As a Dalit myself, I wrote a Dalit 101 for non Indian audience.
One question I've always had is, how do you know you're Dalit if you were born outside of India? How do others?
Especially, say, when meeting other Indians in some tech company in the US?
How do others know: it’s not obvious. Dalits either change their last name to something common enough to not have any caste indicator. They’d avoid any discussion on caste. So effectively, they hide but there are some who don’t and keep their last name. Still, not every other Indian could tell, but a more caste conscious Indian who belongs to the same region can tell. On top of it, it’s common among Indians to just plainly ask other what their caste is.
It doesn't matter what reasons you have. What matters is the consequence of your behavior, namely, it is visible difference between castes, which makes discrimination easier and avoiding discrimination harder.
All previous fights against discrimination shared one phenomenon: priveledged start to whine that they are reverse-discriminated. And at some point they probably are discriminated against. But the funny thing, that without their cooperation in a fight against discrimination there are no other way to win but to discriminate in reverse.
And your comment show that you are not concerned in a slightest about discrimination. Tradition is more important to you than people.
Not unless I go running around naked
> And your comment show that you are not concerned in a slightest about discrimination. Tradition is more important to you than people.
How exactly do you infer that? You don’t know me. I care about discrimination just as much as the next person. What I don’t care much for is rank identity politics disguised as benevolent activism spewed from a non-existent moral high ground.
1. You show that you care about tradition. And you show not a slightest attempt to care about people. Words reflect mind. Not perfectly, but there is one more consideration:
2. I heard a lot from privileged. I said some of that talk myself, and I know how mind must work to say it. I changed myself and rejected my priviledge, my mind works in different ways. I do not belive my reasons to do something anymore, I have found then the only sensible way to judge my inclination to discriminate is to assess my actions and their consequences. In my previous conment I applied the technique to your actions as you described them. It is possible that you lied, but I believe it is unlikely.
> What I don’t care much for is rank identity politics disguised as benevolent activism spewed from a non-existent moral high ground.
You are angry, Jupiter, therefore you are wrong.
When you switch to an emotional talk, it seems to me to be an additional bit of evidence, that you are lying to yourself about how you care about people and discrimination. It is a very predictable reaction.
“Caring” about tradition (whatever that means) is equivalent to being complicit in social ills. Ok got it.
No you didn't.
Non-Brahmin Hindus are not allowed to wear the sacred thread.
Turbans and burqa do not have such intra-religious restriction.
Comparing the sacred thread to turbans/ burqas is a false comparison.
I know people who identify as Kshatriyas and Vaisyas wear it. It is just that almost all brahmins do it and the practice has reduced or stopped in the other two varnas.
And from what I see, he didn't compare the thread to burqas. He compared the calling of the thread as sign of discrimination to calling the turban as a sign of terrorism. There is a difference.
[1] https://www.firstpost.com/india/hinduism-denies-spiritual-ri...
That's the comparison.
>know people who identify as Kshatriyas and Vaisyas wear it
I know but all Brahmins wear the sacred thread.
False. I may have only anecdotal evidence, but even one counter-example renders your statement incorrect.
But only Brahmins have the right to wear it.
Wearing a "sacred thread" in a society that wants to eliminate caste based discrimination is promoting and condoning discrimination.
As an extreme example, how is this different from a klan member choosing to wear a "hood" in public.
Soundarapandian Nadar of Justice Party (and after whom Pondy Bazaar is named) campaigned in the Nadar community to get rid of the thread: https://alchetron.com/W-P-A-Soundarapandian-Nadar
Some Nairs wear it as well. Wearing the thread is not a “privilege” afforded to only Brahmins, although now in popular imagination it has become their identifier.
Presumably it is possible to be Brahmin, without supporting caste discrimination.
A better analogy would be: Do you feel it should be illegal to mention have a degree from Yale or Harvard? They're both markers of status, and people absolutely discriminate based on that, but I don't think "I have a degree from Harvard" automatically makes you complicit in that.
A college degree is earned, a Brahmin caste status is inherited much like the klan claiming supreme status by blood.
Just because I bear a name commonly used by people of my community, does not make me complicit in the ills of the community I belong to.
Or are you also judging a person by their surname?
Why should this be a right?
Inherited "wealth" is not considered a unrestricted right in many societies.
The wealth tax is a great example of how society regulates "concentration of power" through inherited wealth.
Caste based inheritance of wealth has no such regulation.
> Are you saying that you'd stop being a Hindu if you give up your Brahmin identity?
Surely there are many kinds of Hindus? To each community what’s important is different? And an answer to this question also depends on how the individual makes sense of his religion?
While jati as a feature of the Indian landscape has persisted for a few thousand years, I believe jati and religion/theology are orthogonal. You can belong to caste x and any religion y in the sub-continent. But as it happens, when one talks about being anti-caste today many times it is to call out and disparage one’s Hindu identity. This makes any conversion about caste extremely muddled, with folks arguing past each other.
My comment was in response to the parent who brought in the word religion into the discussion, as some means of justification of inheriting the religion of their parent is the same as inheriting the caste. ...and now here you claim that they are orthogonal. How very convenient.
This is exactly the kind of deflection used to 'muddle' the conversation, as you put it.
If they are orthogonal, why does caste still even persist ? Why is the notion of caste still held on to ? If one can follow the hindu religion without identifying with caste why do Indian Hindus still hold on to their caste identity ?
It is easy to say the conversations get 'muddled' without bothering to learn why the thing under discussion even exists !!
None of this is new. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar wrote about this decades ago and yet, here we are, with google claiming the same thing you are -- that talking about caste somehow ends up being Hinduphobic.
By that I meant for some group and people jati intersects with particular theologies and for others it doesn’t. What does that say about jati and theology?
> If they are orthogonal, why does caste still even persist ? Why is the notion of caste still held on to ?
Million dollar question. Why do some identities persist and others don’t? For jati, endogamy plays a significant role and it will disappear with the current out marriage rate in a century (that’s of course being optimistic). Making it about Hinduism or Brahmins will not get rid of jati. TN has the lowest ICM in the country despite a 100 years of non-Brahmin movement.
> It is easy to say the conversations get 'muddled' without bothering to learn why the thing under discussion even exists !!
Lol, let’s just say we read different things about the subject or even read the same things and come to different conclusions.
> that talking about caste somehow ends up being Hinduphobic.
If it ends up disparaging people with Hindu religious identity, one could argue its Hinduphobic (which happens sometimes with these conversations).
Social status for some and Reservation benefits for others.
What we need is a system based on laws with checks and balances that ensures the poor and the marginalized get their fair shake?
For the most part, people treat people equally but I've seen this kind of behavior on here and in person on a few occasions.
Why do they do this, and what do they hope to gain out of asking that question?
Related question -- I would have thought that high-tech Indians in Silicon Valley would detest a system like that. Is that not the case?
Answer is a bit twisted. Lot many just ask as a innate curiosity and to find a cultural base to connect with someone new and not exactly for any sinister reasons. There are like thousands of sub religions, cultures, languages in India that it helps people sometimes to know which caste a person belongs to level with them. Not exactly something to be proud of but happens.
At the same time, lot many are orthodox and do ask to get a perspective into someone’s personality and culture to find a stereotype they can base their decisions on - for ex- inside interviews, business meetings etc.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asi...
[1] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/kevins-murder-...
> Unlike race, it’s easier to hide your caste, especially in a new country. Many dalits change their official last name to something common enough that it’s hard to identify them.
My mother's ancestral Norwegian last name wouldn't have worked particularly well in English, my own last name of Danish origin survived unscathed for obvious reasons.
>"Europe
Scandinavia
Wang is also an unrelated surname in Sweden and Norway. It is a variant spelling of the name Vang which is derived from the Old Norse word vangr, meaning field or meadow.
Germany and Netherlands
Wang is also a surname in the German and Dutch languages. The name is derived from Middle German wang/ Middle Dutch waenge, which is literally "cheek". However, in southern German, its meaning, "grassy slope" or "field of grass", is similar to the Scandinavian surname."
Guess the country :)
In Spain there are many people with foreign or uncommon names... that are also biblical names. Abraham, Sarah, Aaron, Jonathan or Josuah (Josué) were unheard half a century ago. Now they're usual.
Why? In part, because Evangelical missionaries were more successful in poor quarters, specially among gypsies.
Also there's the famous actors thing. But now Vanessa also sounds natural enough.
Actually not even foreign names. IIRC only names that were insulting or prone to be laughed at were forbidden.
That being said, these were civil servants under a fascist catholic dictatorship, so you can imagine that the range went from "only catholic saint names in spanish" to "if it sounds spanish-enough to me I'll allow it". Foreign names (John) were not allowed in most cases, just like they didn't allow names in any of the other languages of spain such as Joan (catalan), Jon (vasque), Xoán (galician).
If the latter, is it reasonable to assume that Brahmins in power are likely not only discriminating against those who are Dalit, but also discriminating against those that they know are not Brahmin (Indians and non-Indians) in favor of Brahmins?
I highly suggest that you consult the works of Patrick Olivelle and Susan Bayly to get at the real History of "Caste" (Varna vs. Jati etc.). That way you can present what is actually stated in the Hindu Scriptures vs. Their misinterpretation and later practice within Indian Society.
Excerpt from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism) :
Recent scholarship suggests that the discussion of varna as well as untouchable outcastes in these texts does not resemble the modern era caste system in India. Patrick Olivelle, a professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions and credited with modern translations of Vedic literature, Dharma-sutras and Dharma-shastras, states that ancient and medieval Indian texts do not support the ritual pollution, purity-impurity as the basis for varna system. According to Olivelle, purity-impurity is discussed in the Dharma-shastra texts, but only in the context of the individual's moral, ritual and biological pollution (eating certain kinds of food such as meat, urination and defecation). In his review of Dharma-shastras, Olivelle writes, "we see no instance when a term of pure/impure is used with reference to a group of individuals or a varna or caste". The only mention of impurity in the Shastra texts from the 1st millennium is about people who commit grievous sins and thereby fall out of their varna. These, writes Olivelle, are called "fallen people" and impure, declaring that they be ostracised. Olivelle adds that the overwhelming focus in matters relating to purity/impurity in the Dharma-sastra texts concerns "individuals irrespective of their varna affiliation" and all four varnas could attain purity or impurity by the content of their character, ethical intent, actions, innocence or ignorance, stipulations, and ritualistic behaviours.
Olivelle states:
Dumont is correct in his assessment that the ideology of varna is not based on purity. If it were we should expect to find at least some comment on the relative purity and impurity of the different vamas. What is even more important is that the ideology of purity and impurity that emerges from the Dharma literature is concerned with the individual and not with groups, with purification and not with purity, and lends little support to a theory which makes relative purity the foundation of social stratification.
Whether or not Hindu scriptures really support these practices is a matter for believers, the concern here is how it's actually practiced in the real world and the resulting discrimination harming actual people.
That's why i said in another comment that it makes sense to discuss this in the Indian Workplace more than the American Workplace.
The issue is that Indian (or Indian-American) workers are bringing these prejudices into American workplaces. People in Indian workplaces know about these issues, non-Indians in American workplaces very likely don't, which allows the discrimination to go unchecked.
That is THE assumption which is being challenged; the reasons in my other comments.
The people i have referenced are experts/scholars in this field (and non-Indians to boot) so you can be sure that it is as close to factual as you can get. The Wikipedia page contains links to their papers/books which you can refer for edification.
What are the cliff notes, because every time I bring this up here one gets accused of being a bigot and missing the nuances of what is essentially nepotism and racism that gets a pass because A: Indians make up an inordinate amount of CEOs in Tech, and B: Well, we've always done this and anything deviation from this brings everything else into question.
I worked in the health sciences before and I saw a lot of this, and got so fed up with just abjectly horrible most workers were who got a pass because of their surname. It's odd, my colleague was a MSc in Microbiology and was Indian, too, but we both had to claw our way into the Industry (in different fields) and she was always worried he H1 Visa would be the only thing that kept her in the US.
My only conclusion was she wasn't a high ranking member of the caste system which is why she was just as hungry as us undergrads in the 2008 financial crisis. She ended up quitting her role in a Govt agency, and did her PhD last we spoke.
PS: The study of the subject itself is fascinating and you can start with the wikipedia page i have referenced and then follow the links from there.
This sums up your world view. I am sitting here thinking we are all debating with someone who wants to improve society for all humans...
Reminds me of one of my favourite passages from The Sea-Wolf by Jack London;
“Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater delight. And after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. He who delights the most lives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and more gratifying than are my facts to me.”
He shook his head slowly, pondering.
“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for your moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delight is followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. I envy you, I envy you.”
He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as he added:
“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.”
“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a fool,” I laughed.
“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. You have no facts in your pocketbook.”
“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s contribution.
“More freely, because it costs you nothing.”
“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted.
“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend what you haven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending what you haven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I have sweated to get.”
Do you need identifying papers?
Is there a big market for forgeries?
Dalits get killed for just riding a horse, walking through upper caste residential streets and many normal things. In this scale a Brahmin name would be deadly
I'm not Indian, but I read a lot about this when the Cisco stuff came out. The gist that I picked up from interviews with Indians dealing with this was that there is A LOT of cultural background that you'd be very unlikely to know if you hadn't grown up in a certain caste.
A (likely shitty) analogy: You can learn about WWII all you want, but unless you were deployed it would be hard to fake that you were at a specific battle or did a specific training. There's probably minute details that were not written down, but people who were there would casually know. There may be habits or turns of phrase that would have been picked up. Maybe a certain landmark or destroyed thing that had a funny nickname. Maybe it's knowing a certain soldier or commander by a nickname that hasn't made it into the history books. "Oh you trained at X? Man I loved tuna Tuesdays even though noone would touch the stuff. Do you remember when private Y did..."
Through casual conversation, it's very difficult to keep the ruse up. Now if the interlocutor is actively trying to root you out its basically impossible. In the interviews I was listening to, the best case scenario was that the higher caste member came away not knowing what caste your from, but definitely knew you were not a Brahmin... Because if you were, you'd casually bring up X, Y, and Z and use these phrases and these gestures and and and...
India is a big country. Where in India is this a common practice?
You will be shown your place very very quickly. Love marriages are quite deadly and parents killing their own children and the lower caste grooms are extremely common. You can search for "honour killings in India".
Please read "Annihilation of Caste" by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Its around 50 pages of an undelivered speech, later published.
If you want to learn about caste, please make sure not to ask for explanations from an upper caste person. This is extremely important!!
Example of this enforcement: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-15997648
Only older heads who immigrated here are the lions share of individuals perpetuating this caste based discrimination. Please state your sources if you disagree with my assessment of first generation born Americans of South Asian descent working in big tech and Silicon Valley.
Your comment supports my observations. The newly-arrived Indians really don't like reservation and therefore care about caste. Second generation non-Brahmins in the US don't care about caste because it doesn't affect them.
This may sound uneducated, but do Indians in the US only eat Indian food? How would someone know if you rotate through different cuisines every day?
Like all unjust discrimination, this one triggers on things one has no control over. Doing that to others is completely unacceptable.
I feel sad and sorry.