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California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

reuters.com

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Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#161

Post by Veen »

hef19898 wrote: post #119
throwaway781341 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to mention few things because they need be said. I hope it helps. Caste system and Varna system in India are 2 different things. Many people including Indians fail to understand this. Caste system and what was written in Manusmruti (some guidelines book for Hindus) was debated even in ancient times but some high-caste-people did take advantage of it and it went screwed up in-between years. Caste system…

Historically speaking, most ancient societies had something similar, one way or the other. What is really interesting, is that India is the only country I know of, that codified that system religiously and carried it into the 21st century. Not to say that there is an society without discrimination and social disparity. But only a few take it to the level the Indian caste system does. That shows how tricky racism is,…

> African-Americans, in the UK Pakistanis and Indians

It’s worth differentiating here. The experiences and outcomes and attitudes towards Pakistanis are very different to those of Indians in the UK. Indians are by far the most successful ethnic minority in the UK while Pakistanis are the least. Three of the most senior positions in the UK government are occupied by people of Indian descent—Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, and Alok Sharma-all members of the Conservative Party.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#162

Post by rutherblood »

wherever Indians go they take caste with them. You can't wipe out your caste even if you change your religion, name, financial situation, country, what-have-you, marry. Indians are a fucked up bunch. Let them become a non-minority in your country and the tribalist mentality will penetrate everywhere without anyone even noticing

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#163

Post by saagarjha »

hef19898 wrote: post #153
peroporque wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't people just change their last name? I imagine if suddenly everyone's last name was Gupta, that kind of discrimination would become difficult.

I wondered the same thing when I was in India years ago. So I asked our guide. There are a lot of clues beyond family name to determine ones caste. Would be nice if it where that easy, so.

And I assume some people like their last name, regardless of discrimination they might face because of it…

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#164

Post by cscurmudgeon »

randomguy2379 wrote: post #125
sbmthakur wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you tell me one other religion which has the concept of caste in religious scriptures? They may not be having caste-based discrimination but they do have other forms of discrimination. That's why you have terms like heathens, heretics and kafirs . While I agree that Hindus have more of this caste-based discrimination, a simple search shows that it's not exactly uncommon in other religions in India. https://scro…

Funny you mention heathens, heretics and kafirs. All of these are people who are non-believers in their corresponding religions. Dalits are actually believers in Hinduism. No other religion in the world discriminates against the very people who chose to adopt it, except Hinduism. I'll reiterate, it's very rare in other religions and uncommon. Mostly remnants of Hinduism. But ask an average muslim or a christian his c…

> But ask an average muslim or a christian his caste and he will say that he doesn't have one.

Aren't there Shia/Sunni divisions and even centuries long wars?

Not exactly castes, but probably worse.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/middle-east/2017/08/sunni...

Also see:

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

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#165

Post by olcor »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #158
olcor wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes well if we want to go all Veblen, we can see that throughout the world, not just India. But let us be real here, there are a lot of people in poverty following vegetarian diets, especially because meat doesn't always come cheap in India, and dal/milk relatively are. Some follow it because they were raised in a vegetarian culture. Some do it because they dislike the thought of eating animals. Brahmins aren't alway…

Sure, we're generalizing about over a billion people here. But I still contend that if you were to take statistically significant samples across the caste hierarchy, you'd find more vegetarians up top.

Possibly. Wish we had numbers, but I'm not sure if survey respondents would always speak the truth :)

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#166

Post by sameerds »

tomcam wrote: post #112
randomguy2379 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am someone who was born a hindu dalit and I am so ashamed of sharing that identity of mine that I am posting anonymously. Hindus believe that humans are like dogs and they have a breed. So a person who is born in a higher caste is of a better breed than a person born in a lower caste. Numerous genetic studies have found no significant difference amongst Indian castes. The moment an upper caste person realizes that…

Easy for me to say, but if I were you, assuming you’re in the USA, I’d own the hell out of it. To be ashamed of it here is to give power needlessly to whole populations who do not own you. And the States love an underdog. This is the country where “Yankee Doodle” started out as an anti-American insult by the Brits and ended up being one of the nation’s favorite songs. The nation that used the N-word seriously until a…

This has been tried in India many times. The trouble is that it has always been done with the intention to polarize people for political gains. It completely skews the conversation, and most people automatically steer clear of anyone flaunting their "social identity" (not necessarily caste) like that.

EDIT: Replaced "origin" with "social identity", which seems like a better fit.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#167

Post by ponker »

peroporque wrote: post #147
walt0 wrote: post #99

I live and work in India and I would like to throw more light on this. Me and my friends like to joke around that you will never get your dues, either pay raise or promotions unless you have the last names jain, gupta, sharma, verma. I had a guy on my team who was very capable but did not have the right last name, he was being harassed for promotions for 4-5 years. On the other hand the manager class was entirely "ja…

Couldn't people just change their last name? I imagine if suddenly everyone's last name was Gupta, that kind of discrimination would become difficult.

You can change your last name to Rockefeller, and some get away with it [1], but usually you'd be exposed because not only would you not have the right clothes, manners, alma maters, accent, etc... but most of all, you wouldn't know the right people. "Oh you're a Rockefeller, eh? So I'll see you at the Wickliffe's garden party in Martha's Vineyard this June?"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Gerhartsreiter

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#168

Post by twic »

youeseh wrote: post #59
sk0g wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in India for a bit, and no shit they wouldn't share it. It's a horrible form of discrimination, worse than racism in some ways, IMO. You could, historically, spread your "untouchableness" by contacting people of other castes, for example. Marrying your child to someone from a lower caste is seen as a shameful move to many people. White people would absolutely not understand this, yes, but what is there to und…

Discriminating based on caste is racism. Actually, the Brits used the caste system to their own advantage* and discrimination based on caste didn't become outlawed until the Indian constitution was written post-independence. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India

Britain has had a very strong class system, which was perhaps at its peak around the time of the empire, so it would not have been a big leap at all to understand the Indian caste system.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#169

Post by dang »

rutherblood wrote: post #162

wherever Indians go they take caste with them. You can't wipe out your caste even if you change your religion, name, financial situation, country, what-have-you, marry. Indians are a fucked up bunch. Let them become a non-minority in your country and the tribalist mentality will penetrate everywhere without anyone even noticing

Nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN.

It's remarkable how good this thread has managed to be, given the difficulty of the topic. Please let's not spoil that.

Edit: by the way, from your other comments in this thread I gather that you're probably Indian, or from an Indian family, and you're mostly expressing your personal experiences and frustrations. This of course is not at all the same thing as outside prejudice, and we're always mindful of the difference in such cases.

The trouble is, the internet can't tell the difference. If you post like this, your comment is indistinguishable from that of a racist or nationalist person who just has a problem with Indians. I'm sure you'd be the first to object to comments coming from that ugly place. So if you're going to post on these topics, we need you to include enough information to disambiguate your intent, and also make the post more personal and less of a general denunciation.

The general principle is: since a comment's impact on future discussion is determined by how others hear it, the burden is on the commenter to disambiguate intent.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#170

Post by devdas »

harpratap wrote: post #152
paxys wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, more like middle to upper-middle class, with good access to education. 1 percenters are the ones with old family money and successful businesses (which they will inherit). They have no reason to leave the country for a tech job.

Top 1% in India is just $77000 pre-tax income per year (5.5 LPA). This is comfortably middle & upper-middle class. I think what you are talking about is top 0.1%

1% is determined by wealth, not income.
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