Obama, India, race, and caste

India has a long history with the caste system.  Sometimes I think that the system will somehow, and unfortunately, survive even all the globalization, which otherwise is one hell of an equalizing force.  Lakshmi Chaudhry has more on this:

Many Indians believe Obama's victory makes all things possible for people of color everywhere--including the many American grandchildren, nieces, nephews and cousins who, thanks to globalization, are part of the Indian extended family. "My granddaughter can now be president of the United States," boasted a university professor who was shopping at the local mall in Bangalore, echoing the sentiments of my mother, an aunt and her neighbor.

And yet for all the rhetoric about America's racist history, Indians have preferred to avoid any mention of our ever-present racism. There's been nary a word on the cognitive dissonance between all this Obama-love in a culture that refers to people of African origin as habshis, an epithet as offensive as the N-word. Like all well-indoctrinated postcolonial subjects, most Indians regard Africans with contempt for being poor, "backward" and, above all, black--a cardinal sin in a nation obsessed with skin color. ("Fairness" creams remain the top-selling cosmetic on the Indian market.) Sure, Obama was one of "us" when he was running for president. But he wouldn't be if he were one of the many African students in, say, Delhi struggling to rent an apartment or hail a cab.