There are many, many infuriating and flat out wrong claims in this WSJ article. The below thread does a good job of unpacking them. The worst in my view is the incredibly benign characterization of Brahmin dominance in the colonial era. What a disgrace! https://twitter.com/jonewilson/status/1296568269176999937

The amazing Latika Chaudhary shows how Brahmins dominated spending priorities in colonial india. Brahmins resisted educational expansion in places where they were numerically dominant, also directing money into secondary over primary edu: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6225/f431160ba76f1d9dd1edd8a213e88f7a212d.pdf

My work shows how Brahmin dominant areas in Madras and Bombay presidency experienced a hollowing out of tax institutions around 1920 in anticipation of the rise of lower castes into politics because of their fear of educational desegregation. If you can’t tax you can’t spend!

The super @thesamasher and Co. look at caste mobility in the past 30 years. The only group that has declined in mobility (i.e. sons today are poorer than their fathers) are muslims. The group that has GROWN THE MOST are upper castes: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~novosad/anr-india-mobility.pdf

My paper uses survey data and shows how Brahmins specifically are the wealthiest caste in India, to this day. Poor Brahmins tend to be more anti-tax if they live in places where Brahmins dominated in the past. Like poor whites in America who live in former enslaved areas.

So I guess the one thing I want to say to this author is - Welcome to the role of trying to manufacture a “Lost Cause” pseudo-historical narrative about Brahmins in India. Another beautiful illustration of the value of comparing India and US is to be able to spot this sophistry.