341–350 of 633 posts
The colonialist did the same in Africa, dividing different communities into "tribes". There is no lower tribe or upper tribe.
If not for reservation (affirmative action), no one would call themselves a lower caste.
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As someone who was born a lower caste hindu, I don't really mind the british caste system at all. Because the british caste system is fluid. If you are born to servant parents and study hard to become a doctor, you end up at the top of the caste system. Not in Hinduism. Even if you become a doctor, but were born a dalit(lowest caste), you will remain a dalit and so will your future generations. There is no escape fro…
You seem to have quiet a rosy view of the British class system, but that is not the reality. Money or profession will not just make you higher class here in UK.
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I am from the state of Tamil Nadu. Unlike other states, we don't use a last name. The official forms and documents of state government/schools will not have a last name field. If pressed for last name, we just use fathers name. The first time I had to give a last name was when I was >20 years old when applying for passport from the Indian government. (Federal govt. not the state govt.) My last name is my fathers firs…
If you think caste discrimination does not exist in TN just because of this, you are fooling yourself. Politically powerful castes like Vanniyars and Gounders still discriminate against Dalits and other castes, especially in rural areas.
The major turning point in my life was when I was able to secure a seat at the top technical college of the state through single-window counseling which was introduced by the state govt. the year before. Without that system, I would have applied to individual colleges separately (costs lot of money) and had been at the mercy of racially biased selection committees, dominated by the so called upper castes. I neither had the light skin, nor the deep pockets to pay for a "management seat".
I made use of the best resources at the institution presented by the opportunity I wouldn't have got otherwise. It changed my life forever.
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> You should read up a bit about the apology made by the church for being responsible for the Rwandan genocide. That's a misleading statement. The church was complicit, not responsible. Still reprehensible.
If you are engaged in arson, and the church watches silently or hand out gas it is complicit. If it pours gas on the building so you can light it on fire it is responsible.
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Couldn't people just change their last name? I imagine if suddenly everyone's last name was Gupta, that kind of discrimination would become difficult.
An even better approach is to just change your religion. I was born a hindu dalit but I converted and so have many of my friends and family. Religious conversions have become so common in India that states have started to bring out laws to curtail it. Casteism is a construct of Hinduism and other religions don't suffer from it in the same way as Hinduism does. So you can change your religion , your name and claim tha…
If Indians are so willing to discriminate against eachother on the basis of their own caste, we should be entirely unsurprised when Indians managers and companies discriminate against non-Indians (ie. Americans and other Europeans) in their own countries - of which there are multiple recorded instances. We need to be incredibly careful with the volume of migrants that we are taking in to the West. Issues like FGM, se…
Whilst FGM is absolutely abhorrent, I really can't stand how MGM (or circumcision without any medical need for it) is happily accepted in "Western values". I can accept that circumcision is a medical need in some cases (my brother required it, something he elected to have done in his late teens), but I can't accept the double standard of "it's fine to chop parts off a baby boy without his consent because it's a part…
This seems to happen less when people are living among different cultures, even if those are all "foreigners" in the country.
I can see this phenomenon happen also with "expats", particularly Americans as its pretty easy for them to find each other. I've met many such expats around Paris who had lived here for several years and could hardly say a word of French. But I guess that the "culture shock" isn't as strong because US and French cultures aren't as different as say French and Indian.
I’ve got a “hot button” about castes. I hate ‘em. Comes from growing up overseas (I live in the US), and having servants. These were the people that raised us, and were, for all intents and purpose, “family.” Except they weren’t, and when I found out how they lived, it broke my heart. I was also raised by a British mother, who was an awesome woman, but came from a middle-class Liverpool (“scouse”) family, and spent h…
As someone who was born a lower caste hindu, I don't really mind the british caste system at all. Because the british caste system is fluid. If you are born to servant parents and study hard to become a doctor, you end up at the top of the caste system. Not in Hinduism. Even if you become a doctor, but were born a dalit(lowest caste), you will remain a dalit and so will your future generations. There is no escape fro…
European caste system on the other hand is very clear on who is royalty, and who isn't. In fact even today in countries like Denmark, ordinary people are NOT allowed to have royal second names.
God is also monopolised by the church and the clergy, until people (the new middle class) started quitting the church.
Please do not mistake the progress made due to economic development to social changes, and the other way around.
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Do you know why such a law came into existence? Because of atrocities against "lower" castes which wouldn't even be investigated. But most laws in India end up being misused. (For example dowry harassment laws.)
No other country has such laws. It's against even the basic magna carta principles. I know about "victims" who lie about the accusitions in these cases, the local community knows that its a lie but people are still guilty until proven innocent. I disagree with this, even though I faced such discrimination. P.S That does not mean discrimination does not take place or that there are no genuine complaints.
> I know about "victims" who lie about the accusitions in these cases, the local community knows that its a lie but people are still guilty until proven innocent.
Both of you are offering anecdotes, and I assume the former far outnumbers the latter, but we would find more anecdotes of the latter on HN, because most Indians here are not low-caste.
P.S That does not mean that discrimination does always take place or that there are no false cases.
I have heard open statements from brahmin students about their "so called superiority" during college - many of them are not really smart or intelligent, but they were of brahmin caste (assumed superiority). One of the YC funded startups has a person who graduated from the same college - he was a prick who would discriminate purely based on caste.
I was hoping workplace would be more meritocratic, but it turns out Indian Hindus are screwed up from the inside. You can easily validate this for yourself, goto any organization in India, and you can easily see the upper caste domination - majority of the managers and higher ups would be from brahmin caste or "other upper castes".
Brahmins like to project it like, people from other castes are not their equals and since these people from other castes are unable to match them, they are throwing stones at them due to their frustrations.
But this is far from the truth, in many organizations if the truly valuable person for the company isn't from this caste or other "so called higher castes", then they don't get promotions, hikes, and end up being harassed and forced to quit if they retaliate - seen too many cases, and am smart to know truth of what happened.
And this is all true for ANY non-brahmin people, not just the lower caste ones.
The real problem though, there is no real solution to this problem except making these people realize they are being stupid for "assuming superiority" and not understanding science.
Many people in the society (obviously from the brahmin caste, especially from south India) have recently come openly stating they are superior and only people born into their caste are brainy. And the Indian government doesn't take any action!
Winston Churchill had said this about brahmins : "To abandon India to the rule of the Brahmins would be an act of cruel and wicked negligence. It would shame for ever those who bore its guilt. These Brahmins who mouth and patter the principles of Western Liberalism, and pose as philosophic and democratic politicians, are the same Brahmins who deny the primary rights of existence to nearly sixty millions of their own fellow countrymen whom they call ‘untouchable’, and whom they have by thousands of years of oppression actually taught to accept this sad position. They will not eat with these sixty millions, nor drink with them, nor treat them as human beings. They consider themselves contaminated even by their approach. And then in a moment they turn round and begin chopping logic with John Stuart Mill, or pleading the rights of man with Jean Jacques Rousseau.
While any community, social or religious, endorses such practices and asserts itself resolved to keep sixty millions of fellow countrymen perpetually and eternally in a state of sub-human bondage, we cannot recognise their claim to the title-deeds of democracy."
I’ve got a “hot button” about castes. I hate ‘em. Comes from growing up overseas (I live in the US), and having servants. These were the people that raised us, and were, for all intents and purpose, “family.” Except they weren’t, and when I found out how they lived, it broke my heart. I was also raised by a British mother, who was an awesome woman, but came from a middle-class Liverpool (“scouse”) family, and spent h…
Caste is not the same as Class Discrimination.
The British system has a lot more to do with who mommy and daddy are, than what the sheepskin says.
It's pretty hard for people raised in the US to understand it. We keep looking at it through our lens, and we have a relatively young, egalitarian, culture that started when our continent was used as an overflow for the prison system.
A lot of folks in the UK try to get ahead by modifying their speaking patterns and accent. My mother had impeccable English (her mother sounded like she came from Liverpool). She was a scientific editor, and was absolutely brutal. I know. She edited some of my work.
I don't think it really got her what she wanted.