Over 90% of Indian techies in the US are upper-caste Indians • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by pm90 » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

sharadov wrote: post #281

Unfortunately, the caste system is more complex than the issue of race in the US. The reservation system in India was instituted to bring parity between the downtrodden castes and the upper castes. When I was in engineering school in the late 90s, if you were from a lower caste, you barely had to get passing marks in the engineering entrance exam to make it to a top engineering school. And you would still have unfill…

To right historical wrongs is not easy. I initially thought of the reservation system as a terrible idea because of exactly the reasons you stated.

These policies are meant to help society in aggregates so there will always be folks who get screwed. Its important to keep trying though. While slavery in the US is perhaps 300 years old, the caste system has been seemingly around since the beginning of civilization on the Indian subcontinent...that's an unimaginable amount of time over which certain sections of society were systematically discriminated against.

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

#372

Post by crispyporkbites » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

busrf wrote: post #327

erikerikson wrote: post #173

Here we just call it class.

I don’t think it’s the same thing as what we think of as class. I found these comment threads made some of the differences clear to me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24556347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24554209

It’s not far off the UK definition of class (inherited from your parents and schooling), but a long way from the US take (based on your bank balance).

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

#373

Post by cafed00d » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #356

anonymousJim12 wrote: post #354

I'm not sure if this will be seen but I'm very curious to hear from Indian folk: I am the hiring manager at a well known software company that employs a lot of Indians on H1B visas. A while back I brought in an Indian person for a full round interview. This person happen to have pretty dark skin. On the interview team was a light skinned Indian person with a very Brahmin last name that I'd say is pretty average techn…

This seems hard to prove regardless of skin/race/sex/religion. That's why you have multiple interviewers and hire mixture of all of the above.

I’m not entirely sure if skin color maps well to caste. Perhaps it’s likely that lighter skinned Indians are likely to be upper caste. I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me but I don’t know.

Anyways, back to the question of discrimination. I’d wager a bet that biases exist against dark skinned Indian people. India, as a society has had that baggage.

It’s like you said; proof is hard to establish at an individual level without a thorough investigation etc etc. But it’s to counter these biases that we have multiple rounds.

Much like the conversation around other forms of discrimination — gender, race etc —- the best thing to do is participate in the conversations around it. In the case of learning more about caste, I have been listening to material shared on Newlaundry podcasts, watching Kahaniaya Kumar’s speeches/interviews and reading/consuming material published by Stalin K (no relation to the Soviet politician), tweets/works from Kavitha Krishnan.

Disclaimer: I’m an upper caste Indian person on an H1B. I’d say that it’s no surprise to me that I’ve been a beneficiary of the caste system than otherwise.

I would really like hear from other folks with Indian background on their experiences around caste.

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

#374

Post by strikelaserclaw » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #197

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea but they will never understand the cultural nuances that it takes to become part of the "in" group, and from reading these articles, it seems that "in" group nepotism is rampant in some places. A caste is not just a name, its a cultural legacy you inherit from your parents, their network and society. Even if you ignore the name part, there are some hidden advantages that are conferred to people of higher castes t…

At some point, wouldn't it be difficult for people to tell? A person who grew up outside of India will only have a passing understanding of this nuance anyway, because they would not have been regularly exposed to the other group, so their entire understanding will be from what is passed to them by their parents. And the next generation will have next to zero understanding. Plus, those nuances will probably get erase…

yes, Indian Americans generally don't care too much about caste, and their children will care even less.

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

#375

Post by lopmotr » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #348

zarkov99 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not an evolutionary biologist so please excuse and correct any mistakes if you can. Lets assume there are some physical differences between the castes. These differences would have been brought into existence because at some point the respective populations were isolated and living under different sets of evolutionary pressures. If, over time, you remove physical isolation but replace it with cultural taboos aga…

It could work if smart people from lower casts were moved to higher casts and stupid people from higher casts were moved to lower casts. Ideally children would have to be cast-less and then at some age (before reproductive age) were promoted to one of the casts according to some intellectual test. And breeding would be allowed only between species of the same cast. If I'm not mistaken, Indian casts do not work this w…

It might work if intelligence wasn't important for members of lower castes but was for higher castes, perhaps due to the nature of their culture or work. Then low castes wouldn't select for intelligence but high castes would. Not saying that's what actually happened but it shows that selective pressure could still exist without inter-caste mobility.

Stop this nonsense about topics being inappropriate to discuss unless you're a nun. Nobody has a cultural taboo about discussing dog breeding or evolution of other traits. Just race and intelligence is taboo because people have been indoctrinated to believe that low intelligence marks you as an inescapably undeserving or a "bad" person. If you broaden your mind and stop treating intelligence as such an important aspect of life, then it won't be so taboo.

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

#376

Post by pm90 » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

signal11 wrote: post #172

mcv wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... t…

How many companies are prosecuted under those laws?

The existence of laws is nice but enforcement makes the difference. Most companies would probably not advertise that they favor certain castes, but inexplicably only people of certain castes get the promotions, good projects etc.

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

#377

Post by hawk_ » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

anonymousJim12 wrote: post #354

I'm not sure if this will be seen but I'm very curious to hear from Indian folk: I am the hiring manager at a well known software company that employs a lot of Indians on H1B visas. A while back I brought in an Indian person for a full round interview. This person happen to have pretty dark skin. On the interview team was a light skinned Indian person with a very Brahmin last name that I'd say is pretty average techn…

I know this is a caste thread, but there might be a more general issue at play here - a mediocre person may not be able to recognize a talented person, a good solution or a good design. Not putting mediocre people on interview panels would be way higher on my list before getting to cultural or discrimination issues. I am almost inclined to bet that more talented people are less likely to discriminate anyway based on race caste etc... because they don't have the same insecurities.

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

#378

Post by fulyscentedking » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

This is not shocking to me. Do you expect people who were born and raised in India until their late teens or early 20s to be able to completely change their mind on the caste system just because they have moved to a new country? Think about it. It's the companies' responsibility to rule out people who display any kind of discrimination related to caste.

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

#379

Post by sjy » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #295

cvhashim wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I scoff and roll my eyes at individuals who argue that tech is a meritocracy when discrimination between countrymen is happening even in companies like Google.

Nobody argues that tech is a meritocracy. Meritocracy is just an ideal, just like freedom, equality and defensive driving; it’s worth striving towards but you cannot ever reach it (and if you think you’ve reached it, you’ll inevitably start falling behind). Having said that, it’s one of the most meritocratic industries; do you know any billionaire doctors or lawyers that are college dropouts?

The relatively large number of tech billionaires – people with tens of thousands of times the median wealth – is a strange thing to use as an indicator of “meritocracy.”

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

#380

Post by fwiwm2c » Tue, Sep 22, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

lowend wrote: post #214

ITT: (Possibly) "Upper caste" Indians claiming: 1. This is due to a few bad apples 2. Reservation is the real problem (no it's not) 3. I don't do it therefore it doesn't exist I can tell you by experience the amount of concious and unconcious bias regarding caste amongst Indians both in India and abroad is ridiculous! I'm light skinned so people assume I'm "upper caste" and speak with me as such. My last name doesn't…

Don't generalize. Give strong arguments vs. only relaying your own experience. Otherwise, you are falling into a trap you yourself laid out in point #3 yourself.

Question is whether most Indians who come to US for work are actually upper class Indians already and thus this 90% number is what it is. Or do lower class Indians also come to US, face discrimination and thus either go back or struggle to find work. If the former, the issue is policies/attitudes in India which needs to be done better (easier said than done). If the latter, then we need to dig deeper.