Comments on: Caste Apart: Australian Media’s Soft Journalism

By: rickbindra

rickbindra — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:57:27 +0000

Cut the crap and note down this yuvraj singh is sikh and that’s it.

By: Dinnie

Dinnie — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:28:02 +0000

BR:

My friends, most of whom are now engineering undergrads, have a theory. To qualify an entrance in India, you’d have to be one of the two: girl or OBC.

By: Ankit

Ankit — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:09:53 +0000

Hey BR. This is Ankit here, the new owner of sixandout. I believe that there is no bias on the basis of caste. What do you guys think…?

By: BR

BR — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:57:32 +0000

5/6 (RP Singh is not Brahmin) cricketers mentioned up there are in the top 5% of International test cricketers in terms of runs, avg, or wickets. As for Ishant Sharma, just ask Ponting if he’s good enough to play at the international level. So, really, Stevenson’s article is nothing but “divide and rule” bull. It’s akin to me asking how come the Aus team has no Chinese people (I know they are a growing immigrant community there) or Aborigines. Then going to to assume surely it’s because a question on the selection form must be “Are you White? (If not, deposit this form in the trash can)” After all, Australians have a history of abusing their minorities, restricting immigration to Whites only, etc. It’s extrapolating past prejudices to a present day environment, where it doesn’t make sense.

Why is the Indian cricket team full of Brahmins? I don’t know – why is the US baseball team full of Latinos? or why are basketball teams full of Blacks? or why are ice hockey teams full of Whites? May be the best players available at the time of selection happened to be Brahmins, or may be Brahmins place more effort in getting formally trained, may be Brahmin parents encourage their kids to play more cricket…did anyone think of any of that? Instead, people go straight to, they’ve got it made coz they’re Brahmin. If that’s the case, then the best players on the team have to be non-Brahmins, coz they “overcame” the prejudices against non-Brahmins to secure a spot in the team. But wait, those 5 tower over the rest of the team – if not most international teams in general. Anytime Brahmins perform well, it’s looked at as a grave sin.

The funniest thing that I’ve heard reg caste was some one ranting angrily that the toppers in nationwide college entrance exams in India are mostly Brahmins (to an extremely disproportionate extent – at least 70% of the time). I found it funny because the exams are objective (like the SAT) and are scanned by machines! No one is even allowed to write their name on the answer sheet. Instead, they get a number from the answer sheet. The results are posted by that number!

If someone succeeds at a higher than normal rate, it is not always because they are being given a helping hand by some power, it’s because they happen to perform better, try harder, practice more, etc.

Finally, the ODI team has next to no Brahmins
Only Ishant, Rohit Sharma (part-timer) & Sachin (who will rest himself more to keep going until 2011). The team does however have in its regular roll 2 Christians (Uthappa & Sreesanth), 2 Muslims (Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan), 1 Sikh (Harbhajan), the rest being other caste Hindus.

By: Lali

Lali — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:01:59 +0000

I am a second generation British-Asian who has been brought up in a British Education system and was oblivious to ‘caste’ until a visit to India opened my eyes to the influence over all walks-of-live so I applaud Andrew Stevenson’s article and he is just and right for writing this article as it has complete truth in it. This problem of caste goes FAR beyond the issue of cricket, India has and always will be a country divided by its past where it was divided and conquered. Great article Andrew Stevenson, I applaud your research.

By: Caste in cricket at Blogbharti

Caste in cricket at Blogbharti — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:30:34 +0000

[...] Sydney Morning Herald correspondent, that Indian cricket team’s selection is caste-based, Dinnie comments that ‘journalists are quite fond of finding new angles to old, beaten-to-death [...]

By: Dinnie

Dinnie — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:08:02 +0000

I hear ya, Prasan. Welcome btw to Six n Out.

By: Prasan

Prasan — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:42:51 +0000

It is in a way really funny to see that the very Australians who do not encourage their own down-trodden ab-origins and continue to suppress them. Those who pretend to rate performance over caste/colour etc are now trying ways to divert the attention from the onfield cheats!!!

Accusing Indians of Racism is preposterous as it is the Indians who were victims of this for hundreds of years by these very whites. Australians who are basically british settlers continue the tirade under the garb of anti-aparthied need to intorspect thoroughly before trying to divide the Indian society. In order to show that they are clean they need such foolish acts and the acts like accusing others of racial slurs. They are helped in the process by the other whites (the procters, the bensons etc).. Really shameful.

By: Dinnie

Dinnie — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:12:11 +0000

Thanks, Bas, I’ll check this out.

By: Baseer

Baseer — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:41:12 +0000

Here is a fine reply to the article from Salil Tripathi on cricinfo:

“What’s caste got to do with it?”

http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/329291.html