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

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

#171

Post by brazzy »

golergka wrote: post #166
brazzy wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you dig in a little deeper, you realize that that's a bunch of social Darwinist bullshit perpetrated by those already rich who stand to gain the most from inequality - No different from the concept of nobility in centuries past. Very telling are those "ands" and what's left out: "successful and capable (implied: rich)". "marginalised and useless (implied: poor)". Those traits don't go together automatically at…

> that's a bunch of social Darwinist bullshit I perfectly understand why this stance makes people angry, but you haven't provided a single argument on why is it false.

You've overlooked the fact that I wrote more than one sentence, perhaps?

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

#172

Post by signal11 »

mcv wrote: post #109
_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…

It's important that companies are aware of this, take complaints seriously, inform their Indian employees that this is not acceptable, explain where and how to report this, and offer training to overcome these prejudices. And have clear sanctions: if someone does discriminate against lower-caste colleagues, and especially when they abuse their power against them (by denying promotion, keeping them away from prestigio…

> If you want to work in an environment where caste matters and the caste hierarchy is observed, do not work for a western company.

And if you want to practice caste discrimination at an Indian company — beware, caste based discrimination is India has been illegal since 1948, you will go to jail, and they’re definitely not the nice Scandinavian kind of jails.

PS. About education and affirmative action for Dalits... there are lots of such programmes. But clearly not enough to wipe this blot away.

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

#174

Post by anu7df »

triceratops wrote: post #146
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 c…

> It is common for affirmative action students to not do very well there. Do you have any data at all for this?

No. Only my observation from when I went to IIT for my undergrad about 2 decades ago. At that time they even used to have remedial classes for students who came in through the reservation system. Again, I would like to emphasize that not all of those students were having difficulties coping with the workload. In fact, it is not uncommon for the general category students to crumble under pressure as well.

> 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.

Yes, plenty of average students shine in the real world. Nothing you say here contradicts what I wrote above. To rephrase with an example, if GPA was the only criteria for accepting students into a university, and in a class of mostly 4.0 students you admit a few 2.0 students with affirmative action, it is not difficult to see how they would have trouble in class. If they also get demotivated and end up not getting much from that education, some of them may not do so well in work life either.* > 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?

Agreed. That was uncalled for. But I did preface it with "cynic in me".

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

#175

Post by TuringNYC »

mrweasel wrote: post #163
nandhinianand wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend whose parents converted to christianity, and so my friend grew up christian. But guess what, the first time I met my friends' mom(at his wedding), the first question she asked after verifying native state(TamilNadu) was which caste I belonged to. (And yeah just to be clear, she asked which caste I'm from, and she/they're from xxx caste). So no caste is not something people escape from converting relig…

I’m sorry but I’m completely facinated. What do you suppose would happen if your answer was something like: “Oh, we don’t believe in castes” or “I’m not in any caste”. I assume they’d just assume the “worst”.

If the person is so forward with this, isnt that a good filter (of sorts) to avoid a specific person who will judge you by such things rather than your character?

I've had this happen with people trying to figure out wealth based on very specific questions regarding where my parents live, etc -- I run the other way. Better to know sooner than later right?

Two of my best friends are Indian Americans, and our friendships were natural and formed around shared experiences together, character, etc. It is nice to form friendships on a blank slate.

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

#176

Post by vkou »

rvn1045 wrote: post #99
_jgdh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it requires a lot self awareness and external education to learn about your own privilege and how difficult (relatively) other people have it. It's not easy.

It really does not in a place like India where differences between the rich and the ultra poor are everywhere to witness. You cannot miss it. 90% of the country is living in poverty.

Yes, but its not hard to convince yourself that you live in a meritocracy, and that your society is the natural outcome of sorting people by merit.

It's hard for a man to understand something, when his self-esteem depends on him not understanding it.

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

#177

Post by jefftk »

mcv wrote: post #125
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. Because the people getting benefit of it are likely to be privileged." But this is not what affirmative action is. The purpose of affirmative action is to help under-privileged people. If the help is going to privileged people instead, it's not affirmative action, it's corruption. If it's really true, as you suggest, that some Dalit are rich and some Brahmin are poor, that some Da…

Consider the case of race in the US. Some of the benefit of affirmative action goes to children from well off black families. That doesn't mean it's corrupt, it just means that if you are doing something on the basis of race and not wealth then you're sometimes going to give a benefit to people who are rich.

If you took your last paragraph, and substituted racial groups for castes, I think it would be clear that it doesn't make sense?

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

#178

Post by walshemj »

mrweasel wrote: post #163
nandhinianand wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend whose parents converted to christianity, and so my friend grew up christian. But guess what, the first time I met my friends' mom(at his wedding), the first question she asked after verifying native state(TamilNadu) was which caste I belonged to. (And yeah just to be clear, she asked which caste I'm from, and she/they're from xxx caste). So no caste is not something people escape from converting relig…

I’m sorry but I’m completely facinated. What do you suppose would happen if your answer was something like: “Oh, we don’t believe in castes” or “I’m not in any caste”. I assume they’d just assume the “worst”.

Have you read Ian Banks novel Look to Windward which has a heavily Casted society?

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

#180

Post by magicalhippo »

_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…

I'm Norwegian, living there. A very good friend is Indian, her parents moved here while she was just a few years old. I never heard her talk about her caste, or the system in general really.

That is, until one day, out of the blue, she said she was getting married. Her parents had found a boy who also grew up here in Norway that she was to marry the following year.

After a bit of talking it was clear she was not very fond of the idea of her parents finding her a mate. However from what I gathered she was just about as worried about his caste.

He was of a lower caste than her, and this was not ideal at all from what I understood. However, his family was rather well off, so perhaps it would be acceptable after all...

This came as a complete shock to me, as I had perceived her as rather liberal and as mentioned had never heard her speak of her caste or similar. But there it was, weighing her down.

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