I live and work in India and I would like to throw more light on this.
Me and my friends like to joke around that you will never get your dues, either pay raise or promotions unless you have the last names jain, gupta, sharma, verma.
I had a guy on my team who was very capable but did not have the right last name, he was being harassed for promotions for 4-5 years. On the other hand the manager class was entirely "jain, gupta, sharma, verma".
I know of a specific case where the same manager had one of his relatives transferred from another branch and then promoted to manager on a different team in the same branch. This was all very hush-hush, I know of it because I overheard them talking about it. This is not some local tidbit software company, this is a company you HAVE heard about.
But it is not just caste based discrimination. There's also linguistic and region based discrimination because there is a lot of regional and linguistic diversity in India. If you travel a few hundred miles in any direction, the language and culture completely change. I have seen teams being formed around states and languages, and they will not let anyone else come into their in group. I have seen teams with extreme left ideologies that will not let anyone else in their team.
I don't believe dalits are any different, they also engange in these practices when they can and I know about people who have suffered from that situation as well.
100% agreed, I worked for a big 3 Letter Corp and heard manager speaking in his native language of the State (same as the company was located) to another member of team from same State, saying please work a little and i will promote you as a manager ,who will i do it for, if not for you. In the meantime, we were working our ass off and got nothing.
Its there for real, you can easily see it - If you join a multinational company and find a team with more than 50% of people are from same State - There is something going on. First thing that should be banned in india is attaching Caste as the Last Name.
The reason I joined the private sector instead of the government sector, is that these issues are much much worse in the government sector.
I was brainwashed to belive that merit will be valued in the private sector by the HR department and the managers. Which its not in the few places I have worked at.
I'm not even low-caste but still faced these issues.
My dad worked for the government for 30 years and he was not promoted even once until this year. this is not because he was not good at his work, the work is actually pretty simple and stupid, but because of affirmative action policies of all governments current and past, left or right.
One thing I've noticed with regards to discrimination at a couple I have worked is the treatment of mediocrity. At one American software shop I worked at early in my career I would see mediocre African American employees catch shit for being mediocre, but mediocre white people would not. So basically if you were not white you needed to be a stellar performer.
No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, and most of us are somewhere on the scale between great and crap. My partner and I joke about this concept of the mediocre white man, and how their workplace is dominated by these mediocre white men. Whereas if you're a woman, or if you're not white, you're not allowed to be mediocre. You gotta be great.
There are essentially two separate sets of measurements; one for white men and one for everyone else. And I notice this as a white man.
Any discrimination and groupthink seems intensified in workplaces with (1) little reassignment, (2) long tenures, & (3) little external, objective performance feedback.
E.g. government and many portions of academia.
People who don't support it leave, and people who are ambivalent adopt the attitudes of their remaining colleagues.
Another anecdote, my previous manager has one of those last names. He was hiring for a position and screening the resumes. He would send them to me for initial phone screen. After a while, I saw a pattern, all the candidates he chose to move forward with had same last names.
Hmm excuse my ignorance. But why couldn’t someone legally change their last name to one of these? Could they really tell what family, tribe, or caste you’re from by face? I suppose regional dialect can be noticed.
I guess this does not stop in Jobs but also in VC Funding . Most VCs/Seed funds are run by few upper caste Indians . They do have discrimination if you come from a backward caste . if you belong to the same caste , chances of getting a fund are more .
I saw the same kind of discrimination in an Indian office I used to manage part of (that is to say, a fair number of the staff functionally reported to me but all the local management and HR decisions happened in India). It was interesting, though: the office was in Chennai and they essentially banned even interviewing anyone from outside Tamil Nadu, no matter how qualified. Perhaps someone from Andhra Pradesh or Kerala got in every now and then, but no one from farther afield.
I hope this nonsense can stop and talent can be rewarded regardless of caste.
> This was all very hush-hush, I know of it because I overheard them talking about it.
Of course it is. In India, there are some ridiculuous rules related to caste discrimination. For example someone from "lower" caste can sue a person for libel and have him thrown in jail with no FIR. Caste based discrimination is wrong. But arrest-before-FIR is worse and can destroy someone's life.
Do you know why such a law came into existence? Because of atrocities against "lower" castes which wouldn't even be investigated. But most laws in India end up being misused. (For example dowry harassment laws.)
American with a question here. In the U.S. you can legally change your name. What would happen if a Dalit went to court and petitioned to get his named changed to Gupta or Sharma?
Please spare the dalits my friend :) they are the worst affected from this caste based discrimination! :) Sure, there may be a few who engage in the kinds of practices you are referring to but the majority don't. Even if they did, that would be to protect themselves (these kinds of dalits tend to be enlightened about their plight in society and local politics in their organization) and to create checks and balances they engage in this stuff.
I am from the state of Tamil Nadu. Unlike other states, we don't use a last name. The official forms and documents of state government/schools will not have a last name field. If pressed for last name, we just use fathers name. The first time I had to give a last name was when I was >20 years old when applying for passport from the Indian government. (Federal govt. not the state govt.) My last name is my fathers first name. My fathers last name is his fathers first name. My grand fathers last name was his caste name. Till my grand fathers generation, caste name as last name was prevalent. It all changed with the Self-Respect movement led by social justice icon Periyar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar_E._V._Ramasamy
At fist Self-Respect conference held on Feb 1929, Periyar passed a resolution to drop caste names. The press report about the conference reads “The necessity of the resolution to drop caste titles is strengthened because of the practice of discriminating persons on the basis of their names without knowing anything about their character, ability or intelligence. The demand that such discriminatory caste titles and religion-markers are abolished will appeal to all those in favour of unity and equality.” Source: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/all-in-your-name/arti...
It is rather popular to use the education qualifications after a persons name (like MBA, Masters in Engineering etc), as most seen on wedding invitations behind bride and grooms name, to emphasize on the importance of education and skills as a status marker rather than birth. Example: https://kingofcards.in/media/others/printing/templates/templ...
An even better approach is to just change your religion. I was born a hindu dalit but I converted and so have many of my friends and family. Religious conversions have become so common in India that states have started to bring out laws to curtail it. Casteism is a construct of Hinduism and other religions don't suffer from it in the same way as Hinduism does. So you can change your religion , your name and claim that you have no caste. Hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as equal to them, but will refuse to see people from their own religion as equal.
> Male Sikhs generally have Singh ("lion") as their middle or last name, though not all Singhs are Sikhs. Likewise, female Sikhs have Kaur ("princess") as their middle or last name. [1]
You can change your last name to Rockefeller, and some get away with it [1], but usually you'd be exposed because not only would you not have the right clothes, manners, alma maters, accent, etc... but most of all, you wouldn't know the right people. "Oh you're a Rockefeller, eh? So I'll see you at the Wickliffe's garden party in Martha's Vineyard this June?"
For some reason this reminds me of this Senegalese immigrant to France who, upon receiving citizenship, petitioned to have his legal name changed to better reflect his new identity.
He chose "Charles de Gaulle." This was 30 years ago, I don't remember if he was successful.
The other side of the story is the positive discrimination via Reservations that some castes are granted for college admissions, jobs, promotions, financial help etc. available to them. I don't know the legal position of this, but I imagine changing a name might be seen as giving up on your caste based reservations. Politicians favour caste/religion based voter segmentation, which doesn't help either.
In some states, it is impossible to get into good med schools, even if you score 100% in your tests, because there could be only three seats in the open quota, and 4 candidates got 100%
I wondered the same thing when I was in India years ago. So I asked our guide. There are a lot of clues beyond family name to determine ones caste. Would be nice if it where that easy, so.
Unlike the USA, India was under the control of the left since independence. So people who call themselves left are the ones who want to preserve the status quo and go back to the good old times.
The new progressive India that you see does not have a real right, because it is mostly still a poor country. Nevertheless it has moved closer to the free market, trying to cut down government interference if not for anything but corruption by the erstwhile leftists.
The extreme left consists of elitists, close knit extended family of the ruling powers. In fact even today much of India's media and who is who political influencers consist of people who attended the same elitist schools in Delhi.
Ironically, they still have not come to terms with a tea seller becoming the Prime minister, so they keep running smear campaigns against him both inside and outside the country.
You can go to r/india to see that. That sub is peak irrational leftism.
And people generalizing Brahmins and other upper castes as oppressors are not exactly right. For many of us who are Brahmin by caste but have a rural, agriculture etc.. background otherwise, we have not witnessed such extreme casteism.
Disclaimer: Brahmin by caste / surname but my community is traditionally agriculturist.
They are mostly people from the east coast. If you draw a line from the state of bihar to kerela and people in the 4 big cities. punjab and kashmir to some extent too.
Some support the communist party of india, which still holds power in some states but is steadily declining. Many support fringe armed terrorists and domestic terrorists and breaking up the country.
Before independence there was a strong movement to push india towards a communist revolution like china or the USSR. The indian national congress which is still the main party on the left absorbed many of these radicals. In the cold war, these parties aligned India with the USSR, despite the absurd hypocrisy that india is a member of NAM but also signed a cooperation treaty with USSR. You will find that roads in new delhi are named after thugs from the eastern bloc like Tito, thats something you will not find even in ex-yugoslav states. But zero roads or monuments named after anyone from the western bloc or indians not part of the nehru-gandhi dynasty.
It is mostly orphans of this movement which disbanded after 1991. They're against everything america does but send their kids to the USA for studying in america's best universities.
People with leftist political leanings are generally unhappy with all governments, and have very strong opinions about how the country should be run. They end up forming their own tight clubs.
EDIT: corrected "libertarian economics" to "liberal economics"
Most forms ask you to fill your parents name and they also ask you to fill your reservation group, that is general, OBC or SC/ST(schedules class/tribe).
A lot can be gathered from this.
Even if you lie, there are background checks for this.
The smarter parents, register their kids as something generic like "kumar" or "singh" in schools.
An even better approach is to just change your religion. I was born a hindu dalit but I converted and so have many of my friends and family. Religious conversions have become so common in India that states have started to bring out laws to curtail it. Casteism is a construct of Hinduism and other religions don't suffer from it in the same way as Hinduism does. So you can change your religion , your name and claim that you have no caste. Hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as equal to them, but will refuse to see people from their own religion as equal.
I've heard this argument alot. To people saying caste isn't that big of an issue in contemporary india, esp in the urban areas: let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs. THIS is the best litmus test, quick, cheap and easy way to clear all doubts on the contemporary caste question.
The things is inter-caste marriage is the best way for caste to be eliminated, and since that is hardly happening, doubt it'll go away anytime soon. Hell, Indians on matrimonials openly advertise theirs and ask for partners of specific caste.
> let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs
I have found that one of the quickest ways to be sure that the answer you get for that question matches what you’d like is to open them up to the possibility you might not get married at all. If my parents ever cared about that, they sure don’t now, and they’re nowhere near desperate ;)
IMO Indian parents are some of most sly people to walk earth. They coerce, emotionally blackmail and are obsessive about controlling their child's lives be it professional, educational, romantic decisions. Sometimes I think the quote "Most parents would do anything for their child except let them be who they are" is specifically made for the Indian boomer generation.
> let's ask an Indian parent if they'd be comfortable having their child marry someone they think is of a "lower caste" than theirs. THIS is the best litmus test, quick, cheap and easy way to clear all doubts on the contemporary caste question.
This test will fail because it doesn't account for what truly is caste in people's minds. Even among those who do not want to discriminate, different castes represent different daily cultures, traditions and even languages. So the question becomes on if they are comfortable with someone from a different culture - and that answer is almost always no.
Is that just an Indian thing? Because in my family, here in Rural Iowa, the in-laws include a woman from New Delhi, Valencia Spain, Baguio Philippines, 2nd generation Elba Italy, Korea. That doesn't count the New Englanders and Appalachians (which is a whole different thing than Iowan).
I mention it because, a spouse of a different culture can be a wonderful thing. Language, food, daily culture are a constant source of enjoyment and growth.
As someone married to someone from a different language and culture, I can say that those differences are not as insurmountable as they might seem, and the effort to overcome them is repaid many times over if you enjoy expanding your horizons.
You can modify the test to give them two choices, a partner that is of higher caste and another that is of lower caste - all things being equal (wealth, health, even skin color). If they were truly non-discriminatory, and only cared about preserving their "culture", they should reject either one with equal probability.
To be honest, for some of them it is a matter of 'preserving culture' and I don't think they would accept a 'higher' caste one either. That said, it may be different in other parts of India.
that's actually true, but in most cases, while they might be reluctantly willing to accept a partner from a "higher caste" they'd be downright aggressively dismissive of the other. And this holds for families all along the long chain of the caste hierarchy. Hypocrisy is a way of life.
Arranged-marriages based on caste are also not good for the nation because it perpetuates the idea that 'your culture' is somehow superior than to the rest of the nation.
Inter caste marriage doesn’t eliminate caste anymore than interracial marriage eliminates race. Also, there are no protected categories for discrimination when it comes to mating or marriage.
Edit: splitting this comment into a reply. Please downvote or upvote individually...
Interracial marriage does not eliminate race, but in my experience as someone in an interracial marriage, it does greatly ameliorate the harms of racial divisions in society. It closes the empathy gap, allowing a large circle of people on each side learn about the unique experiences and circumstances of people in the other culture. It opens a kind of wormhole in the social graph allowing cultural knowledge and resources to flow between communities previously alien to each other. I believe the power of intermarriage really cannot be overstated as a means of bridging cultural divides.
Originally part of parent, split for separable voting.
I feel like the quest for universal equality is like the quest for a universal compression algorithm, futile. everyone is unique, so you can’t equalize people.
The most productive and happy path forward is to think about the individuals (yourself and your counterparty).
It’s not your group against the world. It’s you against the world. And it’s not your group at your disposal, it’s the world at your disposal.
I'm a very white guy living in California and I often get the impression that caste is something that Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people.
On some level it feels to me like it's something Indian folks don't share because they feel it would be misunderstood (which makes a lot of sense). Or maybe it's a kind of "not airing out the laundry in public."
I am someone who was born a hindu dalit and I am so ashamed of sharing that identity of mine that I am posting anonymously.
Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that you are a lower caste, you will be made fun of and ridiculed. Caste is also tied to your last name, so when a Hindu person says his full name he is telling his First name and his Caste. Which is why brahmins will be the first ones in a group to say their full name, while dalits will only meekly say their first name. The entire religion and caste system was built to make people feel shameful of their last name. In fact, some last names of lower castes are commonly used as abuses by upper caste.
It is the worst form of discrimination known to man and it's horrible how hindu society openly supports and promotes it. While slavery lasted only for a couple of hundred years, caste system has been going on for millennia. Dalit atrocities are common in India even today and everyday 10s of lower castes dalits are raped, killed , tortured and humiliated just because they were born a lower caste Hindu. Upper caste hindu managers openly look down on lower caste hindus, even in the US , and will discriminate against them. Caste shame is also inbuilt in a lot of Dalit hindus and they themselves feel embarrassed while even saying their full name.
One of the best things I did after coming to this country was to convert to christianity and a few of my dalit hindu friends have done too. Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal, but they would still regard a hindu dalit as inferior. Hinduism has a huge conversion problem even in India, and it is the fastest shrinking religion in the world.
Easy for me to say, but if I were you, assuming you’re in the USA, I’d own the hell out of it. To be ashamed of it here is to give power needlessly to whole populations who do not own you. And the States love an underdog.
This is the country where “Yankee Doodle” started out as an anti-American insult by the Brits and ended up being one of the nation’s favorite songs. The nation that used the N-word seriously until around 1965, then by 1975 it had been completely co-opted by people like Richard Prior, and later hip-hop artists. Just so you know, I am married to someone whose parents forbade her to go out with me because of my race. Before I married her another girlfriend stopped dating me because I wasn’t black. Before that, another girlfriend’s parents tried to stop her relationship with me because I wasn’t Jewish. Now that I have a passel of mixed-race kids... guess who makes endless racial jokes? All of us. It drives our friends crazy.
I’d have a DALIT license plate. I’d have a line of DALIT T-shirts. I’d shove it right in people’s faces for the sheer enjoyment of it. I would totally kill it with the DALIT merch.
My heart goes out to you, and my best to you and yours. What a nightmare.
> how hindu society openly supports and promotes it
My 'high class' friends always bring up their caste even when it is not related at all.
'in Bramhins we don't do x'm 'In us Rajputs, we don't do x'
They can easily say, 'I am a veg or I dont' drink or my family is xyz'. But no. their caste _has_ to come up.
A friend of mine had asked one of her friends who used to do this: 'okay, we get it that you are a Bramhin, there is no need to bring it up in every other sentence.' She was shell shocked and never ever did I hear her say "oh we Bramhins we do xyz".
I feel your pain. This is the very reason for which Dr.Ambedkar converted himself, along with 380,000 followers to Buddhism. Having studied Hinduism for years and realizing that caste is the inseparable from the religion, he declared “I had the misfortune of being born with the stigma of an Untouchable. However, it is not my fault; but I will not die a Hindu, for this is in my power.” Source: https://time.com/5770511/india-protests-br-ambedkar/
I am sorry for your experience. Do you mind sharing what part of India you're from? It is really surprising to me that relatively better off Dalits would still find the need to convert to a different religion to avoid discrimination. Even more surprising that this is happening at a wider scale.
I respect your personal choice, of course, but curious why people choose to convert to a different religion instead of just shunning the Hindu identity, given Christianity also tends to have problematic beliefs. Is it because sharing religious beliefs makes it easier to share a common identity?
"Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal"
I know nothing about this at all, if you don't mind answering - how do you signal this? Do you wear a cross in a very visible way? In my experience, opinions about someone are formed when you meet hem and it's hard to change afterwards; what happens when people learn later on that you're Christian? Does their treatment of you change?
I’m sorry that you had to go through this. I’m east Asian myself, and I often cant tell the ethnicity of other east Asians (Korean, Chinese...). So how does Indians determine the caste of other people? Is it by the lightness of their skin?
Is there blaming going on? Like, for example do the other casts blame the warrior cast(Kshatriya) for screwing up against the British?
What I'm trying to find out is, if these casts are dependent on each other as if profession running in the family or are simply a way to organize within from top down with no cooperation of communities but exploitation. If the latest is the case, I wonder if there were uprisings and such.
I have experienced caste-based "weirdness" of a slightly different flavor - I look like a brahmin (the highest caste), but am not one. Every once in a while I'll meet some indian-origin guy who's brahmin who will come ask me if I am okay with eating that tortilla since it contains lard. Once I let it deliberately slip that I'm not in-fact brahmin, they will be like, "oh" and change topics. The oh always sounds to me like, "oh, I thought you belonged to the ubermensh Aryan class but you don't so I guess I don't care about your depraved ways!" - sounds like an exaggeration but I have worked too long with too many of these people to be confident that this is what they think. The most rewarding thing for me is when I tell that all my exes were brahmin (it's a trope that they're pissed all their women are being stolen by lower caste men).
Also all of this in the US; it's almost like many indian origin American (even second gen) Brahmins are far more racist than the general Indian population of the same group. Definitely a lesson in anthropology for sure.
I'm not a Brahmin (and am technically from a much "lower caste") and I wouldn't eat lard (I'm a vegetarian). IMO caste and vegetarianism are different concepts. While certain castes/communities/regions might promote vegetarianism and some might not, I'm not sure if they're always an identifying marker. A lot of people in India are vegetarian for a multitude of reasons and a lot of them who are new to the States might not know what contains lard and what not, so he might have been looking out for you in case you didn't know. I for one didn't know about rennet until much later, and am much grateful to an American dude who pointed that out to me.
I think it sucks that people conflate two different things, because it gives someone who isn't from an Indian background incorrect details. I'm not saying that that Indian-origin guy isn't casteist (given that he reacted against your "brahmin" comment that way), but certain nuances are lost here.
There's not much to misunderstand, actually. The caste system is a highly discriminatory and unfair classification of people based on their birth. For a major part of Indian history, it was the upper castes that abused it. But since independence, politicians from both higher and lower castes have managed to keep it running for their own gains.
Consider these lyrics:
"They cut me out for a baking bread, but I had other dreams instead".
Now imagine a system designed to completely ignore your dreams and force you to bake bread for now and future generations! And you are not even in chains!
Your guess about not airing the laundry in public is pretty close. "caste awareness" is ingrained from a young age, and you can't lose those circuits even if you yourself don't agree with them. A lot of people, especially higher caste, "understand" at a logical level that this is all wrong, but find it very difficult to change. So discrimination continues in all social spheres, but it's covert.
The silver lining is that there are also those who have distanced themselves from that system, and their number keeps increasing.
I’m ethnically Indian but was born in and have lived in the US my entire life. I also happen to be a Brahmin, which I assume some of the people here could probably figure out from my name but I only learned about because of some random ritual thing when I was a child where I had to shave my hair and wear some sort of symbolic thread or something like that. Aside from family, who I am sure are the same caste, I think I can count on my hand the number of times I have ever had caste come up in a discussion or learned someone’s caste, and being in the Bay Area I talk to a lot of Indians. And that’s always been along the lines of “You know about the caste system? That’s kind of messed up. By the way do you have a caste?” Maybe I just never see it as a Brahmin but I have never once seen anyone change their attitude based on caste. I think it’d go as well as calling yourself descended from royalty, or having an ancestor who was a pirate: cool, but if you’re going to make it a part of your identity or judge people on it you need to get on with the times.
> I can count on my hand the number of times I have ever had caste come up in a discussion
That is because your not "Indian" you are an American, these caste based discussions happen among first gen Indians who were born in India and then moved to another country. The kids of these immigrants dont usually care about caste.
I’ll second this - I was born in India and moved to US at young age. Never had caste come up ever with my family or relatives, but the only time I had to think about it was when someone asked me about it (out of curiosity, not in any other way).
Lately, I picked up one of the introductory courses from Audible - “Great World Religions: Hinduism from The Great Courses”. It was well put together - a whole chapter dedicated to caste system in India. Particularly talks about restriction of mobility and exceptions when it can happen. Highly recommend it for anyone who wants to learn more about the good, the bad and the ugly of Hinduism.
I lived in India for a bit, and no shit they wouldn't share it. It's a horrible form of discrimination, worse than racism in some ways, IMO.
You could, historically, spread your "untouchableness" by contacting people of other castes, for example. Marrying your child to someone from a lower caste is seen as a shameful move to many people.
White people would absolutely not understand this, yes, but what is there to understand? This is just discrimination based on your family + skin tone to some extent, and the sooner it dies, the better.
Discriminating based on caste is racism.
Actually, the Brits used the caste system to their own advantage* and discrimination based on caste didn't become outlawed until the Indian constitution was written post-independence.
In many ways, it’s similar to the hierarchy if feudal titles in medieval Europe, with the serfs being legally tied to the land. It’s just shocking to see such a feudal anachronism continuing so long after the initial conditions that created it have ceased to exist.
> I'm a very white guy living in California and I often get the impression that caste is something that Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people.
The level of conformance (or even awareness!) to caste is different for different Indians even. Some don't even know much about the system apart from what has been taught in the textbook, being raised in a liberal environment. Some are steeped into it. Most are in the middle, and many are very very confused about the whole thing, which would mean that even if they tell you, their interpretation might be different from someone else.
In my opinion a lot of caste stuff is just hogwash. But certain remnants remain, and these remnants vary from person to person and place to place (some might put an emphasis on diet/religion, some on the education you receive, some on the gods you worship, etc). A lot of it has been used to divide people in the locality against each other, which is essentially just classic politics. But much of the new generation (depending on where they're from) is quite ignorant of/against all this, which is good.
Its not just remnants. In major cities like Bangalore caste is regularly a part of who people will rent their house or sell their property to and is definitely a major part of marriage discussions. All Indian dating portals have caste up front and center in their selection criteria.
> Indian folks living here are aware of amongst each other, but they don't really discuss it with white people
In my experience, it's informally reinforced. I haven't met an Indian American who actively contemplates caste. But family connections; shared customs, rituals and language; and economic disparities reinforce in-group over out-of-group relationships.
These informal factors conspire to cause generations of young Americans of Indian descent to have their Indian-origin friends be, predominantly, of a similar caste to themselves. They aren't selecting for it. They may not even know how to see it. But hidden social factors guide their relationships.
It reminds me of my friends from the South. Subtle social factors that reinforce racist hierarchies. Recognizing, discussing and actively subverting those mechanisms takes personal ownership of the problem. This has not happened, broadly, in the Indian American community.
> I haven't met an Indian American who actively contemplates caste.
At a startup, we had a couple of Indian engineers on the team (pretty common), but they would frequently converse with each other in Hindi. Eventually one of them left the company, and in his exit interview he revealed that the other guy was constantly harassing him about his caste.
It is difficult to fully understand as it deeply part of the religion and culture so they may not be able to easily explain it to you. Many political parties win elections on caste based politics, so it is large part of people's concisenesses
There are always layers within every layer whether someone is higher or lower and even within a caste it depends on genealogy(which mythical ancestor your family originates), sub varieties, socio-economic status locality, education, organizations , roles you worked at etc.
It is persistent and systemic discrimination, while things have improved in the last 70 years, there are still a lot problems. Easiest way to to figure out who someone marries especially if it is an arranged marriage
> but they don't really discuss it with white people
Because it's a complex topic and one can't condense the lives of 1B+ people so easily. It's also not a solved problem, so most of the folks who speak out do it as form of venting or to bring a change due to some personal experiences.
I just wanted to mention few things because they need be said. I hope it helps.
Caste system and Varna system in India are 2 different things. Many people including Indians fail to understand this. Caste system and what was written in Manusmruti (some guidelines book for Hindus) was debated even in ancient times but some high-caste-people did take advantage of it and it went screwed up in-between years.
Caste system was based on the work you do. As many are talking about "surnames" pointing to your caste - please understand how they got these surnames in the first place! It's not the other way round. Also, traditionally descendants did the same business as it was easily taught to kids and was believed that those skills are genetically transferred as well. Note that I'm stating what was believed - not necessarily facts.
Please try to relate the concept of "untouchables" in today's pandemic times. Do you intent to go and touch those who work in the hospitals? How would you expect the people in those times to be okay with touching those who used to clean up toilets by hand, carry the waste on their backs? Note that I'm not justifying what followed in thousands of years later
Hoping you get the context. Please don't evaluate the origins on today's level of sophistication
I do believe that the caste system exists through out the world even today. Just that castes are different. How about now we have "Software Engineers" as a caste? There too you are higher if you belong to FAANG, no? How many software engineers like to marry software engineers? Isn't it convenient to marry someone who has similar work life, thought process, education background and such? Wasn't it same in the old days? I know people who - if they work at FAANG, then looking for partner working in FAANG because their status matches!
One more example in the context of "untouchable" and Brahmins to help you understand the point of not touching others - If lady in a Brahmin house is preparing food in the morning (she will always take bath first), NOBODY (her parents, kids, husband, whatever) in the house is allowed to go to the kitchen, touch her or even drink water from there until they take bath. Please try to think about this.
I don't know if 'ironic' is the right word but here in comments I read someone mentioning "HR wouldn't support lower level employees" in the comment in the context of "dalit". Guess what "dalit" are? "lower level employees in the society" (those who cleaned up waste).
Importantly, dalit's were not working in lower level because they were untouchables, but they were untouchables because they worked in the lower levels. Indian society let Mr. B R Ambedkar (who was born Dalit) to write constitution of India - that speaks volumes.
Historically speaking, most ancient societies had something similar, one way or the other. What is really interesting, is that India is the only country I know of, that codified that system religiously and carried it into the 21st century.
Not to say that there is an society without discrimination and social disparity. But only a few take it to the level the Indian caste system does.
That shows how tricky racism is, doesn't it? In the US it is African-Americans, in the UK Pakistanis and Indians, in Germany Turks and in France people from the Maghreb states. In India it is Muslims and castes, in China the Uigurs, in the Muslim world Suunits and Shiits (hope I spelled that right). In Turkey Turks and Kurds. And it all sucks. And it goes on and on, where ever you go.
Just saying, only because one Dalit wrote the constitution doesn't make the inherent discrimination and racism go away.
I get what you were explaining, but i disagree with these parts
> How would you expect the people in those times to be okay with touching those who used to clean up toilets by hand, carry the waste on their backs?
The trouble is, this wasn't something people chose to do by choice - it was thrust upon them initially and eventually conditioned to accept as "their duty" to the society through religious conditioning. (Read Gandhi's commentary justifying this type of work)
There is enough written about this and if you are interested you can easily look up about this online and in libraries.
> traditionally descendants did the same business as it was easily taught to kids
Even this was thrust through years of conditioning my friend. They were not "allowed" to take up any other profession - they could be dead, if they dared to do this. The references for this go far back to scriptures and other religious literature my friend.
> dalit's were not working in lower level because they were untouchables, but they were untouchables because they worked in the lower levels
Not true, read the comment above, they were forced into lower level work initially.
> Indian society let Mr. B R Ambedkar (who was born Dalit) to write constitution of India - that speaks volumes.
You haven't read Ambedkar have you ? :) Indian society didn't "let" Mr. B R Ambedkar to write the constitution, he rose to that position through sheer intellectual power! He was very very ahead of his times my brother! He faced many many challenges throughout his rise due to his origins being from lower class, he rose in spite of it.
A man of such calibre, resigned when in a position of power because he didn't believe in certain ideas put forth for discussion while making amendments to the constitution etc. He felt that would jeopardize the efforts he had put in to make the constitution equal for all - and undermine democracy! Such was the man!
Thanks for your reply. Can you explain this one a little bit?
> One more example in the context of "untouchable" and Brahmins to help you understand the point of not touching others - If lady in a Brahmin house is preparing food in the morning (she will always take bath first), NOBODY (her parents, kids, husband, whatever) in the house is allowed to go to the kitchen, touch her or even drink water from there until they take bath. Please try to think about this.
Are you referring to someone who is a dalit servant in a wealthy house? That's how I'm reading it at the moment but realize you could mean it a few different ways.
> I don't know if 'ironic' is the right word but here in comments I read someone mentioning "HR wouldn't support lower level employees" in the comment in the context of "dalit". Guess what "dalit" are? "lower level employees in the society" (those who cleaned up waste).
You need to look within yourself - with the above comment you are putting yourself down in front of people. Such a bad outlook. Reeks of racist / casteist attitude. Seek some help, and read good books to get out of this pathetic attitude towards fellow human beings.
As a non-Indian person living in the US, I have wondered about this.
What role does caste still play in the year 2020? And, specifically, in middle-class society in the US and in India? Does it play any role in tech companies in India?
It still exists in 2020. People who live in cities at least don't face it directly - its always indirect, implicit, subtle and ruthless.
People who live in Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and in villages / panchayats - the caste based discrimination is very obvious and explicit. People wear their (upper) caste as a badge of honor all the while discriminating lower caste people openly with no consequences, although the Indian constitution considers all citizens equal.
The reason you don't hear about it much from your Indian friends in Canada is because it isn't a part of daily life for Indians in Canada.
In Canada, even the priest has to wash his clothes, clean his toilets, and feed the pets and pick up their poo. So, for the most part, the caste system dies the moment an Indian leaves India.
It becomes an important piece of consideration for matchmaking. Parents from upper caste families (priests, teachers) try very hard to get their kids to also marry someone from higher up the social pecking order.
"At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states."
If this is accurate, that's pretty messed up. If a private company, especially one of Cisco's stature knew of any form of harassment and then decided that this type of harassment is fine because its not technically illegal they should be punished. Harassment at work for any reason is never ok, work should be a space where you are judged on your productivity level and attitude, not on the place of birth of your ancestors.
It doesn't say it was fine - nor that it wasn't reprimanded or that they weren't told to stop. ...only that it ultimately continued anyway.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions. If it went to legal, I would venture to guess that people were at least told to cut that shit out. Legal isn't very tolerant of these things because they know there's liability exposure even if it's not illegal.
From what a friend has said to me, the situation is fairly similar to the discrimination people of colour face (slavery, jim crow, segregation, economic mobility, interracial marriage, lynchings, human right violations) and what native americans face (land rights, economic mobility, cultural assimilation and destruction) ... except this is in the asian context with added peculiarities. The distinction between the classes is made by the last name and skin colour like how you would discriminate between italian, spanish, irish, german, danish ... on the basis of their name as people look similiar despite all of them being clubbed under "white" and "christian".
On paper discrimination shouldn't happen but IRL it does everywhere.
Readers who are not from Indian subcontinent may find this difficult to understand or beleive, let me throw some context.
Indian caste system is probably the longest running abuse,racism, human rights violation in the human history. Even,now in some parts of the country people from lowest caste are made to carry human waste on their head[0].
After independence,thanks to rights offered by constitution & reservation by governments to repent the sins; many from lower caste were able to get educated.
Inequality is often perpertraited by people at the top of the food chain and in the case of caste system its been Brahmins and those acknowledged by them. Brahmin patriarchy is the deep state in India, do a quick search about top CEOs in India, Majority of Company auditors are Brahmins so the company/tax laws are often dictated by them (I just stated one example of brahmin patriarchy w.r.t context of the article).
Ask the lower caste team members of any large IT company in India e.g. TCS, Infosys led by a Brahmin manager(who is not an atheist); you'll hear about discrimination they face.
At the same time, Ex.Brahmins (Brahmins who have denounced their affiliation to caste system) have been one of the top voices in support of human rights & equality this includes freedom fighters, newspaper publishers, several leading luminaries, economists, Nobel laureates and top scientists who have left India for good.
> Ask the lower caste team members of any large IT company in India e.g. TCS, Infosys led by a Brahmin manager(who is not an atheist); you'll hear about discrimination they face.
Is the religious component that large? I'd assume that it's simple ingroup/outgroup, like most discrimination.
You don't need to believe that your group is special by divine ruling, you just need to believe that you'll get a better personal outcome if you strengthen people that are like you, as they'll hopefully do the same for you.
Good question, this needs dwelling deep into the ideology of caste system.
1. Like many other religion, basis of caste system in Hinduism is that lower caste people came from supposedly less important organ & upper caste people came from more important organs.
2. People from upper caste perform cushy jobs, have access to education and all amenities. People from lower caste literally have to carry shit of upper caste people on their head. Obviously caste is hereditory!
Now any tell that to anyone who says 'Hinduism is not a religion', they would say 'Caste system was not hereditory, but way of job management'; but they will have no answer or tell a lame excuse when you ask them "Why caste attrocity exists till date, would you help uprooting caste system and make it illegal? or better will you let your son/daughter marry a lower caste person?"
And there are people who staunchly believe in the caste system as the core of their belief system, so much so that honor killings happen even in western countries by people of Indian/Subcontinent origin; Yes honor killings happen in India almost every other day.
So yeah, casteism cannot be taken apart from religion/ideology.
> Brahmin patriarchy is the deep state in India, do a quick search about top CEOs in India, Majority of Company auditors are Brahmins so the company/tax laws are often dictated by them
So which company/tax laws are anti Dalit? The only law about casteism is ridiculously anti Non-Dalit. They can jail anyone with just a complaint, no proofs are required. You have to fight in the court to get out of jail, not go in the jail.
You are painting only one sided picture and that's obvious from username you have chosen.
India has 1bn+ people, you can't generalize this. There are bunch of Brahmin people at higher level who actively work to uplift others and they do this without being atheist. There are 12 types of beliefs defined in Indian spirituality, it's not binary as in atheist vs believer.
Also, food for thought - are all Brahmins in India are still privileged to earn status of CEOs and managers? The amount of caste based reservation in education to jobs - it's hard for Brahmins to get a seat in college or take a job nowadays, still if these people are on top - do you think it's only some privilege? You are wrong here.
Please provide both the sides on platforms like HN or some brahmins in india will have to have their own version of BLM - "Brahmin Lives Matter"
As a former employee of Cisco and having been in the Silicon Valley for 10+ years, I can say that I have witnessed extreme casteism and nepotism in Cisco. There was a saying I heard a few years back that one of the criteria to get hired in one of the Cisco guaranteed acquisition spinoffs is that you wear a thread (called Janeu - worn by high caste Hindus over their shoulder and hidden inside shirt). If there is one company in the valley where HR is totally absent and managers form a clique to abuse employees, it is Cisco. It is polluting the entire valley with its casteism and also by exporting its incompetent managers to other companies.
As far as I understand, you’re supposed to wear that thread in a way that would keep it hidden when wearing normal work attire. If that’s so, how would others know you had one? Would you secretly flash them at each other like a gang symbol?
I have seen some Indians when they are peeing they will first pull the thread over their ears and then pee, after they wash their hands they will put back the thread under their shirt.
I am an Indian and have been in US for many years. There is one thing I have noticed among brahmins, during their Naturalization process many of them change their last names to Iyer or Iyengar (two sects of Brahmins).
I am referring to guys from the southern part of India where I am from. Its not a common practice there.
My interpretation of this is these folks have a perceived sense of superiority feeling about their caste and having it in the last name is a form of boasting.
In South India there has been a social movement in the last few decades to allocate quotas for "lower" caste members in universities and govt jobs to stop the domination of brahmins (merits, or lack there of, of the quota system is whole different topic). So having Iyer or Iyergar as last name would be frowned upon/judged endlessly there. May be they feel a sense of freedom here in US that prompts this behavior.
The social movement started several years ago. Its called the quota system and it has been enforced at various levels of government jobs and education. People just get promoted with no regard to their actual performance in all kinds of government jobs. This type of reservation on the basis of caste is regressive. What about someone who is supposedly from a "higher" caste but is still not economically well-off. Such people have to work much harder than their counterparts who receive concessions on their performance. Once you are in the university this doesn't stop. For most government universities the fees are different for people from reserved, non-reserved categories - meaning that someone from a poor background but with "higher" caste label has to work harder for opportunities for education and also has to bear a financial burden once you cross these hurdles. Think from the perspective of a middle class "higher" caste member of society - why should someone like that bear the high tax burden of the country when their kids won't receive much of the benefits. Any talk of scaling back this historical policy screw-up (Mandal comission report / VP Singh government) is vehemently put down. Just look up how the previous government reacted when doctors protested against the extension of caste-based reservation to postgraduate medical education. This is not even partisan. Even in current government one politician said something similar in very derogatory terms leading to him losing in the elections. Reservation should be granted on the basis of economic condition only because the point is economic upliftment. There should be policy that grants economic parity but I don't think the country has resources for satiating revenge.
Fair points. I don't have historical data, but my observation is that the issue of brahmins controlling/dominating lot of sectors was a real problem at some point and the reservation system was a populist response that did provide some benefit for oppressed castes, but created a whole bunch of other problems and unintended consequences. And its still remains such a hot button populist issue no political party would dare implementing the required reforms. The unintended consequence is the emigration of a lot of people from the "higher" castes. I guess its hard to say if it had any material impact on India's progress but the "higher" caste population that doesn't have the means/resources to emigrate is put in a real difficult situation.
Readit News
(That's what clicking the 'More' links at the bottom of large threads takes you to)
I had a guy on my team who was very capable but did not have the right last name, he was being harassed for promotions for 4-5 years. On the other hand the manager class was entirely "jain, gupta, sharma, verma". I know of a specific case where the same manager had one of his relatives transferred from another branch and then promoted to manager on a different team in the same branch. This was all very hush-hush, I know of it because I overheard them talking about it. This is not some local tidbit software company, this is a company you HAVE heard about.
But it is not just caste based discrimination. There's also linguistic and region based discrimination because there is a lot of regional and linguistic diversity in India. If you travel a few hundred miles in any direction, the language and culture completely change. I have seen teams being formed around states and languages, and they will not let anyone else come into their in group. I have seen teams with extreme left ideologies that will not let anyone else in their team.
I don't believe dalits are any different, they also engange in these practices when they can and I know about people who have suffered from that situation as well.
Everyone's naked in this bath house.
Its there for real, you can easily see it - If you join a multinational company and find a team with more than 50% of people are from same State - There is something going on. First thing that should be banned in india is attaching Caste as the Last Name.
People think I am south indian even when speaking in northish accent. They make many implicit assumption based on how I behave, talk and look.
I'm not even low-caste but still faced these issues.
My dad worked for the government for 30 years and he was not promoted even once until this year. this is not because he was not good at his work, the work is actually pretty simple and stupid, but because of affirmative action policies of all governments current and past, left or right.
No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, and most of us are somewhere on the scale between great and crap. My partner and I joke about this concept of the mediocre white man, and how their workplace is dominated by these mediocre white men. Whereas if you're a woman, or if you're not white, you're not allowed to be mediocre. You gotta be great.
There are essentially two separate sets of measurements; one for white men and one for everyone else. And I notice this as a white man.
E.g. government and many portions of academia.
People who don't support it leave, and people who are ambivalent adopt the attitudes of their remaining colleagues.
I know one of the MP's involved in getting that through parliament.
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-38663143
> This was all very hush-hush, I know of it because I overheard them talking about it.
Of course it is. In India, there are some ridiculuous rules related to caste discrimination. For example someone from "lower" caste can sue a person for libel and have him thrown in jail with no FIR. Caste based discrimination is wrong. But arrest-before-FIR is worse and can destroy someone's life.
Deleted Comment
Private Sector is not subjected to those quotas even though attempts are made.
At fist Self-Respect conference held on Feb 1929, Periyar passed a resolution to drop caste names. The press report about the conference reads “The necessity of the resolution to drop caste titles is strengthened because of the practice of discriminating persons on the basis of their names without knowing anything about their character, ability or intelligence. The demand that such discriminatory caste titles and religion-markers are abolished will appeal to all those in favour of unity and equality.” Source: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/all-in-your-name/arti...
It is rather popular to use the education qualifications after a persons name (like MBA, Masters in Engineering etc), as most seen on wedding invitations behind bride and grooms name, to emphasize on the importance of education and skills as a status marker rather than birth. Example: https://kingofcards.in/media/others/printing/templates/templ...
> Male Sikhs generally have Singh ("lion") as their middle or last name, though not all Singhs are Sikhs. Likewise, female Sikhs have Kaur ("princess") as their middle or last name. [1]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhs
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Gerhartsreiter
He chose "Charles de Gaulle." This was 30 years ago, I don't remember if he was successful.
In some states, it is impossible to get into good med schools, even if you score 100% in your tests, because there could be only three seats in the open quota, and 4 candidates got 100%
The new progressive India that you see does not have a real right, because it is mostly still a poor country. Nevertheless it has moved closer to the free market, trying to cut down government interference if not for anything but corruption by the erstwhile leftists.
The extreme left consists of elitists, close knit extended family of the ruling powers. In fact even today much of India's media and who is who political influencers consist of people who attended the same elitist schools in Delhi.
Ironically, they still have not come to terms with a tea seller becoming the Prime minister, so they keep running smear campaigns against him both inside and outside the country.
And people generalizing Brahmins and other upper castes as oppressors are not exactly right. For many of us who are Brahmin by caste but have a rural, agriculture etc.. background otherwise, we have not witnessed such extreme casteism.
Disclaimer: Brahmin by caste / surname but my community is traditionally agriculturist.
Before independence there was a strong movement to push india towards a communist revolution like china or the USSR. The indian national congress which is still the main party on the left absorbed many of these radicals. In the cold war, these parties aligned India with the USSR, despite the absurd hypocrisy that india is a member of NAM but also signed a cooperation treaty with USSR. You will find that roads in new delhi are named after thugs from the eastern bloc like Tito, thats something you will not find even in ex-yugoslav states. But zero roads or monuments named after anyone from the western bloc or indians not part of the nehru-gandhi dynasty.
It is mostly orphans of this movement which disbanded after 1991. They're against everything america does but send their kids to the USA for studying in america's best universities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_left
People with leftist political leanings are generally unhappy with all governments, and have very strong opinions about how the country should be run. They end up forming their own tight clubs.
EDIT: corrected "libertarian economics" to "liberal economics"
Deleted Comment
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite%E2%80%93Maoist_insu...
2. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/north/story/chinese-intellig...
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
The things is inter-caste marriage is the best way for caste to be eliminated, and since that is hardly happening, doubt it'll go away anytime soon. Hell, Indians on matrimonials openly advertise theirs and ask for partners of specific caste.
https://www.scroll.in/article/897802/how-same-caste-marriage...
I have found that one of the quickest ways to be sure that the answer you get for that question matches what you’d like is to open them up to the possibility you might not get married at all. If my parents ever cared about that, they sure don’t now, and they’re nowhere near desperate ;)
This test will fail because it doesn't account for what truly is caste in people's minds. Even among those who do not want to discriminate, different castes represent different daily cultures, traditions and even languages. So the question becomes on if they are comfortable with someone from a different culture - and that answer is almost always no.
I mention it because, a spouse of a different culture can be a wonderful thing. Language, food, daily culture are a constant source of enjoyment and growth.
Edit: splitting this comment into a reply. Please downvote or upvote individually...
I feel like the quest for universal equality is like the quest for a universal compression algorithm, futile. everyone is unique, so you can’t equalize people.
The most productive and happy path forward is to think about the individuals (yourself and your counterparty).
It’s not your group against the world. It’s you against the world. And it’s not your group at your disposal, it’s the world at your disposal.
On some level it feels to me like it's something Indian folks don't share because they feel it would be misunderstood (which makes a lot of sense). Or maybe it's a kind of "not airing out the laundry in public."
I would love feedback on this. Thanks.
Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that you are a lower caste, you will be made fun of and ridiculed. Caste is also tied to your last name, so when a Hindu person says his full name he is telling his First name and his Caste. Which is why brahmins will be the first ones in a group to say their full name, while dalits will only meekly say their first name. The entire religion and caste system was built to make people feel shameful of their last name. In fact, some last names of lower castes are commonly used as abuses by upper caste.
It is the worst form of discrimination known to man and it's horrible how hindu society openly supports and promotes it. While slavery lasted only for a couple of hundred years, caste system has been going on for millennia. Dalit atrocities are common in India even today and everyday 10s of lower castes dalits are raped, killed , tortured and humiliated just because they were born a lower caste Hindu. Upper caste hindu managers openly look down on lower caste hindus, even in the US , and will discriminate against them. Caste shame is also inbuilt in a lot of Dalit hindus and they themselves feel embarrassed while even saying their full name.
One of the best things I did after coming to this country was to convert to christianity and a few of my dalit hindu friends have done too. Upper caste hindus have no problem seeing a converted christian as their equal, but they would still regard a hindu dalit as inferior. Hinduism has a huge conversion problem even in India, and it is the fastest shrinking religion in the world.
This is the country where “Yankee Doodle” started out as an anti-American insult by the Brits and ended up being one of the nation’s favorite songs. The nation that used the N-word seriously until around 1965, then by 1975 it had been completely co-opted by people like Richard Prior, and later hip-hop artists. Just so you know, I am married to someone whose parents forbade her to go out with me because of my race. Before I married her another girlfriend stopped dating me because I wasn’t black. Before that, another girlfriend’s parents tried to stop her relationship with me because I wasn’t Jewish. Now that I have a passel of mixed-race kids... guess who makes endless racial jokes? All of us. It drives our friends crazy.
I’d have a DALIT license plate. I’d have a line of DALIT T-shirts. I’d shove it right in people’s faces for the sheer enjoyment of it. I would totally kill it with the DALIT merch.
My heart goes out to you, and my best to you and yours. What a nightmare.
> how hindu society openly supports and promotes it
My 'high class' friends always bring up their caste even when it is not related at all.
'in Bramhins we don't do x'm 'In us Rajputs, we don't do x'
They can easily say, 'I am a veg or I dont' drink or my family is xyz'. But no. their caste _has_ to come up.
A friend of mine had asked one of her friends who used to do this: 'okay, we get it that you are a Bramhin, there is no need to bring it up in every other sentence.' She was shell shocked and never ever did I hear her say "oh we Bramhins we do xyz".
I respect your personal choice, of course, but curious why people choose to convert to a different religion instead of just shunning the Hindu identity, given Christianity also tends to have problematic beliefs. Is it because sharing religious beliefs makes it easier to share a common identity?
I know nothing about this at all, if you don't mind answering - how do you signal this? Do you wear a cross in a very visible way? In my experience, opinions about someone are formed when you meet hem and it's hard to change afterwards; what happens when people learn later on that you're Christian? Does their treatment of you change?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11229170
What I'm trying to find out is, if these casts are dependent on each other as if profession running in the family or are simply a way to organize within from top down with no cooperation of communities but exploitation. If the latest is the case, I wonder if there were uprisings and such.
This isn't true everywhere. There is a fair amount of bias embedded in society, and caste markers will follow you around.
Also all of this in the US; it's almost like many indian origin American (even second gen) Brahmins are far more racist than the general Indian population of the same group. Definitely a lesson in anthropology for sure.
I'm not a Brahmin (and am technically from a much "lower caste") and I wouldn't eat lard (I'm a vegetarian). IMO caste and vegetarianism are different concepts. While certain castes/communities/regions might promote vegetarianism and some might not, I'm not sure if they're always an identifying marker. A lot of people in India are vegetarian for a multitude of reasons and a lot of them who are new to the States might not know what contains lard and what not, so he might have been looking out for you in case you didn't know. I for one didn't know about rennet until much later, and am much grateful to an American dude who pointed that out to me.
I think it sucks that people conflate two different things, because it gives someone who isn't from an Indian background incorrect details. I'm not saying that that Indian-origin guy isn't casteist (given that he reacted against your "brahmin" comment that way), but certain nuances are lost here.
Dead Comment
Consider these lyrics: "They cut me out for a baking bread, but I had other dreams instead".
Now imagine a system designed to completely ignore your dreams and force you to bake bread for now and future generations! And you are not even in chains!
Your guess about not airing the laundry in public is pretty close. "caste awareness" is ingrained from a young age, and you can't lose those circuits even if you yourself don't agree with them. A lot of people, especially higher caste, "understand" at a logical level that this is all wrong, but find it very difficult to change. So discrimination continues in all social spheres, but it's covert.
The silver lining is that there are also those who have distanced themselves from that system, and their number keeps increasing.
Deleted Comment
That is because your not "Indian" you are an American, these caste based discussions happen among first gen Indians who were born in India and then moved to another country. The kids of these immigrants dont usually care about caste.
Lately, I picked up one of the introductory courses from Audible - “Great World Religions: Hinduism from The Great Courses”. It was well put together - a whole chapter dedicated to caste system in India. Particularly talks about restriction of mobility and exceptions when it can happen. Highly recommend it for anyone who wants to learn more about the good, the bad and the ugly of Hinduism.
Apparently, I was born in the artisanal caste of India, specifically Blacksmiths: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchal
You could, historically, spread your "untouchableness" by contacting people of other castes, for example. Marrying your child to someone from a lower caste is seen as a shameful move to many people.
White people would absolutely not understand this, yes, but what is there to understand? This is just discrimination based on your family + skin tone to some extent, and the sooner it dies, the better.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India
The level of conformance (or even awareness!) to caste is different for different Indians even. Some don't even know much about the system apart from what has been taught in the textbook, being raised in a liberal environment. Some are steeped into it. Most are in the middle, and many are very very confused about the whole thing, which would mean that even if they tell you, their interpretation might be different from someone else.
In my opinion a lot of caste stuff is just hogwash. But certain remnants remain, and these remnants vary from person to person and place to place (some might put an emphasis on diet/religion, some on the education you receive, some on the gods you worship, etc). A lot of it has been used to divide people in the locality against each other, which is essentially just classic politics. But much of the new generation (depending on where they're from) is quite ignorant of/against all this, which is good.
In my experience, it's informally reinforced. I haven't met an Indian American who actively contemplates caste. But family connections; shared customs, rituals and language; and economic disparities reinforce in-group over out-of-group relationships.
These informal factors conspire to cause generations of young Americans of Indian descent to have their Indian-origin friends be, predominantly, of a similar caste to themselves. They aren't selecting for it. They may not even know how to see it. But hidden social factors guide their relationships.
It reminds me of my friends from the South. Subtle social factors that reinforce racist hierarchies. Recognizing, discussing and actively subverting those mechanisms takes personal ownership of the problem. This has not happened, broadly, in the Indian American community.
At a startup, we had a couple of Indian engineers on the team (pretty common), but they would frequently converse with each other in Hindi. Eventually one of them left the company, and in his exit interview he revealed that the other guy was constantly harassing him about his caste.
There are always layers within every layer whether someone is higher or lower and even within a caste it depends on genealogy(which mythical ancestor your family originates), sub varieties, socio-economic status locality, education, organizations , roles you worked at etc.
It is persistent and systemic discrimination, while things have improved in the last 70 years, there are still a lot problems. Easiest way to to figure out who someone marries especially if it is an arranged marriage
Because it's a complex topic and one can't condense the lives of 1B+ people so easily. It's also not a solved problem, so most of the folks who speak out do it as form of venting or to bring a change due to some personal experiences.
Caste system and Varna system in India are 2 different things. Many people including Indians fail to understand this. Caste system and what was written in Manusmruti (some guidelines book for Hindus) was debated even in ancient times but some high-caste-people did take advantage of it and it went screwed up in-between years.
Caste system was based on the work you do. As many are talking about "surnames" pointing to your caste - please understand how they got these surnames in the first place! It's not the other way round. Also, traditionally descendants did the same business as it was easily taught to kids and was believed that those skills are genetically transferred as well. Note that I'm stating what was believed - not necessarily facts.
Please try to relate the concept of "untouchables" in today's pandemic times. Do you intent to go and touch those who work in the hospitals? How would you expect the people in those times to be okay with touching those who used to clean up toilets by hand, carry the waste on their backs? Note that I'm not justifying what followed in thousands of years later
Hoping you get the context. Please don't evaluate the origins on today's level of sophistication
I do believe that the caste system exists through out the world even today. Just that castes are different. How about now we have "Software Engineers" as a caste? There too you are higher if you belong to FAANG, no? How many software engineers like to marry software engineers? Isn't it convenient to marry someone who has similar work life, thought process, education background and such? Wasn't it same in the old days? I know people who - if they work at FAANG, then looking for partner working in FAANG because their status matches!
One more example in the context of "untouchable" and Brahmins to help you understand the point of not touching others - If lady in a Brahmin house is preparing food in the morning (she will always take bath first), NOBODY (her parents, kids, husband, whatever) in the house is allowed to go to the kitchen, touch her or even drink water from there until they take bath. Please try to think about this.
I don't know if 'ironic' is the right word but here in comments I read someone mentioning "HR wouldn't support lower level employees" in the comment in the context of "dalit". Guess what "dalit" are? "lower level employees in the society" (those who cleaned up waste).
Importantly, dalit's were not working in lower level because they were untouchables, but they were untouchables because they worked in the lower levels. Indian society let Mr. B R Ambedkar (who was born Dalit) to write constitution of India - that speaks volumes.
Not to say that there is an society without discrimination and social disparity. But only a few take it to the level the Indian caste system does.
That shows how tricky racism is, doesn't it? In the US it is African-Americans, in the UK Pakistanis and Indians, in Germany Turks and in France people from the Maghreb states. In India it is Muslims and castes, in China the Uigurs, in the Muslim world Suunits and Shiits (hope I spelled that right). In Turkey Turks and Kurds. And it all sucks. And it goes on and on, where ever you go.
Just saying, only because one Dalit wrote the constitution doesn't make the inherent discrimination and racism go away.
> How would you expect the people in those times to be okay with touching those who used to clean up toilets by hand, carry the waste on their backs?
The trouble is, this wasn't something people chose to do by choice - it was thrust upon them initially and eventually conditioned to accept as "their duty" to the society through religious conditioning. (Read Gandhi's commentary justifying this type of work)
There is enough written about this and if you are interested you can easily look up about this online and in libraries.
> traditionally descendants did the same business as it was easily taught to kids
Even this was thrust through years of conditioning my friend. They were not "allowed" to take up any other profession - they could be dead, if they dared to do this. The references for this go far back to scriptures and other religious literature my friend.
> dalit's were not working in lower level because they were untouchables, but they were untouchables because they worked in the lower levels
Not true, read the comment above, they were forced into lower level work initially.
> Indian society let Mr. B R Ambedkar (who was born Dalit) to write constitution of India - that speaks volumes.
You haven't read Ambedkar have you ? :) Indian society didn't "let" Mr. B R Ambedkar to write the constitution, he rose to that position through sheer intellectual power! He was very very ahead of his times my brother! He faced many many challenges throughout his rise due to his origins being from lower class, he rose in spite of it.
A man of such calibre, resigned when in a position of power because he didn't believe in certain ideas put forth for discussion while making amendments to the constitution etc. He felt that would jeopardize the efforts he had put in to make the constitution equal for all - and undermine democracy! Such was the man!
> One more example in the context of "untouchable" and Brahmins to help you understand the point of not touching others - If lady in a Brahmin house is preparing food in the morning (she will always take bath first), NOBODY (her parents, kids, husband, whatever) in the house is allowed to go to the kitchen, touch her or even drink water from there until they take bath. Please try to think about this.
Are you referring to someone who is a dalit servant in a wealthy house? That's how I'm reading it at the moment but realize you could mean it a few different ways.
You need to look within yourself - with the above comment you are putting yourself down in front of people. Such a bad outlook. Reeks of racist / casteist attitude. Seek some help, and read good books to get out of this pathetic attitude towards fellow human beings.
Deleted Comment
What role does caste still play in the year 2020? And, specifically, in middle-class society in the US and in India? Does it play any role in tech companies in India?
People who live in Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and in villages / panchayats - the caste based discrimination is very obvious and explicit. People wear their (upper) caste as a badge of honor all the while discriminating lower caste people openly with no consequences, although the Indian constitution considers all citizens equal.
Marriage, If it's an arranged marriage 99.9% of the time, bride and groom will be of same caste.
Deleted Comment
In Canada, even the priest has to wash his clothes, clean his toilets, and feed the pets and pick up their poo. So, for the most part, the caste system dies the moment an Indian leaves India.
It becomes an important piece of consideration for matchmaking. Parents from upper caste families (priests, teachers) try very hard to get their kids to also marry someone from higher up the social pecking order.
If this is accurate, that's pretty messed up. If a private company, especially one of Cisco's stature knew of any form of harassment and then decided that this type of harassment is fine because its not technically illegal they should be punished. Harassment at work for any reason is never ok, work should be a space where you are judged on your productivity level and attitude, not on the place of birth of your ancestors.
We shouldn't jump to conclusions. If it went to legal, I would venture to guess that people were at least told to cut that shit out. Legal isn't very tolerant of these things because they know there's liability exposure even if it's not illegal.
On paper discrimination shouldn't happen but IRL it does everywhere.
Indian caste system is probably the longest running abuse,racism, human rights violation in the human history. Even,now in some parts of the country people from lowest caste are made to carry human waste on their head[0].
After independence,thanks to rights offered by constitution & reservation by governments to repent the sins; many from lower caste were able to get educated.
Inequality is often perpertraited by people at the top of the food chain and in the case of caste system its been Brahmins and those acknowledged by them. Brahmin patriarchy is the deep state in India, do a quick search about top CEOs in India, Majority of Company auditors are Brahmins so the company/tax laws are often dictated by them (I just stated one example of brahmin patriarchy w.r.t context of the article).
Ask the lower caste team members of any large IT company in India e.g. TCS, Infosys led by a Brahmin manager(who is not an atheist); you'll hear about discrimination they face.
At the same time, Ex.Brahmins (Brahmins who have denounced their affiliation to caste system) have been one of the top voices in support of human rights & equality this includes freedom fighters, newspaper publishers, several leading luminaries, economists, Nobel laureates and top scientists who have left India for good.
[0]https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/25/india-caste-forced-clean...
Is the religious component that large? I'd assume that it's simple ingroup/outgroup, like most discrimination.
You don't need to believe that your group is special by divine ruling, you just need to believe that you'll get a better personal outcome if you strengthen people that are like you, as they'll hopefully do the same for you.
1. Like many other religion, basis of caste system in Hinduism is that lower caste people came from supposedly less important organ & upper caste people came from more important organs.
2. People from upper caste perform cushy jobs, have access to education and all amenities. People from lower caste literally have to carry shit of upper caste people on their head. Obviously caste is hereditory!
Now any tell that to anyone who says 'Hinduism is not a religion', they would say 'Caste system was not hereditory, but way of job management'; but they will have no answer or tell a lame excuse when you ask them "Why caste attrocity exists till date, would you help uprooting caste system and make it illegal? or better will you let your son/daughter marry a lower caste person?"
And there are people who staunchly believe in the caste system as the core of their belief system, so much so that honor killings happen even in western countries by people of Indian/Subcontinent origin; Yes honor killings happen in India almost every other day.
So yeah, casteism cannot be taken apart from religion/ideology.
So which company/tax laws are anti Dalit? The only law about casteism is ridiculously anti Non-Dalit. They can jail anyone with just a complaint, no proofs are required. You have to fight in the court to get out of jail, not go in the jail.
Do you mean that jail where two-third of prisoners are Dalits, tribals and from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 19% are Muslims?[0]
Or are you talking about the prison/judicial system which is statistically proven to be Brahminical[1].
[0]https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/majo...
[1]https://www.huffingtonpost.in/suraj-yengde/theres-a-caste-bi...
India has 1bn+ people, you can't generalize this. There are bunch of Brahmin people at higher level who actively work to uplift others and they do this without being atheist. There are 12 types of beliefs defined in Indian spirituality, it's not binary as in atheist vs believer.
Also, food for thought - are all Brahmins in India are still privileged to earn status of CEOs and managers? The amount of caste based reservation in education to jobs - it's hard for Brahmins to get a seat in college or take a job nowadays, still if these people are on top - do you think it's only some privilege? You are wrong here.
Please provide both the sides on platforms like HN or some brahmins in india will have to have their own version of BLM - "Brahmin Lives Matter"
Have you seen the matrimonial ads in India?
Why am I getting a feeling that you are a Brahmin and you are not happy that people from lower castes have their own quotas in govt jobs/education.
Dead Comment
I am referring to guys from the southern part of India where I am from. Its not a common practice there.
My interpretation of this is these folks have a perceived sense of superiority feeling about their caste and having it in the last name is a form of boasting.
In South India there has been a social movement in the last few decades to allocate quotas for "lower" caste members in universities and govt jobs to stop the domination of brahmins (merits, or lack there of, of the quota system is whole different topic). So having Iyer or Iyergar as last name would be frowned upon/judged endlessly there. May be they feel a sense of freedom here in US that prompts this behavior.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
Though the percentage of the seats reserved varies with each state.