This is the country where “Yankee Doodle” started out as an anti-American insult by the Brits and ended up being one of the nation’s favorite songs. The nation that used the N-word seriously until around 1965, then by 1975 it had been completely co-opted by people like Richard Prior, and later hip-hop artists. Just so you know, I am married to someone whose parents forbade her to go out with me because of my race. Before I married her another girlfriend stopped dating me because I wasn’t black. Before that, another girlfriend’s parents tried to stop her relationship with me because I wasn’t Jewish. Now that I have a passel of mixed-race kids... guess who makes endless racial jokes? All of us. It drives our friends crazy.

I’d have a DALIT license plate. I’d have a line of DALIT T-shirts. I’d shove it right in people’s faces for the sheer enjoyment of it. I would totally kill it with the DALIT merch.

My heart goes out to you, and my best to you and yours. What a nightmare.

Caste based conflicts are the highest among the Christians, because the church was way too successful in exploiting social divisions, just like they did elsewhere in the world like Rwanda.

Caste is a poisson, but when it is bread and butter for some people they would like nothing better than to keep it alive.

EDIT: Replaced "origin" with "social identity", which seems like a better fit.

> how hindu society openly supports and promotes it

My 'high class' friends always bring up their caste even when it is not related at all.

'in Bramhins we don't do x'm 'In us Rajputs, we don't do x'

They can easily say, 'I am a veg or I dont' drink or my family is xyz'. But no. their caste _has_ to come up.

A friend of mine had asked one of her friends who used to do this: 'okay, we get it that you are a Bramhin, there is no need to bring it up in every other sentence.' She was shell shocked and never ever did I hear her say "oh we Bramhins we do xyz".

After centuries of cast discrimination, do you think that lower caste people will be 'proud' of their caste? No. they were brainwashed into thinking that they're subhuman, that they are not worthy of it.

Dr Ambedkar was a LSE scholar and he was treated as crap. he was a distinguished scholar, not just any other who was treated as crap because he was a Dalit.

Here is why your equation to GenX and California/British is a false equivalence:

GenX didn't treat GenW like shit for a century

California/British: it is about being proud of _where_ you live. I am proud of India, I was born here and I'll die here. I am sure that all Indians, irrespective of their gender or caste or religion are proud to associate themselves to India.

> Not every mention of caste is about caste discrimination.

It is. How else do you explain that only Bramhins and Rajputs do it? I didn't see any Mahar or Jain or Parsi say "in us Parsis we do x" or "in us Jains we do x" or "in us Mahars we do x"

Mahars were fierce warriors from Shivaji Maharaj's times, they defeated the Peshwas in Koregaon Bhima in 1818.

Only them upper caste folks flaunt it, just like the 'south Bombay' folks can't shut up about where they live

I respect your personal choice, of course, but curious why people choose to convert to a different religion instead of just shunning the Hindu identity, given Christianity also tends to have problematic beliefs. Is it because sharing religious beliefs makes it easier to share a common identity?

I do find it fascinating how a converted Dalit is basically freed from the social burdens of their class. I would not have expected that, as most religious groups heap scorn or actual punishments on those who convert to another religion.

Based on what I've read so far in people's responses to my question it makes a kind of sense. If you convert to a different religion, historically speaking, you are now "out of competition" in terms of marriages, allocation of dowry, so on. So since many people historically never married across religion, there's no problem being nice to people who aren't competing for your same economic resources.

Please note that I don't mean to indicate approval for any of these things, just that historically that's how it has played out.

Hearing about a benefit of apostasy, from members of ones former religion no less, is quite surprising.

The perceived threat is from the claim that all other gods are false, which is one of the major factors in the anti Muslim/anti Christian sentiments playing out currently in India.

However, the attitude of muslims & Christians towards nonbelievers, idol worship and the historical violence and destruction wrought on them plays a bigger role.

A modern western atheist might carry the same "all gods are false", the vast majority of the Hindus will not have any problem with that.

I wouldn't take that statement at face value. They are definitely not freed from the social burdens of their station of birth.

They might achieve some sort of better treatment through their association with a larger group of Christians who together wield some political power and influence, but in matters of marriage and other aspects of domestic life, they will likely face the same discrimination that they did before conversion. Consider, for example, the caste system of Roman Catholic Indians in Goa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Brahmin

Converting is the only way to get rid of your caste. It's common amongst Hindus to ask each other's caste and the only way to say that you have none is to not be a Hindu. If you are a hindu then people will figure out your caste from your last name.

You would end up without a caste, but with higher or lower social status depending on your original country.

A better off dalit is still a dalit. Thats the point. The society will discriminate against you in all ways possible. Right from job applications to finding a partner

There used to be some kind of exclusivity in being a christian in India. This might no longer true.

I am from Chennai where Christianity has spread rapidly in recent years, a christian doctor who died of covid had to be cremated in a Hindu cemetery because of conflicts between the different christian denominations.

This has been the case in the North-east of India for several years now, since they are more than 80% christian.

Christianity doesn't seem like a great choice then since it teaches God will burn all non-Christians eternally in Hell.

I'm an atheist myself but I don't see many things in Christianity that are particularly bad (...I just don't believe in the supernatural).

I know nothing about this at all, if you don't mind answering - how do you signal this? Do you wear a cross in a very visible way? In my experience, opinions about someone are formed when you meet hem and it's hard to change afterwards; what happens when people learn later on that you're Christian? Does their treatment of you change?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11229170

Also Jesus was born in a poor family, which would have made him a lower caste hindu if he was born in India

This is not really true. If I recall correctly, Jesus was born in the Davidic line as per the bible, which was important for his claim as the messiah. His high "caste" did matter to his followers. Caste is determined by your pedigree, and not by how rich you are.

It's true that caste-based discrimination is a curse that India must do away with. Perhaps it'd be more helpful to let different communities adhere to whatever traditions are important to them without attaching the concept of highness or lowness associated with it.

Not considering hiring people with non-Biblical or clearly "Black" names is one of those things which you can't see. Not showing Black people houses in good neighbourhoods is another. That behaviour is still racist, but invisible.

Casteism plays out along similar lines, with people not being hired, or promoted.

The term implies facing the wrong way

The irony is that there are some upper caste people fighting to classify their class as backward because they have quotas in govt jobs/education.

You see, eons ago, caste in Indian society was not right, it was your job (warrior = Kshatriya, scholar = bramhin, trader = baniya, labourer = shudra).

The first three called themselves upper class and the last one was the lower class.

Among the first three, the first one think that they're upper than the other two. The second one thinks that they're upper than the third.

But this was never hereditary. if you were born to a Bramhin (basically any person who had the brains to be a scholar) and if you didn't have the knack of being a 'scholar' you could become a warrior if you had the skills, or a trader, if you had those skills. If you had no such skills then you were the labourer.

But what happened is, centuries after this tradition started, it was made hereditary. So only sons of Bramhins can be scholars, only sons of Kshatriyas can be warriors, only sons of Baniyas can be traders and all Shudras were forever shudras.

The architect scholar and almost superman historical Dr Ambedkar was a Mahar aka Dalit aka Shudra. This guy graduated at the top of LSE, has written extensively on India and almost all of his writings were 100% spot on (his thoughts about why it was good that Pakistan formed for Indian Army's balance or what'll happen when Hindu nationalism will rise etc)

But he was treated as shit just because he was born a Mahar.

Now the tragical thing is that Mahars were warriors in Shivaji Maharaj's time (he was a Deccan King who was kinda democratic and not cruel like Mughals. Even actual Gods are below him in my state, people, including atheists like me worship him, not in temples obviously. It is like you can insult Gods and it'd be fine but if you insult him then you are done)

During his reign, Mahars were fierce warriors and had their own regiment in his army. But his descendents weren't exactly great and in the 3rd generation king's army, only 'higher caste' khastriyas could be warriors and others were treated as literally shit. there has been documented evidence (thank God for the documentation) that at the end of the Peshwa rule, the lower class people had to attach a broom at their backside so that they'd sweep the land they walked on because they were considered 'filthy' (not physically). No lower class man or woman or child was allowed in upper class wells, temples. they were not allowed to have horses in their weddings etc. Some of these practices are still rampant in India where upper caste privileged people are blind. you can see quite a few in this thread who are either blind or racist.

basically this was just like slavery without higher caste people owning the lower caste people.

My knowledge of India is very basic. I have indian friends and coworkers and have never thought about this being part of their story.

There is a skin colour bias, but that isn't about caste (darker skin is a sign that you have to work in the sun, which signals poverty and being of a lower economic class).

What I'm trying to find out is, if these casts are dependent on each other as if profession running in the family or are simply a way to organize within from top down with no cooperation of communities but exploitation. If the latest is the case, I wonder if there were uprisings and such.

This isn't true everywhere. There is a fair amount of bias embedded in society, and caste markers will follow you around.