India's Prime Ministers Survivor - Lal Bahadur Shastri is our Survivor !

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Indira Gandhi

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Gulzarilal Nanda

^^^
This guy. Vajpayee did a lot of good (telecom boom for one)while not controlling the bad (gujarat). He doesn't deserve to be voted off yet.

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Chandra Shekhar

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Gujral

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Deve Gowda

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Deve Gowda

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Desai dammit!

Why?

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Idiot Brahman who belonged in the BJP but wasn't.

And unlike Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda and IK Gujral, compromise choices who really didn't ever have a chance (but like VP Singh), he actually had a mandate and might not have been the failure he was if he'd been a better politician.

Haven't most Indian leaders been Brahmins? And I am guessing he would have been in the BJP if he was a politician today.

From what I gather he was opposed to Nehru's socialistic wet dream and that makes him a FF in my book. He did make many mistakes though (one would be not helping the Israelis blow up Pakistan's nuclear facilities).

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Just for self-amusement, I'm researching everybody's caste now.

2. Gulzarilal Nanda (1964, 1966) - Gujjar
3. Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964-1966) - Kayasth (this took minimal research. Wiki says that Lal Bahadur dropped his original surname because it betrayed his (fairly high but not quite Brahman, just as I guessed when I read that) caste and he was opposed to the caste system. Wiki doesn't mention the original surname, but some other google result did... and that surname, Srivastava, led to the caste on Wiki. Shastri is a honorific.)
5. Morarji Desai (1977-1979) - Brahman
6. Chaudhary Charan Singh (1979-1980) - Jat
8. Vishwanath Pratap Singh (1989-1990) - Rajput
9. Chandra Shekhar (1990-1991) - Thakur (this too took research, found some lengthy German-language obituary that mentions it.)
10. Narasimha Rao (1991-1996) - Brahman
11. Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1996, 1998-2004) - Brahman
12. Deve Gowda (1996-1997) - Vokkaliga
13. Inder Kumar Gujral (1997-1998) - (Hindu) Khatri
14. Manmohan Singh (2004-...) - Sikh (Khatri)

Except for Gujjars, they are all high caste. Khatris are more or less considered Brahmins in Punjab. Same with Thakur and Rajput  (Rabindranath Tagore was a Brahmin wasn't he?). Jats are a complicated case lol. Vokkaliga I am not sure about.

But what my previous paragraph proves is that the caste system is just another class system. They might not be Brahmins, but they are "considered" to be so. And Shastri was a FF in many ways. Much more so than Nehru of course.

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Same with Thakur and Rajput

Thakur and Rajput are basically regional terms for the same macro-caste. And yeah, quite high caste. But not Brahmin.

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. Yes. Not sure why the family were called "Thakur", they weren't Thakurs.

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Solid, middling ground, regionally dominant farmer castes both. Certainly not "high caste", certainly not "low caste" either though certainly Shudra in any ultra-traditionalist classification (but then the same is really true of almost everybody who claims to be Kshatriya).

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Er, in a sense. And in another sense it's not. A class system with a twist.

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A total FF.

Ah I didn't know Jats were middle caste. I thought they were a high caste, but not liked by the other high castes due to their behavior. They are very proud people though. You will see more than one "Jat pride" sticker while driving through West Delhi.

The caste system is pretty much a class system, or it certainly is today. What particular caste someone is from is not as important today but your position in society most certainly is. And so aside from less discrimination towards dalits (and I am sure it continues unabated in the villages) things haven't changed much. Only instead of using the highly complex caste system, they are using a more "modern" class system.

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It's more complicated than that... though there's a lot of that. Basically if you live outside of your and your caste's homeland, people will judge you by whether you look like a rich man or like a peasant more than what, exactly, they know about your caste. To add another layer of confusion, any touchable (for want of a better word) Shudra caste assembled in sufficient numbers in one area usually becomes perfectly respectable there... but might not be elsewhere where it exists in lower numbers. Especially if their religious customs are somewhat inorthodox from a brahmanic standpoint. This goes for Lingayats for example.

I find that in the cities you are judged more by your possessions than by your caste. People from high castes will mix with lower caste members if they are in the same class as them. If they live in the same exclusive apartment buildings, drive the same cars and so on and so forth. And the servant class is the servant class, no matter what their background was back in the village.

 

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Yeah. But what percentage of the people is that, exactly?

The servant class certainly does not think of itself as one unified servant class...

Yes I realize I am speaking from a "middle class" perspective.

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Deve Gowda

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Rajiv

Nobody is interested in my predictions?

Remember you already told me this in the aftermath of the election. I agree with you of course, unless Rahul runs in 2014. In that case I think congress will hold on to power pretty easily. If both he and Manmohan don't run you may see the kind of instability seen in the mid 90's, though it is much less likely this time around imho.

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Why no love for Rajiv?

I vote VP Singh

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Why no love for Rajiv?

He was very disappointing, not going far and quickly enough in reforms.
He acted at a Rao's pace or at a Manmohan's pace, BUT he was able to do far better than that...
And he had a heavy-handed policy in the sub-continent.

But I voted anyway for VP Singh !

Well, reform and change never happens easily in India. Rajiv started to dismantle the "license raj" and for this he deserves credit. Others who enacted reforms later merely followed in his footsteps.

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Well, well, well, I'm ready to vote for Rajiv, but it's because I don't think Nehru would be ousted so early... And I must acknowledge it's difficult not to take into account the fact that, "mostly", India was peaceful after the independence (I mean, it could have been really nasty). So, again, I'm hesitating.

I guess there is always something personal in those survivors... So...

Rajiv Gandhi !

No!!!!! We can get rid of the socialist together.

Jawaharlal Nehru.

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You can't eliminate Nehru. He is India.

Unfortunately, you are correct. He did a lot of good of course, but his economic policies made sure India didn't grow the way a developing economy should.

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You can't eliminate Nehru. He is India.

Unfortunately, you are correct. He did a lot of good of course, but his economic policies made sure India didn't grow the way a developing economy should.

Oh, there was certainly a lot of harm done by him and his successors in the name of socialism. But India's democracy owes its existence to him, and that trumps all.

Sure, but what he did could have been done by someone else. He deserves credit for it of course, but it's not as if there were many leaders out there who wanted to form a dictatorship. The best thing he did was start to abolish the zamindar system. That is probably the biggest reason why democracy has been able to flourish through all these years in India.

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Nehru

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The unqualified grandson started getting rid of the license raj so.......

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Nehru

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Ugh

Nehru

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Nehru