A story. A few years back I worked with an Indian team of developers and testers. They did a great job. Their lead was an IIT graduate. They have two managing partners; one is a secular Hindu and the other a practicing Muslim. Multicultural they are.

I went to visit them once. (Always a good idea to personally get to know people who work on your stuff!) They're in Odisha, in the east of India.

I asked the group, over lunch, about the caste system. Everybody agreed that it was a thing of the past and a historical shame.

But, later, each team member found a private way to tell me they came from Brahmin (top caste) families. It was really interesting to see how it played out.

Is it possible that human nature relentlessly drives us to this sort of tribalism? It shows up as racism in the western hemisphere, the caste system in India, the class system in England and their former colonies, and so forth.

At any rate, resisting this tribalism is hard work. But do that work we must. It's helpful to this westerner to learn about the caste system. I suppose it's equally helpful to people from India to learn about American racism.