Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 656 posts

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#141

Post by dirtyid »

barry-cotter wrote: post #102
jerzyt wrote: post #45

What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US. US is oblivious to this system, very few people have any understanding of this, yet it affects success in the corporate world. Obviously, there's enough Indian presence in the business to influence it, but it's flying under the US corporate culture. I've worked with many Indian coworkers in the tech industry, and now I'm rethinking some of the co…

> What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US. There are no overseas communities of majority Indian subcontinental origin that maintain rigid caste distinctions. Not even Mauritius which is majority ethnic Indian or Fiji or Guyana where they’re about half the population. Caste will not be maintained in America for the same reason no ethnic group maintains itself without religious endogamy o…

I was told US Indian diaspora has disproportionate high caste due to historic migration patterns which lets the system self-perpetuate more readily. At least that's the experience repeated by Canadian Indians who works in the US. All will be assimilated in time, but some issues needs to be addressed actively.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#142

Post by mrweasel »

_jgdh wrote: post #80

For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it. Most people (me included) would be tempted to say - I've never discriminated, I've never seen it happen in front of me, I'm confident none of my friends would do it so therefo…

Out of curiosity: Could an Indian of a lower caste change their name, or be named differently at birth, as to "fake" their way into a different caste?

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#143

Post by higerordermap »

notacoward wrote: post #137
higerordermap wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I think US people see caste system as something like skin color based racism in west. Actually it is much more complicated than that. I know people from upper castes who were actually middle class farmers, and those from lower castes that got benefit from quotas even if they were rich[0]. Affirmative action is always bad. Because the people getting benefit of it are likely to be privileged. In this particular l…

> Affirmative action is always bad. I disagree. I grew up poor and white, I was the "victim" of AA once, I come from exactly the demographic that racist demagogues play to, and I still disagree. Just as the original systemic discrimination has uneven effect (on both sides), so does AA. The beneficiaries of AA as it has existed in the US are not particularly likely to be privileged. In fact it really is a bit of the o…

Yeah, I read that another commenter on this forum mentioned that in one family, at most one person should be able to get benefit of affirmative action. That will spread the benefits much more evenly.

Indian reservation system is in bad state, and especially in the context of IITs/NITs it is worse due to the reasons I mentioned.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#144

Post by eqtn »

mrweasel wrote: post #142
_jgdh wrote: post #80

For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it. Most people (me included) would be tempted to say - I've never discriminated, I've never seen it happen in front of me, I'm confident none of my friends would do it so therefo…

Out of curiosity: Could an Indian of a lower caste change their name, or be named differently at birth, as to "fake" their way into a different caste?

During the previous discussions some has mentioned that they converted to a different religion

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#145

Post by triceratops »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #96
triceratops wrote: post #43

Is this meant to be a news article or an editorial? The claims in the suit are horrifying and important to report and investigate. The tone is more suited to an opinion piece - and a badly-written one at that. Surely there's better reporting on this topic out there.

Giving you the benefit of doubt, Its a report of a legal case not Shure what your trying to say here.

The article's title has "Commentary:" in it. It is an opinion piece, which I failed to spot earlier. I still stand by my assertion that it's not well-written.

The difference between a news report and an editorial piece is easy to see once you know the difference.

A news report sticks to the facts - who, what, when, where - with little or no commentary. It usually has a summary with all the important points in the first paragraph. A sentence such as "Then, in a tragic double-whammy," or "...you can be assured..." is not appropriate in a news story. See for example https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit/california-..., a news article about the same case.

The quality of the writing in the article being discussed is also quite poor, with mixed metaphors ("cradle of caste people are disgorged from."), awkward turns of phrase ("serial scale") and even grammatical errors "Their woman and children are".

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#146

Post by triceratops »

anu7df wrote: post #114

Ok.. I am going to be brave and not going to use a throwaway. I find it perplexing that HN crowd who is usually arguing for a balanced analysis and seeing both viewpoints is suddenly behaving as if this data proves some injustice is currently happening in India as well as US (in the context of Indian caste system). To be clear, India has/had a caste system that was extremely oppressive. Currently though, the social a…

> It is common for affirmative action students to not do very well there.

Do you have any data at all for this?

> Then it is not a stretch to imagine that some of them may not be very good at their job either.

It's not right to assume that someone may not be good at their current job because they may (in your mind) have benefited from some "affirmative action" program far in the past (John Doe is 20+ years into his career). Judge people on current performance, not past history. Plenty of average students shine in the real world.

> The cynic in me thinks this guy accuser in the lawsuit is trying to hide his incompetence

Why don't we let the courts work it out instead of speculating on people's motivations or honesty?

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#148

Post by oaiey »

racistthrowaway wrote: post #65
oaiey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the last years should have taught us that just because we do not see it, does not mean we are not responsible for changing it. And recruiting is something where engineers are also involved a lot. They recommend, they rate, they have networks, they may even be part of HR. Just to name some ways. If you get fired (e.g. of your visa protecting job) a well networked person has a lot more chances than someone not.

The network effects might be real but like I said, it's mostly self-inflicted. You can make friends who are not your race too.

When I am aware that a High-Caste network or a white-dude network is pushing me their candidates I have to watch for my diversity.

Castes or races in the US are very similar in their effects.

But I need to take a step back. I am not an expert on it, just rambling my thoughts.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#149

Post by C1sc0cat »

triceratops wrote: post #145
C1sc0cat wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving you the benefit of doubt, Its a report of a legal case not Shure what your trying to say here.

The article's title has "Commentary:" in it. It is an opinion piece, which I failed to spot earlier. I still stand by my assertion that it's not well-written. The difference between a news report and an editorial piece is easy to see once you know the difference. A news report sticks to the facts - who, what, when, where - with little or no commentary. It usually has a summary with all the important points in the fir…

Why do you seem to be finding fault here, its a write up of a legal case by a civilian.

Pretty normal for non specialist press when writing up a court case note the author is an Indian and may well be using Indian style English, which does diverge from standard English.

Re: Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians

#150

Post by cvhashim »

notacoward wrote: post #133
_jgdh wrote: post #80

For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it. Most people (me included) would be tempted to say - I've never discriminated, I've never seen it happen in front of me, I'm confident none of my friends would do it so therefo…

Everything you say rings very true to me. Most Indians are very reluctant to talk about this. Of several that became friends when I worked with a team in BLR, only one became close enough that we could discuss it. He himself was from one of the very highest sub-castes (which he taught me was trivially knowable from his surname) but very enlightened. I was shocked to discover that all but two or three out of about fif…

This sort of caste discrimination apparently even goes beyond tech. I’m quite ignorant of historical world ethnic/cultural issues I’ll admit. And despite me having some understanding of the general history of castes in India, to see this issue still present in the US after Indians immigrate is sad.

https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/no-escape-caste-these-s...

Post reply on HN