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A comment on Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination. Parent comment

Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by paxys on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @10:27AM (#32483185)
> I had some friends adopt English names to get from under their caste names. So quite a few Johnsons, Smiths, Matthews, Pauls out there.

There is an interesting history behind this. When Christian missionaries first arrived in India to spread their religion (in the late 1700s/1800s) they were initially unable to make much progress, but then found success among lower caste Indians by promising them a life of equality. So the vast majority of Christian converts in India are from these castes.

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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by AareyBaba on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @01:34PM (#32486063)
The history was more complex. There are Syrian Christians (600AD), Catholics (1500), Anglican Protestants (1800) and more recently, evangelical Christians. Each group is linguistically and culturally distinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_India

Mangalorean Catholics for instance are mostly Saraswat Brahmins who converted around 1700s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalorean_Catholics

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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by muro on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @01:30PM (#32486021)
Christian missionaries arrived in India much, much earlier:

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

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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by HideousKojima on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @01:57PM (#32486391)
In fact Saint Thomas (as in literally Doubting Thomas the apostle in the New Testament) was supposedly martyred in India, according to tradition at least.
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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by hef19898 on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @10:58AM (#32483641)
If I remember correctly, Sikhs are standing outside the caste system as well.
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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by statguy on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @02:26PM (#32486748)
In principle yes, but in practice no: https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/who-are-dalit-sikhs-n...
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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by hef19898 on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @02:45PM (#32487014)
And again I learned something... Perceived elitism seems to be universal, unfortunately.
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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by yardie on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @10:37AM (#32483299)
LOL. The first Indian American I met with an English surname I assumed was adopted. Then I met another with the same surname and assumed they were related.
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Re:Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste di... by AareyBaba on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @01:38PM (#32486129)
India also has a minority population of Anglo-Indians with British surnames. Williams, Jones, Norton, Barnes, Peters, O'Brien are names you can find in Mumbai and Kolkata and Chennai.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Indian_people

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