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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

#51

Post by bluGill »

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.

Doesn't matter. Here in the US blacks have had equal status. However right in my neighborhood someone put anti-black literature right on the mayor's door just a few weeks ago. Anonymous of course, they are too cowardly to do this openly (I'm reasonably sure the majority of this town would socially outcast them if it was known who they were, but it only takes a couple in a million to cause harm)

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

#52

Post by bluGill »

l8again wrote: post #39
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.

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.

How is casts different from slavery in ancient times?

I don't know India, but I know historically other cultures often didn't really have the concept. There might be slaves that were more free than others, but the concept was slave.

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

#53

Post by raverbashing »

toast0 wrote: post #44
raverbashing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cisco's HR lawyers decided Caste discrimination was legal Sounds like a fun point to make over a disbarment proceedings, because that's what I think they should be subject to.

From a human perspective, caste discrimination is really the same thing as race discrimination, discrimination based on your ancestry. I'm pretty sure caste discrimination is unlawful in India (other than their reservation system of affirmative action). However, I don't believe caste is in legislation as a protected class in California or at the US federal level, nor do I believe there is judicial action on this. To…

Ok maybe disbarment is too heavy

But I'd say it would be not too hard to argue that it would fit race or national origin discrimination

But regardless of the legality of it, it is extremely poor judgement to allow such discrimination in place of work.

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

#54

Post by samspenc »

l8again wrote: post #35
princevegeta89 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Thanks for clarifying, this lines up with what I heard from my Indian friends as well -- that caste discrimination is legally prohibited by the Indian constitution, but it is still embedded in the culture due to historic reasons.

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

#55

Post by compsciphd »

l8again wrote: post #47
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…

Fair question. Your last name is a clear give away of your caste in most cases. There may be others, but I am not sure of what they may be.

is it difficult for it to be changed when you immigrate to the US?

As a simple example: look at people from eastern europe that "americanized" their names when they came over from the old country at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century.

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by _rutinerad »

specialist wrote: post #49
nikeshm wrote: post #6

Man, this is really hard to stomach as a first generation Indian-American. I'm American, but my parents are distinctly not; the ideas of caste discrimination certainly come up often (we're Brahmin, FWIW, so you might imagine in what context these ideas come up). One hopeful thought I can add is that I've never once talked to a American-born Indian-American about caste, except to ridicule it as a horrific system of di…

American born Swedish Americans are mostly oblivious to Sweden's caste system. So I'd say your optimism is well placed.

Most Swedes are also oblivious to Sweden’s “caste system”, in my experience of living in Sweden my whole life.

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

#59

Post by Bodhisattya »

compsciphd wrote: post #55
l8again wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair question. Your last name is a clear give away of your caste in most cases. There may be others, but I am not sure of what they may be.

is it difficult for it to be changed when you immigrate to the US? As a simple example: look at people from eastern europe that "americanized" their names when they came over from the old country at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century.

Part of the reason people fly away to "greener pastures" is that they think that the new country will be more accepting of who they are. Yes, they can. No, they didn't think it would be an issue, and now it is kinda late.

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

#60

Post by arvindkumarc »

"Last name" of any person across the world has something to do with. The argument to identify two ppl with same firstname stands the same for both first and last names combined. Countries like India, carry the caste names as the last names. Abolishing that alone is solving only one part of the problem. The right fix is to make these down-trodden to tread back what they lost over decades (even centuries). These lawsuits to punish an isolated event will stop nothing.
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