[kannanvijayan]

Would it surprise you to hear that there are many women in India who support for existing misogynistic aspects of traditional culture?

It's hard for people to understand how deeply woven caste-based motivations are in Indian society. At a large scale it may seem like some globally stratified layer cake. On the ground, it devolves into regional tribes.

The "caste associations" rural people associate themselves with in rural areas are loosely formed tribes of 10 thousand to 100-thousand strong members.

The perspective of many who choose to be invested in this system - which is most people living in those areas (what else are you gonna do? not support your tribe? who else is gonna have your back if there's trouble?) - is one of trying to gain status for their caste/tribe over others.

Caste rivalries are often regional, and localized.

Identifying India's current PM as not coming from one of the well-recognized "higher castes" is really meaningless. It'd be sort of like saying "yeah, this politician is unlikely to be a hardline christian dominionist, he's a 7-th day adventist, which is clearly a minority sect".

[slevin063]

I agree with you on all the points except the last and in no way I am saying the there are no caste based discrimination in India. In fact caste based discrimination and the effects of it is one of the main reasons of India being "developing country" forever, I think. My point is that the current rise of nationalism is not because of the caste system, but rather in spite of it. I see many people from lower caste(including my relatives) being active in the local rightwing politics and RSS.

[Chris2048]

which women, and which "misogynistic aspects"?

[Chris2048]

Guess I'm not allowed to interrogate vague claims..