[lolinder]

> There is zero evidence that caste is a causal factor in the US ... There is a grand total of one case (the Cisco one) in court, and that's still to be decided.

The plaintiff in that case is presumably putting forward evidence, so "zero evidence" is putting this rather strongly. You say that you've never witnessed it, but I've never witnessed overt racial discrimination and I don't try to claim that therefore such things don't happen.

Here's what I see every time this topic comes up: I read plenty of horror stories from victims and from non-Indian witnesses, and plenty of fervent denials from admittedly-upper-caste Indian Americans. Could there be some massive astroturfing campaign propping up false anecdotes? It's conceivable. But a much simpler explanation is that there are lots of lower-caste people who are discriminated against and lots of upper-caste people who are blind to it or won't admit they perpetrate it.

[chanakya]

The point was that there was just the one legal case, and even that isn't decided. Before creating a law to fight an evil, shouldn't there be some examples of the evil in operation?

[lolinder]

That's my point: there's plenty of evidence (at least one ongoing court case and lots of personal anecdotes), and there are plenty of people denying that the evidence is real (lots of personal anecdotes). Governments have to weigh the evidence for and against and make a decision.

In general, when weighing evidence, negative evidence cannot be given the same weight as positive evidence.

For example, I have never seen an elephant in the wild, but it would be a very foolish process that takes my testimony as proof that elephants are extinct in the wild without at least listening to the people who claim to have seen elephants in the wild. A more likely explanation for my negative evidence is that I have never been in an elephant's natural habitat.

In the same way, if there are lots of voices saying that caste discrimination happens and lots saying that it doesn't, it would be irrational to listen to the negative evidence to the exclusion of the positive evidence.