"We could easily have been born as each other. Not just the Muslim question, but on the gender question, it's pure chance whether you are born a man or woman, pure chance whether you are born Hindu or Muslim. So you just have to consider that we could have been born as each other and therefore there is no particular reason for aggrandising yourself just because you happen to be born a man, because you happen to be born a Hindu, or in a particular class of society. This is to start the process of thinking about that."

-Vikram Seth in an Interview with Sheela Reddy, Outlook India

This quite contradicts the idea of being born who you are because of your karma and what you did in your previous life. Is belief in karma what ends up sometimes giving people such inordinate faith in their superiority when it comes to caste for example? Of course there is no dearth of excuses for people who want to differentiate between human beings and claim their superiority.

I wonder.