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

231–240 of 656 posts

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

#231

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

higerordermap wrote: post #115
pringles_red wrote: post #104

I don't get why is everyone who is saying this a result of the reservation system is getting downvoted. I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due…

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…

> 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.

Honestly from the arguments I'm seeing in here, it really really isn't. From the perspective of a white guy with almost no understanding whatsoever of the caste system and its politics, I'm seeing exactly the same kinds of arguments here that I find being made by racists.

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

#232

Post by bluGill »

cvhashim wrote: post #151
eqtn wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think I recall the commenter mentioned he was of the lowest caste, and he decided to convert to Christianity to get away from the discrimination.

Which as this thread shows only helps a little. You have a chance - but only a chance - that your group is now Christians. As a minority religion you can stick together with your new group who also feels the issues of being in a minority religion. But that only sometimes look - some people convert more wholly than others, and thus are more or less able to ignore previous norms.

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

#233

Post by macintux »

zapdrive wrote: post #223

> My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards for things like seating arrangements for an exam. You are lying. The colleges never do that, once the admissions are done. Yes, during entrance exams and results, they list the "quota" under which the student is seeking admission. If you don't want to have Scheduled Caste listed against your name, don't seek admission under SC quota.

Please reference the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Accusing someone of lying violates several of them.

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

#234

Post by adjkant »

pringles_red wrote: post #104

I don't get why is everyone who is saying this a result of the reservation system is getting downvoted. I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due…

> I am an Indian and clearly reservation system is a spectacular failure. The reservation system actively creates a divide among castes. I will not be surprised if some these upper caste people who are fed up of reservation in India discriminate when they go to USA. These upper caste people are not discriminating due to fact that they believe that one caste is superior to another, they are doing it because they are able to sympathise with the plight of other unreserved Indians in India.

Replace:

- reservation system -> affirmative action

- upper caste -> middle class "true" Americans / white Americans / people born well-off / etc

and this reads exactly like rich white conservatism in America, and falls into the exact same pitfalls of "well I worked hard so obviously I deserve it". Systemic oppression is not erased by hard and honest work of the descendants of oppressors, it must be actively fixed.

I don't mean to say this as a way to call out India specifically as the US obviously has done quite badly here. The point is that it's quite wild to see the direct parallels of systemic classist oppression and the same story playing out here.

When you have unjust power and things are equalized, psychologically it feels like you are losing something. It's not an illogical response to dig in your heels into "but I earned it" and "but reverse discrimination", but people must fight that basic instinct to understand beyond their own perspective.

Preemptively, I want to state this: the more mild form of this argument goes "yes there's discrimination we need to solve, but let's not let the pendulum swing past the point of equilibrium and hurt us in any way". This is effectively stating that you value never facing actual oppression over the solving of a long faced oppression of others in a timely manner. It's an inherent devaluing of the oppressed while acknowledging they are, indeed, oppressed.

For what it's worth, among many times asking for this, I have yet to encounter a historical example of a time the "pendulum" actually swung too far. This is more or less the story of civil rights in America over the centuries. Every time is a step towards equilibrium, stunted and delayed by many sympathetic oppressors cutting actions short.

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

#235

Post by zarkov99 »

x3ro wrote: post #198
zarkov99 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is reproductive selection in that people from higher castes will tend to mate with people from higher castes and vice-versa.

This is a fairly terrible take for a number of reasons, but let's assume good faith and indulge this. * What makes you think that, at any point, lower caste people had an on-average lower IQ? The same has been said for plenty of minorities that have been historically discriminated against, such as people of color and women, because opressors are in control of the narrative and see themselves as superior * What does "…

I assure you I am in good faith, I understand the topic is sensitive, but I don't know what in my comment would suggest I am in bad faith. I think it is likely that there are differences in IQ between the castes, just as there are other physical differences, and that the higher caste would have on average higher IQ since IQ is a decent predictor of social economic success in most contexts. Perhaps people familiar with the Indian education system can chime in about standardized test scores broken down by caste - my recollection from years ago is that there are differences.

By segregated reproduction I just mean that most likely mate selection is done within cast, so any difference in IQ between castes is likely to be slow changing as there is little gene exchange between groups. Something similar happens in US society where there is growing stratification along IQ lines.

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

#236

Post by macintux »

heavyset_go wrote: post #211
rvn1045 wrote: post #92

The lack of self awareness amongst upper caste Indians in India and abroad is interesting to witness. They often think of themselves as having come from humble backgrounds and 'made it' in society all on their own. Not realizing that the vast majority of Indians in India live in abject poverty without any meaningful access to basic education and other amenities. Upper caste Indians are more likely to have access to b…

> They often think of themselves as having come from humble backgrounds and 'made it' in society all on their own. The number of people I've run into that claim this, but their parents paid their rent, or bought them a house, or they work for their family's company, is staggering. It's a common blind spot for upper middle class and rich people.

Reminds me of a U.S. politician whose advice to students struggling with finding jobs in a recession was to borrow money from their parents to start a business.

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

#237

Post by bluGill »

x3ro wrote: post #198
zarkov99 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is reproductive selection in that people from higher castes will tend to mate with people from higher castes and vice-versa.

This is a fairly terrible take for a number of reasons, but let's assume good faith and indulge this. * What makes you think that, at any point, lower caste people had an on-average lower IQ? The same has been said for plenty of minorities that have been historically discriminated against, such as people of color and women, because opressors are in control of the narrative and see themselves as superior * What does "…

It is possible that higher casts selected for intelligence over the years. Since in India arranged marriage is the norm, parents can select for intelligence if that is a trait they care about. If there is a genetic portion of intelligence that can be selected for.

Note the above uses words like "possible" and "if". I find it unlikely this is what was done. More likely - like every other society - they selected for politically powerful.

Note too that it is highly likely that in the past rape of lower casts was accepted in some form, which would bring any selected IQ genes to the lower casts.

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

#238

Post by gorpomon »

There's a really simple takeaway here for everyone around all this discussion that's surfaced on HN around caste: actively ask people in your org if they've experienced this type of discrimination and take their claims as seriously as you'd take other types of discrimination.

This is something SV and other places are just waking up to. Caste discrimination is a pretty foreign idea for many people, so don't feel the need to be an expert right away. Instead, I would suggest you try and find a DEI firm that might have expertise in these issues and see if they can help you work through these issues.

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

#239

Post by shasts »

zapdrive wrote: post #223

> My college fucking put the caste next to people's names on notice boards for things like seating arrangements for an exam. You are lying. The colleges never do that, once the admissions are done. Yes, during entrance exams and results, they list the "quota" under which the student is seeking admission. If you don't want to have Scheduled Caste listed against your name, don't seek admission under SC quota.

Why would you say that? Would you imagine separate hospital rooms based on religion? It happened couple of months ago.

https://scroll.in/latest/959274/covid-19-separate-wards-for-...

If they are not allowed to live in the same quarter and be in the same hospital rooms, it is not hard to imagine segregation in universities too.

https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/07/23/even-as-india-urba...

It is not fair to call someone liar, just because you have not experienced it.

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

#240

Post by newen »

GuB-42 wrote: post #131

Just looking at the numbers, that 90% of Indian techies are upper-caste is not that bad. According to the article the lower caste makes up 25% of the population, so presumably, 75% are upper caste. It means someone upper caste is 3 times more likely to be a techie compared to lower caste. By comparison, a man is 4 times more likely to be in tech than a woman, and asians in the US are 10 more times more likely to be i…

No, the article says Dalits make up 25% of the population. According to Wikipedia, upper castes (Forward Castes/Others) make up 18% to 30% of the population, depending on how they're counted, I think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India#Distribu...

Post reply on HN