I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't give away my caste either. I don't broadcast it or even like to talk about it because growing up I experienced innumerable instances where people's behaviors instantly changed when they found out. Some mild, some extreme but it was there.
I grew up in a metro so this isn't a backward ass village. My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards for things like seating arrangements for an exam. How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?
Even in the US, people casually either slip in sentences or assume castes and speak as such. Fortunately, there are plenty of people (regardless of their caste - I never ask/care) that feel the same way. Funny enough, the people who care about caste also seem to be racially biased in my anecdotal experience. :|
> 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not)
Of course Reservation IS the problem if you're unfortunate to be an upper caste.
The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias, it amplified it. More and more castes, outside the original designation, demanded it in exchange for votes, and more and more upper caste Indians felt cheated as they lost limited opportunities that should have been purely been given on merit basis.
NOTE: I support reservation if it is on the basis of economic criteria, wherein a student genuinely did not get the opportunities as they were growing up. The problem is, India is full of lower-caste affluent families where generations have taken advantage of the reservation, while the poor lower-caste, and upper-caste, people have languished. And due to the reservation, these affluent lower-caste students, in general do now have to work as hard as the students competing in the general category.
Tamil Nadu has 69% reservation, there is similar data for other states.
In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required.
Every, baring maybe 1-2 exceptions, of SC/STs were in slow paced category, which meant they graduated in 5 years as opposed to everyone else graduating in 4 years.
What this meant is that by default the general category students who made through the system, were on average, better educated and trained, than the lower-caste equivalents.
I have seen this sentiment being reflected by many people (in one extreme case someone called that they were being persecuted by the government). Indian caste system is an unfair oppressive system put together to maintain the hierarchical advantage. Reparations/interventions were needed to bridge the gap, if not the unfairness would be much more rampant.
Not sure about IITs, I went to one of the top NITs and thats definitely not the case with people not being able graduate in 4 years. I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation.
Disclaimer: I am neither upper caste nor lower, somewhere in the middle, I guess and have not been positively or adversely impacted because of my caste.
>> I have personally seen examples of people completely uplifting their family from poverty by the chance they have gotten via reservation.
I am one of the examples. I am from Tamil Nadu, which has 69% reservation and I benefited from reservation and other social polices of my state. Re-posting below, a part of my comment from an earlier discussion on the same topic, as it is relevant here.
Caste system is deeply rooted in the culture for thousand of years. It will take a very long time and massive efforts to eradicate it. Self-respect movement was one of the early efforts in the right direction and it had found great success in my opinion. I attribute my life progress to the effects of Self-respect movement. I was born in a poor low-caste family, raised by a single mother. I completed a STEM masters degree in India, migrated to the US and now work at one of the FAANG companies. I benefited from the educational and social policies of my state govt. and was able to push myself up despite financial and social disadvantages.
The major turning point in my life was when I was able to secure a seat at the top technical college of the state through single-window counseling which was introduced by the state govt. the year before. Without that system, I would have applied to individual colleges separately (costs lot of money) and had been at the mercy of racially biased selection committees, dominated by the so called upper castes. I neither had the light skin, nor the deep pockets to pay for a "management seat".
I made use of the best resources at the institution presented by the opportunity I wouldn't have got otherwise. It changed my life forever.
>> The problem is that a caste-based reservation did NOT eliminate caste-based bias.
It is not the goal of the reservation system to eliminate caste-based bias. The goal is to eliminate unfair competition by ensuring candidates of equal backgrounds compete with each other. A low caste candidate who was historically denied education can not compete with a higher caste student from an educated family. Hence the candidates are categorized based on their caste background such as BC, SC/ST etc and they compete within those categories. A BC candidate competes with other BC candidates, a SC with other SCs and so on.
Drawing from the analogy posted elsewhere in this thread. This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter. Without weight divisions, the competition is favorable to the heavyweights, which was the case before the reservation system.
Saying reservation should be based on economic status rather than caste is akin to saying boxers should be categorized based on height instead of weight. Economic status is less relevant here because it does not directly affect the chances of success. In a math competition, the candidate born in a family of upper class math teachers has an advantage over a candidate born to rich but uneducated parents who were denied education for generations.
The idea of reservation is to provide opportunity to people who were denied opportunity in the name of caste. They were not denied opportunity because they were poor, but because they were from a low caste. When discrimination was based on caste the remedy should also based on caste. Moreover, economic status is transient, where as the caste is rigid. A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.
> A poor family can become rich but a low caste person can never become a upper caste as the caste is decided on birth. It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.
I appreciate your comment and you do make some very interesting points. But the above quote seems to contradict the gist of your earlier points.
Once a lower-caste family has become affluent and is educated, they should be competing with people, per your own earlier statement, with those of equal backgrounds. The background of a lower-caste but educated and affluent family is no longer the same as that of a poorer lower-caste person from relatively uneducated family. So, how in any way can an argument be made that the affluent family should be allowed to reap rewards from reservation for ever, while the same is not available to poor lower-caste family. If makes no logical, nor socially justifiable sense.
Also, there is an implied assumption that every upper-caste, richer or poorer has a strong educational background. I believe that economic conditions dictate educational and other background a lot too.
Of course, I will accept that solely going by economical criteria may not be sufficient, but it has to be a major factor.
> Also, there is an implied assumption that every upper-caste, richer or poorer has a strong educational background.
That assumption is valid, owing to the traditional jobs that were assigned to each group. Out of the five classes Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras and Dalits, the last to were physical laborers doing menial jobs.[1] The first three traditionally had access to knowledge and power due to their professions. Brahmin's duty was to read, memorize, recite and teach religious scriptures. Kshatriyas were rulers and administrators and thus powerful. Vaishyas were merchants, business people and large land owners who had access to both knowledge and power. Shudras and Dalits never had the opportunity to get educated and were also systematically denied status and opportunity by repressive religious laws and social norms. Caste being assigned on birth, there was no way for upward mobility.
Before the reservation system, jobs such as bureaucrats, judges, teachers, academics, knowledge workers etc were all occupied by the top three groups, and it is easy to understand why. Whereas Shudras and Dalits were left behind, uneducated and doing low level jobs.
> The background of a lower-caste but educated and affluent family is no longer the same as that of a poorer lower-caste person from relatively uneducated family.
The existing creamy layer rules ensures that the wealthy individuals do not get reservation, even though they are from low caste. This is not a reason to suggest the entire reservation criteria should be based on economic status instead of caste.
This argument doesn't make sense in the Indian context, where historically there has been so much scarcity. In any society where there is so much scarcity every one hoards as much resources as they can for the bad days.
This being the case the individual and the peer groups maximize for their gains at all costs. Its a race condition like scenario, where you have to acquire resources before others do, or others will prevent you from acquiring resources.
This is basically the root of all the problems facing in the Indian system. This system plays out at the level of a language, state, religion, even caste. Once a group acquires power they will ensure even systematically, other groups don't.
Its not just about economically uplifting 1 individual person anymore. If a particular groups holds power they will starve the under privileged person off resources at the first chance. This is why you need a reserved set of opportunities in a pool to avoid resource starvation through bias.
The easy way out of this problem is brutal equality. But even the upper castes, forwards states, progressive linguistic groups, majority religions will refuse to comply to this because it now means vacating a superior social position and being dragged to the level of the under privileged position.
Any scene where we discuss absolute freedom of lifestyle choices, equality and liberty is a net negative to the groups that currently hold power.
> This is roughly comparable to the weight divisions in boxing. The divisions exist because it is unfair to let a lightweight boxer fight a heavyweight fighter.
In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right?
The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term. You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem and you have cemented the caste based division even further in the minds of your population.
> It is not sound to say a person from a caste who was oppressed for thousands of years should not be given reservation because they become rich in the last generation.
You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years. If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem? That seat which their privileged grandkid will take could be better taken by someone else in need.
>> In your example if the son of a lightweight boxer happens to be a heavy weight boxer he will not be made to fight with a lightweight boxer right?
I used that example to emphasize on the importance of having categories in the competition to ensure fairness. I do not wish to extend the analogy in a way it was not intended. Keeping the analogy aside, let me address the essence of your question.
The problem of caste discrimination is deep rooted and it existed for a very long period of time. Expecting a family to come out fully from the effects of the discrimination in a single generation is not reasonable.
>> You have created a system which never fully solved the root problem.
As I said earlier, the goal of the reservation system is not to solve the caste system. The creators of the system very well understood that a deep rooted social problem that existed for thousands of years can not be eradicated by a mere statute. The system was intended to serve as a crutch; not as a treatment for the broken leg. I am against using the crutch forever. I am also against removing the crutch without treating and healing the broken leg first.
>> You are talking as if that person witnessed the caste oppression for thousands of years.
The oppression still exists so as the effects of the oppression that they did not witness for thousands of years. 99% of the Hindus cannot become a priest in Tirupati Tirumala and most other temples. Inter caste marriage is still not widely accepted. Honor killings are still happening. The social and psychological effects of a thousand year old oppression is as powerful as the oppression itself.
>> If a lower caste family has become wealthy and rich due to reservation, how is their usage of caste based reservation for their grandkids really solving the root problem?
You are equating economic status to social status. I have explained the distinction in my previous comment. Again, the system is not intended to solve the root problem.
> The idea of reservation in its current form sounds great when talking about a generation or two, but it starts to show its deficiencies in the long term.
As some who opposes the typical right-wing opposition to caste based reservations (aka left wing nut), I agree with your point of view.
For example, I would be fine with constituting a one time generous fund that qualified people can withdraw from (and invest), if care is taken to cover all those who should benefit from such a scheme. Its then up to the families to use the funds as they wish. There is also the notion of giving someone a fish and teaching someone how to fish. A financial fund targets the former and will not be enough, more lenient admissions but something that does not persist forever, seems a reasonable balance.
An eternally persistent reservation is tilted the other way. One can definitely argue about the details of how persistent the terms of the benefits should be, but all I will say lack of consensus on what the decay factor should look like should not come in the way of implementing something that is better than nothing, or terminating something that is better than nothing.
A common argument I see often is caste is not the problem, that poverty is the problem and reservations should target poverty alone and ignore caste. I disagree with this sentiment and consider poverty uplifting an important but orthogonal problem.
Caste reservation is about reparations/compensation for historical damages that has(d) that had been inflicted over centuries.
Kashmiri pandit's losses will not get addressed/compensated by social schemes for the poor. It has to address the issue the forceful, unlawful eviction from their home.
As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?
I know multiple friends of mine who have suffered innumerable abuse and indignities because of their caste and irrespective of their educational qualifications.
Ambedkar - the chap who wrote the constitution, was ill treated even after his Columbia degree and his PhD. Customers refused to sign him on and colleagues refused to even share the same room with him when he taught as a professor.
It is sad that even in this time and day when we see so much caste oppression the upper castes still continue to refuse to admit it.
By the way, I have never benefited from any reservation of any kind.
"As a person from an upper caste background may I ask you why you think the criteria for reservation should be economic when the bias is because of caste?"
Quote from the article you have provided: "With money. Somebody who does not have access to money does not have access to “merit”."
And I agree with Yashica Dutt's analysis. It is true that irrespective of caste, if you have enough financial power, you can change your circumstances, particularly in India. Hence, it makes sense to have an affirmative action that benefits those who are economically underprivileged, than on basis of birth.
I respectfully resent the above comment. This situation, and my comment, is nothing like equating BLM with ALM.
I understand that you may not have firsthand knowledge of the issues, but at least be open to the fact that there may be more depths to a situation than what is superficially evident.
> In IIT, while there was cutthroat competition for general category seats, SC/ST (reserved category) seats went unfilled since in the IITs there was (not sure if it still is there) a min standard was required.
Even with this low bar SC&ST are unable to get in. It shows how disadvantaged they are as a population.
How the empty seats of SC/ST in the IITS reflect that they are disadvantaged? They have much less cut off, many SC/ST give the exam, their fees is much much less than the general category, they get scholarships. How are they disadvantaged ?
My brother living in his hamlet has no electricity after 8pm, has 0 access to coaching and has little to no access to books or anything related.
This is circa 2000s though.
The village has affluent upper caste people while the lower caste people still do menial jobs
Reservations are meant for them. But the city folk who have the most knowledge and access to money abuse this system while real poor lower class people aren't able to access.
I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes.
Moral of the stort: city folk abuse reservation system caste or economic terms because it takes a 5k bribe to a local govt to fake your income certificate, lot of people I know have done it.
My dad worked in a govt firm, his colleague who earned the same money was lower class so his daughter who got marks exactly as same as mine got a stellar college and ANY branch she wanted, but I wasn't a girl & backward on paper so I had to settle for what I got
True that the reservation system gets abused a lot in India. Living in North India, I frequently see rich families enjoying reservation benefits even when they don't need it. They don't realise they are eating up positions for the people who really need it. And the children of these rich families that the reserved seat as something they are entitled to and not affording any respect for the opportunity.
It's infuriating that reservations have become so abused, but any step by any party to change it would be met with such a fierce opposition that it's literally impossible to change.
Ofc here assumption being made is that college is the deciding factor of success later in life.
Most backward cast candidates will be unable to forge deeper connection with powerful ellite caste people and they'll suffer in networking/connection game.
Education is just one of the many factor, if you don't have connections - you can't get people to believe you or invest in your business, your paper degree isn't going to do much.
Historically, new connections (both social and business) were forged based on marriage which was limited to marrying within specific cast. As a result power accumulated through network effect in hands of a few.
No matter how much education you put in backward cast candidates they are not able to get inside "ellite" network of upper caste people.
I'll give you a counter example, one of my friend dropped out after highschool and another one (backward cast) got degree from IIT university.
Today highschool upper caste person has more wealth and married to a local celebrity while the backward one is at government office and he hates his job, only people he party with are people of his own communities. Many times he's not invited to the private parties by his bosses. On paper tho, you might envy his job but socially tho he's an outcast - it's not changing soon either. He himself acknowledged, he's only boss at work but outside work, no one gives him much respect.
>>I knew of an economically backward class person who wore woodlnd shoes. My parents couldn't afford those shoes, his did yet he had woodland shoes.
Woodland shoes last years, in most cases the only reason you thrown them away because you are bored, they refuse to wear out no matter what you do with them.
I come from a fairly lower-middle class, poor background(Dad was a truck/bus/cab driver over years). I was donated used woodland shoes by a relative during my engineering days. I wore them for years, like even years after I had a job. And I used to walk kilometers during my college days every day.
If you are poor/lower mid income class student. Woodlands is some thing you should consider buying. Its really buy and forget. Also wear jeans, even if you buy cheap ones. I had a pair, I wore them so much the pockets started tearing out. Do this and you can go expense-less for years. This is my version of ramen profitability.
If you are thinking frugality invest in quality. Lower mid class students must invest in woodlands.
Well, poor people who have to choose between Food and Rent i.e. really economically backwards can't afford woodland shoes and a new fancy phone every other month!
Alao for that matter, Sparkx sandals and shoes too last years, much cheaper option..
I get what you are trying to say. But this is generally the story of every first generation learner, even if they aren't lower caste. I have seen these kind of situations all around me in the past, my dad only used to own a bicycle, worked hard, passed the exam (general category) and now have a decent house. Everybody who is economically is suffering but this doesn't mean that reservations are the only way/help to succeed
There is also the effect of first generation learners. Many don't have the benefit of parents and family with a background in education who can mentor. That's quite a big deal.
I am not from an upper caste either, but my experience doesn't match with yours at all. My peer group is less culturally Indian than others, but I wonder if experiences such as yours are more pronounced in certain regions or groups, more than others.
I have never once been asked my caste, and I have never once seen my friends be asked their castes. But, I realize that being middle class in an Indian metro city already puts me in the 10% class of India that is somewhat shielded from this stuff. I also know that caste becomes a huge thing during marriages and dating. But, I haven't seen much of it in tech. It is far more prevalent in careers where you need communication with under-skilled workers (mechE, civilE), since these workers stick by castes quite closely.
> My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards
Would you be willing to tell me what university this was. I can't imagine this being the case in any metro city in India.
I won't call you a liar, but this is the first I hear of it and the burden of evidence is on you.
> I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste"
Oh yeah, I am too, and I can completely empathize with this people making this assumption. Although, it has been more commonly used in situations where it is used as a way to say "you do not understand the problems of lower caste / dark skinned people in India" than anything else.
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Caste based discrimination is a huge problem in India, especially in non-metro India. But, my 2 cents, I have yet to notice any in my time in Tech in the US. ( I did go to a university/location with low south Asian%, but my peer groups in university were very Indian, as are most masters programs, but YMMV)
I know in my brother's university (IT-BHU), they put caste names next to students' names. And this was a top-tier government university at that!
In my University (IIT-D), I believe certain scholarship announcements revealed details about students' categories, ie whether they were SC/ST/OBC/General. Especially if it were a means scholarship.
Worse case, professors in India have zero personality training, and will casually ask such questions of their students.
Aren't those merit-cum-means scholarships actually have a caste-based criterion? In that case they are just being transparent, and claiming it to be casteist is ridiculous.
You might as well say that reservations revealed caste by showing people got through reservation quota, hence there is caste discrimination, hence more reservation is required.
They could do the same without putting student lists on public display. Guess it's up to the authorities that be to weigh the decision whether it's better to be more transparent or whether to preserve a sense of anonymity in certain key topics.
There was this online portal built at the time, where students could check the rank of any person, just with a name or IIT-JEE exam pass number. Of course a lot of people searched, and within one month (the feature was released in December), a lot of friendship circles changed, thus rendering moot the whole point of bringing every student to live under the same roof.
In BHU (and by extension at IT-BHU as well and have heard it has continued at IIT BHU as well) and many other universities in the North it's called phylumbaazi.
> My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards for things like seating arrangements for an exam. How the fuck is a person's caste relevant?
I have seen far less serious things related to caste dragged on media for days. I think this is illegal, and I am sure I heard in the news there is a law against marking someone's caste. Also there is law where you can be selective about disclosing caste and won't have to disclose it if you don't want the benefit. Any proof you have for this?
The "Indian left" doesn't acknowledge this, and jumps in every discussion to defend the current caste based reservation system that doesn't consider economic status of the candidate.
If someone writes JEE, it is likely they have spent a lot for coaching / study materials, and it is likely they don't deserve reservation.
This argument relies on the fact that the concerned person should not rise above ME in status. Perhaps you should look at it as a country and see that the upliftment happens at multiple levels across multiple generations. A person who gets a job as a clerk in the first generation gets his kids the education to make him an engineer. This kid then wants his kid to grow up to be a civil servant.
As it has been mentioned in the thread multiple times, reservation is not an economic upliftment program. It's a social upliftment program to ensure representation at all levels.
Caste based discrimination varies by state. It is far less of a deal in Bengal, for example. This is one reason you will see that caste based identity politics is not used in Bengal, whereas that is the thing TM in other states. If the data were available I would be very curious how it varies state by state.
Except my caste clearly has distinct disadvantages whereas "white privilege" is justified with unequal outcomes. There's causation with caste, but poor justification beyond correlation with "white privilege" other than the so often repeated but flawed study about call-back rates being higher for white candidates.
In other words: caste-based discrimination is real, and white privilege just seems like a ghost
Are you saying that because white privilege is less acknowledged, it's harder to grasp for those within and without it? Or that it's existence is dubious?
Are you Indian american? Because generally people know what surnames fall in whatever caste. People, mostly of our parents generation, know and remember thousands of surnames and associated caste.
As a Bengali I can assure me there are many like me from Bengal who don't. Bengal for whatever reasons seemed to have solved this way better than other states.
As I had mentioned in my other comment, our grandparent generation holds on to some aspect and that it is stronger in villages. But having travelled through India extensively, the kind that goes on in Bengal is no comparison to say Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka. That's the reason you will politicians have caste centric campaigns and manifestos. In Bengal, politicians know that caste will not get them votes, BJP is trying its level best to split the vote along caste lines.
You will likely find out when you are about to get married.
I also never knew my caste till my profile was created on matrimony sites and lo and behold, my parents finally told me what caste I was.
I am happily married with my partner who is from another caste and we don't plan on carrying forward this caste nonsense with our children.
> Even in the US, people casually either slip in sentences or assume castes and speak as such.
What kinds of things do they say, or how does their speaking change once they learn? I'm totally outside of this culture but have been studying caste discrimination and its history lately and have been trying to learn all I can about it.
They'll sneak in the odd question here and there. Maybe they'll find out from the surname, or perhaps the locality of the town/city you're from in India, or the kind of food you eat (upper-castes are mainly vegetarian), or your dialect. Heck sometimes the deity you worship will reveal one's caste.
But then what? They talk down to you if you are a lower caste? In what ways does their behavior change if they know your caste? If they talked down to you and you told them that you don't appreciate their tone, then what would happen?
Yes, they talk them down, berate them more often, mostly involuntary cues of rejection. Most people would not talk back for the sake of being passed over for promotion/raises. I understand most Westerners wouldn't balk from the idea of talking back at them, but cultural norms in Asia effectively discourage back-talk against superiors, hence why it has been prevalent in SV for this long.
Why is reservation not a problem? If a SC/ST person whose parents are rich (maybe due to a govt. job by reservation itself?) and gets 1/2 of marks of a middle class person just by being lower caste, then there is an issue with reservation.
The correct approach is, if the parents of a lower caste person have got advantage of reservation, the reservation should go to next person in queue. This way benefits can be evenly distributed instead of benefitting few wealthy people.
We should also realize that a child's performance also depends on how his/her parents are treated. A child who sees parents being looked down upon will not be as confident as a child who sees parents being respected. So reservation will be required for generations in India even for "rich" people who are not respected.
I once asked a co-worker if he felt caste ever impacted him in any way. He said well when I went to the local visa office in India the officer behind the desk approving visas had a certain surname. Only 25 people a day are approved for a Visa and except for me, everyone else in the room had that officer's surname.
This doesn't make any sense at all. Does an Indian national approve visas for Non-Indian countries in the consulates of other countries? Which country's visa is that?
Does Canada allow an Indian national to approve visa applications?
I didn't. He did. I'll ask him to retell the story since as someone else pointed out he was confused by the details. So I'll try to get them from the story teller.
Even as a beneficiary of the reservation system, I do wonder whether it is the answer. I personally feel the caste identity is tied deeply with religion and both tend to get utilized by the powers that be, in a similar manner. Ultimately, it falls onto us to uplift ourselves, as frankly, I don't see why anyone, would willingly give up something that benefits them, especially when it is considered a part of their birthright.
Depends. So who should win the 100 m olympics? someone who is fastest or someone who was discriminated against? Which team should win the football match? the team that scores the most points or should the background of the players be a criteria?
That's a false analogy. Genetics can beat training but discrimination cannot be overcome without intervention. I'm a strong believer in equality of opportunities, but I feel that's constantly misunderstood.
If your family can pay you a tutor, you're given more opportunities.
If you don't have to work after school, you're given more opportunities.
If your family is educated and can give you guidance, you're given more opportunities.
If your parents can pay for electricity, yes, you're given more opportunities.
We can keep going, but the privileged trend to think everything they got is due to their effort. Somebody that has a lower score than you might deserve access to a better university that you.
I was "privileged" growing up. We always had food in our plates; we couldn't dine out but my parents loved me and I could study at night. I had to work while studying but it was not the worst that I have seen. I was the first of my family going to a university but at least my parents understood that education was important and reinforced that in me.
>discrimination cannot be overcome without intervention
There have been many people in history who have overcome discrimination without intervention, so this can't be true. Just because it's harder doesn't mean it's impossible.
College admissions isn't the finish line of "who is best". It's a starting point for developing potential, and thereafter college still isn't a competition to see who is best.
Your analogy doesn't follow GP's logic. It's more like: do you want to watch olympics where rich kids with sports coaches do mediocre to well, or do you want to watch an Olympics where a state-sponsored scholarship program gives you the best of the best amongst poor/middle-class/rich people because talent is not distributed only amongst the rich.
There is actually a related system in place at the Olympics which few people talk about. Only 3 people of each country are allowed to compete in a given event. This has led to many athletes in the top 10 worldwide to not be able to participate because they are from a dominating country. For example Kenyans in 3000 steeple.
Admissions aren't about winning the race, they're about institutions deciding who has the most potential to win. In that way they are comparable to sporting drafts where people are absolutely chosen over better players because the team believes they have greater potential.
>> How the fuck is a person's caste relevant? This is normal for you?
> I agree. It shouldn't be. But then it shouldn't be relevant during admissions too yeh?
I interpreted the situation the GP described as a policy meant to enable bigoted discrimination. The bad part is the bigotry, not the discrimination.
Discrimination meant to relieve the effects of past bigotry on disadvantaged people is not a bad kind of discrimination. Meritocracy isn't a fair competition if some families already got a head start before it was decided the rules should be made fair and were allowed to keep it.
The merit(score) of a student is dependent on factors other than the student's aptitude such as the financial status of the family, guidance received at young age etc.
The students from lower-caste communities usually are also from low-income families and lack proper guidance (partly because the parents are not educated) compared to students from upper-class communities.
The reservation in academia is relevant to uplift people who are from disadvantaged communities. The society as a whole whould benefit from it.
IMO, there are valid criticism of implementation details of reservation for lower-caste in India, such as:
* should a person who belongs to lower-caste get eligibility for reserved quota if that person's parents also benefited from reserved quota?
* should caste based reservation be allowed in instances that require highly specialized skills? As opposed to equal treatment based on only merit. (Example: admissions to MD, Govt. jobs that requires highly specialized skills)
You can criticise implementation details of the reservation-system used as a tool by the Government to correct historical imbalance in society but not the idea as a whole because the system in place is showing positive results. We have made a lot progress in last few decades but still a long way to go in good direction. This is my opinion as an Indian techie from an upper-caste family.
This is pretty wrong. Caste reservation are not about economic inequality, but social representation. They are kinda like reparations. If they were just about economic inequality, you would just have free jee coaching, not caste based reservation.
Don't generalize. Give strong arguments vs. only relaying your own experience. Otherwise, you are falling into a trap you yourself laid out in point #3 yourself.
Question is whether most Indians who come to US for work are actually upper class Indians already and thus this 90% number is what it is. Or do lower class Indians also come to US, face discrimination and thus either go back or struggle to find work. If the former, the issue is policies/attitudes in India which needs to be done better (easier said than done). If the latter, then we need to dig deeper.
Of course. I am not refuting the point, only highlighting that none was actually made. The deficiency of the argument by trying a more obvious statement of fact. “Two plus two isn’t five, it’s just not.” Agree with you, cap’n. “Two plus two isn’t four... it’s just not.” Um, okay.
For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it. Most people (me included) would be tempted to say - I've never discriminated, I've never seen it happen in front of me, I'm confident none of my friends would do it so therefore it doesn't exist.
But it does. It's heartbreaking that my fellow Indians have to deal with this in 2020. Just like BLM educated some white people about the existence of racism, how it manifests, how it affects people etc., we need a similar movement to educate upper caste Indians.
I've also seen the same people say "if we completely ignore caste, it'll go away". It won't. I personally can't tell you what someone's caste is based on their name because I don't care enough to find out the mapping between name <=> caste. If everyone was like this, there wouldn't be a problem. But I know for a fact that there exist people who can map name to caste and these people also discriminate on the basis of caste. These people might only be a minority but they can have a disproportionate effect. As long as they exist, the rest of us can't adopt an ostrich approach to the caste system.
I'm Norwegian, living there. A very good friend is Indian, her parents moved here while she was just a few years old. I never heard her talk about her caste, or the system in general really.
That is, until one day, out of the blue, she said she was getting married. Her parents had found a boy who also grew up here in Norway that she was to marry the following year.
After a bit of talking it was clear she was not very fond of the idea of her parents finding her a mate. However from what I gathered she was just about as worried about his caste.
He was of a lower caste than her, and this was not ideal at all from what I understood. However, his family was rather well off, so perhaps it would be acceptable after all...
This came as a complete shock to me, as I had perceived her as rather liberal and as mentioned had never heard her speak of her caste or similar. But there it was, weighing her down.
For a contrasting anecdote, just to illustrate the range of beliefs, I knew a couple who met in the U.S. and agonized over the impact their marriage would have on their families in India because she was Brahmin and he was Kshatriya. They thought it would be problematic, especially for her parents, if their parents' friends, neighbors, etc. knew they had a daughter married to a Kshatriya. After dreading for months the task of sharing the news with their parents, finally they did it, and... it wasn't a big deal at all. Her parents said, "It would be a big problem for us if you were coming back here to live, but you're not. Everybody knows it doesn't matter in the U.S. Nobody will care." They did not think having a daughter married to a Kshatriya in the U.S. would bring them the same stigma as having a daughter married to a Kshatriya in India would. And not because they were hiding the marriage: they had a big wedding in India with both families and hundreds of guests from each side.
I don't know if their expectation turned out to be true, and obviously there are a lot of people who don't share their thinking, but I found it striking that they would even expect people feel differently based on where their daughter was living. In the U.S. we learn that caste rules are "religious," and our idea of religion is like Christianity, something that is either true everywhere or true nowhere. The idea that your judgmental neighbors would say "oh, it's fine because they're living in a country where nobody believes in that stuff" was a new one for me.
Ultra religious Brahmins have a rule where they don’t allow non-Brahmins to enter their house. I think the parent’s problem might be due to having non-Brahmins enter their house often if the couple were living in India. While if the couple were living in the US, that wouldn’t be such an issue for them.
I have a Brahmin friend in her 30s living in Bangalore who married a non-Brahmin and while she and her child were allowed into her parent’s house, her husband wasn’t. Obviously she is not happy about it but she visits her parents every so often and...her parents are what they are I guess. I had a hard time imagining such a situation.
Shouldn't it be more shocking that your friend agreed to an arranged marriage? I mean I'm not in Norway (pretty close though) and I don't know to what degree this is acceptable in Norwegian culture. But in mine it very much isn't. We ought to expect more from women these days. Because caste might be a completely foreign problem to us, but arranged marriages used to be the norm here as well. It took the second wave of feminism to eliminate that problem and make parents feel ashamed for even trying. We wouldn't want to have that practice sneaking back in through the back door again.
However the arranged marriage did not come as such a surprise, I guess because there's been a fair bit of talk about it here due to other immigrant cultures also practicing it.
If caste only came up in a mutual interest decision like a wedding where there aren't power imbalances, isn't that fine? Who someone chooses to marry seems like an unreasonable place to intervene to resolve disparities.
If someone was interested in marrying me until they found out I was Jewish (the closest analogy to my own experience), I would not think that was "fine". Even if I don't know any way to "intervene" in it, certainly not if you mean legally, governments should not be in the business of telling people who to marry.
But if you told me that there aren't power imbalances in marriage decisions so it's "fine" and what am I getting upset about, why is it even worth talking about or commenting upon, I'd think you were an asshole.
“Caste is a huge problem. To substantiate this, let me tell you about the story of a person who didn’t seem to care about caste at all, but later decided to not marry someone over it.”
That is not a story which substantiates the claim that caste is a huge problem. I agree that someone who made a marriage decision based on caste isn’t someone I’d want to marry in the first place.
My comment about power imbalances can be read in two ways: there are no power imbalances in marriage or conditioned on there not being power imbalances in that particular decision. I meant the latter, but you seem to be attacking the former.
I don't understand how a person could manage to only care about "caste" when getting married and never care about it any other time. Maybe I just don't understand what you were trying to get at with your original comment, because the statement doesn't really make any sense to me either.
I only want to marry people of a particular gender, but that doesn’t make me problematically sexist. Religion is a similar desiderata. Perhaps you can argue that people can convert, but as a Jew who seriously dated a Catholic for almost two years, I’d argue that boundary isn’t particularly fluid.
As an example, what if they decided against the marriage not because they cared personally but because their family did, and satisfying their family’s preferences was important to them? What’s the harm? Nobody has an obligation to marry you.
Not OP - every caste has its own unique cultural aspects. So a person could disregard caste in most avenues of life, but still give it a thought while considering a prospective spouse to find an affinity through shared cultural values. That's one reason that came to mind.
I agree that caste preference in marriage can have bad effects, similar to many other filter bubble mechanics in society. It’s also probably a symptom of other problematic concepts of value.
Everything you say rings very true to me. Most Indians are very reluctant to talk about this. Of several that became friends when I worked with a team in BLR, only one became close enough that we could discuss it. He himself was from one of the very highest sub-castes (which he taught me was trivially knowable from his surname) but very enlightened. I was shocked to discover that all but two or three out of about fifty colleagues were Brahmin[1]. It explained a lot of the dynamics I had already observed, like why one of the best engineers in the place had never been promoted or why some of them literally wouldn't even talk to another. Caste, especially Dalit vs. everyone else, still seems to be very much a thing. But, as you say, nobody wants to discuss it.
[1] That's the word he used. It might well have been shorthand for a more complex concept that he knew I wouldn't understand.
I've never had any trouble discussing this with European and American colleagues or owning up to my own privilege.
But I can see how many Indians would find it awkward to talk about, especially if they think that the caste system is on it's way out because things are better than they used to be. Some might feel that discussing it with non-Indians puts India in a bad light.
To which I say, it's not me who's painting India in a bad light, it's the people who are discriminating on the basis of caste in 2020. People who say "oh, I'm only against reservation and those who benefit from it" and treat such people terribly. And we can only get rid of this disease by shining a light on it.
I think it's very natural to find this topic awkward if you come from a privilaged background.
Basically, you've grown up being treated in a certain way, and you internalize that and think you're a valuable person because people treat you well. Then you realize that at least part of that is because society is broken/diseased and not simply because you're inheritly awesome. That's a really awkward pill to swallow.
I'm not in any way trying to justify this behavior. Something being natural doesn't mean it's good.
I reckon most foreigners would already be aware of the existence of India's caste system, but not in the intricacies of how it manifests itself in everyday Indian life.
True story. I met this Indian woman while working out of the local hipster cafe. We had mutual friends. And ended up going out for lunch.
On the way back, she started asking questions about my background. They grew intensely personal. Until she was interrogating me on the sidewalk.
Unsatisfied with my responses, she just gave up and cut to the chase, "What's your mother's caste?"
Thanks to fairly unique circumstances I have to live with a plausible cover story. Because Indian people cannot stop asking questions. Where are you from? Where were you born? Why's your skin so pale? Why're you so tall? Where are your parents? What do they do? Where did you go to school? Why aren't you married?
What's worse is that the society is insular. Even in a big city, few people socialize outside of, in descending order of proximity, family > friends of the family > classmates from elementary school > people from their high school > college > (perhaps, sometimes) work.
I have met people who have gone through their entire life without ever meeting someone from a lower social class. Casual greetings with people who clean their homes don't count.
There's a lack of je ne sais quoi. A certain lack of creative energy. A kind of absence of the meeting of free radicals that sparks interesting ideas and art. Culturally, it's as if, the society has submerged itself in halon, determined to not let the sparks of creativity and genius spark.
This problem is so acute that every free radical I've met has done their very best to move away as soon as humanly possible.
I'm an Indian diaspora person with no cultural connection to India.
When I travel, I'm often accosted by Indian (nationality) people who immediately begin 20 questions about my background, religion, caste, language, where my grandparents are from, et cetera.
One occurrence that sticks in my mind is being in a building lobby in Almaty, Kazakhstan and having two Indians see me from across the street, immediately cross the road and excitedly ask "Are you Indian?"
When I replied "No" and kept walking, they followed me for a block trying to decipher how an Indian-appearing person might not be Indian.
Mostly I find this amusing and chalk it up to cultural differences. But I can't help but conclude that Indians are almost obsessed with "placing" each Indian-appearing person they mert based on their ancestry, and find it hard to move past this.
If I'm feeling annoyed, I'll say, "you wouldn't ask a white person any of this, so why are you asking me?"
> Mostly I find this amusing and chalk it up to cultural differences. But I can't help but conclude that Indians are almost obsessed with "placing" each Indian-appearing person they mert based on their ancestry, and find it hard to move past this.
I feel your chagrin. I would be the first to admit to my privilege that my skin affords me. When I travel, I'm not mistaken for Indian and that leads to some very strange encounters.
True story, I'm standing tired and defeated in front of a border agent in a well-developed SE-Asian country. The border agent looks at my passport. Looks at my face. Looks at the passport again. And says, "Hold on. You're an Indian citizen?? But you're so white and polite!" and proceeds to tell me about how bad her night has been.
That is privilege. I was afforded the benefit of the doubt and allowed to carry on.
In India, I have never been stopped by the cops on the street. As India slides into fascism, I've oft expressed my fears to my lawyer and he's said - "Don't worry! No policeman is ever going to bother you, you're so pale and fancy and have a lawyer. He'd be scared of losing his job"
I am fortunate that I do not fear persecution when I walk down the streets. At the very least, not beyond the usual stalking and staring and ever present harassment.
In a time distant enough to be my past, I took the apartment complex's staff out for ice cream, and I saw them rush about for ID just in case someone asked. And I asked them if that was a regular thing. And they said yes, it happened to them almost every time they were out. But it had never happened to me. In an ID-obsessed country, other than for paperwork, no cop had ever stopped me on the street and asked me for my ID.
I met up with some black travellers once, and they did not share my experience. They had to carry ID with them all the time. And this was in Asia. Even miles away from American shores, they were still afraid of the police.
It is lonely. It is suffocating. It is depressing to live the life I lead. It's a society where I cannot socialize, where I cannot find nor keep gainful employment no matter what I may offer, where life moves past me at rates that are hard to understand, where I live in fear of them. A stranger, a minority, living in a strange land.
And yet, I'm privileged. It could be worse. It could always be worse.
Some day,
Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black,
with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren
whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the roof
Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that
This sort of caste discrimination apparently even goes beyond tech. I’m quite ignorant of historical world ethnic/cultural issues I’ll admit. And despite me having some understanding of the general history of castes in India, to see this issue still present in the US after Indians immigrate is sad.
Good that you were able to have such a conversation. I would request you not to generalize from one example though.
Different states in India differ in matters of caste substantially. In Bengal its mostly a non-issue, more so in metropolitan areas. Some from grand-parent generations might still give caste a thought, but for the rest I can bet that thoughts of caste rarely if at all cone to their mind.
To cement this idea with a concrete example, the Brahmin's that you heard about are supposed to wear this holy thread. Its supposed to be treated with great respect. There are procedures to ensure that the thread, for example, does not get offended when you take a pee break -- you get the idea. So in Bengal, in my dorm, I have seen them used to hang mosquito nets to tying leaky taps. Its just a f'ing piece of thread that someone's grandparent gets upset over if the person doesn't wear it, so the person wears it but treats it nothing more than just a thread that happened to be around.
Totally unrelated, I do hope that you start programming for the fun of it, just as much I hope that for myself.
>>It explained a lot of the dynamics I had already observed, like why one of the best engineers in the place had never been promoted
Its not just promotions. It manifests every where. Job interviews, bonus payouts, onsite foreign work opportunities.
If you are a part of a minority group you are expected to be just too awesome compared to your peer groups to even qualify for basic things.
The whole system works in a way that you have to continually outperform your peer group to even qualify working at the current levels. When people say the system is merit based(It's not), they basically mean its a ruthless culling process where even small missteps from a minority person could mean the person losing years.
It's important that companies are aware of this, take complaints seriously, inform their Indian employees that this is not acceptable, explain where and how to report this, and offer training to overcome these prejudices.
And have clear sanctions: if someone does discriminate against lower-caste colleagues, and especially when they abuse their power against them (by denying promotion, keeping them away from prestigious projects, etc), then the abuser should be demoted or fired.
If you want to work in an environment where caste matters and the caste hierarchy is observed, do not work for a western company.
Also, maybe there should be some education projects and affirmative action for those Dalit communities.
This is why I scoff and roll my eyes at individuals who argue that tech is a meritocracy when discrimination between countrymen is happening even in companies like Google.
Nobody argues that tech is a meritocracy. Meritocracy is just an ideal, just like freedom, equality and defensive driving; it’s worth striving towards but you cannot ever reach it (and if you think you’ve reached it, you’ll inevitably start falling behind).
Having said that, it’s one of the most meritocratic industries; do you know any billionaire doctors or lawyers that are college dropouts?
That's not true even in the trivial "well I mean that most people don't argue that". I think people in tech are a lot more self-aware then they were 10-15 years ago (when most people in tech I knew would assert that tech is a meritocracy), but I still hear plenty of aspirational rhetoric that either assumes or explicitly asserts this "fact".
late 80s and early 90s were very meritocratic, in my experience. In fact, I left architecture and switched to software precisely because of this fact. Don't forget, this is the time period when you did not tell people in parties you were a programmer. It was decidedly the un-sexy un-cool profession. Check out 80s hollywood products and their portrayal of programmers.
The turning point in this industry was recorded in popular culture in 1995:
The influx of "new blood" into the field -- people who would otherwise never ever would have considered living the geek life -- in the new gold rush of post-WWW software world fundamentally changed the character of the field. Far more politically and socially savvy personality types were now competing for position.
And oh yes. One of my esteemed coworkers when I was all of 25 was this wizzard looking man. I mean he had the beard, the hair, and a program of his hanging on the wall (hardwired, you see), and hailed from Bell Labs.
I wonder how he would do these days in the market. Obviously, (software) tech can not possibly be a meritocracy when the most experienced workers are routinely discriminated against.
I think I’m a little younger than you, but I too remember when being “into computers” was the sort of thing that got you bullied and made your family question whether you’d amount to anything in life.
Yes, tech is meritocratic- as long as you are a white middle-class dude in your twenties. That is, in order to make it in tech you have to be a white middle-class dude in your twenties, but once you have that bit down pat, everything else is a matter of skill and intelligence.
Edit: I'm speaking from my experience working as a developer in the UK. About 99% of the people I've worked with were white, middle-class dudes in their twenties or at most mid-thirties. There were the odd female developer. I had two coleagues who were Indian, one of whom was female and every other Indian person I've worked with was a consultant. I had one technical coleague who was of Chinese descent. And I've never had a colleague who was black (although I knew a black man who was a soft. eng.).
So, you want to make it big in the software industry in the UK? Better be white, male, middle-class and be in your twenties. Oh- and be good with code, of course. But first be white, male and middle-class.
By analogy, one might look at the number of not-college-educated millionaire lotto winners and say that playing scratchers is the most meritocratic business you can be in.
The relatively large number of tech billionaires – people with tens of thousands of times the median wealth – is a strange thing to use as an indicator of “meritocracy.”
Actually, one of the main criticism of meritocracy (as in, the social structure that we (the Western civilisation) strive to have, not the stupid "it's not actually a meritocracy" argument) is that, combined with assortative mating, it would eventually result in incredibly unequal society, with high-IQ genes becoming increasingly concentrated.
Isn't there some observed regression to the mean with children of high-IQ couples, though? I can't help but think of that part in Idiocracy where the high-IQ couple ends up dying before they can have even 1 kid while the regular-IQ guy is impregnating multiple women multiple times.
Not to mention that high-IQ is itself by definition less common...
Also, I think a "fair" meritocracy is still possible because merit isn't necessarily dependent simply on G; dedication and moral fortitude contribute greatly to merit in companies as well as societies, in my opinion.
Care to elaborate why "it's not actually a meritocracy" is a stupid argument?
IMO every metric we define will be gamed by bad actors so "meritocracy" will only be used to provide legitimacy to said bad actors. It's quite telling that "aristocracy" (the government of the best) which was supposed to be just like "meritocracy", became to mean just the opposite, meaning nepotism and idiotic inbred leaders.
To make it a smart argument, you’d need to prove (or at least attempt) that being further away from a worthwile goal is better than being closer. Personally, for a lot of these “social systems”, I’d argue the opposite is true; a bit of democracy (Russia) is better than no democracy (DPRK, Soviet Union), and even for the counterexamples (e.g. China vs India) personally I’d still prefer to live in a democracy. Same with meritocracy, making each step towards a worthwhile goals is worth it.
By attacking the goal, you collapse the whole argument. Meritocracy is bad because it results in super-inequality. Representative democracy is bad because it collapses all policy dimensions into one. Of course, it’s also helpful to propose an alternative; I’m a big proponent of direct democracy; no idea what’s better than meritocracy.
That assortative mating can also quickly leads to autism. We've got 30,000 engineers stuffed into a one square mile campus and they get married and have kids. The autism rates of kids with two technical parents is really high.
That's not true, he was board certified by an existing board, but created his own (never accepted by anyone that matters, apparently) board to fleece other doctors, or, nominally, at least the first time, to protest the board he was certified by. He then let it lapse by failing to file paperwork, reformed it years later, and let it lapse again.
But don't candidates for Google jobs have to jump through several tedious rounds of interview? How likely is it that there's going to be a snobby Indian in each of those rounds who gets to veto a candidate?
1. Companies like Google tend to want hiring approval to be unanimous or close to unanimous - the more rounds of approval you have, the more likely one person can derail it. (Not to mention team matching, SVP approval, etc.)
2. With enough interviews of enough candidates, this still leaves you with a statistical bias in aggregate, even if it's possible for one candidate to avoid biased interviewers. (The converse of course, is that the experience for a single candidate is quite often worse than the median experience.)
At Google you get interviewed (usually only one round with multiple people in it) and then your interview feedback goes to a hiring committee and they make the decision.
Could the hiring committee identify you as UC? Quite likely based on surname, but I don't know if they see a surname.
Also, in the article, the discrimination happened after someone was hired. Promotions (Google again uses a committee system here), project assignments, etc can all be influenced in a way that is impossible for you to "hide" who you are.
Who actually argues that tech is a meritocracy? The diversity/inclusion stuff that is glaringly in your face at large tech companies should indicate that it is not a meritocracy.
> If you want to work in an environment where caste matters and the caste hierarchy is observed, do not work for a western company.
And if you want to practice caste discrimination at an Indian company — beware, caste based discrimination is India has been illegal since 1948, you will go to jail, and they’re definitely not the nice Scandinavian kind of jails.
PS. About education and affirmative action for Dalits... there are lots of such programmes. But clearly not enough to wipe this blot away.
How many companies are prosecuted under those laws?
The existence of laws is nice but enforcement makes the difference. Most companies would probably not advertise that they favor certain castes, but inexplicably only people of certain castes get the promotions, good projects etc.
> And have clear sanctions: if someone does discriminate against lower-caste colleagues, and especially when they abuse their power against them (by denying promotion, keeping them away from prestigious projects, etc), then the abuser should be demoted or fired.
I agree, but as usual, I'm confused: should they not be demoted or fired when they abuse their power to discriminate against someone who is not Indian? Or is Indian, but of an equal or higher caste?
I totally agree with what you're saying, but the way you say it implies that everything else is okay.
> If you want to work in an environment where caste matters and the caste hierarchy is observed, do not work for a western company.
We have castes in the West as well, we just call them classes and you can, theoretically, transition from one to another, but generally you won't and everybody is quite aware of each others class and the nuances within. It's in everything, the way you speak, dress, what you eat and drink, heck, even your name is usually a statement of class.
If any Indian (regardless of their caste) finds caste discrimination as bizarre, I don't know what world they live in. It is a fact. I am upper caste by birth, but means zilch to me.(Doesn't mean anything in the larger context, but saying it anyway). I cannot speak for most upper caste folks,I have no statistics to tell one way or the other. It's all personal experience or anecdotal.
But, I have seen shit happen in front my eyes, in my own home , in many many conversations. Anyone who is "upper caste" and says this is not real, have buried their sand in the head.
Discrimination in India is rampant, and on different dimensions. religion, caste, language, nationality (Don't get me started on how locals treated a few African students in my college back in India), skin color, financial status - the list goes on. But religion & caste take the crown.
> For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it.
A little bit like the class system in the United States (or France) eh :-)
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted - maybe it's the flippant response? The message is correct, though.
The caste system in India sounds exactly like the class system in the US, only more formalized. In my area, there absolutely are surnames that you can associate with 'those' people, and who are, in my experience, passed over for jobs.
Maybe it's my ignorance, but doesn't a caste system whereby you are exposed to more privileges simply due to your birth sound exactly like a class system based on income whereby you are exposed to privilege simply because of your birth (because of your parents' income)?
Can you elaborate further? In very small towns surname can link you to a specific family, but outside of that and something like anti-semitism, I don't think I've ever heard of surname related association of that kind in the US.
I guess, it depends on your definition of 'very small town'. My closest city center is 100k, and there definitely are names associated with 'those'. They tend to be names associated with lower-income folks who have run-ins with the law.
For example - we recently hired an entry level position, and one of the search committee members tried to veto a candidate because of her last name. This name is one that comes from the wrong side of the tracks, and is quite a poor family. Nothing about this young lady indicated anything but an ability to do the job well, but the committee member just "didn't trust an [last name here]".
That was a fun conversation.
It's absolutely prevalent in smaller towns. Where I grew up the population was 40k, with smaller towns (<1000) around. If you didn't have a good name there, you absolutely were left out. This is actually why I moved away - my family is poor, like dirt floor, outhouse poor. I tried to climb some ladders in the area, and kept getting stopped when I tried to go past bottom level manager.
As soon as I moved, I was fast-tracked up the organization. I have to imagine it's based on my name around my home town.
There's some nuance to the differences -- think about the terms "old money" vs "new money" -- the fact that people even came up with those terms tells you a bit more about the hierarchy. I think it's an interesting thought exercise to continue why it's more formalized. Perhaps some of the explanation could be derived from the relative age -- present Indian society is about 10x older than present American society, in which native societies were in large part wiped out by disease and subsequent colonial settlement, the latter of which is only ~400 years old.
I wouldn't say it sounds "exactly" like they are the same.
At least in theory, your income reflects your work and is not set for life, while a "caste system" is usually unescapable. And yes, of course being born in a wealthy family gives you privileges but I don't see anything wrong with people working hard to provide for their descendants.
I understand that it breaks down in practice where wealth attracts wealth, but while I would say they are comparable, I wouldn't call them exactly the same.
I absolutely would call them the same. What is different in a caste system you are born into that provides privilege for some, but lack of resources to another and a class system that provides wealth and privilege for some, but lack of resources beginning at birth for others?
When education from an early age is funded via property taxes (as much of the US is), we are baking in the inequality. If you come from a wealthy neighborhood, your kids have access to resources. If you come from a poor area, your kids have no access to those resources.
If your parents are wealthy professionals, they can provide for you while you work unpaid internships or provide you with connections to college friends to start your career. If your parents are laborers or lower classes, they can't even take time off to come to your graduation. (I know that second one is a bit dramatic, but you get the idea).
In the US, much 'in-group' signaling is based around sports and hobbies that require both time and money. If you didn't play sports as a kid, you're questioned. If you don't have the 'cool clothes' or 'cool car' you're questioned. All of these are class related.
How is this different? Other than being 'formal', honestly, what is the difference between caste system and the very overt class system in the US? That's not a snide question, that's a real question. Where are the differences?
What people are in this 'in-group' you speak of because evidently I'm not in it because nobody questions me in a class sort of way about sports, hobbies, my plain t-shirts, shorts and sandals, my subaru car or anything of that sort. My internships admittedly weren't unpaid but that is generally for poorly paying careers anyways and I'm a highly paid software engineer nor did I get my job through connections of any sort, just went to your standard midwest public state school, applied online and even wore a hockey jersey to my interview.
I mean, I'm sure they are some people coasting through life on their parents money and connections for like the 0.1% but it definitely doesn't seem like there is an overt class system for the average person here to me.
So what you're doing is using anecdotal data to draw conclusions.
Your experience sounds awesome! But to think that, because you did 'Thing A', means 'Thing B' doesn't exist is odd to me.
Overt class signaling from today, at my job:
Conversation between co-workers regarding weekend plans. Co-worker A is going to her weekend house. Co-worker B is going on a float trip on her pontoon boat. I am helping my grandpa re-do his front porch steps, because he can't afford to have a contractor build a ramp for his wheelchair.
Insert blank stare from co-workers A and B here.
It's not as if someone is saying, "What car do you drive, is it worth $55,000?" Instead, they question as to why you drive a 10 year old Kia instead of trading it in, YEARS ago for a new car. They then make you the butt of any jokes about being a cheapskate or penny pincher, when in fact, that's all you can afford because you're supporting an extended family still living in poverty.
It's not as if someone is judging you based on your clothes, by explicitly saying things like, "why don't you wear a tuxedo" or whatever. But it may be that you are passed over for promotions, because you can't afford the clothes to fit in at the golf club (let alone the fees for the membership), so you don't get to rub elbows with executives. That's if you even understand that's a thing.
One difference is that the class system is genetically diversified every 2 to 3 generations or so, because the people that inherit the wealth from their parents and grandparents inevitably end up wasting it away. The churn is real.
> A little bit like the class system in the United States (or France) eh :-)
Maybe in France, I don't know about that. But from what I've learned about the caste system, it's nothing like the class system in the US.
Sure, the US class system is (statistically speaking) heritable, but it doesn't follow you around for life, tied to your surname, determining who you can marry or what jobs you're allowed to get, or if you'll get beaten simply for walking into certain buildings or touching strangers.
> but it doesn't follow you around for life, tied to your surname, determining who you can marry or what jobs you're allowed to get, or if you'll get beaten simply for walking into certain buildings or touching strangers
I am glad you’ve enumerated all those aspects because class definitely follows most Americans around, tied to their FICO score, their debt, their education credentials therefore the jobs they can get into, their neighborhood therefore surrounding crime levels, law enforcement and justice system attitude towards them, incarceration rates etc. It even determines who they can marry based on their gender (e.g statistically men don’t get to marry “up”).
We don’t like to call it caste because it probably offends some sensibilities, but class is definitely sticky in the US.
Isabel Wilkerson, author of "Caste" which is mentioned elsewhere in this thread, draws a fairly clear distinction between caste and class. It's succinctly summarized in her interview with Trevor Noah linked below, around 2:35, and I don't know if I agree but I think you'd find her explanation potentially interesting nonetheless. I tend to instinctively balk whenever people equate or simplify multiple concepts into a single idea, because this too often yields an oversimplification in my experience, and the nuances are usually worth preserving if they genuinely exist.
This is why Sikhs are supposed to all have the same surname (Singh for men, Kaur for women). Sikhism has always been strongly opposed to the caste system- see, for instance, their tradition of offering free food to anyone who wants it as long as they will eat with everyone else there.
According to a Sikh friend, in practice, Sikhs are still aware of caste- in fact, Sikhs from a high-caste background are more likely to keep their family's original surname and add Singh/Kaur as a middle name.
That might explain some things... I had an Indian colleague once who used to tell "Sikh jokes" that he claimed were his cultural equivalent of "Blond jokes".
They are closer to the "An Irishman and a Scotsman …" genre. Part of the reason there are so many Sardar jokes (that's what they are called) is that they (the Sardars) are very sporting and secure people. They don't mind being a butt of these jokes and start many of those themselves. My roommate (who was a Sardar, equivalently, a Sikh) used to say he would keep two glasses, one filled with water and another empty, in the night on his bedstead because in the middle of the night he might be thirsty, but then he might not be. Things like these are essentially baits to encourage such jokes.
But back to the PP a big part of Sikhism's break from Hinduism was the rejection of casteism. So it is built in. Someone who is more familiar will be able to elaborate more. What I have heard is that its root lies in agrarian anti-caste movements.
yea but they will never understand the cultural nuances that it takes to become part of the "in" group, and from reading these articles, it seems that "in" group nepotism is rampant in some places. A caste is not just a name, its a cultural legacy you inherit from your parents, their network and society. Even if you ignore the name part, there are some hidden advantages that are conferred to people of higher castes that probably can't be taken away.
At some point, wouldn't it be difficult for people to tell? A person who grew up outside of India will only have a passing understanding of this nuance anyway, because they would not have been regularly exposed to the other group, so their entire understanding will be from what is passed to them by their parents. And the next generation will have next to zero understanding.
Plus, those nuances will probably get erased by adoption of the customs of their new country. Like they begin to prefer local adaptations of their cuisine, they speak like kids from their schools, etc.
Maybe. The slave class in the US was in theory gone by 1870 (I don't care to look up the end of the civil war. 150 years latter a lot of people still know who is a descendant of that class. Somehow, something, fueled that through several generations.
Yeah, but it was pretty obvious who were the former slaves. There was no "nuance" about it.
When the tell-tale signs aren't physical, but small, subtle difference, they are easier to erase. You can change your name, religion, what you eat, and how you talk. So if those are the signs of your ancestors' caste, they probably won't last for generations in the west unless there's a conscious effort to preserve those distinctions.
One thing people clearly step around discussing is that the darkness of your skin is literally one of the main UC signifiers. Lighter skinned individuals are assumed to be UC.
a lot of this was legally enforced until the 1970s. see e.g. the Racial Integrity Act in Virginia for one example. the state had a legally-codified definition of race ("one-drop rule") and put a lot of bureaucratic effort into keeping records of everyone's race, so that they could enforce segregation and bans on interracial marriage.
if Reconstruction had succeeded and Jim Crow had never happened, who knows what the salience of this would be today?
Not everywhere though. Northern states didn't have nearly as much, but even in middle of nowhere small towns where no blacks even live people still know about it.
Unfortunately, no. My wife's best friend is Hindu from Upper Caste. (Brahim) she was born in the United States.
She always been so liberal and open minded. Most of her friends are Muslims. She is barely religious.
But whenever it comes relationships, she brings up caste. She married into upper caste, she was very worried about caste of the guy. If her sister is dating a someone from a different caste, she brings it up and says something like that dating him is like dating a Muslim man. You will not marry him, just have fun. She talks about it with us as if it is totally normal.
Then one of her husband's friend is lower caste Hindu who converted to Christianity. She uses deragotry terms (Malloo?) for him when he is not around.
While I haven't had any deep conversation with her about caste but few times when I asked why she obesses over it, she says it is not just caste but totally different culture. Which to me sounds bullshit.
Just want to add some more context. When I say she is liberal, she is indeed liberal. Her feed is full of BLM and LGBTQ causes. She has made donations to many of such causes too. She is the nicest person and worries about other people's issues. Gets really sad if there is a sad event in news, no matter where.
I think the problem is people have certain blindspots. Media can help you see these spots. That's why she is hyper aware of causes that the American media cares about.
In terms of caste, she grew up with certain beliefs but it is not something American media has shed any light on it.
She watches Bollywood movies but don't think they watch anything else from India. And I don't really see Bollywood dealing with caste issues seriously.
That's why she doesn't even understand the question when I ask why caste is so important. Also my wife stops me before I can dig any deeper.
Unfortunately, some immigrant parents indoctrinate their children in the ways of the old world. I've had many american born Muslim friends growing up, some of them were self professed atheists, but one thing I've never seen any of them do is eat pork. I believe it is because from a young age if you are made to believe that pork is disgusting, unhygienic etc... You develop a reflex that cannot be overcome. It is probably the same with some upper caste immigrants raising their kids to believe that lower caste people are unhygienic, unintelligent etc... I believe the term is dehumanizing and if you do it enough, it works reflexively.
Well, hold on. I’m indian american, I and my parents are lifelong atheists, our families are supposed to be vegetarians by caste and tradition and whatever but we’re not, but! though I eat chicken and fish and so on, I won’t eat beef, not because I feel “indoctrinated” or because I have an insurmountable reflex (I’ve eaten beef voluntarily on a few occasions, but that was mostly to avoid causing a scene).
Notwithstanding the ecological reasons to do so, I voluntarily don’t eat beef because I feel like it’s one of the easiest and least-damaging (ie it’s a tradition that seems to represent comparatively little direct historical social strife) means left to me, as a second-gen person, to maintain some aspect of my heritage.
Identity and tradition among second-gen immigrants in America is complicated (as is identity, generally) and doesn’t really admit generalizations like these.
I never generalized second gen Indian Americans, i merely said some, keyword is some, immigrant parents indoctrinate their children with old world philosophy and indoctrination works, it doesn't matter where you were born, if your parents (and extended family) beat certain ideas into your head through repetition and you do not either have the wisdom/experience to understand right and wrong for yourself, you can and will be indoctrinated.
It would require far more than just changing one's name. It is somewhat like the difference between old money and new money, except in this case the lower case person doesn't even have the ability to buy the training and coaching that new money is able to (to say nothing of likely having to deal with many more poverty related issues). Accents, speech patterns, how you hold yourself, how you react to people interacting with you based on both their situation and their own caste will all be different.
I have a friend whose parents converted to christianity, and so my friend grew up christian. But guess what, the first time I met my friends' mom(at his wedding), the first question she asked after verifying native state(TamilNadu) was which caste I belonged to. (And yeah just to be clear, she asked which caste I'm from, and she/they're from xxx caste). So no caste is not something people escape from converting religion.
I’m sorry but I’m completely facinated. What do you suppose would happen if your answer was something like: “Oh, we don’t believe in castes” or “I’m not in any caste”. I assume they’d just assume the “worst”.
I'm guessing people will go with the highest probability guess. It's like when people ask about religion. Most won't take "I have no religion" for an answer if you're from a country/place where that's uncommon. They will still try to assume your family background unless you elaborate.
If the person is so forward with this, isnt that a good filter (of sorts) to avoid a specific person who will judge you by such things rather than your character?
I've had this happen with people trying to figure out wealth based on very specific questions regarding where my parents live, etc -- I run the other way. Better to know sooner than later right?
Two of my best friends are Indian Americans, and our friendships were natural and formed around shared experiences together, character, etc. It is nice to form friendships on a blank slate.
> If the person is so forward with this, isnt that a good filter (of sorts) to avoid a specific person who will judge you by such things rather than your character?
Sure do note, this is a friends' mom so atleast a couple of decades older than me.. I've a good friendship with her son, so i guess it's just a question of being polite with her and limiting spending time with her.
Okay few pointers, there's a bunch of dialects in the language that vary mostly based on which sub-part we come from. In turn, most sub-parts have one or other caste majority, additionally, people take a guess based on looks, accent and choice of vocabulary too.. So she'd assume something and keep moving on..
Yup. When the Portuguese ruled Goa and surrounding parts of India, they were happy to keep caste prejudices -- for example, for a long time they only allowed Christian converts of Brahmin origin to become priests.
Similarly, other Catholics attempted to integrate the caste system into Christianity in India (see the Malabar rites controversy), and had two different "castes" of priests, one acting as Brahmin's and ministering to higher castes, and one acting as Hindu priests from lower castes (pandarams), ministering to everyone else.
That is really messed up, i guess one thing you learn through history is that missionaries were in cahoots with the states they represented. I remember reading that a common tactic used by states who wanted to conquer places was that they sent merchants to trade first, then missionaries, then armies.
As someone who comes from a Christian background in India I would like to add here that while the caste system (unfortunately) exists even among the Christians and Muslims in India it is nowhere near as strong as among the Hindus.
There are indeed situations where in parts of the country there are even cemeteries divided on the basis of caste but this is far from being the norm.
However, there are many low caste priests and even bishops in Christianity - which is a very rare occurrance among Hindus where priests are almost exclusively brahmin except for very rare exceptions.
Christianity in India has a fascinating history. The first were converted by Saint Thomas the Apostle personally. And then Christian missionaries were part of the much more recent European contact. I’m no expert on the subject, but I’d wager how Christians in India see caste depends on their particular heritage.
Which as this thread shows only helps a little. You have a chance - but only a chance - that your group is now Christians. As a minority religion you can stick together with your new group who also feels the issues of being in a minority religion. But that only sometimes look - some people convert more wholly than others, and thus are more or less able to ignore previous norms.
As someone who grew up in a different culture (so I look at the system as an outsider - I grew up in the EU, I live in the US, and a lot of my coworkers are Indian), the influence of something like a caste system is quite visible in many people who grew up in India. It's vague and sometimes barely-there, but definitely there quite a lot.
It's a set of assumptions: that someone's pigeonhole in the social structure somehow strongly defines the limits of their abilities; that in the org chart, wisdom always flows top to bottom, never the other way around; that the org chart itself is (and indeed MUST BE) set in stone; etc.
The system feels very rigid, especially for someone who grew up in an individualistic culture.
This is not about conscious, deliberate actions, it's about unconscious attitudes and assumptions.
I do not see any of this in people of Indian descent who grew up here. It's also much less typical of young people with a progressive mindset who grew up in India. But older folks and/or more conservative - yeah, it's clearly there.
I could be wrong, but I feel - the moment India is able to jettison this pattern, the whole country will experience some sort of major renaissance.
There is a strong racial component to the caste system, and thus it would fall within a protected category. A company would open itself up to liability if it willfully ignored the problem.
Even though Caste is associated with Hinduism. There is a huge section of Muslims and Christians who practice a derived version of Caste system in Indian subcontinent.
It's surprising to you because North Americans have gotten used to saying "people of color" as if they were all united.
Upper-caste Indians basically see themselves as people on top of the racial hierarchy. In many ways they identify far more strongly with British or American elites than with Dalits.
Marginalized people speaking up or protesting bothers people with authoritarian personality traits because those acts are interpreted as attacks upon rigid social hierarchy.
It doesn't really have anything to do with the content of BLM's message, but everything to do with who is saying it, how they're saying it, and to whom.
> generations of segregated reproduction have selected for higher IQ in the higher castes
There is no natural selection going on here. People are born into a caste and, for all intents and purposes, their caste identity is fixed for the rest of their lives. The idea that these people have somehow developed a "higher IQ" over "generations" simply by being born to a particular caste makes no sense.
Furthermore, the arguments made in the article have nothing to do with poor performance, (possibly) correlating with a lower IQ. The article details specific examples of antisocial behavior by upper caste Indian workers against their lower caste peers.
This is a fairly terrible take for a number of reasons, but let's assume good faith and indulge this.
* What makes you think that, at any point, lower caste people had an on-average lower IQ? The same has been said for plenty of minorities that have been historically discriminated against, such as people of color and women, because opressors are in control of the narrative and see themselves as superior
* What does "segregated" (in your original comment) or "selective reproduction" even mean for you? There are more lower caste indians than total Amercians. Are americans lower IQ because of "segregated reproduction"?
It is possible that higher casts selected for intelligence over the years. Since in India arranged marriage is the norm, parents can select for intelligence if that is a trait they care about. If there is a genetic portion of intelligence that can be selected for.
Note the above uses words like "possible" and "if". I find it unlikely this is what was done. More likely - like every other society - they selected for politically powerful.
Note too that it is highly likely that in the past rape of lower casts was accepted in some form, which would bring any selected IQ genes to the lower casts.
> Note too that it is highly likely that in the past rape of lower casts was accepted in some form, which would bring any selected IQ genes to the lower casts.
There is preliminary evidence from genetic sequencing that Indian castes have been highly endogamous for at least 3000 years.
India is a vast place with an enormous population, and there's resistance to continuing this research, for fairly obvious reasons. But continue it will, you can't un-sequence a genome after all. So we may yet see a robust answer to this sort of question.
Surely once caste is established intelligence can't be selected for any more strongly than under any other conditions - the rules of the game are fixed at that point.
Your final point about selection via coercion holds more water, but one has to believe that the subjects would be explicitly chosen for their intelligence, rather than for any other features, which seems difficult to support.
As a rule all women breed (there are exceptions of course). In some societies high status males breed with multiple females and low status males have none. In most societies today marriage is 1:1, though there is lots of cheating but in general it means that some women will breed with low status males just for someone - thus all genes get carried on.
As I said I assume the powerful selected politically powerful mates for their girls, which might or not be intelligent as well. However it is possible that high status was high intelligence. The lower castes not following that.
Look, the above is all just barely possible. you will have to work with me here...
I haven't seen the science so I might be wrong, but from what I can tell this is correlation not causation. Which is to say intelligent people [in modern times] are less likely to have kids (birth control) and not that intelligent people are less likely to be able to have kids if they want to.
I appreciate that you presume good faith. I really believe the best way to address flawed racial arguments is by refuting in the open rather than downvoting to oblivion.
I assure you I am in good faith, I understand the topic is sensitive, but I don't know what in my comment would suggest I am in bad faith. I think it is likely that there are differences in IQ between the castes, just as there are other physical differences, and that the higher caste would have on average higher IQ since IQ is a decent predictor of social economic success in most contexts. Perhaps people familiar with the Indian education system can chime in about standardized test scores broken down by caste - my recollection from years ago is that there are differences.
By segregated reproduction I just mean that most likely mate selection is done within cast, so any difference in IQ between castes is likely to be slow changing as there is little gene exchange between groups. Something similar happens in US society where there is growing stratification along IQ lines.
If your primary evidence is results-based, why do you assume it's genetics instead of situational? My assumption would be that higher caste students have more opportunities for proper nutrition, education, etc.
Looking at babies adopted into another caste, or people marrying across castes, would help shed some light. But it doesn't seem reasonable that 5k years of caste systems would have such an impact on IQ.
50-100 years ago there were huge differences between men and women's test scores, and many speculated that it was due to genetic differences. Fast forward to today where women get equivalent education (at least here in the UK), and those differences have disappeared with women actually doing slightly better than men on average. There's a very high chance that it's not genetic.
The implication is that, inherently, higher caste individuals were more gifted than lower castes, and that breeding over the years selected for those traits.
You're confusing inherent trait with sociologically applied traits. In other words, there is no reason to assume there would be selective reproduction for ANY single trait in any of the castes, because your birth into those castes is random and meaningless.
Unless the first two people to make new babies in the highest castes were inherently better than everyone else. Which I firmly believe is false.
I am not an evolutionary biologist so please excuse and correct any mistakes if you can. Lets assume there are some physical differences between the castes. These differences would have been brought into existence because at some point the respective populations were isolated and living under different sets of evolutionary pressures. If, over time, you remove physical isolation but replace it with cultural taboos against inter-breeding then the effect of these ancestral pressures can be preserved. Does that make sense?
It seems to me the real issue here is our inability to reckon with the fact that IQ is just another adaptation. If we were talking about a less central trait, say hair color, the down votes, insults and the flagging of the post would seem ridiculous, even though the exact same reasoning would apply,
It could work if smart people from lower casts were moved to higher casts and stupid people from higher casts were moved to lower casts. Ideally children would have to be cast-less and then at some age (before reproductive age) were promoted to one of the casts according to some intellectual test. And breeding would be allowed only between species of the same cast.
If I'm not mistaken, Indian casts do not work this way, so I don't think that it's possible to select anything.
I'm not even sure that intellect is affected by genes.
Of course this is all eugenics and considered inappropriate even to discuss in west.
It might work if intelligence wasn't important for members of lower castes but was for higher castes, perhaps due to the nature of their culture or work. Then low castes wouldn't select for intelligence but high castes would. Not saying that's what actually happened but it shows that selective pressure could still exist without inter-caste mobility.
Stop this nonsense about topics being inappropriate to discuss unless you're a nun. Nobody has a cultural taboo about discussing dog breeding or evolution of other traits. Just race and intelligence is taboo because people have been indoctrinated to believe that low intelligence marks you as an inescapably undeserving or a "bad" person. If you broaden your mind and stop treating intelligence as such an important aspect of life, then it won't be so taboo.
>t might work if intelligence wasn't important for members of lower castes but was for higher castes, perhaps due to the nature of their culture or work. Then low castes wouldn't select for intelligence but high castes would. Not saying that's what actually happened but it shows that selective pressure could still exist without inter-caste mobility.
This makes absolutely no sense, unless the "not so smart" were not considered for reproduction or were eliminated. How are you selecting for IQ if the only thing you need to get married is to be in that cast? Arranged marriages don't help with natural selection; you just need to exist in the right family.
It really depends how things work over there. Castes are associated with jobs and I have seen some articles that some 'teacher' cast has higher intelligence, just like eg ashkenazi jews. It could be that being pretty unsuccesful at your caste-assigned job would have left you unemployed and thus not being able to support a family, thus not being able to marry. thats obviously speculation, of course.
It does not make any sense, no matter how you look at it.
Sure, you can see those "articles", but don't forget that those are going to be based on IQ tests, and those are correlated with intelligence and... wait for it... education.
If I was of the superior caste that's what I would try to make people believe: "we are superior, and we are here because we are smarter than you. Best of luck in your next life".
Someone with a high iq will be more capable of following a certain education path. So education and iq being correlated usually means the iq measure is working as intended. If however going to a great school improves your iq that proves the specific iq measure used is flawed (as its supposed to measure innate intelligence, not education). As for the other part, I agree my line of reasoning is rather unsympathetic.
Lets say tomorrow the society (lets presume all of them are WASPs) decides to divide themselves between people whose name start with a J (the most common letter for names in US, like James, John, Jennifer, Jessica, Jesse etc) and non-Js. And this J group declares themselves as the 'upper caste' with Js only marrying with Js and non-Js only among non-Js. Also they even live in physical isolation from each other.
Two thousand years later, which group will have higher IQ?
The answer is, you can't tell. Whatever is the starting group IQ of these two groups is, that's exactly what it would be for the latter.
Same goes with your theory about upper castes having higher IQ. Now the place where you might be right is (not that you realize that), if there is an IQ test available only to the J's, and they prefer to marry to the highest IQ person willing to marry them, but the other caste does not have this test available. Now, over generations, one group will be selecting for the IQ but the other won't be able to.
The 'IQ test' could be education (and jobs which require education like priesthood) which was generally only available or restricted to the Brahmins (so not 'all' higher castes). The more 'Vedas' you memorized (which weren't written down for a long period), the more esteemed scholar you were, this is why the have last names like Dvivedi or Dubey ('a scholar who memorized 2 vedas') or Trivedi (a scholar who memorized 3 vedas) or Chaturvedi or Chobey (a scholar who memorized all 4 vedas).
Here, you COULD see that if Brahmins are only allowed to be educated, and IFF they are choosing for those who show a 'higher score' in terms of IQ, then there can be an optimization for IQ.
A control group would be a higher caste which isn't optimizing for education or any other proxy for IQ (like being in successful business is a kind of IQ test, not as strong of an IQ test as being able to memorize vedas, but still, it is).
You're trying to compress a bunch of dimensions all into one explanation of "IQ", and you're assuming a lot of things here, such as physical isolation would cause divergence in IQ; that divergence in IQ would also cause later societal hierarchical advantages (over natural resources, physical power, or other non-IQ circumstances or differences); and that later removal of the physical separation and original selection pressures would continue to select for IQ in the subgroup. Maybe once your elites get entrenched, they select for other attributes like physical ones instead. I don't see a lot of societies out there where marriages are formed based on pure intellect.
The assumption you're making that you haven't substantiated is that higher (as in socially-more-powerful) castes have higher IQs.
(There are a number of other unsubstantiated assumptions beyond that, including that the difference in IQ is enough to explain the observed effect, that the variance in the distribution of IQs in each population is pretty close to zero, that castes started out as physically-isolated populations with distinct IQs, etc., but let's start with that one.)
That doesn't even make sense. The artificial pressure of "is this person's family from a caste that is comparable enough to our own that we can arrange for our children to marry" is taking priority over any other selection criteria. Whether you're right or wrong about the genetics of IQ is irrelevant -- you're fighting way too hard without realizing you're not even in that arena.
Twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%[6] with the most recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%[7] IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics, for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults.
but there is... the most obvious being that massive energy-inefficient climate-changing head that serves you are using to write that sentence with. It serves no other purpose. There are studies too but the point is infinitely easier to accept if you consider whats right in front of you.
You do realize that one example (out of 1.2 Billion) is the definition of "far fetched".
If you want to claim that it is not "far fetched", you will have to provide 1000s of cases.
Edit: oh great, the downvote brigade is here. How about this anecdote: in grad school, I (an Indian, from the North of the country) was friends with a group of South Indians who all shared a house. We'd have brunches together, hang out on the weekends, etc. They all came from different schools; including one from IIT Madras. After nearly a year of friendship, in one late night conversation, one of the guys joked that the guy from IIT Madras was a "topper" (i.e., ranked highest in the entrance exam). I was surprised, because he seemed so down to earth. Turns out he had scored the highest among the reserved category students (but still ranked pretty highly); IOW, he was of a so-called "lower caste". It didn't bother me at all, and neither did it bother any of his housemates. We are still friends today, albeit over long distance.
The lack of self awareness amongst upper caste Indians in India and abroad is interesting to witness.
They often think of themselves as having come from humble backgrounds and 'made it' in society all on their own. Not realizing that the vast majority of Indians in India live in abject poverty without any meaningful access to basic education and other amenities. Upper caste Indians are more likely to have access to better education, have family from previous generations who were also college educated or worked well paid government jobs. These multi generational advantages have helped the current generation of the upper caste succeed in India and beyond.
The Upper caste live in their own bubble not even realizing the privilege they are born with.
It has another side that validates their opinion. ( I am neither upper caste, nor come from a historically wealthy family)
In many cases parents will live incredibly frugally their whole lives to save up enough money for their child's education. Growing up on $3-8k annually is a humble background for a family when look at from the American lens. Qualifying for Indian universities is a nightmare exam that takes 2+ years of 10+ hrs a day of study. The kids compromise on any hobbies and a life just to MAKE IT.
Everything in India IS far harder than the developed world. A family that can't afford a personal vehicle, air conditioning or a single vacation over their lifetime is a humble family. Being successful enough to make it to the >95th percentile in the western world from such beginning is commendable and something a person should be able to take pride in.
Now, is it still an order of magnitude less hard to do this than it is for a dalit ? Ofc it is. But, should a person born in the western world feel ashamed to get a phd because kids in Africa are dying of hunger ? NO.
> Come from humble backgrounds and 'made it' in society all on their own
> Upper caste Indians are more likely to have access to better education
Both these statements can be true. One should not need to throw away pride in their accomplishments to empathize with someone less fortunate.
> They often think of themselves as having come from humble backgrounds and 'made it' in society all on their own.
The number of people I've run into that claim this, but their parents paid their rent, or bought them a house, or they work for their family's company, is staggering. It's a common blind spot for upper middle class and rich people.
Reminds me of a U.S. politician whose advice to students struggling with finding jobs in a recession was to borrow money from their parents to start a business.
That was Mitt Romney in 2012. "We’ve always encouraged young people: Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business."
Romney's father was CEO of American Motors and the governor of Michigan.
Yep. All them liberal arts grads who have "made it" in their respective industries who then turn around and defend unpaid internships because they had parents willing to support them as young adults for the first half decade out of college.
This is true for most countries, how many developers do you know that come from real poor families? In my experience most had it pretty good, that's why they had a computer and maybe internet growing up, and time to play with it, and time to study instead of working to support yourself and the family.
We exist. I was lucky enough to have a parent who bought a second-hand computer after years of asking for one, and not being able to afford it. They were relatively expensive then, so it was a real sacrifice that I'm still grateful for to this day.
One of the things I've learned is that if you don't use euphemisms to minimize the poverty that you came from, some people treat you differently when they understand what poverty actually means and what it meant for you. For that reason, I tend not to share, or be completely honest about it.
No computer, no internet growing up, but then again, I was born in '74. If I were to guess, probably grew up in the bottom 30% or so. Never had a "new" car growing up, always rented (though my parents did finally 'buy' when I was around 25 or so). Didn't put down on a house of my own until about 2 years ago (43yo at the time).
That said, I've had a tendency to spoil myself since I started making good money over a decade ago (top ~10% or so). I'm not rich, I don't have generational wealth, and I have a modest amount of debt. My daughter just turned 18yo, and is graduating HS in the spring. I'm doing what I can to help her make the best decisions for what she wants to do.
In the end, I kind of lucked out. I got into programming around the right time... managed to recover from a very hard year when the .com bubble burst in early 00's. Despite my parents being together my entire life, I haven't managed to do the same. I'm twice divorced, and currently engaged, and hesitant.
I've effectively had to start from roughly nothing three times in my life. I was kicked out as a young adult. After the .com bust, I had only what could fit in the back of my pickup, repo'd 3 months after 9/11. And after my second divorce, I didn't have much to speak of.
All told, I've been relatively fortunate, and determined through my life to keep pushing forward. I've managed to push through my personality disorder (similar to add/adhd). I've fought with pretty severe depression several times. I push through regular anxiety. Though I tend to push full burn until I burn out (getting close now).
I'm not so much complaining as stating that not everyone doing relatively well started off that well, or had the advantages that many will assume. And even then, you can walk out of a situation with pretty much nothing and still climb back out again. Right now, my heart goes out to everyone who is losing everything they have, watching it all fall apart. A lot of the top 10-50% will wind up in the bottom 50% when it's all said and done.
I will say that of the people from other cultures that I've worked with in my life, those from India tend to have more interesting interactions based on the caste they grew up in. The variance is far broader than most Americans, Russians or Chinese I've worked with. Though most of the Chinese I've worked with are also from a wealthy background typically. Russians who have come up pre vs post communism vary a lot though, mostly from their experience. But those are just my observations.
Interesting ramble and thank you for sharing. I would be curious to hear more about the interesting interactions based on the caste they grew up in!
I will say that of the people from other cultures that I've worked with in my life, those from India tend to have more interesting interactions based on the caste they grew up in. The variance is far broader than most...
Just a tendency to either be very timid, or very outgoing and really no in between. It just feels obviously it's a cultural difference that frankly I don't understand.
I've always appreciated competence and rejected unsubstantiated arrogance. So to me it's kind of alien.
I haven't seen the interactions as described in the article, but have noticed things like lunch group clustering that seemed to go beyond a typical US High School. And it wasn't really a grouping by type of work. I was working in a position that was a very large company group that was around 75% Indian H1Bs.
I never really knew how the caste system worked, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. At the time I just chalked it up to a culture thing.
To be fair, it requires a lot self awareness and external education to learn about your own privilege and how difficult (relatively) other people have it. It's not easy.
It really does not in a place like India where differences between the rich and the ultra poor are everywhere to witness. You cannot miss it. 90% of the country is living in poverty.
Buddha may have been able to tell things were a bit weird for him as an aristocrat, but not everyone has that level of introspection.
It’s very easy to look at all one’s own struggles and think them similar to someone else’s struggles, even if that other person has struggled far more.
If it’s 1% possible to achieve something and you did achieve it, you may think you and the person for whom it is 0.01% possible are similar, but they’ve had experiences and struggles you can’t fathom. I use the general ‘you’, maybe not you-you.
Yes but caste is associated with education. And the current generation of the upper caste is succeeding because they are more educated than the rest and come from more educated families. Which I would say is a huge privilege given that a large majority of the country can't even read and write.
They are succeeding because the historical cultural norms keep the "competition" down, and because they have money. Everything else is a consequence, not a cause. Take 2 equally educated people from high and low castes and see how they behave next to each other and how they're treated doing the same jobs. One will be treated like a "natural born leader", the other like a "born to be a slave". That's because as much education as those in the lowest caste may have, the system is rigged against them by people who aren't inherently any better but can "invent" such an advantage.
Caste, like race or gender, is the kind of bottom of the barrel discrimination. When the other person is just as educated, or smart, or capable, or sometimes they may be even better, you pull out this card which is by definition impossible to fight. You can't reasonably change them. So some people will keep working to make these still "a thing", something they can always use to get an edge they don't deserve.
> When the other person is just as educated, or smart, or capable, or sometimes they may be even better, you pull out this card which is by definition impossible to fight. You can't reasonably change them. So some people will keep working to make these still "a thing", something they can always use to get an edge they don't deserve.
This could also be a 100% accurate description of affirmative action.
Of course at first sight "affirmative action" has a similar effect and taken to the extreme it can have just as many negative consequences. But it also depends on how narrow your view of what's happening is, how far you "zoom in". The intention of reasonable affirmative action is vastly different and yes, that matters.
If you take a narrow enough view, a criminal being locked up is no different from a person being kidnapped. Someone is deprived of liberty. A criminal taking money from the victim is no different from a victim taking back money from the criminal. Someone is taking money from someone else. If you take a step back you see a different story.
To the point, if you got a job purely based on such advantages as gender or skin color, then the fact that it's taken away via affirmative action is not as much discrimination as it is fixing an error. The devil's in the details.
> To the point, if you got a job purely based on such advantages as gender or skin color,
But even if someone did get a job based solely on their skin color or gender (increasingly rare in the US), there's no guarantee or even likelihood that the next random person who loses a job because of affirmative action ever got one because of his/her skin color.
To take the most obvious example, what if the losing party is just entering the workforce? How are they guilty, other than by their skin color?
No, you can't solve racism with racism. It only causes more ill will. It's not a popular opinion these days, but I'm quite sure it won't help us attain a more just, harmonious society. Only firmly rejecting all forms of racism will get us there.
In any case, it's increasingly clear these days that attaining a racially harmonious society is no longer an objective for many folks. It's all a power play, for themselves and their political or identity group.
The past 5-10 years have been utterly discouraging for someone who hoped we could move past racial thinking as a society. I was wrong to be hopeful, for a variety of reasons now clear to me.
> The lack of self awareness... They often think of themselves as having come from humble backgrounds and 'made it' in society all on their own... live in their own bubble not even realizing the privilege they are born with.
So... pretty much like most Americans in similar situation, then?
> So... pretty much like most Americans in similar situation, then?
Does that include almost all Americans, regardless of race? Because compared to most of the rest of the world, we're obviously and measurably privileged wrt materials assets, regardless of race[1].
1. With respect to material assets. With respect to other assets (spiritual, social, etc), I would argue that we Americans are often in the lower tiers.
I would say yes, although in varying degrees and different qualities depending, some definitely have it worse than others, and that's not regardless of social position (for which race is a quite good correlation in the US because of our history of white supremacy, but is not the same thing).
But I guess we're talking about a couple things. The original topic was like "thinking you 'made it' all on your own." Then there's "feeling you are struggling hard and haven't 'made it' at all, when it could be a lot lot worse for many people on the planet." Seldom does "it's even worse for others" make someone struggling feel better though.
People compare their lot to their neighbors who they can see and come into contact with (even if via media), which is also human nature.
Mainly though, for this whole discussion on the OP, my thinking is -- people are sometimes talking as if Indians are so different than Americans with regard to prejudice about caste or in this case those who have 'made it' not realizing they pretty much just stayed in the social position they were born into -- when seems to me pretty similar. It's maybe easier to see when looking from the outside in than when looking at your own culture.
Unfortunately, the caste system is more complex than the issue of race in the US.
The reservation system in India was instituted to bring parity between the downtrodden castes and the upper castes.
When I was in engineering school in the late 90s, if you were from a lower caste, you barely had to get passing marks in the engineering entrance exam to make it to a top engineering school. And you would still have unfilled seats.
A friend who belonged to a lower caste ( got a rank of 25000 in the entrance exam and breezed into a top engineering school), while another guy from an upper caste who got a rank of 5000, basically was rejected. You pretty much had to get a rank under 3000 if you were from an upper caste to get an admit to any engineering school.
Not everyone who is upper case in India is rich, in fact the Brahmins are mostly lower - middle class. To be poor and Brahmin is like getting doubly screwed.
The reservation system does not stop at education, you have it in public sector jobs.
Merit took a big hit, people who were unqualified started making their way into education and jobs.
It's a good idea taken to an extreme.
A lot of these "Brahmins" are butt-hurt because of this, but hey, you are in the US now, leave that feudal thinking behind.
Interesting, I'll check it out.
The caste system in India was originally based on profession, and people could move around freely between "castes" , at some point it was co-opted by assholes for their benefit.
> The caste system in India was originally based on profession
That is the official political line, but the reality (as always) was much more complex. It also had a significant tribal, multi-racial, and multi-cultural bases, all evidenced in scriptures and the cultural, linguistic, and genetic landscape of the Indian subcontinent (including Pakistan, Bangladish, Nepal, and Sri Lanka). In that respect it's nothing unique even to India - the social structures of most of the world were built on the same basis.
I have been studding Buddhist scriptures and I don't think this true. The following quote is from 2,500 years ago:
[The] brahmins say: ‘Only brahmins are the highest caste; other castes are inferior. Only brahmins are the light caste; other castes are dark. Only brahmins are purified, not others. Only brahmins are Brahmā’s rightful sons, born of his mouth, born of Brahmā, created by Brahmā, heirs of Brahmā.
To right historical wrongs is not easy. I initially thought of the reservation system as a terrible idea because of exactly the reasons you stated.
These policies are meant to help society in aggregates so there will always be folks who get screwed. Its important to keep trying though. While slavery in the US is perhaps 300 years old, the caste system has been seemingly around since the beginning of civilization on the Indian subcontinent...that's an unimaginable amount of time over which certain sections of society were systematically discriminated against.
It was meant as repatriation of resources back to the downtrodden, as all well meaning ideas start off....
True, am not against that, but without checks and balances, as as happened in India, it ends up creating another set of problems ( poor Brahmins now complain of lack of opportunities).
The caste system was not as rigid before, it was more a system around professions ( Brahmins - intellectual class, the Kshatriyas - warriors, Vyshya - Merchants), until someone at the top decided it did not have to be based on that anymore.
pm90> These policies are meant to help society in aggregates so there will always be folks who get screwed. Its important to keep trying though.
sharadov> True, am not against that, but without checks and balances, as as happened in India, it ends up creating another set of problems (poor Brahmins now complain of lack of opportunities).
Reservation policy should not be confused with financial assistance. The government does have financial assistance in many forms, which is available to everyone needy - brahmins included. Reservation policy is for correcting imbalances in the aggregate, such as the one pointed out by a sibling comment:
esalman> What is more unfair? One 25,000-ranked dalit student getting favored over a 5,000 -ranked brahmin, or the fact that 25% of IIT students do not represent dalits even though they represent 25% of the whole population?
Poor brahmins, in your example, complain because small dents in institutionalized privileges one enjoys is indistinguishable from oppression.
What is more unfair? One 25,000-ranked dalit student getting favored over a 5,000 -ranked brahmin, or the fact that 25% of IIT students do not represent dalits even though they represent 25% of the whole population?
My dad recently told me how during the 1980s they had two Indians working together on a project. Turns out one of them was upper-caste, and the other lower-caste, and the upper-caste basically refused. Was impossible to work with, because he was offended that he had to work with a lower-caste person.
If this attitude discrimination of Dalits by upper-castes is really so common in non-Indian companies, it sounds like it would be irresponsible to put upper-caste Indians in a position of authority over Dalits. Maybe they need additional training to help them overcome their prejudices, but this sort of discrimination and bullying should really not be acceptable. Of course if you blindly assume all upper-caste Indians are like that, it would ironically lead to discrimination of those upper castes. Education is probably the better option.
I saw the situation a bit differently, the upper caste guys would have no problem working with the lower caste ones simply because this meant they never had to work. They would pawn off all the work on the others and order them around. And if I tried to force any work on them it just backfired since they just shoved it down the throats of their "slaves".
Even trying to embarrass them in a meeting didn't work. With all eyes on them they would just look at me with a look of mild surprise. They simply (and sincerely) could not acknowledge why someone would phrase as a criticism something that for them is so naturally correct. For them it looked like criticizing a farmer for using work horses. I found this as some of the most disgusting behavior I have ever witnessed in a place of work.
As a New Analyst, I've seen this with Westerners also (nothing to do with "caste" in the specific sense), trying to boss around others and assert dominance based on their University or assumed better training.
I think it happens in a lot of circumstances, even if there isnt a name for it in the West.
There is often a subtle difference: westerners are generally able to understand the situation and decide if they are inferior or note on a case by case basis. When my boss asserts authority that is different from the guy in the desk next to me, and I will react differently.
Note that women have just won that position, and often will not fight for their rights like "they should". Also black people may have issues that they may not feel like they dare fight for their rights, though some will. There are signs the mexicans will have the same problems, but I suspect the younger generation will fight. (in all the the above fight is not violence)
> westerners are generally able to understand the situation and decide if they are inferior or note on a case by case basis.
The scores of westerners who go to 3rd world countries to volunteer at activities they have no prior experience in says otherwise and think they are helping the "poor native people" says otherwise.
> I found this as some of the most disgusting behavior I have ever witnessed in a place of work.
I've, unfortunately, witnessed this as well in school and in the workplace.
> They simply (and sincerely) could not acknowledge why someone would phrase as a criticism something that for them is so naturally correct.
This, again unfortunately, is spot on. When called out on such discriminatory behavior, their attitude was that it was rude of the person who called the toxic behavior out to even point it out in the first place.
Might have been that the situation at my dad's work was actually similar. But if that's their attitude, it still makes me wonder why anyone would hire them. Doesn't this attitude basically make them useless to their employer? As an employer, would you promote the guy who did all the work or the guy who did nothing while taking all the credit?
They aren't stupid or lazy, they're just raised with the (mistaken) impression that they're better than everyone else. But they are capable of working, just not doing the same jobs as the lower castes. So they're hired to be the leadership layer.
Outside of India they're hired because they do have good qualifications, or because they come with a strong recommendation and connections. And again, they're not incapable of doing their jobs just don;t expect them to do "low end" jobs.
And another surprising fact, when I was working together just with someone from a higher caste he would have the same attitude around me that the lower caste guys had around him. So even if in a top caste they'd concede that "the white man is superior". And while I appreciate the conviction they put in the whole class system to the point where they will accept me as being superior based purely on the color of my skin, I still found the whole thing disgusting.
That doesn't seem like a situation where a great deal of discretion and nuance is called for. The "upper-caste" guy should find himself outside the building with all his shit in a cardboard box five minutes after expressing such an attitude.
I'm not sure if this will be seen but I'm very curious to hear from Indian folk:
I am the hiring manager at a well known software company that employs a lot of Indians on H1B visas. A while back I brought in an Indian person for a full round interview. This person happen to have pretty dark skin. On the interview team was a light skinned Indian person with a very Brahmin last name that I'd say is pretty average technically and wasn't my first choice to be on the interview team. The unbiased interview feedback sent to me was 5 yes to hire and the only no to hire (and strong at that) was the Indian interviewer...
A few days later I read about this caste situation at Cisco and I had to wonder...
Any recommendations on how I can avoid having this uncertainty if discrimination was at play? Seems like a pretty hard thing to prove.
Yes, they do provide a basis. In this case the basis was weak and lazy, though that is the style of work I've come to expect from working with this person.
IMO that should be concerning regardless of the caste angle. Throw out their feedback, raise this with their manager or HR, and recommend that they go through interview training again.
Pardon me for making assumptions but you seem to be not Indian, which makes me wonder how did you know that one of the persons on the interview panel had "very Brahmin last name"?
I know this is a caste thread, but there might be a more general issue at play here - a mediocre person may not be able to recognize a talented person, a good solution or a good design. Not putting mediocre people on interview panels would be way higher on my list before getting to cultural or discrimination issues. I am almost inclined to bet that more talented people are less likely to discriminate anyway based on race caste etc... because they don't have the same insecurities.
A mediocre person may also be threatened by someone they see as being more talented. They will fight against having that person on their team with them because it makes them look worse.
Do you have meetings where you talk about the interviewee? A strong no usually merits some kind of explanation. In addition, we always have at least 2 persons in each interview to ensure that a bad interviewer doesn't just make shit up.
Companies also have bias training which can be very useful.
If you are willing to presuppose the proposition that caste correlates to socioeconomic status (I have no idea), then a sufficiently experienced person probably could. There would probably be slang, mannerisms, or common sayings that would give away your background, just like most Americans of different socioeconomic groups have different behaviors
I’m not entirely sure if skin color maps well to caste. Perhaps it’s likely that lighter skinned Indians are likely to be upper caste. I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me but I don’t know.
Anyways, back to the question of discrimination. I’d wager a bet that biases exist against dark skinned Indian people. India, as a society has had that baggage.
It’s like you said; proof is hard to establish at an individual level without a thorough investigation etc etc. But it’s to counter these biases that we have multiple rounds.
Much like the conversation around other forms of discrimination — gender, race etc —- the best thing to do is participate in the conversations around it. In the case of learning more about caste, I have been listening to material shared on Newlaundry podcasts, watching Kahaniaya Kumar’s speeches/interviews and reading/consuming material published by Stalin K (no relation to the Soviet politician), tweets/works from Kavitha Krishnan.
Disclaimer: I’m an upper caste Indian person on an H1B. I’d say that it’s no surprise to me that I’ve been a beneficiary of the caste system than otherwise.
I would really like hear from other folks with Indian background on their experiences around caste.
At no point do they say "Our company does not and did not allow discrimination against a person for being dalit". That is all they would have to say to take a clear stance- and they don't.
> "Cisco is committed to an inclusive workplace for all," the company said in a statement to online news site thewire.
> "We have robust processes to report and investigate concerns raised by employees which were followed in this case dating back to 2016, and have determined we were fully in compliance with all laws as well as our own policies. Cisco will vigorously defend itself against the allegations made in this complaint." (emphasis mine).
We're inclusive! You can tell, because nothing we did was strictly illegal! And nothing violated any of our policies, which don't cover discrimination by caste!
Yup. And IIRC caste isn't a protected class in the US, they can completely ignore the problem -- or even actively allow or endorse it! -- and still be "fully in compliance with all laws".
National origin discrimination involves treating people (applicants or employees) unfavorably because they are from a particular country or part of the world, because of ethnicity or accent, or because they appear to be of a certain ethnic background (even if they are not).
National origin discrimination also can involve treating people unfavorably because they are married to (or associated with) a person of a certain national origin.
Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are the same national origin.
“””
That’s the definition given by the EEOC. I wasn’t sure either, but reading that it leans me towards it being illegal. California is also currently suing Cisco, saying they allowed caste discrimination by a manager. AIUI their defense is that they investigated and were unable to corroborate those allegations, which they presumably wouldn’t do if they considered caste-based discrimination legal.
Some of the people replying are reacting as if the fact that there is no law making this particular discrimination illegal means the company's hands were tied. California is an at-will state, the company could have done literally anything it wanted to.
They don't care about right or wrong, they only care about making the most money they can while staying within the technical legal constraints of the countries they operate in.
I doubt they'd stop at workplace discrimination, if the CCP or Indian government wanted to leverage their tech to kill people (Dalit or Uighur) I'm sure they'd line up to do it (of course they’d rationalize some reason why it wasn’t their problem).
I was born in India and grew up in the South Bay Area, which has a big Indian population. I distinctly remember other Indian kids in my elementary/middle school asking me what my caste is. I later asked my parents and they refused to tell me, explaining to me why I shouldn't care. I still don't know to this day, although researching my last name implied rural origins. I am lucky to have immigrant parents who didn't bring this ugly aspect of Indian society with them - those other kids who asked me likely had parents who did, and were imbuing their kids with it from a young age.
Kudos to your parents. I was fortunate that even while growing up in India, my parents never told me my caste and never filled it out in any school forms. If they teachers pushed for it, my parents would tell me to write Hindu, which of course is a religion. This worked because I grew up in big cities, were it wasn't discussed much.
It boils my blood reading something like this. A man who worked has worked for 20 yrs, paid taxes, provided for his family (in US and back home) has to suffer this much humiliation.
Compound this with the fact the person must be (most likely) on his H1B so can't leave his job and prepare for another one in peace because 2 month window is a short one to find a job.
If there is some karma in this world I hope Iyer/other guy gets it.
As a former H1-B myself, I thought the "2 month window" was a very unofficial grace-period and actually, de-jure, you're ostensibly meant to leave the US immediately (literally, the same day) and only return when a new sponsor agrees to take you on.
> A man who worked has worked for 20 yrs, paid taxes, provided for his family (in US and back home) ...
You don't understand what you have taken for granted. In the name of hindu religion, citing the vedas education has been denied to all non-brahmins(other than priestly caste) until Britishers arrived. This is the reason majority of the indians are first college goers in their family. For us what you described is the definition of heaven.
I totally understand this. I am not saying we (as Indians of xyz caste) haven't done anything wrong in the past.
It's like all the education was only for earning $$ not expanding the mindset (realising your privilege, giving back and at the very least be nice to people agnostic of their race/gender/nationality etc).
I don't get why is everyone who is saying this a result of the reservation system is getting downvoted.
I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India.
How it is to be unreserved in India:
Any unreserved Indian who wants to stay in India is basically agreeing to working two to three times as hard as a reserved Indian to get into any government jobs/colleges while at the same time their tax money is being used to fund these. Also complaining about caste system or reservation can land you in jail (for offending minorities) and the politicians use reserved people as their vote-banks providing them even more privileges for votes. This system is only going to get worse for upper castes. So even your future generations have to work two - three times as hard because of their caste. Sounds like a good deal?
Also reservation benefits only rich reserved people not the poor ones who actually need help because everyone of the caste regardless of their economic circumstances can take advantage of reservation. My grandparents were literally rag pickers at one point in their life and now they are in the middle class I'm not sure how this is due to their caste and not their hard-work. The system is utterly disrespectful to anyone in the upper class. Thus, the higher amount of immigration is of the upper class anyways.
P.S. - By upper caste I mean the "General" unreserved people and "SC ST OBC" etc are the reserved quotas.
This. I think US people see caste system as something like skin color based racism in west. Actually it is much more complicated than that.
I know people from upper castes who were actually middle class farmers, and those from lower castes that got benefit from quotas even if they were rich[0].
Affirmative action is always bad. Because the people getting benefit of it are likely to be privileged. In this particular lawsuit, the discriminated was mentioned to be an IIT alumnus. It is basically hard to get into an IIT without decent investment in study materials / training to pass entrance exams these days. But still most of the seats are reserved for SC/ST/OBC and availed by people who are rich.
After reading this, some so called Indian liberals jump in to defend this is never the case. Go to an IIT and check the list of students who got in due to affirmative action (called reservation here). You will find most of them having wealthy parents because most students who write IIT entrance exams take coaching[1], and that's quite expensive.
Some media likes to highlight this or this may even give impression that upper caste Indians are casteist. They are not. But they are likely fed up with the abomination that reservations (affirmative actions) are.
Apart from that, there is likely chances of nepotism in bureaucratic organizations like Cisco.
Also, as for as I know, the caste system alone doesn't explain why South Indian upper caste people are more successful than North Indian upper castes (Brahmins / Baniyas) who outnumber them easily, and also appear more in IITs/NITs.
I disagree. I grew up poor and white, I was the "victim" of AA once, I come from exactly the demographic that racist demagogues play to, and I still disagree. Just as the original systemic discrimination has uneven effect (on both sides), so does AA. The beneficiaries of AA as it has existed in the US are not particularly likely to be privileged. In fact it really is a bit of the opposite, because it's much easier to skirt AA in professions requiring high levels of education and specialization. It mostly has its effect at the lower end of the economic spectrum, in jobs that even those who have been shortchanged by the educational system can do.
Do some rich minorities benefit from AA? Do some poor white people get the shaft as a result? Oh, I do know about that, and it sucks mightily. From what I can tell it's quite possible that India's reservation system is even worse. But that doesn't mean AA must fail. Flaws in a specific implementation of an idea do not necessarily refute the idea itself. The US version of AA, for all its many and great flaws, still seems net positive and a valid part of addressing systemic discrimination.
That's exactly the problem affirmative action is supposed to address. That's exactly why I support it, even though it wasn't in my own interest back then. So what's your point here? Do you support AA, or oppose it? The "point" that discrimination already exists was not in dispute.
Yeah, I read that another commenter on this forum mentioned that in one family, at most one person should be able to get benefit of affirmative action. That will spread the benefits much more evenly.
Indian reservation system is in bad state, and especially in the context of IITs/NITs it is worse due to the reasons I mentioned.
> This. I think US people see caste system as something like skin color based racism in west. Actually it is much more complicated than that.
Honestly from the arguments I'm seeing in here, it really really isn't. From the perspective of a white guy with almost no understanding whatsoever of the caste system and its politics, I'm seeing exactly the same kinds of arguments here that I find being made by racists.
The only difference being that India has had reservation system for more than half century now and it doesn't work as well. Yes, I know examples where it has actually helped people in need but by vast margin it helps already well off people from underrepresented minorities not the ones in need. This is one of the main reasons why India's medical facilities are sub par and one can't get anything done in govt offices. Also reservation system was meant to be a temporary until we had representation from minorities. We already have achieved that for many minorities yet they still benefit from this.
As someone from fairly higher cast but economically poor family, coming to US felt liberating where I could define & own my success irrespective of my cast, religion. Yes we have problems in US and I've faced discrimination too but it doesn't limit me from succeeding.
We should take this as a learning in US if we were to implement a reservation like system. Have it backed by data on who really needs it not driven by political climate.
No, it really is not more complicated. The US has its own implicit systems of discrimination. The white racist from Tennessee is going to be looked down upon by the white racist from Connecticut who will be looked down upon by the white racist with a Central Park apartment.
Affirmative action is not "always bad." There are multiple purposes of affirmative action, some of which have NOTHING to do with the individual student.
About 60% of NFL alumni in the US are of African-American origin, and that number climbs every year. Most coaches in the NFL are either former players or coaches at some other level of football. The VAAAAST majority of coaches at the NFL level at ALL levels are white. Of the 32 head coaching positions in the league, only 3 are held by black coaches, and black coaches are more likely to get fired quicker than their white counterparts.
You know why? Because the owners are white. People hire who they relate to, and a white guy is going to relate to another white guy more than they will to most black guys. It's simple.
Same thing applies to affirmative action. A lower caste person who gets a chance and succeeds is more likely to hire lower caste employees. So even though those lower caste employees may not have been direct beneficiaries of affirmative action, they can still benefit from the network effect.
There is no reason to identify as "upper caste" unless one is interested in maintaining that hierarchy.
Actually it’s because being black isn’t an advantage in coaching the way it is on the field. White guys tend to suck at a lot of positions, but they’re perfectly capable of coaching. So you have a reasonable proportion of black coaches.
Not remotely, no. The entire purpose of AA is to try to bring normalization to a system that is heavily and unfairly biased. AA has an understanding of the network effect and peoples' bias built in. Lower caste people favoring lower caste associates is a feature, not a bug. You want them to hire more people like them to help bring the group up. This doesn't always work, of course, but that's not the point. You want to increase the probability that it will happen
No high achievers are truly worried about being in a system with AA with regards to their personal employment and advancement. They're going to succeed regardless. The high caste people who are waiting for their (or are waiting for their kids') handout simply because they had good grades as a child are the ones who are the complainers.
It's not perfect, but it's not resource intensive and it's vastly better than the alternative.
> "Affirmative action is always bad. Because the people getting benefit of it are likely to be privileged."
But this is not what affirmative action is. The purpose of affirmative action is to help under-privileged people. If the help is going to privileged people instead, it's not affirmative action, it's corruption.
If it's really true, as you suggest, that some Dalit are rich and some Brahmin are poor, that some Dalit are privileged and some upper castes are not, then what does the caste system even mean? And why do people care enough that it's still a thing?
Consider the case of race in the US. Some of the benefit of affirmative action goes to children from well off black families. That doesn't mean it's corrupt, it just means that if you are doing something on the basis of race and not wealth then you're sometimes going to give a benefit to people who are rich.
If you took your last paragraph, and substituted racial groups for castes, I think it would be clear that it doesn't make sense?
The big question is: are they privileged, or are they discriminated against? I've heard of rich black people in the US getting stopped and investigated by the police for driving a fancy car that they bought with their own money.
There's different kinds of privilege of course. You can be rich but still discriminated, you can be white but poor. And the way you need to help people who are poor is different from the way you help people who suffer from discrimination.
If poor people have a hard time getting access to something because it's too expensive, and you want to help them, then that money shouldn't end up with rich people. If a demographic group is kept out of universities or other opportunities because of their caste or the colour of their skin, then you correct that by giving them better access, maybe through a quota or some other form of preferential treatment that compensates for the effects of discrimination. And that shouldn't apply to people who don't suffer from that discrimination.
You need to address the thing that's going wrong, and not something completely different. Rich black people don't need money, they need to not get arrested over nothing by the police.
Affirmative action is not generally about giving people money, it's about giving people opportunities. The idea is something like, you set a lower bar for people from groups that have been historically discriminated against.
When we have programs that are specifically designed to help people monetarily, such as financial aid at colleges or welfare, they consider people's economic situation but not their race.
> If the help is going to privileged people instead, it's not affirmative action
While I might agree about this being a bad outcome, I also don't think a "no true Scotsman" argument is helpful. What is described here is still affirmative action - just a bad implementation of it. Instead of trying to define them away, we should admit that such bad implementations can exist, and push for good implementations instead.
> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India.
Replace:
- reservation system -> affirmative action
- upper caste -> middle class "true" Americans / white Americans / people born well-off / etc
and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America, and falls into the exact same pitfalls of "well I worked hard so obviously I deserve it". Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed.
I don't mean to say this as a way to call out India specifically as the US obviously has done quite badly here. The point is that it's quite wild to see the direct parallels of systemic classist oppression and the same story playing out here.
When you have unjust power and things are equalized, psychologically it feels like you are losing something. It's not an illogical response to dig in your heels into "but I earned it" and "but reverse discrimination", but people must fight that basic instinct to understand beyond their own perspective.
Preemptively, I want to state this: the more mild form of this argument goes "yes there's discrimination we need to solve, but let's not let the pendulum swing past the point of equilibrium and hurt us in any way". This is effectively stating that you value never facing actual oppression over the solving of a long faced oppression of others in a timely manner. It's an inherent devaluing of the oppressed while acknowledging they are, indeed, oppressed.
For what it's worth, among many times asking for this, I have yet to encounter a historical example of a time the "pendulum" actually swung too far. This is more or less the story of civil rights in America over the centuries. Every time is a step towards equilibrium, stunted and delayed by many sympathetic oppressors cutting actions short.
> Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed.
But it looks like these measures do not solve where the systemic oppression exists. Systemic oppression exists mostly in wealth inequalities, and somewhat in society that restricts access to education for those who are oppressed. Given that is the problem, the solution should be to provide high quality universal primary and secondary education. Taking number of STEM engineers by race/caste and trying to force universities to discriminate in admissions does not solve the poor quality of public school education
I'm all for better restorative justice, but that's not required to, you know, not discriminate against people in the US, as the person I responded to argued for by sympathizing/rationalizing the discrimination. I'm frankly immediately suspicious of the good faith of any comment/post that focuses on rationalizing the oppressor versus fixing an obvious injustice as the post did.
>and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America
You are interpreting the parent comment as a moral defense of caste discrimination. I guess it is, but I think it says something valid about the causal roots of the situation, which needs to be understood even assuming you think it's bad and needs to be changed. How can it be changed otherwise?
If certain castes are subject to affirmative action in India, and not elsewhere, then they are inevitably going to go where things are relatively easier.
The justice of that affirmative action doesn't change the incentives. Anywhere you try to squeeze people, they will respond, creating a new "problem". What is the ultimate solution going to be?
I don't believe in free markets uber alles but I do believe in regulatory failure.
Talking about people "digging in their heels" makes for a picture of a world where everyone would "just be reasonable" that's tantalizingly close to reality.
But people are never going to just give up on choosing the best available opportunity they have, at least on average.
You're right, affirmative action here seems to fail in this way since high caste Indian citizens can simply move to America, and I'm not going to pretend I have an answer there off the cuff. Admittedly this is not a problem I think about specifically often.
What is 100% not okay and fixable even without changing anything about the reservation system is the treatment of those abroad that are in lower castes, which is directly argued against by the OP here:
> These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India.
Describing the reservation system as a "plight" on upper castes while not sympathizing with the issues the lower castes deal with is literal classism at work within US tech companies that is clear by reading links to and direct comments containing many first hand accounts.
Affirmative is far from perfect when it comes to restorative justice approaches, but an imperfection does not mean all other ethical statements and stances need not apply. Let the upper castes run from India to avoid dealing with the reservation system, sure, that can't be avoided. However, we as a society should absolutely stop the caste system from continuing here.
I don't think this is the best idea, but theoretically US/world tech could also take an affirmative action type stance when it comes to castes and H1B visas in the US. That'd be an interesting theoretical patch solution, but then that just means more Indians would focus somewhere that didn't take this stance. And the end of the day, this needs to be a cultural change within Indians abroad and in India. But this issue being brought to a larger stage in the US is a great start.
reservation system is not the issue. It's politicized heavily. For people who for generations have been fucked with and been given no opportunity to do better cannot suddenly do good for themselves and their family without help. This is not a problem.
Well, my classmates became army soldiers instead of class teachers because they belong to 'upper castes'. Even though they got better marks in second grade teachers' recruitment, than those from many reserved categories, they couldn't get a teacher job.
It is problem of those casteist employees of Cisco , Cisco , it's management and it's rules. They are simply not proper.
There are many casteists too in many companies who must be terminated from Employment if casteist behavior is found.
Note that not all upper-caste People are casteist and harmful.
I also see many Rich People whose ancestors were Dalits, who no longer need any financial grant/food/shelter from the Government claiming it from Government. It only harms very poor Dalits in need.
This Casteism at companies is bad and Casteism is crime. Also, the title of this post is Peculiar. Title must not be "90% of Techies are upper caste" as upper caste is not synonymous with casteist.
Also,there are many poor,hard working non-casteist people who by birth(not changeable) were upper-caste people who worked hard to get into good job in US,so they deserve that job.
> I also see many Rich People whose ancestors were Dalits, who no longer need any financial grant/food/shelter from the Government claiming it from Government. It only harms very poor Dalits in need.
This is something I have been thinking quite a lot about.
The Govt. really struggles to cap affirmative action to only those who need it.
I knew people who were from lower castes, used reservation to get in and had Macbooks, iPhones and spent summers abroad touring.
How hard is it to disqualify them due to financial means ? There are too many poor Dalits who would rather use those seats.
It's a common line of thinking that a system is broken if there's a single instance of failure when the right measure is if it does more good than harm. I've heard that excuse in the US with regards to giving to the poor, "they might waste it on booze and drugs." Well sure, but they might also use it to keep from starving.
In this case, are there some people that "don't deserve it"? Certainly, but there's probably many more that do who are making use of the program. Adding overhead and bureaucracy to try to weed out the undeserving may very well make it so fewer people who need the assistance get it. It's human nature to overweight small negative outcomes while underweighting the larger good. You need to objectively study the problem to fully understand where the tipping point is which rarely happens because these types of things quickly become political.
I don't personally know enough about this particular topic to speak to it, but the general answer to the question
> How hard is it to disqualify them due to financial means?
Is it's harder than you think without undermining the original goals of the of the program.
But it is broken if there are too many instances of failure.
It is not like there are no better ways to do it, like adding an economic constraint, or not giving reservation if parents have gotten reservation for job. That would benefit everyone except affluent lower caste families.
What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US. US is oblivious to this system, very few people have any understanding of this, yet it affects success in the corporate world. Obviously, there's enough Indian presence in the business to influence it, but it's flying under the US corporate culture.
I've worked with many Indian coworkers in the tech industry, and now I'm rethinking some of the connections I've observed.
> What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US.
There are no overseas communities of majority Indian subcontinental origin that maintain rigid caste distinctions. Not even Mauritius which is majority ethnic Indian or Fiji or Guyana where they’re about half the population. Caste will not be maintained in America for the same reason no ethnic group maintains itself without religious endogamy or continuing immigration; People socialize and mate with those they spend time with unless there are powerful reasons not to. All will be assimilated in time.
I've seen it explicitly at work in the US, e.g. in choosing which partners to marry.
Ironically, it is breaking down in India because of female infanticide creating a skewed gender distribution (around 1.14:1, when the natural distribution is 1.05:1), and men having no choice but to look outside their caste if they want to marry.
I think a counterpoint to this view is that Englishmen with Norman last names still make more money than average.[1] Despite the fact that the British regime hasn't discriminated along the Norman-Saxon divide since the 1300s.
I doubt if the average English person today is really even consciously aware of the Anglo-Normans being higher class. Certainly there's no easily visible divide or overt discrimination in modern times. Yet the legacy of the caste system left by William the Conqueror continues to shape society a thousand years later.
I believe you. It just doesn’t matter. Once immigration stops these people will all dissolve into the general population like the Huegenots, Flemings or other old ethnic groups. When mass immigration from the subcontinent stops caste based discrimination will go from a lot less than in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh to non-existent in short order.
Look at northern inland there are places in Ireland and parts of Scotland and even the USA where I would have to be careful as I am a product of a mixed marriage and I also was a a "crown servant for 15 years" and have a southern ie catholic last Name.
Parts of the UK that have so much immigration from India that the local population are majority desi are few and far between. There’s nothing like historical Irish immigration to Britain. Scottish Catholics before 1970 or so were all descendants of the Irish and that’s what ~40% of the Scots? There were so many Irish in Liverpool they elected Irish Parliamentary Party MPs before the Irish Civil War. And still assimilation proceeds rapidly. Wayne Rooney Player for England, not Ireland. Out marriage is the death of ethnic identity. Look at the US. There are actually people identify as White, or as Asian American. How far does a Chinese, Vietnamese or Japanese person have to be divorced from their culture to think the most important thing about their ethnic identity is their skin color? Similar dynamic earlier in US history when the ethnic marriage markets collapsed into religion bounded marriage markets, when Herberger wrote Catholic Protestant Jew. Once people are willing to marry out assimilation is a matter of time absent continued immigration. Irish immigration to the US dropped off a cliff in the 1990s. One day South Boston will be known for some other group, not the Irish, just like Little Italy turns into Chinatown.
I was told US Indian diaspora has disproportionate high caste due to historic migration patterns which lets the system self-perpetuate more readily. At least that's the experience repeated by Canadian Indians who works in the US. All will be assimilated in time, but some issues needs to be addressed actively.
>> What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US.
As a low caste Hindu who grew up in India, it is not at all shocking to me. In-fact Dr.Ambedkar, the lead author of Indian Constitution, wrote "If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem."[1] and he is proven right.
The reason Indians continue the caste system wherever they go is because, it is ingrained in the Hindu religion. Caste system and the religion are inseparable. Ambedkar realized that it is impossible to get out of the clutches of the caste system as long as one is Hindu. Hence he said “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.”[2] and he converted to Buddhism.
> What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US.
Is it so shocking though? The US has its own sordid history of caste-like discrimination in work, civic, and personal life, as the African American community can attest to. Huge portions of the US had anti-miscegenation laws on the books up until 50 ago [1]
If anything, many of the patterns of discrimination in the US line up quite nicely with those that arrived with some (though not all) Indian immigrants.
This has frequently resulted in a stark schism between the older generation of Indian immigrants, many of whom readily adopted the US' racist attitudes toward African Americans, Mexicans, etc, and their American children, who often have nearly the opposite perspective.
This is more of a USA problem where people working under H1B visa are somehow dependent to their employer/manager and vulnerable to exploitation/discrimination (if the employer/manager happens to be a casteist Indian). In Canada (for example), I can flaunt my low caste without such fear.
If we go by the rhetoric of 'the caste system', Mukesh Ambani (an Indian billionaire) will hire poor people from his caste for C-level exec positions in Reliance.
Same thing with marriage: look at the billionaires in India. Which one of them has married a poor person from his/her caste? None.
How many of these Indians in FAANG hired some incompetent ones from his caste without acing leetcode hard questions?
If you are super wealthy, caste/color/creed doesn't matter; it is only for the poor schmucks.
As a white American who grew up with indian friends/family who traveled in India for the first time, I was pretty shocked at how different it was than I expected. It's Incredibly diverse in terms of language, religion, culture, ect and I can say that It's the only county I've visited that I left feeling I knew less than before I came.
Slightly offtopic, but the recent book "Caste" by Isabel Wilkerson explores the concept as a frame for understanding social problems, beyond just India.
I know one case in a big and very internationally staffed European company where Indian employees have sort coalesced into a group (hiring amongst themselves, giving out promotions allegedly) that plays out some sort of complicated social structure - including many of them moving into the same apartment building (majorly unusual in this country!) and supposedly some caste-based status system that is rather opaque for anyone else. Within that division, non-Indians also have a difficult standing or at least say they do.
There is not much people can do about it, it would be risky topic to address. If true, it goes without saying that this is completely unacceptable on many levels. It breeds serious negative sentiments: I have heard other employees talking quite badly about the situation and Indian employees involved. Several people, all I talked to actually, actively try to leave that team.
I know that forming a cohesive subgroup in a foreign culture probably gives comfort, but (to the degree that this is all true) I'd urge Indians working abroad not to do this. It'll eventually have negative consequences for everyone involved. I was seriously surprised by the sort of negative comments I have heard from non-Indian team members.
That's interesting. As a white guy who works in a large tech company with a lot of Indians, I'm not sure what to think about this. I can definitely believe that this is a problem even if it's not obvious to me directly, but I can also see how "Indian people treat those of lower castes badly" could itself be a racist trope.
Is there anything that that would be obvious to someone from India but not a white guy from the U.S. that a co-worker is being shunned or mistreated in the workplace on account of their caste? Even knowing what caste each of one's Indian coworkers are in could be helpful in some ways and detrimental in others.
(My impression of the Indian people I've worked with is almost entirely positive, and I generally consider them to be a mistreated class already just because so many of them are here on an H1B visa and therefore could potentially be kicked out of the country if they happened to be laid off, which no doubt is in the back of their minds when considering whether or not to work through the weekend. The employee-employer relationship is edging close enough to slavery to make me uncomfortable.)
This is a tough one, but I would look for signals that you would look for even with non-Indians. e.g. is someone being excluded from team building activities, OR after work get togethers, OR are someone's ideas being dismissed without any particular reason.
Now, with specifics to Indians,
- if you hear someone mention they are Brahmin for no real reason, or in relationship to being really good at something, make a mental note that they may be at high risk of discriminating others
- if you hear folks pejoratively putting down someone because of where they are from or how they grew up - a small village
There's a really simple takeaway here for everyone around all this discussion that's surfaced on HN around caste: actively ask people in your org if they've experienced this type of discrimination and take their claims as seriously as you'd take other types of discrimination.
This is something SV and other places are just waking up to. Caste discrimination is a pretty foreign idea for many people, so don't feel the need to be an expert right away. Instead, I would suggest you try and find a DEI firm that might have expertise in these issues and see if they can help you work through these issues.
Just for some clarification: What percentage of Indians are "upper caste"? What exactly is the cut off for being lower caste vs upper? I know this article says 90% of Indian US tech workers are upper caste but what is their representation as a whole in Indian population?
Brahmins are ~5% of India's total population and another 15% are also considered "forward caste", mainly from warrior or mercantile subcastes. So yeah pretty significant overrepresentation.
Cisco HR said "caste discrimination was not unlawful".
Doesn't California's Unruh Civil Rights Act prohibit employment discrimination in a businesses based on ancestry, especially given the CA Supreme Court's repeated determination that the list of protected classes should be interpreted broadly? So why wouldn't caste discrimination be illegal under that law?
I wanted to offer another perspective for this trend: Many states in India, especially in the South, have affirmative action policies that make it really hard for these people to find good jobs or colleges in India. So they head out and prosper in the US.
The attitude is "We don't get any benefit from government here, unlike other castes, we have to study well and settle abroad". That is also expectation from families.
The above comment is downvoted, maybe for sounding pro-upper-caste? But the statement is true.
I've seen Indians do this question with other Indians:"Are you vegetarian or non vegetarian?" That's where it starts and that's how they find out. Once the initial sort of veg/non-veg is done, they can then sort by which type of upper caste you are. It's almost an algorithmic partition+sort.
Almost all upper caste Indians are vegetarian. Imposition of vegetarianism is the current Indian political fad as well, with people eating non-vegetarian food being randomly discriminated against and lynched under the pretext of "he was carrying beef."
While being wealthier may be a reason, quotas in India are also a reason. I bet for at least 80% of these upper caste Indians have grown up hearing "we upper castes don't get any quota here, we have to study hard [and get high paying tech job and preferably settle abroad]".
It is not just the consequence of being wealthier, although that and politics play a role. Among Indians from similar income levels, that makes it unreserved castes people more likely to take up tech / medical sector.
I strongly recommend this recent movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7142506/ which gives what IMHO seems like quite a realistic view on that topic (and no, it's definitely not the cliché Bollywood movie full of dancing, don't be fooled by any trailer).
A bit strange to see this headline. The headline makes it seem like there is some way that the US has a bias for "upper-caste" Indians which is a bit ridiculous. Indeed, the headline should have read "Defamation case finds caste-based discrimination of Indian by fellow Indian(s)".
One way to look at the apparent disparity in numbers taking caste out of the equation :
-People motivated to be in the US apply for GRE/GMAT , pursue higher education in the US and get employed there. For socio-economic reasons, this might well be upper caste and there are things that the Indian government can do to bring in a semblance of equal opportunities
-People perform well (nothing to do with caste here) and get recognised by businesses and are sent to the US to work there. There's a chance that these are motivated by things other than talent but up to companies to make the evaluation as objective as possible.
My bad. My statement should have read
"he headline makes it seem like there is some way that the US government/immigration has a bias for "upper-caste" Indians which is a bit ridiculous
Nobody disputes that, including the ones who practice it (well, may be except the most uneducated). The real problem is denialism. The comments to this post itself has numerous examples of that, including anecdotal evidences to downplay the incredible damage it has caused. The practitioners just find other reasons, like job-performance to enforce casteism without directly referring to it.
The world is filled with injustice however you look at it.
Here is one hard quote by Buffet: The ovarian lottery is the most important event in which you'll ever participate. It's going to determine way more than what school you go to, how hard you work, all kinds of things. The nation of birth changes your life much more than your effort or intelligence.
There are some areas of India, such as Bihar, where 40% of the populace cannot even read or write, let alone be educated. Such areas tend to be socially backward. Other areas are not that backward.
Privileged people just fail to see rampant caste discrimination existing in the entire country. The discrimination you are talking about is the overt one - like in cases where Dalits are prevented from using wells. But covert discrimination exists even in the most prestigious institutions in India [1]. The upper castes do not cite caste as a reason to discriminate, but use other reasons. That way, the upper castes can observe discrimination without being called out for being politically wrong. Lower castes are selectively branded as under-performing in academia, government and private organizations. Rentals are denied to dalits even in Bengaluru and Mumbai citing 'non-vegetarianism' [2] (an easy way to discriminate). And there are upper caste groups playing politics to deny career growth to lower caste people in almost every institution.
Denial of caste based discrimination is at obscene levels. The truth is that lower castes get discriminated against, even in urban areas, no matter what their credentials or merits are.
> rampant caste discrimination existing in the entire country
That's a very broad brush you are painting with! Some parts of the country have made significant progress. See for example work done by Narayana Guru, a social reformer in the 1800s, and its impact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narayana_Guru#Fight_against_ca...
That doesn't contradict my point at all. Narayana Guru's and others' work just helped stave off overt display of casteism. The practitioners just switched to covert discrimination - very much like in the CISCO case. Along with that started this effort to deny its existence to resist the very much needed reforms.
Ok.. I am going to be brave and not going to use a throwaway. I find it perplexing that HN crowd who is usually arguing for a balanced analysis and seeing both viewpoints is suddenly behaving as if this data proves some injustice is currently happening in India as well as US (in the context of Indian caste system). To be clear, India has/had a caste system that was extremely oppressive. Currently though, the social aspects aside, economically and crucially educationally, the "lower castes", have an advantage due to a system of reservations - affirmative action on steroids. I am not going to argue one way or the other as to whether the idea or the implementation of such an affirmative action policy is fair or net positive. It probably still is in principle, but in practice the people who seem to benefit from this, in my experience, are very rich "lower caste" families. More things to say here, but I don't want to digress.
The law suit in the story has to do with IIT. So let's take that specifically. IIT is extremely competitive to get into. It is even more competitive once you are in. It is common for affirmative action students to not do very well there. Call it a difference grit/talent/smartness whatever. This causes a some of them to disengage from studies altogether. Then it is not a stretch to imagine that some of them may not be very good at their job either. The lawsuit and the accusations of casteism has to be now taken with a huge pinch of salt. To be clear, I don't know if any of the accusations in that lawsuit are true or not. But I do know that every middle class parent (including mine) drills into their kids the idea that you have to work freaking hard at studies to "get some where". Everything about that 90 percent statistic can be explained through economics (already rich with all its advantages) or through desperation (high caste+ poor => no chance except if you work really hard). Of course I knew a few so called "lower caste" people in IIT who got in through the "general category" ie purely on merit. They were just as good as anybody there and are also doing well in the tech scene in US.
edit:
Added the below sentence.
The cynic in me thinks this guy accuser in the lawsuit is trying to hide his incompetence by taking advantage of the BLM and current sentiments.
> It is common for affirmative action students to not do very well there.
Do you have any data at all for this?
> Then it is not a stretch to imagine that some of them may not be very good at their job either.
It's not right to assume that someone may not be good at their current job because they may (in your mind) have benefited from some "affirmative action" program far in the past (John Doe is 20+ years into his career). Judge people on current performance, not past history. Plenty of average students shine in the real world.
> The cynic in me thinks this guy accuser in the lawsuit is trying to hide his incompetence
Why don't we let the courts work it out instead of speculating on people's motivations or honesty?
>I became painfully aware of this problem more than 40 years ago, when I was teaching at Cornell University and discovered that half the black students there were on some form of academic probation.
>These students were not stupid or uneducable. On the contrary, the average black student at Cornell at that time scored at the 75th percentile on scholastic tests. Their academic qualifications were better than those of three-quarters of all American students who took those tests.
>The average white student would have been wiped out at Cornell. But the average white student was unlikely to be admitted to Cornell, in the first place. Nor was a white student who scored at the 75th percentile.
>That was a “favor” reserved for black students. This favor turned black students who would have been successful at most American colleges and universities into failures at Cornell.
>None of this was peculiar to Cornell. Black students who scored at the 90th percentile in math had serious academic problems trying to keep up at M.I.T., where other students scored somewhere within the top 99th percentile.
>There were other fine engineering schools around the country where those same students could have learned more, when taught at a normal pace, rather than at a breakneck speed geared to students with extremely rare abilities in math.
> This favor turned black students who would have been successful at most American colleges and universities into failures at Cornell.
Data is still missing! This is just conjecturing that they're just not smart enough, which is incredible crap to me.
Anyone who went to college that had extenuating circumstances with their family or money rarely does well, regardless of how the school let them in. I knew all the kids around me at college who had to work to pay for rent/school/family etc because they wouldn't have time to come to any of our study halls, group work, labs, office hours, etc. They all suffered regardless of race, but you guessed it, somehow most of the latinx and black students had jobs, and somehow most of the white, chinese and indian students did not.
Unless there is some data that shows people of "average" intelligence cannot succeed at Cornell, I think we can guess that having an extra 20-40 hours/week of labor affects your grades than some classist "smartness".
It would be great but surprising if it were the other way. If you have difficult entry examinations but allow any group with lower marks to enter, then (if the exam is not fully detached from the requirements of the course) this group is likely to do worse. The skills and knowledge you build on mattet usually.
I think the only way to really have affirmative action is to give extra high qualoty training to the group you want to help starting 2 years before the entrance examination. (and no extra points then)
> It is common for affirmative action students to not do very well there.
Do you have any data at all for this?
No. Only my observation from when I went to IIT for my undergrad about 2 decades ago. At that time they even used to have remedial classes for students who came in through the reservation system. Again, I would like to emphasize that not all of those students were having difficulties coping with the workload. In fact, it is not uncommon for the general category students to crumble under pressure as well.
> Then it is not a stretch to imagine that some of them may not be very good at their job either.
It's not right to assume that someone may not be good at their current job because they may (in your mind) have benefited from some "affirmative action" program far in the past (John Doe is 20+ years into his career). Judge people on current performance, not past history. Plenty of average students shine in the real world.
Yes, plenty of average students shine in the real world. Nothing you say here contradicts what I wrote above. To rephrase with an example, if GPA was the only criteria for accepting students into a university, and in a class of mostly 4.0 students you admit a few 2.0 students with affirmative action, it is not difficult to see how they would have trouble in class. If they also get demotivated and end up not getting much from that education, some of them may not do so well in work life either.*
> The cynic in me thinks this guy accuser in the lawsuit is trying to hide his incompetence
Why don't we let the courts work it out instead of speculating on people's motivations or honesty?
Agreed. That was uncalled for. But I did preface it with "cynic in me".
> they even used to have remedial classes for students who came in through the reservation... it is not uncommon for the general category students to crumble under pressure as well.
So it sounds like IIT is generally a tough place to study at, regardless of how you get in. Surely you would agree that how someone got in isn't really relevant after they've been working for 2 decades?
> in a class of mostly 4.0 students you admit a few 2.0 students with affirmative action, it is not difficult to see how they would have trouble in class. If they also get demotivated and end up not getting much from that education, some of them may not do so well in work life either.
Again, you're making a lot of assumptions. I can argue the other way too - people for whom studies go easy don't learn to work hard. Because of their high GPA and belief in their own intelligence, they may act in an arrogant, entitled, prima-donna-ish way and may not do so well in work life where they have to deal with others. (I don't believe this, I'm just pointing out the problem with making assumptions like you're doing).
You don't know why those "2.0 students" struggled. Maybe it was the first time they studied at an institution with such high standards. Maybe they felt an undercurrent of hostility from their classmates who thought they're not worthy of being there and that affected them mentally.
Look at the present state of things. Don't try to extrapolate from incomplete evidence from a long time ago.
I am not sure why you are arguing. I did not say I know the circumstances of this particular situation. I am not making any claims about the ability of any student to learn and do well in any course. All I am saying is that throwing a bunch of under prepared students into the fire, potentially judged for every action, mistake or attempt to learn is a tough situation to be in. Under these circumstances at least a few people would get demotivated to an extent that would affect their future trajectory in life. It has been shown (in the context of school children) that if everyone around you including the teachers think you are good, you tend to do better than you would otherwise. The opposite would result in worse outcomes is not then a huge surprise. Again I am speaking generally, not saying anything about any particular person's circumstance. What are you disagreeing with here?
> Again I am speaking generally, not saying anything about any particular person's circumstance. What are you disagreeing with here?
I'm disagreeing with the whole idea of generalizations. When it comes to people, no generalizations work. You have to look at what's in front of you, rather than what you believe there should be based on what you think their past is.
it's not just caste, I've seen fights between various "types" of hindus and Indians, e.g. north indian vs south, east vs west, jain vs non-jain, hindu vs muslim (also west bengali vs bangladeshi), whether you support kashmir independence or not, it's nonstop
Just fyi there are non upper caste Indians, I’m Sikh so caste distinctions are forbidden for us. I’m a “Saini” my name is Ricky Saini and I’m not sure this fits with my experience as a lot of the people in my family(who are Indian of course) are not upper caste. I would be shocked to learn if this was true. Just so you guys know the modern Indian community not only Punjabi’s try very cars to be against caste. So don’t think we’re not trying or anything. We try really hard.
Never knew caste discrimination was alive and well, this article is an eye-opener. Some questions I have regarding these things, if a Dalit is considered an "untouchable" how would they even get into an elite univ? I have heard of reservations but going to a school where a majority of your classmates don't like you due to your caste must be incredibly tough, also how do they afford it? state subsidies?
This truly bothers me that people bring their religious/casteist/nationalist/etc. baggage with them when they immigrate. I thought immigrants hope to start anew in a promising developed country precisely because of these issues back in their home countries. Why not leave everything behind and try to adhere to the liberal values that attracted us here in the first place?
they are human, not a robot you can reset to factory settings. it's only human that people have values that they uphold as the truth and that is hard to change. the place where you immigrate to is not necessarily superior. Immgrants could bring in values that improve their new home country.
Just to clarify, I am an immigrant myself, and I didn't mean that we should abandon all our values. I just meant that we should re-examine our lives and what made them hell back where we came from - our baggage, and leave it at the airport. I don't think it would be such an impossible task. After all, we are leaving many other aspects of our lives behind.
Could the core problem be related to how majority of Indian couple I know who went through arranged marriage gets married to the same caste?
Which is... essentially even though one might say caste is abolished, you know having a higher (or equal) caste still has advantage and favoritism towards alike caste is cultivated (possibly unconsciously, but the story implies deliberately)
I know this article is about Indian tech workers living in the US but it seems part of a broader trend in Indian society.
I'm not Indian but I have worked and lived in India for a long time. In my opinion this problem is getting worse. In the same way that American society is increasingly bimodal, wealth and power are further concentrating in the upper echelons of Indian society. From an outsider's perspective it seems like within the two peaks competition has increased, so insiders will feel like the country has become increasingly meritocratic and technocratic. What I think has happened instead is that the wealthiest, most autocratic families have seen competition tighten, but the overall wealth concentrated at the top has increased dramatically.
I don't know what the long-term effects will be on Indian society but it's going to become an existential problem if not addressed at some point.
I worked for a MNC with teams across Asia. I found that teams outside of India were primarily upper-caste because you had to get recommended to be an expat team.
Also, these Indian national upper-caste members would look down on the lower-caste staff in the country that they were working in, using KPIs to force them out of their teams completely.
My division boss, upper-caste, forced me to take on one person that would solve all my team's problems. Long story short, he couldn't fix the problems because the source was with another division, led by another upper-caste.
Now, I'm not saying that they are all bad, but they not all good either. It's sad that the lower-caste don't get the same opportunities though because I met many lower-caste guys who knew their stuff, but knew that they weren't going to go anywhere in their careers.
Well, a child gets to know about his caste first time either from his parents or from the people in the environment he grows up into. In my case I faced reverse casteism, a Brahmin (that's what I've been tagged) rejected by a girl (Rajput -Kshatriya) after she asked me my caste, following a 3 month relationship. Not because she didn't love me, but because of the difficulties that arise due to inter-caste marriages. But after a relationship of 10 years, we finally got married. In those 10 years things had changed in society and inter-caste marriages became more acceptable. So, this casteism is both ways...But again could be karma for me or of my forefathers...Doesn't matter
Just looking at the numbers, that 90% of Indian techies are upper-caste is not that bad.
According to the article the lower caste makes up 25% of the population, so presumably, 75% are upper caste. It means someone upper caste is 3 times more likely to be a techie compared to lower caste.
By comparison, a man is 4 times more likely to be in tech than a woman, and asians in the US are 10 more times more likely to be in tech than whites and 30 times more likely than blacks!
So there is certainly a gap, but a surprisingly small one considering the difference in status and presumably wealth and education.
Of course, it doesn't excuse the caste system, and especially not the difference in treatment at the workplace.
No, the article says Dalits make up 25% of the population. According to Wikipedia, upper castes (Forward Castes/Others) make up 18% to 30% of the population, depending on how they're counted, I think.
Ok, the article wasn't clear about what is considered "upper caste" so I assumed it meant "not Dalits".
It changes the picture completely. That makes the upper castes 30 times more likely to be in tech than any other Indian, and who knows the ratio when only Dalits are considered, I guess more than 100.
Being quite ignorant upon this topic, but witnessed sneaky behaviour in my company ( emails with with courtesy sentences systematically missing) I wad wondering to which degree this could explain why India is lagging behind China?
Is India really lagging? I don't trust China's numbers, but I also don't know anything about the real situation there. Both countries are developing fast, and that often means that the reality of the situation isn't reflected in the numbers for years.
I am not American so I do not fully understand the legal system in US, but it seems this is a lawsuit that alleges caste based discrimination, and the lawsuit is currently pending judgement. If that is the case, shouldn't all the names be anonymized? Is it acceptable in US to make public the names of the accused but not of the accuser? Its one thing to reveal names when they are found guilty, but thats not the case here.
> the priests -- or the "Brahman" class -- were at the top, the warriors or "Kshatriyas" came next, the merchants or "Vaishyas" formed the third tier, while labourers, artisans, and servants, known as "Shudras", came last and essentially served the other three castes.
Out of curiosity, where is the traditional upper/lower caste line?
I learned about the caste system in school. And realistically, outside of a book or two, I haven't heard a thing about it until this article. I appreciate that my news sources have no generally been focused on India, but this really rather surprising. I frankly didn't even know the caste system in India was still practiced.
It's portrayed in academics as a relic of the decadent past or of the remotest regions - in the same vein as witch hunt of Europe. The reality is that covert caste discrimination is really rampant in Indian society - even in the elitist of institutions or the most affluent of Indian cities. I assume that school curriculum wont want to portray this ugly reality for political reasons. But news reports portray a different picture. I don't dare to cite references since new reports about this come out on a daily basis.
A huge problem with the way reservation (affirmative action) is given to Scheduled Castes candidates, is that it's enjoyed by very few families. I know people who have 3 generations of govt officers (foreign services and all) due to reservation. While a majority for whom reservation was put in place never receive it.
I never really thought this was an issue here in the U.S. I was born here in the U.S. But based on my very common Gujarati lastnamre, my lower caste status is obvious. But I'v never faced any caste related issues in the U.S. Not even with indian co-workers that grew up India and could be more caste aware.
As someone who has worked in the US and in other parts of the world, I have witnessed first hand the regressive attitude of many upper caste Indians towards others from lower castes - even their colleagues in the US and Europe.
It is shameful that in this time and age such attitudes continue to exist.
Inept question: would it be possible to outright lie about ones’ caste, or is it easy enough for someone else to figure out? How? I don’t see an ounce of shame in doing so if it levels an unjust playing field.
> Except, this time, it is happening in the US tech industry, a place that people normally associate with egalitarianism and a thirst for talent regardless of colour, race, religion, or any other creed.
They are very easy to change because people are hude conformists. See how our behaviour changed in recent timed due to corona. Or example of nazi germany.
Problem is that those who benefit from social structure does not want the change, and are working on keeping status quo.
Names possibly? I'm purely speculating here, but since India has such a huge population anyone with a indianesque name is probably Indian. Especially if it's the case that muslims from pakistan have distinct names. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Name is not a reliable indicator of caste for all Indians. A large portion of South Indians don't have a surname - they just use their dad's first name or the name of their hometown. Even among North Indians who do have a caste-based surname, many ditch that in favor of something like "Kumar".
Indians don't practice caste system because caste system exists, caste system exist because Indians want to practice caste system. You really think they don't game the visa system?
This is only indirectly related to the article at hand, but it effectively is an example of a 'caste' system in the United States.
I was born and raised in California, and ended up living in Arkansas, where I met my wife to be, who had been born and raised in Georgia (the state), near the border of Alabama.
My wife had always been somewhat of an outsider from her family, with the exception of her father. They were very close.
When we decided to marry, she asked me to meet her family, so we drove to Columbus and stayed for a week.
I met her father and liked him immediately. He had a thick west Georgia accent, and had a blue collar job (telephone line repair man) for decades.
My wife to be told me in private that her father didn't know what to make of me. In his old school southern mind, the clearest divide was between the races, and between north and south. We were white, so that wasn't an obstacle, but I'm from the 'far' west, so he didn't instinctively know what 'box' I belonged in.
She suggested that I ask him if we could go out and shoot on his out of town hunting property, which I did. He was delighted but wary.
So the next day he loaded up his guns and drove us out to his 34 acre hunting lot some miles out of town.
He had confided in my wife to be earlier: "I don't know if this city boy knows how to shoot. I don't know if he'll be safe."
Unbeknownst to him, while I had grown up in the city with my grandparents, my grandfather owned a lot in the desert outside of Los Angeles, and we'd taken HIS arsenal out there many times to go shooting.
Back on the rural lot in Georgia, he handed me a .308 Winchester bolt action and one round, and asked me to shoot a sapling about 100 feet away, while pulling himself and his daughter to stand behind me. I loaded the rifle, aimed and shot that little tree down. He asked me to do it again, and I did.
He leaned into his daughter and said, "Ok Michelle I think this boy is all right."
While he and his family had been friendly to me before, after that moment, I was treated like family.
Apparently at least some people from far off California know how to shoot.
Years after the wedding, I asked him about that day, and he was embarrassed. I told him not to be, that it was fine.
He said that he didn't know any other way.
In most every way I could determine, Mr. Shaw was a good, kind and honest man, but he grew up and continued to hold views that many, including his daughter and son in law, found repugnant. But he had learned to keep them to himself, and when he died, those views died with him, and were not passed on to his daughter, nor his grandson.
I'm taking a risk saying this, but here it goes: these things take time to change. Before a hundred years ago, for the most part, I believe the 'rules of society' only changed very slowly, over generations, and when such changes happened quickly for whatever reason, the results were almost always terrible and bloody.
Our civilization is learning how to change more quickly, and we definitely need to focus on figuring out how to be even more flexible, all with sensitivity and sensibility.
The underlying issues with caste based affirmative action are similar to those seen as with the prop 16 fight in CA. I think removing the wording in the CA const is a bad idea. This should have been approached differently, it's a quandary that really cannot be solved until everyone who qualifies gets a chance to go to college. With remote learning I think we can now allow and enroll many more students.
I believe this is just human nature to view everything in binary, and discrimination looks like inbuilt into us, it's like remanence of our animal nature. I would just like to move on and focus on things that matter to the world, than complain. We are imperfect and stupid, with our own biases. There is no right way.
How are non-Indians classified in the cast system?
Are they completely out, invisible to the hierarchy? But in such case how a non-Indian marrying an Indian is perceived? Does this depend on the nationality/skin color?
> How are non-Indians classified in the cast system?
It's very complicated. TLDR: if you are a high-caste foreigner (meaning white, well educated, successful), you will probably be accepted. If you aren't that, your mileage may vary.
After all, caste in large part a codification of the hierarchical social structures found throughout the world.
Historically, just like all other old world societies, foreigners were considered barbarians. But if those foreigners brought more powerful technologies (weapons, tools, or social structures) they were quite often accommodated and absorbed.
So in reality, the Indian subcontinent has absorbed wave after wave of foreign immigration over millennia, each adding a facet to the complex and fractal social structure and hierarchy.
That dynamic - the foreigners with more power subjugating and marrying into a local population - plays a large part into how the caste system (both the theoretical model from scripture and the on-the-ground instances) formed in the first place. Again this is very similar to how the societal estates (clergy, aristocrats, merchants, and serfs) formed in other parts of the world.
An innovation of the Indian system is a category of people completely outside the system, the Dalits, who by consequence of both their ancestry and traditional professions, are completely ostracized by people in all layers of the caste system.
At some point however in India, the castes became very rigid - meaning endogamous - and also provincial, with caste being interpreted and enforced primarily on a local level.
Overall, it's not very different from what you see in the social structure of Latin America, which is not surprising because the Spanish/Portuguese colonists were directly inspired by the social structure they observed in India when they established the post colonial social structure of Latin America. The English word caste is itself a borrowing from Portuguese that subsumes two subtly different Indian terms: varna (the theoretical 4-level social structure) and jati (the actual "tribe" or "community" that identifies with one level of the structure).
Today, many Indians are actually more willing to accept an upper class educated foreigner than a lower caste Indian in matters such as marriage, but only usually if the foreigner is white, which is to say they have just adopted the racial hierarchy used in the western world. This tells you a little bit about how much similarity there actually is between the caste system and western racial hierarchies, despite the often heard claim that they have nothing in common.
Ask yourself what you would expect Indian communist party positions on caste to be, bearing in mind that India has democratically elected (year on year) Marxist state governments with populations larger than many western economies.
It's complicated. What I read, admittedly cursorily, suggests they are still grappling with caste issues.
I hoped for clear answers. The problem defies class based analysis. There are wealthy industrialist from the scheduled classes, there are jains and khatri who choose to live in poverty.
So... They nicely fit in with the upper-caste Americans. As long as you have a system where you make some "upper-caste" universities so expensive that only upper-caste people can attend them, you will keep the caste system alive. This is why education should not be privatized, there are no equal opportunities within the US as well as in India. It's all about what family you are born into.
The whole caste system is also very much alive in the US. Things like good education, crime-free neighborhoods and good healthcare are all for the rich(er).
Edit:
This: "Except, this time, it is happening in the US tech industry, a place that people normally associate with egalitarianism and a thirst for talent regardless of colour, race, religion, or any other creed." is not really what I associate the tech industry with either. I feel it is is still very white male (like me) dominated.
The Indian caste system is a specific, fairly regimented thing. Not really the same as the informal structuring of society that we might colloquially refer to as a caste system.
Class isn’t caste though they overlap. Caste is unique to the Indian subcontinent as far as I’m aware. It is utterly unremarkable for there to be people of different castes living in the same village whose ancestors have lived in the same area for generations who are as genetically distinct as Swedes and Sardinians. The only thing remotely similar I’m aware of was the Manchu in China. Caste is about maintaining endogamy for over 1,000 years with an average generation having zero out of caste inflow of genes.
If you try to understand caste by analogy to class you will fail completely. It is its own thing.
Isabel Wilkerson's new book Caste compares the systematic racism of the USA, the caste system of India, and the Nazi genocide of the Jews. She attempts to describe a fundamental framework of caste (including divine mandate) that encompasses all three. She reports on how Martin Luther King came to see himself as a Dalit (undercaste). She also provides a brief introduction to the (Indian) caste system. Quite relevant to this discussion.
They're very similar - they both represent social stratification of society into social ranks of wealth, income, race, education, and power.
The only difference is that a person's 'caste' in India, is dictated by blood and can never be changed. Whereas in the West, a person can theoretically transition from one class to another.
I had to move to Chennai to work there some years ago. As I went around looking for an apartment to rent, I was openly told by several Brahmin homeowners that they weren't going to rent to me because I wasn't a Brahmin.
The Brahmins have destroyed India. (I'm from one of the "upper castes" myself.)
> It may seem bizarre that the caste system, a centuries-old system that organises and stratifies human society, continues to play a heavy role in deciding which Indians prosper and which don't within a space many consider to be an uber-meritocracy -- the US tech landscape.
Well for I'm not surprised, and further I doubt anybody in it considers it an "uber-meritocracy", it really is much more perverse.
Yeah, that the tech industry is a meritocracy is a myth that's popular with the white educated middle-class men who like to believe they have more merit than other groups.
(I'm a white educated middle-class man myself, and a career in the tech world has been easy and natural for me. I'd love to believe it's because I'm really that good, but I try to be aware of my privilege.)
> Yeah, that the tech industry is a meritocracy is a myth that's popular with the white educated middle-class men who like to believe they have more merit than other groups.
Dunno about all of that ... I myself am not sufficently race obsessed I guess. What I meant was that in most cases people get ahead for reasons that have little to nothing to do with merit, and in my experience also that have little to nothing to do with race.
Maybe if you find yourself constantly surrounded by racists you should evaluate how your choices contribute to this. I don't have this experience.
And I'm pretty sure there would be some legal implications for what you claim, so if you are aware of this and not reporting it I'm pretty sure you face potential legal liabilities.
I think it is pretty disgusting that people just look the other way while they witness racism. If I ever saw anything at my place of work that would suggest any racism in hiring choices the person would not make it to the end of the day.
Don't be too hard on yourself! I am Indian and from what I can tell the proverbial glass ceiling has been lifted for brown people like me in the US. And I think the same can be said for people of other ethnicities as well. So credit where credit is due. IMHO the US is a meritocratic workplace.
5) marks != merit
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" --Einstein
The core issue in market heavy economies is that people with money make money and everyone else doesn't. Being smart and hard working and having poor parents means you will be poor. Being dumb and lazy with rich parents means you will be rich. Maybe with 3 or 4 full generations of nothing but hard work and luck you might make it up from working to middle class. Maybe.
This is never really discussed directly. Only using a proxy like race or caste.
It's equally probable to say that the driving factor is caste discrimination, which is the underlying cause of economic inequalities. They are two highly correlated variables, and disaggregation is difficult, but there's no (a priori) reason to assume the drive is economics and the "proxy" is race.
The caste system is worse than just being rich or poor. Poor people rarely accept that they have to be poor and it's the natural order of things.
I remember when I saw this for the first time and it left me speechless. I'd work with a team of Indians, all officially with the same job title and qualifications. But while most of the guys (this was a long time ago, it was all guys) would really work hard, there would always be one who knew nothing about the job and didn't even bother to pretend he's working. He would literally just walk around acting like the CEO on inspection, or even like a slave owner, wearing a suit that cost as much as the yearly salary of the other guys. He was of course paid a lot more then the rest of the team even if he couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag.
But what shocked me the most was that the rest of the guys, even when they knew I'm (very publicly) on their side, still talked as if this is the natural order of things. It was not only normal, it was expected. I realized that it's not like a prisoner obeying the guards because they have guns, it's like someone obeying a priest because "he talks to God".
Those colleagues accepted that their position is immutable, that those things were happening exactly the way they were supposed to happen. The "natural order of things". Maybe things changed in recent times, I certainly hope nobody accepts their position just because someone wants an easier time discriminating them.
There are educational systems that mitigate that problem. Not perfectly, but to a large degree.
Many people studying today had poor parents that never had any form of higher education. I don't think the US systems is good at this. It concentrates on excellence or at least the appearance of it, although there are probably exceptions if you parents are rich or influential. Bad thing is that it works to a degree because the smartest heads get concentrated while others need to be content with lower quality education. A system that should be obsolete with modern logistics of information. Tech is currently leveraging that weakness by building an even worse alternative with their own campuses. While integrating the industry in universities can be quite the advantage, I doubt this will be a helpful basis. There will be people that like to live in infrastructure belonging to their employer, it is just the modern version of a cult.
I don't know about the issues in India, but perhaps lower caste members just don't have access to education. Financing education in the US is difficult because economic imbalance and ridiculous prices on education. Of course that works as a selector if you don't get a scholarship.
I think it is fairly possible to have a broad education system that doesn't determine your future if you fuck up elementary school. Instead there need to transient systems that allow to build upon your educational career, because pupils learn at different speed and had different advantages like private tutors.
>I don't know about the issues in India, but perhaps lower caste members just don't have access to education.
The caste system is about natural born status not tied to economics, but ancestral in nature. You're born into your caste and there isn't mobility within the system. So, try as you might, if you're in the lower caste you're in the lower caste and people higher up are going to treat you that way regardless.
I'm not overly familiar with it myself, but I understand it's a deeply ingrained cultural thing that sounds damaging beyond belief and incredibly bad idea, yet somehow inescapable.
No, because in the west debt is not inherited. Wealth is, which is an advantage to the right, but even then the majority of people - even rich don't get that advantage right away.
The big help the not-poor get is parents help their education. Not monetary help (that exists, but the poor get scholarships which in theory makes up the difference), but help as in a background that values education. If your peers and family expect you to get pregnant and drop out at 14 - it isn't really possible to get ahead in modern society the way most of us take for granted.
Having more money allows you to make mistakes. Having rich parents allow you to make mistakes that are normally unrecoverable for normal people (e.g. going to college and getting kicked out), because money buys you opportunities.
Inheritance is just like caste, you are born with an advantage over others.
> Being dumb and lazy with rich parents means you will be rich.
What I've noticed from observing people in all classes is that money is an amplifier. Lazy rich people who are dumb are more likely to lose their wealth than smart rich people that are hardworking.
I do agree that the game is still heavily skewed in their favor, but that doesn't mean they can get away as easily as their more virtuous counterparts.
He also has the name, connections and status that help him get more money. Despite his bankruptcies, there are still people willing to do business with him, invest in his projects, etc. At the moment he's probably mostly propped up by Russian money, but those Russians would not do that for just any bum on the streets.
Not so. Most people lose money on it. He has a knack for sticking other people with the bill for his bankruptcies while he gets his money out in time. The only bank that still wants to do business with him is the Deutsche Bank, and a lot of people suspect there might be some sort of money laundering or other questionable transactions going on.
No, 3-4 generations is about right. The first generation needs to work hard just to ensure there is enough food for the next. Without enough food everything else is done: intelligence is greatly harmed by not enough food. That Food then lets the next generation work a little smarter, and send their kids to school instead of the kids having to work as well just to ensure there is enough. The kids now have some education to work with, but unless they get scholarships it isn't enough to get ahead, but it is enough to save for their kids scholarships. There you go, 3-4 generations to get out of the hole - assuming everyone all works hard to get out, anyone can drop back (either from laziness or bad luck).
Luck is important too. I read an article about a widow in India being giving a loan for a tractor. 2 months payments on the loan have to amount to about a year of her previous income (note that the other 10 months need to be repaid - this is a loan not a gift). A tractor is such a force multiplier that she is able to make the payments all year and save up enough to dream of sending her son to a good school. This whole thing depends on someone being willing to risk giving someone a loan who clearly doesn't make enough to pay it off.
I post this not really as a rebuttal to your post, or the grandparent, but more of a "here's what success a couple of generations later" actually looks like and what some of its characteristics may be.
While I agree with the general point you make, I think it is a mistake to say race or caste is a proxy because it gives the impression that there's a "genuine" order of things behind the curtain of illusions. This is not a good model for a better understanding of the world around us imo. Hierarchies whether based on material resources or status seems to exist everywhere but are instantiated differently in each place for historical reasons. Race or cast is not a proxy for real hierarchies hidden behind them, it is how some of those hierarchies have taken form at some point in history (and will hopefully disappear at some other point).
As the anthropologist Maurice Godelier puts it in the L'idéel et le matériel, it is not about seeing another reality behind reality but about seeing the same reality with a different look.
Middle class not rich. Getting out of being poor is hard on its own. Getting from middle class is "easy" in that random children from middle class raise to rich all the time. However poor have other disadvantages that they need to deal with, and that is hard to do in one generation.
Well, most of the rich people I know had rich parents.
If you can live with your parents while building your company or they gift you a few thousand dollars, that's often the make or break factor that saves your ass when pivoting a few times.
>"Oh look at those poor backward indians!!" Well, most of the rich people I know had rich parents.
Yes. But those indians in favor of the caste system remain "backward" - it's not just something like poverty keeping the lower castes back and the rich getting an extra advantage over others to have their kids be rich.
It adds a further layer of pure discrimination akin to very heavy racism.
Imagine the poor considered not only poor, but inferior human beings -- and not allowed (or accepted by "civilized" upper caste people, when legal) to do many things even if they have the money to do them.
I've always thought it's that last point you touch on, that's most important.
There are mechanisms (and we can discuss their effectiveness) that try to balance the playing field in provision of opportunity - but there's a huge gap in "provision to cope with failure"
e.g. Two people graduate with equal abilities and are offered an opportunity to found a start-up.
One of those people knows his parents can cover rent/food if things don't go to plan, and the other will be homeless (or maybe more likely would have accumulate personal debt, or leave the city and move back to parents).
One of those people is more likely to be able to take that risk and therefore more likely to reap a reward.
I'm not even sure I can think of a fair way to level this.
That's not necessarily the only way. Another way would be if the market was in a state where the EV of starting a company was roughly the same as the EV of working for someone else. People living cheque to cheque would still have less options, but they wouldn't be inherently worse, and over time inequality would stabilize instead of compounding (which I suspect is what is happening currently).
I don't actually think this is a better solution than progressive taxation and decent welfare though (and I'd also have no idea how you'd coax the market in that direction anyway), because it doesn't also solve the problem of the economy losing out on potential successful businesses because their owners weren't wealthy enough to start them.
> over time inequality would stabilize instead of compounding (which I suspect is what is happening currently).
You really think inequality is stablizing instead of compounding at the moment? Wealth ratios between highest and lowest have gone through the roof over the last 50 years.
In countries with good and available education, competent people from poor families can get good careers. It makes a lot of sense to run companies there as well, as recruiting works well - people are sorted by ability rather than money.
This is definitely a problem, but not just the mobility is the problem.
If the economy is organized so that a small minority is rich, and the vast majority is poor, then even if the fraction of people of different castes, races, genders, whatever at each echelon of wealth is similar. And even if you have a good chance = uniform-distribution draw - of ending up as "one of the rich" - that chance can never be anything but lousy for the vast majority of people.
(Also, social inequality skews the focus of production and consumption so that things masses of people need and want just aren't available.)
It is sometimes (often even) discussed directly, but being cross-correlated to these proxies means that there are different perspectives on what the operative or underlying essence is.
Part of the definition of class that is often overlooked in discussions is that it's not just about money. This is why the socio qualifier gets added into the "socio-economic" designation... even though people sometimes use the dash and then ignore it.
A class implies a hereditary, cultural and quasi-ethnic aspect. So does caste, obviously.
100% agree but you should acknowledge the survivorship bias that skews perception away from what you’re asserting. Some people get lucky with everything falling in place while being poor or middle class and get rocketed to upper class. In any case the game is so rigged in a deterministic fashion.
It's frequently brought up in radical leftist discourse* (marxism, anarchism, etc…) or even center-left discourse (social democracy, social liberalism, etc…).
AFAICT it seems to be taboo outside these circles.
* I should mention that many people make big point that you shouldn't use economic points like this to ignore things like racism, i.e.: while racism intersects with economics you can't treat it like it's the same problem.
If you mean the stickiness of the upper-middle-class, then it's a fairly well-known phenomenon, and I don't think it's _taboo_ anywhere. Maybe some upper-middle-class people with upper-middle-class parents might take vague offense (on the basis that they believe they got where they are purely through hard work or whatever) but I can't imagine anyone thinking of it as taboo.
That's exactly how I feel. It's taboo to discuss that our economic system is just as rigged as (say) China's.
I also should have been clearer: racism is definately also a factor. Poor minorities fare so badly because they get both racism AND classism (or whatever the appropriate term is for the natural increase of both wealth and poverty).
I think one of the major upsides of the cold war was that western countries were very eager to show we could do better than those dirty commies. That birthed all sorts of programs to give people a chance of improving their lots. Most of those are dead now.
I see it discussed constantly all over the internet. Also it's not entirely true; there's a bunch of examples where people did make it big.
All too often this position boils down to "Capitalism bad" which then just attracts the "Communism bad" opposition and ends in a pointless shitshow buzzword exchange.
>Also it's not entirely true; there's a bunch of examples where people did make it big.
That's totally irrelevant though. People are not saying it's impossible for poor to start a company and make it big (in which case those would be counter-examples), they say it's many times harder.
The discrimination lies in the extra difficulty. As someone said, the rich kids starting a startup get to play startup in "easy mode" (which also doesn't mean they'll succeed easily in the market -- just that devoting time to and trying to succeed is far more easy and less rick prone for them).
One of the main human drives in life is to provide for their children. Why shouldn't you be able to spend all the resources you can to give your kids advantage?
What I find curious about this discussion, which often occurs when people discuss what advantages are fair and unfair, estate tax and the like, is that they perceive each human being as a completely independent actor. Whereas for me, at least, it's more natural to think in terms of families. If the first generation achieved success, should it be reset in the next one? Why? The example you're talking about, with people reaching incredibly high success from nothing, are exceptions; usually it takes two or three generations at least.
And it's never only about money. Family culture, outlook toward education, work ethic, etc, these things survive when the family loses all of it's fortune or goes through even more dramatic events — though it's easier to notice when you live in a country that lived through a couple of revolutions, bloody wars and a couple of genocides in the last century than in US.
> Why shouldn't you be able to spend all the resources you can to give your kids advantage?
Because it's absolutely toxic for society as a whole if inequality gets amplified over generations.
Estate tax should ideally be 100% above a reasonable cap. And by "reasonable" I mean a sum definitely below "never needs to work to support a middle class lifestyle".
> If the first generation achieved success, should it be reset in the next one?
Yes, absolutely.
> Why?
Because many opportunities are essentially zero-sum.
I think it's bad if runs rampantly forever as eventually someone nefarious (which is more people than you might think) accumulates too much power and turns large swathes of society into a machine that benefits only them to everyone's detriment.
But at the same time it seems the pursuit of wealth engenders risk taking that brings about benefits for large swathes of society and turns society into a machine that constantly improves itself.
I like the game as it is, but perhaps a healthy modification would be to add a reset button where every couple of hundred years the slate is wiped clean and it all just starts again.
Tbh, I think that happens naturally though usually after a society has destroyed itself due to the first problem.
It'll happen to this one too eventually, so I don't see the need specifically to try to structure things in a way that will never go wrong or end badly. I don't think you can actually accomplish that with any one structure. It seems to be a game where some people win until it's game over and everyone loses.
>I think it's bad if runs rampantly forever as eventually someone nefarious (which is more people than you might think) accumulates too much power and turns large swathes of society into a machine that benefits only them to everyone's detriment.
It's bad longe before it gets to that point, just less obvious.
> But at the same time it seems the pursuit of wealth engenders risk taking that brings about benefits for large swathes of society and turns society into a machine that constantly improves itself.
Putting a cap on inheritance would not impede that in the least. Quite the opposite: inequality prevents a lot of risk taking and improvement from happening.
> I like the game as it is, but perhaps a healthy modification would be to add a reset button where every couple of hundred years the slate is wiped clean and it all just starts again.
That doesn't sound healthy at all because it represents an unneccessarily huge disruption.
>That doesn't sound healthy at all because it represents an unneccessarily huge disruption
It's no different than you or I dying, just on a much bigger scale. It's a huge disruption,
sure, but that's sort of the point. Civilizations come and go, as do the people in them. There are just too many variables for things to be able to persist in a stable state in perpetuity.
Well, that almost looks a classic conflict of interests of a society versus interests of an individual, but only at the first glance. Because when you dig in, you realise that it's the most successful and capable individuals that are most interested in building something for their children and next generations of their family — and that's the most marginalised and useless ones that have to get the most by redistribution. And the more you enact redistribution policies in one country or another, the more those types of individuals self-select. The ones who're most able to build and create something will always be able to leave. Ones who complain about disadvantages, on the other hand — those you're stuck with, I'm afraid.
And if you dig in a little deeper, you realize that that's a bunch of social Darwinist bullshit perpetrated by those already rich who stand to gain the most from inequality - No different from the concept of nobility in centuries past.
Very telling are those "ands" and what's left out: "successful and capable (implied: rich)". "marginalised and useless (implied: poor)". Those traits don't go together automatically at all unless you use circular logic to define them in the first place.
I'm not sure why you interpreted the comment you are replying to as an attack on the actions of rich people instead of a complaint about societies failure to provide opportunities to poor people.
Perhaps because you know those two things are linked?
In these countries, what survives more than anything else is political connections. If your family has the right friends you can do well, even after big setbacks.
Or just your family knows how to teach you how move in the upper culture. I always come back to how much of life is a confidence game. You can often get pretty far if all you have is knowing how to play the game.
I often think people that grow up in disadvantaged circumstances have a major problem a) Learning the wrong game. Sometimes one that ultimately gets you in trouble. b) not knowing how to play the other game. The one that unlocks all the opportunities.
I saw a remark by Miltom Friedman, basically he think beiing able to inherit your wealth to the next generaltion is one of the biggest drivers of the economy.
Is this meant to be a news article or an editorial? The claims in the suit are horrifying and important to report and investigate. The tone is more suited to an opinion piece - and a badly-written one at that. Surely there's better reporting on this topic out there.
The article's title has "Commentary:" in it. It is an opinion piece, which I failed to spot earlier. I still stand by my assertion that it's not well-written.
The difference between a news report and an editorial piece is easy to see once you know the difference.
A news report sticks to the facts - who, what, when, where - with little or no commentary. It usually has a summary with all the important points in the first paragraph. A sentence such as "Then, in a tragic double-whammy," or "...you can be assured..." is not appropriate in a news story. See for example https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit/california-..., a news article about the same case.
The quality of the writing in the article being discussed is also quite poor, with mixed metaphors ("cradle of caste people are disgorged from."), awkward turns of phrase ("serial scale") and even grammatical errors "Their woman and children are".
Why do you seem to be finding fault here, its a write up of a legal case by a civilian.
Pretty normal for non specialist press when writing up a court case note the author is an Indian and may well be using Indian style English, which does diverge from standard English.
It's a piece of writing by a purported "professional" writer and it's pretty bad. Indian-style English still adheres to the rules of regular English grammar.
It's funny how this is NEVER mentioned in the media.
I guess BLM is "so hot" right now (but to be honest this caste issue was never mention even before BLM also).
Perhaps this is because in the West this concepts of casts within society is completely foreign to us.
So for a Westerner this does not create any acute psychological response if someone says "I'm a Dalit".
A westerner would be like "huh, yeah ok man, I have no idea what that is."
So in the mind of a westerner this "he's a Dalit" doesn't create any associations by which he would judge this person because the concept of "casts" is so foreign to us.
This is also why we ignore it + westerners are not affected by this system as it applies only to Indians.
I did hear stories though that the upper cast Indians in a managerial position onyl hire other upper cast Indiands and keep whites because "they know they perform".
But upper cast indians still severely favourite their own vs whites for example.
I guess you could say that their "you're a Dalit gtfo" is the same as someone in the west says "you're black gtfo".
Bear in mind that "African American activists helped created South Asian America as we know it." - https://blackdesisecrethistory.org/ , and high-social status of Asian-Americans who immigrated after the racist National Origins Formula was replaced in 1965 with a policy which emphasized professionals and other individuals with specialized skills is used as a wedge to attempt to break that solidarity. So if it's taken so long for BLM to be "so hot", perhaps it's not so surprising that an awareness of caste discrimination in the US lags?
Most people in the US really don't see caste, because they don't have the training or experience, and therefore also don't really see caste discrimination.
I think this shows a downside of "not seeing" bigotry.
This is an alarmist piece of shit written by someone trying to push a propaganda. Living in India, I can tell you who is the much much much marginalized group today: poor "upper caste" families. The lower castes have reservations (quotas) almost everywhere, from educational institutions to govt job, to elected representatives. They don't even have to pay any fees (at least in the state where I grew up: Punjab). The poor upper caste families have the worst of everything: lack of money AND lack of opportunity.
Case in point: one of my father's classmates from college, who belongs to a lower caste, got a very high ranking IAS (Indian Administrative Services) govt job due to the above mentioned reservation. He was at a time the second most powerful bureaucrat in the state. His kids got educated in the best schools and got the best tuitions and still got admission in a med school using their reservation. Now compare that to one of my really hard working "high caste" cousin who lives in village, is poor, did not have the privelege of a good education, wanted to be a doctor but could not get admission into med school because he did not have any "quotas". So now tell me with a straight face that the "lower caste" are most marginalized TODAY. I'm not talking about 50-100 years ago. I'm talking about TODAY.
I think the last years should have taught us that just because we do not see it, does not mean we are not responsible for changing it.
And recruiting is something where engineers are also involved a lot. They recommend, they rate, they have networks, they may even be part of HR. Just to name some ways. If you get fired (e.g. of your visa protecting job) a well networked person has a lot more chances than someone not.
But original comment is a lie. There are thousands of castes all over the country - different in every state. So education boards create categories (named 1,2A,2R etc.) Each such category is an umbrella for x number of castes. And perhaps this category is indicated next to students' name and not the caste itself.
You can only assert that the comment is a lie if you've visited every university in India and have verified that what the OP says isn't true, and can provide evidence that you've done so.
"This doesn't feel true to me based on my experience" does not mean OP was lying. It just means they had an experience that you weren't aware was possible.
Expressing polite, respectful skepticism is fine; accusing someone of lying without presenting evidence of that lie is not.
Thank you. This is what I'm trying to explain. E.g. you might see "SC" for scheduled caste or "ST" for scheduled tribe, but you will NEVER see anything like "choorha", "chamaar", or even "dalit". And even when it days dalit, it's in regard to their quota, not caste.
Heck, colleges are not even allowed to ask your caste, only under what quota you are seeking admission!
Your reason for asserting that it doesn't exist is that you have 7 years experience of not seeing it. That's simply logically invalid. You shouldn't be believing yourself. You're speaking in overly certain terms without justification which makes your claim seem unreliable and using insults makes it appear that you have an axe to grind - which is also a sign of being untrustworthy.
Did you notice you just contradicted yourself too? "you will NEVER see [...] "dalit". And even when it days dalit [...]"
macintux is correct. Here's why. The word "lie" implies more than saying something false—it implies intent to deceive. That's against the HN guidelines, which ask you to assume good faith. When people assume bad faith, the odds are much higher that the thread will degenerate into flamewar, and we don't want that here. Also, none of us has a mind reader, and it's almost impossible to read someone else's intent just from the small bits of information that internet comments provide.
Here's what to do instead: when encountering incorrect information, respond respectfully with correct information. If the person was honestly mistaken, then they learn something; if they disagree, they can say why, also respectfully, and we can hear out the different views.
This way, we can all learn something, regardless of whether the other commenter is persuaded or not. Best of all, you don't discredit your own views by attacking the other person unnecessarily. If you're in the right, that's especially important, because you don't want to discredit the truth. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
I know what it's like to see something on HN where you 100% doubt the story someone is telling. The problem is that hostile skepticism and cynicism are devoid of content, at best.
If you want to clarify to other readers that you find something very uncharacteristic or unlikely, then just keep it conversational and assume they are telling the truth. What would you say if a crystal ball revealed that their story did happened? "Whoa, I'm from India and I've never heard of anything like that, it's hard to believe. Which college/region was that?" would make the same point yet possibly provoke more info from other people/OP. And people are unlikely to downvote an earnest inquiry.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but, consider the possibility that it's rare, maybe even unique, but real. If that's the case, you've never seen it because it's rare.
See story about blind men describing an elephant. I fully believe you when you say you have haver seen this. But that doesn't mean he hasn't seen it. India is large and diverse, and the experience of someone from one corner of India may not match the experience of someone from another corner.
“The frustrating thing about India is that whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.” — Joan Robinson, the great Cambridge economist.
I have been on this earth for 40 years and I’ve visited 30+ countries and not once, NOT ONCE, have I ever seen a woodpecker. David Attenborough is lying.
My dad told me how the South Vietnam government divided and excluded people. That was why they didn't have the people's support. They had better fire power. But they couldn't win the war. The communists came and reduced everyone to poverty. China doesn't have these class problems because they too had a Cultural Revolution. India has this problem for so long.
In America, everyone tells you how bad Communism is. But they ignore the inequalities produced by crony capitalism. I see the same movie being played again. If we don't address these problems, the crazy revolution is coming.
This article is almost a caricature of articles like itself. What makes this interesting to people? Is it because it's so over the top with bad tropes it becomes funny?
The title does not claim, but heavily implies this happens basically everywhere in US tech. Then it gives a few anecdotes and goes on to give some very bad Indian examples. I'll be the first to agree that this looks bad, just like the advertisements of starving african children look very bad. At least those advertisements don't imply that all african children live in such conditions.
I guess it is because people often forget that there are downsides to diversity: You are importing foreign cultures that you do not understand and are legally/organisationally unprepared for.
The article is interesting because it provides a contrast to the common refrain of "diversity good" and "other cultures provide benefits". There is often a lack of balance and nuance in reporting imho, and this kind of article provides at least a little of the opposing view.
I don't like diversity/inclusion pushed down my throat either and I think people are actually two steps in front of institutions promoting it the strongest, but the intersecting economic problems are similar all over the world.
Hinduism and its caste system seem alien to most western people, but the "you should know your place, peasant" - argument is pretty similar in some interpretations in Abrahamic religions. But sure, some cultures have their own peculiarities and I think not being apart of religious communities is still very rare in India.
I think as a society we are plenty prepared to say "it is not right to discriminate based on who your parents were or where you were born". Not doing so is a choice (to wit, the wrong choice).
This article appears to be about a current lawsuit. The claims that are being made are outrageous, but that is what is expected of a plaintiffs claims in this sort of lawsuit.
I doubt I'll make many friends adding this in, but an uncomfortable statistical artefact of an affirmative action program is the candidates in that program are very likely going to have lower average competence than the rest of the cohort. That observation in particular was (1) probably not acceptable in the workplace and (2) possibly justifiable depending on how serious the affirmative action policies were.
The statistical results around an affective action program are all actually pretty brutal, both to the people in the program and the people who aren't. I forget where to find a good link, but it is related to my favourite stats paradox, Simpson's paradox. They are not a tool people should want to use.
> The lawsuit alleges that the upper-caste Iyer recognised John Doe and instantly began ridiculing him in front of all the other higher-caste Indian employees at Cisco, saying that John Doe was a Dalit and only got into the engineering school because of affirmative action, which India implemented in 1980 under the then-Prime Minister VP Singh.
If they believed that, it would also explain the other things like lack of opportunities and low wages too.
https://qqrl.tk/item?id=23697083 (358 points/83 days ago/606 comments)
https://qqrl.tk/item?id=23798922 (84 points/73 days ago/58 comments)