manifestdissent

As a mixed-race individual, I don't face that question by default in the US. There are enough mixed people in the US that I don't get asked "where are you from." But as soon as they realize I'm half-Indian, they will hunt me down and ask me questions. They'll try to ask me my parent's names etc. (names signify caste)

It's sad behavior. If it helps, here's a comment I wrote about my travels in India that might shed some light on the phenomena;

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My travels in India have been revealing.

Caste and class are inextricably linked, and a part of their daily vernacular. They're used as descriptors, "s/he's an X" (as if that means something to me!) And there's a huge coded language with inferences going on. It's a bit like saying, "s/he's jewish". Something that just doesn't happen in the US anymore (unless you're around rather unsavory folks)

It's such a deep part of the milieu that I'm not surprised when I hear stories about it being exported.

True story. I met this Indian woman while working out of the local hipster cafe. We had mutual friends. And ended up going out for lunch.

On the way back, she started asking questions about my background. They grew intensely personal. Until she was interrogating me on the sidewalk.

Unsatisfied with my responses, she just gave up & cut to the chase, "What's your mother's caste?"

Last I checked, she moved to the States and is a contractor for a FAANG.

She's hardly unique though. Indian people cannot stop asking questions. Where are you from? Where were you born? Why's your skin so pale? Where are your parents? What do they do? Where did you go to school? Why aren't you married?

What's worse is that the society is insular. Even in a big city, few people socialize outside of, in descending order of proximity, family > friends of the family > classmates from elementary school > people from their high school > college > (perhaps, sometimes) work.

I have met people who have gone through their entire life without ever meeting someone from a lower social class/caste. Casual greetings with people who clean their homes don't count.

There's a lack of je ne sais quoi. A certain lack of creative energy. A kind of absence of the meeting of free radicals that sparks interesting ideas and art. Culturally, it's as if, the society has submerged itself in halon, determined to not let the sparks of creativity and genius spark.

This problem is so acute that every free radical I've met has done their very best to move away as soon as humanly possible.

Hitler was a vegetarian and the Nazis established nature preserves. You had to ask for permission to experiment on a worm not the untermenschen. They funded programs to populate the forests of Europe with Big Game like Bison

All political movements take the shape of the territory they occupy. When fascism arises it uses symbols of its host society. Indians won't use a phyrgian cap they'll use saffron

From Umberto Echo's famous hierarchy, we have a group that has an obsession with a plot for e.g. here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25207458 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25208543 You've implied multiple times that there's something spooky going on without evidence

The broader plot involves the identification of an outsider, in India's case it is muslims. The Other is identified as the source of the problem and is highlighted as being a part of the plot against the majority. The classical example is the "they're raping our women and planting demon babies" plot https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/11/19/indias-ruling-part...

The outsiders are Muslims' who are simultaneously the root of the problem and weak degenerates. https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2020/02/04/...

It is assumed that mixing with the untermenschen will dilute the superior ethnic group. There's a desire to "purify" the country. The majority forms paramilitary groups to enact the process. All disagreement towards this is taken as treason. Dissent is forbidden. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/who-is-an-urban-naxal... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Activities_(Preventio...

A xenophobic movement with a paramilitary organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh that is obsessed with a plot to undermine the majority that has heavily implied racial/ethnic subtext. The movement implies that they will take the country back to an unspecified time when it was greater. They identify the minority as the obstacle. They clamp down on all dissent and attempt to induct children and the young into their cults through a focus on service and death in the service of the nation.

If the shoe fits

Fascism rarely has any internal consistency or meaning. It’s an ideology of hate towards the other and sucks to be you if you’re the other.

It’s not surprising that they turned on him. If he had bothered to read history, he’d have read what happens to most supporters and collaborators of such regimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

Fascists are an ouroboros of hate. They all eat themselves.

The country has become nationalistic to a nonsensical degree. I’ve met multiple people who have refused to use PayTM because they think it is Chinese.

This won’t end well.

The nationalism in these comments isn’t surprising. But it is disappointing.

Several comments are implying that HuffPo is an influence operation or conspiracy... ???

There’s a clear boogeyman (the Chinese) and a grand arching conspiracy stopping the country from being great. This is fascism 101

> Mostly I find this amusing and chalk it up to cultural differences. But I can't help but conclude that Indians are almost obsessed with "placing" each Indian-appearing person they mert based on their ancestry, and find it hard to move past this.

I feel your chagrin. I would be the first to admit to my privilege that my skin affords me. When I travel, I'm not mistaken for Indian and that leads to some very strange encounters.

True story, I'm standing tired and defeated in front of a border agent in a well-developed SE-Asian country. The border agent looks at my passport. Looks at my face. Looks at the passport again. And says, "Hold on. You're an Indian citizen?? But you're so white and polite!" and proceeds to tell me about how bad her night has been.

That is privilege. I was afforded the benefit of the doubt and allowed to carry on.

In India, I have never been stopped by the cops on the street. As India slides into fascism, I've oft expressed my fears to my lawyer and he's said - "Don't worry! No policeman is ever going to bother you, you're so pale and fancy and have a lawyer. He'd be scared of losing his job"

I am fortunate that I do not fear persecution when I walk down the streets. At the very least, not beyond the usual stalking and staring and ever present harassment.

In a time distant enough to be my past, I took the apartment complex's staff out for ice cream, and I saw them rush about for ID just in case someone asked. And I asked them if that was a regular thing. And they said yes, it happened to them almost every time they were out. But it had never happened to me. In an ID-obsessed country, other than for paperwork, no cop had ever stopped me on the street and asked me for my ID.

I met up with some black travellers once, and they did not share my experience. They had to carry ID with them all the time. And this was in Asia. Even miles away from American shores, they were still afraid of the police.

It is lonely. It is suffocating. It is depressing to live the life I lead. It's a society where I cannot socialize, where I cannot find nor keep gainful employment no matter what I may offer, where life moves past me at rates that are hard to understand, where I live in fear of them. A stranger, a minority, living in a strange land.

And yet, I'm privileged. It could be worse. It could always be worse.

Some day,

  Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black, 

with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren

whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the roof

Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that

wishes but acts not!

  For every thing that lives is Holy

True story. I met this Indian woman while working out of the local hipster cafe. We had mutual friends. And ended up going out for lunch.

On the way back, she started asking questions about my background. They grew intensely personal. Until she was interrogating me on the sidewalk.

Unsatisfied with my responses, she just gave up and cut to the chase, "What's your mother's caste?"

Thanks to fairly unique circumstances I have to live with a plausible cover story. Because Indian people cannot stop asking questions. Where are you from? Where were you born? Why's your skin so pale? Why're you so tall? Where are your parents? What do they do? Where did you go to school? Why aren't you married?

What's worse is that the society is insular. Even in a big city, few people socialize outside of, in descending order of proximity, family > friends of the family > classmates from elementary school > people from their high school > college > (perhaps, sometimes) work.

I have met people who have gone through their entire life without ever meeting someone from a lower social class. Casual greetings with people who clean their homes don't count.

There's a lack of je ne sais quoi. A certain lack of creative energy. A kind of absence of the meeting of free radicals that sparks interesting ideas and art. Culturally, it's as if, the society has submerged itself in halon, determined to not let the sparks of creativity and genius spark.

This problem is so acute that every free radical I've met has done their very best to move away as soon as humanly possible.

I have no voice and yet I must scream

It will be linked to their national census which records religious data.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/151015/nation-current-affairs...

In a country where genocide and sectarian violence are a regular occurrence†, I am sure that a detailed database of religious affiliation, biometrics, photographs, and addresses won't be misused.

Much like the Dutch census, history will look back at this registry of citizens with horror.

† http://time.com/3545867/india-1984-sikh-genocide-anniversary...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/narendr...

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

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30288169

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Christian_violence_in_Ind...

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