Also I’m from a South American background and unfortunately was very ignorant of the Indian culture and have never met an Indian person until I immigrated.

I have Indian colleagues and a one of them became a good friend. I asked him once or twice about castes and how it worked etc. He said it’s all bullshit and it didn’t matter and I felt like it was a topic he was felt awkward discussing so I made a mental note not to ask him about it.

I Googled around and found his surname was from basically the 2nd highest caste. A few years later a young Indian woman joined our company and I was very impressed by her.

She was confident, eloquent and seemed eager to make an impact. I told my friend something like: “man the newbie is here to kick ass isn’t she?! Loved how she spoke at that meeting”

To which he made the only comment on castes I’ve ever seen him make, something along the lines of: “She’s a brahmin bro, she thinks we all work for her”.

That’s when I knew it wasn’t “all bullshit”.

Lol, the majority of Indians especially in the west are upper-caste Hindus. The funny thing is they say all progressiveness but support Hindu nationalist like Modi and RSS, make comments like the sh*t you mentioned but in reality have high caste pride and view non-Hindus as mlechas. It is also partly due to the colonial baggage of west of west, India is given a free pass and it's funny that even during colonial rule these upper castes were the ones who most benefitted.