf), is a rough summing up of his views on a complex subject - Huh, what are you talking about? You yourself say that caste is most important for Brahmins and Untouchables, and less important for everyone else. That’s exactly the same thing I am saying. You have clearly privileged castes, clearly disadvantaged castes, and the rest of the castes fall somewhere in between. That’s like a perfect definition of shades of gray. > [@bldysabba](#): > > It does indeed make you high caste. In fact, poor Brahmins were known to sell their marital services in this fashion. I’m going to need a cite for this. > [@bldysabba](#): > > For one, Acsenray is again correct. There definitely are scheduled caste software engineers, and in the southern states they probably outnumber the upper caste software engineers. For another, _How does it matter from an economic standpoint?_ Someone has to clean toilets, and someone has to code software. Morally or socially speaking, I wouldn’t want the jobs to be hereditary, but so long as they get done, how does the GDP get affected? There is not literally no lower caste software engineers or other professionals, but it’s clear the high castes are over represented. And this affects GDP because that guy cleaning toilets might have been an awesome programmer. When you are putting people in jobs for reasons other than their ability to do the job you create inefficiencies. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/66 "2011-09-26T19:49:58Z")
> [@treis](#): > > There is not literally no lower caste software engineers or other professionals, but it’s clear the high castes are over represented. And this affects GDP because that guy cleaning toilets might have been an awesome programmer. When you are putting people in jobs for reasons other than their ability to do the job you create inefficiencies. How much overrepresented? I don’t have the exact numbers of software engineers, but I would hazard a guess that in a population of a billion people, the theoretical inefficiencies with respect to any particular profession don’t manifest very quickly. I think that hindrances in productivity are much more strongly affected by bad economic policy on the part of the government and widespread corruption. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/67 "2011-09-26T19:57:45Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > How much overrepresented? I don’t have the exact numbers of software engineers, but I would hazard a guess that in a population of a billion people, the theoretical inefficiencies with respect to any particular profession don’t manifest very quickly. _shrug_ I disagree. I mean you have a large segment of the population that is (1) discriminated against in the private sector, and (2) discriminated for in the public sector. It’s not difficult to see the problems associated with that. > [@Acsenray](#): > > I think that hindrances in productivity are much more strongly affected by bad economic policy on the part of the government and widespread corruption. I had culture as #4 on my list, to be fair. I think there has been too much emphasis put on the caste system historically. The response to that seems to be to completely discount the effects of the caste system. Neither are a true reflection of reality. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/68 "2011-09-26T20:37:13Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The only thing that I “have” to acknowledge is that Lynn felt free to include a lot of spurious information from outdated tests and test of groups far too small to be significant. That he might have lucked into some information that was consistent with other reports does not mitigate the fraudulence of the stuff he did include. > > Beyond that, this is off topic for this thread, so drop it, here. You don’t get the kind of correlations he did through luck. Getting back to the earlier comment, if cognitive ability predicts national economic performance (see research by Heiner Rindermann, Garrett Jones, Joel Schneider, Rati Ram, Eric Weede etc) then how is that off topic to these discussions? From that information you can see the extent it suggests a problem for India’s development are the effects of malnutrition. India has a higher rate of malnutrition among children under the age of three ([46% in year 2007](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_India)) than any other country in the world. That is going to impede the cognitive development of those children and limit the skill development of their [future labor force](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-19/news/29560411_1_talent-shortage-survey-talent-crunch-employers). > [@](#): > > Explaining the reason behind this talent crunch, Manpower India Head - Sales and Marketing Namr Kishore said "for the last many quarters demand for talent is increasing in India, but the supply is limited as individuals are lacking mission critical skills, resulting in such talent scarcity. > > On one hand we have a demographic advantage, and on the other hand due to low employability, many of our talent is not employable. It is quite an ironical situation," Kishore added. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/69 "2011-09-26T20:39:12Z")
I’m gonna repeat myself here because it doesn’t seem like anyone else is acknowledging this: India’s growth has been very impressive. Much quicker than many thought possible even 10 years ago. If it weren’t for China, they’d be dozens of threads on the dope about the threat of _India_, how they are exploting the US blah blah. I think it would be a terrible mistake to race China for bragging rights, and potentially let inflation get out of control and/or an asset bubble implosion. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/70 "2011-09-26T20:46:16Z")
[QUOTE] > [@treis](#): > > My understanding of Muslim castes is that it’s (1) rare, and (2) only superficially related to the Hindu caste system. Muslim castes are more simple racism where group A is better than group B. Hindu castes are more complicated than that. Shifting goalposts. You earlier said that you cannot have castes without Hinduism. And, the castes that **Acsenray** and I mention among South Asian christians and Muslims are not ‘only superficially related’. Caste was a dominant cultural practice and people who converted to other religions continued to follow it. Besides, how does ‘complicated’ matter in the least? > [@](#): > > Huh, what are you talking about? You yourself say that caste is most important for Brahmins and Untouchables, and less important for everyone else. That’s exactly the same thing I am saying. You have clearly privileged castes, clearly disadvantaged castes, and the rest of the castes fall somewhere in between. That’s like a perfect definition of shades of gray. No, you categorically stated that - > [@](#): > > Your caste historically determined your employment, standing in Hinduism, and access to political power. Those effects linger today, and your station in life today is affected by what caste you are far greater than being black in America. And I pointed out that this was simply not true. It is most true(please note, “most true” does not mean the same thing as “true”) for untouchables, but only because they suffer from being economically disadvantaged and do not have the advantages of a well off family which can spur their intellectual and personal growth and allow them to participate meaningfully in the economy. This is, I think, exactly the sort of problem blacks in America face. This is also the exact problem that many other poverty stricken people in India face. My point is, caste is not the significant factor. In fact, it’s far easier to escape the effect of caste than it is to escape your race. All you need to do is change your last name to a generic ‘Smith’ equivalent and voila, you’re done. > [@](#): > > I’m going to need a cite for this. I actually wanted to modify the post when I saw you’d mentioned Brahmin and scheduled caste. I apologise. What I read was about poor Brahmins marrying lower vaishya caste women for money, not scheduled castes. I’m unable to find where I read this, and I’m willing to retract that statement. However, it’s not material to my point. The child’s caste is definitely determined by the father’s caste, even if a Brahmin man married an untouchable, which I’ll admit would be rare, although I’m certain it would have happened at some point. > [@](#): > > There is not literally no lower caste software engineers or other professionals, but it’s clear the high castes are over represented. And this affects GDP because that guy cleaning toilets might have been an awesome programmer. When you are putting people in jobs for reasons other than their ability to do the job you create inefficiencies. You’re reaching here. How is it clear to you that higher castes are over represented? > [@](#): > > large segment of the population that is (1) discriminated against in the private sector And what makes you think the private sector puts anyone in jobs for anything other than their ability? Ever hear tell of a certain something called market forces? > [@](#): > > I think there has been too much emphasis put on the caste system historically. The response to that seems to be to completely discount the effects of the caste system. Neither are a true reflection of reality. I think this is just your (somewhat half-informed) view. And nobody’s discounting the effects of the caste system. I’m just discounting the relative economic effects of the caste system. To sum up, 16% of the population was historically disadvantaged and are in a poor economic situation today, but the caste system is just one of the many reasons for their poverty, and that 16% is just a subset of a much larger population that is in similar economic straits for some of the reasons mentioned before - colonialism and poor economic policy. Take the caste system completely out of it, and, ceteris paribus, things would not be substantially different from the situation today. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/71 "2011-09-26T21:04:28Z")
[quote=“bldysabba, post:70, topic:597446”] > [@](#): > > Shifting goalposts. You earlier said that you cannot have castes without Hinduism. And, the castes that **Acsenray** and I mention among South Asian christians and Muslims are not ‘only superficially related’. Caste was a dominant cultural practice and people who converted to other religions continued to follow it. > Besides, how does ‘complicated’ matter in the least? Because it makes it different than simply racism. > [@bldysabba](#): > > No, you categorically stated that - > > And I pointed out that this was simply not true. It is most true(please note, “most true” does not mean the same thing as “true”) for untouchables, but only because they suffer from being economically disadvantaged and do not have the advantages of a well off family which can spur their intellectual and personal growth and allow them to participate meaningfully in the economy. This is, I think, exactly the sort of problem blacks in America face. This is also the exact problem that many other poverty stricken people in India face. My point is, caste is not the significant factor. In fact, it’s far easier to escape the effect of caste than it is to escape your race. All you need to do is change your last name to a generic ‘Smith’ equivalent and voila, you’re done. To be clear, are you claiming that your caste did not, historically, determined careers, standing in Hinduism, or access to political? Things such as only Brahmins being priests, political power being reserved for certain castes, or the military being made up of certain castes didn’t happen, and are historically inaccurate? > [@bldysabba](#): > > I actually wanted to modify the post when I saw you’d mentioned Brahmin and scheduled caste. I apologise. What I read was about poor Brahmins marrying lower vaishya caste women for money, not scheduled castes. I’m unable to find where I read this, and I’m willing to retract that statement. However, it’s not material to my point. The child’s caste is definitely determined by the father’s caste, even if a Brahmin man married an untouchable, which I’ll admit would be rare, although I’m certain it would have happened at some point. I’m still going to need a cite for this. > [@bldysabba](#): > > You’re reaching here. How is it clear to you that higher castes are over represented? Are you disputing that lower castes are overrepresented in menial and dirty work? > [@bldysabba](#): > > And what makes you think the private sector puts anyone in jobs for anything other than their ability? Ever hear tell of a certain something called market forces? They’ve never stopped racism before. > [@bldysabba](#): > > I think this is just your (somewhat half-informed) view. And nobody’s discounting the effects of the caste system. I’m just discounting the relative economic effects of the caste system. To sum up, 16% of the population was historically disadvantaged and are in a poor economic situation today, but the caste system is just one of the many reasons for their poverty, and that 16% is just a subset of a much larger population that is in similar economic straits for some of the reasons mentioned before - colonialism and poor economic policy. Take the caste system completely out of it, and, ceteris paribus, things would not be substantially different from the situation today. So, for example, you don’t think reserving a significant portion of government jobs for specific castes has any material impact on India today? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/72 "2011-09-26T21:37:19Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > With a large enough labour market, which India has, that level of sorting and allocation will take place unless you posit that all people in a caste are good only for jobs their caste isn’t allowed to perform. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Does the caste system “randomly assign” individuals to jobs such as software coding? There’s no software coding caste, is there? Furthermore, modern Indian firms, especially technology firms, are well known for mixing different social groups together contrary to tradition. The same thing happens in top educational institutions. > > No doubt, caste does not have negligible negative effects on individuals and society, but not quite in the ways being conceived of in this thread. I don’t think caste matters. I was simply responding to bs’ question, which boils down to, “even if caste did matter, how could it affect economic growth?” ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446/73 "2011-09-26T21:42:13Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Because it makes it different than simply racism. Ok..casteism is different from racism. > [@](#): > > To be clear, are you claiming that your caste did not, historically, determined careers, standing in Hinduism, or access to political? Things such as only Brahmins being priests, political power being reserved for certain castes, or the military being made up of certain castes didn’t happen, and are historically inaccurate? I’m stating that it is not as cut and dried or deterministic as you think it was. There was social mobility, intermarriage, the creation of new groups, and the movement of whole groups from one set of ‘varnas’ to another. I have already given you a cite for this which summarizes the work of somebody who’s widely recognised as an authority on the matter. Read it or not. Only your own ignorance is at stake here. > [@](#): > > I’m still going to need a cite for this. I consider it to be self evident, but [here’s](http://newcenturyindianlaw.blogspot.com/2011/02/inter-caste-marriage.html) a cite of how the courts treat this today. Modern civil law in India is based on religion. Hence the courts interpret civil cases as Hindu tradition would interpret it. And the courts interpret it thus - > [@](#): > > The courts have repeatedly held that on marriage a wife will belong to the caste of her husband. > [@treis](#): > > Are you disputing that lower castes are overrepresented in menial and dirty work? I’m disputing that it matters in the overall economic scheme of things. I readily admit that there’s a social problem to be faced up to. > [@](#): > > They’ve never stopped racism before. I’m not clear on your stance on this. Do you want to have the ‘casteism is different from racism’ cake or do you want to eat it?’ > [@](#): > > So, for example, you don’t think reserving a significant portion of government jobs for specific castes has any material impact on India today? We’ve been over this. Yes it does have a material impact. It makes caste a political issue. As soon as you give me even a halfway convincing argument that it is an important economic factor, I’ll happily reconsider my position. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-india-lagging-behind-china/597446.md?page=3)