[Florin_Andrei]

As someone who grew up in a different culture (so I look at the system as an outsider - I grew up in the EU, I live in the US, and a lot of my coworkers are Indian), the influence of something like a caste system is quite visible in many people who grew up in India. It's vague and sometimes barely-there, but definitely there quite a lot.

It's a set of assumptions: that someone's pigeonhole in the social structure somehow strongly defines the limits of their abilities; that in the org chart, wisdom always flows top to bottom, never the other way around; that the org chart itself is (and indeed MUST BE) set in stone; etc.

The system feels very rigid, especially for someone who grew up in an individualistic culture.

This is not about conscious, deliberate actions, it's about unconscious attitudes and assumptions.

I do not see any of this in people of Indian descent who grew up here. It's also much less typical of young people with a progressive mindset who grew up in India. But older folks and/or more conservative - yeah, it's clearly there.

I could be wrong, but I feel - the moment India is able to jettison this pattern, the whole country will experience some sort of major renaissance.