See: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-no...
> As India transforms, one might expect caste to dissolve and disappear, but that is not happening. Instead, caste is making its presence felt in ways similar to race in modern America: less important now in jobs and education, but vibrantly alive when it comes to two significant societal markers — marriage and politics…
> Inter-caste marriages in India are on the rise but still tend to be the province of the liberal few. For much of the country, with its penchant for arranged marriages and close family ties, caste is still a primary determinant in choosing a spouse…
…and a bit more. Why do you believe caste discrimination isn’t real? That seems like a strong stance.
Why you might find people being defensive on this thread is that it might feel galling to be talked down to by Americans on this subject. The Indians on this thread, like me, have never thought about caste and yet they’re being told to stop being casteist, to fight casteism etc by people who found out about it 10 minutes ago. For others, being told about casteism makes them feel bad because it’s a reminder that India isn’t as great as it could be, it’s not the land of equality and opportunity that we’d like to believe it is.
Not saying they’re right to feel that way, because we must do our part regardless of what others say. But it just gives you their perspective, so you might understand.
yet, right ?
Just so many Indians in the US makes this evident to me
Anyway, nobody likes others shiting on their country, but no need to gaslight or minimize
> "the vast majority of high paying jobs are still in the hands of the top three castes."
That's how a lot of us Indians feel when Americans talk about caste discrimination.
Yes, it is absolutely real.
No, you probably don't understand at all how it works. It is kind of darkly hilarious to me that a comment from some guy saying "There are lots of Indians in Seattle, and they seem to stick together. I really don't know about the dynamics of the caste system..." is the second most upvoted comment on this discussion.
Yes, it is exhausting for us to teach you about thousands of years of history and how they contributed to discrimination. Go read up a few history books if you really want to know.
The main issue is that a good chuck of tech folks upvoting and making this a big don't want to understand. They want to use this as an issue to not let Indians get promoted to managerial positions instead of them. It becomes easier now to say "hey, Indians are casteist, don't make them a managers'.
It's similar to how there is always mass confusion around here for the requirements for scouting for local applicants for work visas vs green card applications.
They don't seem to be looking for facts, that's why the discussions are so strange with real experiences downvoted, and some vague notions of high rates of caste discrimination in the US are upvoted.
I am honestly not sure why Indians would not become managers. A lot of Indian managers have existed in the companies I've been at.
Well, I am trying – what about you?
Go add some more history sources to mine in the comment below that's asking for them!
where do you see caste discrimination show up ?
His writings are mostly in English and present a deep study of the subject, especially given that it affected him personally.
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Reservations are not equivalent to affirmative action in America. Dr. Ambedkar was the Chairman of Constitutional Drafting Committee. In popular imagination, he is often called the author of the Indian constitution. Reservations are a small part of it.
> He was the Indian equivalent of Dr. Martin Luther King.
I understand that you are trying to make the context relatable to an American audience but I find this framing rather grating. I don't mean any disrespect to Dr. King but this is selling Dr. Ambedkar short.
This is not politics or history, or even western thinking. It is fundamentally unfair and unjust. Treat others as you would like to be treated. This concept of justice is not foreign to any country or belief system as far as I am aware, please correct me if I am mistaken here. But every culture has ways and means by which laws, norms and traditions have been established that subvet the most basic senses of justice anyone can have.
I do not need to understand the history between tutsi and hutu in rwanda or serbs and bosnians or native and white americans in latin america or black and white people in the US.
Again I ask, unless you are arguing to justify the injustice, why is the reason behind it unjust?
I would say that I personally don't think any generalizations about "indians in seattle" or elsewhere is correct but individual experiences are not to be ignored either.
I don't see why HR and EEOC won't treat this like any other type of discrimination.
Matter of fact, I don't think seattle should need to ban caste discrimination. It is already illegal at the federal level!
I get what you’re saying - it’s just discrimination like any other discrimination and all discrimination is outlawed implicitly. I mostly agree. I just wouldn’t want this to become the first and only thing that people think about while trying to mediate relations between Indians.
Why would a European think an American would possess a gun in their country? And how would they get it there through customs - it’s not an idea? And a gun is a lethal weapon - is the caste system?
Sorry, I’ve spent a bit of time in Europe (including living for a stint). I’m also from a part of the US that has plenty of firearms. I just can’t make sense of this metaphor.
Yeah, you know how stuff works in Europe, so this transparently sounds like nonsense to you. Similarly, the OP's assertion that caste and sex discrimination is "rampant" among Indians in Seattle sounds like nonsense to me.
> And a gun is a lethal weapon - is the caste system?
Definitely, in a bad way. People have been murdered in India over inter-caste marriages.
> I just can’t make sense of this metaphor.
I'll try to explain it point by point:
- Caste-based discrimination is a terrible thing that happens all the time in India, similar to how gun violence is a terrible thing that happens all the time in the US.
- But if a European said to you "You Americans in my country are super argumentative! You seem to be ready to pull a gun on each other all the time against each other, it's just like what I read in the paper!", you'd think it was nonsense that was basically stereotype-matching.
- Similarly, I find OP's comment about rampant caste discrimination nonsensical because it relies on simplistic stereotyping.
You are also not obliged to teach people anything, but as you've seen the people will judge you based on the information presented. Not contributing to the narrative only leads people to base judgement on the supplied information.
Most of us in the West never wanted anything to do with caste! This is a uniquely Indian problem which requires Indian efforts to fix, this isn’t something that can be passed off to western social justice movements to solve for you.
I don't pass off racism or gun violence as "a uniquely European problem which requires European efforts to fix". I study the nuances and try to help where I can.
You should think about doing the same.
It makes for uninteresting discussion of the misgivings of different countries when the first thing you're able to reach for is "well what about colonialism?"
It's mainly meant as an illustration of the OP's "We never wanted Problem X, take it back to your country!" argument, which is simplistic and uninteresting.
It seems that it’s an older generation thing. The younger ones don’t care about caste at all but if their parents ask about their friends they will lie, because their parents care a lot about caste.
And while caste is illegal in India. It’s such a big country it’s difficult to enforce. So it’s still rampant outside of the big cities.
I used to donate to a charity which builds wells in India for small villages to ensure they have safe clean drinking water. They supply the materials but everyone in the village must contribute to building it and everyone must have access regardless of caste. If the village does not agree they won’t help.
I can’t remember what the charity was called :(
The caste system was outlawed ages ago. It very much is illegal.
What exactly do you think is outlawed?
There is more to the story and that's a good read, but in practice you can see cast discrimination still a lot in India, as I figured out recently when I have been a few weeks in the country.
> The caste system was outlawed ages ago. It very much is illegal.
As you'll note, the actual prohibition is on a narrow class of discrimination. That is what I was trying to emphasize. I live in India and am very much aware of the discrimination that still exists.
I never said it wasn't still practiced. Just that its much more observed outside of the big cities than in it.
What others have been trying to explain to you is that only caste-based discrimination was banned, not the caste system itself.
Because they go on to say that the ban hasn't been very effective, you seem to miss that first point and start arguing that you weren't saying discrimination doesn't exist, which isn't addressing the intention behind what they were saying.
I never said the caste system was abolished or doesn't exist. And I never mentioned 'untouchables'. It seems those replying and refuting anything I say are in favor of the caste system and want to keep it, which is utterly horrible.
If you cannot discriminate against caste, the caste serves no purpose, because you're effectively saying people are equal. But writing anti descrimination laws into the constitution obviously doesn't help society move away from it, especially when its so engrained into elders, or people who live outside the big cities.
You literally said:
> The caste system was outlawed ages ago.
> It seems those replying and refuting anything I say are in favor of the caste system and want to keep it
This is one hell of a take. How the fuck do you fix something if you keep pretending it's already fixed.
> If you cannot discriminate against caste,
There is no law criminalizing discrimination. People discriminate and face discrimination every single day.
> people who live outside the big cities.
I've lived in the third and fourth largest cities in India and seen discrimination with my eyes.
In my last comment I said exactly that. Being outlawed does not mean it’s abolished. Something can be illegal and people still do it. People still commit murder and that’s been outlawed for like ever. So it can’t have been abolished if it still exists.
> How the fuck do you fix something if you keep pretending it's already fixed.
At no point did I say it’s a solved problem. My very first comment I said it happens outside the big cities more than the big cities. I never said it doesn’t happen.
You know. I heard a saying once: “people outside America know more about America than Americans know about America” it seems like the same is true here.
Check this out! https://a.co/d/b55ZoJ9
Check this out! https://a.co/d/b55ZoJ9
After the British came the caste system got worse. They used the caste system in their government and caused a lot of people to get upset.
We could literally blame all of India’s current caste issues on the British.
The government should be demolishing the caste system entirely based on the little I know from the people I’ve spoken to. It causes more harm than good. But it doesn’t change the fact that it is outlawed.
I don't think this is a fair characterisation. I have never heard of anyone wanting to stop this. If you mean CRT, that is something different, or at least the versions of it that are causing pushback are different.
More broadly, books like Lies my Teacher Told Me have pointed to the long history of numerous failings of our history curriculum.
We never got to be anywhere near the slave quarters, and it was never once mentioned that dozens of black people were brutally slaughtered there with their heads put on pikes at the entrance.
There has never in the history of the United States been a curriculum containing CRT at the K-12 level because children don't have the background and capacity to understand it.
And by bringing it up at all, you're proving that you don't either.
Indian movies became almost unwatchable lately. It's getting more and more extreme.
This book will help you give some context though
How can I or anyone prove a negative? I can only offer my life experiences as a non-high caste Indian whose both sides of the family eat meat, that caste never ever comes up with any of my Indian coworkers, managers, friends or family. Nor has anyone ever mentioned to me that they experienced issues because of their caste. In rural India and among older folks caste is more important, but in America it's pretty rare for people to care about caste. Any discrimination must be dealt with, but I don't like the generalization on HN than Indians are casteist.
The initial example I gave was this: "caste discrimination exists". The response I see is "oh no that isn't real"
That's like someone saying "mass shootings occur in the USA" and me saying "no they don't"
A white person could say "racism is a thing of the past or is an issue somewhere else, because I don't experience it on a day to day basis". That's what your reply makes me think of. Of course, not all people of X demographic are racist or casteist. But this "hear no evil, speak no evil" mentality towards it isn't helping
You get it. This is exactly the fear I have -- that clueless Americans will use an "Indians are casteist" excuse to justify not hiring us to management or positions of power.
There are already "keep it in India" comments on these threads that are going unmoderated, which would be totally unacceptable in any other context.
I notice this too. It's like someone brings up caste discrimination online (somewhere like teamblind) and a bunch of people come out of nowhere and say "that isn't real". Isn't very convincing to say the least