[_jgdh]

For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it. Most people (me included) would be tempted to say - I've never discriminated, I've never seen it happen in front of me, I'm confident none of my friends would do it so therefore it doesn't exist.

But it does. It's heartbreaking that my fellow Indians have to deal with this in 2020. Just like BLM educated some white people about the existence of racism, how it manifests, how it affects people etc., we need a similar movement to educate upper caste Indians.

I've also seen the same people say "if we completely ignore caste, it'll go away". It won't. I personally can't tell you what someone's caste is based on their name because I don't care enough to find out the mapping between name <=> caste. If everyone was like this, there wouldn't be a problem. But I know for a fact that there exist people who can map name to caste and these people also discriminate on the basis of caste. These people might only be a minority but they can have a disproportionate effect. As long as they exist, the rest of us can't adopt an ostrich approach to the caste system.

[magicalhippo]

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 fond of the idea of her parents finding her a mate. However from what I gathered she was just about as worried about his caste.

He was of a lower caste than her, and this was not ideal at all from what I understood. However, his family was rather well off, so perhaps it would be acceptable after all...

This came as a complete shock to me, as I had perceived her as rather liberal and as mentioned had never heard her speak of her caste or similar. But there it was, weighing her down.

[dkarl]

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 task of sharing the news with their parents, finally they did it, and... it wasn't a big deal at all. Her parents said, "It would be a big problem for us if you were coming back here to live, but you're not. Everybody knows it doesn't matter in the U.S. Nobody will care." They did not think having a daughter married to a Kshatriya in the U.S. would bring them the same stigma as having a daughter married to a Kshatriya in India would. And not because they were hiding the marriage: they had a big wedding in India with both families and hundreds of guests from each side.

I don't know if their expectation turned out to be true, and obviously there are a lot of people who don't share their thinking, but I found it striking that they would even expect people feel differently based on where their daughter was living. In the U.S. we learn that caste rules are "religious," and our idea of religion is like Christianity, something that is either true everywhere or true nowhere. The idea that your judgmental neighbors would say "oh, it's fine because they're living in a country where nobody believes in that stuff" was a new one for me.

[newen]

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.

[timwaagh]

Shouldn't it be more shocking that your friend agreed to an arranged marriage? I mean I'm not in Norway (pretty close though) and I don't know to what degree this is acceptable in Norwegian culture. But in mine it very much isn't. We ought to expect more from women these days. Because caste might be a completely foreign problem to us, but arranged marriages used to be the norm here as well. It took the second wave of feminism to eliminate that problem and make parents feel ashamed for even trying. We wouldn't want to have that practice sneaking back in through the back door again.

[magicalhippo]

Both were quite shocking to me.

However the arranged marriage did not come as such a surprise, I guess because there's been a fair bit of talk about it here due to other immigrant cultures also practicing it.

[saagarjha]

Modern arranged marriage is usually "here is someone you may be interested in" rather than "you must marry this person that you have never met".

[shuckles]

If caste only came up in a mutual interest decision like a wedding where there aren't power imbalances, isn't that fine? Who someone chooses to marry seems like an unreasonable place to intervene to resolve disparities.

[jrochkind1]

Who's talking about intervening?

If someone was interested in marrying me until they found out I was Jewish (the closest analogy to my own experience), I would not think that was "fine". Even if I don't know any way to "intervene" in it, certainly not if you mean legally, governments should not be in the business of telling people who to marry.

But if you told me that there aren't power imbalances in marriage decisions so it's "fine" and what am I getting upset about, why is it even worth talking about or commenting upon, I'd think you were an asshole.

[shuckles]

“Caste is a huge problem. To substantiate this, let me tell you about the story of a person who didn’t seem to care about caste at all, but later decided to not marry someone over it.”

That is not a story which substantiates the claim that caste is a huge problem. I agree that someone who made a marriage decision based on caste isn’t someone I’d want to marry in the first place.

My comment about power imbalances can be read in two ways: there are no power imbalances in marriage or conditioned on there not being power imbalances in that particular decision. I meant the latter, but you seem to be attacking the former.

[fhood]

I don't understand how a person could manage to only care about "caste" when getting married and never care about it any other time. Maybe I just don't understand what you were trying to get at with your original comment, because the statement doesn't really make any sense to me either.

[shuckles]

I only want to marry people of a particular gender, but that doesn’t make me problematically sexist. Religion is a similar desiderata. Perhaps you can argue that people can convert, but as a Jew who seriously dated a Catholic for almost two years, I’d argue that boundary isn’t particularly fluid.

As an example, what if they decided against the marriage not because they cared personally but because their family did, and satisfying their family’s preferences was important to them? What’s the harm? Nobody has an obligation to marry you.

[webmobdev]

Not OP - every caste has its own unique cultural aspects. So a person could disregard caste in most avenues of life, but still give it a thought while considering a prospective spouse to find an affinity through shared cultural values. That's one reason that came to mind.

[tehlike]

except, imagine the conscious and unconscious bias it leads to. your socialization circles are all people in similar castes no?

[shuckles]

I agree that caste preference in marriage can have bad effects, similar to many other filter bubble mechanics in society. It’s also probably a symptom of other problematic concepts of value.

[notacoward]

Everything you say rings very true to me. Most Indians are very reluctant to talk about this. Of several that became friends when I worked with a team in BLR, only one became close enough that we could discuss it. He himself was from one of the very highest sub-castes (which he taught me was trivially knowable from his surname) but very enlightened. I was shocked to discover that all but two or three out of about fifty colleagues were Brahmin[1]. It explained a lot of the dynamics I had already observed, like why one of the best engineers in the place had never been promoted or why some of them literally wouldn't even talk to another. Caste, especially Dalit vs. everyone else, still seems to be very much a thing. But, as you say, nobody wants to discuss it.

[1] That's the word he used. It might well have been shorthand for a more complex concept that he knew I wouldn't understand.

[_jgdh]

I've never had any trouble discussing this with European and American colleagues or owning up to my own privilege.

But I can see how many Indians would find it awkward to talk about, especially if they think that the caste system is on it's way out because things are better than they used to be. Some might feel that discussing it with non-Indians puts India in a bad light.

To which I say, it's not me who's painting India in a bad light, it's the people who are discriminating on the basis of caste in 2020. People who say "oh, I'm only against reservation and those who benefit from it" and treat such people terribly. And we can only get rid of this disease by shining a light on it.

[frenchy]

I think it's very natural to find this topic awkward if you come from a privilaged background.

Basically, you've grown up being treated in a certain way, and you internalize that and think you're a valuable person because people treat you well. Then you realize that at least part of that is because society is broken/diseased and not simply because you're inheritly awesome. That's a really awkward pill to swallow.

I'm not in any way trying to justify this behavior. Something being natural doesn't mean it's good.

[secondcoming]

I reckon most foreigners would already be aware of the existence of India's caste system, but not in the intricacies of how it manifests itself in everyday Indian life.

[manifestdissent]

True story. I met this Indian woman while working out of the local hipster cafe. We had mutual friends. And ended up going out for lunch.

On the way back, she started asking questions about my background. They grew intensely personal. Until she was interrogating me on the sidewalk.

Unsatisfied with my responses, she just gave up and cut to the chase, "What's your mother's caste?"

Thanks to fairly unique circumstances I have to live with a plausible cover story. Because Indian people cannot stop asking questions. Where are you from? Where were you born? Why's your skin so pale? Why're you so tall? Where are your parents? What do they do? Where did you go to school? Why aren't you married?

What's worse is that the society is insular. Even in a big city, few people socialize outside of, in descending order of proximity, family > friends of the family > classmates from elementary school > people from their high school > college > (perhaps, sometimes) work.

I have met people who have gone through their entire life without ever meeting someone from a lower social class. Casual greetings with people who clean their homes don't count.

There's a lack of je ne sais quoi. A certain lack of creative energy. A kind of absence of the meeting of free radicals that sparks interesting ideas and art. Culturally, it's as if, the society has submerged itself in halon, determined to not let the sparks of creativity and genius spark.

This problem is so acute that every free radical I've met has done their very best to move away as soon as humanly possible.

I have no voice and yet I must scream

[eigenvector]

I'm an Indian diaspora person with no cultural connection to India.

When I travel, I'm often accosted by Indian (nationality) people who immediately begin 20 questions about my background, religion, caste, language, where my grandparents are from, et cetera.

One occurrence that sticks in my mind is being in a building lobby in Almaty, Kazakhstan and having two Indians see me from across the street, immediately cross the road and excitedly ask "Are you Indian?"

When I replied "No" and kept walking, they followed me for a block trying to decipher how an Indian-appearing person might not be Indian.

Mostly I find this amusing and chalk it up to cultural differences. But I can't help but conclude that Indians are almost obsessed with "placing" each Indian-appearing person they mert based on their ancestry, and find it hard to move past this.

If I'm feeling annoyed, I'll say, "you wouldn't ask a white person any of this, so why are you asking me?"

[manifestdissent]

> Mostly I find this amusing and chalk it up to cultural differences. But I can't help but conclude that Indians are almost obsessed with "placing" each Indian-appearing person they mert based on their ancestry, and find it hard to move past this.

I feel your chagrin. I would be the first to admit to my privilege that my skin affords me. When I travel, I'm not mistaken for Indian and that leads to some very strange encounters.

True story, I'm standing tired and defeated in front of a border agent in a well-developed SE-Asian country. The border agent looks at my passport. Looks at my face. Looks at the passport again. And says, "Hold on. You're an Indian citizen?? But you're so white and polite!" and proceeds to tell me about how bad her night has been.

That is privilege. I was afforded the benefit of the doubt and allowed to carry on.

In India, I have never been stopped by the cops on the street. As India slides into fascism, I've oft expressed my fears to my lawyer and he's said - "Don't worry! No policeman is ever going to bother you, you're so pale and fancy and have a lawyer. He'd be scared of losing his job"

I am fortunate that I do not fear persecution when I walk down the streets. At the very least, not beyond the usual stalking and staring and ever present harassment.

In a time distant enough to be my past, I took the apartment complex's staff out for ice cream, and I saw them rush about for ID just in case someone asked. And I asked them if that was a regular thing. And they said yes, it happened to them almost every time they were out. But it had never happened to me. In an ID-obsessed country, other than for paperwork, no cop had ever stopped me on the street and asked me for my ID.

I met up with some black travellers once, and they did not share my experience. They had to carry ID with them all the time. And this was in Asia. Even miles away from American shores, they were still afraid of the police.

It is lonely. It is suffocating. It is depressing to live the life I lead. It's a society where I cannot socialize, where I cannot find nor keep gainful employment no matter what I may offer, where life moves past me at rates that are hard to understand, where I live in fear of them. A stranger, a minority, living in a strange land.

And yet, I'm privileged. It could be worse. It could always be worse.

Some day,

  Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black, 

with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren

whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the roof

Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that

wishes but acts not!

  For every thing that lives is Holy

[cvhashim]

This sort of caste discrimination apparently even goes beyond tech. I’m quite ignorant of historical world ethnic/cultural issues I’ll admit. And despite me having some understanding of the general history of castes in India, to see this issue still present in the US after Indians immigrate is sad.

https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/no-escape-caste-these-s...

[srean]

Good that you were able to have such a conversation. I would request you not to generalize from one example though.

Different states in India differ in matters of caste substantially. In Bengal its mostly a non-issue, more so in metropolitan areas. Some from grand-parent generations might still give caste a thought, but for the rest I can bet that thoughts of caste rarely if at all cone to their mind.

To cement this idea with a concrete example, the Brahmin's that you heard about are supposed to wear this holy thread. Its supposed to be treated with great respect. There are procedures to ensure that the thread, for example, does not get offended when you take a pee break -- you get the idea. So in Bengal, in my dorm, I have seen them used to hang mosquito nets to tying leaky taps. Its just a f'ing piece of thread that someone's grandparent gets upset over if the person doesn't wear it, so the person wears it but treats it nothing more than just a thread that happened to be around.

Totally unrelated, I do hope that you start programming for the fun of it, just as much I hope that for myself.

[kamaal]

>>It explained a lot of the dynamics I had already observed, like why one of the best engineers in the place had never been promoted

Its not just promotions. It manifests every where. Job interviews, bonus payouts, onsite foreign work opportunities.

If you are a part of a minority group you are expected to be just too awesome compared to your peer groups to even qualify for basic things.

The whole system works in a way that you have to continually outperform your peer group to even qualify working at the current levels. When people say the system is merit based(It's not), they basically mean its a ruthless culling process where even small missteps from a minority person could mean the person losing years.

[adjkant]

Brahmin is the highest caste in said system, nothing too complex at face value.

https://www.swindia.us/the-caste-system-of-india/

[mcv]

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 prestigious projects, etc), then the abuser should be demoted or fired.

If you want to work in an environment where caste matters and the caste hierarchy is observed, do not work for a western company.

Also, maybe there should be some education projects and affirmative action for those Dalit communities.

[cvhashim]

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.

[tomp]

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?

[kelnos]

> Nobody argues that tech is a meritocracy.

That's not true even in the trivial "well I mean that most people don't argue that". I think people in tech are a lot more self-aware then they were 10-15 years ago (when most people in tech I knew would assert that tech is a meritocracy), but I still hear plenty of aspirational rhetoric that either assumes or explicitly asserts this "fact".

[eternalban]

late 80s and early 90s were very meritocratic, in my experience. In fact, I left architecture and switched to software precisely because of this fact. Don't forget, this is the time period when you did not tell people in parties you were a programmer. It was decidedly the un-sexy un-cool profession. Check out 80s hollywood products and their portrayal of programmers.

The turning point in this industry was recorded in popular culture in 1995:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_49

Look at all those beautiful people! /g

The influx of "new blood" into the field -- people who would otherwise never ever would have considered living the geek life -- in the new gold rush of post-WWW software world fundamentally changed the character of the field. Far more politically and socially savvy personality types were now competing for position.

And oh yes. One of my esteemed coworkers when I was all of 25 was this wizzard looking man. I mean he had the beard, the hair, and a program of his hanging on the wall (hardwired, you see), and hailed from Bell Labs.

I wonder how he would do these days in the market. Obviously, (software) tech can not possibly be a meritocracy when the most experienced workers are routinely discriminated against.

[peatmoss]

I think I’m a little younger than you, but I too remember when being “into computers” was the sort of thing that got you bullied and made your family question whether you’d amount to anything in life.

[guerrilla]

> Nobody argues that tech is a meritocracy.

Yes they do, constantly. Pay attention. Even sibling comments here are doing it.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Yes, tech is meritocratic- as long as you are a white middle-class dude in your twenties. That is, in order to make it in tech you have to be a white middle-class dude in your twenties, but once you have that bit down pat, everything else is a matter of skill and intelligence.

Edit: I'm speaking from my experience working as a developer in the UK. About 99% of the people I've worked with were white, middle-class dudes in their twenties or at most mid-thirties. There were the odd female developer. I had two coleagues who were Indian, one of whom was female and every other Indian person I've worked with was a consultant. I had one technical coleague who was of Chinese descent. And I've never had a colleague who was black (although I knew a black man who was a soft. eng.).

So, you want to make it big in the software industry in the UK? Better be white, male, middle-class and be in your twenties. Oh- and be good with code, of course. But first be white, male and middle-class.

[cool_dude85]

By analogy, one might look at the number of not-college-educated millionaire lotto winners and say that playing scratchers is the most meritocratic business you can be in.

[sjy]

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.”

[tomp]

Actually, one of the main criticism of meritocracy (as in, the social structure that we (the Western civilisation) strive to have, not the stupid "it's not actually a meritocracy" argument) is that, combined with assortative mating, it would eventually result in incredibly unequal society, with high-IQ genes becoming increasingly concentrated.

[kyuudou]

Isn't there some observed regression to the mean with children of high-IQ couples, though? I can't help but think of that part in Idiocracy where the high-IQ couple ends up dying before they can have even 1 kid while the regular-IQ guy is impregnating multiple women multiple times.

Not to mention that high-IQ is itself by definition less common...

Also, I think a "fair" meritocracy is still possible because merit isn't necessarily dependent simply on G; dedication and moral fortitude contribute greatly to merit in companies as well as societies, in my opinion.

[licebmi__at__]

Care to elaborate why "it's not actually a meritocracy" is a stupid argument?

IMO every metric we define will be gamed by bad actors so "meritocracy" will only be used to provide legitimacy to said bad actors. It's quite telling that "aristocracy" (the government of the best) which was supposed to be just like "meritocracy", became to mean just the opposite, meaning nepotism and idiotic inbred leaders.

[johnrgrace]

That assortative mating can also quickly leads to autism. We've got 30,000 engineers stuffed into a one square mile campus and they get married and have kids. The autism rates of kids with two technical parents is really high.

[gurkendoktor]

The point that OP made was not the number of tech billionaires, but their backgrounds.

[fhood]

Err, I don't understand why you would choose doctors and lawyers as your example given both require scholastic qualifications to receive the title.

[MisterBastahrd]

Rand Paul does not have a bachelor's degree.

He does have an MD. And is a US Senator.

Wonder how that happened. Oh, right, meritocracy.

[kyuudou]

Neat, "today-I-learned".

I have to wonder if it being his father's medical school also was a factor, considering it's a private school. But still, that's quite impressive.

[MisterBastahrd]

He also created his own medical board to certify himself with a take-home test because learning is hard.

[_v7gu]

Wikipedia claims that Duke simply didn't require undergraduate degrees for admission at the time.

[Loughla]

From what I can tell, tech IS a meritocracy. As long as you have the money and/or connections to get into the tech scene.

[MisterBastahrd]

I saw an article about one of Dan Gilbert's spawn who claimed he started his company from nothing.

Dan Gilbert is the 69th wealthiest person on the planet. It would be a waste of time and money for him to walk across a street to get a free car.

[throw1234651234]

It almost has to be - there is no other field where you can make your skills or inability apparent within the first 2 days on the job.

[Loughla]

I think you missed my point.

[secondcoming]

But don't candidates for Google jobs have to jump through several tedious rounds of interview? How likely is it that there's going to be a snobby Indian in each of those rounds who gets to veto a candidate?

[geofft]

1. Companies like Google tend to want hiring approval to be unanimous or close to unanimous - the more rounds of approval you have, the more likely one person can derail it. (Not to mention team matching, SVP approval, etc.)

2. With enough interviews of enough candidates, this still leaves you with a statistical bias in aggregate, even if it's possible for one candidate to avoid biased interviewers. (The converse of course, is that the experience for a single candidate is quite often worse than the median experience.)

[sulam]

At Google you get interviewed (usually only one round with multiple people in it) and then your interview feedback goes to a hiring committee and they make the decision.

Could the hiring committee identify you as UC? Quite likely based on surname, but I don't know if they see a surname.

Also, in the article, the discrimination happened after someone was hired. Promotions (Google again uses a committee system here), project assignments, etc can all be influenced in a way that is impossible for you to "hide" who you are.

[oh_sigh]

Who actually argues that tech is a meritocracy? The diversity/inclusion stuff that is glaringly in your face at large tech companies should indicate that it is not a meritocracy.

[signal11]

> 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... there are lots of such programmes. But clearly not enough to wipe this blot away.

[pm90]

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.

[luckylion]

> 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 prestigious projects, etc), then the abuser should be demoted or fired.

I agree, but as usual, I'm confused: should they not be demoted or fired when they abuse their power to discriminate against someone who is not Indian? Or is Indian, but of an equal or higher caste?

I totally agree with what you're saying, but the way you say it implies that everything else is okay.

> If you want to work in an environment where caste matters and the caste hierarchy is observed, do not work for a western company.

We have castes in the West as well, we just call them classes and you can, theoretically, transition from one to another, but generally you won't and everybody is quite aware of each others class and the nuances within. It's in everything, the way you speak, dress, what you eat and drink, heck, even your name is usually a statement of class.

[neeleshs]

If any Indian (regardless of their caste) finds caste discrimination as bizarre, I don't know what world they live in. It is a fact. I am upper caste by birth, but means zilch to me.(Doesn't mean anything in the larger context, but saying it anyway). I cannot speak for most upper caste folks,I have no statistics to tell one way or the other. It's all personal experience or anecdotal.

But, I have seen shit happen in front my eyes, in my own home , in many many conversations. Anyone who is "upper caste" and says this is not real, have buried their sand in the head.

Discrimination in India is rampant, and on different dimensions. religion, caste, language, nationality (Don't get me started on how locals treated a few African students in my college back in India), skin color, financial status - the list goes on. But religion & caste take the crown.

[thatfrenchguy]

> For people who discuss this with Indian co-workers - don't be surprised if they find this bizarre or far fetched. For most upper caste folks, it appears as if the caste system doesn't exist because they've never been at the receiving end of it.

A little bit like the class system in the United States (or France) eh :-)

[Loughla]

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted - maybe it's the flippant response? The message is correct, though.

The caste system in India sounds exactly like the class system in the US, only more formalized. In my area, there absolutely are surnames that you can associate with 'those' people, and who are, in my experience, passed over for jobs.

Maybe it's my ignorance, but doesn't a caste system whereby you are exposed to more privileges simply due to your birth sound exactly like a class system based on income whereby you are exposed to privilege simply because of your birth (because of your parents' income)?

[fhood]

Can you elaborate further? In very small towns surname can link you to a specific family, but outside of that and something like anti-semitism, I don't think I've ever heard of surname related association of that kind in the US.

[Loughla]

I guess, it depends on your definition of 'very small town'. My closest city center is 100k, and there definitely are names associated with 'those'. They tend to be names associated with lower-income folks who have run-ins with the law.

For example - we recently hired an entry level position, and one of the search committee members tried to veto a candidate because of her last name. This name is one that comes from the wrong side of the tracks, and is quite a poor family. Nothing about this young lady indicated anything but an ability to do the job well, but the committee member just "didn't trust an [last name here]".

That was a fun conversation.

It's absolutely prevalent in smaller towns. Where I grew up the population was 40k, with smaller towns (<1000) around. If you didn't have a good name there, you absolutely were left out. This is actually why I moved away - my family is poor, like dirt floor, outhouse poor. I tried to climb some ladders in the area, and kept getting stopped when I tried to go past bottom level manager.

As soon as I moved, I was fast-tracked up the organization. I have to imagine it's based on my name around my home town.

[yowlingcat]

There's some nuance to the differences -- think about the terms "old money" vs "new money" -- the fact that people even came up with those terms tells you a bit more about the hierarchy. I think it's an interesting thought exercise to continue why it's more formalized. Perhaps some of the explanation could be derived from the relative age -- present Indian society is about 10x older than present American society, in which native societies were in large part wiped out by disease and subsequent colonial settlement, the latter of which is only ~400 years old.

[dudul]

I wouldn't say it sounds "exactly" like they are the same.

At least in theory, your income reflects your work and is not set for life, while a "caste system" is usually unescapable. And yes, of course being born in a wealthy family gives you privileges but I don't see anything wrong with people working hard to provide for their descendants.

I understand that it breaks down in practice where wealth attracts wealth, but while I would say they are comparable, I wouldn't call them exactly the same.

[Loughla]

I absolutely would call them the same. What is different in a caste system you are born into that provides privilege for some, but lack of resources to another and a class system that provides wealth and privilege for some, but lack of resources beginning at birth for others?

When education from an early age is funded via property taxes (as much of the US is), we are baking in the inequality. If you come from a wealthy neighborhood, your kids have access to resources. If you come from a poor area, your kids have no access to those resources.

If your parents are wealthy professionals, they can provide for you while you work unpaid internships or provide you with connections to college friends to start your career. If your parents are laborers or lower classes, they can't even take time off to come to your graduation. (I know that second one is a bit dramatic, but you get the idea).

In the US, much 'in-group' signaling is based around sports and hobbies that require both time and money. If you didn't play sports as a kid, you're questioned. If you don't have the 'cool clothes' or 'cool car' you're questioned. All of these are class related.

How is this different? Other than being 'formal', honestly, what is the difference between caste system and the very overt class system in the US? That's not a snide question, that's a real question. Where are the differences?

[mrep]

What people are in this 'in-group' you speak of because evidently I'm not in it because nobody questions me in a class sort of way about sports, hobbies, my plain t-shirts, shorts and sandals, my subaru car or anything of that sort. My internships admittedly weren't unpaid but that is generally for poorly paying careers anyways and I'm a highly paid software engineer nor did I get my job through connections of any sort, just went to your standard midwest public state school, applied online and even wore a hockey jersey to my interview.

I mean, I'm sure they are some people coasting through life on their parents money and connections for like the 0.1% but it definitely doesn't seem like there is an overt class system for the average person here to me.

[Loughla]

So what you're doing is using anecdotal data to draw conclusions.

Your experience sounds awesome! But to think that, because you did 'Thing A', means 'Thing B' doesn't exist is odd to me.

Overt class signaling from today, at my job:

Conversation between co-workers regarding weekend plans. Co-worker A is going to her weekend house. Co-worker B is going on a float trip on her pontoon boat. I am helping my grandpa re-do his front porch steps, because he can't afford to have a contractor build a ramp for his wheelchair.

Insert blank stare from co-workers A and B here.

It's not as if someone is saying, "What car do you drive, is it worth $55,000?" Instead, they question as to why you drive a 10 year old Kia instead of trading it in, YEARS ago for a new car. They then make you the butt of any jokes about being a cheapskate or penny pincher, when in fact, that's all you can afford because you're supporting an extended family still living in poverty.

It's not as if someone is judging you based on your clothes, by explicitly saying things like, "why don't you wear a tuxedo" or whatever. But it may be that you are passed over for promotions, because you can't afford the clothes to fit in at the golf club (let alone the fees for the membership), so you don't get to rub elbows with executives. That's if you even understand that's a thing.

[mensetmanusman]

One difference is that the class system is genetically diversified every 2 to 3 generations or so, because the people that inherit the wealth from their parents and grandparents inevitably end up wasting it away. The churn is real.

[sneak]

> A little bit like the class system in the United States (or France) eh :-)

Maybe in France, I don't know about that. But from what I've learned about the caste system, it's nothing like the class system in the US.

Sure, the US class system is (statistically speaking) heritable, but it doesn't follow you around for life, tied to your surname, determining who you can marry or what jobs you're allowed to get, or if you'll get beaten simply for walking into certain buildings or touching strangers.

US racism might be a more appropriate comparison.

[acituan]

> but it doesn't follow you around for life, tied to your surname, determining who you can marry or what jobs you're allowed to get, or if you'll get beaten simply for walking into certain buildings or touching strangers

I am glad you’ve enumerated all those aspects because class definitely follows most Americans around, tied to their FICO score, their debt, their education credentials therefore the jobs they can get into, their neighborhood therefore surrounding crime levels, law enforcement and justice system attitude towards them, incarceration rates etc. It even determines who they can marry based on their gender (e.g statistically men don’t get to marry “up”).

We don’t like to call it caste because it probably offends some sensibilities, but class is definitely sticky in the US.

[vinay427]

Isabel Wilkerson, author of "Caste" which is mentioned elsewhere in this thread, draws a fairly clear distinction between caste and class. It's succinctly summarized in her interview with Trevor Noah linked below, around 2:35, and I don't know if I agree but I think you'd find her explanation potentially interesting nonetheless. I tend to instinctively balk whenever people equate or simplify multiple concepts into a single idea, because this too often yields an oversimplification in my experience, and the nuances are usually worth preserving if they genuinely exist.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7m49DT8pPe0

[aaronblohowiak]

There is a VEEY well reviewed book called Caste that talks about USA, India and South Africa. It is next on my reading list.

[mrweasel]

Out of curiosity: Could an Indian of a lower caste change their name, or be named differently at birth, as to "fake" their way into a different caste?

[Ichthypresbyter]

This is why Sikhs are supposed to all have the same surname (Singh for men, Kaur for women). Sikhism has always been strongly opposed to the caste system- see, for instance, their tradition of offering free food to anyone who wants it as long as they will eat with everyone else there.

According to a Sikh friend, in practice, Sikhs are still aware of caste- in fact, Sikhs from a high-caste background are more likely to keep their family's original surname and add Singh/Kaur as a middle name.

[Igelau]

That might explain some things... I had an Indian colleague once who used to tell "Sikh jokes" that he claimed were his cultural equivalent of "Blond jokes".

[srean]

They are closer to the "An Irishman and a Scotsman …" genre. Part of the reason there are so many Sardar jokes (that's what they are called) is that they (the Sardars) are very sporting and secure people. They don't mind being a butt of these jokes and start many of those themselves. My roommate (who was a Sardar, equivalently, a Sikh) used to say he would keep two glasses, one filled with water and another empty, in the night on his bedstead because in the middle of the night he might be thirsty, but then he might not be. Things like these are essentially baits to encourage such jokes.

But back to the PP a big part of Sikhism's break from Hinduism was the rejection of casteism. So it is built in. Someone who is more familiar will be able to elaborate more. What I have heard is that its root lies in agrarian anti-caste movements.

[strikelaserclaw]

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 that probably can't be taken away.

[mywittyname]

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 erased by adoption of the customs of their new country. Like they begin to prefer local adaptations of their cuisine, they speak like kids from their schools, etc.

[bluGill]

Maybe. The slave class in the US was in theory gone by 1870 (I don't care to look up the end of the civil war. 150 years latter a lot of people still know who is a descendant of that class. Somehow, something, fueled that through several generations.

[avisser]

I'm not sure how it fits in, but it's interesting that the first Black American president was not a descendant of that class.

[mywittyname]

Yeah, but it was pretty obvious who were the former slaves. There was no "nuance" about it.

When the tell-tale signs aren't physical, but small, subtle difference, they are easier to erase. You can change your name, religion, what you eat, and how you talk. So if those are the signs of your ancestors' caste, they probably won't last for generations in the west unless there's a conscious effort to preserve those distinctions.

[sulam]

One thing people clearly step around discussing is that the darkness of your skin is literally one of the main UC signifiers. Lighter skinned individuals are assumed to be UC.

So yes, this is a lot like racism in America.

[currymj]

a lot of this was legally enforced until the 1970s. see e.g. the Racial Integrity Act in Virginia for one example. the state had a legally-codified definition of race ("one-drop rule") and put a lot of bureaucratic effort into keeping records of everyone's race, so that they could enforce segregation and bans on interracial marriage.

if Reconstruction had succeeded and Jim Crow had never happened, who knows what the salience of this would be today?

[bluGill]

Not everywhere though. Northern states didn't have nearly as much, but even in middle of nowhere small towns where no blacks even live people still know about it.

[lol636363]

Unfortunately, no. My wife's best friend is Hindu from Upper Caste. (Brahim) she was born in the United States.

She always been so liberal and open minded. Most of her friends are Muslims. She is barely religious.

But whenever it comes relationships, she brings up caste. She married into upper caste, she was very worried about caste of the guy. If her sister is dating a someone from a different caste, she brings it up and says something like that dating him is like dating a Muslim man. You will not marry him, just have fun. She talks about it with us as if it is totally normal.

Then one of her husband's friend is lower caste Hindu who converted to Christianity. She uses deragotry terms (Malloo?) for him when he is not around.

While I haven't had any deep conversation with her about caste but few times when I asked why she obesses over it, she says it is not just caste but totally different culture. Which to me sounds bullshit.

[lol636363]

Just want to add some more context. When I say she is liberal, she is indeed liberal. Her feed is full of BLM and LGBTQ causes. She has made donations to many of such causes too. She is the nicest person and worries about other people's issues. Gets really sad if there is a sad event in news, no matter where.

I think the problem is people have certain blindspots. Media can help you see these spots. That's why she is hyper aware of causes that the American media cares about.

In terms of caste, she grew up with certain beliefs but it is not something American media has shed any light on it.

She watches Bollywood movies but don't think they watch anything else from India. And I don't really see Bollywood dealing with caste issues seriously.

That's why she doesn't even understand the question when I ask why caste is so important. Also my wife stops me before I can dig any deeper.

[strikelaserclaw]

Unfortunately, some immigrant parents indoctrinate their children in the ways of the old world. I've had many american born Muslim friends growing up, some of them were self professed atheists, but one thing I've never seen any of them do is eat pork. I believe it is because from a young age if you are made to believe that pork is disgusting, unhygienic etc... You develop a reflex that cannot be overcome. It is probably the same with some upper caste immigrants raising their kids to believe that lower caste people are unhygienic, unintelligent etc... I believe the term is dehumanizing and if you do it enough, it works reflexively.

[ves]

Well, hold on. I’m indian american, I and my parents are lifelong atheists, our families are supposed to be vegetarians by caste and tradition and whatever but we’re not, but! though I eat chicken and fish and so on, I won’t eat beef, not because I feel “indoctrinated” or because I have an insurmountable reflex (I’ve eaten beef voluntarily on a few occasions, but that was mostly to avoid causing a scene).

Notwithstanding the ecological reasons to do so, I voluntarily don’t eat beef because I feel like it’s one of the easiest and least-damaging (ie it’s a tradition that seems to represent comparatively little direct historical social strife) means left to me, as a second-gen person, to maintain some aspect of my heritage.

Identity and tradition among second-gen immigrants in America is complicated (as is identity, generally) and doesn’t really admit generalizations like these.

[legolas2412]

Just to add context, mallu is a term for malayali people, who live in kerela state for india. It is used insultingly as an ethnic slur.

So, she is kinda right. It is not casteist, but a word used in a derogative way for a certain ethnic group.

[strikelaserclaw]

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

[SkyBelow]

It would require far more than just changing one's name. It is somewhat like the difference between old money and new money, except in this case the lower case person doesn't even have the ability to buy the training and coaching that new money is able to (to say nothing of likely having to deal with many more poverty related issues). Accents, speech patterns, how you hold yourself, how you react to people interacting with you based on both their situation and their own caste will all be different.

[eqtn]

During the previous discussions some has mentioned that they converted to a different religion

[nandhinianand]

I have a friend whose parents converted to christianity, and so my friend grew up christian. But guess what, the first time I met my friends' mom(at his wedding), the first question she asked after verifying native state(TamilNadu) was which caste I belonged to. (And yeah just to be clear, she asked which caste I'm from, and she/they're from xxx caste). So no caste is not something people escape from converting religion.

[mrweasel]

I’m sorry but I’m completely facinated. What do you suppose would happen if your answer was something like: “Oh, we don’t believe in castes” or “I’m not in any caste”. I assume they’d just assume the “worst”.

[auganov]

I'm guessing people will go with the highest probability guess. It's like when people ask about religion. Most won't take "I have no religion" for an answer if you're from a country/place where that's uncommon. They will still try to assume your family background unless you elaborate.

[TuringNYC]

If the person is so forward with this, isnt that a good filter (of sorts) to avoid a specific person who will judge you by such things rather than your character?

I've had this happen with people trying to figure out wealth based on very specific questions regarding where my parents live, etc -- I run the other way. Better to know sooner than later right?

Two of my best friends are Indian Americans, and our friendships were natural and formed around shared experiences together, character, etc. It is nice to form friendships on a blank slate.

[nandhinianand]

> If the person is so forward with this, isnt that a good filter (of sorts) to avoid a specific person who will judge you by such things rather than your character?

Sure do note, this is a friends' mom so atleast a couple of decades older than me.. I've a good friendship with her son, so i guess it's just a question of being polite with her and limiting spending time with her.

[strikelaserclaw]

yes, basically they would assume you converted from lower caste.

[nandhinianand]

Okay few pointers, there's a bunch of dialects in the language that vary mostly based on which sub-part we come from. In turn, most sub-parts have one or other caste majority, additionally, people take a guess based on looks, accent and choice of vocabulary too.. So she'd assume something and keep moving on..

[walshemj]

Have you read Ian Banks novel Look to Windward which has a heavily Casted society?

[strikelaserclaw]

All upper caste Indians who convert to Christianity still keep something in their name to signal their caste. So much for egalitarianism

[aatharuv]

Yup. When the Portuguese ruled Goa and surrounding parts of India, they were happy to keep caste prejudices -- for example, for a long time they only allowed Christian converts of Brahmin origin to become priests.

Similarly, other Catholics attempted to integrate the caste system into Christianity in India (see the Malabar rites controversy), and had two different "castes" of priests, one acting as Brahmin's and ministering to higher castes, and one acting as Hindu priests from lower castes (pandarams), ministering to everyone else.

[strikelaserclaw]

That is really messed up, i guess one thing you learn through history is that missionaries were in cahoots with the states they represented. I remember reading that a common tactic used by states who wanted to conquer places was that they sent merchants to trade first, then missionaries, then armies.

[screye]

Both Christianity and Islam observe upper and lower castes in India.

What's worse is the discrimination they face sees almost no recognition, since on paper neither of those religions acknowledge caste.

A short look - https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-...

> 85% of the Muslim representatives in the Parliamentary House are from the 15% (ashraf) upper caste. (PARETO!)

A detailed look at it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8_6ryRZcU0

[pkphilip]

As someone who comes from a Christian background in India I would like to add here that while the caste system (unfortunately) exists even among the Christians and Muslims in India it is nowhere near as strong as among the Hindus.

There are indeed situations where in parts of the country there are even cemeteries divided on the basis of caste but this is far from being the norm.

However, there are many low caste priests and even bishops in Christianity - which is a very rare occurrance among Hindus where priests are almost exclusively brahmin except for very rare exceptions.

[User23]

Christianity in India has a fascinating history. The first were converted by Saint Thomas the Apostle personally. And then Christian missionaries were part of the much more recent European contact. I’m no expert on the subject, but I’d wager how Christians in India see caste depends on their particular heritage.

[cvhashim]

I think I recall the commenter mentioned he was of the lowest caste, and he decided to convert to Christianity to get away from the discrimination.

[bluGill]

Which as this thread shows only helps a little. You have a chance - but only a chance - that your group is now Christians. As a minority religion you can stick together with your new group who also feels the issues of being in a minority religion. But that only sometimes look - some people convert more wholly than others, and thus are more or less able to ignore previous norms.

[kamaal]

They often do that. Its called converting to a new religion.

Its one of the most politically hot topics in India for a while now.

[Florin_Andrei]

As someone who grew up in a different culture (so I look at the system as an outsider - I grew up in the EU, I live in the US, and a lot of my coworkers are Indian), the influence of something like a caste system is quite visible in many people who grew up in India. It's vague and sometimes barely-there, but definitely there quite a lot.

It's a set of assumptions: that someone's pigeonhole in the social structure somehow strongly defines the limits of their abilities; that in the org chart, wisdom always flows top to bottom, never the other way around; that the org chart itself is (and indeed MUST BE) set in stone; etc.

The system feels very rigid, especially for someone who grew up in an individualistic culture.

This is not about conscious, deliberate actions, it's about unconscious attitudes and assumptions.

I do not see any of this in people of Indian descent who grew up here. It's also much less typical of young people with a progressive mindset who grew up in India. But older folks and/or more conservative - yeah, it's clearly there.

I could be wrong, but I feel - the moment India is able to jettison this pattern, the whole country will experience some sort of major renaissance.

[raxxorrax]

I don't think it prudent to replicate it in nations with no connection to Hinduism.

Your strategy would reinforce the awareness of caste status.

I don't think non-Indians would even be able to discriminate by caste. Discrimination against Indians is perfectly possible of course.

[fmajid]

There is a strong racial component to the caste system, and thus it would fall within a protected category. A company would open itself up to liability if it willfully ignored the problem.

[sremani]

Even though Caste is associated with Hinduism. There is a huge section of Muslims and Christians who practice a derived version of Caste system in Indian subcontinent.

[_hhkc]

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.

[neilk]

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.

[_hhkc]

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

[saagarjha]

It's often hard for many people to empathize with people they view as being entirely separate from themselves, even when undergoing similar hardships.

[sudosysgen]

An amazingly astute trick by the British.

[tt433]

Replicated across the Empire, divide and conquer, or co-opt and exploit

[heavyset_go]

Marginalized people speaking up or protesting bothers people with authoritarian personality traits because those acts are interpreted as attacks upon rigid social hierarchy.

It doesn't really have anything to do with the content of BLM's message, but everything to do with who is saying it, how they're saying it, and to whom.