On Wednesday 12 Dec 2007 1:16 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hello, from the resident sociologist on silklist.
Thanks for the reply Carol. I have dozens of unanswered questions and nobody is even thinking about asking them, leave alone finding answers. I have mentioned dome things on this list on and off, and most deal with unconscious behavior of Indians in general that make them say and believe certain things without any real questioning of belief. And when I say such things - people on a forum or list sometimes feel personally targeted. Perhaps they recognize themselves in the behavior I describe - but while I mean no harm, I feel compelled to say some things. Todays Hindu says in a headline (which I was unable to find online this morning) "How IT has changed the city's crime scenario: The economic divide created by the IT boom has forced many youth from poor families to take to crime" How cosy and comfortable. The problem is described and the answer revealed right at the top of the page before the text of the article. But the text of the article tells a different story. Most of the crime is extortion by "real estate agents" . Only one line says "Police have found youth from lower income groups involved in robberies" In fact an empirical examination seems to show that the people involved in crime against "IT" people are hardly "poor" by Indian standards. Most appear to be reasonably well off. I would call them "middle class" based on a definition of Indian "middle class" as earning Rs 5000 a month, owning a scooter/moped and a TV. We constantly employ some really poor people - our "servants" for whom only the most enlightened among us (excludes me) would give a day off in a week. These really poor people are not involved it seems. But a national newspaper, a stuffy and serious one at that, writes a headline that blames poor people for crime. It's not just the newspaper. The belief runs among wealthy Indians too. Poverty==crime. He is poor, therefore he is corrupt and takes bribes. He is poor therefore he is tempted by my money. Even a cursory examination of the idea does not support the correlation as some kind of general rule that should be splashed as a headline, to be read and internalized by the elite as they down their morning capuccinos. Oh but the editor of the Hindu does not think of that. If I ask him, he will ask me for research papers. And if I look for research papers there are none. The answer that suggests itself in Kannada is "Helorilla. Kelorilla" "No one to ask. No one to tell". That itself becomes a comfortable truth drop the subject with a laugh. Indian society in my opinion mentally lives as it did 500 years ago, with a veneer of modernity, but with no real sense of the kind of movement and evolution that Western societies underwent. That just will not do. I have other questions, but I will state them as they occur to me - as they do frequently. shiv
