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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

#501

Post by rizpanjwani »

AtlasLion wrote: post #466
rizpanjwani wrote: post #464

This truly bothers me that people bring their religious/casteist/nationalist/etc. baggage with them when they immigrate. I thought immigrants hope to start anew in a promising developed country precisely because of these issues back in their home countries. Why not leave everything behind and try to adhere to the liberal values that attracted us here in the first place?

they are human, not a robot you can reset to factory settings. it's only human that people have values that they uphold as the truth and that is hard to change. the place where you immigrate to is not necessarily superior. Immgrants could bring in values that improve their new home country.

Just to clarify, I am an immigrant myself, and I didn't mean that we should abandon all our values. I just meant that we should re-examine our lives and what made them hell back where we came from - our baggage, and leave it at the airport. I don't think it would be such an impossible task. After all, we are leaving many other aspects of our lives behind.

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

#502

Post by wishinghand »

NavinF wrote: post #481
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…

As a 24yo Indian guy living in the US, I find this comment very confusing. How do I even find out what "caste" I'm in? I've literally never heard that word used in a conversation with other Indian people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Perhaps it's a sign of being sheltered. Kind of like white people in the USA not knowing of their privilege.

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

#503

Post by vmurthy »

Barrin92 wrote: post #479
vmurthy wrote: post #476

A bit strange to see this headline. The headline makes it seem like there is some way that the US has a bias for "upper-caste" Indians which is a bit ridiculous. Indeed, the headline should have read "Defamation case finds caste-based discrimination of Indian by fellow Indian(s)". One way to look at the apparent disparity in numbers taking caste out of the equation : -People motivated to be in the US apply for GRE/GM…

>there is some way that the US has a bias for "upper-caste" Indians which is a bit ridiculous Caste discirimination has already crept into American firms. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/caste-cisco-india...

My bad. My statement should have read "he headline makes it seem like there is some way that the US government/immigration has a bias for "upper-caste" Indians which is a bit ridiculous

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

#504

Post by tassl »

lopmotr wrote: post #375
vbezhenar wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unles…

>t 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.

This makes absolutely no sense, unless the "not so smart" were not considered for reproduction or were eliminated. How are you selecting for IQ if the only thing you need to get married is to be in that cast? Arranged marriages don't help with natural selection; you just need to exist in the right family.

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

#505

Post by akchin »

primitivesuave wrote: post #391

I was born in India and grew up in the South Bay Area, which has a big Indian population. I distinctly remember other Indian kids in my elementary/middle school asking me what my caste is. I later asked my parents and they refused to tell me, explaining to me why I shouldn't care. I still don't know to this day, although researching my last name implied rural origins. I am lucky to have immigrant parents who didn't b…

Kudos to your parents. I was fortunate that even while growing up in India, my parents never told me my caste and never filled it out in any school forms. If they teachers pushed for it, my parents would tell me to write Hindu, which of course is a religion. This worked because I grew up in big cities, were it wasn't discussed much.

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

#506

Post by akchin »

elihu wrote: post #421

That's interesting. As a white guy who works in a large tech company with a lot of Indians, I'm not sure what to think about this. I can definitely believe that this is a problem even if it's not obvious to me directly, but I can also see how "Indian people treat those of lower castes badly" could itself be a racist trope. Is there anything that that would be obvious to someone from India but not a white guy from the…

This is a tough one, but I would look for signals that you would look for even with non-Indians. e.g. is someone being excluded from team building activities, OR after work get togethers, OR are someone's ideas being dismissed without any particular reason.

Now, with specifics to Indians, - if you hear someone mention they are Brahmin for no real reason, or in relationship to being really good at something, make a mental note that they may be at high risk of discriminating others - if you hear folks pejoratively putting down someone because of where they are from or how they grew up - a small village

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

#507

Post by _hhkc »

neilk wrote: post #190
_hhkc wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've experienced some of my Indian coworkers criticize BLM, which was a bit surprising. I don't know what caste they belong to, though.

It's surprising to you because North Americans have gotten used to saying "people of color" as if they were all united. Upper-caste Indians basically see themselves as people on top of the racial hierarchy. In many ways they identify far more strongly with British or American elites than with Dalits.

I was more surprised because I assume they’ve faced their own fair share of discrimination from Americans

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

#508

Post by fakedang »

legolas2412 wrote: post #493
fakedang wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know in my brother's university (IT-BHU), they put caste names next to students' names. And this was a top-tier government university at that! In my University (IIT-D), I believe certain scholarship announcements revealed details about students' categories, ie whether they were SC/ST/OBC/General. Especially if it were a means scholarship. Worse case, professors in India have zero personality training, and will casu…

Aren't those merit-cum-means scholarships actually have a caste-based criterion? In that case they are just being transparent, and claiming it to be casteist is ridiculous. You might as well say that reservations revealed caste by showing people got through reservation quota, hence there is caste discrimination, hence more reservation is required.

They could do the same without putting student lists on public display. Guess it's up to the authorities that be to weigh the decision whether it's better to be more transparent or whether to preserve a sense of anonymity in certain key topics.

There was this online portal built at the time, where students could check the rank of any person, just with a name or IIT-JEE exam pass number. Of course a lot of people searched, and within one month (the feature was released in December), a lot of friendship circles changed, thus rendering moot the whole point of bringing every student to live under the same roof.

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

#509

Post by furyroad »

jerzyt wrote: post #45

What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US. US is oblivious to this system, very few people have any understanding of this, yet it affects success in the corporate world. Obviously, there's enough Indian presence in the business to influence it, but it's flying under the US corporate culture. I've worked with many Indian coworkers in the tech industry, and now I'm rethinking some of the co…

>> What's shocking is that this caste system is being continued in the US.

As a low caste Hindu who grew up in India, it is not at all shocking to me. In-fact Dr.Ambedkar, the lead author of Indian Constitution, wrote "If Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem."[1] and he is proven right.

The reason Indians continue the caste system wherever they go is because, it is ingrained in the Hindu religion. Caste system and the religion are inseparable. Ambedkar realized that it is impossible to get out of the clutches of the caste system as long as one is Hindu. Hence he said “I had the misfortune of being born with the stigma of an Untouchable. However, it is not my fault; but I will not die a Hindu, for this is in my power.”[2] and he converted to Buddhism.

1. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/txt_...

2. https://time.com/5770511/india-protests-br-ambedkar/

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

#510

Post by newen »

dkarl wrote: post #437
magicalhippo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For a contrasting anecdote, just to illustrate the range of beliefs, I knew a couple who met in the U.S. and agonized over the impact their marriage would have on their families in India because she was Brahmin and he was Kshatriya. They thought it would be problematic, especially for her parents, if their parents' friends, neighbors, etc. knew they had a daughter married to a Kshatriya. After dreading for months the…

Ultra religious Brahmins have a rule where they don’t allow non-Brahmins to enter their house. I think the parent’s problem might be due to having non-Brahmins enter their house often if the couple were living in India. While if the couple were living in the US, that wouldn’t be such an issue for them.

I have a Brahmin friend in her 30s living in Bangalore who married a non-Brahmin and while she and her child were allowed into her parent’s house, her husband wasn’t. Obviously she is not happy about it but she visits her parents every so often and...her parents are what they are I guess. I had a hard time imagining such a situation.

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