Category: Razib Khan

The Emissary launches (for real)

Our friend Akshar Patel, JUMP: Going Full-Time on The Emissary:

Itโ€™s been a long time coming. When I finished university in 2014, I didnโ€™t know what I really wanted to do. From the beginning, I never really enjoyed the usual office 9 to 5 life. Eventually, though, I became domesticated. It was a steadily growing income. It brought stability. Life was chill. But I always wanted more, especially in terms of mental stimulation and passion (I was essentially an Excel monkey for most of my career).

…

I seek to be a barbarian at the gates. Before, I wanted a sprawling organization like Vox or Vice. An alternative mega-media brand. But now, I think the best approach is putting in the work solo and soon constructing a small team to really shake up the landscape, especially considering the blooming leverage of AI. This doesnโ€™t mean a band of barbarians sacking existing media houses. I donโ€™t view the media space as necessarily zero-sum. More Indians, and indeed all humans, are getting online than ever. A massive opportunity opens up as a New India emerges in the world. I want to tell and explore its stories. Indeed, unlike the Great Firewall of China, the Indian internet is relatively free and takes advantage of the tremendous cyber-sea of commerce and content.

He truly does have a unique voice, I’m excited for him.

Browncast on Bangladesh, 2023


Amey, Karol and me review what’s going on in Bangladesh right now.

– Elections in 2025, but an Awami League one party state emerging
– Lack of integration and interaction between West Bengal and Bangladesh
– Geopolitical orientation toward Southeast Asia
– China’s soft power spreading through videos of Chinese women speaking Bangla

Open Thread – 11/19/2023

A new podcast with Karol is posted on Bangladeshi politics, culture and economics (me and Amey co-host). At one point Karol notes that Sheik Hasina, the Prime Minister, has a son who is being groomed to be heir apparent, but he is married to an American and lives in the DC area and does not seem very enthusiastic about taking the reins of power in the future.

I decided to look up this person, and quickly and easily found his daughter’s public Instagram…and she does not seem to be very appropriate as the daughter for someone who wants to become the leader of a Muslim nation… (there are angry comments from Bangladeshis on the gram; you can look her up in more official photos, and it’s pretty clearly her now that she’s in her early 20’s).

The 100th Browncast with Amey the Maratha

Well, here we are. Razib and Amey talk about Sri Lankan genetics, casteism or lack thereof in the USA, the FUBAR of American immigration and finally how William Dalrymple triggers Amey’s Maratha pride.

Since I haven’t asked in a while, please review positively on Apple and Spotify.

Also, if you want to support the hosting fees for the podcast as well as recording software, please consider joining the Patreon.

The creation of Homo General Category

This Politic piece on caste in America is pretty balanced. But one thing that this “Indian Americans are so casteist” discourse misses is that 85% of Indian American Hindus are “General Category”, with a few percent being Dalits or Scheduled Tribes (the remainder are OBC). There aren’t many low caste people to discriminate against, but secondarily, America is a caste shredder.

The latest surveys suggest that for Indian Americans born in the USA, 30% of their spouses are non-Indian, 30% of their spouses are US-born Indians, and 40% of their spouses are Indian-born Indians. I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of the the 30% who marry other US-born Indians are marrying outside of their jati-varna. I suspect that perhaps a majority of the remaining 40% who have Indian-born Indian spouses are jati-varna endogamous because of arranged marriages, but I know a substantial number of US-born Indian Americans, men and women, who met and married Indian-born Indian immigrants, usually meeting them through work or social contexts. I am pretty sure that the majority of US-born Indians are marrying outside of their jati, often outside of their region.

You can test this proposition at the high socioeconomic status groups by looking at the NY Times Wedding Announcements.

Look under some very distinctive names, and look who they are marrying.

– Mukerhjee
– Iyer
– Sen
– Mehta
– Patel
– Arora
– Reddy
– Singh
– Deshmukh
– Kulkarni

Brown Pundits