On Wed, 2014-05-07 at 10:40 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Anyone want to respond?
My response is for Silklist and is probably not going to be useful to the lady who asked for responses. 1. I wonder to what extent this move by the White House is connected with the diplomatic spat over Devyani Khobragade which resulted in the revelation that wives of US diplomats in Delhi were teaching in the American School in Delhi after having specifically been told to respond in their visa application that they were "housewives". This was basically a tax scam. 2. The Indian census shows that about 3.5 % of Indians are "graduates and above". US census figures for Indian Americans show that 66% of Indian Americans are "graduates and above" indicating that US visas are given to a highly selected group of Indians. I think it was the Sachar committee report that made a correlation (or proved the correlation) between "forward caste" and educational status in India - with backward/low caste people having lesser education. What the US is doing is selectively taking in educated Indians who, incidentally also happen to belong to forward castes because of Indian demographics and historic caste privileges. Since castes are usually endogamous, spouses of educated Indians are likely to be of similar high caste. Given that the US has been making a big noise about "slavery" in which India is a target nation as a big incubator of high caste slavers employing low caste undperpaid "slaves", the US is, as usual, hypocritically speaking with both sides of its mouth. On the one hand upper castes are selectively offered visas because they are useful to the US. On the other hand upper castes in India are considered slavers. The caste system itself is considered slavery - at least in accounts that one reads in the media (including incidentally in the WaPo.) Since the US does not recognize caste among immigrants the US selectively blinds itself to the fact that the privileged classes get wealthier by getting preferential entry to the US and the money they send to India helps their upper caste families in India to employ more lower caste slaves. Then the US sheds a river of crocodile tears about those lower caste slaves. Surely US immigration policies should allow in 100,000 of the poorest, illiterate low caste Indians every year so that they can taste freedom and opportunity in the land of milk and honey? shiv
