Most diaspora Hindus are of the Brahmin caste.

Like Brahmins back in India, they tend to occupy elite positions in society.

The appeals system timelines need to get sorted but your question above is the more important question. As best as I can answer it we built it when there was more of a supply and demand issue in the 80's and also a time when there was great concern about people being able to get unfair advantage.

The CAO very effectively dealt with these issues. There was a massive increase in the number of college places from the 90's on and many of the supply and demand issues for many courses went away. By then an industry had grown up around the CAO system. I think the CAO could set up a parallel system which would allocate places based on 5th year results or something similar. Courses could be migrate to this system if it suited their needs better. In many cases it would. That would leave a few high demand courses in the current system.

Not strictly true.

But assuming it was the case, the same argument could be made with regard to Sikhs in the UK or elsewhere vis a vis Muslims, Sikhism being a religion that rejects the caste system entirely (at least in theory).

Muslims and Sikhs may 'reject' the caste system, but that doesn't mean they can opt out of it.

Your religion and/or caste status follows you round like a bad smell in India. It impacts on what you can work at, who you can socialise with, where you can live, and who you can marry. Indians know the caste status of literally every other Indian they know.

Outsiders don't really understand this.

Brahmins have been the most high-status class in India for a millenium, and practice marital endogamy. It is no surprise that their descendants tend to do well professionally outside India too.

Or like a good smell, if you're at the top



They play the person of color card very well, particularly in the US

What this has to do with the Irish education system is anyone's guess

Well someone raised diaspora Indians.

I only ever met one Irish-raised person of Indian descent in the Irish education system.

He was on the way to a phd, and indeed was a Brahmin.


I am not certain, but it is very likely that Leo Varadkar's father is from a high caste.

While caste remains highly relevant in India (especially outside the urban 'metros'), its importance has diminished to a degree during recent times.

By way of example, this lady, Devyani Khobragade, was at the centre of a large diplomatic spat between the Indians and the US in 2013 due to her importation of a nanny from India on a diplomatic visa, whom she subseuqently paid at well less than what comstitutes the minimum wage in the US.

Khobragade, a diplomat, is of dalit caste ie the 'untouchables' who traditionally cleaned toilets etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devyani_K ... e_incident

While Brahmins do generally remain better off the Dalits (or others), education and wealth attainment by many, especially young people who have moved into the large cities away rom extended family networks, has lessened some of the old demarcations.

Interestingly the most common surname name for a medic in the United States is Patel. Which isn't a Brahmin caste as far as I can make out...

Any good online articles on the Indian Caste system. I work with a lot of Indians, it's hard to get a handle on what is going on in their interactions. You see ones whose job is of lower importance but carrying much more weight in conversations amongst them and vice-versa.

I remember talking to a couple of them when drink was taken and one of them saying that they didn't listen to the line manager because he was an untouchable and only got the job because of equality legislation. The others, once they found out what we were discussing, shut him up and drank up. I had thought the line manager inept but subsequently you could see that the rest of the Indian members of our team were constantly undermining him and he didn't enough self-confidence to enforce his will.

I think the dominance of the Brahmins is not set in stone. They are the priestly class, but with modern times commercial savvy/tradition is more important.

Jews were traditionally banned from many sectors but it's arguably worked out in their favour