Even as India urbanises, caste discrimination remains rife

Recently there was a large thread about the impact of caste in Indian communities abroad: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23697083

There is a lot that's interesting to discuss about this, but also a lot that is inflammatory. If you're going to comment, please stick to the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The Silicon Valley angle: https://thewire.in/caste/cisco-caste-discrimination-silicon-...

Some pretty telling comments:

"The lawsuit reminded Raj, a former Cisco employee, of all the instances of casteism that he faced but did not document over the last 20 years at tech companies in America, because he never thought caste discrimination would be taken seriously. Raj is not his real name. Like most Dalit engineers that The Wire spoke to, he wishes to remain anonymous. In the interest of career growth, he largely avoided working with Indians. “I did have one Indian-American boss, but since he did not grow up in India, he was very liberal and I had no problems with him,” says Raj.

Mohan, another Dalit techie, never experienced caste-based discrimination at work over the past 16 years in the US. This is because he never had an Indian boss. Those who did have Indian bosses found that revealing their views on caste could adversely impact their career, and sometimes even cost them their jobs."

Not just in India, it follows https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/new-lawsu...

Its present and its hurtful to see how even to this day bonded labour is sad reality in rural areas even after caste discrimination is illegal. It runs deep in the society to the extent votes during elections are given on the basis of castes/religions and candidates are appointed by parties on the basis of castes and religions depending on the geographic distribution . If political parties use such tactics to win the election I find this hard to believe that there is some progress / situation will improve in near future.

Caste system in India takes many forms, this one is the most harmful. Even in the most educated families, when people are dating and/or getting married, caste is one of the big issues. I been a millennial, have seen my friends talk casually about how caste affects their partner choice, either via the family choosing their partner or they been expected to date a person of the same caste.

Some signs of progress in some rural areas: https://youtu.be/pKMLdytHOhs?t=4536