Thoughts on Research Papers
Smart, Responsible, and Upper Caste Only: Measuring Caste Attitudes through Large-Scale Analysis of Matrimonial Profiles
Rajadesingan et al. (2019)
This is a very sensitive topic and if you are an upper caste person with opinions on the topic it becomes even worse. Anyway, I am from South India and I am from Other Forward Caste (to be contextually right) and here are my thoughts on this paper. The main point of the paper is measuring the prevalence of caste feeling among Indians and Indian Diaspora in the US using ‘openness to inter-caste marriage’ as a major indicator variable in the profiles collected from shaadi.com. The authors trace out various trends from the data that are effecting casteism and what steps can be taken to remove this bias based on caste. The quantitative and qualitative presentation of the results obtained was good. I can’t say that they are new, most of the trends that they claim to have obtained are almost self-evident. It is just that data was used to backup already existing theories. Calculating a shift towards individualism and liberalism would strongly correlate with the results obtained (controlling other factors). As the authors themselves have stated, they provide the “first empirical evidence” to calculate the effect.
One of the biggest issues I find with the paper is using “openness to intercaste marriage” as a major variable and not taking “incidences of intercaste marriage” into account at all. Especially for Indians, this is a huge mistake because even though they may state they are willing for an intercaste marriage it is highly unlikely that they marry an intercaste guy/girl because of family and community pressure at large. The marriage may end being “the same caste” and thereby perpetuating the caste feelings.
Arranged marriages don’t account for love marriages. Love marriages show a significant shift in any societal attitude. With younger generations preferring love marriages (even though difficult to transpire to actual marriage) and dating itself without caste-based feeling shows a change in the caste attitude. Maybe dating apps should ask for caste? (only in India but I know Indian dating is different). The use of online profiles is not prevalent in South India especially shaadi.com. So taking a single app which was created in Mumbai and tracing out geographical implications is a problem even though I can vouch for the statement that, “South Indians are Less Open for Inter-caste marriages” apart from “Kerala” and this is reflected in “incidences of marriages map” and the data misses it badly and this is one of the reasons why the indicator variable seemed inappropriate.
Link to the Paper
Pic Credits: The Print, Rajadesingan et al.
