> I noticed white people were against it while Indians had a more nuanced approach.
It's not that complicated. White people have been fighting this type of discrimination far more than any other ethnic group in the US. (I am Iranian, and this is completely evident to me).
Nearly every other ethnic group has its own weird culture of discrimination. As these ethnic groups take hold in the US, those forms of discrimination are not, and should not be tolerated.
One thing to consider is, many of the Indians that _are able to make it to the US_, are the ones who have benefited from the high class of their caste. Even if they're against it in theory, in practice that's going to take a much more nuanced PoV - so you're going to be seeing a lot of selection bias.
> And if they still suffer discrimination, shouldn't we as a society try to fix that?
Sure, the US society should strive to eliminate caste-based discrimination occurring in the US.
But that it occurs in India does not mean that it’s been carried forward in the US.
A history of discrimination leading to a disadvantaged position today, and as a result needing additional support, is a separate problem — an argument for affirmative action — but ultimately is nothing different than all the other classes of peoples who’ve been fucked by history struggling to find security in the US (that is, any solution to the problem is not really particular to Indians, or the caste-system).
> Basically Caste in India is as much of a problem as racism is in the US.
Is it common in the US for people to refuse to come into contact with people of other races? To bar them from places of worship? To not even touch water they might have touched?
What you did was just whataboutism. It’s the “yeah it’s bad, but no worse than any other place”. But even if we allow this deflection, it’s not true.
>Then, as this gets more and more common, companies stop hiring people from South Asia because they don't want to deal with this.
And what is wrong with this solution, compared to the alternative of American companies and the American people being forced to deal with foreign prejudices and beliefs imported into their country?
When children get into a fight, adults intervene by separating the combatants and sending them home regardless of who is "right". As a non-Indian American, I don't know who is "right" regarding the existence and extent of caste-based discrimination. I don't care. I shouldn't care. I shouldn't have to know or care in the first place!
> But I'd expect the state to argue that discrimination against an indian caste is inherently national origin based discrimination
That would be stupid. Caste discrimination is pretty obviously not national origin discrimination. But it is race discrimination! Race and caste are identical concepts -- you get them from your parents.
(It is, however, not discrimination against a race that is recognized by American law.)
> I became an Software Engineer and now live in a major city, thanks to the affirmative actions adopted by India...
You mean from reservations in school / university admissions? Or does that even extend to private employment? Is there widespread resentment?
I'm really curious about the parallels (or not) between racism in the US and caste in India, esp. affirmative action. The US never really went all-in on AA like India did with reservations -- more like pretending if we mostly ignore race then racism will go away -- but it seems like neither approach has really gotten to good place (yet).
> They need to bring in reservations in education and govt jobs
No that would be idiotic because most of the time the discrimination has nothing to do with Caste.
Different areas of india have completely different cultures (languages, foods, customs, etc.)
Most of the discrimination is based on where you're from (do you speak tamil vs. hindi vs gujarati...)
People want to hire people who are similar to them. Chasing caste is the wrong issue.
India has thousands of years of cultural history & practices. America has...250 years?
Applying your mental models from American politics to India (which is far more complicated) and then forming a strong opinion (without knowing anything about indian culture) is hilariously idiotic.
There's far more things indian discriminate on other than caste. Location, language, family group, language-spoken, wealth, etc. And obviously political views.
Half the time you have no idea what caste someone is.
What makes you think you're qualified to make such a blanket statement? Especially since caste discrimination is pervasive in India and immigrants tend to bring their culture with them.
I just don't think you could know this, and I wonder what else might be motivating you to make vast generalizations about things you don't know.
> Casteism, while bad, is not racism. Saying casteism is ingrained in Indians on the other hand is racism.
Doesn't caste have some deep origins with race? I'm under the impression that thousands of years ago Indo-Europeans invaded an India populated by darker-skinned natives, and formed an elite that now finds some expression in caste. I could be wrong, though.
> How would a racist indian national deeply entrenched in caste culture help my company be less racist?
To be fair, there are many people from traditionally chauvinistic groups who despise the very chauvinism they live in. Many of them may be intelligent and productive people. Dismissing each and every individual because of the group is the root of discrimination.
Some attempts at diversity may go too far - tolerating intolerant people just because "they grew up in different environment" - leading to the paradox of tolerance [0]. I've read news [1] about the very phenomenon.
The fact is - tolerance, diversity, open-mindedness - those are all values, and they need to be enforced. In order to keep a tolerant society, you must show the door to anyone who disagrees with that philosophy. The same way you need to lock up criminals to keep an ordered society from devolving into chaos.
But ultimately, in order to have a truly tolerant society, each and every member of it must be evaluated as an individual.
I don't understand this. You don't have to defend the actions of individual(s) even if they share their nationality with you. It's sufficient to call them out for unacceptable behavior. For people who ascribe this to all Indians, it's on them not on you.
>>I know a lot of people from Sikkim regularly get asked where in China are they from.
Every one has their own axe to grind based on what they want out of life. But this is plain ridiculous. Discrimination exists on every country on earth.
Every one who is following US elections and speeches from a particular candidate knows what is happening there. Racism has and may be will always exist due to identity consciousness among humans.
On an average US probably has the same levels of this sort of racism as much as there is in India.
>I am Indian-American (born into a brahmin family if that matters) and personally haven't noticed casteism, barring the occasional idiot in our communities.
That's the Indian equivalent of "I was born into a white family and I personally haven't noticed racism, barring the occasional idiot..."
> I haven't met an Indian American who actively contemplates caste.
At a startup, we had a couple of Indian engineers on the team (pretty common), but they would frequently converse with each other in Hindi. Eventually one of them left the company, and in his exit interview he revealed that the other guy was constantly harassing him about his caste.
> India is not dealing with this issue, America is.
India is not dealing with caste discrimination? Is this a joke?
India has implemented incredibly wide-reaching and aggressive policies to both combat present-day casteism and remediate the effects of past/historical casteism.
Yes, caste discrimination still happens in India - that's why it remains an ongoing effort with a multi-pronged approach. But it's very much an issue that is actively being addressed at nearly every layer of society, to a degree that would be inconceivable in the US or Europe.
Honestly, if you compare the tangible and concrete steps to combat casteism that India has undertaken (a currently active effort) to the incredibly milquetoast anti-racism efforts within Europe (for example), it makes the latter look like mere lip service by comparison.
> Comparing treament of Uighers to caste situation in India is unfair.
Absolutely, not my intention by my comment - more just recounting a similar phenomenon in a different discussion.
> India is fighting it on policy and social level
I'm not contesting that either! But of course there is still more work to be done.
> Is it measured? If not than how you know?
Affirmative action is quite well known in the United States. You can see the documents from the SFFA v. Harvard lawsuit, for instance, to see how the SAT score cutoff differs by race & ethnicity.
> Humans are humans, doesn't matter what country they were born in..
Doesn't matter to who?... The guy in the US? The guy from India that wants to replace the guy in the US? The guy in Africa that wants to replace the guy in India?
And how does the guy in India feel about the guy in Africa taking his job or lowering his salary, does his stand still stand - or was it one-sided all from the start?
Most humans do see nationality, race, and other attributes of the group - even to the extent of killing someone over it.
That would be nationalism or xenophobia, not racism.
Generally speaking it's an organizational issue, determining who can do what on a mass scale.
reply