[npmn]

It is not out of taste. Caste System(Jati System) though weakened still alive and kicking in India. (Dalits) Lowest caste layer in India is still subjugated to things like Cow vigilantism, Honour killing, Social boycott, Caste clashes and discrimination in various/all forms of life. It is interesting to note that Dalits are almost always on the receiving end of these issues.

Giving example of the Prime Minister/President is equivalent to saying since Barack Obama is the president of US, black discrimination.

PS: I belong to the so called Lower Caste in India and I have myself experienced instances of subtle/blatant discrimination. Thankfully haven't experienced anything serious yet, maybe because I became an Software Engineer and now live in a major city, thanks to the affirmative actions adopted by India, but poorer strata of lower caste living in tier-3 cities/villages face a lot of cases of discrimination even today.

While India has a long way in social development, it still has a long to go. This narrative of bashing Europeans/Outsiders/Pakistanis for anything negative has to stop. Jati System has been in practise for thousands of years now.

[kevhito]

> I became an Software Engineer and now live in a major city, thanks to the affirmative actions adopted by India...

You mean from reservations in school / university admissions? Or does that even extend to private employment? Is there widespread resentment?

I'm really curious about the parallels (or not) between racism in the US and caste in India, esp. affirmative action. The US never really went all-in on AA like India did with reservations -- more like pretending if we mostly ignore race then racism will go away -- but it seems like neither approach has really gotten to good place (yet).

[barry-cotter]

If you’re interested there’s an interview on the Brown Pundits Podcast, “The Life and Views of a Middle Class Indian Dalit”,

> In this episode, I had a conversation with a middle-class Dalit who lives in Gujarat. For me, Dalits are people who are reported on, written on, people who I hear about spoken of (usually sympathetically). But I wanted to talk to a Dalit who was a university educated middle-class person, to zero in on the essential aspect of being SC in India today. At least urban India.

> One interesting observation is that his own experience in India is filled with slights, but not day to day oppression. It doesn’t seem the lot of Dalits in urban India is anything like that of black Americans during Jim Crow. He seemed to assume that America had solved much of its race problem and that that’s what Dalits should aspire to. Curiously, Americans at this point, at least on the Left, perceive our racial problems as dire.

https://www.brownpundits.com/2019/03/06/browncast-podcast-ep...

Podcast links https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/brown-pundits/id14390070...

http://brownpundits.libsyn.com/the-life-and-views-of-a-middl...

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/razib-khan/brown-pundits-po...

https://player.fm/series/brown-pundits/the-life-and-views-of...

[npmn]

Yes, there are registrations in university admissions, which is the one I used. It does not extend to private employment. Regarding the resentment part, yes, people have resentments against reservations, though now even higher caste groups have started demanding reservation - this means the community will call for strike, stop trains, buses to get the attention of the government. OBC reservations in India were started in 1980 after a similar country wide strikes.

[conductr]

Ignorant question: in India, how can a stranger know your caste? These days I assume there is some mobility, so is it possible to say move to Mumbai, dress the part, and rebrand yourself as a higher caste?

I’m in US, race is the thing here and it’s fairly identifiable.

[wickrom]

In many cases your surname/family name can give away your caste. There have been social movements in the country where groups have shunned the practice of using their family names that are used to identify caste.

[npmn]

Well there are many ways, most of the Hindu surnames are representatives of their castes- for example Sharma means High Caste Pundit, (Agarwal, Agerwal, Agrawala, Agarwala, Aggarwal, Agrawal)-> all mean a Bania(Trader) Caste etc etc.

You can check out a wikipedia page which can be used to map it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Indian_family_names

Apart from that, you are required to submit your caste certificate in school in for Board Registration, which is loosely handled, hence process is not anonymous, so now your schoolmates know your caste. In my College, there were many ways to know the caste of the person- like Fee structure is different for SC/STs and Others. The whole list used to be published publicly, and everyone had to refer to it during semester registration. Now everyone who notices your name knows you an SC/ST. There was huge resentment in the General/OBC community regarding the Fee Structure, as they just see that his mate is paying almost 1/10th the fee. I usually didn't reveal my caste to anyone, and my surname is a bit ambiguous so sometime my peers/friends used to rant about it as well.

Now after college, I have lived in around 3 major cities- Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Usually no-one asks about your caste here, but it does happens sometime. People belonging to Higher caste have no issues in revealing it, though people in my/lower communities usually hesitate and do not want to reveal it.

Moving to other city and rebranding yourself as an higher caste might work, but if caught, there can be social severe repercussion. Caste hierarchy is actually flexible and dependent on the social position of the caste in that specific area. So you would also find cases, where X is a higher than Y in some places.

Arranged Marriages in India are most mostly caste based as well.

People also associate caste with IQs as people of lower caste using reservation didn't had to score much in their entrance exams, hence usually I avoid the topic all together if possible. There are other traits as well that people assume.

Now not everyone would discriminate against you, its almost like not every white guy is racist in US, but you would very much like to just avoid interacting with the ones who are. But I would still say an inherent Bias is still present.

In short, answer to your question- yes rebranding yourself is possible, though its not very simple. There is even a term for it in sociology named Sanskritisation. There is also Brahminisation, which is when a group adopts social traits of Brahmins who sit at the top of the caste system.