How India’s caste system manifests in Seattle-area workplaces and beyond

Re:How India’s caste system manifests in Seattle-area workpl... by thro_caste_away on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @06:02AM (#34879545)

Many people in this thread are suggesting that this evil will not be gotten rid of anytime soon.

But I can tell you that casteism in India, and the degree of it, is not uniformly distributed throughout India.

There are some states and regions where marrying outside your caste is signing your own death warrant, and people from so-called upper castes don't even share tables with lower caste people.

But there are some areas where casteism is non-existent, and inter-caste marriage is rampant, and a small fraction of inter-caste relations are even arranged marriages.

Northern states are the hotbed of castiesm where it is overt and violent and there are honor killings. In South, it is covert, and appears in form of virtues signalling, power sharing, not intermarrying, etc.

The western regions have some lower form of casteism. And in the eastern regions, it is quite non-existent.

I live in the state of West Bengal, and I have never seen overt casteism. Inter-caste relations and marriages are rampant.

What led to this change?

Buddhism had a very strong foothold here historically.

Then ~500 years ago Bhakti movement that does not recognizes caste but only one's devotion was very popular.

Then Calcutta and Bengal was the seat of British rule for decades.

Then three decades of Communist rule up to 2010 destroyed the state's economics, but communality and casteism is low.

And there are places in India, where castiesm is lower. Like Kerala.

There was very popular anti-caste movement in Tamil Nadu: look up Periyar.

So, casteism isn’t uniformly present in the same degree in India, and it can be gotten rid of, through effort.

Some news of castiesm:

Denial of entry to temple:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/clash-ov...

Honor killing for marrying:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/clash-ov...

Dalit killed for KEEPING A MOUSTACHE:

https://article-14.com/post/killed-for-sporting-a-moustache-...

Dalit killed for sitting in a chair in a wedding:

https://article-14.com/post/killed-for-sporting-a-moustache-...

Dalit killed for riding a horse:

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/for-riding-horse-upp...

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Re:How India’s caste system manifests in Seattle-area workpl... by unmole on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @07:03AM (#34880113)

Yeah, no.

Intercaste marriages barely make up 10% of the total in West Bengal. That's actually slightly lower than the national average. We don't need to reach for Buddhism, Bhakti or the British for postfacto explainations because there's nothing extraordinary here that needs an explanation.

And if you think casteism isn't prevalent in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, perhaps you would be interested in acquiring an ownership stake in the Pamban Bridge.

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Re:How India’s caste system manifests in Seattle-area workpl... by srean on Tuesday February 21, 2023 @03:02PM (#34886253)

> Yeah, no. Intercaste marriages barely make up 10% of the total in West Bengal.

Do you have links to such demographic data I can read, because I am a little surprised. In my extended (Bengali) family there are many of inter-caste and inter-language marriages. Personal and anecdotal experience can of course differ from the population level norm, but genuinely curious.

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