On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:29 AM, Salil Tripathi <[email protected]> wrote: > is that with greater urbanization a reality in India, it will get > harder to divide polyglot regions into exclusive ethnic enclaves.
Don't underestimate the power of caste to fight back. I noticed this last month when I was in Madras, there is an increased profusion of caste based welfare associations around the city than from a few years back. The names of these associations are rather fine grained in their granularity - i.e. <tiny neighborhood><tiny village><language><subsect><sect>. I can't remember the specific case, but a made up example would be Vadakku Arachampatti Meltheru Sanga Goundar Kootam These associations seem to function as hostels that offer free shelter to visitors from their village and caste to the big city. They also commonly offer a marriage hall and marriage brokering services to ensure the pure caste line continues in the evil polyethnic city. Urban ghettos in India are a possibility. Cheeni
