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How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

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Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#31

Post by signal11 »

ausjke wrote: post #20
princevegeta89 wrote: post #8

This is probably a reflection of the recent Cisco scumbaggery committed by two castist idiots that discriminated a fellow employee who was allegedly reporting to them. On the other hand, as an Indian myself, I've seen some really backward idiots spread all over America that try to reinforce the notion of caste and propagate that idea to others. Most of them are really uncivilized with narrow and closed minds. I know…

I know caste is for historical reasons, but is there some constitution amendment in India to do away with Caste for the whole country? considering India claims to be the largest democratic country on earth, if Caste is not strongly forbidden it can last forever and yes, it will be here in USA where more Indians are either working here, or acting as management roles these days. It's bad.

Negative discrimination on the basis of caste is already banned in India (since 1948).

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#32

Post by hnsri »

I can't reduce anyone's experience and don't know about this specific situation. Cisco is an American company and while I worked there in San Jose, I didn't encounter any notion of birth-based caste discrimination, which in any case I and others would have opposed resolutely, simply because we were in the "land of the free". Even in India, Dalits are empowered by law to report against discrimination and avail of Indian equivalent of affirmative action. Their situation, while not perfect, has improved considerably over the several few decades. That being said, there may be some anachronistic idiots in responsible positions of power who could have caused this. I hope that courts investigate and reach the right conclusion and nip this from the root and Cisco, if involved, learns the right lessons.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#33

Post by tuesdayrain »

wow_yes wrote: post #3
moonbug wrote: post #2

Racism? In Silicon Valley?

Racism is power + prejudice, and POCs like Indians have no power in the US. What's going on here is unfortunate but nowhere near a real issue, and certainly not racism.

It's shocking to me how people can suggest with a straight face that certain races can't be racist. You should be able to read something and determine if it's racist by the intended message. It shouldn't be a requirement to find out who said it and how much power that person has. This conscious effort by some sociologists to redefine "racism" instead of creating a new term for "power + prejudice" is yet another example that they are more interested in promoting an agenda than doing real science.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#34

Post by notsureaboutpg »

ausjke wrote: post #20
princevegeta89 wrote: post #8

This is probably a reflection of the recent Cisco scumbaggery committed by two castist idiots that discriminated a fellow employee who was allegedly reporting to them. On the other hand, as an Indian myself, I've seen some really backward idiots spread all over America that try to reinforce the notion of caste and propagate that idea to others. Most of them are really uncivilized with narrow and closed minds. I know…

I know caste is for historical reasons, but is there some constitution amendment in India to do away with Caste for the whole country? considering India claims to be the largest democratic country on earth, if Caste is not strongly forbidden it can last forever and yes, it will be here in USA where more Indians are either working here, or acting as management roles these days. It's bad.

People will deny and hem and haw about this, but caste is there for religious reasons. And it won't go away for the same reasons. Hinduism is not a religion with orthodoxy of any kind. In fact it is a collection of separate rituals, gods (and their devotees), and books/preachers. However in enough of those books and from enough of these preachers you hear about how caste is not so bad or the true secret ancient wisdom behind caste (it's just like how Westerners have last names like Carpenter and Smith). At the end of the day caste is a religious idea. And as long as it is in those books there will be preachers who defend it and people who defend it. It's an uphill battle indeed.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#35

Post by l8again »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #22
ausjke wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know caste is for historical reasons, but is there some constitution amendment in India to do away with Caste for the whole country? considering India claims to be the largest democratic country on earth, if Caste is not strongly forbidden it can last forever and yes, it will be here in USA where more Indians are either working here, or acting as management roles these days. It's bad.

There is not one yet afaik. The problem is the majority of people aren't ok with the removal - they want special rights, reservations, and treatment. The sheer power of all these people combined will overthrow any decision made by the government in that direction. These people aren't stupid but just uninformed/uneducated. It then goes into politics - the leaders are way too dumb or just don't care. They fail to sprea…

To be clear, Article 15 and 17 absolutely prohibits any discrimination based on caste and abolishes untouchability respectively. [1] The issue is that the culture still imbues caste system. All you have to do is peruse the matrimonial or see the popular netflix show Indian Matchmaking to get an idea. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120402064301/http://lawmin.nic...

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#36

Post by publicola1990 »

princevegeta89 wrote: post #22
ausjke wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know caste is for historical reasons, but is there some constitution amendment in India to do away with Caste for the whole country? considering India claims to be the largest democratic country on earth, if Caste is not strongly forbidden it can last forever and yes, it will be here in USA where more Indians are either working here, or acting as management roles these days. It's bad.

There is not one yet afaik. The problem is the majority of people aren't ok with the removal - they want special rights, reservations, and treatment. The sheer power of all these people combined will overthrow any decision made by the government in that direction. These people aren't stupid but just uninformed/uneducated. It then goes into politics - the leaders are way too dumb or just don't care. They fail to sprea…

I think it is not about reservations or benefits majorly, but rather about the symbols that the Upper Castes are reluctant to let go of, like using caste names as surnames, and wearing of symbols, even the manner/affectations of speech, that they use to keep themselves distinct from the other Castes. And also the stigma the Upper castes, (often very subtle) exhibit towards the lower Castes. And also the fact the higher social strata comprising of top most government officials and industry executives still seems to be majorly drawn from the upper Castes.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the skill some have to infer another persons caste, from the subtlest of hints/clues... As long as people keeping doing this, it is going to remain a problem.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#37

Post by dilippkumar »

> Iyer was a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), and grew up in Bombay as an upper-caste Indian. He also completed his PhD at Stanford, founded two companies that were both acquired by Cisco, and has been named MIT Innovator of the year. A man of science and reason, and a person who places a premium on ideas, you would imagine.

> Much like Iyer, John Doe also graduated from IIT.

> The lawsuit alleges that the upper-caste Iyer recognised John Doe and instantly began ridiculing him in front of all the other higher-caste Indian employees at Cisco, saying that John Doe was a Dalit and only got into the engineering school because of affirmative action, which India implemented in 1980 under the then-Prime Minister VP Singh.

This behavior is absolutely not acceptable.

I want to provide some context to avoid the narrative being dragged into areas that are unproductive.

IITs are like the Ivy League Universities in India. Admissions into IIT are based on a notoriously competitive entrance exam - it’s common for people to take a multiple year break after high school just to prepare for this exam. For those who end up scoring high enough to get into the IIT, it ends up being the defining achievement of their lives.

There’s also an elitist attitude that plagues many IIT graduates. Wrap your head around the idea that there are dating/match making services that are exclusive to IIT graduates. It’s pretty bad.

The implementation details of the Indian affirmative action programs are such that underrepresented communities are ranked separately from the rest. On these lists, the competition is less fierce.

There is a lot of resentment around this from multiple sides - it’s sort of similar to the recent lawsuits against Harvard for discriminating against Asians.

For various reasons, Brahmins have a multigenerational advantages when taking the IIT entrance exams. They are over represented in the top 500 scores for example.

I say all this because it’s important to understand the nuances of India’s cultural problems. It looks similar to Racism in America at first glance, but on a closer look, it’s a very different (and a more serious) problem in many ways.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#38

Post by levosmetalo »

liability wrote: post #19
rbecker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the definition used by specialists in the field. You wouldn't want to be anti-science by rejecting it, would you?

Please leave the sardonic shitposting on reddit. This discussion deserves better.

... and here we have a Supremacist racist shitting on redditors.

How classy.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#39

Post by l8again »

ausjke wrote: post #20
princevegeta89 wrote: post #8

This is probably a reflection of the recent Cisco scumbaggery committed by two castist idiots that discriminated a fellow employee who was allegedly reporting to them. On the other hand, as an Indian myself, I've seen some really backward idiots spread all over America that try to reinforce the notion of caste and propagate that idea to others. Most of them are really uncivilized with narrow and closed minds. I know…

I know caste is for historical reasons, but is there some constitution amendment in India to do away with Caste for the whole country? considering India claims to be the largest democratic country on earth, if Caste is not strongly forbidden it can last forever and yes, it will be here in USA where more Indians are either working here, or acting as management roles these days. It's bad.

The constitution bans any discrimination based on caste. However, casteism is imbued in Indian culture today. As an Indian, I know this for a fact. All you have to do is see the matrimonial ads. Also, one way to sniff out casteist behavior is when Indians start making an apologetic claim of it "made sense in the ancient times". It made as much sense as slavery did in the ancient times.

Re: How India's ancient caste system is ruining lives in Silicon Valley

#40

Post by notsureaboutpg »

egypturnash wrote: post #30

I find myself wondering why someone from one of the lowest castes does not simply claim to not be that when they are halfway across the world from the society that has a tradition of maintaining this? I can assume there’s a bunch of subtle class signaling that people do reflexively (speech patterns, dress preferences, whatever, I mean I live in a city with like five different distinct dialects that immediately tell a…

All of what you said is a tell plus often names are a tell.
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