[throwaway713]

I don’t know anything about Indian culture; could someone who is from there shed some light on how prevalent the prejudiced mindset is? E.g., do 80% of people think the caste system is stupid and outdated whereas the other 20% still hold some prejudice toward Dalits? What about Indians that have moved to the U.S.? And is this issue improving quickly or slowly?

[dominotw]

It is still very prevalent.

1. I know people in my friend circle here in USA who refuse to invite people from lower caste into their home. One even had separate set of tea cups for lower caste friends to serve tea in. In india lower caste people are not allowed to enter the homes of higher caste people.

2. indians in usa form their friends group based on their nationality/language/region/caste in that order. While I don't think intent is malicious, its still a problematic mindset.

3. 99% of indians marry within their own caste. South Asia has on the highest levels of endogamy in the world.

4. I am skeptical that there is caste baste discrimination in workplaces though. But there might still be subconscious bias.

on 3: looks like its around 95%

https://www.popcenter.umd.edu/news/news_1461686585907

[iamshs]

Nepali dalits in Australia couldn't find a priest in her own hometown to do last rites of their parent -

"We thought the Brahmin priests could perform the ritual, without coming into our house but they refused," he says. "All they offered was a very short naming ceremony."

"Eventually we found a priest from Adelaide who directed me over the phone to perform the ritual. I felt it wasn't my father-in-law who died, it was me who was dying."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-11/caste-system-of-india...

[ryangittins]

> I am skeptical that there is caste baste discrimination in workplaces though. But there might still be subconscious bias.

Planet Money has an excellent episode[1] on caste-based discrimination in the workplace—in Silicon Valley specifically. I'm not very knowledgeable about such things, but it was an interesting (an aggravating) listen as an outsider.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/10/14/923736245/caste-arrives-in-si...

[matthewowen]

I find it hard to believe that one can have internalized biases to the point you describe in (1) and yet somehow leave those at the door when going to work.

[lazyninja987]

Some counter thoughts.

1. Maintaining separate cups is a social oddity. my mom follows the same principle. House members have their own cups/plates, guests have their own cups/plates. even if my relatives come to my home they will use guest set. My mom protests if i eat in my sister's plate. Nothing related to caste.

Lower caste people banned from entering homes is a bit of a stretch. Are you saying upper caste people are getting their water filter serviced with upper caste repairmen? They will allow whoever the water filter company sends them.

I went to homes of all my college classmates and dined in their homes, none of the parents stopped me and asked my caste before entering.

2. this is accurate with some minor changes. i have been in all 4 groups. forming a support circle is easier with something in common.

3. i highly doubt its 99%. you are just pulling these numbers out of thin air. In my small family circle, i can count 1 inter-religion marriage, 5 inter-caste marriage. i am not even in a metro city. i can put the number as 80%-20%

4. i agree with subconcious bias. its hard to measure. it may be there. it may not be there.

[thewileyone]

A friend of mine, Bramin caste, married a non-Indian. His mother, who really believes in the caste system, refused to attend his marriage and hasn't seen any of his 3 children since.

[throwaway3021]

Very prevalent - but less likely to see in workplace than in social life (relationships, housing). This article also alludes to social aspects (study groups, etc) in IITs and not so much on academics.

Not based on any formal survey but my perception is 80-20 tilts towards higher caste population believing in superiority of their caste. I would also add many believe reservations for backward caste is unfair.

Hindu nationalist movement (ruling party and its offshoots) will have a positive impact on caste conversation in India for sure. Unfortunately prejudice will be directed against minority religions as a result.

One important aspect the article did not mention is the impact of religion and conversion among Dalits that gave them a ticket (not always the case) out of caste based discrimination. Slowly but steadily religious rights have been taken away from them by the right leaning governments post independence.

[presentation]

One of my friends had a story, where he was conducting a job interview with an American-born Indian teammate, and the interviewee was an Indian; when the interviewee went to the bathroom, she offhand guessed at the interviewee's caste, and then immediately felt mortified that she said that to a non-Indian and apologized. Just hearing that story secondhand was pretty wild for me to process!

[bluGill]

In the US that is illegal, your friend should have immediately reported it to HR.

[Mauricebranagh]

Not totally sure that "Caste" is a protected thing.

[bluGill]

Several of the laws are broad enough to apply.

[Mauricebranagh]

Last year I remember a news item linked on HN where some HR person flat out said that "caste" is not a protected category.

[lazyninja987]

If you doubt the interviewer's integrity in making a decision, just remove him from the panel.

better to be safe than sorry.

[EdwardDiego]

I have a reasonable suspicion that people who have benefited from the caste system previously, will be favourable towards it still.

What I'm curious about is, do they go OTT with it? I know for my country folk, something about moving overseas seems to compel us to wear All Black paraphernalia far more than we do home, and also, the drunken 3am hakas outside a kebab shop, far more commonly encountered overseas than in NZ itself.

[Mauricebranagh]

You can see this in the UK "community elders" will deny it but there are some nasty issues particularly untouchables.

I know one of the MP's that helped add caste discrimination to the UK's legal system - this probably ought to be added to the US laws as well.

[rapnie]

Anecdotal, but in university I lived with a large group of students. One housemate came from India for his Masters, and become a real friend we thought. Had lotsa fun together, etc. Until after 4 years or so his wife came over to live together near the university campus. Then it appeared they were really high caste, and he never spoke to us again, even in greeting when passing by.

[pradn]

A good thing to watch is this episode of the Indian social issues show, Satyameva Jayate. (It's hosted by a major Bollywood actor.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPmAltGay3s

The episode shows contemporary discrimination against a woman of a so called "untouchable" caste. She is a PhD-holding lecturer at Delhi University, a major national research university. And even with her accomplishments, she sees discrimination in housing and in education. Of course, people without education or the accomplishments she has had deserve to live without prejudice as well.

I think a major problem is urban Indians or those who have migrated abroad not looking deeply into seeing how prevalent these issues actually are. I often hear that caste discrimination is a thing of the past or is on the way to oblivion from these folks. It's a bit maddening. More than 90% of urban Indians marry within their caste, and the number is at 95% for rural Indians. Now, multiply caste with language, dialect, economic class, education, skin color, and diet - you have a large number of complex identities that are seen as lesser by various groups. These don't necessarily form a total order, of course.

[lazyninja987]

90% of indian marriages are arranged. arranged marriages by definition happen with in the same caste (and rarely among friends families).

I am willing to bet, 100% of non-arranged marriages are outside of caste/religion. The dating scene is still in its infant stages, you can expect more inter-caste marriages when arranged marriages decline.

I want to point out that prevalence of same-caste marriage does not automatically translate to caste based discrimination.

For example, I am open to marrying other caste person, but if other caste persons are not willing to marry me (for whatever reason), and I end marrying in my caste. does it mean I discriminate others based on caste ?

if a white person marries another white person does it mean that white person is racist?

[doggodaddo78]

I could be wrong, but it seems like importing a system of arbitrary discrimination whereas America maybe viewed as some mythological, egalitarian land where the streets are paved in gold.

[DisjointedHunt]

I've had first hand experience living in India for over a decade. tl;dr: It is a way of life. The caste you are born into dictates if you can rent a certain house or fall in love with a section of the population.

-Newspaper ads and matrimonial websites openly discriminate against castes and skin color. I can guarantee you that every single Indian you have worked with in the valley has discussed their "Match Type" at some point and this is almost always a discussion around an "Arranged wedding" where women and men are matched based on caste, skin color , wealth etc -The kid in the story is not an outlier but the norm. It isn't uncommon to hear stories about kids lynched by "Superior" castes because they dared soil the belongings of a higher caste person or were dating someone they weren't supposed to. (This isn't just India, but the general region around India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the extended communities that have immigrated to western nations) -Casual humor and memes around caste and skin tone is EXTREMELY common place and can be found on prime time TV, popular Facebook pages and groups liked by tens of thousands of immigrant communities. -The more modern youth generally don't appear to subscribe to these ideals, but there's no choice, very few break the mold.

It really is sad to see it first hand, i don't know what the solution is since it literally is a part of life in that part of the world

[jtdev]

In India, you’re born into a socioeconomic position and the likelihood of ever moving upward in the socioeconomic structure is virtually zero. Those at the top of the socioeconomic structure treat those below them like complete shit.

[majjgepolja]

Most of them don't even ask your caste these days. I do not know where you're from. And there's even caste based affirmative action.

[notacoward]

My understanding is that many people don't directly ask about caste any more, but they'll actively try to figure it out based on your last name or "innocuous" questions about where you're from, what schools you went to, dietary habits, etc. Is that not so?

[higerordermap]

Maybe in previous generation. Millennials/Gen Z doesn't care much.

[bluGill]

I understand it isn't legal to ask about caste in many circumstances. However it isn't hard to guess correctly in most cases, so that doesn't matter.

I'm not from India though, so I'm just repeating what I've heard about a system that makes no sense to me.

[WillSlim95]

Yeah that is all on paper. In practice it is very different

[nine_zeros]

The prevalence of caste based discrimination is dependent on the environment that Indian person grew up in. The more urbanized their upbringing, the lesser the prevalence of caste.

However, the government fucked up by baking caste based reservation systems into law, thus making it harder to eliminate the presence into oblivion.

[notacoward]

My experience, as an outsider who used to visit colleagues in India regularly, is that it's quite prevalent but very tricky to talk about. It's an understandably sensitive topic. There's obviously a lot of variation, both according to a person's own position within that structure and (I've heard) different parts of the country. Nonetheless, it's hard to miss the visible differences between the people working in a tech office and the people cleaning it, or the people doing manual construction labor, or the people begging. And it's not much harder to notice how they interact with each other.

It's also hard to dismiss caste as an ongoing issue when you find out that all but two out of 50+ engineers you worked with is Brahmin. (I only found that out through the one colleague who was close enough and open-minded enough to discuss such things with me BTW.) Ditto when you find out that one of those two exceptions had been repeatedly passed over for promotion despite being twice as skilled as some of those who were promoted. Once you start looking, the patterns become clear.

When considering these issues from outside, though, it's important to realize how entangled they are with another aspect of Indian culture: high context. Even among people of the same caste, there's a strong idea of social position and "right behavior" with respect to that. Whenever we very-senior Americans came to visit, the jockeying over who was invited to meetings and who was allowed to speak in them was almost comical. Often, the person speaking was clearly unfamiliar with work that had been done by someone more junior. That was considered quite normal.

There was also a darker side. On two separate occasions, people I had formed strong working relationships with were completely shunned by most of their local colleagues because they were perceived as "jumping the queue" by associating with me. After that, I started paying attention to these relationships. If I wanted to speak directly with the junior person who had actually done some work, I made sure to do it as discreetly (even secretively) as possible. I wouldn't mention it to their status-conscious seniors; instead I'd send feedback directly to top-level people who did their reviews and knew how to handle such sensitive communication properly.

Please note that I'm not criticizing Indians here. Having seen how my fellow Americans treat "outsiders" even without an ancient caste system, I doubt that many of them would do better within one. But there are definitely differences in social behavior (the "never say 'no'" thing is another) that anyone working with many Indians either in India or elsewhere would do well to learn.

[higerordermap]

> It's also hard to dismiss caste as an ongoing issue when you find out that all but two out of 50+ engineers you worked with is Brahmin.

This is not unbelievable but this large a number is quite surprising. 48/50 from various "upper castes" is quite common though.

Nepotism is rampant though, not unbelievable.

[throwaway4233]

I have a bunch of points and I am not sure if they answer your question completely,

The reason caste still exists as an issue in India, is because 1. It is bought up every now and then, during elections or by the media to add fuel to an already burning issue. 2. It is used as an excuse to flout laws or treat a fellow human being as trash and maintain superiority over them. 3. Lack of education or a general lack of interest in knowledge which leads to people believing what they are told rather then trying to understand what is. (could be more reasons as well which I am not be aware of)

Indians who are brought up in an environment where there is constant mixing of cultures, castes or religions typically do not bother about which caste or religion the person sitting next to them or having lunch with them. Like children of expats studying in the same school, places where political or economic situations bring/force people to exist together like labour camps in the middle east or communism dominated towns in Kerala.

The above group cannot/do not act on this issue because any concern raised over division by caste is immediately countered with whataboutism or alienation(even being disowned by family), which forces most educated Indians to go with the flow rather than oppose it. There are even outliers in this group that profit out of the divide like those who influence the first point stated above.