Hi Lesli Woodruff,

I wanted to respond to you in peace, hence the delay. (not that you asked for it, but I wanted to)

Firstly, it is such a small world. The place where you are standing in your Medium profile picture is where I live! I cross that very Lord Hanuman statue every other day.

Coming to the moot point, having lived both in India and the US (I attended graduate school at U of Michigan), I find myself in a good position to validate your argument.

India’s caste system is America’s race problem. Both divide people into ‘us’ vs ‘them’, and usually the one with more money wins or trumps (pun intended). In India too, the higher ones don’t want the lower groups to catch up — in terms of education, job and prestige. They too vote for parties that help their cause further. So the divide is quite institutional rather than being individual.

You are right when you say that there’s a sense of acknowledgement among India’s people. However, this is mostly true only for poor or lower-middle class people. And not the Indian Elite. The Indian Elite — as a class — is still very new and niche, and they want to maintain that exclusivity. Thus, they draw a line, education, social and income-wise, which separates them from everyone.

They want to come across as global, aspirational, english-speaking, well-read elites. It is my theory that this class of Indian elites wants to dissociate themselves from the poverty and filth that is associated with India, or so they think. On a lighter note if I can say this, they want to be ‘Americanized’. As soon as they get Americanized or Globalized, they draw a wall around then as you’ve talked.

As a foreign tourist in India, somehow one bumps into the poor more than the elites. The Indian poor seems carefree because he is indeed poor — in absolute terms. His sole objective is to make ends meet and put a roof over his children’s head. His gives a damn about politics, economics, globalization, EU, Britain, whatever. To hell with everything, for him.

On the other end, from what I observed, American poverty is self-induced. One is poor because he is not as rich as the other person.

Lastly, picking up from what you said, conscience is a dying entity only to be found at a premium. Having said that, I am an optimist and truly believe that slowly but surely, people will move up the social chain and everyone will have enough to fulfill their needs. Inequality won’t dismiss completely but it will be greatly reduced.