CASTE IN 'MERICA
A suburban man recently allegedly set a fire, in which his daughter and her husband and son died.
The father has said it was because the husband was of an inferior caste (the son-in-law's surname seems to place him somewhere in the merchant or "third" caste.
So yesterday Eight Forty Eight did a piece on how caste plays out in America.
The intro:
India’s caste system has been in the headlines ever since Subhash Chander was charged with murdering his pregnant daughter and her family last weekend in the south suburban community of Oak Forest.
Prosecutors say Chander deliberately set his daughter’s apartment on fire-- killing her, her unborn baby, her son and her husband. Chander is reported to have been angry that his daughter married a man from a lower caste.
The story shocked many Chicagoans used to different attitudes toward class and social background in the US. It made us curious to find out just how closely Indian immigrants adhere to the caste system once they settle in the U.S.
Hear it here.
I bet he worked at a gas station.
ReplyDeleteThe incident was the third case in five months in which fire was used during a domestic dispute involving an Indian family in the Chicago suburbs.
ReplyDeleteIn November, authorities said a 34-year-old Glendale Heights father set fire to his two young sons. The three survived, though the boys remain in critical condition. In August, a 32-year-old Naperville mother set her house on fire, killing herself and her two children.
Both cases involved couples who had moved recently from India and had troubled marriages.
you can take the Indian out of India, but you can't take India out of the Indian.
ReplyDelete