[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/